Adult

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby, Violet, that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter --- she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well. Then their son, Sam, is born --- and with him, Blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fallout forces Blythe to face the truth.

The morning of January 12, 1888, was unusually mild, following a punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the Dakota Territory to venture out again, and for their children to return to school without their heavy coats --- leaving them unprepared when disaster struck. At the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning. Schoolteachers as young as 16 were suddenly faced with life and death decisions: Keep the children inside, to risk freezing to death when fuel ran out, or send them home, praying they wouldn’t get lost in the storm.

These 12 pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. Here, Joan Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed.

It’s summer 1968, and the world is reeling from war and assassinations, protests and riots. In a sunny British seaside town, a producer, a novelist and an actress are enduring their own more private crises on the set of a disaster-plagued movie. All are leading secret lives --- one is in the closet; another is an alcoholic; and the third is sleeping with her costar --- and as the shoot zigs and zags, these layers of secrets become increasingly more untenable. Pressures build inexorably...and that’s before the FBI and CIA get involved. Someone is going to crack. Or maybe they all will.

For almost a decade, successful 37-year-old Samira Broderick has used her bustling LA practice as an excuse to avoid a trip home to Australia. She still resents her meddling Indian mother for arranging her marriage to a man who didn't stick around when the going got tough, but now with a new job Down Under, she's finally ready to reconnect with her. Aussie stuntman Rory Radcliffe has been hiding his stutter for years by avoiding speaking roles. When a job he can't refuse comes up as a reality show host, he knows he'll need some help for the audition: a dialect coach. But he finds himself at a loss for words when he discovers it's the same sexy woman with whom he just had a mind-blowing one-night stand.

In the final year of the 19th century, Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby’s multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. But his disaffection with his colleagues compels him to assert some individual purpose and artistic freedom, and he begins inserting unauthorized, fictitious entries. In the present day, Mallory, the publisher’s young intern, starts to uncover these mountweazels in the process of digitization and through them senses their creator’s motivations, hopes and desires. More pressingly, she’s also been contending with a threatening, anonymous caller who wants Swansby’s staff to “burn in hell.” As these two narratives coalesce, Winceworth and Mallory, separated by 100 years, must discover how to negotiate the complexities of life’s often untrustworthy, hoax-strewn and undefinable path.

Pictures capture moments in time, presenting the viewer with a window into another life. But a picture can go only so far. Who are the people in the image? What are their fears? What are their dreams? The 14 captivating tales in Alexander McCall Smith's collection are all inspired by photos from the Times of London archive. A young woman finds unexpected love while perusing Egyptian antiquities. A family is forever fractured when war comes to Penang, in colonial Malaysia. Iron Jelloid tablets help to reveal a young man’s inner strength. And twin sisters discover that it’s never too late to forge a new path --- even when standing at the altar.

With three novels and two short story collections published, Kevin Barry has steadily established his stature as one of the finest writers not just in Ireland but in the English language. All of his prodigious gifts of language, character and setting in these 11 exquisite stories transport the reader to an Ireland both timeless and recognizably modern. Shot through with dark humor and the uncanny power of the primal and unchanging Irish landscape, the stories in THAT OLD COUNTRY MUSIC represent some of the finest fiction being written today.

In his long career as an acclaimed journalist covering the “hot” moments of the Cold War and its aftermath, Robert D. Kaplan often found himself crossing paths with Bob Gersony, a consultant for the U.S. State Department whose quiet dedication and consequential work made a deep impression on Kaplan. Gersony, a high school dropout later awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Vietnam, conducted on-the-ground research for the U.S. government in virtually every war and natural-disaster zone in the world. Kaplan saw in Gersony a powerful example of how American diplomacy should be conducted. Set during the State Department’s golden age, THE GOOD AMERICAN is a story about the loneliness, sweat and tears, and the genuine courage, that characterized Gersony’s work in far-flung places.

Young lovers who are anxious to connect agree to a first date, thinking outside of the box. At 17 years old, James and Amelia can feel the rest of their lives beginning. They have this summer and this summer alone to experience the extraordinary. But they didn’t expect to find it in a house at the bottom of a lake. The house is cold and dark, but it’s also their own. Caution be damned, until being carefree becomes dangerous. For the teens must decide: swim deeper into the house --- all the while falling deeper in love? Whatever they do, they will never be able to turn their backs on what they discovered together. And what they learned: Just because a house is empty doesn’t mean nobody’s home.