Adult

In A CURIOUS INVITATION, Suzette Field, who co-runs London’s premier party promoters The Last Tuesday Society --- casts her professional eye over some famous fictional festivities: taking place everywhere from ancient Babylon in 500 BC to outer space in the distant future.

Making use of an astonishing cache of little-studied material, including documents, objects, and portraits only just discovered, Jill Lepore brings Jane Franklin to life in a way that illuminates not only this one extraordinary woman but an entire world.

In ONE SUMMER, Bill Bryson transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life. A number of major events transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events and occasional just plain weirdness. In that year, America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event.

Weeks after meeting a chivalrous, elegant man named Harry Powers, Asta Eicher and her three children are dead. Journalist Emily Thornhill becomes deeply invested in understanding what happened, and allies herself with a banker who is wracked by guilt for not saving Asta. She goes to West Virginia to cover the murder trial and to investigate the story herself, accompanied by a charming and unconventional photographer who is equally drawn to the case.

Why make an ordinary stuffed toy when you can sew irresistible creations that flip, zip, snap, stack, and move? Filled with wit, humor, and inventiveness, these delightful interactive playthings sometimes literally turn your expectations inside out. Page after page of clever projects include a caterpillar that changes into a butterfly, a vampire who becomes a bat, and ordinary dolls that transform into superheroes! Or stitch a pretty bird that perches on your shoulder, bunnies that bounce, a car with spinning wheels, and other amazing toys.

Media favorite Allison Hoffman --- whose delightful creations have graced the sets of "Conan", "Martha Stewart", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and more --- explains how to craft and customize these Japanese dolls at every stage.

At the center of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel stand two extraordinary women: Rose Zimmer, an unreconstructed Communist and mercurial tyrant, and her daughter, Miriam, who flees Rose’s suffocating influence and embraces the Age of Aquarius counterculture of Greenwich Village. Both women cast spells that entrance or enchain the men in their lives. These flawed, idealistic people all struggle to follow their own utopian dreams in an America where radicalism is viewed with bemusement, hostility, or indifference.

The number of commercially available American whiskeys has grown exponentially over the past 20 years-as has its popularity. Discerning drinkers will savor this, the only guide devoted solely to US-made whiskey, rye, and bourbon.

Expert Joshua Bernstein comes to the rescue with THE COMPLETE BEER COURSE, demystifying the sudsy stuff and breaking down the elements that make beer's flavor spin into distinctively different and delicious directions. Structured around a series of easy-to-follow classes, his course hops from lagers and pilsners to hazy wheat beers, Belgian-style abbey and Trappist ales, aromatic pale ales and bitter IPAs, roasty stouts, barrel-aged brews, belly-warming barley wines, and mouth-puckering sour ales. There is even a class on international beer styles and another on pairing beer with food and starting your own beer cellar. Through suggested, targeted tastings, you'll learn when to drink down-and when to dump those suds down a drain.

Easter and Ruby are adjusting to life in foster care when their father, Wade, suddenly appears. Since Wade signed away his legal rights, the only way he can get his daughters back is to steal them away in the night. Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, turns up unsettling information linking Wade to a recent armored car heist. Robert Pruitt, a shady and mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, is also determined to find Wade and claim his due.