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Adult Services Staff Picks September 2026 |
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The Amateur
by Chris Bohjalian
Recommended by: Anna Jayne
In 1978, on a sweltering August day, 18-year-old Mira Winston drives a golf ball toward the practice net. The 1.6-ounce ball tears through the net at 150 miles per hour and strikes high school junior Kenny Foster in the temple, killing him before the ambulance arrives. Though everyone first calls it an accident, Mira seeks comfort in all the wrong places - her older married lover Theo Catton, her secretive mother, and the dead caddy's grieving sisters. But when investigators question the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira's history of recklessness, and when Kenny's father sees her with Theo, the community turns on the once-promising young woman.
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The Children
by Melissa Albert
Recommended by: Helen
The estranged adult children of a legendary author, written into their dead mother's beloved fantasy series, must contend with the vine-like creep of legacy, memory, and magic.
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Etna
by Paul Yoon
Recommended by: Sarah V.
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home--to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there. Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. This is a novel about the power of an idea, never giving up, and finding hope in the most dire of times.
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I Have Some Questions for You
by Rebecca Makkai
Recommended by: Lori
A successful film professor returns to teach at her alma mater and becomes determined to investigate a closed murder case, in the new novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Great Believers.
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The Lost Book of Lancelot
by John Glynn
Recommended by: Grace
A queer retelling of the legend of Sir Lancelot, following the famous knight as he grows up orphaned, falls in love, and attempts to fulfill his destiny at the Round Table.
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The Shampoo Effect
by Jenny Jackson
Recommended by: Laura
An ambitious young woman insinuates herself into a tight-knit social set, shaking up friendships and marriages in a small seaside town.
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Tenderness
by Rowan Beaird
Recommended by: Joanna
From the beloved author of The Divorcées comes a novel set in the 1970s during an island wedding, where the bride has recently left a sinister cult that might still be trailing her.
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This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me
by Ilona Andrews
Recommended by: Rachel
Maggie wakes cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, quickly realizing she’s in Kair Toren, the city from the unfinished dark fantasy series she’s obsessed with. Armed only with her encyclopedic knowledge of its plot, setting, and characters, she discovers she cannot be killed, though many try. The same is not true for the living figures she grows to love. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes - and attentions - of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.
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Famesick
by Lena Dunham
Recommended by: Sarah L.
In this rowdy, frank reflection on illness, fame, sex, and everything in between, the remarkable mind behind the hit series Girls and the author of Not That Kind of Girl asks whether fulfilling her creative ambitions has been worth the pain. As Lena Dunham takes us through her journey--from selling the pilot of Girls to the present--in three acts, it becomes clear that the spotlight casts long shadows, distorting the relationships she once held dear and isolating everyone in its glare.
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Gutted: How an Old House Remodeled Me
by Maida Korte
Recommended by: Brandee
Fans of Under the Tuscan Sun and House Lessons will love Gutted, a witty, big-hearted tale of trading city lights for leaky pipes--and discovering that sometimes the best renovations happen on the inside.
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Monster of a Land: On the Road in Search of Modern America
by Lauren Hough
Recommended by: Sarah R.
From The New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing comes an update of John Steinbeck's trip in Travels with Charley, a cross-country journey exploring modern America with Lauren Hough's signature observational wit, searing social commentary, and perspective as someone who knows what it's like to truly exist on the margins in this country.
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