By Marie-Helene Bertino
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer traces the unlikely bond between a precocious 9-year-old jazz singer, a divorcee teacher who would reunite with her high-school sweetheart and a club owner facing the imminent loss of his Philadelphia business.

By Albert Brooks
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

“A near-future world struggles with the challenges of a dramatically aging population revitalized by the cure for cancer, a scenario that is challenged by an unprecedented natural disaster that drives the government into bankruptcy (From the Publisher).”

By Sherman Alexie
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all–white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

By Toni Jordan

Carefully controlling her world through obsessive counting practices, OCD sufferer and former teacher Grace finds herself increasingly unable to relate to others. Estranged from her family, her life is disrupted by potential romance when a kind stranger invites her to share a café table.

By Abbi Waxman
Series Bookish Life of Nina Hill #2

Moving to Los Angeles to escape memories of an awful accident, Laura Costello finds herself homeless in a fire, taken in by a rogue bookseller running a lovely but illegal boardinghouse, and tasked with rescuing a losing trivia team.

By Jami Attenberg
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Hiding the truth about her unhappiness and struggles with anxiety from everyone including her family, best friend and therapist, an alcoholic designer joins her loved ones in a reevaluation of family strength in the wake of a newborn’s heartbreaking ailment.

By Jules Moulin

Ten years after single mother and college professor Ally Hughes decides against a relationship with Jake, one of her students who challenges her to open up her life to love, Jake reenters her life--as her grown daughter's new boyfriend.

By Michael Chabon

In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier, a refugee from Hitler's Prague, joins forces with his Brooklyn-born cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic-book superheroes inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams.

By Neil Gaiman
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Wednesday, April 25. 7:30 PM

“On the plane home to attend the funerals of his wife and best friend, Shadow, just released from prison, encounters Mr. Wednesday, an enigmatic stranger who seems to know a lot about him, and when Mr. Wednesday offers him a job as his bodyguard, Shadow accepts and is plunged into a dark and perilous world, where the soul of America is at stake (From the Publisher).”

By Brock Clarke

Sam Pulsifer is determined to put his past behind him after serving a prison term for torching an American literary landmark and killing two people in the blaze, but when the homes of notable American writers begin to go up in smoke, his history makes him the prime suspect.

By Jeffrey Archer
Recommended By Arlene Silverman, Library Clerk

“…Some of these stories will make you laugh while others will bring you to tears but, once again, every one of them will demand that you keep turning the page until you finally discover what happens to this remarkable cast of characters (From the Publisher).”

By Ben H. Winters

When a secret cabal of radical scientific revolutionaries launches an attack on Russian high society's high-tech lifestyle, the classic love story's heroes--Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky--must fight back with all their courage, all their gadgets, and all the power of a sleek new cyborg model like nothing the world has ever seen.

By George Orwell
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, July 14, 2015. 7:30 PM.

A satire on totalitarianism in which farm animals overthrow their human owner and set up their own government.

Became the movie: Animal Farm.

By Fredrik Backman
Recommended By Isabel Zinman, Readers' Services Librarian

Taken hostage by a failed bank robber while attending an open house, eight anxiety–prone strangers—including a redemption–seeking bank director, two couples who would fix their marriages and a plucky octogenarian—discover their unexpected common traits.

By Brock Clarke

“… a delightfully dark story of Sam Pulsifer, the "accidental arsonist and murderer" narrator who leads readers through a multilayered, flame-filled adventure about literature, lies, love and life … (Publishers Weekly).”

By Jeffrey Cohen
Series Aaron Tucker Mysteries

In this, the third Aaron Tucker mystery, Aaron, fresh from a trip to Hollywood to "take meetings" on his screenplay, finds himself dragged kicking and screaming once again into investigating a murder, this time of a man in a nearby town shot while walking his dog at night. The young man accused of the crime has Asperger’s Syndrome, the same autism-related disorder that Aaron's son Ethan has had since birth.

By Jill A. Davis

Taking a much-needed break from her career and love life when her mother is diagnosed with a highly treatable form of cancer, lawyer Emily is disillusioned by her mother's dramatic attention-seeking behaviors, remembers the father who left when she was five, and takes an unobtrusive job in her father's law firm.

By Rainbow Rowell
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist
With Stacey Mencher, Readers' Services Librarian

Monday, March 14, 2016. 7 PM.

Gossiping and sharing their personal secrets on e-mail in spite of their company's online monitoring practices, Beth and Jennifer unwittingly amuse Internet security officer Lincoln, who unexpectedly falls for Beth.

By Lemony Snicket
Series Series of Unfortunate Events

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

By Gil McNeil
Series Jo Mackenzie Novels

Suddenly widowed by a car crash that ended the life of her unfaithful husband, Jo moves to a small seaside community and takes over her grandmother's knitting shop, where she is introduced to a dessert-addicted knitting club.

By Josh Bazell
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

In this debut thriller, an intern at a run-down Manhattan hospital who's atoning for his former life as a mob hit man encounters in the course of a single day a patient with a mystery illness, a 21-year-old girl about to have a leg amputated, and a former mob associate.

By Chuck Palahniuk

Invited by a notorious playboy to a Paris hotel, a Manhattan legal associate discovers that she is a test subject for the final development of sex toys for women.

By Libba Bray

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

By Roger Rosenblatt
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

 “In his second novel, Rosenblatt creates a satire about higher education that would be hilarious if it didn't come quite so close to the truth. The essence of college life taken to the extreme will make readers laugh out loud (Library Journal).”

By Claire Cook
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

"A professional home stager in the Boston suburbs, Sandy Sullivan, after reading her family the riot act, takes a job staging a boutique hotel in Atlanta where she becomes immersed in other people’s lives while trying to fix up her own (From the Publisher)."

By Jennifer Crusie
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

Agreeing not to pursue a relationship after one date, unlikely lovers Min Dobbs and Cal Morrisey are thrown together again in the wake of such factors as a jealous ex-boyfriend, a determined psychologist, and a bizarrely intelligent cat.

By Adriana Trigiani
Series Big Stone Gap Novels
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

“Big Cherry Holler, the extraordinary sequel to Big Stone Gap, takes us back to the mountain life that enchanted us in Adriana Trigiani’s best selling debut novel (From the Publisher).”

By Adriana Trigiani
Series Big Stone Gap Novels
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

“Ave Maria's life in Big Stone Gap, VA, is essentially the same as it's been for all 35 years of her life, but after her mother's will reveals that the man Ave thought was her father isn't, she begins to lose hold of her routine… In between panic attacks and shouting matches, Ave tries to figure out what all these changes mean in her life (Library Journal).”

By Dave Barry

The humorist describes the lives of the troubled denizens of Coconut Grove.

By Ben Fountain
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 14, 2013.  7:30 PM.

A satire set in Texas during America's war in Iraq that explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. Follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive "Victory Tour" at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.

By Alexander McCall Smith
Series No.1 Ladies Detective Agency

“Precious Ramotswe and her assistant, Grace Makutsi, investigate local advice columnist Aunty Emang, who may be linked to trouble at a local medical clinic and the cobra that somehow ended up in Precious's office (From the Publisher).”

By Katherine Center
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Hired as superstar actor Jack Stapleton’s bodyguard, Hannah Brooks must pose as his girlfriend while visiting his family’s ranch in Texas where she finds it easy to protect him, but hard to protect her own, long-neglected heart.

By Tom Wolfe

Sherman McCoy, a young investment banker in Manhattan, finds himself arrested following a freak accident and becomes involved with prosecutors, politicians, the press, and assorted hustlers.

By Desmond MacNamara

In the tradition of Flann O'Brien's comic Irish extravaganzas, Desmond MacNamara's novel is a hilarious excursion into Irish history and literature. A gentleman named Mountmellik and his servant MacGilla escape from the Limbo where characters from unfinished literary works are trapped, and enjoy life on Earth so much that they summon from Limbo other literary characters: a young woman named Loreto Amargamente (from an unfinished story by F. Scott Fitzgerald), an Irish maiden named Liadin (from George Moore's unrealized historical novel), and, most terrifying, the eight-feet-tall Eevell of Craglee, Queen of the Munster Hosts of Fairy. These five hatch a scheme by which they can spring more characters from literary Limbo and, by finishing and publishing their stories, send them to Parnassus, all the while holding the author captive so that they themselves won't be forced to go. But during a bizarre climax, the author escapes and sends this novel to his publisher, immortalizing them against their will.

By Jonathan Tropper

“…In the marvelously funny and self-deprecating voice of Joe, Tropper fully realizes his characters and tells their stories with poignancy, wit, and charm. This coming-of-age story is a keeper…(From Library Journal).”

By Meg Cabot
Series Boy

“Twentysomething Kate Mackenzie, who works and lives in New York City, is a typical chick-lit heroine: she hates her boss and has just broken up with her longtime boyfriend because he can't commit. Her job as a human resources representative at the New York Journal brings her to the center of controversy when her boss makes her fire the popular Dessert Cart Lady, Ida Lopez …  The grievance suit that ensues brings Kate in contact with the perfect guy, but he's a lawyer, so it takes Kate a while to realize that they're meant to be together (Library Journal).”

By Kurt Vonnegut

The author questions the condition of modern man in this novel depicting a science fiction writer's struggle to find peace and sanity in the world.

By S.G. Browne

Meet Andy Warner, a recently deceased everyman and newly minted zombie. Resented by his parents, abandoned by his friends, and reviled by a society that no longer considers him human, Andy is having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new existence. But all that changes when he goes to an Undead Anonymous meeting and finds kindred souls in Rita, an impossibly sexy recent suicide with a taste for the formaldehyde in cosmetic products, and Jerry, a twenty-one-year-old car-crash victim with an exposed brain and a penchant for Renaissance pornography. When the group meets a rogue zombie who teaches them the joys of human flesh, things start to get messy, and Andy embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will take him from his casket to the SPCA to a media-driven class-action lawsuit on behalf of the rights of zombies everywhere.

By Helen Fielding
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

The daily chronicle of a 30-something single English woman who is convinced her life would be perfect if she could lose weight, stop smoking and develop "Inner Poise."

By Sarah Strohmeyer
Series Bubbles Yablonsky Mysteries
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

"Given a week to prove her investigative abilities, flaky hairdresser and aspiring journalist Bubbles endeavors to clear an accused woman of her executive husband’s murder, a case that is complicated by Bubbles’s zany family and clueless boyfriend (From the Publisher)."

By Sarah Strohmeyer
Series Bubbles Yablonsky Mysteries
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

“Inadvertently landing in jail on her first day as a full-time reporter, Bubbles is granted an exclusive interview with a fellow inmate who has been charged with murder (From the Publisher).”

By Sarah Strohmeyer
Series Bubbles Yablonsky Mysteries
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

“When her friend fails to show up for her own wedding just before her uncle turns up dead, Bubbles Yablonsky goes undercover in Whoopee, Pennsylvania, where she boards with a local Amish family (From the Publisher).”

By Sarah Strohmeyer
Series Bubbles Yablonsky Mysteries
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation

"Against all odds, Bubbles Yablonsky has returned to school, but while on her way to journalism school, she happens upon a crime scene and finds herself drawn into a murder investigation (From the Publisher)."

By Hanif Kureishi

Karim's father becomes London's buddha of suburbia & draws his son into an overwhelming world of eccentric people & extravagant parties.

By David Rosenfelt
Series Andy Carpenter Novels
Recommended By Nancy Lowenstein, Library Page

“Asked to help safeguard the innocence of a reporter who has been selected as the mouthpiece for a serial killer, defense attorney Andy Carpenter finds his job getting more difficult when the reporter is arrested for the murders (From the Publisher).”

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Recommended By Lisa C., Library Clerk

Ostracized for her role in halting best friend Lucy's wedding, Meg finds herself stranded.

By Sophie Kinsella

“When her plane en route from Glasgow to London experiences horrible turbulence, Emma Corrigan is convinced she is going to die. She babbles all of her most intimate thoughts and secrets to the handsome American man sitting next to her… When she enters the office on Monday and learns the CEO of the company is in for a visit, Emma is horrified to learn Jack is actually the man in whom she confided on the flight… (Booklist).”

By Voltaire

The story of Candide, a naive youth who is conscripted, shipwrecked, robbed, and tortured by the Inquisition without losing his will to live, is accompanied by four other stories.

By Eric Garcia

Cassandra tackles the L.A. dating scene by chaining men in her basement & giving them lessons on how to treat a lady.

By Joseph Heller
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, September 29, 2015. 1:30 PM.

Depicts the struggles of a U.S. airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II base.

Became the movie: Catch 22.