Adult

Growing up as the daughter of a dedicated surgeon, Elizabeth L. Silver felt an unquestioned faith in medicine. When her six-week-old daughter, Abby, was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with sudden seizures, her relationship to medicine began to change. The mysterious circumstances of Abby’s hospitalization attract dozens of specialists, none of whom can offer a conclusive answer about what went wrong or what the future holds. As Silver explores what it means to cope with uncertainty as a patient and parent, she looks beyond her own story for comfort, probing literature and religion, examining the practice of medicine throughout history, and reporting the experiences of doctors, patients and fellow caretakers.

In 2022, American Jews face an increasingly unsafe and anti-Semitic landscape at home. Against this backdrop, the Jacobson family gathers for Passover in Los Angeles. But their immediate problems are more personal than political, with the three adult children in various states of crisis, the result, each claims, of a lifetime of mistreatment by their father, Julian. The siblings have begun to suspect that Julian is hastening their mother Roz's demise, and years of resentment boil over as they debate whether to go through with the real reason for their reunion: an ill-considered plot to end their father’s iron rule for good. That is, if they can put their bickering, grudges, festering relationships and distrust of one another aside long enough to act.

In October 1947, Grace Holland is experiencing two simultaneous droughts. An unseasonably hot, dry summer has turned the state of Maine into a tinderbox, and Grace and her husband, Gene, have fallen out of love and barely speak. Five months pregnant and caring for two toddlers, Grace has resigned herself to a life of loneliness and domestic chores. One night she awakes to find that wildfires are racing down the coast, closer and closer to her house. Forced to pull her children into the ocean to escape the flames, Grace watches helplessly as everything she knows burns to the ground. By morning, her life is forever changed: she is homeless, penniless, awaiting news of her husband's fate, and left to face an uncertain future in a town that no longer exists.

A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi --- and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes. As Alexandra sets out to locate the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by political oppression --- and she will find out all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger.

In PRUSSIAN BLUE, Philip Kerr brings our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther --- now hiding out on the French Riviera --- face to face with an old and dangerous enemy. Cornered and with his cover blown, Gunther finds himself back in a cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany’s defeat, continues to shadow his life. Forced to make a run for it before the French sûreté arrest him for murder or the GDR’s Stasi succeed in killing him, Gunther heads for Berlin, hoping there are still a few old friends left who can help.

Sally Bedell Smith returns once again to the British royal family to give us a new look at Prince Charles, the oldest heir to the throne in more than 300 years. This biography --- the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus and more, some speaking on the record for the first time --- is the first authoritative treatment of Charles’ life that sheds light on the death of Diana, his marriage to Camilla, and his preparations to take the throne one day. PRINCE CHARLES brings to life the real man, with all of his ambitions, insecurities and convictions.

Paul Stuart, a renowned food writer, finds himself at loose ends after his longtime girlfriend leaves him for her personal trainer. To cheer him up, Paul’s editor, Gloria, encourages him to finish his latest cookbook on-site in Tuscany, hoping that a change of scenery will offer a cure for both heartache and writer’s block. But upon Paul’s arrival, things don’t go quite as planned. A mishap with his rental-car reservation leaves him stranded, until a newfound friend leads him to an intriguing alternative: a bulldozer. With little choice in the matter, Paul accepts the offer, and as he journeys into the idyllic hillside town of Montalcino, he discovers that the bulldozer may be the least of the surprises that await him.

The Chicago Cubs' 2016 World Series win marked the end of a 108-year drought in the team's history, and Game 7 will forever be remembered as one of the most thrilling, monumental moments in sports history. For Scott Simon, host of NPR's “Weekend Edition Saturday” and a lifelong Cubs fan, it was a moment he never thought he'd live to see. MY CUBS chronicles Simon's adolescence in Chicago as a die-hard fan to tell the story of the relationship between the team and the neighborhood and city, and how the condition of Cubness has both charmed and haunted the lives of so many fans.

In 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in --- and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. Decades later, the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them --- celebrity chef Jon Casey --- with murder. Only Casey’s old friend, Judith Carrigan, can testify to his innocence. But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own --- secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances. In KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, David Grann revisits these shocking crimes, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals.