Adult

Joyce Johnson peels away layers of the Kerouac legend to show how, caught between two cultures and two languages, he forged a voice to contain his dualities. Looking into how Kerouac’s French Canadian background enriched his prose and gave him a unique outsider’s vision of America, she  tracks his development from boyhood through the phenomenal breakthroughs of 1951 that resulted in the composition of ON THE ROAD.

Down 10 1/2 games with little more than a month to play, the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals had long been ruled out as serious postseason contenders. Yet in the face of those steep odds, this team made the playoffs and won the World Series. Now manager Tony La Russa gives the inside story behind this astonishing comeback and his remarkable career, explaining how a team with so much against it was able to succeed on baseball's biggest stage.

Hoping to bring some Hollywood money to the Valley, the mayor lures a movie studio to town to shoot their next major production starring Thad Perry. Known for his bad behavior, Thad needs a babysitter, and the mayor hires Chet and Bernie for the job. When they dig into the details of an old crime, they discover that Thad has links to the Valley that go way back. To complicate matters, Thad’s cat seems hellbent on making trouble for Chet.

Years of being “the good woman” have taken a toll on Meg; she feels burned out and empty, and more disconnected than ever from her increasingly distant husband. Lonely and disheartened, she attends the London Wine Fair with her boss, Chad Hallahan. It’s here, alone together in an exotic city, that Chad confesses his long-standing desire for Meg. An overwhelmed Meg returns home, only to suddenly question every choice she’s ever made.

Thirty years after the Civil War's Battle of the Wilderness left him maimed, Abel Truman has found his way to the edge of the continent, the rugged, majestic coast of Washington State, where he lives alone in a driftwood shack with his beloved dog. WILDERNESS is the story of Abel, now an old and ailing man, and his heroic final journey over the snowbound Olympic Mountains.

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the 21st century, where random humans are charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether or not to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.

Jane Ryland, once a rising star in television news, now finds herself tracking down a candidate’s secret mistress just days before a pivotal Senate election. Meanwhile, Detective Jake Brogan is investigating a possible serial killer. As the body count rises and the election looms closer, it becomes clear to Jane and Jake that their cases are connected…and that they may be facing a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to silence a scandal.

A love story serves as the backdrop for THE MAP OF THE SKY when New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the extraterrestrial invasion featured in Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds. What follows are three interconnected plots that create a breathtaking tale of time travel and mystery.

Sherlock Holmes and his wife, Mary Russell, are separated by shocking circumstances in a perilous part of the world, each racing against time to prevent an explosive catastrophe that could clothe them both in shrouds. Will Holmes and his friends be able to find the newly amnesiac Russell in time to stop a deadly African/European revolt?

Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo. Who is Aritomo, and how did he come to leave Japan? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?