Adult

In 2007, John Elder Robison wrote the international bestseller LOOK ME IN THE EYE, a memoir about growing up with Asperger’s syndrome. Amid the blaze of publicity that followed, he received a unique invitation: Would John like to take part in a study led by one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists, who would use an experimental new brain therapy known as TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, in an effort to understand and then address the issues at the heart of autism? SWITCHED ON is the extraordinary story of what happened next.

On the night of her wedding to Rob, Ellie’s perfect world suddenly collapses. Her suave, charming, sophisticated husband is not the man she believed him to be. Could he really be a killer? Ellie is rapidly swept into a lethal vortex of betrayal, lies and uncertainty: Who is the man she married, really? And how far will she go to protect him? When faced with a terrible choice --- to become a murderess herself to save the man she loves, or to let him die --- Ellie’s decision propels her into a whiplash-paced adventure.

After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre “last confessions” of the recently hanged, orphan Jane Steele thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died, and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess. Burning to know if she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents. As Jane falls in love with Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: Can she possess him --- body, soul and secrets --- without revealing her own murderous past?

Marine biologist Marion “Doc” Ford carefully watches a video of a hooded man executing three hostages. The man is an American working with ISIS, and in the next few days, it’ll be Ford’s job, as part of his shadowy second life, to make sure he never kills anybody else again. But a lot can go wrong in a few days. And Ford has no way of knowing that not only will the operation prove to be a lot more complicated than he has anticipated, but that he’ll end up bringing those complications back with him to the small community of Dinkin’s Bay, where he’s long made his home.

The Carson dynasty rules the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. But when Wylie Welborn returns after a stint in Afghanistan, it reopens a dark moment in Carson family history: the murder of Wylie's father by his jealous and very pregnant wife, Cynthia. Her son Sky, born while his mother was in prison, and Wylie are half-brothers. They inherit not only superb athletic skills but an enmity that threatens to play out in a lethal drama on one of the fastest and most perilous ski slopes in the world.

It's 1838, and James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck --- in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the 50 apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. Fifteen years later, their youngest child, Robert, is wandering through Gold Rush California. Restless and haunted by the broken family he left behind, he has made his way alone across the country. But when Robert’s past makes an unexpected appearance, he must decide whether to strike out again or stake his own claim to a home at last.

After an addiction to painkillers nearly derailed his career, star quarterback Tyson Palmer got sober and went from zero to hero in the eyes of the public. But one person remains unconvinced: Dani Carr, a sports commentator with high ratings and following of her own. Dani can’t forgive Tyson’s transgressions or forget a single passionate night with him back in college. To make things worse, Tyson doesn’t realize that the bombshell with huge ratings is the cute co-ed whose heart he once broke.

Married to Emperor Franz Joseph, Elisabeth --- fondly known as Sisi --- captures the hearts of her people as their “fairy queen,” but beneath that dazzling persona lives a far more complex figure. Sisi grows restless, feeling stifled by strict protocols and a turbulent marriage. A free-spirited wanderer, she finds solace at her estate outside Budapest. There she rides her beloved horses and enjoys visits from the striking Hungarian statesman Count Andrássy. But tragic news brings Sisi out of her fragile seclusion, forcing her to return to her capital and a world of gossip, envy and sorrow where a dangerous fate lurks in the shadows.

Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications --- and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.

Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home --- and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India. LOVE, LOSS, AND WHAT WE ATE is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges’ table of “Top Chef” and beyond.