Adult

On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity has been missing for over a month. Most people in town --- even the police --- think she’s dead. Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything and know the most intimate details about one another. Except for the destructive secret hidden from them both. A secret that will trigger a chain of events ending in tragedy, bloodshed and death. And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story --- the real story. In a narrative that takes place over one feverish day, Margaret follows a series of increasingly disquieting breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend --- a person she never truly knew at all.

Born into poverty in rural Alabama, John Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. He was a Freedom Rider who helped to integrate bus stations in the South, a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement, the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he made into one of the major civil rights organizations. He may be best remembered as the victim of a vicious beating by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he nearly died. David Greenberg’s biography traces Lewis’ life through the post-Civil Rights years, when he headed the Voter Education Project, which enrolled millions of African American voters across the South.

The best and brightest students at a seemingly reputable high school are disappearing. Every day it seems another overachiever is lost to an apparent suicide. But something far more sinister is lurking beneath the surface. These kids have been under surveillance since birth, monitored and measured by an online service called “Greener Pastures.” It’s here that billionaires observe and recruit the next generation of talent. The highest test scores, the best grades and the most niche extracurriculars just might land these teenagers an enticing offer at auction. A couple billion dollars in exchange for the remainder of your life and intellectual labor sounds like a pretty fair deal. Doesn’t it? In SHOCK INDUCTION, students must choose between the risk of following their dreams or the security of money and a lifetime of servitude to the world’s wealthiest and most elite.

John Edgar Wideman’s “slaveroad” is a palimpsest of physical, social and psychological terrain, the great expanse to which he writes in this groundbreaking work that unsettles the boundaries of memoir, history and fiction. The slaveroad begins with the Atlantic Ocean, across which enslaved Africans were carried, but the term comes to encompass the journeys and experiences of Black Americans since then and the many insidious ways that slavery separates, wounds and persists. An impassioned, searching work, SLAVEROAD is one man’s reckoning with a uniquely American lineage and the ways that the past haunts the present: “It’s here. Now. Where we are. What we are. A story compounded of stories told, retold, untold, not told.”

Ever since the untimely death of their parents, Anne, Beatrix and Violet Quigley have made a business of threading together the stories that rest in the swirls of ginger, cloves and cardamon that lie at the bottom of their customers’ cups. Their days at the teashop are filled with talk of butterflies and good fortune. That is, until the Council of Witches comes calling with news that the city Diviner has lost her powers, and the sisters suddenly find themselves being pulled in different directions. As Anne’s magic begins to develop beyond that of her sisters’, Beatrix’s writing attracts the attention of a publisher, and Violet is enchanted by the song of the circus --- and perhaps a mischievous trapeze artist threatening to sweep her off her feet --- it seems a family curse that threatens to separate the sisters is taking effect.

Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing, and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina. Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases --- Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby and Ongoing --- through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between raccoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches and more.

U.S. soldiers who served in overseas conflicts --- from World War II, Korea and Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan --- share true stories of the actions that earned them some of America’s most distinguished military medals, up to and including the Medal of Honor. They never acted alone, but always in the spirit of camaraderie, patriotism and for the good of our beloved country. There has never been a better time for all of us to think about duty, sacrifice and what it means to be an American hero.

When her mother --- addicted to cocaine and just out of prison --- had a son and then died only a few months later, Nikkya Hargrove was faced with an impossible choice. Although she had just graduated from college, she decided to fight for custody of her half brother, Jonathan. Nikkya vividly recounts how she is subjected to preconceived notions that she, a Black queer young woman, cannot be given such responsibility. Her honest portrayal of the shame she feels accepting food stamps, her family’s reaction to her coming out, and the joy she experiences when she meets the woman who will become her wife reveal her sheer determination. And whether she’s clashing with Jonathan’s biological father or battling for Jonathan’s education rights after he’s diagnosed with ADHD and autism, this is a woman who won’t give up.

A convict is brutally murdered in his locked cell deep in the heart of Scotland’s most infamous prison. Sleeping in a cell across the floor lies John Rebus, the equally notorious detective. Stripped of his badge and estranged from his police family, he is now fighting for his own life --- protected by an old nemesis but always one wrong move away from the shank. As new allies and old enemies circle, and the days and nights bleed into each other, even this legendary figure struggles to keep his head. They say old habits die hard, though. The death stirs Rebus’ deductive --- and manipulative --- impulses, setting off a domino-chain of scheming criminals, corrupt prison guards, and perhaps only one or two good souls who may see it all through. But how do you find a killer in a place full of them?

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet 20 years ago. His father was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the City of Angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles. Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun and ID are stolen. She works the burglary alone, but her mission draws her into unexpected danger. So she knocks on the door of Harry Bosch. At the same time, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit: Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, now a patrol officer. But Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls --- a case that may be the most iconic in the city’s history.