Adult

Henry Worsley spent his life idolizing Ernest Shackleton, the 19th-century polar explorer, who tried to become the first person to reach the South Pole, and later sought to cross Antarctica on foot. Worsley was related to one of Shackleton's men, Frank Worsley, and spent a fortune collecting artifacts from their epic treks across the continent. In 2008, Worsley set out across Antarctica with two other descendants of Shackleton's crew, battling the freezing, desolate landscape, life-threatening physical exhaustion, and hidden crevasses. Yet, when he returned home, he felt compelled to go back. On November 13, 2015, at age 55, Worsley bid farewell to his family and embarked on his most perilous quest: to walk across Antarctica alone.

Pete Banning was Clanton, Mississippi’s favorite son --- a decorated World War II hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor and faithful member of the Methodist church. Then, one cool October morning, he rose early, drove into town, walked into the church, and calmly shot and killed his pastor and friend, the Reverend Dexter Bell. As if the murder wasn’t shocking enough, it was even more baffling that Pete's only statement about it --- to the sheriff, to his lawyers, to the judge, to the jury and to his family --- was: "I have nothing to say." He was not afraid of death and was willing to take his motive to the grave.

The story of history is a ceaseless conversation between past and present, and in AMERICAN DIALOGUE Joseph J. Ellis focuses the conversation on the often-asked question "What would the Founding Fathers think?" He examines four of our most seminal historical figures through the prism of particular topics, using the perspective of the present to shed light on their views and, in turn, to make clear how their now centuries-old ideas illuminate the disturbing impasse of today's political conflicts. He discusses Thomas Jefferson and the issue of racism, John Adams and the specter of economic inequality, George Washington and American imperialism, James Madison and the doctrine of original intent.

In this comprehensive, revelatory biography --- 15 years of interviews and research in the making --- historian Jane Sherron De Hart explores the central experiences that crucially shaped Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passion for justice, her advocacy for gender equality, and her meticulous jurisprudence. At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs is her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II.

A thirty-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna, a pit in the woods behind the artist’s home, and an underworld haunted by Double Metaphors.

When he is hired as the personal piano tuner for a brilliant pianist, Brodie Moncur suddenly finds himself swept up into a life of luxury that he never could have imagined. But while accompanying his new employer on tours from Paris to St. Petersburg, Brodie falls madly in love with the Russian soprano Lika Blum: beautiful, worldly, seductive --- and forbidden. Though seemingly doomed from the start, Brodie’s passion for Lika only grows as their lives become increasingly more intertwined, more secretive and, finally, more dangerous.

On October 15, 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of UN troops in Korea, convinced President Harry Truman that the Communist forces of Kim Il-sung would be utterly defeated by Thanksgiving. The Chinese, he said with near certainty, would not intervene in the war. As he was speaking, 300,000 Red Chinese soldiers began secretly crossing the Manchurian border. Led by some 20,000 men of the First Marine Division, the Americans moved deep into the snowy mountains of North Korea, toward the trap Mao had set for the vainglorious MacArthur along the frozen shores of the Chosin Reservoir. What followed was one of the most heroic --- and harrowing --- operations in American military history, and one of the classic battles of all time.

Born in Los Angeles at the dawn of the 1960s to parents who quickly departed, Kathryn Harrison was received by her maternal grandparents as a late-life child. Harry Jacobs and Margaret Sassoon had emigrated to L.A. after leading whirlwind lives in Shanghai, London, Alaska, Russia and beyond. Harrison grew up in their fading Tudor mansion on Sunset Boulevard, a kingdom inhabited by gleaming memories from their extraordinary past. Their photos, letters and souvenirs sparked endless family stories that spanned cultures, dynasties and continents --- until declining finances forced them to sell the house in 1971, and night fell fast. ON SUNSET seeks to recover a foundational time in Harrison’s life.

Lestat, rebel outlaw, addresses the tribe of vampires, telling the mesmerizing story of the formation of the Blood Communion and how he became Prince of the vampire world, the true ruler of this vast realm, and how his vision for all the Children of the Universe to thrive as one came to be. The tale spills from Lestat's heart, as he speaks first of his new existence as reigning monarch --- and then of his fierce battle of wits and words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes, a demon spirit who refuses to live in harmony at the Court of Prince Lestat and threatens all that Lestat has dreamt of.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is 10 years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken and destinies reconsidered.