Adult

What if a number of us simply vanished? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? That’s what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened --- not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

A lonely man’s desire for a wife is the catalyst for the creation of a golem like no other. When she’s left master-less on the streets of New York City, she fights her ingrained impulse to help and protect those around her. A jinni, captured and enslaved hundreds of years ago, is free of his flask but not truly free as the iron cuff that keeps him in human form remains on his wrist. The golem and the jinni are drawn to each other, kindred spirits of long-forgotten fairy tales.

For years, 38-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation's brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.

Having a baby isn’t even on 35-year-old Miranda's radar --- until the day she discovers an abandoned newborn on the platform of a subway station and rushes her to the closest police station. A family court judge asks whether she’d like to be the baby’s foster parent or perhaps even adopt her. To her own surprise, Miranda jumps at the chance. But nothing could have prepared her for the ecstasy of new-mother love --- or the heartbreak she faces when the baby’s father surfaces.

NEVER CAN SAY GOODBYE is an exuberant celebration of New York, featuring contributions from luminaries such as Elizabeth Gilbert, Susan Orlean, Rosanne Cash, Nick Flynn, Whoopi Goldberg, Phillip Lopate, Owen King, Amy Sohn, Alexander Chee and many others. These essays take place in dive bars and museums, cinemas and old restaurants, horse-drawn carriages and subway cars, capturing the true essence of life in New York.

Channeling the turbulent period of the Vietnam War and its ruthless pitting of ideologies, cultures, generations and races against each other, military historian and acclaimed fantasy writer Chris Evans takes a daring new approach to the traditional world of sword and sorcery by thrusting it into a maelstrom of racial animus, drug use, rebellion, and a growing war that seems at once unwinnable and with no end in sight. Right and wrong, country and honor, freedom and sacrifice are all put to the ultimate test in the heart of a dark, bloody, otherworldly jungle.

When Ailinn Solomons arrives in his village by a sea that laps no other shore, Kevern Cohen is instantly drawn to her. Although mistrustful by nature, the two become linked as if they were meant for each other. Together, they form a refuge from the commonplace brutality that is the legacy of a historic catastrophe shrouded in suspicion, denial and apology, simply referred to as WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED.

Danny Aiello had numerous run-ins with the law growing up, and was temporarily committed to a psychiatric ward for a nervous disorder. Fate ultimately intervened when the owner of a famous New York comedy club, The Improv, offered Danny a job as a bouncer. From there, he launched his acting career. Here, for the first time in print, he shares what it’s felt like to be an outsider in the acting community --- the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Is it possible to reconcile God’s sovereignty with human choice? This is one of the most perplexing theological questions. It’s also one of the most personal. In HAND IN HAND, Randy Alcorn says that the traditional approach to this debate has often diminished our trust in God and His purposes. Instead of making a one-sided argument from select verses, Alcorn examines the question in light of all Scripture.