Recommended Reads

Five teenage travelers, left behind when their community of inhuman creatures mysteriously disappears, must uncover the truth about what happened while grappling with their own hidden secrets.

This powerful and unflinching examination of racism in America by award-winning historian Ann Bausum deconstructs the warped history of the Civil War

In the spring of 2018, Tom Piazza climbed into a 1977 Coupe de Ville with the great singer-songwriter John Prine to write an article for the Oxford American. Their Florida road trip ignited a deep friendship, full of tall tales over epic meals, long nights playing guitar and trading songs, and visits back and forth between their homes in Nashville and New Orleans. When Prine died suddenly of COVID in April 2020, that unfinished memoir evolved into an intimate and very personal narrative of the artist's final years. 

Prudence Welch has found solace in her introverted life in Baysville, a charming tourist town in Northern Ontario. Enter Milo Kablukov, an enigmatic wanderer whose beat-up van covered with ill-advised bumper stickers rolls into town just when Prue needs a change. Milo, a man of many adventures and countless stories, is not one to settle down. However, his brother’s urgent need for help has brought him to Baysville, and now the intriguing Prue has given him more reason to stay.

Set in a struggling 1960s Florida town, two sisters, fifteen-year-old Pip and seventeen-year-old Sissy, share a close bond, but after the annual carnival leaves, Sissy grows distant and reveals a shocking secret, thrusting the sisters and their friend Silas into a life-changing, desperate situation.

A young Black woman in 1860s England is forced into London society where she reunites with the boy who broke her heart.

To save her sister, sixteen-year-old Birdie becomes a maid at the House of Quiet, a refuge for children whose Procedure triggered powers too terrible to live with, where she encounters aristocratic teens wielding strange abilities and uncovers terrifying threats and devastating truths.

Jade can manipulate souls with the tug of a thread, and it is up to her, and a boy with a soul as bright as the universe, to stop a creature on the loose before it claims its next victim.

A wild misfit in the human world, Nettle is enthralled by the glamor of the faery realm. She grows close to Conor, a human stolen centuries before, and she also falls under the spell of mysterious Ellion, a shadow faery. To try to help her beloved grandmother who is fading in her world, Nettle makes a pact with the faery king. He’ll heal her grandmother in exchange for Nettle completing three tasks. She agrees, not realizing that deception lurks in this enchanted place, and that she has been tricked.

How Your House Works provides a working overview of all the basic systems that make up your home, from electrical systems to HVAC to plumbing and beyond. Richly illustrated and with clear, accessible language, this book demystifies the foundations of home ownership and puts you in control of the structures that make your house work.

Brittany Tinsley, a self-injury recovery advocate, shares her deeply personal journey from self-harm to healing and offers readers a transformative path from isolation to connection, fear to hope, and hurt to wholeness. Perfect for anyone facing personal challenges, Stories Our Scars Tell speaks to the heart of identity, self-worth, and the pursuit of hope. 

Growing up with her younger siblings in the unforgiving New Zealand bush, Effie believed their parents had cut them off from civilization because they loved Nature. She never suspected that their reasons might be more menacing. After witnessing a terrifying episode of violence, she escaped the wilderness to forge a life for herself halfway across the globe. In order to find out once and for all what became of her family—and possibly help a mysterious girl who could be her younger self—Effie must face her greatest fears once more.

The Berisha family runs one of the largest import-export companies in the world, and they’ve always been lucky. At least that is what Zef, the patriarch, has always told his three children. And each of them knows their place in the family—Dardan, as the only male heir, must prepare to take over as keeper of the Berisha secrets, Maris’s most powerful contribution, much to her dismay, will be to marry strategically, and Nora’s job, as the youngest, is to just stay out of the way. But when things stop going as planned, and the family blessing starts looking more like a curse, the Berishas begin to splinter, each hatching their own secret scheme. They didn’t get to be one of the richest families in the world without spilling a little blood, but this time, it might be their own.

Spanning two timelines, one teen searches for her biological mother and the other copes with giving up her baby for adoption.

In a land oppressed by the Dragon Empire, sixteen-year-old Lee Seung, a poor cleaner, and privileged Choi Eunji form an unlikely bond, only to find themselves on opposite sides of a battle for the last tiger--a magical spirit key to their nation's liberation and their intertwined destinies.

Sixteen-year-old Greta attempts to reinvent herself at her amusement park summer job, but things take a deadly turn when a co-worker disappears.

Celia, determined to be the perfect friend, plans an idyllic summer with her two best friends in a secluded cabin, but hidden romantic tensions and new connections have the potential to turn her dream getaway into a complicated nightmare.

Anyone who has hiked through time knows the town of Pocket. To Calisto, Pocket is home. For Fawkes, traveling is life. When he floats into Pocket, Calisto meets him for the first time, though Fawkes has seen Calisto--in glimpses of what hasn't happened yet. He's also seen the villains chasing them both. Now Calisto and Fawkes must rush through time to save Pocket, and travelers, from being erased.

On the cusp of seventeen-year-old Phoebe high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe. She runs away to her friend Patrick O'Connor's chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. Patrick's older brothers can't help but notice the striking  stranger who has suddenly appeared in their midst.

Olivia Blunt is thrilled to be hired as assistant to the nationally renowned investigator Aubrey Merritt. After weeks of boring computer work, Olivia is finally invited to join Merritt on an important case. On the night of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Vermont’s Lake Champlain. The police ruled her death a suicide, but Victoria’s daughter Haley thinks it was murder.

In Dream School, Jeffrey Selingo shifts the spotlight from how colleges pick students to how students can better pick colleges.
Dream School reveals what really matters in a college: strong job prospects after graduation, hands-on learning experiences, and a sense of belonging. To help students find their perfect match, Selingo highlights 75 accessible and affordable colleges that will satisfy those priorities.

Dark Renaissance illuminates both Christopher Marlowe's times and the origins and significance of his astonishing literary success. Introducing us to Marlowe's transgressive genius in the form of a thrilling page-turner, Stephen Greenblatt brings a penetrating understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented by his own compromises, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered just when he had found love. 

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club November 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club October 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club September 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club August 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club July 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club June 2025

Stranger Than Fiction Book Club May 2025

Romance Me Book Club Pick October 2025
 

Romance Me Book Club Pick September 2025

Romance Me Book Club Pick August 2025
 

Romance Me Book Club Pick July 2025
 

Romance Me Book Club Pick June 2025

Romance Me Book Club Pick May 2025
 

Hakeem goes to Narcotics Anonymous meetings to keep his addictions in check. But when his best friend Miles kills himself, Hakeem finds the days harder and harder to get through. In his grief, Hakeem calls Miles's old phone number. Miles not only calls back from beyond the grave, but has news to share: He didn't kill himself. He was murdered. Finding out the truth about Miles might end up helping Hakeem find his way to his own truth and further strength to stay alive himself. 

Two teen girls must uncover the dark, occult secrets lurking in their Cape Cod town to solve a series of murders-and save themselves from the same fate.

In the Kingdom of Daradon, a persecuted few are Wielders, in possession of a magical Spectre--a shimmering thread that can extend beyond their visible body to give a loving caress, pick a lock, even kill. Feared for this ability, Wielders have always been Hunted. Alissa Paine, heiress and daughter of a Hunter family is also a Wielder. Summoned to the harsh and glittering royal court for the debutante season, Alissa finds herself caught in a web of intrigue and betrayal. With the threat of discovery lurking around every corner Alissa will find that she has more to lose than her secrets.

A dead teacher at an elite boarding school. Four students who had every reason to want her gone. Who is the monster?

"When Ellis' parents announce that not only are they separating, but Ellis has to move with her mom from New York City to Bramble Falls, Connecticut, it couldn't come at a worse time. From past summers spent in Connecticut, Ellis knows it will be impossible to avoid local barista Cooper Barnett, Ellis's one-time best friend and first kiss who now wants nothing to do with Ellis. And then there's the Falling Leaves Festival. Dragged to every oh-so-charming event from apple picking to pumpkin carving, Ellis can't stop bumping into Cooper...or falling for the quaint town and its quirky residents. As her return to Manhattan gets repeatedly delayed, Ellis finds herself caught between two very different places--and the futures they represent.

Twenty-eight-year-old Kiki Banjo hosts the popular podcast The HeartBeat, solving romantic conundrums and dishing out life advice but career setbacks and a devastating breakup have left her hanging on by a thread. As she's preparing to be the Maid of Honor in her best friend's wedding, Kiki finds herself face-to-face with the Best Man, her ex-boyfriend, Malakai--the man who stole her heart and then shattered it. Now they have no choice but to play nice until the wedding is over. 

Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as “my shelter and my storm.”

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told after she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled. But on graduation day, the faculty embark on a ravenous rampage, feasting on their students. Trapped in the school’s cavernous library, Alessa and her surviving classmates must do something they were never taught: work together.

Attracting record-shattering attendance and TV ratings, Caitlin Clark has riveted the nation with her famous logo threes and thrilling passes and changed how fans across the country view women’s sports. Clark arrived as a sports and cultural icon a little more than fifty years after the passage of Title IX, the 1972 law that opened the floodgates for girls and women to play sports in America. On Her Game is a sports story, certainly, but it’s also the story of a nation falling in love with what it has created because of that law—millions of new athletes, led by the magical Caitlin Clark.

"Lonely Leena" is close with her young single mother. Still, she's always secretly dreamed of more. A huge family to cheer her on at graduation. A gaggle of smiling faces at the holidays. But one call from the hospital, and her mother's hidden past comes to light, and with family comes family secrets. Leena isn't sure who to trust, yet she's certain that she adores Tariq, her grandfather, and her mom. A big family was the dream, but all this drama isn't. 

While scuba diving off the Australian coast, Phoebe "Phibs" Ray and her friends uncover a legendary underwater treasure, but as strange transformations begin to take hold, they must fight to protect each other from dangerous treasure hunters and a dark, growing power.

Set at a classic drive-in restaurant that seems to exist in every Native community, this anthology unites the stories of teens from all kinds of backgrounds through the shared theme of Native joy, with stories and poems reflecting hope, healing, humor, love, friendship, romance, and joy.

In the city of Valora, where mages are feared and closely governed by the law, Pandora Small spends her life pretending to be someone she is not. Pandora's arrival at court becomes complicated when Ellis Beacon, a promising young member of the royal guard, discovers the true scope of Pandora's deadly magic. Beacon agrees to keep her secret. But when someone or something with powers terribly like Pandora's own begins killing her fellow Ingenues, Beacon must decide whether Pandora is truly innocent or if there's ruthless killer lying under her masterfully crafted facade.

After making a cultural blunder at her cousin's wedding, seventeen-year-old Leah travels to China to connect with her roots and winds up falling for a former classmate on the trip, who she previously blamed for ruining her life.

The piano is free, but fame has a price.

On the sleepy streets of Cascade Cove, lonely Margot knows that when she stumbles across a discarded synthesizer with a “not haunted” sign, she’s discovered the key to realizing her dreams. Determined to become a real songwriter and earn her absent father’s admiration, Margot dives headfirst into trying to gain followers and fans online. But her musical journey takes an unexpected turn when she realizes the (not haunted) piano is very much…haunted.

Enter Vision, teen pop sensation of 1979 whose untimely demise left her spirit intertwined with the keys of her synthesizer. Though Margot and Vision couldn’t be more different, the girls form an unlikely bond fueled by their shared passion for music.

But as Margot’s obsession with fame and recognition grows, she may come dangerously close to losing what she loves about music…and herself.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant physicist who led the American effort to build the atomic bomb during World War II, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of the revolutionary weapon he helped create. 
 

My abuela is a bruja.
There is magic in everything she does.

There is nothing more magical than a grandmother's love. But one lucky girl suspects her grandmother has actual magic. It's in the tun-tun-tun of the way she dances salsa, in the warmth of her hugs, and the delicious smell of her cooking. The granddaughter wonders: will I have magic of my own one day?

Orris the rat and Timble the owl are unlikely friends. Each night, Timble visits Orris in the barn and listens to his stories. But Timble is growing up, and one evening when the owl doesn’t appear as usual Orris wonders if Timble has forgotten him. Is their friendship over? Or could it be that Timble has a tale of his own to share? 

CeeCee is a young enslaved girl growing up alongside the two spoiled daughters she must work for on a plantation in Maryland. She takes care of them, catering to their every whim and suffering their casual cruelty. She learns to read by listening to their lessons and stories with the threat of punishment if caught.

CeeCee receives help from the caring cook, Binty, and hope comes in the form of a different kind of escape. CeeCee chances everything for the possibility of a new life.
 

James Gordon is already annoyed by the robots in his life—the drones that look like bugs, the dogbots at the park, his HomeBot babysitter, and now? He’s just found out that Schoolbots are replacing all of his favorite middle school teachers.

James’s teachers have always cared about his feelings and supported his art, but with the news that artificial intelligence is replacing them, James’s life feels like it’s full spiraling into chaos. All the Schoolbots care about is improving students’ test scores and efficiency, and they’ve had some seriously unnerving glitches.

James is determined to fight back but is going to need some help from a very unlikely ally in order to keep these robot teachers from taking over his school.

Say hello to early learning concepts and the wild world of animals!
 

Caitlin has already accomplished so much—and she’s just getting started! In The Totally Awesome World of Caitlin Clark, you’ll learn about:

Caitlin’s early life and her first successes on the court

• Her dazzling college basketball career at the University of Iowa
• Her current stats in the WNBA as a point guard with the Indiana Fever
• Her pursuits off the court, including her love of golf, her business endeavors, and her philanthropic efforts 

Old MacDonald had a farm—that is, until an alien spirits his animals away in a UFO. Now, Old MacMartian has a farm—in space—and young readers will delight in the out-of-this-world hijinks that result when cows, pigs, sheep, and more create chaos in his spaceship. 

With a zerp zap and a zerp zap there, colorful and detail-rich illustrations bring this hilarious tale to life as Old MacMartian and his faithful three-eyed dog get a bit more than they bargained for with their messy, hungry, noisy, and mischievous new barnyard companions. E-I-UFO!

Vampire cats are just like other cats, except they sleep during the day, they only eat red foods, and they go to school at night! 

One night after school, Pumpkin and Beetle discover everyone in Hallowsville is reading the latest Frightfuls comic. Everyone except them, that is. When they check their wallets, they only have a quarter and a bug. Determined not to miss out, they brainstorm all sorts of ways to make money. They'll sell crabapples! They'll set carved crabapples! They'll sell carved crabapple muffins!

In 1930s San Antonio, thirteen-year-old Petra dreams of going to college and becoming a writer.

But with her beloved father dead, two younger siblings to care for, and with a stepmother struggling to make ends meet, Petra has to drop out of school to shell pecans at a factory. Hoping it's only temporary, she tries not to despair over the grueling work conditions. But after the unhealthy environment leads to tragedy and workers' already low wages are cut, Petra knows things need to change. She and her coworkers go on strike for higher wages and safer conditions, risking everything they have for the hope of a better future.

For twelve-year-old Dashiell Gibson, living on the moon is a dream come true. Except for the low-gravity lunar toilets. And the food. And the part where his best friend lives about 250,000 miles away. And how there are almost no other kids up here, except for his kid sister and a couple of billionaire bullies. Oh, right, and the fact that a fellow lunarnaut just died—and only Dashiell knows that his death wasn’t an accident.

 

They're fluffy. They're funny. They could kill you.

Twelve-year-old Bea from Passaic, New Jersey, is visiting her family in Paris for the summer when her grandmother’s most precious heirloom—a drawing by Henri Matisse—goes missing. After a cryptic clue arrives on Bea’s doorstep suggesting its whereabouts, Bea is determined to pursue the lead.
 

If Carter hadn't been checking his phone, he might have seen his brother coming down the ski slopes in his direction. And if Carter had seen his brother in time and avoided the crash, he might not have two broken legs right now.

Oops.

Now Carter is stuck at home for weeks, with both his legs in casts. Bored, he starts checking out the live feeds from police cams around his town. Before he knows it, he's obsessed -- watching his classmates when they don't know he's looking, and discovering some other VERY STRANGE things going on that no one else is noticing.

But what happens when Carter is found out... and the people he's watching know where he lives?

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Stilwell has been "exiled" to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor--a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig. Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day: On Mondays, you can catch Kinga-A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga-E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A–G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life—between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer, and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion, and bossiness. But when Kinga-A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

Jim and his closest college friends get together to rekindle the bonds of their friendship in his family’s beautiful, generations-old vacation home along Buzzards Bay, the demands of work and family having caused them to drift apart over recent years. But what begins as a quiet and restorative seaside escape takes a darker turn when Bruce, an aloof but successful writer, disappears from the house without a trace, sending the group into an uneasy tension.

At the center of Baron's historical drama is Percival Lowell, who observed "canals" etched into the surface of Mars. Lowell devised a grand theory that the red planet was home to a utopian society that had built gargantuan ditches to funnel precious meltwater from the polar icecaps to desert farms and oasis cities. Martian excitement reached its zenith when Lowell financed an expedition to photograph Mars from Chile's Atacama Desert. Those wild claims and highly speculative photographs emboldened Lowell's critics. Although Lowell would die discredited and delusional in 1916, the Mars frenzy spurred a nascent literary genre called science fiction, and the world's sense of its place in the universe would never be the same.

 

Ansfield shows that as the FIRE industries--finance, insurance, and real estate-- eclipsed manufacturing in the 1970s, they began profoundly reshaping Black and Brown neighborhoods, seeing them as easy sources of profit. At every step, Ansfield charts the tenant-led resistance movements that sprung up in the Bronx and elsewhere, as well as the explosion of popular culture around the fires, from iconic movies like The Towering Inferno to hit songs such as "Disco Inferno." Ultimately, they show how similarly pernicious dynamics around insurance and race are still at play in our own era, especially in regions most at risk of climate shocks.

Gardner isn't like other boarding schools. They take in those who've been rejected everywhere else, they offer a survival skills class that has students killing and gutting animals, and then there's the Tournament. This year, three seniors make the Tournament more cutthroat than ever. Max, Nora, and Teddy. If one of them wants to win, then they can't let anything--or anybody--get in their way.

Eighteen-year-old pop star Summer Ali breaks free from her controlling parents to find her own voice. Struggling with writer's block, she agrees to a PR romance with notorious former child actor Jules Moradi. As their fake relationship deepens, Summer discovers truths about identity, fame, and love, forcing her to choose between her career dreams and her heart.

Book 2 in the Grandest Game series

Players move into the next round of the Grandest Game, where millions of dollars in prize money are on the line-and new relationships, motivations, and threats come to light.

Book 2 in the Fall of the Dragon series

An attack by the mysterious pirate fleet, Blood Phoenix, forces Ying and her allies back into the political turmoil of the Nine Isles, while her sister Nian uncovers a dark conspiracy in the capital, as the Isles teeter on the brink of destruction.

After discovering a camera memory card with hundreds of photos of teenage girls, seventeen-year-olds Willow and Dare set out fine some of them who have gone missing.

In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family’s isolated mine for refuge. Alba begins to suffer from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune. But he can’t help but notice the growing tension between himself and Alba every time she enters the room as well as her deterioration under these strange symptoms. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and each other.

After a public meltdown and her best friend's betrayal lead her family to move onto a sailboat at sea, seventeen-year-old Mia struggles with isolation and her mental health until she meets Alby and Nisha, prompting Mia to navigate new romantic feelings, family tensions, and her own personal growth.

Book 1 in the Fateless series

When seventeen-year-old Sparrow joined the Thieves Guild she made a vow of binding loyalty to their cause. What ensues is a death-defying adventure that has Sparrow and her band of thieves venturing into the heart of the forgotten city of the Deathless King. 

When sixteen-year-old Emma finds a mysterious boy in the woods, she unlocks memories of magical Hawaiian spirits and works with the legendary menehune to break his curse and protect the sacred forest on the Big Island.

Kristina R. Gaddy tells the story of America's tumultuous years leading up to the Civil War and of the war itself from the viewpoints of four children of famous abolitionists, including those of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.

Sixteen-year-old Bibi Hossain's summer plans for romance take an unexpected turn when her sister gets engaged, sending her to Bangladesh for the wedding, where she experiences major culture shock and a possible romance with the groom's younger brother.

Immigrating alone from Paris to New York after the crucible of World War II, young Gazala becomes friends with two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala’s lost, beloved brother, Samir, joins her in Manhattan, this contentious, inseparable foursome makes their way into the twenty-first century, becoming the beating heart of a multigenerational found family. Through it all, amid the tumult of these decades, the four friends and their best beloveds stand by one another, protecting, annoying, and celebrating themselves, steadfastly unapologetic about their desires and the unorthodox family they have created. 

Invisible to the naked eye and telescopes, black holes have mystified and entranced astronomers, scientists, and humanity for more than a century. The first image of a supermassive black hole was only unveiled in 2019, and new black holes are continually discovered. Supermassive illuminates what we know about black holes so far and what we have yet to uncover.

When disaster strikes, hearing-impaired Laelia Wylde leaves London with her new partner, Aidrian, and her young children, hoping for a fresh start in the verdant jungle of Belize. While the jungle is mesmerizingly beautiful, Laelia's fragmented recollections of the past are increasingly bewildering, the gunshots she hears at night through her worsening tinnitus seem to be getting closer, and she still doesn't understand why her father tried to turn her against Aid when they first met. Uncovering long-buried secrets that threaten to derail everything, Laelia must somehow find the courage and resilience she needs to survive.