Category: Book

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

The special hardcover collector’s edition of Casey McQuiston’s beloved New York Times bestselling novel, featuring illustrated endpapers, bonus content, pink stained edges and more!

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

Sailing the Graveyard Sea by Richard Snow

A riveting account of the only mutiny in the history of the United States Navy—a little-known event that cost three innocent young men their lives—part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and as propulsive and dramatic as the bestselling novels of Patrick O’Brian.

On December 16, 1842, the US brig-of-war Somers dropped anchor in Brooklyn Harbor at the end of a cruise intended to teach a group of adolescents the rudiments of naval life. But this seemingly harmless exercise ended in catastrophe. Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie came ashore saying he had narrowly prevented a mutiny that would have left him and his officers dead. Some of the thwarted mutineers were being held under guard, but three had been hanged: Boatswain’s Mate Samuel Cromwell, Seaman Elisha Small, and Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, whose father was the secretary of war, John Spencer.

Eighteen-year-old Philip Spencer, according to Mackenzie, had been the ringleader who encouraged the crew to seize the ship and become pirates, raping and pillaging their way across the old Spanish Main. And while the young man might have been a rebel fascinated by pirates, it soon became clear the order that condemned the three men had no legal basis. And worse, that perhaps a mutiny had never really occurred, and that the ship might instead have been seized by a creeping hysteria that ended in the sacrifice of three innocents.

Months of accusations and counteraccusations were followed by a highly public court martial which put Mackenzie on trial for his life, and a storm of anti-Navy sentiment drew the attention of the leading writers of the day (Washington Irving thought Mackenzie a hero; James Fenimore Cooper damned him with a ferocity that still stings). But some good did come out of it: public disgust with Mackenzie’s training cruise gave birth to Annapolis, the place that within a century, would produce the greatest navy the world had ever known.

Vividly told and filled with tense action based on court martial transcripts, Snow’s masterly account of this all-but-forgotten episode is naval history at its finest.

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

This is book number 1 in the Detective Inspector Caius Beauchamp series.

You know how they live. This is how they die…

A STUNNING DEBUT FROM YOUR NEXT FAVORITE MYSTERY WRITER • Rupert’s 30th birthday party is a black-tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald’s—catered with cocaine and expensive champagne. The morning after, his girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, a single stiletto heel jutting from under a bush.

“A perfectly modern whodunnit.” —Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author of I Will Find You

Who killed Clemmie? Was it the blithe, sociopathic boyfriend? His impossibly wealthy godmother? The gallery owner with whom Clemmie was having an affair? Or was it the result of something else entirely?

All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally. This investigation is going to be about aristocrats and Classics degrees, Instagram influencers and whose father knows who.

The Last Ships from Hamburg by Steven Ujifusa

A propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible.

Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg.

This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamships to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J. P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business. Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution. Descendants of these immigrants included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Estée Lauder, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Lauren Bacall, the Marx Brothers, David Sarnoff, Al Jolson, Sam Goldwyn, Ben Shahn, Hank Greenberg, Moses Annenberg, and many more—including Ujifusa’s great grandparents. That is their legacy.

The Purest Bond by Jen Golbeck & Stacey Colino

Meet the authors on Saturday, November 18
for a special signing.

A feel-good, comprehensive exploration of the profound bond between humans and dogs from Jen Golbeck, the “internet’s dog mom” behind the massive social media platform The Golden Ratio, and Stacey Colino, an award-winning science writer.

Dogs have been considered people’s best friend for thousands of years, but never has the relationship between humans and their canine companions been as vitally important as it is today.

With all of the seismic shifts in today’s world, rates of anxiety and depression have been skyrocketing, and people have been turning to their dogs for solace and stability. Amidst these dire realities, something wonderful has taken shape. In the United States alone, dog adoptions doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As people have brought furry friends into their lives for the first time or seized this opportunity to deepen the connections they already have, they are looking to understand how owning a dog can change their lives. Now, The Purest Bond explores the benefits our dogs can have on our physical, emotional, cognitive, and social well-being, often without our realizing it.

Weaving together groundbreaking research and touching real-life stories, The Purest Bond explores not just the social benefits of owning a dog but the science of how dogs improve our emotional and physical health, mental acuity, and our ability to focus and absorb information. Most importantly, they remind us of what’s right in the world—love, trust, affection, playtime, fresh air, and sunshine—even when so much feels wrong.

Gator Country by Rebecca Renner

“Remarkable… Every species, and every person who fights for its continued existence, deserves a book like this.” — The New York Times

David Grann meets Susan Orlean in this page-turning true story of an underground operation into the mysterious world of alligator poaching and its larger than life Floridian characters

To catch a Florida Man, you have to become one, and that’s what Officer Jeff Babauta did. As his ponytailed, whiskey-soaked alter ego, he established Sunshine Alligator Farm. His goal? Infiltrate the shady world of illegal poachers in the Florida Everglades in order to protect the natural world.

A head-spinning adventure soon unfolds. Jeff deals with glow-in-the-dark alligators and high-speed airboat rides, but quickly learns that not all poachers are villains. They’re simply people trying to survive, fighting against the poverty and greed holding them down. Jeff wants to solve the mystery of alligator poachers, and in doing so he must venture deeper into a strange ecosystem where right is wrong, and justice comes at the cost of those who’ve welcomed him into their world.

Gator Country is the twisting true story of the impossible choices individuals must make to stay afloat in this world. Through its wholly unique blend of reporting, nature writing, and personal narrative, this book transports readers to vibrant and dangerous Florida landscapes and offers intimate portraits of those who call the region home. Broad in scope and vivid in detail, Gator Country is a fast paced tale of the risks people will take to survive in one of the world’s most beautiful yet formidable landscapes and the undercover investigation that threatens to topple the whole scheme.

Day by Michael Cunningham

A “quietly stunning” (Ocean Vuong) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours

“Along with George Eliot, Michael Cunningham belongs in that rare group of novelists who hold the world close, with apparently infinite respect, compassion, and tenderness, all while describing the world and its inhabitants unsparingly.”—Tony Kushner

A HARPER’S BAZAAR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. And then there is Nathan, age ten, taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while his sister, Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.

April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the cozy brownstone is starting to feel more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled sleights and frustrated sighs. And dear Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.

April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—and with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.

My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee

The long-awaited memoir, generously illustrated with never-before-seen photos, from the iconic Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Rush bassist, and bestselling author of Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass.

Geddy Lee is one of rock and roll’s most respected bassists. For nearly five decades, his playing and work as co-writer, vocalist and keyboardist has been an essential part of the success story of Canadian progressive rock trio Rush. Here for the first time is his account of life inside and outside the band.

Long before Rush accumulated more consecutive gold and platinum records than any rock band after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, before the seven Grammy nominations or the countless electrifying live performances across the globe, Geddy Lee was Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, after his grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust.

As he recounts the transformation, Lee looks back on his family, in particular his loving parents and their horrific experiences as teenagers during World War II.

He talks candidly about his childhood and the pursuit of music that led him to drop out of high school.

He tracks the history of Rush which, after early struggles, exploded into one of the most beloved bands of all time.

He shares intimate stories of his lifelong friendships with bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart—deeply mourning Peart’s recent passing—and reveals his obsessions in music and beyond.

This rich brew of honesty, humor, and loss makes for a uniquely poignant memoir.

The Little Liar by Mitch Albom

Beloved bestselling author Mitch Albom returns with a powerful novel that moves from a coastal Greek city during the Holocaust, to America, where the intertwined lives of three survivors are forever changed by the perils of deception and the grace of redemption.

Eleven-year-old Nico Krispis never told a lie. When the Nazi’s invade his home in Salonika, Greece, the trustworthy boy is discovered by a German officer, who offers him a chance to save his family. All Nico has to do is convince his fellow Jewish residents to board trains heading to “new homes” where they are promised jobs and safety. Unaware that this is all a cruel ruse, the innocent boy goes to the station platform every day and reassures the passengers that the journey is safe. But when the final train is at the station, Nico sees his family being loaded into a large boxcar crowded with other neighbors. Only after it is too late does Nico discover that he helped send the people he loved—and all the others—to their doom at Auschwitz.

Nico never tells the truth again.

In The Little Liar, his first novel set during the Holocaust, Mitch Albom interweaves the stories of Nico, his brother Sebastian, and their schoolmate Fanni, who miraculously survive the death camps and spend years searching for Nico, who has become a pathological liar, and the Nazi officer who radically changed their lives. As the decades pass, Albom reveals the consequences of what they said, did, and endured.

A moving parable that explores honesty, survival, revenge and devotion, The Little Liar is Mitch Albom at his very best. Narrated by the voice of Truth itself, it is a timeless story about the harm we inflict with our deceits, and the power of love to ultimately redeem us.

A Woman I Know: Female Spies, Double Identities, and a New Story of the Kennedy Assassination by Mary Haverstick

The true story of a filmmaker whose investigation of her film’s subject opened a new window onto the world of Cold War espionage, CIA secrets, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Independent filmmaker Mary Haverstick thought she’d stumbled onto the project of a lifetime—a biopic of aviation pioneer Jerrie Cobb, the key figure in a group of extraordinary women who in 1960 passed the same tests as the legendary male astronauts of the Mercury 7 but never went to space. Just as casting was set to begin, Haverstick received a mysterious warning from a government agent; soon she began to suspect that there was more to Jerrie’s story than what met the eye. As she dug deeper, she discovered that Jerrie’s life shadowed that of a mysterious CIA agent named June Cobb, whose espionage career traced an arc of intrigue from the jungles of South America to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, to the communist literary circles in Mexico City—and ultimately into the dark heart of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas.

Haverstick’s attempt to learn the truth directly from Jerrie would plunge her into a cat-and-mouse game that stretched across a decade, deep into a thicket of coded CIA files. As she uncovered a remarkable set of mostly unknown women whose high-stakes intelligence work left its only traces in redacted files, she also found shocking new clues about what really happened at Dealey Plaza in 1963. Offering fresh insight into the Kennedy assassination and a vivid picture of women in midcentury intelligence, A Woman I Know brings to life the astonishing duplicities of the Cold War intelligence game, a world where code names and hidden identities were the lifeblood of spies bent on seeking advantage by any means necessary.