New Books at the Rohrbach Library: Best Sellers

The bestselling author, media pioneer, and curator of TED explores one of humankind's defining but overlooked impulses, and how we can super-charge its potential to build a hopeful future--"an essential read to kick off the new year" (Forbes, "16 Must Have Books and Podcasts for Leaders in 2024") "I flew through these pages with an increasing sense of joy. I hope that millions read this book."--Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love Let's face it: Recent years have been tough on optimists. Hopes that the Internet might bring people together have been crushed by the ills of social media. Is there a way back? As head of TED, Chris Anderson has had a ringside view of the world's boldest thinkers sharing their most uplifting ideas. Inspired by them, he believes that it's within our grasp to turn outrage back into optimism. It all comes down to reimagining one of the most fundamental human virtues: generosity. What if generosity could become infectious generosity? Consider  * how a London barber began offering haircuts to people experiencing homelessness--and catalyzed a movement * how two anonymous donors gave $10,000 each to two hundred strangers and discovered that most recipients wanted to "pay it forward" with their own generous acts * how TED itself transformed from a niche annual summit into a global beacon of ideas by giving away talks online, allowing millions access to free learning In telling these inspiring stories, Anderson has given us "the first page-turner ever written about human generosity" (Elizabeth Dunn). More important, he offers a playbook for how to embark on our own generous acts--whether gifts of money, time, talent, connection, or kindness--and to prime them, thanks to the Internet, to have self-replicating, even world-changing, impact.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A captivating chronicle of the incredible story of one of America's most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures--baseball immortal Pete Rose--and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century * "Comprehensive, compulsively readable and wholly terrific."--The Wall Street Journal "Long before the inquiry into Ohtani's ties to betting, there was Pete Rose....Charlie Hustle chronicles one of the most polarizing figures in sports."--NPR, All Things Considered "Baseball biography at its best. With Charlie Hustle, Pete Rose finally gets the book he deserves, and baseball fans get the book we've been craving, a hard-hitting, beautifully-written tale that will stand for years to come as the definitive account of one of the most fascinating figures in American sports history."--Jonathan Eig, New York Times bestselling author of King: A Life Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago that still stands today. He was a working-class white guy from Cincinnati who made it; less talented than tough, and rough around the edges. He was everything that America wanted and needed him to be, the American dream personified, until he wasn't. In the 1980s, Pete Rose came to be at the center of one of the biggest scandals in baseball history. He kept secrets, ran with bookies, took on massive gambling debts, and he was magnificently, publicly cast out for betting on baseball and lying about it. The revelations that followed ruined him, changed life in Cincinnati, and forever altered the game. Charlie Hustle tells the full story of one of America's most epic tragedies--the rise and fall of Pete Rose. Drawing on firsthand interviews with Rose himself and with his associates, as well as on investigators' reports, FBI and court records, archives, a mountain of press coverage, Keith O'Brien chronicles how Rose fell so far from being America's "great white hope." It is Pete Rose as we've never seen him before. This is no ordinary sport biography, but cultural history at its finest. What O'Brien shows is that while Pete Rose didn't change, America and baseball did. This is the story of that change.

~ Do Fewer Things. Work at a Natural Pace. Obsess over Quality. ~ From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload Our current definition of "productivity" is broken. It pushes us to treat busyness as a proxy for useful effort, leading to impossibly lengthy task lists and ceaseless meetings. We're overwhelmed by all we have to do and on the edge of  burnout, left to decide between giving into soul-sapping hustle culture or rejecting ambition altogether. But are these really our only choices? Long before the arrival of pinging inboxes and clogged schedules, history's most creative and impactful philosophers, scientists, artists, and writers mastered the art of producing valuable work with staying power. In this timely and provocative book, Cal Newport harnesses the wisdom of these traditional knowledge workers to radically transform our modern jobs. Drawing from deep research on the habits and mindsets of a varied cast of storied thinkers - from Galileo and Isaac Newton, to Jane Austen and Georgia O'Keefe - Newport lays out the key principles of "slow productivity," a more sustainable alternative to the aimless overwhelm that defines our current moment. Combining cultural criticism with systematic pragmatism, Newport deconstructs the absurdities inherent in standard notions of productivity, and then provides step-by-step advice for cultivating a slower, more humane alternative. From the aggressive rethinking of workload management, to introducing seasonal variation, to shifting your performance toward long-term quality, Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  From New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health--and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. "Erudite, engaging, combative, crusading." --New York Times Book Review "Words that chill the parental heart...  thanks to Mr. Haidt, we can glimpse the true horror of what happened not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere in the English-speaking world... lucid, memorable... galvanizing." --Wall Street Journal "[An] important new book...The shift in kids' energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls." --Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the "play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the "collective action problems" that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes--communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children--and ourselves--from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

The extraordinary final novel from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by the Washington Post, TIME Magazine, BBC, TODAY, Elle, CrimeReads, and more "Hailed as the queen of Irish crime fiction, French spins a taut tale of retribution, sacrifice, and family."--TIME From the New York Times bestselling author of The Searcher and "one of the greatest crime novelists writing today" (Vox), a spellbinding new novel set in the Irish countryside. It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less: he's built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he's gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey's long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn't want protecting. What she wants is revenge. From the writer who is "in a class by herself," (The New York Times), a nuanced, atmospheric tale that explores what we'll do for our loved ones, what we'll do for revenge, and what we sacrifice when the two collide.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA'S APRIL BOOK CLUB PICK * An exuberant debut, The Husbands delights in asking: how do we navigate life, love, and choice in a world of never-ending options? ("A time-bending gem"--Gabrielle Zevin; "Kaleidoscopic and bright and very, very funny." -Claire Lombardo) When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There's only one problem--she's not married. She's never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they've been together for years. As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can't remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you've taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

Great American novelist Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, returns with a luminescent novel about storytelling that reads like an instant classic. "Only an alchemist as wise and sure as Alvarez could swirl the elements of folklore and the flavor of magical realism around her modern prose and make it all sing . . . Lively, joyous . . . often witty, occasionally somber and elegiac." --Luis Alberto Urrea, The New York Times Book Review "Engaging and written in a playful, crystal-clear prose, this novel explores friendship, love, sisterhood, living between cultures, and how people can be haunted by the things they don't finish . . . Entertaining . . . Heartwarming." --Gabino Iglesias, The Boston Globe **Named a Most Anticipated Book by the New York Times, Washington Post, Today.com, Goodreads, B&N Reads, Literary Hub, HipLatina, BookPage, BBC.com, Zibby Mag, and more** Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.   Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.   The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

One of Elle's Best and Most Anticipated Mysteries of 2024 * THE PRINCESS IS FAKE. THE MURDERS ARE REAL * From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip. Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy's daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy's sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy's carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. A riveting tale of identity, obsession, fintech, and high-tech mobsters, The Princess of Las Vegas is an addictive, wildly original thriller from one of our most extraordinary storytellers.

From New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd comes a twisty emotional thriller about a woman's perilous quest for revenge, perfect for fans of Sandra Brown, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Lisa Jewell. Never whisper the truth.  Never reveal the past. In an isolated lighthouse on the California coast, Rowan Winterbourne lives a solitary life with only her secrets for company. For she has a mission that drives her--to avenge herself against Gregory Torval, the powerful drug and arms dealer who murdered her mother and vowed to eliminate everyone in her family. Then Joe Grantham arrives at her door and, for the first time, Rowan lets her guard down--a dangerous mistake when he blackmails her to go with him to Torval's private island. There Torval's decadent birthday celebration rages, and while Joe pursues his own agenda, she'll provide the perfect distraction. On Raptor Island, Torval's will is law and Joe, the closest she has to an ally, is an enigma she can't trust. One false move, one careless word, and Rowan will die. As dark truths are uncovered, one by one, Rowan recognizes her last chance for the revenge has come. But is it worth everything she must sacrifice to get out alive? "If Lisa Jewell, Ruth Ware and Lucy Foley are on your Mount Rushmore of suspense writers, Dodd's latest release definitely needs a spot on your shelf."-- E! News on Forget What You Know

From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women--at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided. Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets--and becomes one of--the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost. But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam. The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

Benny is so nice they feel compelled to destroy him, but he has a friend who should scare the hell out of them in this breathtaking new kind of thriller by #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz. Benny Catspaw's perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée, and his favorite chair. He's not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn't know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he's never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange--though it's a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what's inside the crate. He's a seven-foot-tall self-described "bad weather friend" named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. Spike will take care of it. He'll find Benny's enemies. He'll deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn't such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation. In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure, the likes of which never would have crossed the mind of a decent guy like him.

Biloxi's best criminal defense attorney has never lost a case. Then his client's beautiful wife is murdered, and America's #1 lawyer suddenly becomes its #1 suspect.  Stafford Lee Penney is a small-town lawyer with a big-time reputation for winning every case he tries. In his sharp suits and polished Oxford shoes, Penney is Biloxi, Mississippi's #1 Lawyer and top local celebrity.   Just as Penney notches his latest courtroom victory, his wife is scandalously killed. He spirals into a legal and personal losing streak, damaging his reputation and ruining his career.    That's when Penney makes a bold decision. He stops trading on his power-lawyer identity and creates a new one: lawyer lifeguard. Moonlighting at the beach, showing up to court in flip-flops, mentoring a law student, the new Penney is at first unrecognizable.    It's said that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But when Penney is accused of murder, the #1 Lawyer will find a way to triumph. 

From the Amazon Charts and New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow Box and Last Day comes a breathtaking thriller about a family shaken by lies, vengeance, and a cold-blooded crime. A fierce blizzard is burying the eastern seaboard, but on the icy Rhode Island shore renowned artist Maddie Morrison finds warm sanctuary from a contentious divorce at the legendary Ocean House. Hours later, her body is found buried under a blanket of snow and her little daughter, CeCe, has disappeared without a trace. For Detective Conor Reid; his brother, Tom, a coast guard commander; and Maddie's grieving sister, Hadley, the posh hotel becomes ground zero for an investigation. Trapped by the blizzard, they must hunker down and determine who in the young mother's life could have possibly wanted her dead. There are stories of a twisted romantic past. Of old jealousies and resentments that still cut to the bone. And a history of greed, rage, and revenge that created the perfect storm for murder. A storm that has just begun.

Lisa Scottoline, the #1 bestselling author of What Happened to the Bennetts, presents another pulse-pounding domestic thriller about family, justice, and the lies that tear us apart. TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm--except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can't get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ's world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he murdered one of their clients, an accountant he'd confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin. TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother. But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.

From the acclaimed authors of the runaway New York Times bestseller 2034 comes another explosive work of speculative fiction set twenty years further in the future, at a moment when a radical leap forward in artificial intelligence combines with America's violent partisan divide to create an existential threat to the country, and the world It is twenty years after the catastrophic war between the United States and China that brought down the old American political order. A new party has emerged in the US, one that's held power for over a decade. Efforts to cement its grip have resulted in mounting violent resistance. The American president has control of the media, but he is beginning to lose control of the streets. Many fear he'll stop at nothing to remain in the White House. Suddenly, he collapses in the middle of an address to the nation. After an initial flurry of misinformation, the administration reluctantly announces his death. A cover-up ensues, conspiracy theories abound, and the country descends into a new type of civil war. A handful of elite actors from the worlds of computer science, intelligence, and business have a fairly good idea what happened. All signs point to a profound breakthrough in AI, of which the remote assassination of an American president is hardly the most game-changing ramification. The trail leads to an outpost in the Amazon rainforest, the last known whereabouts of the tech visionary who predicted this breakthrough. As some of the world's great powers, old and new, state and nonstate alike, struggle to outmaneuver one another in this new Great Game of scientific discovery, the outcome becomes entangled with the fate of American democracy. Combining a deep understanding of AI, biotech, and the possibility of a coming Singularity, along with their signature geopolitical sophistication, Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis have once again written a visionary work. 2054 is a novel that reads like a thriller even as it demands that we consider the trajectory of our society and its potentially calamitous destination.

Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is an irresistibly propulsive collaborative novel from the Authors Guild, with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice--from Margaret Atwood and Celeste Ng to Tommy Orange and John Grisham. One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbors gather, bringing chairs and milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants--some of whom have barely spoken to each other--become real neighbors. In this Decameron-like serial novel, general editors Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to the people who couldn't escape when the pandemic hit. A dazzling, heartwarming, and ultimately surprising narrative, Fourteen Days reveals how beneath the horrible loss and suffering, some communities managed to become stronger. Includes writing from: Charlie Jane Anders, Margaret Atwood, Joseph Cassara, Jennine Capó Crucet, Angie Cruz, Pat Cummings, Sylvia Day, Emma Donoghue, Dave Eggers, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, John Grisham, Maria Hinojosa, Mira Jacob, Erica Jong, CJ Lyons, Celeste Ng, Tommy Orange, Mary Pope Osborne, Douglas Preston, Alice Randall, Ishmael Reed, Roxana Robinson, Nelly Rosario, James Shapiro, Hampton Sides, R.L. Stine, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Monique Truong, Scott Turow, Luis Alberto Urrea, Rachel Vail, Weike Wang, Caroline Randall Williams, De'Shawn Charles Winslow, and Meg Wolitzer!

Now that her brilliant botanist daughter is off at college, buttoned-up Maeve Cosgrove loves her job at a quiet Maine public library more than anything. But when a teenager accuses Maeve--Maeve!--of spying on her romantic escapades in the mezzanine bathroom, she winds up laid off and humiliated. Stuck at home in a tailspin, Maeve cares for the mysterious plants in her daughter's greenhouse while obsessing over the clearly troubled girl at the source of the rumor. She hopes to have a powerful ally in her attempts to clear her name: her favorite author, Harrison Riddles, who has finally responded to her adoring letters and accepted an invitation to speak at the library. Riddles, meanwhile, arrives in town with his own agenda. He announces a plan to write a novel about another young library patron, Sudanese refugee Willie, and enlists Maeve's help in convincing him to participate. Maeve wants to look out for Willie, but Riddles's charisma and the sheen of literary glory he promises are difficult to resist. A scheme to get her job back draws Maeve further into Riddles's universe--where shocking questions about sex, morality, and the purpose of literature threaten to upend her orderly life. A writer of "savage compassion" (Salvatore Scibona, author of The Volunteer), Sarah Braunstein constructs a shrewd, page-turning caper that explores one woman's search for agency and ultimate reckoning with the kind of animal she is.

The author of the "magnificent...complex, vivid" (New York Journal of Books) Sin Eater returns with a rousing and propulsive novel based on the astonishing true story of the first female Pinkerton detective whose next assignment could end the Civil War. Kate Warne is many things: the country's first female detective, a Pinkerton agent, and a union spy. It's August 1861, and her latest assignment could finally end the bloody war and bring the fractured United States together again. All she has to do is win the trust of her captive: Confederate spy and socialite Rose Greenhow. But with Rose well aware of Kate's working-class background and belief in abolitionism, it seems an impossible task. Worst, Kate has secrets that make her vulnerable, such as her forbidden love affair with a colleague. With time running out, Kate faces not only the moral and political divides between herself and Rose but also the ones she made in her own heart and life. Can she make the difficult decision over which divides are worth crossing? Or will she fail the most important assignment of her career in this spellbinding and moving new novel from Megan Campisi?

For fans of Knives Out comes a spellbinding thriller from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window "I'll be dead in three months. Come tell my story." So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . while living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life "detective-fever." "You and I might even solve an old mystery or two." Twenty years earlier--on New Year's Eve 1999--Sebastian's first wife and teenage son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past? "Life is hard. After all, it kills you." As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian's life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family's koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn't gone--it's just waiting.

For fans of Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa, a powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control. Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she's not the greatest at keeping Doug's place spotless, but she's trying to please him. She's trying hard. She's learning, too. Doug says he loves that Annie's AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy, and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?

"Big Brother meets Clue in this utterly original and incredibly tense locked-room mystery." --May Cobb, author of A Likeable Woman A mysterious high-stakes game proves life-threatening in this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Overnight Guest  The Best Friend. The Confidant. The Senator. The Boyfriend. The Executive. Five contestants have been chosen to compete for ten million dollars on the game show One Lucky Winner. The catch? None of them knows what (or who) to expect, and it will be live streamed all over the world. Completely secluded in an estate in Northern California, with strict instructions not to leave the property and zero contact with the outside world, the competitors start to feel a little too isolated. When long-kept secrets begin to rise to the surface, the contestants realize this is no longer just a reality show--someone is out for blood. And the game can't end until the world knows who the contestants really are... And don't miss these other enthralling thrillers by Heather Gudenkauf: The Weight of Silence These Things Hidden Little Mercies Missing Pieces Not a Sound Before She Was Found This is How I Lied The Overnight Guest

Named a Most Anticipated Book By:  Washington Post * Book Riot * Electric Literature * LitHub * ELLE * The Millions * Goodreads * Reader's Digest A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister's surgery. When she sees a young man--Omar--who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada's bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.  Searing and empathetic,The Great Divide explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers--those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick! This witty, slow-burn rom-com is the "ideal beach read." --Elle Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it's now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They'll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other's out, and they'll both go on to find the love of their lives. It's a bonkers idea... and it just might work.  Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka. It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

NAMED A VOGUE BEST BOOK OF 2024 NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY BOOKRIOT, THE MILLIONS, LITHUB AND MORE! "A moving, strikingly evocative exploration of New York's art, tech, and activism scenes across the decades."-Vogue The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life? In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. "Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves," they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity. By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet's early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves. Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.

The sensational brand new thriller that BookTok is calling "absolutely A-M-A-Z-I-N-G" (@hollylovesbooks1519) and "impossible to put down" (@kurryreads), from the bestselling author of Local Woman Missing and Just the Nicest Couple Everyone has secrets, but not everyone has remorse... A terrible accident. Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below. A shocking revelation. When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin's fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was Caitlin actually pushed and if so, by whom and why? No one is safe. Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she's deeply entangled in the mystery surrounding her. Only when it's too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims... "A tense, compelling thriller with completely gasp-worthy twists." --Nita Prose, #1 bestselling author of The Maid Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica: The Good Girl The Other Mrs. Local Woman Missing Just the Nicest Couple  

"A touching, inventive novel about belonging and loss" (People) from the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland "I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht's prose. . . Read in the context of today's conflicts and injustices, climate emergencies, and political and racial divisions--together more dystopian than any dystopian novel--the book surprised me most with its undercurrent of hope."--Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers, in The New York Times (Editors' Choice) There's the world you can see. And then there's the one you can't. Welcome to the Morningside. After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia's aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality. Enchanted by Ena's stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia's mission to unravel the truth about this woman's life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything. Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell--and the stories we refuse to tell--to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.

"A deadly, dangerous, beautiful nightmare." -- Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End For readers of Rachel Hawkins and We Were Never Here comes a searing vacation thriller set on a remote island in Thailand following two mysterious women, a charismatic group of expats, and the one murder poised to bring their paradise crashing down. Welcome to paradise. We hope you survive your stay... There are three rules to follow during a vacation at the famous Koh Sang Resort 1 - Leave the past behind. When Cass sets foot on the coast of Thailand's world-famous party island, she's searching for an escape. With dark secrets following her every move, Koh Sang becomes the perfect place to hide. 2 - Always be careful of who you trust. Now, years later, Cass is a local dive instructor alongside the Permanents, a group of expats who have claimed the island as their own. The Permanents don't linger on who they were before the island. Simply because, like Cass, they all have something to outrun. 3 - If someone discovers who you really are, run. But suddenly, a dive student is found dead and paradise comes crashing down. Because this isn't the first mysterious death on the island, and it won't be the last. Someone knows who Cass is and they're ready to make sure justice is finally served.

A wife, mother, and frustrated writer faces an impossible deadline for turning her life around in a hilarious debut novel about family, friendship, success, and exhilarating self-(re)discovery. Pippa Jones is a fortyish former literary sensation who fears she will be a one-hit wonder. After the follow-up book she was almost done writing, Podlusters, had to be tossed (it ended up sharing a plot and title with superstar author Ella Rankin's summer blockbuster!), she couldn't write a thing. Months of staring at a blank page made her confidence vanish like a one-night stand. When she finds out that she has only five days left to finish (or rather, start) or repay an advance she's already spent, Pippa has a brilliantly original idea. Okay, fine, her twelve-year-old son came up with it as a joke, but Pippa and her teenage daughter approved. Pippa's not only going to make a bold statement, but she'll change the book world while she's at it! Can she pull it off? At this point, she doesn't have a choice. When Pippa's publisher gets intimately involved, it unlocks a series of plot twists she never saw coming. From the courtyards of posh Beverly Hills hotels and Malibu mega-mansions to Brentwood and Santa Monica bookstores, Pippa races against time--in her used Volvo--and discovers more about her career, marriage, family, friends, and herself than she ever could have dreamed up.

From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes a love story that will define a generation. Being single is like playing the lottery. There's always the chance that with one piece of paper you could win it all. Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it--the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she'd spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there's only a name: Jake. But as Jake and Daphne's story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper's prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn't, information that--if he found out--would break his heart. Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.

"Lisa Unger, you've done it again." --Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emmy Award-winning actress A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this unputdownable thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six. Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad's late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade. At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn't feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there's more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell. Looking for more spine-tingling thrillers? Check out these other titles by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger: Under My Skin The Stranger Inside Confessions on the 7:45 Last Girl Ghosted Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six

A "captivating, behind-the-scenes account" of NASA's historic OSIRIS-REx mission to return an asteroid sample and unlock the mystery of formation on life on earth braided with the remarkable life story of the mission's leader, Dr. Dante Lauretta (Sara Seager). On September 11, 1999, humanity made a monumental discovery in the vastness of space. Scientists uncovered an asteroid of immense scientific importance-a colossal celestial entity. As massive as an aircraft carrier and towering as high as the iconic Empire State Building, this cosmic titan was later named Bennu. Remarkable for much more than its size, Bennu belonged to a rare breed of asteroids capable of revealing the essence of life itself. But just as Bennu became a beacon of promise, researchers identified a grave danger. Hurtling through space, it threatens to collide with our planet on September 24, 2182. Leading the expedition was Dr. Dante Lauretta, the Principal Investigator of NASA's audacious OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission. Tasked with unraveling Bennu's mysteries, his team embarked on a daring quest to retrieve a precious sample from the asteroid's surface - one that held the potential to not only unlock the secrets of life's origins but also to avert an unprecedented catastrophe. A tale of destiny and danger, The Asteroid Hunter chronicles the high-stakes mission firsthand, narrated by Dr. Lauretta. It offers readers an intimate glimpse into the riveting exploits of the mission and Dr. Lauretta's wild, winding personal journey to Bennu and back. Peeling back the curtain on the wonders of the cosmos, this enthralling account promises a rare glimpse into the tightly woven fabric of scientific exploration, where technical precision converges with humanity's profound curiosity and indominable spirit.

New York Times bestselling author Dr. Sara Gottfried reveals how trauma can rewire your body to trigger autoimmune diseases--and provides a comprehensive plan to reset your immune system and finally heal. We know that autoimmune disease--a condition when the body's immune system attacks its own healthy tissue and cells--affects about one in ten Americans, or 24 million people, with prevalence increasing worldwide. But as New York Times bestselling author Dr. Sara Gottfried explains in this eye-opening new book, autoimmune disease may be even more pervasive than we realize--and its root cause may surprise you. Conventional medicine falls short when it comes to both diagnosing and treating autoimmune disease. Many people suffer from mysterious symptoms--like severe fatigue, brain fog, aches and pains, feelings of tingling and numbness, stubborn weight gain, abdominal pain, digestive problems, hair loss, insomnia, and even anxiety--and don't realize their immune system is at the root of their symptoms. In her precision medicine practice, Dr. Gottfried noticed a seemingly unusual pattern: many of her patients who suffer from autoimmune disease and symptoms have a history of trauma. Emerging research shows that up to 80% of patients with autoimmune disease experienced significant emotional distress before getting sick. With The Autoimmune Cure, there is hope on the horizon for the tens of millions of people who suffer from autoimmune disease. Dr. Gottfried has created a powerful program designed to break the vicious cycle of autoimmune disease, reset your immune system, and restore your health, with advice on: diet sleep supplements breathwork microbiome restoration somatic therapy ketamine-assisted treatment microdosing psilocybin MDMA-assisted therapy The Autoimmune Cure offers a roadmap to lasting relief from autoimmune disease by addressing the root cause of the condition and healing the body, mind, and spirit.

An investigative narrative that dives into the waste embedded in our daily lives--and shows how individuals and communities are making a real difference for health, prosperity, quality of life and the fight against climate change, by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist What happens to our trash? Why are our oceans filling with plastic? Do we really waste 40 percent of our food 65 percent of our energy? Waste is truly our biggest problem, and solving our inherent trashiness can fix our economy, our energy costs, our traffic jams, and help slow climate change--all while making us healthier, happier and more prosperous.     This story-driven and in-depth exploration of the pervasive yet hard-to-see wastefulness that permeates our daily lives illuminates the ways in which we've been duped into accepting absolutely insane levels of waste as normal. Total Garbage also tells the story of individuals and communities who are finding the way back from waste, and showing us that our choices truly matter and make a difference.     Our big environmental challenges - climate, energy, plastic pollution, deforestation, toxic emissions--are often framed as problems too big for any one person to solve. Too big even for hope. But when viewed as symptoms of a single greater problem--the epic levels of trash and waste we produce daily--the way forward is clear. Waste is the one problem individuals can positively impact--and not just on the planet, but also on our wallets, our health, and national and energy security. The challenge is seeing our epic wastefulness clearly.     Total Garbage will shine a light on the absurdity of the systems that all of us use daily and take for granted--and it will help both individuals and communities make meaningful changes toward better lives and a cleaner, greener world.