Adult

Rick Blanco is no different from any other office slave --- he hates stupid office meetings. What makes him special is that he’s done something about it. Following in the footsteps of Bob Watson --- a former colleague and office illusionist --- he’s perfected the art of ditching meetings. Now, Rick wants to pull off his most important Bob Watson yet --- skipping out of work to go on a date with the woman he’s chased for years. All she requires is that he first treat his precocious young nephew to his own Bob Watson and give him a break from a life filled with stress, college prep and mandatory overachievement. The day is as exciting as Rick could have wanted, but not in the way he had hoped.

A band of vigilante executioners roam the hot summer nights, abducting evil men who they judge unworthy of living and hanging them by the neck until dead. But do these rogue hangmen crave true justice --- or just blood? As the bodies pile up and violence explodes all over the sweltering city, DC Max Wolfe embarks on his most dangerous investigation yet, hunting a righteous gang of vigilante killers who many believe to be heroes. But before The Hanging Club is confronted, Max must learn some painful truths about the fragile line between good and evil, innocence and guilt, justice and retribution.

Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that keeps getting smaller every day. As they wait together there, they tell jokes and discuss their shared love of mathematics. Grandpa recalls what it was like to fall in love with his wife, and what it was like to lose her. She’s as real to him now as the first day he met her, but he dreads the day when he won’t remember her. Sometimes Grandpa sits on the bench next to Ted, Noah’s father; in their love of Noah, they have found a common bond. Grandpa, Grandma, Ted and Noah all meet in this peculiar space that is growing dimmer and more confusing all the time.

Writer and music historian Marc Myers brings to life five decades of music in ANATOMY OF A SONG, based on the popular ongoing Wall Street Journal column, through oral histories of 45 transformative songs woven from interviews with the artists who created them. Taking readers inside the making of a hit, the book includes Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz,” Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Smokey Robinson, Grace Slick, Mavis Staples, Steven Tyler, the Clash, Merle Haggard, Bonnie Raitt, Debbie Harry and many other leading artists reveal the inspirations, struggles and techniques behind their influential works.

Ginny Moon is exceptional. Everyone knows it --- her friends at school, teammates on the basketball team, and especially her new adoptive parents. They all love her, even if they don't quite understand her. They want her to feel like she belongs. What they don't know is that Ginny has no intention of belonging. She has found her birth mother on Facebook and is determined to get back to her --- even if it means going back to a place that was extremely dangerous. Because Ginny left something behind and is desperate to get it back, to make things right. But no one listens. No one understands. So Ginny takes matters into her own hands.

Soli, a young undocumented Mexican woman in Berkeley, CA, finds that motherhood offers her an identity in a world where she's otherwise invisible. When she is placed in immigrant detention, her son comes under the care of Kavya, an Indian-American wife overwhelmed by her own impossible desire to have a child. As Soli fights for her son, Kavya builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else's child.

General Omar Bradley said of him, “I have never known a braver man or a more devoted soldier.” But for much of his life, Theodore Roosevelt’s son Ted seemed born to live in his father’s shadow. In the First World War, Ted braved gunfire and gas attacks in France to lead his unit into battle. Yet even after returning home a hero, he was unable to meet the expectations of a public that wanted a man just like his father. Then, with World War II looming, Ted reenlisted. In his mid-50s, with a gimpy leg and a heart condition, he was well past his prime, but his insistence to be in the thick of combat proved a vital asset. HIS FATHER’S SON delves into the life of a man as courageous, colorful and unwavering as any of the Roosevelt clan.

Thomas McNulty, aged barely 17 and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland, signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars --- against the Sioux and the Yurok --- and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in.

A former Delta Force commander, author Brad Taylor has lived in the world about which he writes, and his novels have tackled very real and current threats ranging from ISIS to Chechen terrorists to Boko Haram. In his latest action-packed thriller, RING OF FIRE, a chilling terrorist plot is about to unfold in the United States --- one involving simultaneous attacks across multiple locations in America --- and it’ll be up to Pike Logan, Jennifer Cahill and the Taskforce to prevent the threat from becoming a terrifying reality.

PEOPLE KNITTING is a charming tribute in vintage photographs and printed ephemera to the ever-popular, often all-consuming, craft of knitting. When women posed with their knitting in the earliest 19th-century photographs, it demonstrated their virtue and skill as homemakers. Later, knitting became fashionable among the wealthy as a sign of culture and artistic ability. During the two world wars, images of nurses, soldiers, prisoners and even knitting clubs composed of very serious small boys --- all with heads bent down, intent on knitting items (especially socks) for the troops --- abounded. In the 1950s and 1960s, as snapshots became ubiquitous, knitters took on a jauntier air, posing with handiwork held proudly aloft.