Adult

For as long as Augusten Burroughs could remember, he knew things he shouldn't have known. He manifested things that shouldn't have come to pass. And he told exactly no one about this, save one person: his mother. His mother reassured him that it was all perfectly normal, that he was descended from a long line of witches, going back to the days of the early American colonies. And that this family tree was filled with witches. It was a bond that he and his mother shared --- until the day she left him in the care of her psychiatrist to be raised in his family (but that's a whole other story). After that, Augusten was on his own. On his own to navigate the world of this tricky power; on his own to either use or misuse this gift.

Cilka is just 16 years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was sent to Auschwitz when she was still a child? In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.

Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his wife, Laurie, have started a new Christmas tradition. Their local pet store has a Christmas tree, where instead of ornaments there are wishes from those in need. One poignant wish leads Andy to a child named Danny, whose selfless plea strikes a chord. Danny asked Santa for a coat for his mother, a sweater for his dachshund, Murphy, and the safe return of his missing father. It turns out Danny’s father doesn't want to be found; he’s on the run after just being arrested for a murder that took place 14 years ago --- a murder that Danny’s mother swears he didn’t commit.

Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom --- naked, covered in strange tattoos --- to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message. Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for 300 years, ever since its fall --- along with all of Europe --- to the empire’s all-conquering army. When a mysterious stranger --- naked, covered in strange tattoos --- appears on the banks of the Seine, Kamal Arslan Agha, a feted officer in the sultan’s secret police, is called in to investigate. But what he discovers is a secret buried in the empire’s past, a secret the Sultan will do anything to silence.

In his essential writing guide, THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL, Walter Mosley supplied aspiring writers with the basic tools to write a novel in one year. In this complementary follow-up, he guides the writer through the elements of not just any fiction writing, but the kind of writing that transcends convention and truly stands out. In a series of instructive and conversational chapters, Mosley demonstrates how to master fiction's most essential elements: character and character development, plot and story, voice and narrative, context and description, and more. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process from the blank page to the first draft to rewriting and rewriting again.

The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner’s history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre-Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late 19th century.

With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hundreds of thousands of Italians --- Jewish photographer Ettore among them --- march on Ethiopia seeking adventure. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile, Hirut helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. But how could she have predicted her own personal war as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers, who will force her to pose before Ettore’s camera?

Seventeen-year-old Riggle is living in rural Indiana with his uncle and uncle’s girlfriend after the death of his parents. Now his uncle is missing, probably on a drug binge. It’s Monday, and $800 in rent is due Friday. Riggle, who’s been suspended from school, has to either find his uncle or get the money together himself. His mission exposes him to a motley group of Opioid locals --- encounters by turns perplexing, harrowing and heartening.

Still reeling from the scandal that cost him his badge, Randy Mayhill sees a return from community exile in the form of a dead hog trapper perched on a fence. The fence belongs to the late Van Woods, Mayhill’s best friend and the reason for his spectacular fall. Determined to protect Van’s land and family from another scandal, Mayhill ignores the sheriff who replaced him and investigates the death of the unidentified man. His quest crosses with two others: Birdie, Van’s surly, mourning daughter, who has no intention of sitting idly by and leaving her father’s legacy in Mayhill’s hands; and Bradley, Birdie’s slow, malnourished but loyal friend, whose desperation to escape a life of poverty has him working with local criminals, and possibly a murderer.

Catholics have gone underground in the new Puritan regime of King James I, and yet whispers of conspiracies continue to echo behind closed doors and down the halls of the royal palaces. Against this perilous backdrop, accompanied by her son George and her husband Sir Thomas Tyringham --- whom she married conveniently to mask the true identity of her son’s father --- Frances Gorges reunites with her former mistress, the Princess Elizabeth, now of marriageable age, as well as other less friendly members of the court. With more lives than merely her own on the line, Frances soon finds herself caught in a spider’s web of secrets, promises and plots.