Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice's greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who's never asked a man's permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them --- and to the men they love --- becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion.

For more than six decades, Queen Victoria ruled a great Empire at the height of its power. Beside her for more than 20 of those years was the love of her life, her trusted husband and father of their nine children, Prince Albert. But while Victoria is seen as the embodiment of her time, its values and its paradoxes, it was Prince Albert, A. N. Wilson expertly argues, who was at the vanguard of Victorian Britain’s transformation as a vibrant and extraordinary center of political, technological, scientific and intellectual advancement. Far more than just the product of his age, Albert was one of its influencers and architects. It is impossible to understand 19th-century England without knowing the story of this gifted visionary leader, Wilson contends.

It is 2085, and Truckee Wallace, a factory worker in Crunchtown 407 (formerly Little Rock, Arkansas, before the secessions), has no grand ambitions besides maybe, possibly, losing his virginity someday. But when Truckee is thrust unexpectedly into the spotlight, he is tapped by the President for a sensitive political mission: to deliver a talking goat across the continent. The fate of the world depends upon it. The problem is, Truckee’s not sure it’s worth it. Joined on the road by an android who wants to be human and a former convict lobotomized in Texas, Truckee will navigate an environmentally depleted and lawless continent with devastating --- and hilarious --- parallels to our own.

For the last 20 years, Melinda Gates has been on a mission to find solutions for people with the most urgent needs, wherever they live. Throughout this journey, one thing has become increasingly clear to her: If you want to lift a society up, you need to stop keeping women down. In THE MOMENT OF LIFT, Melinda shares lessons she’s learned from the inspiring people she’s met during her work and travels around the world. As she writes in the introduction, “That is why I had to write this book --- to share the stories of people who have given focus and urgency to my life. I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.”

Oliver Sacks, scientist and storyteller, is beloved by readers for his neurological case histories and his fascination and familiarity with human behavior at its most unexpected and unfamiliar. EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE is a celebration of Sacks' myriad interests --- from his passion for ferns, swimming and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia and Alzheimer's --- told with his characteristic compassion and erudition, and in his luminous prose.

In our youth-obsessed culture, we’re bombarded by media images and messages about the despairs and declines of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceutical companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vitality. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Gray hair should be colored and bald heads covered with implants. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too until she realized where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. THIS CHAIR ROCKS traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life.

In TAKE-OUT, Rob Hart has collected 16 stories of culinary crime and noir that will have you savoring every deadly bite. In the title story, a gambler falls into debt with the enigmatic owner of a Chinatown gambling parlor, and must run odd --- and sometimes dangerous --- deliveries to clear his ledger. In "How to Make the Perfect New York Bagel," the owner of one of New York City's last old-school bagel shops has to defend his storefront --- in the past, from the mob, and in the present, from a bank. In "Creampuff," a bakery with the hottest pastry in town has to hire a bouncer to control the unruly line, with tragic results.

On Susan Gubar’s 70th birthday, she receives a beautiful ring from her husband. As she contemplates their sustaining relationship, she begins to consider how older lovers differ from their youthful counterparts --- and from ageist stereotypes. While her husband confronts age-related disabilities that effectively ground them, Susan dawdles over the logistics of moving from their cherished country house to a more manageable place in town and starts seeking out literature on the changing seasons of desire. Throughout the complications of devoted caregiving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, apartment hunting, the dismantling of a household, and perplexity over the breakdown of a treasured friendship, Susan finds consolation in books and movies.

Cas Russell is good at math. Scary good. The vector calculus blazing through her head lets her smash through armed men twice her size and dodge every bullet in a gunfight, and she'll take any job for the right price. As far as Cas knows, she’s the only person around with a superpower...until she discovers someone with a power even more dangerous than her own. Someone who can reach directly into people’s minds and twist their brains into Möbius strips. Someone intent on becoming the world’s puppet master. Cas should run, like she usually does, but for once she's involved. There’s only one problem: she doesn’t know which of her thoughts are her own anymore.

When Shaun Bythell first thought of taking over The Bookshop, it seemed like a great idea: The Bookshop is Scotland's largest second-hand store, with over 100,000 books in a glorious old house with twisting corridors and roaring fireplaces, set in a tiny, beautiful town by the sea. It seemed like a book-lover's paradise. Until Bythell did indeed buy the store. In THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER, he tells us what happened next --- the trials and tribulations of being a small businessman; of learning that customers can be, um, eccentric; and of wrangling with his own staff of oddballs. And perhaps none are quirkier than the charmingly cantankerous bookseller Bythell himself turns out to be.