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The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
by Rabih Alameddine
From the winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction comes a tragicomic love story set in Lebanon, a modern saga of family, memory, and the unbreakable attachment of a son and his mother. In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and the neighborhood homosexual, Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget. Told in Raja's irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities--a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.
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The Heir Apparent
by Rebecca Armitage
It's New Year's Day in Tasmania and the life Lexi Villiers has carefully built is working out nicely: she's in the second year of her medical residency, she lives on a beautiful farm with her two best friends Finn and Jack--and she's about to finally become more-than-friendly with Jack--when a helicopter abruptly lands. Out steps her grandmother's right-hand-man, with the tragic news that her father and older brother have been killed in a skiing accident. Lexi's grandmother happens to be the Queen of England, and in addition to the shock and grief, Lexi must now accept the reality that she is suddenly next in line for the throne--a role she has publicly disavowed.
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And Then There Was You
by Sophie Cousens
At thirty-one, Chloe Fairway isn't where she wants to be in life. Stuck in a PA job for a boss who barely notices her and back home with her parents after a painful breakup, she feels like a failure. So, when she's invited to her college's ten-year reunion, the last thing she needs is to face the people who once voted her most likely to succeed. She definitely doesn't want to see her former best friend Sean Adler, now a hotshot film director living the life Chloe dreamed of. Desperate to make a splash-and to save face in front of the man who might be the one that got away-she turns to a mysterious dating service. Enter Rob, her handsome, successful, and charming match, who quickly makes Chloe feel like she's finally finding her way. But as Chloe digs deeper into her past and reconnects with old friends, she begins to question if Rob is really all that he seems. And maybe, just maybe, revisiting her past is exactly what she needs to move forward. Packed with heart, charm, and Sophie Cousens's signature humor, And Then There Was You is a witty exploration of love, second chances, and finding your place in the world.
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Mona's Eyes
by Thomas Schlesser
Ten-year-old Mona and her beloved grandfather have only fifty-two Wednesdays to visit fifty-two works of art and commit to memory all that is beautiful in the world before Mona loses her sight forever. While the doctors can find no explanation for Mona's brief episode of blindness, they agree that the threat of permanent vision loss cannot be ruled out. The girl's grandfather, Henry, may not be able to stop his granddaughter from losing her sight, but he can fill the encroaching darkness with beauty. Every Wednesday for a year, the pair abscond together and visit a single masterpiece in one of Paris's renowned museums. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona learns how each artist's work shaped the world around them. In turn, the young girl's world is changed forever by the power of their art. Under the kind and careful tutelage of her grandfather, Mona learns the true meaning of generosity, melancholy, love, loss, and revolution. Her perspective will never be the same--nor will the reader's.
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A Grave Deception: A Kate Hamilton Mystery
by Connie Berry
Antiques expert Kate Hamilton dives into the past to solve a fourteenth-century mystery with disturbing similarities to a modern-day murder in the sixth installment of the Kate Hamilton mystery series. Kate Hamilton and her husband, Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, have settled into married life in Long Barston. When archaeologists excavating the ruins of a nearby plague village discover the miraculously preserved body of a fourteenth-century woman, Kate and her colleague, Ivor Tweedy, are asked to appraise the grave goods, including a valuable pearl. When tests reveal the woman was pregnant and murdered, the owner of the estate on which the body was found, an amateur historian, asks Kate to identify her and, if possible, her killer. Surprised, Kate agrees to try. Meanwhile, tensions within the archaeological team erupt when the body of the lead archaeologist turns up at the dig site with fake pearls in his mouth and stomach. Then a third body is found in the excavations. Meanwhile, Kate's husband Tom is tracking the movements of a killer of his own. With the help of 700-year-old documents and the unpublished research of a deceased historian, Kate must piece together the past before the grave count reaches four.
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Murder in Manhattan
by Julie Mulhern
This writer just found her next scoop . . . and it's deadly. New York, 1925 - Freddie Archer frequents speakeasies and wild parties and the newest restaurants with her friends Dorothy Parker and Tallulah Bankhead. And the best part is that it's all in a day's work. Freddie loves her job writing the nightlife column for Gotham Magazine. But Freddie's latest piece just won her a bit more attention than she bargained for-from the police. A man mentioned in her column has been murdered. And Freddie is asked to keep an eye out for his fashionable female dinner companion. She's told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the case herself. So naturally, Freddie throws herself into an investigation that takes her from the elegant stores that line Fifth Avenue to the tenements south of Houston Street. Now between sipping gin rickeys with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and casting Broadway shows with Groucho Marx, she's dodging bullets and dating a potentially dangerous bootlegger. Freddie wanted adventure and excitement. But will she survive it?
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The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald
by John U. Bacon
The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald' has been told and retold by authors and bards. But never has it been told better than by Mr. Bacon in this colorful and compelling book.... Dead men tell no tales, but their loved ones do. Mr. Bacon tracked them down and listened.
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Bodyweight Workouts for Beginners
by Sean Bartram
You don't need an expensive gym membership or fancy equipment to reach your fitness goals. Trainer Sean Bartram shows you how simple and effective it can be to focus your workouts on bodyweight and agility exercises. Increase your strength, improve mobility, burn fat, and define your muscles with exercises that target every part of your body.
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Pseudoscience: An Amusing History of Crackpot Ideas and Why We Love Them
by Lydia Kang
The Bermuda Triangle. Personality tests. Ghost hunting. Crop circles. Mayan Doomsday. What do all these have in common? None can quite live up the rigor of actual facts or science and yet they all attract passionate supporters anyway. Divided into broad sections covering the easily disproved to the wildly speculative to wishful thinking and of course hucksterism, Pseudoscience is a romp through much more than bad science--it's a light-hearted look into why we insist on believing in things such as Big Foot, astrology, and the existence of aliens. Did you know, for example, that you can tell a person's future by touching their butt? ... Or that Stanley Kubrick made a fake moon landing film for the US government? Except he didn't. Or that spontaneous human combustion is real? It ain't, but it can be explained scientifically--
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Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle
by Natan Last
From Wordle to Spelling Bee, we live in a time of word game mania. Crosswords, in particular, gained renewed popularity during the COVID-19 lockdown, when games became another kind of refuge. Today, 36 million Americans solve crosswords once a week or more, and nearly 23 million solve them daily. Yet, as longtime New Yorker crossword contributor Natan Last will tell you, the seemingly apolitical puzzle has never been more controversial. In recent years, popular puzzle makers like The New York Times ... have been challenged for the way they prioritize certain cultures and perspectives as either the norm (read: white and male) or obscure (everyone else). At the same time, the crossword has never been more democratic. A larger, younger, more tech-savvy, and solidaristic group of people have fallen in love with puzzle solving, ushering in a more inclusive rise to the kinds of people constructing them, challenging the very idea of them and, in fact, what 'normal' actually is.
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The Look
by Michelle Obama
The Look is Michelle Obama's inspiring reflection on how fashion has shaped her public and personal journey. Featuring over 200 beautiful photos, she shares the stories behind her most memorable outfits--from the campaign trail to the White House and beyond--along with insights from her trusted stylists and designers. More than a celebration of style, the book explores how clothing can express confidence, purpose, and authenticity.
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The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind
by Simon Winchester
A portrait across time of that unseen force--unseen but not unfelt--that respects no national borders and no vessel or structure in its path. Wind, the movement of the air, is seen by so many as a heavenly creation and generally a thing of essential goodness. But when it flexes its invisible muscles, all should take care and be very afraid.
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