Adult

Only God knew why Jillian Slater agreed to return to New Orleans on the news that her father had finally drunk himself to death. She hadn’t seen him or her grandmother in almost 20 years, and the trip would be all expenses paid by Adella Atwater, the manager of her grandmother’s apartment house. What Adella didn’t tell her was that the apartment house, Saint Silvanus, bore the dead weight of a long and painful history. Jillian walks into a web of spiritual and personal danger borne out of her family’s broken history, and despite Adella’s wiliest efforts, only God himself can orchestrate the undoing of all that is going on at Saint Silvanus.

Award-winning novelist Tommy Wieringa has crafted perhaps his most timely book yet, as he traces two stories doomed to collide. In one, we follow a group of starving, near-feral Eurasian refugees on a harrowing quest for survival; in the other, we follow Pontus Beg, a policeman from a small border town on the steppe, as he investigates the death of a rabbi, one of the town’s two remaining Jews. A virtual parable for our times, THESE ARE THE NAMES offers a suspenseful reading of a crisis that continues to dominate headlines, and simultaneously explores the enduring questions of faith, identity, and what it means to be “home.”

In PILGRIMAGE, Mark K. Shriver retraces Pope Francis’ personal journey, revealing the origins of his open, unpretentious style and explaining how it revitalized Shriver’s own faith and renewed his commitment to the Church. To help us understand how Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, Shriver travels to Bergoglio’s native Argentina to meet with the people who knew him as a child, as a young Jesuit priest, and as a reformist bishop. In impoverished surroundings, Bergoglio answered Christ’s call to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and shelter the homeless, following the example set by his papal namesake, St. Francis of Assisi.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it’s called, is anything but still. THE WHOLE TOWN’S TALKING tells the story of Lordor Nordstrom, his Swedish mail-order bride, Katrina, and their neighbors and descendants as they live, love, die, and carry on in mysterious and surprising ways. Nordstrom created, in his wisdom, not only a lively town and a prosperous legacy for himself but also a beautiful final resting place for his family, friends and neighbors yet to come. “Resting place” turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, however. Odd things begin to happen, and it starts the whole town talking.

In her first work of nonfiction, the beloved star of “Gilmore Girls” and “Parenthood” recounts her experiences on “Gilmore Girls” --- the first and second time --- and shares stories about life, love, and working in Hollywood. This collection of essays is written in the intimate, hilarious and down-to earth voice that made her novel, SOMEDAY, SOMEDAY, MAYBE, a New York Times bestseller.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of “The Daily Show” began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

The night before the Thanksgiving Day Parade, a crowd gathers on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to watch the giant balloons fill with helium and rise toward the sky. Then the festive ritual takes a terrifying turn --- a gunshot rings out, police commissioner Logan Donovan falls, and panic erupts. When the chaos clears, another crime is revealed: Donovan’s daughter, Allie, has been kidnapped. Within hours, Special Agent Eve Rossi and her handpicked team of former convicts know a lot about the kidnapper. But Eve grapples with a harrowing question: Whom should she fear more --- a vengeful man threatening innocent lives, or a charming, arrogant cop fighting to save his daughter, who may be trying to cover up his crimes?

Larry Virgil skipped out on his latest court date after he was arrested for hijacking an 18-wheeler full of premium bourbon. Fortunately for bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, Larry is just stupid enough to attempt almost the exact same crime again. Only this time he flees the scene, leaving behind a freezer truck loaded with Bogart ice cream and a dead body --- frozen solid and covered in chocolate and chopped pecans. As fate would have it, Stephanie’s mentor and occasional employer, Ranger, needs her to go undercover at the Bogart factory to find out who’s putting their employees on ice and sabotaging the business.

It’s 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he’s off the grid. Two other men are in the classroom: an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. A Jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor --- a Saudi courier, seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown. A CIA asset, undercover inside the cell, has overheard the courier whisper a chilling message: “The American wants a hundred million dollars.” For what? And who from? Reacher and his two new friends are told to find the American.

The year is 1900, and Victor Narraway is giving his wife, Vespasia, an unforgettable Christmas present --- a trip to Jerusalem. Vespasia is enchanted by the exotic landscape of Palestine, and charmed by a fellow traveler the Narraways meet at their hotel in Jaffa. But when the man is murdered over a torn piece of ancient parchment he was taking to Jerusalem, Victor and Vespasia risk their lives to finish his mission and deliver the puzzling document to its home. Pursued by a shadowy figure with evil intent, they embark on a dangerous yet ultimately enlightening pilgrimage to the holy city, where the mysterious message on the parchment may finally be revealed.