Adult

February 1943. Both the Allies and the Nazis are full speed ahead to construct the decisive weapon of the war. Kurt Nordstrum, an engineer in Oslo, puts his life aside to take up arms against the Germans as part of the Norwegian resistance. After the loss of his fiancée, and with his outfit whittled to shreds, Kurt escapes to England to transmit secret evidence that the Nazis are closing in on the atomic bomb. His mission: to disrupt their plans before they advance any further. Parachuted onto the unforgiving terrain in Europe, Kurt must lead the most daring raid of the war. But completing it may come at the cost of the one person he has grown to love.

The 1947 World Series was “the most exciting ever” in the words of Joe DiMaggio, with a decade’s worth of drama packed into seven games between the mighty New York Yankees and underdog Brooklyn Dodgers. It was Jackie Robinson’s first Series, a postwar spectacle featuring Frank Sinatra, Ernest Hemingway and President Harry Truman in supporting roles. It was also the first televised World Series --- sportswriters called it “Electric October.”

HAPPINESS begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant --- Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends. Mere hours after Gracie's arrival, Heather's bliss is interrupted when a nurse wakes her, "Get dressed, your baby is in trouble."

Cork O’Connor and his new bride, Rainy Bisonette, listen to a desperate voicemail left by Rainy's son, Peter, who confesses to the murder of someone named Rodriguez. After unsuccessfully trying to contact him, they fly to Coronado County in southern Arizona, where Peter has been working as a counselor in a drug rehab center. They learn that Peter was fired six months earlier and hasn’t been heard from since. So they head to the little desert town of Sulfur Springs where Peter has been receiving his mail. But no one in Sulfur Springs seems to know him. They do, however, recognize the name Rodriguez. Carlos Rodriguez is the head of a cartel that controls everything illegal crossing the border from Mexico into Coronado County.

At 14, Alice Hill was viciously attacked by two of her classmates and left to die. The teens claim she was a sacrifice for a man called Mister Tender, but that could never be true: Mister Tender doesn't exist. His sinister character is pop-culture fiction, created by Alice's own father in a series of popular graphic novels. Over a decade later, Alice has changed her name and is trying to heal. But someone is watching her. They know more about Alice than any stranger could: her scars, her fears, and the secrets she keeps locked away. She can try to escape her past, but Mister Tender is never far behind. He will come with a smile that seduces, and a dark whisper in her ear.

THE HISTORY OF BEES follows three generations of beekeepers and their relationship to the bees --- and to their children and one another --- against the backdrop of an urgent, global crisis. England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive --- one that will give both him and his children honor and fame. United States, 2007. George is a beekeeper fighting an uphill battle against modern farming, but hopes that his son can be their salvation. China, 2098. Tao hand paints pollen onto the fruit trees now that the bees have long since disappeared. When Tao’s young son is taken away by the authorities after a tragic accident, she sets out on a grueling journey to find out what happened to him.

For Jill Bialosky, certain poems stand out like signposts at pivotal moments in a life: the death of a father, adolescence, first love, leaving home, the suicide of a sister, marriage, the birth of a child, the day in New York City the Twin Towers fell. As Bialosky narrates these moments, she illuminates the ways in which particular poems offered insight, compassion and connection, and shows how poetry can be a blueprint for living. In POETRY WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, Bialosky recalls when she encountered each formative poem, and how its importance and meaning evolved over time, allowing new insights and perceptions to emerge.

Tensions have been building between the police force and the black rights activists in Harlem, and they reach a boiling point when a cop shoots down a seemingly unarmed teenager. The community, believing the teen had no weapon, rises up in anger and demands to have the officer prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But there’s something more than a call for justice at work here: a plot to bring down the city’s police force through a conspiracy so vast and malicious only N.Y.D.A. Roger "Butch" Karp and his band of truth-seekers can untangle it. Karp, along with Marlene and an eclectic cast of characters, seek to unravel the murder mystery without fear or favor.

Clyde Barr, the drifter with lethal skills, is alone again, wandering the highways of the American West in search of something to believe in. But when he runs across an elderly sick man --- a Ute Indian from a nearby reservation --- Clyde’s dream of solitude is quickly dashed. On the reservation, Clyde finds the old man’s daughter, Lawana, and grandson, Taylor, as well as a group of menacing bikers called Reapers running wild in the economically depressed, half-abandoned village. As tensions rise between the locals and the Reapers, Clyde’s efforts to protect the reservation become a fight for his, Lawana’s and Taylor’s lives. And then the stakes ratchet up even more.

Six thematically linked stories take place across several continents and time periods, populated with characters who are connected by their traumatic pasts, newly vagrant lives, and quests for solace in their futures. Though they exist in their own distinct worlds, they are united by the struggle to reconcile their traumatic pasts in the wake of violence. A morphine-addicted nurse wanders through the decimated French countryside in search of purpose; a dissatisfied wife sporadically takes a train across Spain with a much younger man in the wake of a building explosion; a lost young woman emigrates from Korea to Shanghai, where she aimlessly works in a camera sweat shop, trying fruitlessly to outrun the ghosts of her past.