Adult

Aaron Judge, the hulking superman who carried an easy aw-shucks demeanor from small-town California to stardom in the Big Apple, had long established his place as one of baseball’s most intimidating power hitters. Baseballs frequently rocketed off his bat like cannon fire, dispatching heat-seeking missiles toward the “Judge’s Chambers” seating area in right field, sending delirious fans scattering for souvenirs. But even in a high-tech universe where computers measure each swing to the nth degree, Roger Maris’ American League mark of 61 home runs seemed largely out of reach. In 62, veteran Yankees beat reporter Bryan Hoch unravels the remarkable journey of Judge’s run to shatter Maris’ beloved 61-year-old record.

Nearly 30 years ago, in the wake of a personal tragedy, June Moore bought Camp Holly Springs and turned it into a thriving summer haven for girls. But now, June is in danger of losing the place she has sacrificed everything for. June’s niece, Daphne, met her two best friends, Lanier and Mary Stuart, during a fateful summer at camp. They’ve all helped each other through hard things, from heartbreak and loss to substance abuse and unplanned pregnancy, and the three are inseparable even in their 30s. But when attorney Daphne is confronted with a relationship from her past --- and a confidential issue at work becomes personal --- she is faced with an impossible choice. Lanier, meanwhile, is torn between the commitment she made to her fiancé and the one she made to her first love.

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. Though isolated, Cassie is never alone. From her earliest memory, a miniature black hole has been her constant companion. It feeds on her depression and anxiety, growing or shrinking in relation to her distress. Its relentless pull draws Cassie ever closer as the world around her unravels. When she ends up unexpectedly pregnant at the same time that her CEO’s demands cross into illegal territory, Cassie must decide if the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it.

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed --- or was left --- behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was 19. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than 24 hours together. OWNER OF A LONELY HEART is a memoir about parenthood, absence and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth’s relationship with her mother. Framed by a handful of visits over the course of many years --- sometimes brief, sometimes interrupted, sometimes with her mother alone and sometimes with her sister --- Beth tells a coming-of-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself.

Vietnamese refugees Debbie and Phil Tran have built a comfortable life for themselves in Toronto with their family nail salon. But when an ultra-glam chain salon opens across the street, their world is rocked. Complicating matters further, their landlord has jacked up the rent, and it seems only a matter of time before they lose their business and everything they’ve built. They enlist the help of their daughter, Jessica, who has just returned home after a messy breakup and a messier firing. Together with their son, Dustin, and niece, Thuy, they devise some good old-fashioned sabotage. Relationships are put to the test as the line between right and wrong gets blurred. Debbie and Phil must choose: Do they keep their family intact or fight for their salon?

It's winter in the Oregon wine country, and small-town lawyer Cal Claxton deserves a respite after his last grueling case. But just as the world learns about a threatening new virus variant, a woman named Willow Daniels shows up at his office, asking Cal to represent her in the settlement of her uncle's estate. His death was ruled a suicide, but Willow isn't buying it. Cal soon learns that the uncle, a brilliant scientist, recently came up with an innovative device to detect viruses. The expected payoff is huge, and the list of those who stand to gain from his death gets longer and longer. Cal finds himself immersed in one of the most complex and dangerous cases he's ever investigated. When a key witness is brutally murdered, and the woman Cal loves falls ill, he realizes he's up against two killers --- a ruthless murderer and a deadly virus.

Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald “Sully” Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is annexed by its much wealthier neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully’s son, is still grappling with his father’s tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him. Meanwhile, the towns’ newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond, after the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice’s ex-lover. When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another.

Three years ago, Detective Saga Bauer received an ominous postcard describing a gun and nine white bullets --- one of which was intended for her partner, Detective Joona Linna. The sender alleged that Saga was the only person who could save him. But as time passed, the threat faded. Until now. A sack with a decomposing body has been found hanging from a tree in the forest. A milky white bullet casing turns up at the scene. When the body count begins to rise, the police realize that the killer is sending riddles, offering them the chance to stop the murders before they happen. But the police always seem to arrive a moment too late. As they begin to close in, the case becomes more and more tangled: someone is spinning a fiendishly intricate web, pulling Joona ever closer to a trap he may not be able to escape.

1971. Ray Carney’s days moving stolen goods are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him --- until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter and decides to hit up his old police contact, Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney. 1973. Pepper is Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime who takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, celebrity drug dealers, hustlers, mobsters and hit men. 1976. Carney's wife, Elizabeth, is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A. and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it.

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered. Diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community. A woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover. A young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide. In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism and ever-shifting identities.