List

Category
Audience
Tags

Just Like You

Nick Hornby

This warm, wise, highly entertaining twenty-first century love story is about what happens when the person who makes you happiest is someone you never expected

Lucy used to handle her adult romantic life according to the script she'd been handed. She met a guy just like herself: same age, same background, same hopes and dreams; they got married and started a family. Too bad he made her miserable. Now, two decades later, she's a nearly-divorced, forty-one-year-old schoolteacher with two school-aged sons, and there is no script anymore. So when she meets Joseph, she isn't exactly looking for love--she's more in the market for a babysitter. Joseph is twenty-two, living at home with his mother, and working several jobs, including the butcher counter where he and Lucy meet. It's not a match anyone one could have predicted. He's of a different class, a different culture, and a different generation. But sometimes it turns out that the person who can make you happiest is the one you least expect, though it can take some maneuvering to see it through.

Just Like You is a brilliantly observed, tender, but also brutally funny new novel that gets to the heart of what it means to fall surprisingly and headlong in love with the best possible person--someone you didn't see coming.

View Details >>

Transcendent Kingdom

Yaa Gyasi

A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK!

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. Exquisitely written, emotionally searing, this is an exceptionally powerful follow-up to Gyasi's phenomenal debut.

View Details >>

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

"A must-read about modern Britain and womanhood . . . An impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves . . . Her style is passionate, razor-sharp, brimming with energy and humor. There is never a single moment of dullness in this book and the pace does not allow you to turn away from its momentum."--Booker Prize Judges

Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language. Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London's funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley's former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole's mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter's lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class.

Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry, Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart.

View Details >>

Florida Man

Tom Cooper

"A riotous journey into the heart of insanity also known as the State of Florida. Bravo!"--Gary Shteyngart, author of Lake Success

Florida, circa 1980. Reed Crowe, the eponymous Florida Man, is a middle-aged beach bum, beleaguered and disenfranchised, living on ill-gotten gains deep in the jungly heart of Florida. When sinkholes start opening on Emerald Island, not only are Reed Crowe's seedy businesses--a moribund motel and a shabby amusement park--endangered, but so are his secrets. Crowe, amateur spelunker, begins uncovering artifacts that change his understanding of the island's history, as well as his understanding of his family's birthright as pioneering homesteaders.

Meanwhile, there are other Florida men with whom Crowe must contend. Hector "Catface" Morales, a Cuban refugee, trained assassin, and crack-addicted Marielito, is seeking revenge on Reed for stealing his stash of drugs and leaving him for dead (unbeknownst to Reed) in the wreckage of a plane crash in the Everglades decades ago. Loner and misanthrope Henry Yahchilane, a Seminole native, has something to hide on the island. So does irascible and pervy Wayne Wade, Reed Crowe's childhood friend turned bad penny. Then there are the Florida women, including Heidi Karavas, Reed Crowe's ex-wife, now a globe-trekking art curator, and Nina Arango, a Cuban refugee and fiercely protective woman with whom Reed Crowe falls in love. There are curses. There are sea monsters. There are biblical storms. There's something called the Jupiter Effect.

Ultimately, Florida Man is a generation-spanning story about how a man decides to live his life, and how despite staying landlocked and stubbornly in one place, the world nevertheless comes to him.

View Details >>

Shirley

While writing a new work of horror fiction, Shirley Jackson's creative process and marriage are disrupted by the arrival of a newlywed couple who will be staying with her and her husband.

View Details >>

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

France, 1760. Marianne is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent. Because she is a reluctant bride-to-be, Marianne arrives under the guise of companionship, observing Héloïse by day and secretly painting her by firelight at night. As the two women orbit one another, intimacy and attraction grow as they share Héloïse's first moments of freedom. Héloïse's portrait soon becomes a collaborative act of and a testament to their love.

View Details >>

Emma

Handsome, clever, and rich, Emma Woodhouse is a restless queen bee without rivals in her sleepy little town. In this glittering satire of social class and the pain of growing up, Emma must adventure through misguided matches and romantic missteps to find the love that has been there all along.

View Details >>

Onward

Two teenage elf brothers embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there.

View Details >>

1917

Two young British soldiers during the First World War are given an impossible mission. They must deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men, and one of the soldiers' brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap.

View Details >>

The Hunt

After twelve strangers wake up in a clearing, they discover they are the prey of a group of sadistic elitists who hunt people for sport.

View Details >>

Birds of Prey

A twisted tale told by Harley Quinn herself, as only Harley can tell it. When Gotham₂s most nefariously narcissistic villain, Roman Sionis, and his zealous right-hand, Zsasz, put a target on a young girl named Cass, the city is turned upside down looking for her. Harley, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya₂s paths collide, and the unlikely foursome has no choice but to team up to take Roman down.

View Details >>

New Kid

Jerry Craft

Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Gene Luen Yang, New Kid is a timely, honest graphic novel about starting over at a new school where diversity is low and the struggle to fit in is real, from award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds—and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

View Details >>

1st Case

James Patterson

A computer genius pulls off her greatest hack yet -- and her skill might just get her killed.
Angela Hoot's government career begins with an ending. Her unorthodox programming skills get her kicked out of MIT's graduate school and into the Bureau's cyber-forensics unit.

A messaging app with sophisticated tracking capabilities surfaces. Its beta users, all young women, are only identified as they turn up dead in their bedrooms. As Angela races to crack the killer's digital code, their technical rivalry escalates. She must deny the killer access to her personal life, or risk losing her life to the underbelly of the Internet.
 

View Details >>

The Invisible Man

When a woman's ex-husband commits suicide, a series of coincidences leads her to believe that his death was a hoax, and that she is being stalked by a man whom no one can see.

View Details >>

Scoob!

In Scooby-Doo's greatest adventure yet, see the never-before-told story of how Scooby and Shaggy first met and how the famous Mystery Inc. was formed. Now, with hundreds of cases solved and adventures shared, Scooby and the gang face their biggest, most challenging mystery ever and discover that Scooby has a secret legacy and an epic destiny greater than anyone ever imagined.

View Details >>

The Last Loose Tooth

Tyler Clark Burke

Everyone loses their baby teeth - but how do the teeth feel about leaving?

This funny reimagining of the Tooth Fairy myth from the teeth's perspective is the perfect purchase for any child with a loose tooth or those visiting the dentist for the first time!


Lou is the last loose baby tooth in the mouth. All of the other teeth take the plunge, one by one, into the great unknown. These charismatic teeth have creative ways of falling out. The front teeth go first, always wanting to be the center of attention. It's not long before a rotten tooth is pulled by the dentist. One falls out in the bath and another in the museum. Lou is determined never to leave the mouth and stay exactly where he is until... the BORING adult teeth move in. When Lou finally decides he's had enough, he goes with the Tooth Fairy to the Land of Teeth, where all his friends are waiting for him.

View Details >>

Near Dark

Brad Thor

Instant #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller

“Fast-paced...pulse-pounding...supremely entertaining…His best ever.” —The Washington Times

“If you love thrillers…if you’ve ever read a thriller you enjoyed…if you think you *might* like a thriller…you HAVE to order Brad Thor’s Near Dark. This might be the single greatest thriller I’ve covered on The Real Book Spy. It’s amazing!”The Real Book Spy

Scot Harvath returns in the newest thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Brad Thor.

The world’s largest bounty has just been placed upon America’s top spy. His only hope for survival is to outwit, outrun, and outlast his enemies long enough to get to the truth.

But for Scot Harvath to accomplish his most dangerous mission ever—one that has already claimed the lives of the people closest to him, including his new wife—he’s going to need help—a lot of it.

Not knowing whom he can trust, Harvath finds an unlikely ally in Norwegian intelligence operative Sølvi Kolstad. Just as smart, just as deadly, and just as determined, she not only has the skills, but also the broken, troubled past to match Harvath’s own.

“Not since Ian Fleming rendered James Bond a mere shell of himself in the wake of From Russia, With Love has an author pushed an icon to such depths.”Providence Journal

“Brad Thor has mastered the art of the thriller cliffhanger.”New York Journal of Books

“Brad Thor thrills yet again with Near Dark.”The San Diego Tribune

View Details >>

The Guest List

Lucy Foley

An expertly planned celebrity wedding between a rising television star and an ambitious magazine publisher is thrown into turmoil by petty jealousies, a college drinking game, the bride's ruined dress, and an untimely murder.

View Details >>