James Patterson

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Iowa

Alex Cross is plunged into a case where military codes of honor conceal dark currents of revenge and ambition, and the men controlling the moves have the best weapons and training the world can offer.

Four Blind Mice

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Paula Hawkins

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

A Novel

The Girl on the Train

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Kimberly McCreight

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

An idyllic suburban town. A devastating discovery. Shocking revelations that will change three lives forever. At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of a newborn is found in the woods fringing the campus of the town's prestigious university. No one knows the identity of the baby, what ended her very short life, or how she came to be found among the fallen leaves. But for the residents of Ridgedale, there is no shortage of opinions. When freelance journalist and recent Ridgedale transplant Molly Sanderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the disturbing news for the Ridgedale Reader—the town's local paper—she has good reason to hesitate. A severe depression followed the loss of her own baby, and this assignment could unearth memories she has tried hard to bury. But the disturbing history Molly uncovers is not her own. Her investigation reveals a decades-old trail of dark secrets hiding behind Ridgedale's white picket fences. Told from the perspectives of three Ridgedale women, Kimberly McCreight's taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth behind the tragedy, revealing that these women have far more in common than they could ever have imagined: that the very worst crimes are committed against those we love. And that—sooner or later—the past catches up to all of us.

Where They Found Her

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Dorothy Otnow Lewis

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Psychiatrist Explores the Minds of Killers

Everyone has felt the urge to kill. Most people don't kill. Some people do. Dorothy Otnow Lewis, a psychiatrist and an internationally recognized expert on violence, has spent the last quarter century studying the differences between those who do and those who don't. Among the murderers she has examined are the notorious killers Ted Bundy, Arthur Shawcross, and Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon. Now, she shares her groundbreaking discoveries--and the chilling encounters that led to them. Guilty by Reason of Insanity is the gripping, brilliantly written true story of Dr. Lewis's search to understand those who kill. The unforgettable cases revealed here clearly illustrate how the disparate elements of brain damage, paranoia, and family brutality combine to create a killer. It starts at a juvenile court in New Haven. A thirteen-year-old girl--out of the blue, in broad daylight--has stabbed her best friend to death before an audience of gaping classmates. Dr. Lewis convinces her colleague, the eminent neurologist Jonathan Pincus, to help her figure out why. Thus begins a collaboration that continues to this day. The passion to understand the underpinnings of violence draws the Lewis-Pincus team to the psychiatric and forensic wards of New York City's Bellevue Hospital, and then to prisons around the country--eventually leading to the corridors of death row and to an infamous gallery of condemned killers. There we meet a thirty-six-year-old woman who forms a sexual attachment to a fourteen-year-old boy. Together, they kidnap, torture, and ultimately murder a teenaged girl. Suddenly, in the midst of the interview with the doe-eyed, soft-spoken murderess, a menacing, male persona appears and Dr. Lewis finds herself face-to-face with her first case of multiple personality disorder, a condition she never before believed existed. We sit in on the psychiatric evaluation of a condemned boy who, at seventeen, raped and murdered a seventy-six-year-old nun. Only after his death does Dr. Lewis discover the grotesque secrets of his childhood that finally explain his murderous rage and his bizarre choice of victim. Powerful, controversial, and utterly absorbing--including an intense final interview with an executioner--Guilty by Reason of Insanity is a tour de force, a compelling odyssey of one extraordinary psychiatrist striking a delicate balance between emotion and objectivity. It will forever change the way you think about crime, punishment, and the law itself.

Guilty by Reason of Insanity

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Hampton Sides

The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission

Chronicles the daring mission of the elite U.S. Army Sixth Ranger Battalion to slip behind enemy lines in the Phillipines and rescue the 513 American and British POWs who had spent over three years in a hellish, Japanese-run camp near Cabanatuan. 100,000 first printing.

Ghost Soldiers

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Kate Dicamillo

Funny and poignant, this 2001 Newbery Honor novel captures life in a quirky Southern town as Opal and her mangy dog, Winn-Dixie, strike up friendships among the locals. (Ages 8 and up)

The summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket--and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tells Opal ten things about her absent mother, one for each year Opal has been alive. Winn-Dixie is better at making friends than anyone Opal has ever known, and together they meet the local librarian, Miss Franny Block, who once fought off a bear with a copy of WAR AND PEACE. They meet Gloria Dump, who is nearly blind but sees with her heart, and Otis, an ex-con who sets the animals in his pet shop loose after hours, then lulls them with his guitar.

Opal spends all that sweet summer collecting stories about her new friends and thinking about her mother. But because of Winn-Dixie or perhaps because she has grown, Opal learns to let go, just a little, and that friendship--and forgiveness--can sneak up on you like a sudden summer storm.

Recalling the fiction of Harper Lee and Carson McCullers, here is a funny, poignant, and utterly genuine first novel from a major new talent.

Because of Winn-Dixie

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David Patneaude

Eleven-year-old Joe Hanada likes playing basketball with his best friend, Ray, writing plays and stories, and thinking about the upcoming Christmas holiday. But his world falls apart when Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor. His country goes to war. The FBI takes his father away. And neighbors and friends in his hometown near Seattle begin to suspect Joe, his family, and all Japanese Americans of spying for the enemy. When the government orders people of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast to move to internment camps, including Joe and his family, Joe turns to the journal his father gave him to record his thoughts and feelings.

Thin Wood Walls

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Reading level: S
Chapter book for young readers 

Sunrise Over Fallujah

Stephen E. Ambrose

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

Stephen E. Ambrose’s iconic story of the ordinary men who became the World War II’s most extraordinary soldiers: Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, US Army. They came together, citizen soldiers, in the summer of 1942, drawn to Airborne by the $50 monthly bonus and a desire to be better than the other guy. And at its peak—in Holland and the Ardennes—Easy Company was as good a rifle company as any in the world. From the rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the disbanding in 1945, Stephen E. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. In combat, the reward for a job well done is the next tough assignment, and as they advanced through Europe, the men of Easy kept getting the tough assignments. They parachuted into France early D-Day morning and knocked out a battery of four 105 mm cannon looking down Utah Beach; they parachuted into Holland during the Arnhem campaign; they were the Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne, brought in to hold the line, although surrounded, in the Battle of the Bulge; and then they spearheaded the counteroffensive. Finally, they captured Hitler's Bavarian outpost, his Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgaden. They were rough-and-ready guys, battered by the Depression, mistrustful and suspicious. They drank too much French wine, looted too many German cameras and watches, and fought too often with other GIs. But in training and combat they learned selflessness and found the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They discovered that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them. This is the story of the men who fought, of the martinet they hated who trained them well, and of the captain they loved who led them. E Company was a company of men who went hungry, froze, and died for each other, a company that took 150 percent casualties, a company where the Purple Heart was not a medal—it was a badge of office.

Band of Brothers

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Jolene Babyak

The Great Escape from Alcatraz

Investigates the 1962 escape of three prisoners from Alcatraz, paying special attention to the role played by prisoner Allen West, and speculates about whether the men survived their escape attempt.

Breaking the Rock

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Harry H. Harrison

Like Buying Your Books Before Exams Start

Harrison's latest dose of trademark wit and wisdom provides practical advice ranging from class enrollment and living on campus to study habits and more, that every student--and parent--can benefit from.

1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know

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John Grogan

Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Now with photos and new material

Marley and Me

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Jeannette Walls

A Memoir

MORE THAN EIGHT YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

The extraordinary, one-of-a-kind, "nothing short of spectacular" (Entertainment Weekly) memoir from one of the world's most gifted storytellers.

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.

The memoir was also made into a major motion picture from Lionsgate in 2017 starring Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts.

The Glass Castle

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Pay It Forward 

Patricia MacLachlan

A Newbery Award Winner

"Did Mama sing every day?" Caleb asks his sister Anna."Every-single-day," she answers. "Papa too."

Sarah, Plain and Tall

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Revenge of the Christmas Angels

Robert Burch

Ida Early, who keeps house for the Sutton family in rural Georgia during the Depression, becomes the unwitting target of the children's matchmaking schemes during the holiday season.

Christmas with Ida Early

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Reading level: S
Chapter book for young readers.

My Life in Pictures 

Chapter book for young readers. Reading level: S

Third Grade Angels

Jennifer Traig

Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood

In the bestselling tradition of "Running with Scissors" and "A Girl Named Zippy," Jennifer Traig tells an unforgettable story of youthful obsession.

Devil in the Details

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Reading level: 5.8
Guided Reading Level: S
This suggests that the book is for about a 5th grade reader.

Scholastic Books

Flying Solo

Jodi Picoult

The discovery of a dead baby under a pile of old blankets in Aaron Fisher's barn sets off a scandal in Amish country and an investigation that could implicate Fisher's eighteen-year-old daughter.

Plain Truth

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Lalita Tademy

The "New York Times" bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick--the unique and deeply moving epic of four generations of African-American women based on one family's ancestral past.

Cane River

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Sue Miller

“Riveting . . . While I Was Gone [celebrates] what is impulsive in human nature.”
–The New York Times

“Miller weaves her themes of secrecy, betrayal, and forgiveness into a narrative that shines.”
–Time


Jo Becker has every reason to be content. She has three dynamic daughters, a loving marriage, and a rewarding career. But she feels a sense of unease. Then an old housemate reappears, sending Jo back to a distant past when she lived in a communal house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Drawn deeper into her memories of that fateful summer in 1968, Jo begins to obsess about the person she once was. As she is pulled farther from her present life, her husband, and her world, Jo struggles against becoming enveloped by her past and its dark secret.


“[While I Was Gone] swoops gracefully between the past and the present, between a woman’s complex feelings about her husband and her equally complex fantasies–and fears–about another man. . . . [Miller writes] well about the trials of faith.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Quietly gripping . . . Jo shines steadily as the flawed and thoroughly modern heroine. As in her 1986 novel, The Good Mother, Miller shows how impulses can fracture the family.”
–USA Today

“Marvelous . . . poignant . . . powerful.”
–Seattle Times/Post Intelligencer

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