Adult

In the late '60s, the bookish Margaret marries Lovecraft-lover Harry against her better judgment. The couple has two daughters --- Sydney, born for the spotlight, and the brilliant but awkward Eunice, a natural writer and storyteller. But finances are tight, Margaret and Eunice are haunted by horrific dreams, and Harry starts acting strangely. He becomes obsessed with the construction of an elaborately crafted haunted house attraction, christened the Wandering Dark. The family tries to shield baby Noah from the house's faux horrors, but unbeknownst to them, he's being visited by a furry beast with glowing orange eyes --- the same ghastly being glimpsed by both his mother and sister. However, unlike them, Noah decides to let the creature in.

Everyone has questions about death. In WILL MY CAT EAT MY EYEBALLS?, bestselling author and mortician Caitlin Doughty answers the most intriguing questions she’s ever received about what happens to our bodies when we die. She explores everything from ancient Egyptian death rituals and the science of skeletons to flesh-eating insects and the proper depth at which to bury your pet if you want Fluffy to become a mummy. Now featuring an interview with a clinical expert on discussing these issues with young people --- the source of some of our most revealing questions about death --- the book confronts our common fear of dying with candid, honest and hilarious facts about what awaits the body we leave behind.

Bombs fall over a Greek village during World War II, and a teacher takes her students to a cave for shelter. There she tells them about another war --- when the Greeks besieged Troy. Day after day, she recounts how the Greeks suffer from thirst, heat and homesickness, and how the opponents meet. Helmets are cleaved, heads fly, blood flows. And everything had begun when Prince Paris of Troy fell in love with King Menelaus of Sparta's wife, the beautiful Helen, and escaped with her to his homeland. Now Helen stands atop the city walls to witness the horrors set in motion by her flight. When her current and former loves face each other in battle, she knows that, whatever happens, she will be losing.

In the winter of 1969, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating "one thousand male leaders" each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation's top female students. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer, many of the first girls found themselves immersed in an overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. YALE NEEDS WOMEN is the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities that would carry them into the future.

Although the Korean War armistice was signed a year ago, most citizens of Seoul still battle to return to some semblance of normalcy. Conditions are dismal. Children beg for food, and orphanages are teeming. Alice J. Kim, a Korean translator and typist for the American forces still sanctioned in the city, yearns for the life she used to live before her country was torn apart. Then Alice’s boss makes an announcement --- the American movie star Marilyn Monroe will be visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour, and Alice has been chosen as her translator. The Marilyn she meets, while just as dazzling and sensual as Alice expected, is also surprisingly approachable. As Marilyn’s visit unfolds, Alice is forced into a reckoning with her own painful past.

Rising at 4:00 every morning isn't Corinna Chapman's favorite part of running her Australian bakery, Earthly Delights, and the glowing light of dawn feels even harsher when a man collapses in her shop. When the man, a military veteran, comes around and reveals that his beloved ex-service dog is missing, Corinna and her longtime companion, Daniel, feel compelled to help. It soon becomes clear, though, that they have gotten involved in something much bigger and more complicated than they had bargained for...especially when threatening notes begin to appear in Corinna's apartment. And with recreational drugs rising in popularity, the sleuths suspect that a dangerous smuggling ring might be behind everything.

If there's one thing Joan Dixon knows about herself, it's that she is a damn good journalist. But when she is laid off from yet another soon-to-be-shuttered newspaper, and even the soulless, listicle-writing online jobs have dried up, she is left with few options. So she goes to work as a junior copywriter at Bloom, a Los Angeles startup where her bosses are all a decade younger. For once, Joan has a steady paycheck and a stable job. She befriends a group of misfit coworkers and even begins a real relationship. But once a journalist, always a journalist, and as Joan starts to poke beneath Bloom’s bright surface, she realizes that she may have accidentally stumbled onto the scoop of her lifetime. Is it worth risking everything for the sake of the story?

With unprecedented access, veteran New York Times reporter and editorial writer Eleanor Randolph offers a revealing portrait of one of the richest and famously private/public figures in the country. Michael Bloomberg’s life sounds like an exaggerated version of The American Story, except his adventures are real. From modest Jewish middle class (and Eagle Scout) to Harvard MBA to Salomon Brothers hot shot (where he gets “sent upstairs” and later fired) to creator of the machine that would change Wall Street and the rest of the world and make him a billionaire (a description by the author makes the invention clear to non-engineers), Randolph’s account of Bloomberg’s life and times reads almost like a novel, a quintessentially American story.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds, she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection. But no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. Of course, some things are better left dead.

Ady Barkan loved taking afternoon runs on the California coast and holding his newborn son, Carl. But one day, he noticed a troubling weakness in his hand. At first, he brushed it off as carpal tunnel syndrome, but after a week of neurological exams and two MRIs, he learned the cause of the problem: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. At age 32, Ady was given just three to four years to live. Yet despite the devastating diagnosis, he refused to let his remaining days go to waste. EYES TO THE WIND is a rousing memoir featuring intertwining storylines about determination, perseverance, and how to live a life filled with purpose and intention.