2019 excellence
Top 10 2019 excellence
: Pumpkinheads, The American Agent, Aria, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth, Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World, Beverly, Right Here, Romanov, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey, Goodnight Stranger
Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.
Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye...
| Author | Jacqueline Winspear |
| ISBN | 0062436694 |
Beloved heroine Maisie Dobbs, “one of the great fictional heroines” (Parade), investigates the mysterious murder of an American war correspondent in London during the Blitz in a page-turning tale of love and war, terror and survival.
When Catherine Saxon, an American correspondent...
| Author | Nazanine Hozar |
| ISBN | 0345811828 |
This extraordinary, gripping debut is a rags-to-riches-to-revolution tale about an orphan girl's coming-of-age in Iran.
It is the early 1950s in a democratic but restless Iran, a country newly powerful with oil wealth but unsettled by class and religious divides and by the politics of...
Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators
| Author | Ronan Farrow |
| ISBN | 0316486639 |
In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hellbent on covering up the truth, at any cost.
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to...
Translated from the Gibberish: Seven Stories and One Half Truth
| Author | Anosh Irani |
| ISBN | 0735278520 |
The bestselling author of
The Parcel
writes, for the first time, about Canada as well as India in this unforgettable collection of seven moving stories and one "half truth" (a semi-fictional "translation" of what it means to be an immigrant).
Twenty years ago, to the mystification...
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World
| Author | Pema Chödrön |
| ISBN | 1611805651 |
From the bestselling author of When Things Fall Apart, an open-hearted call for human connection, compassion, and learning to love the world just as it is during these most challenging times.
In her first new book of spiritual teachings in over seven years, Pema Chödrön offers a combination...
| Author | Kate DiCamillo |
| ISBN | 0763694649 |
Revisiting once again the world of Raymie Nightingale, two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo turns her focus to the tough-talking, inescapably tenderhearted Beverly.
Beverly put her foot down on the gas. They went faster still.
This was what Beverly wanted — what she always wanted....
The history books say I died.
They don’t know the half of it.
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is...
River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey
| Author | Helen Prejean |
| ISBN | 1400067308 |
In this revelatory, intimate memoir from the author of Dead Man Walking, the nation's foremost leader in efforts to abolish the death penalty shares the story of her growth as a spiritual leader, speaks out about the challenges of the Catholic Church, and shows that joy and religion are not mutually...
Lydia and Lucas Moore are in their late twenties when a stranger enters their small world on Wolf Island. Lydia, the responsible sister, has cared for her pathologically shy brother, Lucas, ever since their mom’s death a decade before. They live together, comfortable yet confined, in their family...
In a tour-de-force that is both an homage to an immortal work of literature and a modern masterpiece about the quest for love and family, Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author Salman Rushdie has created a dazzling Don Quixote for the modern age.
Inspired by the Cervantes...
Sequel to Shannon Hale's award-winning graphic novel memoir, "Real Friends", this new graphic memoir picks up where "Real Friends" left off. As Shannon grows a little older, the rules of friendship always seem to be changing, leaving her guessing and trying her best to just keep up. "Best Friends"...
Raina wakes up one night with a terrible upset stomach. Her mom has one, too, so it's probably just a bug. Raina eventually returns to school, where she's dealing with the usual highs and lows: friends, not-friends, and classmates who think the school year is just one long gross-out session. It soon becomes...
| Author | Patti Smith |
| ISBN | 0525657681 |
From the National Book Award-winning author of Just Kids and M Train, a profound, beautifully realized memoir in which dreams and reality are vividly woven into a tapestry of one transformative year.
Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti...
Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love
| Author | Jonathan Van Ness |
| ISBN | 0062906402 |
Who gave Jonathan Van Ness permission to be the radiant human he is today? No one, honey.
The truth is, it hasn't always been gorgeous for this beacon of positivity and joy.
Before he stole our hearts as the grooming and self-care expert on Netflix's hit show Queer Eye, Jonathan was growing...
I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
| Author | Emily Nussbaum |
| ISBN | 0525508961 |
From The New Yorker’s fiercely original, Pulitzer Prize–winning culture critic, a provocative collection of new and previously published essays arguing that we are what we watch.
From her creation of the first “Approval Matrix” in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize–winning...
On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard
| Author | Jennifer Pastiloff |
| ISBN | 1524743569 |
An inspirational memoir about how Jennifer Pastiloff’s years of waitressing taught her to seek out unexpected beauty, how deafness taught her to listen fiercely, how being vulnerable allowed her to find love, and how imperfections can lead to a life full of wild happiness.
Centered around...
Orange World and Other Stories
| Author | Karen Russell |
| ISBN | 1984892215 |
From the Pulitzer Finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell's extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination.
Karen Russell's...
The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
The Lady from the Black Lagoon
uncovers the life and work of Milicent Patrick—one of Disney’s first female animators and the only woman in history to create one of Hollywood’s classic movie monsters.
As a teenager, Mallory O’Meara was thrilled to discover that one of her favorite...
| Author | Dana Simpson |
| ISBN | 1449499384 |
The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING series Phoebe and Her Unicorn is back with all-new sparkling tales of best friendship. Whether they're visiting Camp Shimmerhorn or fitting unicorn hooves for bowling shoes, Phoebe and Marigold find magic in every moment.
A unicorn in bowling shoes is quite...
From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus comes a novel about a struggling writer who gets his big break, with a little help from the most famous woman in America.
After years of trying to make it as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally sells his novel to an editor at a major...
Fifty Things That Aren't My Fault: Essays from the Grown-Up Years
| Author | Cathy Guisewite |
| ISBN | 0735218420 |
From the creator of the iconic "Cathy" comic strip comes her first collection of funny, wise, poignant, and incredibly honest essays about being a woman in what she lovingly calls "the panini generation."
As the creator of "Cathy," Cathy Guisewite found her way into the hearts of readers more...
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers
The New York Times Best Seller
For the first time ever, 75 beloved songs from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and The Children's Corner are collected in this charmingly illustrated treasury, sure to be cherished by generations of children as well as the millions of adults...
| Author | Laurie Halse Anderson |
A searing poetic memoir and call to action from the bestselling and award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson!
Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans...
Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life
One of the world’s leading artists—a living legend—and bestselling author of The Creative Habit shares her secrets for harnessing vitality and finding purpose as you age. From insight to action, Keep It Moving is a guidebook for expanding one’s possibilities over the course of a lifetime....
| Author | Morgan Parker |
| ISBN | 1947793187 |
Magical Negro is an archive of Black everydayness, a catalog of contemporary folk heroes, an ethnography of ancestral grief, and an inventory of figureheads, idioms, and customs. These American poems are both elegy and jive, joke and declaration, songs of congregation and self-conception. They...
An American Sunrise: Poems
| Author | Joy Harjo |
| ISBN | 1324003863 |
In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family’s lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds...
| Author | George Takei |
| ISBN | 1603094504 |
A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself.
Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke...
