Paula McLeod

Dale Maharidge’s father, like many World War II veterans, never talked about “the good war”. There was just one clue to his dad’s experience as a US Marine - a portrait with a close friend that hung permanently in their home. In The Dead Drink First, Dale, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recounts his 18-year quest to find and repatriate the missing remains of his dad’s buddy, Herman Walter Mulligan, 73 years after he was killed in action.

What if the perfect life you envy was rotten to the core? Three brand-new friends. Three very different families. Way too many secrets. Gisela, Sally and Kate become close when they move into the same new housing estate. But behind their shiny front doors, each has something to hide. Three lives collide in this gripping story about friendship, motherhood and marriage and the façade of perfection people present to the world.

Does nature really make us feel better? The 3-Day Effect takes a look at the science behind why being in the wild can make us happier, healthier, and more creative. Whether it’s rafting down Utah’s Green River, hiking in Utah’s wilderness, or walking through Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC, scientists are finding that the more exposure humans have to nature, the more we can benefit from reduced anxiety, enhanced creativity, and overall well-being.

Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University.

Although they had always dreamed of having a family, tall, horse-faced Frances and stubby, one-eyed Jack had reconciled themselves to a lifetime of abject loneliness. Then one day, out of nowhere, an infant is dropped into their midst. A fairy tale for adults!

In Kathleen’s home, red jeans were a sin. Parties were punishable with violence. Fear was part of the daily norm. Growing up in a Catholic cult, under the unforgiving eye of her abusive father, Kathleen knew from an early age that if she were to survive, she’d have to do it on her own. But when the time came to escape, she found herself in a damaging spiral of self-destruction. At rock bottom, and with nowhere to go, Kathleen stepped off a bus in the last place she ever thought she’d find peace: a remote and very Catholic community.

"As nearly perfect as any American fiction I know," is how Reynolds Price ( The New York Times) described this classic that has been a favorite of readers, both here and in Europe, for almost forty years. Set in provincial France in the 1960s, it is the intensely carnal story - part shocking reality, part feverish dream - of a love affair between a footloose Yale dropout and a young French girl. There is the seen and the unseen - and pages that burn with a rare intensity.

For Lizzie Riley, switching her six-year-old son, Tom, to the local academy school marks a fresh start, post divorce. With its excellent reputation and delightful red-brick building, Lizzie knows it'll be a safe space away from home. But there's something strange happening at school. Parents are forbidden from entering the grounds, and inside there are bars across the classroom windows....

This exquisite, resonant novel by PEN/Faulkner winner James Salter is a brilliant portrait of a marriage by a contemporary American master. It is the story of Nedra and Viri, whose favored life is centered around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends, and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach.

Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the married owner, Boss Yeung. Now she’s carrying his baby. To ensure that his child - his first son - has every advantage, Boss Yeung has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. As Scarlett awaits the baby’s arrival, she spars with her imperious housemates. The only one who fits in even less is Daisy, a spirited pregnant teenager who is being kept apart from her American boyfriend.