By Matthew Polly

This is the story of the childhood dream that led Polly to study martial arts at China’s famed Shaolin Temple, his initial disenchantement that turned into respect for the instructors, and the training that eventually led him to represent the Temple in international competitions.

By Kōshun Takami
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist, Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian

A group of ninth–grade students are confined to a small isolated island where they must fight each other for three days until only one survivor remains, as part of the ultimate in reality television.

By Sarah Dunant

Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo.

By Marcus Zuzak
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Wednesday, January 27, 2010.  7 PM.

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel - a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

By Daniel Pinchbeck

A study of contemporary shamanism draws on the works of top thinkers while sharing the author's research.

By Brian Greene

Introduces the superstring theory that attempts to unite general relativity and quantum mechanics.

By Chuck Palahniuk

In a confusing world poised on the brink of mayhem, Tyler Durden, a projectionist, waiter, and anarchic genius, comes up with an idea to create clubs in which young men can escape their humdrum existence and prove themselves in barehanded fights.

By Elizabeth Kostova

Discovering a medieval book and a cache of letters, a motherless American girl becomes the latest in a series of historians, who investigate the possible surviving legacy of Vlad the Impaler.

By Isabel Rose

Reunited with her former bunkmates of Willow Lake Camp Ali Cohen plans to make a documentary of her former teenage tormentors.

By Khaled Hosseini
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

Became the movie: The Kite Runner.

By Mohsin Hamid

“Hamid's tale, played out against the background of Pakistan's recent testing of a nuclear device, creates a powerful image of an insecure society toying with its own dissolution (Publishers Weekly Review).”

By Emma McLaughlin
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

A satirical glimpse into Manhattan's upper class follows Nanny, a student who takes a position caring for the son of the rich & glamorous X family.

Became the movie: The Nanny Diaries.

By Patrick Süskind

Born without a scent, Jean-Baptiste spends his life pursuing the perfect perfume and investigates all methods of making it.

By Michio Kaku

Looks at the scientific principles behind the technology of the future.

By Chuck Palahniuk

A fictional oral biography of Buster "Rant" Casey chronicles the violent world of a small-town rebel who becomes the leader of a demolition derby.

By Mohsin Hamid

In the aftermath of 9/11 a young Pakistani man tells his life story to a mysterious American stranger.

Became the movie: The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

By Michael Connelly
Series Jack McEvoy Novels

Newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to use his final days at the LA Times to write the definitive murder story of his career. Focusing on the case of Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus and that the real killer is operating completely below police radar - and with perfect knowledge of any move against him.

By Lisa See
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

An evocative story of friendship set against the backdrop of a nineteenth-century China in which women suffered from foot binding, isolation, and illiteracy follows an elderly woman and her companion as they communicate their hopes, dreams, joys, and tragedies through a unique secret language.

By Emily Giffin

Her belief in the power of beauty shattered when her fiancé dumps her for a plain woman, a pregnant Darcy flees to London and struggles to rebuild her glamorous life before realizing that her past methods no longer work.

By Emily Giffin

Rachel, a young attorney working in Mahattan, is the consummate good girl--until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend, Darcy, throws her a party. That night, after too many drinks, Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy's fiancé. Determined to put the one-night fling behind her, Rachel discovers that she has feelings for the one guy she should run from. As the wedding day arrives, Rachel has to make a choice.

Became the movie: Something Borrowed.

By Khaled Hosseini
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, January 31, 2017.  1:30 PM.

A novel set against three decades of Afghanistan’s history shaped by Soviet occupation, civil war, and the Taliban tells the story of two women, Mariam and Laila, who grow close despite their nineteen–year age difference and initial rivalry as they suffer at the hand of a common enemy: their abusive husband.

By Sophie Kinsella

Entreated by the bossy ghost of her great aunt to track down a missing necklace, Lara Lington finds her search challenged by her floundering start-up business, her best friend's defection, and her unfaithful boyfriend.

By Amy Sedaris

When the dam that keeps the town of Wigfield above water is scheduled to be destroyed, journalist Russell Hokes decides to cover the story, but when he arrives in town, he is shocked by what he finds