Adult

GIVE ME A TICKET TO CHILDHOOD is the story of a man looking back on his life. As we learn of the small miracles and tragedies that made up the narrator’s life --- the misadventures and the misdeeds --- we meet his long-lost friends, none of whom can forget how rich their lives once were. And even if Nguyen Nhat Anh can’t take us back to our own childhoods, he captures those innocent times with a great deftness.

In STALIN, Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs. STALIN also gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police.

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE showcases Ron Rash’s artistry and craftsmanship in 30 stories culled from his previously published collections NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY, BURNING BRIGHT, CHEMISTRY and THE NIGHT NEW JESUS FELL TO EARTH. Each work of short fiction demonstrates Rash’s dazzling ability to evoke the heart and soul of this land and its people --- men and women inexorably tethered to the geography that defines and shapes them.

Anne Lamott writes about faith, family and community in essays that are both wise and irreverent. In SMALL VICTORIES, Lamott offers a new message of hope that celebrates the triumph of light over the darkness in our lives. Our victories over hardship and pain may seem small, but they change us. She writes of forgiveness, restoration and transformation, how we can turn toward love even in the most hopeless situations, how we find the joy in getting lost and our amazement in finally being found.

Cádiz, 1811: Bombs are falling. Paranoia reigns in a city under siege, but it is worsened when the bodies of murdered women begin to turn up in abandoned corners of the city. Something dark is certainly afoot --- and this shadowy evil seems to have a message for merciless police commissioner Rogelio Tizón. His determination to find the killer will take him on a twisting path through the intertwined lives of those trapped together in the city.

At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama --- desire, despair, jealousy, hope and love.

While fighting a horrific blaze, Sean Magee becomes trapped by flames and is nearly overcome by smoke. Just when it seems that all is lost, he’s led to a window --- by what he swears is divine intervention. And then he jumps…into a new life. Coming through that fire, he knows that he can no longer be that man whose heart is closed to the world. But before he can face his future, he must confront his past and everyone in it: the family, the friends, the woman --- and the love --- he carelessly left behind.

When Jack Morgan opens the Mumbai branch of Private, the world's most elite detective agency, he hands the reins to top agent Santosh Wagh. A killer is targeting seemingly unconnected women and placing strange objects at their death scenes in a series of chilling rituals. As the Private team races to find a link that will lead them to the next victim, an unseen menace threatens to destroy the agency from within --- and plunge the city into chaos.

A retired cop named Bill Hodges is still haunted by the unsolved case of a lone driver who plowed through a crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up and charging again. When he gets a crazed letter from someone who self-identifies as the “perk” and threatens an even more diabolical attack, Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing another tragedy.

Nearly 25 years after the publication of A TIME TO KILL, John Grisham returns to that famous courthouse in Clanton as Jake Brigance once again finds himself embroiled in a fiercely controversial trial --- a trial that will expose old racial tensions and force Ford County to confront its tortured history.