Adult

From the creators of the wildly popular "Welcome to Night Vale" podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live. Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

In TWAIN'S END, Lynn Cullen reimagines the tangled relationships between Mark Twain, his private secretary Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager Ralph Ashcroft, as well as the little-known love triangle between Helen Keller, her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy, and Anne’s husband John Macy, which comes to light during their visit to Twain’s Connecticut home in 1909. Add to the party a furious Clara Clemens, smarting from her own failed love affair, and carefully kept veneers shatter.

THE SECRET CHORD provides new context for some of the best-known episodes of David’s life while also focusing on others, even more remarkable and emotionally intense, that have been neglected. We see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him --- from the prophet Natan, voice of his conscience, to his wives Mikhal, Avigail, and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems his Lear-like old age.

On June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to commit espionage. The day Ethel was first arrested in 1950, she left her two young sons with a neighbor and never came home to them again. In THE HOURS COUNT, Jillian Cantor reimagines the life of that neighbor, and the life of Ethel and Julius, an ordinary-seeming Jewish couple who became the only Americans put to death for spying during the Cold War.

It’s 1987, and the next generation of Langdons is facing economic, social and political challenges unlike anything their ancestors have encountered. Michael and Richie, twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes worlds of government and finance --- but their fiercest enemies may be closer to home. Charlie, the charmer, struggles to find his way; Guthrie is deployed to Iraq, leaving the Iowa family farm in the hands of his younger sister, Felicity --- who, as always, has her own ideas. Determined to help preserve the planet, she worries that her family farm’s land is imperiled, and not only by the extremes of climate change.

From Edgar Allan Poe to Kelly Link, M. R. James to Neil Gaiman, H.H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, GHOSTLY spans the whole history of the ghost story genre from gothic horror to the modern era. Each story is introduced by Niffenegger, with short original commentary and background on why she chose to include it. Also included is her own story, “A Secret Life with Cats.”

In THE GAP OF TIME, Jeanette Winterson’s cover version of "The Winter's Tale" (one of Shakespeare’s “late plays”), we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology and the elliptical nature of time; of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand, and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other.

When Homer Hickam (the father of the author) asked for Elsie Lavender’s hand, Elsie instead chose a dancing actor named Buddy Ebsen. But ultimately her dreams of a life with him were crushed, and she married Homer. She was reminded of her carefree days with Buddy every day because of his unusual wedding gift: an alligator named Albert she raised in the bathroom. When Albert scared Homer by grabbing his pants, he gave Elsie an ultimatum: “Me or that alligator!” After giving it some thought, Elsie concluded there was only one thing to do: Carry Albert home.

Jessica, a young Air Force drone pilot in Nevada, is tasked with launching a missile against a suspected terrorist halfway across the world. Ethan, a young Wall Street quant, is involved in a more bloodless connection to war when he develops an algorithm that enables his company’s clients to profit by exploiting the international financial instability caused by exactly this kind of antiterrorist strike. These two are only minor players, but their actions have global implications that tear lives apart --- including their own.

Having grown from 390 athletes from 14 countries to 9,000 athletes from 78 countries, the Maccabiah Games (or the “Jewish Olympics,” as it has come to be known) continue to gain popularity. THE JEWISH OLYMPICS by Ron Kaplan details the history of the Maccabiah Games, including how they began, how they have impacted the Jewish community worldwide, and much more. In addition, it highlights the countless special achievements of the athletes over the course of the 19 games.