| Summer 2012 Authors |
| Tom Perrotta The Leftovers What if the Rapture happened? The bewildered citizens of Mapleton have lost over 100 people to this OSudden Departure.O In this story, Perotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. |
| Charlotte Rogan The Lifeboat "The Lifeboat" is a page-turning novel of hard choices and survival, narrated by a woman as unforgettable and complex as the events she describes. Grace is both a newlywed and a widow, and on trial for her life after a mysterious explosion aboard an ocean liner. |
| Meg Mitchell Moore The Arrivals Ginny and William's peaceful life in Vermont comes to an abrupt halt as their children and grandchildren descend one summer with an assortment of adult problems. By summer's end, the family gains new ideas of loyalty and responsibility, exposing the challenges of surviving the modern family--and the old adage, once a parent, always a parent, has never rung so true. |
| Jennifer Weiner The Next Best Thing An irresistible story about a young woman trying to make it in Hollywood as a TV writer going against show business culture, bad behavior backstage and insider politics. |
| Chris Bohjalian Sandcastle Girls Parallel stories of a woman who falls in love with an Armenian soldier during the Armenian Genocide and a modern-day New Yorker prompted to rediscover her Armenian past. |
| Alexandra Styron Reading My Father "Reading My Father" is an intimate, moving, and beautifully written portrait of the novelist William Styron by his daughter, Alexandra. |
| Madeline Miller The Song of Achilles Patroclus, an awkward young prince, follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Set during the Trojan War. |
| J. Courtney Sullivan Maine As three generations of Kelleher women descend on their family's Maine beach property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, this novel unveils sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family. |
| Margot Livesey The Flight of Gemma Hardy Taken from her native Iceland to Scotland in the early 1950s when her widower father drowns at sea, young Gemma Hardy comes to live with her kindly uncle and his family. But his death leaves Gemma under the care of her resentful aunt, and she suddenly finds herself an unwelcome guest. Surviving oppressive years at a strict private school, Gemma ultimately finds a job as an au pair to the eight-year-old niece of Mr. Sinclair on the Orkney Islands--and here, at the mysterious and remote Blackbird Hall, Gemma's greatest trial begins. |
| Nichole Bernier The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. Before there were blogs, there were journals. And in them we'd write as we really were, not as we wanted to appear. But there comes a day when journals outlive us. And with them, our secrets. |
| Summer 2011 Authors |
| Lisa See Dreams of Joy Dreams of Joy is a continuation of the story that began in Shanghai Girls finds a devastated Joy fleeing to China to search for her real father while her mother, Pearl, desperately pursues her, a dual quest marked by their encounters with the nation's intolerant Communist culture. |
| Nancy Thayer Heat Wave After her husband's sudden death from a heart attack, Carley finds herself in a difficult financial situation and decides to turn their historic Nantucket house into a bed-and-breakfast, but events during a late summer heat wave change the lives of Carley and her family. Unerringly perceptive, superbly written, every page packed with the warmth and compassionate wisdom that have become Nancy Thayer’s trademark, Heat Wave tells the moving story of a woman who, after her seemingly perfect life unravels, must find the strength to live and love again. |
| Dawn Tripp Game of Secrets Half a century after her father's disappearance is compounded by rumors that he was murdered, Jane Weld struggles with her daughter's romance with the son of her father's mistress, a situation that escalates throughout the course of a Scrabble game of unspoken words and secrets. |
| Kitty Pilgrim The Explorer's Code A first novel by an award-winning CNN journalist finds prominent oceanographer Cordelia Stapleton teaming up with archaeologist John Sinclair to find a deed she inherited that is also being sought by a consortium of underworld criminals, a quest that results in a high-stakes chase through some of the world's most sophisticated regions. |
| Jennifer Egan A Visit From the Goon Squad * Winner of the Pulitzer Prize *National Bestseller *National Book Critics Circle Award Winner *PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Working side-by-side for a record label, former punk rocker Bennie Salazar and the passionate Sasha hide illicit secrets from one another while interacting with a motley assortment of equally troubled people from 1970s San Francisco to the post-war future. |
| Molly Birnbaum Season to Taste: How I Lost My Sense of Smell and Found My Way Combining expert advice and science, the author, an aspiring chef robbed of her sense of smell after a debilitating car accident, chronicles her epic quest, from a pioneering New Jersey flavor lab to perfume school in the South of France, to understand and overcome her condition and rediscover the joy of smell. |
| Daphne Kalotay Russian Winter Former Bolshoi ballerina, Nina Revskaya, auctions off her jewelry collection and becomes overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, the friends she left behind amidst Stalinist aggression and the dark secret that brought her to a new life in Boston. |
| Lisa Genova Left Neglected The best-selling author of Still Alice presents the story of a woman in her 30s who suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident that leaves her unable to perceive left-side information, a disability that prompts her struggle to recover and heal an estrangement. |
| Andre Dubus III Townie: A Memoir The author of House of Sand and Fog describes his childhood in a depressed Massachusetts mill town saturated with drugs and crime and his weekly visits with his father, an eminent author who taught on a college campus. An unforgettable book, Townie is a riveting and profound meditation on physical violence and the failures and triumphs of love. The acclaimed novelist reflects on his violent past and a lifestyle that threatened to destroy him-until he was saved by writing. |
| Mitchell Zuckoff Lost in Shangri-La Special Guest Attending: Mary Hanlon, a childhood friend of WAC volunteer survivor Margaret Hastings. In 1945, a sightseeing trip over "Shangri-La" turned deadly when the plane crashed, leaving only three survivors who, battling for their survival, were caught between man-eating headhunters and the enemy Japanese, in this real-life adventure drawn from personal interviews, declassified Army documents and personal photos and mementos. |
| Geraldine Brooks Caleb's Crossing Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. Forging a deep friendship with a Wampanoag chieftain's son on the Great Harbor settlement where her minister father is working to convert the tribe, Bethia follows his subsequent ivy league education and efforts to bridge cultures among the colonial elite. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March. |
| Adam Haslett Union Haslett From the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist You Are Not A Stranger Here, a stunning, masterful portrait of our modern gilded age. At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a retired history teacher, Charlotte Graves—who has suddenly begun to hear her two dogs speaking to her in the voices of Cotton Mather and Malcolm X—and an ambitious young banker, Doug Fanning, who is building an ostentatious mansion on what was once Charlotte’s family land. Drawn into the conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school student who stirs powerful emotions in both of them. |
| Nina Sankovitch Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading Torn apart by grief after losing her sister, the author, a 46-year-old mother of four, turned to literature for comfort, devoting herself to reading one book a day for a year, which brought much needed joy, healing and wisdom into her life. In her beloved purple chair, she rediscovered the magic of such writers as Toni Morrison, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ian McEwan, Edith Wharton, and, of course, Leo Tolstoy. Through the connections Nina made with books and authors (and even other readers), her life changed profoundly, and in unexpected ways. Reading, it turns out, can be the ultimate therapy. |
| Summer 2010 Authors |
| Maggie Pouncey Perfect Reader In the aftermath of her famous academic father's death, Flora Dempsey quits her big-city magazine job and returns to her childhood home, where she discovers a cache of love poems written by her father to an unknown girlfriend. A first novel. |
| Dwayne Raymond Mornings with Mailer The young man who worked as Norman Mailer's personal assistant during the last five years of the author's life offers an intimate, revealing memoir that recasts the literary lion in a new light, not as combative and verbose as his legend dictated, but rather as a temperate man who taught his assistant how to navigate his own personal challenges. |
| Lynne Kiele Bonasia Summer Shift While trying to run the Cape Cod clam bar she owns, 44-year-old widow Mary Hopkins must rely on her diverse and dependable staff to weather the sudden death of a young waitress, her beloved great aunt's struggle with Alzheimer's and Mary's own sense that life is passing her by. By the author of Some Assembly Required. |
| Claire Cook Seven Year Switch After the re-emergence of her husband and the introduction of a new love interest in her life, Jill Murray uses a Costa Rican vacation to figure out what his best for her and her 10-year-old daughter and whether she truly wants to live a man-free life for the rest of her days. By the author of Must Love Dogs. |
| Corinne Demas The Writing Circle A richly engaging tale of love, betrayal, and literature: the story of six members of an elite writing circle who share much more than their works-in-progress.The Writing Circle will appeal to anyone who has ever imagined being a writer or wondered what it is like to be one, with a compelling cast of characters who are passionate, ambitious, flawed, and unpredictable. |
| Linda Greenlaw Seaworthy A Swordfish Captain Returns to the Sea A sequel to the best-selling The Hungry Ocean picks up 10 years after the events of The Perfect Storm and recounts how the financially strapped author accepted a job captaining a swordfishing boat, a voyage marked by the challenges of the vessel's poor condition, bad weather and an inadvertent arrest. |
| Richard Russo That Old Cape Magic That Old Cape Magic is a novel of deep introspection and every family feeling imaginable, with a middle-aged man confronting his parents and their failed marriage, his own troubled one, his daughter’s new life and, finally, what it was he thought he wanted and what in fact he has. The storytelling is flawless throughout, moments of great comedy and even hilarity alternating with others of rueful understanding and heart-stopping sadness, and its ending is at once surprising, uplifting and unlike anything this Pulitzer Prize winner has ever written. |
 | Heidi Jon Schmidt The House on Oyster Creek Charlotte Tradescome moves her work-obsessed husband and three-year-old daughter from Manhattan to a newly-inherited property on Cape Cod, where she is dismissed by the locals as a "washashore" and makes a connection with an open-hearted oyster farmer. |
 | Carol McCleary The Alchemy of Murder At the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, reporter Nellie Bly teams up with the likes of Jules Verne, Oscar Wilde and Louis Pasteur to find the connection between a series of killings and an epidemic that is wiping out Parisians by the thousands. Historical mystery that made the top 5 shortlist for Europe's highest mystery CrimeFest Prize. |
 | Holly LeCraw The Swimming Pool Seven years after the end of an affair with a married man culminated in the unsolved murder of his wife, Marcella Atkinson struggles with guilt and the decimation of her own family life before a chance discovery leads her into an emotionally charged relationship with her former lover's son. |
| Jennifer Weiner Fly Away Home A latest work by the author of Best Friends Forever and Good In Bed finds a politician's wife retreating with her grown daughters to a Connecticut beach house after a painful public betrayal, an escape marked by new beginnings and her younger daughter's pregnancy. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family of women who seek refuge in an old beach house. |
 | Summer 2009 Authors |
 | Lisa Genova Still Alice Feeling at the top of her game when she is suddenly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, Harvard psychologist Alice Howland struggles to find meaning and purpose in her life as her concept of self gradually slips away. |
 | Katherine Howe The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane Forced to set aside her Ph.D. research in order to help the settling of her late grandmother's abandoned home, Connie Goodwin discovers a hidden key among her grandmother's possessions that is linked to a darker chapter in Salem witch trial history. |
 | Beth Teitell Drinking Problems at the Fountain of Youth A whimsical assessment of today's youth-obsessed culture outlines the ridiculous side of everything from facial fitness coaches and high-priced skin serums to anti-aging gummi bears and cover models who never grow old. |
| Gina Barreca It's Not That I'm Bitter...Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World Presents a series of humorous essays to express the author's viewpoint on women's issues, ranging from cougars and finding the right bra to the state of modern feminism and women in politics. |
| Jennifer Haigh The Condition Devastated by their daughter's diagnosis with Turner's syndrome, a genetic disorder that prevents her from physically aging past childhood, the McKotches find her difficulties further challenged years later when, well into her thirties but still resembling a young girl, their daughter falls in love. |
| Anne LeClaire Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence The author of The Lavender Hour and Entering Normal describes her transforming experiences with the spiritual practice of silence, in a contemplative guide that that explains how silence can enable participants to become more aware and compassionate. |
 | MaryAnn McFadden So Happy Together After raising her daughter and caring for her aging parents for many years, history teacher Claire Noble finds her forthcoming nuptials and ambition to become a photographer compromised by their problems |
| Jennifer Weiner Best Friends Forever Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were close until a betrayal during their teen years drove them apart; but twenty years later, a terrified Val shows up at Addie's doorstep wearing a bloody coat, pushing them both into a wild adventure where they must rely on one another again, in a novel by a best-selling author. |
| Awista Ayub However Tall the Mountain: A Dream, Eight Girls, and a Journey Home Describes how the Afghan-born author flourished throughout her upbringing in America thanks to organized athletics, her founding of the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange for Afghan girls after the fall of the Taliban, and the personal stories of eight young soccer players. |
| Jamie Cat Callan French Women Don't Sleep Alone: Pleasureable Secrets to Finding Love Presents advice for American women on adding sensuality and a little spice to every stage of love, based on the behavior and customs of French women. |
| Lynne Griffin Life Without Summer A tale told in alternating voices follows the experiences of bereaved mother Tessa who is swept up by an increasingly bleak search for answers after her beloved four-year-old daughter is killed in a hit-and-run accident, and her grief counselor, Celia, whose efforts to help Tessa are marked by painful family memories. |
| Nancy Thayer Summer House Follows the lives, loves, and fortunes of three generations of headstrong women as they convene at their Nantucket homestead where they are forced to come to terms with their life choices and the meaning of family. |
| Summer 2008 Authors |
| Alice Hoffman The Third Angel Follows the lives of three women in love with the wrong men--Madeleine Heller, attracted to her sister's fiance; Frieda Lewis, the muse to an ill-fated rock star; and Bryn Evans, engaged to be married but secretly obsessed with her ex-husband. |
| Ann Hood Comfort: A Journey Through Grief The author of The Knitting Circle documents her family's journey of grief after the sudden death of her five-year-old daughter after a virulent illness, a process during which she learned how to knit and experienced comfort in unexpected ways. |
 | Sara Young My Enemy's Cradle Hiding out from the Nazis with her Dutch relatives, Cyrla, a half-Jewish girl, is confronted by a terrifying choice between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking her pregnant cousin Anneke's place in the Lebensborn, a maternity home for Aryan girls. |
 | Elin Hilderbrand A Summer Affair Reluctantly agreeing to organize a children's benefit at which a rock-star ex-lover is performing, Claire Danner Crispin finds her efforts complicated by her clashes with a fellow organizer, her best friend's catering mishaps, and a new relationship. |
 | Jennifer Weiner Certain Girls A sequel to Good in Bed takes place thirteen years later and finds a no-longer-famous Cannie writing science fiction under a pen name, raising her teenage daughter, and considering her husband Peter's request to have Cannie's flamboyant sister provide surrogate services so that they can have a second child. |
 | Michael Tonello Bringing Home the Birkin A whimsical account of the author's five-year travels throughout the world in search of hard-to-obtain genuine handbags that he would subsequently sell on the Internet for a lucrative profit describes the events that led to his accidental career and his related encounters with celebrity and danger. |
 | Brunonia Barry The Lace Reader Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. Now the disappearance of two women is bringing Towner back home to Salem—and is bringing to light the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister. |
 | Joan Anderson The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself Describes the melee of family and professional responsibilities that threw the lifestyle consultant author's own life into chaos, documenting the intervention staged by her friends and family members that convinced her to take the same advice she gives to her clients. By the author of A Year by the Sea. |
 | Nellie Hermann The Cure for Grief Deeply bonded to her three older brothers and in awe of her father's experiences as a Holocaust survivor, young Ruby is shocked when her eldest brother is abruptly taken away to a hospital, where he changes into a person she barely recognizes. |
