Adult

Louise’s troublesome neighbor has begun blasting choral music at all hours of the night --- and she’s the only one who can hear it. Hoping to find some peace, Louise convinces her husband, Stuart, to buy them a country house in an idyllic, sun-dappled community. But it seems that the haunting melodies of the choir have followed her there. Louise starts to suspect that this sinister choir is not only real, but a warning. But of what? And how can it be, when no one else can hear it?

CARELESS PEOPLE is a unique literary investigation: a gripping double narrative that combines a forensic search for clues to an unsolved crime and a quest for the roots of one of America’s best-loved novels. Acclaimed scholar of American literature Sarah Churchwell reconstructs the events of that pivotal autumn in 1922, revealing in the process new ways of thinking about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece.

In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. In this world lives Fan, a female fish-tank diver, who leaves her home in the B-Mor settlement when the man she loves mysteriously disappears. Fan’s journey to find him takes her out of the safety of B-Mor, through the anarchic Open Counties, where crime is rampant with scant governmental oversight, and to a faraway charter village, in a quest that will soon become legend to those she left behind.

Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason and stripped of his rank in front of a crowd of 20,000. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that “proved” Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. However, it isn’t long before Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country --- and himself.

Meet Bingo, the greatest drug runner in the slums of Kibera, Nairobi, and maybe the world. A teenage grifter, often mistaken for a younger boy, he faithfully serves Wolf, the drug lord of Kibera. Bingo spends his days throwing rocks at Krazi Hari, the prophet of Kibera’s garbage mound, “lipping” safari tourists of their cash, and hanging out with his best friend, Slo-George, a taciturn fellow whose girth is a mystery to Bingo in a place where there is never enough food. When Bingo witnesses a drug-related murder and Wolf sends him to an orphanage for “protection,” Bingo’s life changes and he learns that life itself is the “run.”

When the fishing boat Pirio Kasparov is on is rammed by a freighter, she finds herself abandoned in the North Atlantic. She survives nearly four hours in the water before being rescued by the Coast Guard. But the boat’s owner and her professional fisherman friend, Ned, is not so lucky. Compelled to look after Noah, the son of the late Ned, and her alcoholic prep school friend, Thomasina, Pirio can’t shake the lurking suspicion that the boat’s sinking --- and Ned’s death --- was no accident.

After three acclaimed novels, Gary Shteyngart turns to memoir in a candid, witty and deeply poignant account of his life so far. Swinging between a Soviet home life and American aspirations, Shteyngart found himself living in two contradictory worlds, all the while wishing that he could find a real home in one. And somebody to love him. And somebody to lend him 69 cents for a McDonald’s hamburger.

Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH. After gaining admission to Oxford and moving to the US to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread MIDDLEMARCH, which offered her something that modern life and literature did not. Here, she leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written.

Meet Luca, a curious young boy living with his mother, a taciturn woman who "every now and then tries out a new father." Luca keeps to himself, his cat, Blue, and his words --- his favorite toys. One February morning his mom doesn't wake up to bring him to school, so Luca --- with a father who's long gone and driven by a deep fear of being an orphan --- decides to pretend to the world that his mom is still alive.

When charming Kate Chase Sprague accompanied her father, Ohio politician Salmon P. Chase, to Washington, D.C. in 1861, she found that, rather than becoming a friend and compatriot of the First Lady's as she had anticipated, she immediately became embroiled in a long-lasting, notorious rivalry with Mrs. Lincoln due to the First Lady's jealousy of her youth, beauty and social skills.