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 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 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 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 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 J.K. Rowling

The early death of a small town councilman reveals deep-rooted conflicts in the seemingly idyllic community of Pagford, which rapidly deteriorates in the face of cultural disputes, generation clashes, and a volatile election.

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.

By Chuck Palahniuk

Medical school dropout Victor Mancini comes up with a complicated but ingenious scam to pay for his mother’s elder car, cruises sex addiction groups for action, and visits his zany mother, whose Alzheimer’s disease hides the bizarre truth about his parentage.

Became the movie: Choke

By Joseph Heller

In this sequel (to Catch-22), Milo Minderbinder, Yossarian, the chaplain, and little Sammy Singer come to the end of their lives and the end of the century, all linked, this time, to an uneasy peace and old age. Here they fight not the Germans, but The End.

By Jeff Lindsay
Series Dexter
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

“Hiding a secret life as an assassin while working as a murder analyst for the Miami police, Dexter Morgan is intrigued by the work of a new serial killer whose style mimics his own (From the Publisher).”

Became the TV show: Dexter.

By Hunter S. Thompson

Records the experiences of a free-lance writer who embarked on a zany journey into the drug culture.

Became the movie: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

By Liza Palmer

As a child, Grace Hawkes was abandoned by her father; as an adult, she feels abandoned when her mother dies unexpectedly. Not knowing what to do, Grace runs away. Five years later she reunites with her siblings at her father's deathbed and confronts her past.

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 Olivia Goldsmith

Three faithful, middle-age wives, who have been abandoned for "trophy wives"--younger, blonder, and sexier models--by their successful husbands, decide to get even and seek public revenge before New York society.

Became the movie: The First Wives Club.

By Tim Dorsey
Series Serge Storms

When five million dollars in a suitcase is dropped into the trunk of the wrong car, a whole convoy of homicidal whackos follows in hot pursuit, with a stop in Miami to take in the last game of the Series.

By Neil Gaiman
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

The world is going to end next Saturday, but there are a few problems--the Antichrist has been misplaced, the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse ride motorcycles, and the representatives from heaven and hell decide that they like the human race.

By Angela S. Choi

Determined to thwart her parents' plans to marry her off into Asian suburbia, Fiona seeks her freedom at any price.

By Natalie Zina Walschots
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Temping for people on the wrong side of the law, Anna becomes unfairly unemployed before using her talents for manipulating data to expose how the heroes of her world do more harm than good.

By Jess Kidd

Twenty-six years after he was abandoned at an orphanage, Mahony returns to the rural Irish village he was born in, determined to discover the truth, after receiving a mysterious note suggesting his mother met foul play.

By Joanne Harris

“Forced to seek refuge in a seventeenth-century abbey, Juliette creates a new identity for herself and her young daughter in the wake of political upheavals surrounding the assassination of King Henri IV (From the Publisher).”

By John Irving

Hoteliers & pet-bear owners, the Berry family "dream on" in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel.

By Dan Wells
Series I Am Not a Serial Killer

John Wayne Cheever keeps his obsession with serial killers in check by a set of rigid rules that he lives by, hoping to the prevent himself from committing murder.

By Chuck Palahniuk

She’s a fashion model who has everything – until a sudden freeway “accident” leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better.

By Matthew Quick

Escaping her ritzy Florida life and her cheating husband, Portia Kane returns to the South Jersey home of her youth and resolves to save herself by assisting a beloved English teacher who has retired after a traumatic incident.

By Chuck Palahniuk

A compilation of 21 stories and one novella by the transgressive author of Beautiful You includes both previously published and original pieces, including "Zombies," "Knock, Knock" and "Tunnel of Love."

By Stephen Fry

A history student travels back in time to prevent Hitler's birth by dropping an infertility pill into his father's beer. The scheme backfires when a more intelligent dictator comes to power, conquering more territory and developing the atom bomb ahead of the U.S. The student, Michael Young, gets back into his time machine to allow Hitler to be born after all.

By A.M. Homes
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

Feeling overshadowed by his more-successful younger brother, Harold is shocked by his brother's violent act that irrevocably changes their lives, placing Harold in the role of father figure to his brother's adolescent children and caregiver to his aging parents.

By Lydia Millet
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Deb and Chip, a couple honeymooning at a Caribbean resort, meet a marine biologist who claims to have sighted mermaids at a nearby coral reef, and join with other adventurers to protect the mermaids when the resort reveals plans to build a theme park on the reef.

By Bonnie Jo Campbell

A collection of stories featuring the working-class struggles and self-sabotaging betrayals of mother and daughter protagonists includes “My Dog Roscoe,” “Blood Work, 1999,” and “My Bliss.”

By Oyinkan Braithwaite

Realizing that her beautiful, beloved younger sister has murdered yet another boyfriend, an embittered Nigerian woman works to direct suspicion away from the family, until a handsome doctor she fancies asks for her sister's number.

By Graeme Cameron

A seemingly mild-mannered, neighborly man who kidnaps young women and holds them in a cage in his basement meets a grocery store checkout girl who becomes his ultimate target before he intends to cease his violent activities.

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

An anonymous narrator tells of his refusal to become a worker in the "ant-hill" of society.

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 Lemony Snicket

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 Kurt Vonnegut

America's wealthiest man succumbs to the irresistible charms of a lunar siren.

By Patrick deWitt
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Set against the backdrop of the great California Gold Rush, this darkly comic novel follows the misadventures of the fabled Sisters brothers, two hired guns, who, under the order of the mysterious Commodore, try to kill Hermann Kermit Warm, a man who gives them a run for their money.

By Kurt Vonnegut

A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.

Became the movie: Slaughterhouse Five.

By David Sedaris

An original collection of humorous fables features animals with unmistakably human failings, including a cynical cat struggling to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings, and a pair of lovers separated by prejudiced family members.

By Christopher Buckley

Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, undertakes a media blitz to defend the rights of smokers, a job that has unexpected repercussions when he is targeted by someone out to prove just how hazardous smoking can be.

By Marcy Dermansky
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

A darkly humorous tale of privilege, race, and bad behavior finds a wealthy Connecticut divorcée and her college-age daughter becoming unlikely rivals in a romantic triangle involving the latter's creative writing professor.

By Josh Bazell

“Pietro Brnwa, operating under the pseudonym Dr. Peter Brown for his own safety, accompanies a paleontologist on a horrible field assignment and faces murderers, mobsters, drug dealers, and a lake monster (From the Publisher).”

By Christopher Moore
Series Vampire Love Stories

Waking up after a fantastic night only to discover that his girlfriend is a vampire and has transformed him into one, Thomas C. Flood adapts to his new powers while dealing with a dangerous faction of bloodsuckers trying to kill off all other vampires.