Adult

On a Good Friday in a picturesque village in Upstate New York, the spring weather is unusually warm and school is closed. It's an ideal day for tanning and partying in the park until Shawnee Padrushky, age 17, drives up in his dad's new pick-up and comes out shooting with one victim in mind --- Gunther Smith --- the only black student in Shawnee's class, the adopted son of white parents. THE CRIME OF BEING explores the effects of a racial incident --- how it divides a seemingly homogenous community over the course of a summer and exposes its dark secrets. Tarred by the media as “the most racist town in America,” the people of Liberty face tangled questions of whether racism or insanity was at the root of a white teenager's violent assault of his black classmate, and whether the community as a whole can be implicated.

Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she has wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes and books for the exhibit Sadie has been running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage --- truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.

Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful and adrift in the city that became her great teacher, and of the small apartment that, when she was 19, became the home in which she transformed herself. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer --- books themselves; the gay community that presented a new model of what else gender, family and joy could mean; and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West.

Marguerite Demers is 25 when she leaves Paris for the sleepy southern village of Saint Sulpice to take up a job as a live-in nurse. Her charge is Jerome Lanvier --- once one of the most powerful men in the village, now dying alone in his large and secluded house surrounded by rambling neglected gardens. Brigitte Brochon, pillar of the community and local busybody, finds her arrogant and mysterious, and is desperate to find a reason to have her fired. Local farmer Henri Brochon, Brigitte’s husband, wants to protect her from the villagers' intrusive gossip and speculation (but Henri has a secret of his own that would scandalize his neighbors, if only they knew). The sudden arrival of Jerome's three sons will upend the rhythm of their days, changing their lives forever.

Texas Ranger Rory Yates is not keen for hero status. But it's unavoidable once his girlfriend, country singer Willow Dawes, writes a song about his bravery. Rory escapes his newfound fame when he's sent to the remote West Texas town of Rio Lobo, a municipality with two stoplights. And now, according to the Chief of Police, it has one too many Texas Rangers. Rio Lobo Detective Ariana Delgado is the one who requested Rory, and the only person who believes that a local councilwoman's seemingly accidental death is a murder. Then Rory begins to uncover a tangle of small-town secrets, favors and lies as crooked as Texas law is straight. To get to the truth before more people die, Rory is forced to take liberties with the investigation.

Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy. Instead of getting their homes back, the remaining residents saw the city sell their land to Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now L.A. would be getting a different sort of utopian fantasy --- a glittering, ultra-modern stadium. But before Dodger Stadium could be built, the city would have to face down the neighborhood's families.

In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels. And they're not the only ones.

Georgia Brown’s profession as a urologist requires her to interact with plenty of naked men, but her romantic prospects have fizzled. The most important person in her life is her friend Jonah Tsukada, a funny, empathetic family medicine doctor who works at the same hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, and who has become as close as family to her. Just after Georgia leaves the country for a medical conference, Jonah shares startling news. The hospital is instructing doctors to stop providing medical care for transgender patients. Jonah, a gay man, is the first to be fired when he refuses to abandon his patients. When Georgia's attempts to address the situation result in incalculable harm, both she and Jonah find themselves facing the loss of much more than their careers.

Early one August morning, millennial congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R) receives a strange package in the mail. Inside is an enormous taxidermied aardvark. What does it mean? Well, everything. Hurtling from the beginning of the universe to present-day Washington, DC, this astonishing, edge-of-your-seat novel is at once a piercing look into the sick heart of our democracy and a profoundly moving meditation on the nature of love, power and evil. In the end, you will not only know the meaning of the aardvark, you will see our current reality through new eyes.

Thirty years ago, Wilde was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. Now an adult, he still doesn't know where he comes from, and another child has gone missing. No one seems to take Naomi Pine's disappearance seriously, not even her father --- with one exception. Hester Crimstein, a television criminal attorney, knows through her grandson that Naomi was relentlessly bullied at school. Hester asks Wilde, with whom she shares a tragic connection, to use his unique skills to help find Naomi. Wilde can't ignore an outcast in trouble, but in order to find Naomi, he must venture back into the community where he has never fit in, a place where the powerful are protected even when they harbor secrets that could destroy the lives of millions.