Literature & Fiction

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall.

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly.

The ratings and views are off the chart. The fans just can't get enough. The dungeon gets more dangerous each day. But in a grinder designed to chew up and spit out crawlers by the millions, Carl and Princess Donut need to work harder than ever just to survive.,,,

The top 10 list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. The first three floors were nothing compared to what Carl and Donut now face....

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality.

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect....

A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely different journey.

From New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore comes a hilariously deranged tale of a mad scientist, a famous painter, and an undead woman’s electrifying journey of self-discovery.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible.

She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone.

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American....

Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness....

Well, this year, after the Spring Planting season, I’m really gonna relax and put down roots. It’s the slow life for me. Sure, the talking animals and cultivators coming to live with me are a bit weird, but this year everything is gonna be basically normal....

In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Dan has accidentally "Noclipped" into the Backrooms—a bizarro, extra-dimensional Alice-in-Wonderland world, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as the Dwellers. No one ever gets out.

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse....

Amber is a young videographer who has landed her dream job. She is to produce a web series based on a late-night talk radio show dealing with the unexplained. She is a huge fan of the show, and its host, Jack Owens, who she hopes to help reveal the world’s most cryptic secrets.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking....

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness.

From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things comes a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate....

My husband is dead. I attended his funeral. I watched his casket be lowered six feet into the ground. (Actually, it may have been only five feet, but that still seems like more than enough.)

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him....

Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, have not always gotten along with Finlay’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty, the community busybody and president of the neighborhood watch. But when a dead body is discovered in her backyard, Mrs. Haggerty needs their help.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier.

“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Falls, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.” Thus begins Fever Beach, with an errand that leads—in pure Hiaasen-style—into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed, and corruption.

Vienna, 1911. Gustav Klimt, the most famous painter in the Austrian Empire, the darling of Viennese society, spots a woman’s nude body in the Danube canal. He knows he should summon a policeman, but he can’t resist stopping to make a sketch first. And as he draws, the woman coughs. She’s alive! Back at his studio, Klimt and his model-turned-muse Wally tend to the erstwhile-drowned girl. She’s nearly feral and doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be floating in the canal. Klimt names her Judith, after one of his most famous paintings, and resolves to help her find her memory.

Lloyd McNeil has served as an officer with the Atlanta Police Department for 20 years while being a devoted father to his teenage son. But then he learns the worst possible news: He has learned he has an inoperable brain tumor, and he has only months left to live. Lloyd begins throwing himself into a series of increasingly dangerous situations, but things don’t go according to plan. Instead of dying, he becomes a civic hero. Meanwhile, a malevolent force from his past shadows Lloyd as he tries to get his affairs in order, teach his son the lessons he needs to be a good person.

Entertainment journalist Dawn Roberts has a lot to work through: a widow’s grief, betrayals of family and friends, and scandals that almost tanked her reputation. Not that Dawn dwells on the past. Well, hardly. When she returns to Baltimore with her husband’s ashes, she can’t avoid it. In fact, she’s diving into decades of backstabbing and treachery for her first trip home in years. She’s looking at you, Joe Perkins. Her former mentor, whose explosive exposé about big-city corruption is being turned into a slanderous movie, is also back in town.

After thirty years of friendship, Pam dreams of her perfect retirement with Nancy, Shalisa, Marlene, and their husbands—until their husbands pool their funds for an investment that goes terribly wrong. Suddenly, their golden years are looking as dreary as their marriages. But when the women discover their husbands have seven-figure life insurance policies, a new dream forms. And this time, they need a hitman.

That someone might end up dead at the Palms School’s annual glamping trip in Santa Barbara wasn’t far-fetched. Taking city people into the woods was begging for murder. What was surprising was how far these mothers would go to cover it up.

Ever since she was a child, Cléo, the French-American daughter of two academics, has had only one obsession: becoming a famous singer. Over the years, to everyone’s surprise but her own, she overcomes every obstacle and becomes a global superstar with millions of dollars, countless awards, and several Los Angeles villas to her name. But as any celebrity will tell you, getting to the top is one thing; staying there is another. Now thirty-three years old, Cléo is taking her first real vacation in years, on a remote island with no one else in sight.

Penelope and Chase make a lovely couple. She’s a bubbly Southern California girl with killer work ethic. Chase is smart and charming and has political aspirations. They’re planning a spectacular California wedding, wrapped in peonies and thousands of little white lights, soaked in custom cocktails and romantic hashtags. Everyone’s excited about Penny and Chase’s wedding­­­­­­—except their mothers.

Being best friends with a mega-star has its perks, and music journalist Nicole Wilde takes full advantage of them. But it also has its responsibilities. When lead singer Dylan King disappears the night before a charity gig, it’s up to Nicole to track him down. Half a dozen groupies, a haunted hotel, a tattoo parlour, a reality show runner-up and a crazy bed-hopping, sleepless night later – will she find him before the tour bus leaves town? And when she does, is it time to head home? Or to jump on the tour bus and go along for the ride?

Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship. But when Mathilde’s fame and success cause her to begin drifting away, Enka becomes desperate to keep her close.

Niles Mason's troubles continue as his exact double conspires to embroil Russia and the US in a devastating war. As he attempts to avoid an untimely death, Mason meets some unlikely allies who believe in him, and his tale of a missing fortune. * The second Ruthless book has been published in two parts, this is part two of Ruthless, And Then Some Too. This is due to Audio and Paperback restrictions. 788 pages did not sit well with the software.

On May 20th, 1927, a momentous event occurred in aviation history. A young, brave man, attempted to fly a dangerous flight that would break all known records at that time. If he succeeded, he would become world famous and a legend…that man was Charles Ginsberg. Instead, he flew four zany entertainers from New York to Burbank…or so he tried. This is the fantastic, tremendous, terrific…okay, let’s just say, interesting story of the man who would become known as the "Jewish Eagle". Trying to get the Marx Brothers and Jack Benny to an important audition in Hollywood, Charles attempts ...

Drumpf & Sons: Capitol Gains A Novel of Power, Profit, and the Privatization of a Presidency In the United Republic of Columbia, democracy didn’t die — it got a rebrand. When billionaire-turned-President Ron Drumpf reclaims the Ivory House, he brings his children, his company, and his golden furniture with him. What follows is a blisteringly absurd and disturbingly plausible descent into dynastic rule, where national assets are auctioned to shell companies, foreign autocrats are rewarded with government contracts, and loyalty to the ruling family is rewarded with pardons — or profit. ...

The village that Time ignored. A tale of swans, local myths, and mayhem. A year in the life of the not always sleepy Somerset village of Blackney Foloren. Separated from the outside world by the infamous Somerset Levels, Blackney is a place which the modern world has overlooked for centuries, where the inhabitants conduct themselves to their entire satisfaction but not a great deal usually happens. However, they are about to have their feathers seriously ruffled, as this tale takes flight with several rather peculiar goings on. As with any small village, there is a pub, a shop, a church, a ...

Heroes, famous and not-so-famous, alive and dead, haunt and live along the highways and byways of New Zealand. Sir Edmund Hillary, Katherine Mansfield, Billy T.James, David Lange, Charles Upham V.C., and Bar; Kate Sheppard, Dame Whina Cooper and many more ghosts of heroes past. Living heroes Richie McCaw, Peter Jackson and Fred Dagg; the infamous (Mongrel Mob) and “the ordinary bloke.” Uneducated geek 16-year-old John Cargib encounters and learns from all, alive and dead, on his personal hikoi (trek) of growth around the highways and byways of New Zealand. Along the way, he is saved ...

In these twelve new stories, Richard Bausch explores the passions of men and women facing unex­pected circumstances and the complications of modern life and love. In the novella “Donnaiolo,” for instance, the parents of a young divorcée who has returned from Italy and a failed marriage must deal with the completely different, and unappealing, person she has become. In “Isolation,” a happily married woman who has con­ceived an unexpected passion for another man learns, in lockdown during the pandemic, that this man—into whose life Bausch also gives us a window—has become ill with Covid.

On the eve of Keith Jefferson’s retirement, Aliens invade the Earth with one demand, that they be worshipped. Keith worshipped no one. And having lost his pension and other financial instruments when the banks and other financial institutions exploiting the invasion kept everyone’s assets because they could, Keith vowed revenge and became a one-man resistance movement in a world that complacently accepted the alien leaders as, just some other people they didn’t vote for who now were in charge.

After a divorce and the death of his father, Casey Sweet is in a bad way. He’s drinking most of a bottle of whisky every night, and his panic attacks at work have landed him on an involuntary mental health sabbatical for the summer. Cleaning out his dad’s possessions, he stumbles upon a bag of rare vintage golf clubs—a set the old man protected like gold. Soon, Casey is golfing every day, drinking less and—with the help of his bossy therapist—keeping his anxieties at bay.

Una historia cruda y satírica sobre el poder, la persuasión y el peligro de cerrar los ojos ante verdades incómodas. Ambientada a bordo de un autobús turístico aparentemente común, esta historia desentraña cómo la verdad puede ser manipulada, la confianza comprada con promesas, y grupos enteros guiados por el camino equivocado, no mediante la fuerza, sino con halagos, miedo y la seductora comodidad de pertenecer. Lo que comienza como un frustrante retraso en el viaje pronto se convierte en una escalofriante lección de manipulación. Un extraño carismático promete salvación, pero...

Cultivation is all fun and games. Until someone kills Merlin. Apparently, the only logical response to this fairly important change to Arthurian lore is for me to be reincarnated into Dark Age Cornwall. But don't worry, I have an absolute understanding of feudal power dynamics, Qi cycling, and anti-Saxon spell flinging. Oh, I also lie a lot. There's just the smallest chance that our timeline is doomed.

Following the break from the first half of their support group session, Chicago WereWolves & WifWolves, Male & Female Lycanthropes continue their meeting to support one another and share life hacks. Among them are: How to end school bullying with five simple words, “Don’t Make Me Eat You.”. What happens when WereGirls Go Wild abroad? How to adjust to Moon Lag, a condition in which your body suddenly starts TranZing at the time of the full moon in the place of your birth rather than the one you’ve just arrived in. WereWolf friendly clothing that expands to Were proportions and then ...

The Bull in the China Shop: The Use and Abuse of X-Rays You’ve had X-rays. Your dentist swears by them. Your doctor orders them “just in case.” But what if the world’s most routine medical procedure isn’t as harmless as everyone claims? In The Bull in the China Shop, author and critic Bill Jordan pulls back the lead curtain on one of the most overlooked health risks of modern times: medical radiation. Delivered in a style equal parts serious investigation and satirical romp — somewhere between a public health warning and a Monty Python sketch — this book takes you on a journey...

Set up the deckchair, pop a hanky on your head and order an ice-cream with a flake, as you settle in for a hilarious trip to Llantwit-on-Sea. It’s the 1950s, the Great British holiday is booming and recently widowed Eirlys Richards runs a lively boarding house in this Welsh seaside town. Promenade Rock is a sunny seaside comedy that will have you in stitches. Listen now to the hilarious complete series, available to download for the time.

In Roughing It, Mark Twain recounts his real-life journey across the American West with wit, grit, and wide-eyed wonder. Originally published in 1872, this semi-autobiographical travelogue follows Twain as he joins his brother—appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—on an epic overland stagecoach ride from Missouri to the frontier. Along the way, he encounters a colorful cast of characters, from outlaws and prospectors to pioneers and desperados, all set against the backdrop of dusty deserts, fledgling mining towns, and gold rush chaos.