Adult

It’s the 1970s, and West 86th Street knows its desserts: poppyseed strudel, praline ice cream cake and New York cheesecake. But then Cato comes to town. Cato the Elder, a Roman born in 234 BCE, is credited with the earliest written recipe ever found. A recipe for…cheesecake. Suddenly, it's all anyone on West 86th Street can talk about. The Katsikases, a Greek cheesemaking family who immigrated to open a restaurant in New York, added Cato's pastry to their menu as a ploy to attract “upscale” diners. The recipe becomes a neighborhood fixation --- and the Katsikases' patriarch, Art, buys up as much of the block's real estate as he can. As the portentous pastry appears in the lives of the old-school residents Art is pricing out of their apartments, a sidewalk view of West 86th Street emerges.

More than the story of a presidency, this is an intimate study of a man whose public triumphs were shaped --- and at times overshadowed --- by the complex realities of his private life, from his legendary family to his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy. The book draws from hundreds of interviews conducted over 25 years --- as well as candid, first-hand oral histories from the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Presidential Library, rare internal reports from the Secret Service, detailed files from the National Archives, and intelligence documents from both the CIA and the FBI. This is JFK as never before captured by history: brilliant yet fallible, revered yet human --- a figure whose legacy continues to shape America and the world.

Julia, David and Erika grew up together spending summers at their idyllic Vermont lake homes for as long as they can remember. Now adults, the three friends have amassed secrets over the years. This summer, David is eager to show off his newly renovated home and his much-younger girlfriend. He also, unwittingly, brings a nanny with a hidden agenda. When David’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes after a shouting match, Julia and Erika wonder just how well they know their lifelong friend. The lake harbors a harrowing past: two young women vanished without a trace 30 years ago. Did the lake take another? As a search is mounted, an intricate web of lies, deceits and betrayals spanning generations starts to surface, and everyone finds themselves in danger of becoming the next victim.

A novelist learns that an unflattering version of herself will appear prominently --- and soon --- in her ex-husband’s debut. For a week, her life continues largely unaffected by the news --- she cooks, runs, teaches, entertains --- but the morning after baking mac ’n’ cheese from scratch for her nephew’s sixth birthday, she wakes up changed. The contentment she’s long enjoyed is gone. In its place: nothing. A remarkably ridiculous midlife crisis ensues, featuring a talking cat and a game called Dead Body.

Mrs. Plansky is fresh off of winning a thrilling senior tennis championship with her doubles partner, Kev Dinardo, and is gearing up to celebrate with him on his yacht. That is, until the yacht is destroyed in a fire. Kev claims the fire was caused by a lightning strike, but there's one small problem --- Mrs. Plansky didn't see any lightning. Her curiosity turns to concern when Kev goes missing. Her suspicion gets the better of her and leads her to break into his house, only to find it ransacked. But Kev isn't the only person Mrs. Plansky has to worry about. A conversation with her dad reveals that not long ago, he'd introduced Kev to Jack, Mrs. Plansky's wayward tennis pro son. And now, her dad either can't remember or has no interest in divulging any details. Worse? Now Jack has gone missing, too.

Etgar Keret is the world’s most famous living Israeli writer. His work explores life’s smallest, most unremarkable interactions in ways that are profound and unusual. The characters populating his fiction live in a world of ever-advancing technology, but it is always degraded by the baseness of human passions and brutality. A character’s partner is a reality show contestant from a parallel dimension. Another finds that the asteroid they paid to have named after their wife is scheduled to collide with earth. An elderly widow convinces a popular AI program to commit suicide. These stories speak to our current moment in time: the uncertainty and fragility --- full of misunderstandings and miscommunications --- while looking for reasons and the strength to find hope.

1861: THE LOST PEACE is the story of President Lincoln’s difficult and courageous decision to go to war against the Confederacy at a time when the country wrestled with deep moral questions of epic proportions. Through Jay Winik’s singular reporting and storytelling, readers will learn about the extraordinary Washington Peace Conference at the Willard Hotel to avert cataclysmic war. They will observe the irascible and farsighted Senator JJ Crittenden, the tireless moderate seeking a middle way to peace. Readers will glimpse inside Lincoln’s cabinet, which rivaled the executive in its authority --- a fact too often forgotten --- and witness a parade of statesmen frenetically grasping for peace rather than the spectacle of a young nation slowly choking itself to death.

Terlu Perna broke the law because she was lonely. She cast a spell and created a magically sentient spider plant. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden statue and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium. This should have been the end of her story. Yet one day, Terlu wakes in the cold of winter on a nearly deserted island full of hundreds of magical greenhouses. The only other human on the island is Yarrow, a grumpy gardener who offers her a place to sleep and clean clothes. As she grows closer with him, she learns that the magic that sustains the greenhouses is failing --- causing the death of everything within them. Assisted by Yarrow and a sentient rose, Terlu must unravel the secrets of a long-dead sorcerer if she wants to save the island --- and have a fresh chance at happiness and love.

If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you that she and her husband, Jack, are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. With their daughter, Maggie, away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect. Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past that he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what. But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding. So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge.

Lucy’s brother, Mikey, is dead. Two years ago, when he left their small Eastern Colorado town and moved west to Denver, he had intended to bring Lucy along. But Lucy has only just arrived and is in search of Helen, a woman Mikey loved. But when Lucy moves in across the hall, she finds nothing is as she expected: the city is crumbling; the weather is tempestuous; a predator is on the loose; the old woman in the attic needs company; desire is being compressed into pills and distributed like candy; and she finds herself becoming obsessed with Helen, who is nothing like she expected --- and who has no idea who Lucy really is. As their lives become more entwined, Lucy begins to realize that the real reasons she came to Denver are deeper and stranger than a simple desire to understand what happened to her brother.