Adult

After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There, Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At 14, she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates collide.

In MONKEY BOY, Francisco Goldman’s “brilliantly constructed auto-fiction” (NPR), we meet Francisco Goldberg, a middle-aged writer grappling with the challenges of family and love, legacies of violence and war, and growing up as the son of immigrants --- a Guatemalan Catholic mother and a Russian Jewish father --- in a predominantly white, working-class Boston suburb. Told in an irresistibly funny, tender and passionate voice, this extraordinary portrait of family explores the pressures of living between worlds.

In this collection of new and previously published essays, Aminatta Forna writes intimately about displacement, trauma and memory, love, and how we coexist and encroach on the non-human world. Movement is a constant here. In the title piece, “The Window Seat,” she reveals the unexpected enchantments of commercial air travel. In “The Last Vet,” time spent shadowing Dr. Jalloh, the only veterinarian in Sierra Leone, as he works with the street dogs of Freetown, becomes a meditation on what a society’s treatment of animals tells us about its principles. In “Crossroads,” Forna examines race in America from an African perspective, and in “Power Walking,” she describes what it means to walk in the world in a Black woman’s body.

It’s 1960, and the world teeters on the edge of cultural, political, sexual and artistic revolution. On the Greek island of Hydra, a proto-commune of poets, painters and musicians revel in dreams at the feet of their unofficial leaders, the writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston, troubled queen and king of bohemia. At the center of this circle of misfit artists are the captivating and inscrutable Axel Jensen, his magnetic wife Marianne Ihlen, and a young Canadian ingenue poet named Leonard Cohen. When 18-year-old Erica stumbles into their world, she’s fresh off the boat from London. Among these artists, she will find an unraveling utopia where everything is tested --- the nature of art, relationships and her own innocence.

Rosie Hopkins has gotten used to busy London life. Although she might like a more rewarding career, and her boyfriend is not exactly the king of romance, she’s not complaining. And when she visits her Aunt Lilian's small country village to help sort out her sweetshop, she expects it to be dull at best. When Rosie arrives to help her aunt with the shop, the last thing Lillian wants is to slow down and wrestle with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully colored sweets. But as Rosie gets Lilian back on her feet, breathes new life into the candy shop, and gets to know the mysterious and solitary Stephen, she starts to think that settling for what's comfortable might not be so great after all.

When Paige Meyer gets an email from a DNA testing website announcing that her father is a man she never met, she is convinced there must be a mistake. But as she digs deeper into her mother’s past, Paige begins to question everything she thought she knew. Back in 1975, Betsy Kaplan, Paige’s mom, is a sophomore at the University of Kansas. When her boyfriend disappoints her, Betsy decides she wants more out of life. Enter Andy Abrams, the golden boy on campus with a potentially devastating secret. After their night together has unexpected consequences, Betsy is determined to bury the truth and rebuild a stable life for her unborn child, whatever the cost. When Paige can’t get answers from her mother, she goes looking for the only other person who was there that night.

Beegie is riding the bus when the quake hits. The teenager was heading back to her unhappy foster home, but then she’s thrown into a broken world. Roads crumble, storefronts shatter and people run wild. Dessa, a single mom, is enjoying a rare night out when it strikes. Cell towers are down, so without even knowing if her three-year-old daughter is dead or alive, she races to get back across town. As danger escalates in the chaotic streets, Beegie and Dessa meet by a twist of fate. The two form a fragile partnership, relying on each other in ways they never thought possible, and learn who they really are when there’s only one goal: just get home.

When four groups of international heist artists team up to pull off the theft of the century --- stealing an entire castle and the treasure hidden in its walls --- what could possibly go wrong? Well, consider this: None of the master thieves speak each other’s languages, no one knows precisely where the loot is stashed, and every one of them wants to steal it all for himself or herself. It’s MWA Grand Master Donald E. Westlake at his wildest, a breathless slapstick chase through the streets of Paris only one step ahead of the law --- and each other.

As a photographer, Delta Dawn observes the seemingly perfect lives of New York City’s elite: snapping photos of their children’s birthday parties, transforming images of stiff hugs and tearstained faces into visions of pure joy, and creating moments these parents long for. But when Delta is hired for Natalie Straub’s 11th birthday, she finds herself wishing she wasn’t behind the lens but a part of the scene --- in the Straub family’s gorgeous home and elegant life. That’s when Delta puts her plan in place, by babysitting for Natalie; befriending her mother, Amelia; finding chances to listen to her father, Fritz. Soon she’s bathing in the master bathtub and eyeing the beautifully finished garden apartment in their townhouse. It seems she can never get close enough, until she discovers that photos aren’t all she can manipulate.

It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and 33-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his 15-year-old daughter, Angel, shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path. THE FIVE WOUNDS spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, to whom Angel isn’t speaking; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history.