Adult

A fragile peace reigns in Wessex, Mercia and East Anglia. King Alfred’s son, Edward, and formidable daughter, Aethelflaed, rule the kingdoms. But all around the restless Northmen, eyeing the rich lands and wealthy churches, are mounting raids. Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the kingdoms’ greatest warrior, controls northern Mercia from the strongly fortified city of Chester. But forces are gathering against him. Northmen allied to the Irish, led by the fierce warrior Ragnall Ivarson, are soon joined by the Northumbrians, and their strength could prove overwhelming.

In 1995, Bill Bryson got into his car and took a weeks-long farewell motoring trip about England before moving his family back to the United States. The book about that trip, NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, is uproarious and endlessly endearing. Two decades later, he set out again to rediscover that country, and the result is THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING. Nothing is funnier than Bill Bryson on the road, so prepare for the total joy and multiple episodes of unseemly laughter.

Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy's funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor --- not much else to do in a small town that's almost beyond repair. They just never imagined that she'd start a bookstore. Or that books could bring them together --- and change everything.

At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

Mercy, a young Korean American and recent Columbia graduate, is adrift, undone by a terrible incident in her recent past. Hilary, a wealthy housewife, is haunted by her struggle to have a child, something she believes could save her foundering marriage. Meanwhile, Margaret, once a happily married mother of three, questions her maternal identity in the wake of a shattering loss. As each woman struggles with her own demons, their lives collide in ways that have irreversible consequences for them all.

In THE CINEMATIC LEGACY OF FRANK SINATRA, author David Wills presents a stunning collection highlighting the work of one of Hollywood's greatest stars. Pairing more than 200 first-generation photos with reflections on Sinatra from co-stars and work associates, and including contributing essays by his children Nancy Sinatra, Tina Sinatra and Frank Sinatra, Jr., it is an unforgettable showcase of the actor's transformation from world-famous singer, to movie star, to Academy Award winner, and finally to one of the most enduring icons in cinema history.

Jim Chapel, the one-armed Special Forces soldier turned spy, is on the wrong side of the law. The person he trusts most in the world, the brilliant hacker known only as Angel, is suspected of terrorism. When his boss calls for Angel’s arrest, Chapel --- certain it’s a frame job --- has only one option: to go rogue. With the aid of old friends and his ex-lover, the search to find who framed Angel leads Chapel to a conspiracy with deep roots that shocks even this hardened veteran --- and a plan that will destroy the United States as we know it if it succeeds.

Four middle-aged siblings meet in their grandparents’ home in the English town of Kington for a three-week holiday. They have convened to discuss whether or not to sell the house, but family tensions dominate conversations. The brother has brought his Argentinian third wife, whom the three sisters haven’t met. One sister brings an ex-boyfriend’s teenage son; another laments her unsatisfying love life. THE PAST is a quiet exploration of suppressed desire and internal struggles.

After their father’s death, Harry, Frank and Pierce Fukuhara moved to Hiroshima, their mother’s ancestral home. Eager to go back to America, Harry returned in the late 1930s. Then came Pearl Harbor. Harry was sent to an internment camp until a call came for Japanese translators, and he dutifully volunteered to serve his country. Back in Hiroshima, Frank and Pierce became soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army. Before the Fukuharas would have to face each other in battle, the U.S. detonated the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, gravely injuring tens of thousands of civilians, including members of their family.

At the tender age of 16, Philip W. Williams III is expelled from boarding school for committing a prank. It never enters his mind that he will become a world-class marksman and a special agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps in postwar Germany; play a key role in the defection of a Soviet officer and then court danger as a courier for the CIA; marry an Austrian ballet dancer of ferocious mien; become a renowned bestselling novelist; and meet the love of his life on a hunting trip to Scotland.