By Fiona Davis
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
Interior designer Bailey Camdenis leaps at a chance to renovate her heiress cousin's lavish apartment at The Dakota, and learns the scandalous history of a distant ancestor's connection to the murder of the building's architect a century earlier.
By Kate Quinn
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
When pregnant American student Charlie St. Clair is banished to Europe by her family to have her baby, she takes the opportunity to head for London to find her missing French cousin and teams up with Eve, a former spy from the Alice Network, to solve the mystery.
By Neil deGrasse Tyson
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
The notable host of StarTalk reveals just what people need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
By B. A. Paris
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
The friends of a seemingly perfect socialite couple begin to see cracks in the facade when they realize that the husband and wife are never apart and that there are bars on one of the couple's upstairs windows.
By A. F. Brady
As accomplished Manhattan psychologist Sam James gets pulled into the twisted past of a patient no other therapist is willing to treat, she analyzes her life and confronts her own mental turmoil.
A dual memoir and guide to healing by a psychologist and Holocaust survivor counsels patients on how to escape the prisons of their own minds, describing her harrowing experiences in Auschwitz and how it gave her particular insights into the challenges of PTSD.
By Nora Roberts
Series Three Sisters Island Trilogy
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
After a year on the run, Nell Channing feels that she can make a home for herself on Three Sisters Island and, aided by Mia, the proprietor of the island's small book store and Ripley, the town's assistant sheriff, she finally dares to envision a brighter future.
By Fiona Davis
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
Arriving at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, a plain, self– conscious secretarial school student is befriended by a hotel maid, who introduces her to the city's jazz and drug counterculture, and becomes involved in a deadly skirmish that reverberates half a century later.
By Gail Honeyman
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian , Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, July 10, 2018. 7:30 PM.
A socially awkward, routine–oriented loner teams up with a bumbling IT guy from her office to assist an elderly accident victim, forging a friendship that saves all three from lives of isolation and secret unhappiness.
By Alexander McCall Smith
Presents a modern rendering of Jane Austen's classic that follows the experiences of a college graduate who returns to the side of her health–nut father and interferes in the personal lives of her friends.
By Regina Calcaterra
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Amy B., Children's Librarian
“A tenacious lawyer, state official, and activist records her childhood in foster homes and on the streets with her four siblings, revealing a life of horrible abuse in the shadows between Manhattan and the Hamptons (From the Publisher).”
By Kurt Andersen
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
Explains how the influences of dreamers, zealots, hucksters, and superstitious groups shaped America's tendency toward a rich fantasy life, citing the roles of individuals from P.T. Barnum to Donald Trump in perpetuating conspiracy theories, self–delusion, and magical thinking.
By Regina Calcaterra
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
The authors share the experiences of youngest sister Rosie as a child of an alcoholic, abusive mother after moving into foster care in Long Island before being forced to continue living with her damaged mother in Idaho after her sisters made their escape.
By Hyeonseo Lee
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
An extraordinary insight into the life under one of the world's most ruthless and secretive dictatorships–and the story of one woman's terrifying struggle to escape.
By Kurt Andersen
Englishman Benjamin Knowles heads for America to build a new life and joins up with three young Americans—journalist Timothy Skaggs, war veteran Duff Lucking, and Duff's actress sister, Polly—to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of California.
By Yaa Gyasi
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Two half–sisters, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in eighteenth–century Ghana and experience profoundly different lives and legacies throughout subsequent generations.
By Clare Mackintosh
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk
Devastated by a hit-and-run accident that has ended the life of her young son, Jenna moves to the remote Welsh coast to search for healing while two dedicated policemen try to get to the bottom of the case.
By Isabel Allende
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
A minor traffic accident becomes a catalyst for an unexpected bond among a human rights scholar in Brooklyn, his Chilean tenant, and an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, who explore the difficulties of immigrants and refugees.
By Jed Rubenfeld
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
In 1909, as a sadistic killer stalks Manhattan’s wealthiest heiresses, Sigmund Freud is called in by American analyst Dr. Stratham Younger to assist him in interviewing Nora Acton, a hysterical survivor of the killer who can recall nothing about the attack.
By Elizabeth Bettina
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
Take a journey with the author as she discovers much to her surprise, that her grandparent's small village, nestled in the heart of southern Italy, housed an internment camp for Jews during the Holocaust, and that it was far from the only one.
By Jojo Moyes
More than 40 years after a car accident causes Jennifer Stirling to lose her memory on the day she planned to leave her husband for a mysterious lover, journalist Ellie becomes obsessed by the story and struggles to learn what happened in the hopes of revitalizing her career and romantic prospects.
By Lisa Ko
An award–winning debut novel follows the experiences of a Chinese youth who when his undocumented worker mother fails to return home is adopted by a family that attempts to make him over as an American teen while he struggles to reconcile his new life with memories of the family he left behind.
By Celeste Ng
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, November 26, 2019. 1PM.
When a custody battle divides her placid town, straitlaced family woman Elena Richardson finds herself pitted against her enigmatic tenant and becomes obsessed with exposing her past, only to trigger devastating consequences for both families.
By Rebecca Easton
The executive producer of "Masterpiece Theater" and "Mystery!" shares stories from her prestigious career and anecdotes behind such productions as "Downton Abbey" and "Sherlock" to lend insight into their success and cultural influence.
By Fredrik Backman
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian
Tuesday, November 24, 2015. 1:30 PM.
A curmudgeon hides a terrible personal loss beneath a cranky and short-tempered exterior while clashing with new neighbors, a boisterous family whose chattiness and habits lead to unexpected friendship.
By Michelle Richmond
Picture–perfect newlyweds are unexpectedly initiated into a mysterious organization designed to keep marriages happy and intact by enforcing seemingly thoughtful rules that become increasingly exacting and subject to brutal enforcement.
By Kristin Hannah
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.
Genre Modern Era, Holocaust Fiction, European Fiction, French Fiction, World War II Fiction, Historical Fiction, Cultural Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Loss/Grief, Secrets, Separation, Relationships, Family Relationships, Men/Women Relationships, Romance/Love Stories, Historical Romance, Survival Stories (Fiction), War Stories (Fiction), World War II
Teen Genre Adult Books for Teens
By Alice McDermott
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian
Tuesday, January 29, 2019. 1:30 PM.
A portrait of the Irish–American experience is presented through the story of an Irish immigrant's suicide and how it reverberates through innumerable lives in early twentieth–century Catholic Brooklyn.
By Marie Benedict
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services
Tuesday, January 30, 2018. 1:30 PM.
A tale inspired by the extraordinary first wife of Albert Einstein follows the experiences of a solitary female physics student at an elite late–19th–century school in Zurich, where she falls in love with a charismatic fellow student who eclipses her contributions to his theory of relativity.
By Min Jin Lee
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
In early 1900s Korea, prized daughter Sunja finds herself pregnant and alone, bringing shame on her family until a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and move with her to Japan, in the saga of one family bound together as their faith and identity are called into question.
By Kathleen Tessaro
After receiving a large inheritance from a complete stranger, London socialite and newlywed Grace Monroe searches for the identity of her mysterious benefactor and uncovers the story of a unique woman.
By Galt Niederhoffer
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Starting over after moving to Portland, Maine, a newly blended family forged by two seemingly happy career people becomes subject to small omissions and a series of denials that escalate in menacing ways.
By Kate Moore
Recounts the struggles of hundreds of women who were exposed to radium while working factory jobs during World War I, describing how they were misled by their employers and became embroiled in a battle for workers' rights
By Lucinda Riley
Series Seven Sisters series
Gathering at their Lake Geneva estate when their adoptive father passes away, six sisters receive tantalizing clues about their true heritage, prompting Maia to journey to Rio de Janeiro to learn the story of her parents' forbidden love.
By Jessmyn Ward
Recommended By Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk
Living with his grandparents and sister on a Gulf Coast farm, Jojo navigates the challenges of his mother's addictions and his grandmother's cancer before the release of his father from prison prompts a road trip of danger and hope.
By Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Pierce Bush
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
The fraternal twin daughters of the 43rd U.S. president share personal stories and reflections from their lives within a political dynasty, from their grandfather's presidency through their subsequent upbringing under the eyes of the Secret Service, public, and paparazzi.
By Jodi Picoult
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
Hesitating to treat the newborn of a white supremacist couple who has demanded that a white nurse assist them, a black nurse is placed on trial in the tragic aftermath and is aided by a white public defender with whom she begins questioning their beliefs as the case becomes more racially charged.
By Lisa Genova
Recommended By Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian
“Fifty-year-old Alice Howland, a highly respected linguistics professor, suddenly begins feeling disoriented and confused. Her diagnosis-early-onset Alzheimer's-irrevocably changes her life as well as the lives of her husband and three grown children (Library Journal).”
By Viet Thanh Nguyen
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian
Follows a Viet Cong agent as he spies on a South Vietnamese army general and his compatriots as they start a new life in 1975 Los Angeles.
By Lynda La Plante
From the creator of the award–winning Prime Suspect comes the gripping story of DCI Jane Tennison's past, and her first ever murder case.
By Mark Lachs
A guide to help seniors take control of their health and navigate the broken health–care system explains how to find the right doctors, why the hospital is no place for sick people, and how to make home improvements that will keep the nursing home at bay.
By Georgia Hunter
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services
A novel based on the true story of a Jewish-Polish family recounts how the Kurcs are scattered throughout the world by the horrors of World War II and fight hardships to survive, reach safety, and find each other.
By Liane Moriarty
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Rosalia White, Library Clerk
“Suffering an accident that causes her to forget the last ten years of her life, Alice is astonished to discover that she is thirty-nine years old, a mother of three children, and in the midst of an acrimonious divorce from a man she dearly loves (From the Publisher).”
By Jessica Shattuck
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian
Tuesday, February 27, 2018. 1:30 PM.
At the end of World War II, Marianne von Lingenfels offers shelter to two widows of fallen resistance fighters and their children in a formerly majestic Bavarian castle that was once host to German aristocrats.
By R.J. Palacio
Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
Genre Teen Books for Adults, Books to Screen, Children's Books for Adults, Movies, Realistic Fiction
Teen Genre Gentle Reads
Kids Genre Top 20 (Fall 2013), Books for Boys, Realistic Fiction, Top 20 (Fall 2013)
By Ben Mezrich
Traces the pioneering work of a group of young scientists who sequenced the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth harvested from the Arctic Circle to resurrect the extinct species as part of a larger effort to slow the advances of global warming.
Genre Science & Nature