Adult

Meet Bingo, the greatest drug runner in the slums of Kibera, Nairobi, and maybe the world. A teenage grifter, often mistaken for a younger boy, he faithfully serves Wolf, the drug lord of Kibera. Bingo spends his days throwing rocks at Krazi Hari, the prophet of Kibera’s garbage mound, “lipping” safari tourists of their cash, and hanging out with his best friend, Slo-George, a taciturn fellow whose girth is a mystery to Bingo in a place where there is never enough food. When Bingo witnesses a drug-related murder and Wolf sends him to an orphanage for “protection,” Bingo’s life changes and he learns that life itself is the “run.”

When the fishing boat Pirio Kasparov is on is rammed by a freighter, she finds herself abandoned in the North Atlantic. She survives nearly four hours in the water before being rescued by the Coast Guard. But the boat’s owner and her professional fisherman friend, Ned, is not so lucky. Compelled to look after Noah, the son of the late Ned, and her alcoholic prep school friend, Thomasina, Pirio can’t shake the lurking suspicion that the boat’s sinking --- and Ned’s death --- was no accident.

After three acclaimed novels, Gary Shteyngart turns to memoir in a candid, witty and deeply poignant account of his life so far. Swinging between a Soviet home life and American aspirations, Shteyngart found himself living in two contradictory worlds, all the while wishing that he could find a real home in one. And somebody to love him. And somebody to lend him 69 cents for a McDonald’s hamburger.

Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH. After gaining admission to Oxford and moving to the US to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread MIDDLEMARCH, which offered her something that modern life and literature did not. Here, she leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written.

Meet Luca, a curious young boy living with his mother, a taciturn woman who "every now and then tries out a new father." Luca keeps to himself, his cat, Blue, and his words --- his favorite toys. One February morning his mom doesn't wake up to bring him to school, so Luca --- with a father who's long gone and driven by a deep fear of being an orphan --- decides to pretend to the world that his mom is still alive.

When charming Kate Chase Sprague accompanied her father, Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, to Washington, D.C. in 1861, she found that, rather than becoming a friend and compatriot of the First Lady's as she had anticipated, she immediately became embroiled in a long-lasting, notorious rivalry with Mrs. Lincoln due to the First Lady's jealousy of her youth, beauty and social skills.

Lydia is having a party, one that she has hosted every year for six female friends who treasure the midwinter bash. As this particular evening unfolds, Lydia prepares to make a shattering announcement. As we follow these friends through their party preparations, we meet flawed but lovable characters who are navigating the hassles of daily chores while also meditating in stolen moments on their lives, regrets, complicated relationships and deepest desires.

Lost Lake is about to slip into Eby Pim’s past. All that’s left is a once-charming collection of lakeside cabins succumbing to the Southern Georgia heat and damp, and an assortment of faithful misfits drawn back to Lost Lake year after year by their own unspoken dreams and desires. It’s a lot, but not enough to keep Eby from relinquishing Lost Lake to a developer with cash in hand, and calling this her final summer at the lake. Until one last chance at family knocks on her door.

BELLE CORA is the story of a good girl who became a bad woman. At the old homestead, her name is never spoken and her picture is turned to the wall, but in the vast world beyond, everyone remembers her as the celebrated madam of the finest parlor house in San Francisco. Now, at the end of her life, after half a century of successfully hiding the details of her scarlet past, Belle has decided to reveal all her secrets.

Radio reports predict a calm, routine summer in France until a 23-year-old Dutch woman is found dead near a nature preserve and another mysteriously disappears. The Perpignan police force are on full alert, and the shrewd Inspector Gilles Sebag emerges from an emotional funk, summoning his sharpest investigative instincts.