1 of 25
by Patrick McGuinness
After a young woman is found strangled by the River Thames, Michael Wolphram, who was an English and music teacher at an elite boarding school until his retirement, is hauled into the police station: he is the dead woman's neighbor and her DNA has been found in his car. Even before the police charge him, a bloodthirsty tabloid journalist uses Wolphram's eccentricities to hang him in the court of public opinion.
Throw Me to the Wolves is primarily narrated by Prof, a middle-aged detective who realizes ... [ Read More » ]
2 of 25
by Joan Wheelis
The Known, the Secret, the Forgotten is a memoir of Joan Wheelis's unusual, comfortable childhood growing up as the only child of distinguished psychoanalysts in midcentury San Francisco. Told from a vantage point 50-plus years in the future, Wheelis's recollections have a dreamlike quality--misty, distant, but shot through with immediate, vivid details and symbolic suggestion. Her narrative favors impressions and themes over chronology, shifting from scene to scene, memory to memory, without concern ... [ Read More » ]
3 of 25
by David Kushner
Thirty years ago, searching for a love connection was largely limited to scouring personals in the newspaper. Those looking for something with less commitment had pornographic magazines or VHS tapes for immediate gratification. But by the mid-'90s, the Internet forever changed how people look for love and satisfied lust, thanks to the foresight of two pioneers whose similarities were equaled by their hatred for each other.
In The Players Ball, David Kushner (Alligator Candy) recounts the battle for ... [ Read More » ]
4 of 25
by Andrea Lawlor
It's 1993, and by all appearances, Paul Polydoris is having the time of his life. He's a bartender at the only gay club in Iowa City, immersed in the college town's queer scene. He makes zines, has perfected the art of the mix tape and can have any man he wants--and usually does. "Why did people think Paul was so strange, so easy, so lucky?" the author wonders. "He wasn't. He was just willin', like Linda Ronstadt." But there's one thing in Paul's arsenal that few people know: he's a shapeshifter ... [ Read More » ]
5 of 25
by Anna Quindlen
Welcome to Nanaville, Anna Quindlen's newest address. The prolific chronicler of American family life--in columns, nonfiction (Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake) and novels (Alternate Side)--shares her latest chapter: grandparenting. "I am the mayor of Nanaville, and I vow to carry out my duties well," Quindlen declares in this joyous memoir when her son's son is born.
Two tropes she debunks are that the grandparent and child have a "common enemy" and that spoiling is her role, "which casts Nana not ... [ Read More » ]
6 of 25
by Sally Hepworth
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7 of 25
by Erin Hahn
Debut author Erin Hahn's You'd Be Mine is a YA romance that uses all the trappings of the genre to build an engrossing, moving story about addiction, emotional health and fame, with a whole lot of fun and romance thrown in.
Clay Coolidge is an 18-year-old pop-country sensation whose label, SunCoast Records, is sick of his bad boy "f*ckery." They've given him an ultimatum: convince Annie Mathers to join his tour or lose his contract. Annie is the child of country stars so giant, she "thought Willie ... [ Read More » ]
8 of 25
by Mordicai Gerstein
Oh, that Hermes: we always knew he was mischievous. But in I Am Hermes!, Mordicai Gerstein's comics-style autobiography of sorts, it's clear that as a kid, the messenger of the gods was a pest of Olympian proportions.
With the help of dialogue balloons, Hermes narrates his own adventures, starting with events from his devilish infancy and toddlerhood. The baby-talking trickster takes delight in sneaking out of his cradle and stealing the cows belonging to his older brother Apollo. When Apollo rats ... [ Read More » ]
9 of 25
by Jenny Odell
Jenny Odell is an artist who teaches at Stanford University and, like most people in the 21st century, she feels the relentless pull of digital technologies on her already busy life. Targeted advertising, social media, personal brands, the gig economy: these modern manifestations demand attention often to the detriment of their participants, she argues. "In an endless cycle where communication is stunted and time is money, there are few moments to slip away and fewer ways to find each other." How ... [ Read More » ]
10 of 25
by Oliver Sacks
The late neurologist and prolific author Oliver Sacks (Awakenings; The River of Consciousness) crafted a series of essays as varied as they are wise in Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales. At their core is a section devoted to "clinical tales" in which Sacks discusses freely, and always with a deep sense of humanity, several patients and their neurological disorders that fascinated him. In "Seeing God in the Third Millennium," Sacks explores out-of-body and near-death experiences, ... [ Read More » ]
11 of 25
by Louis Bayard
With wit and charm that only Louis Bayard (Roosevelt's Beast) can deliver, Courting Mr. Lincoln transports readers to 19th-century Springfield, Ill., to view both the romance of Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd and the intimate friendship of the future president and a dry-goods merchant named Joshua Speed.
Elizabeth Todd Edwards is determined to find her sister Mary Todd a husband, so she summons Mary to Illinois from their childhood home in Lexington, Ky. Daughters of a wealthy banker, both women ... [ Read More » ]
12 of 25
by Nina George
In The Book of Dreams, Nina George continues to explore love, life and mortality. With a similarly luminescent quality as its predecessors--The Little Paris Bookshop and The Little French Bistro--The Book of Dreams shines light into the hidden spaces of each character's soul. The living make life-altering decisions while the almost dying experience alternate paths, showcasing what life could have been.
Sam, Henri, Eddie, Maddie: four lives converge at London's Wellington Hospital. Sam and Eddie are ... [ Read More » ]
13 of 25
by Philipp Schott
Like most children, Canadian Philipp Schott was fascinated with animals. Other than "Bobo the Christmas Gerbil," however, he didn't grow up with pets. He had never even set foot in a clinic when electing studies at University of Saskatchewan. Yet proceeding through the catalogue, he eliminated courses until left with the last on the alphabetical list, Veterinary Medicine.
Two decades into his "chosen" vocation, Schott has a second somewhat accidental career as a writer. The Accidental Veterinarian ... [ Read More » ]
14 of 25
by Isabella Hammad
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15 of 25
by Sarah Morgan
British author Sarah Morgan brings a fresh, vibrant approach to this tale of a wife coping with the ultimate betrayal. Small-town Connecticut schoolteacher Grace Porter is stunned when her adored husband of 25 years asks her for a divorce and reveals he's having an affair with a younger woman. Craving respite from all the attendant drama, Grace decides to take their scheduled month-long anniversary trip to Paris by herself.
What could have been a lonely sojourn turns into a life-changing time-out ... [ Read More » ]
16 of 25
by Sally Rooney
Normal People, nominated for the 2018 Booker Prize, is Irish writer Sally Rooney's follow-up to Conversations with Friends. Like her first novel, it's a spare, incisive story of intellectually sharp millennials navigating love and life.
Connell and Marianne are schoolmates in Sligo, where their social statuses are clearly defined. When Connell arrives at Marianne's to pick up his mother, who cleans for the family, Marianne initiates a flirtatious banter, opening a path for what becomes an often tender, ... [ Read More » ]
17 of 25
by Lori Gottlieb
Psychotherapist and author of the Atlantic's "Dear Therapist" column, Lori Gottlieb (Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough) has spent time both in the therapist's seat and on the couch. In this memoir of crisis and healing, she illuminates the therapist-client relationship by describing her therapy experience during a personal crisis, supplemented with the stories of three special clients she counseled in the same period.
When Gottlieb's boyfriend breaks off their relationship, citing ... [ Read More » ]
18 of 25
by Nell Freudenberger
Nell Freudenberger (The Newlyweds) weaves together physics, grief and love in her third novel, Lost and Wanted. When MIT physicist Helen Clapp hears of her college roommate Charlie's death, she's stunned. Charlie had lupus, but Helen--a rationalist to her core--struggles to believe that she could truly be gone. And when she begins receiving calls and texts from Charlie's phone, which went missing following her death, Helen isn't sure what to believe.
Dedicated equally to her work and to her young ... [ Read More » ]
19 of 25
by Kip Wilson
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20 of 25
by Kate DiCamillo, illus. by Chris Van Dusen
Early chapter book heavyweight and "porcine wonder" Mercy Watson has charmed readers since Newbery-winning author Kate DiCamillo introduced her in 2005's Mercy Watson to the Rescue, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen. Now fans can learn how Mercy came to live with the doting Watsons in this picture book origin story, complete with Van Dusen's cheerily whimsical illustrations.
After Mrs. Watson wishes something different would happen, she and her husband get the best surprise of their ordinary, predictable ... [ Read More » ]
21 of 25
by Susan Kaplan Carlton
Shortly after her father's death in the summer of 1958, 16-year-old Ruth Robb, her mother and her younger sister move from an apartment in New York City to her maternal grandparents' guesthouse in Atlanta. Ruth is quickly swept up in the pre-debutante lifestyle, attending "T and E"s (Tea and Etiquette lessons) with the "pastel posse"--a group of blondes dressed in "shades of sherbet"--and hanging out at the country club with the devilishly handsome Davis Jefferson. All's swell, as long as she doesn't ... [ Read More » ]
22 of 25
by Elizabeth Kleinhenz
How do you write an authoritative biography of a living subject who won't participate in the project? If you're Elizabeth Kleinhenz (A Brimming Cup), the answer is, with the help of a resource unavailable to the subject's previous biographer: the Germaine Greer Archive at the University of Melbourne.
Greer was born into a lower-middle-class Melbourne family in 1939. From her convent school, she went to the University of Melbourne, where she studied literature and became recognized as much for her ... [ Read More » ]
23 of 25
by Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski
Emily Nagoski's first book, Come as You Are, explored how women's sexuality works and the science behind why it works that way. When readers told Nagoski that the most meaningful parts of the book were those that dealt with stress and emotions, she realized that there was a second book waiting to be written. And so Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle was born, a collaboration between Nagoski and her twin sister, Amelia Nagoski.
Burnout offers readers tips and ideas for how to help themselves ... [ Read More » ]
24 of 25
by Pico Iyer
Readers for whom the name Pico Iyer (The Year of Stillness; The Man Within My Head) conjures up images of a globetrotting journalist posting from places like Dharamsala may be surprised by the domesticated version of him they encounter in his elegiac memoir, Autumn Light. But with the beauty of its prose and the quality of its insight, this gentle, reflective reminiscence reveals again Iyer's literary virtuosity.
Focusing on two months in the late fall of 2013, Iyer eloquently describes ... [ Read More » ]
25 of 25
by Ian Tattersall, Rob DeSalle
At the heart of the admirable and lucid The Accidental Homo Sapiens by Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle (A Natural History of Wine) is the effort to expose the flaws of reductive thinking that pervade both popular science and the hypotheses of rival scientists. These oversimplifications abound in writing about genes, evolution, culture and behavior.
On genes, the authors note that "most... influence more than one trait--while most character spectra... are influenced by many genes. Seeking one-to-one ... [ Read More » ]
