Books – Detail

For the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.

From the bestselling author of Too Big to Fail, "the definitive history of the 2008 banking crisis," comes a spellbinding narrative of the most infamous stock market crash in history.

O. Henry, born William Sidney Porter, arrived in New York City fresh from the Ohio Penitentiary, where he had served three and a half years for embezzlement. It was the dawn of the twentieth century, a time of remarkable change when the city's physical presence was being altered by new skyscrapers and subways, and its character by waves of immigrants. The American magazine had just reached its pinnacle as an enterprise, and the short story was the most popular medium in entertainment. Porter was in the city to write. From his cell, he had already sold a number of stories to big magazines, and within five years of arriving in Manhattan, he would become the most successful fiction writer in the country. But he never--never--said anything about his prison experience, or, indeed, anything about his past life. Anything true, that is.--Provided by the publisher

An essential, universally resonant new memoir from the #1 bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic.

An Almost Impossible Thing follows six hitherto little-known women gardeners in the years before the First World War, and examines their lives in the context of suffragism, collectivism and Empire.

American Aurora explores the impact of climate change on early modern radical religious groups during the height of the Little Ice Age in the seventeenth century. Hermetic, alchemical, and esoteric texts became crucial sources of religious meaning and perspective among radical Protestants during this period as they struggled to understand their changing climate and a cosmos that seemed to be declaring its own decline. In particular, American Aurora focuses on the life and legacy of Johannes Kelpius (1667-1707), an enormously influential but comprehensively misunderstood theologian who settled outside of Philadelphia from 1694 to 1707.

Leftist filmmakers of the 1960s revolutionized the art of documentary. Often inspired by the radical art of the Soviet 1920s, filmmakers in countries like France and Japan dared to make film form a powerful weapon in the fight against fascism, weaving fiction into nonfiction and surrealism with neorealism to rupture everyday ways of being, seeing, and thinking.

In As a Jew, Hurwitz documents her quest to take back her Jewish identity, how she stripped away the layers of antisemitic lies that made her recoil from her own birthright and unearthed the treasures of Jewish tradition. With antisemitism raging worldwide, Hurwitz's defiant account of reclaiming the Jewish story and learning to live as a Jew, without apology, has never been timelier or more necessary.

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, this is an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them.

In candid, surprisingly funny vignettes spanning forty years of girlhood, marriage, and parenting, Jen lays bare the disorienting upheaval of midlife--the implosion of a marriage, the unraveling of religious and cultural systems, and the grief that accompanies change you didn't ask for. And, drawing on all her resources--from without and from within--Jen dares to question the systems beneath the whole house of cards, and to reckon with the myths, half-truths, and lies that brought her to this point.

"An engaging collection of stories and essays by the celebrated author of the internationally bestselling Guido Brunetti series, infused with her ever-present and delightful senses of humor and irony."-- Provided by publisher.

Baldwin: A Love Story tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac

In 1961, an interracial couple drove through the dark mountains of New Hampshire when a mysterious light began to follow them. Years later, through hypnosis, they recalled an unbelievable brush with extraterrestrial life. Unintentionally, a genre was born--the alien abduction narrative. In Ilana Masad's Beings, the couple's experience serves as one part of a trio of intertwined threads.

What does it mean to connect with another person? What impels us to touch someone, to be touched by them, to stay in touch? How do we let them go? In yet another tour de force of fiction, Claire-Louise Bennett explores the mystery of how people come into and go out of our lives, leaving us forever in their grasp.

Several weeks ago, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and his team uncovered and stopped a domestic terrorist attack in Montréal, arresting the person behind it. A man they called the Black Wolf. But their relief is short-lived. In a sickening turn of events, Gamache has realized that that plot, as horrific as it was, was just the beginning.

In Born Equal, the prizewinning constitutional historian Akhil Reed Amar recounts the dramatic constitutional debates that unfolded across these eight decades, when four glorious amendments abolished slavery, secured Black and female citizenship, and extended suffrage regardless of race or gender. At the heart of this era was the epic and ever-evolving idea that all Americans are created equal.

In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past.

A Read with Jenna Pick

This catalogue includes over 30 masterworks made between 1930 and 1960 Calder's most innovative, prolific years from his early abstractions or sphériques to a magnificent selection of mobiles, stabiles, and standing mobiles of various scales. It also features a large body of Calder's Constellations, a term proposed by Duchamp and James Johnson Sweeney for the artists beloved objects made from wood and wire in 1943, a time when sheet metal was in short supply due to World War II.

Calder-isms is a collection of fascinating, irreverent, and often profound quotations from the influential modern American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976), who is most famous for his invention of what his friend Marcel Duchamp dubbed the "mobile."

Cécé La Flamme, as she's known by her loyal Facebook friends, captures photographs of still bodies. Figures scorched and bruised, left to the rubble of the Cité of Divine Power. When she posts an image of a corpse, Cécé's followers skyrocket. "Nothing got more attention than a good corpse that was nice and warm or already rotting." Just beside visions of rot and neglect, she posts pictures of her toes, gullies crisscrossing the cité, and her own lips painted blue. With every image, Cécé seeks control and wants to create a frank, intimate record of the terror in her cité. Cécé's world begins and ends with the cité - a slum peopled by gangs, yelping kids, grandmothers, junkies, and preachers.

"A short, intense mystery novel that begins in gentle elegy and ends in diabolism and - murder. Three plots, three time-scales, three relationships are tightly woven into a single work, with three main voices, as in an opera by Monteverdi, who provides the sound-track. The main voice is that of a translator who moves from London to Paris and then to Wales, the setting for an unexpected conflagration. The ending at once confirms and suspends the reader's darkest intuitions."--Provided by publisher.

A comprehensive, first-of-its-kind book about Chicago's residential architecture and the stories that shaped it. This is an entertaining and precisely illustrated story of Chicago homes from the city's earliest days through the postwar era, revealing everything about what makes a home a Chicago home

Schwartz and Schuldenfrei argue that our choices should be informed by our individual 'constellation of virtues,' allowing for a far richer understanding of the decisions we make and helping us to live more integrated and purposeful lives.

An epic novel about the building of Stonehenge.

Chicago, 1944: Twenty-year-old Aki Ito and her parents have just been released from Manzanar, where they have been detained by the US government since the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, together with thousands of other Japanese Americans. The life in California the Itos were forced to leave behind is gone; instead, they are being resettled two thousand miles away in Chicago, where Aki's older sister, Rose, was sent months earlier and moved to the new Japanese American neighborhood near Clark and Division streets. But on the eve of the Ito family's reunion, Rose is killed by a subway train. Aki, who worshipped her sister, is stunned. Officials are ruling Rose's death a suicide. Aki cannot believe her perfect, polished, and optimistic sister would end her life.

Sequel: Evergreen 

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - January 2026

The ninth book in the series behind Slow Horses, an Apple original series now streaming on Apple TV+. "Old spies grow ridiculous, River. Old spies aren't much better than clowns." Or so David Cartwright, the late retired head of MI5, used to tell his grandson. He forgot to add that old spies can be dangerous, too, especially if they've fallen on hard times-as River Cartwright is about to learn the hard way.

In Belle Époque Paris, the Eiffel Tower was newly built, France was experiencing remarkable political stability, and American women were painting the town and gathering at a female-only Residence known as The American Girls' Club in Paris. Opened in 1893, The Club was the center of expatriate living and of dedication to a calling in the fine arts, and singularly harbored a generation of independent, talented, and driven American women.

A stunning celebration of contemporary gardens across the globe, created by the world's leading designers. This inspirational book features 300 extraordinary gardens created from the late 1990's to the present day.

When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them each in the accident.-- Dust jacket flap.

The story of how Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare's greatest rival, leveraged his classical education to ignite an explosion of English literature, nourished the literary talent of Shakespeare and challenged societal norms with his transgressive genius.

Zadie Smith brings her unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years.

On the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Pulitzer Prize finalist whose work is 'oral history at its finest' (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) delivers an epic narrative of the atomic bomb's creation and deployment, woven from the voices of hundreds of scientists, generals, soldiers, and civilians.

This dazzling, genre-defying collection from Jonathan Lethem features seven major stories published since his last collection, along with his best work spanning more than three decades.

Containing chapters from classic writers on aeronautical history, such as R.M Ballantyne, Camille Flammarion, W. de Fonvielle, and Benjamin Franklin, and with a generous helping of beautiful color illustrations and contextual notes, this is a fantastic read for ballooning aficionados and new-comers to the subject alike.

Stay tuned as the Athenaeum celebrates ballooning history in January 2026 as part of  52 Weeks of Firsts

From bestselling author John Boyne, a gripping and profound exploration of guilt, blame, trauma, and the human capacity for redemption. In The Elements, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.

Your home is your sanctuary -- a safe space that nurtures your emotional, physical, and mental well-being. In Elements of Timeless Style, Erin shares her decades of expertise to guide you in making thoughtful choices, big and small, that enhance your living space.

London, 2012. The eyes of the world are on Britain as the country prepares to host the Olympic Games. But the glare of the spotlight makes London a target for some of the most dangerous people on earth. And the moment the bid is won, an international conspiracy is set in motion to unleash a devastating attack that will leave the world in chaos. One man stands between triumph and disaster--Commander William Warwick, heading up Scotland Yard's elite team.

In the tradition of The Yellow House and Half Broke Horses, a memoir of the Cuban diaspora that follows one family's exile from the island, through a lyrical exploration of memory, cultural mythology, and the history of Cuban-American relations.

Ethical Educational Leadership in Turbulent Times is an engaging, case-study-based text that assists leaders in their ethical decision-making processes during a time of turbulence and uncertainty.

Gift of Steven Jay Gross

"Eric and Carl live in Dorset in a small white cottage under the shadow of a big cliff. Eric sells old records and antiques. Carl cooks, cleans and crochets. Nearing 70, Eric is a lifelong accumulator of obscure objects whose easygoing, chaotic approach to life masks some of the unaddressed sadness of his past. The significantly younger Carl is an old soul who has a sophisticated emotional intelligence and likes swimming, mid-century female novelists, fibre arts and Dolly Parton. If you passed them on a walk, you may not pay them much attention. Most likely you would see Carl's long floppy ears, tail and fur and mistake him for a dog. The story of Eric and Carl's friendship spans 21 years: a constant anchor in a changing world."--Publisher.

An in-depth investigation into the growing industry of green technologies and the environmental, social, and political consequences of the mining it requires.

This book seeks to recreate Fifth Avenue as it grew, flourished and failed. Over 200 archive photographs help tell the story of Fifth Avenue’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architecture and society.

The life and work of an unconventional architect

Recounts the voyage of an eighteenth-century French aeronaut by hot air balloon from Philadelphia to Woodbury, New Jersey, in 1793.

From Booker Prize finalist and “the shrewdest writer on contemporary masculinity we have” (Esquire), a “captivating...hypnotic...virtuosic” (The Baffler) novel about a man whose life veers off course due to a series of unforeseen circumstances.

Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize

November 2001: Chloe Harlow wakes up late, with hazy memories of the party the night before but no recollection of how she got back to her Brooklyn apartment. Ever since the terrifying and catastrophic terrorist attack, it seems she has been on a collision course with destruction. When she finally arrives at the exclusive Upper East Side art gallery where she works, she is immediately called into her boss's office. A pair of NYPD detectives greet her, also very curious to know how her evening ended ... because the host of the party, a rising painter and the gallery's newest artist, is dead.

Pushing beyond the conventions of literary biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a bold, innovative examination of the nature of legacy and memory itself, in which Wade uncovers the origins of Stein's radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship that made it possible.

Lured back to a lawless town full of predators disguised as saviors and foes disguised as friends, forced to face down their own troubling pasts and those of their loved ones, Salander and Blomkvist must untangle a history of violence before it's too late. The Girl with Ice in Her Veins is a twisty, vertiginous, hard-hitting thriller that breathes new life into Stieg Larsson's epic series and unforgettable characters-- Provided by publisher.

A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series

The Golden Age of Italian Jews by Gino Segrè covers the nine decades from 1848 to 1938 during which Italian Jews rose from their socially constrained ghetto life to acquire full civil rights and eventually to occupy commanding positions in Italian society.-- Provided by publisher.

Gino Segrè is a past winner of the Athenaeum Literary Award for his book (with Bettina Hoerlin)
The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age

 Grave Dealings explores the social, cultural, practical, and legal aspects of body snatching in America’s first capital city and relates it to the continuing ethical struggles that surround the treatment of human remains to this day

Tim Carpenter--lead investigator of the FBI Art Crime team--uncovers over 40,000 artifacts and remains from around the world that had been stolen by a Midwestern graverobber

Vienna, 1893. A gravedigger at the city's famous Central Cemetery, Augustin Rothmayer is a highly educated oddball who finds solace among the dead and in drafting the manuscript of the first almanac of his profession. But his fragile peace is disturbed when young inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt, an ambitious transfer from Graz, arrives in desperate need of an expert in death. And no one knows the subject better than Augustin Rothmayer. A superstitious killer is on the loose.

Exploring the beauty, hope, and humor that can be found even in moments of deep loneliness and devastation, Grady Chambers' Great Disasters moves between memories of high school and early adulthood to consider friendship, first love, patriotism, protest, addiction, and more.

Third places,' or 'great good places,' are all those spots where people gather, put aside the concerns of home and work (our first and second places), and hang out simply for the pleasures of good company and lively conversation. Third places are the heart of a community's social vitality, and have long been central to grassroots democracy. Author Ray Oldenburg is renowned for coining the term 'third place.' In this book, he portrays, probes, and promotes these great good places: coffee houses, cafés, bookstores, hair salons, bars, bistros, and more, both past and present - and offers a vision for their revitalization.

Examining the evolution of the Greater Philadelphia region from its origins to the present, this volume- drawn from the online Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia-helps readers visualize the many interconnections across this region, whether natural, man-made, or cultural.

Also available:

Greater Philadelphia and the Nation

Greater Philadelphia and the World 

This book explores the phenomenon of "greatness" culture and what Americans really mean when they talk about it. It is for both general readers and scholars interested in American history, cultural history, and celebrity studies

In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and blight, Ma, her two year old daughter Mishti, and her elderly father Dadu are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma's husband in the home he has been building for them in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited passports and visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma's purse, with all the treasured documents within it, has been stolen. A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma and her family, their struggle to emigrate to America, and their devastation in the wake of the theft that changes their fate to one of implacable tragedy; and Boomba, the thief, whose hunger and desperation to care for his family drive him to commit a crime whose consequences he cannot fathom.

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Award in Fiction

Esquire: The 27 Best Books of 2025 (So Far)

"When Miles Hammond is invited to a meeting of the Murder Club in London, he is met instead with just two other guests and is treated to a strange tale of an impossible crime in France from years before-the murder of a man on a tower with only one staircase, under watch at the time the murder took place. With theories of levitating vampires abounding, the story comes home to Miles when he realizes that the librarian he has just hired for his home is none other than Fay Seton, a woman whose name still echoes from the heart of this bizarre and unsolved murder of the past"-- Provided by publisher.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness.

In Here Comes the Sun, climate activist Bill McKibben explores the rapid rise of solar and wind energy as a powerful, accessible alternative to fossil fuels.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Herzog and de Meuron, Royal Academy of Arts, 14 July - 15 October 2023.

Architects Herzog & de Meuron designed the building in Calder Gardens, which opened in September 2025 in Philadelphia.

In this posthumous collection of thought-provoking essays--many never published before--Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and bestselling author David McCullough affirms the value of history, how we can be guided by its lessons, and the enduring legacy of American ideals.

"In 2123, the world is dying--and Antarctica's last remaining glaciers are the final source of fresh water. Controlled by the all-powerful StarCross Corporation, Spigot--the continent's largest water extraction facility--feeds a desperate planet. But off this continent's frigid shore lies a secret that could change everything. -- Provided by publisher.

A Thursday Murder Club Mystery

Series starter: The Thursday Murder Club

In this follow-up to the critically-acclaimed The Laughter-winner of the Washington State Book Award-a middle-aged woman starts a firestorm when she holds a contest, based on an ancient Indian ritual, in which men must compete to win her affections

It's Me They Follow is a meta-romance about love in the time of mass upheaval and uncertainty. It follows The Shopkeeper, a bookseller and reluctant matchmaker. Helping others find love through books comes easily for The Shopkeeper, except when it comes to finding someone for herself.

Jeannine A. Cook is the founder and owner of Harriett’s Bookshop in Philadelphia.

Beautiful fashion plates from Regency magazine La Belle Assemblée are combined with much-loved passages from Jane Austen's novels and juvenilia and woven together with commentary from leading Oxford academic Professor Ros Ballaster.

The Athenaeum has: v. 13-30(1816-1824) and n.s. v. 1-15(1825-1832) of La Belle Assemblée. Please make an appointment if you wish to see them.

A woman on a journey through Europe is drawn to the grave sites of her literary idols. As she moves from city to city and lover to lover, she is drawn to the site of Cesare Pavese's suicide, and her journey transmutes passion for literature into a desire for meaning.

Joyride is a magic carpet ride through Orlean's life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity draws her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile ("The American Man Age Ten") to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji. Not only does Orlean's account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it's also an essential and practical guide to embracing any creative path.

"Dr. Kerry shares her popular philosophy and tools in a comprehensive resource that moves readers from fear to peaceful confidence. [Her] insights, along with those of her inspiring 95- year-old mother Betty, are based upon a profound truth: the key to good longevity isn't the length of your life, it's the quality of your life."-- Provided by publisher.

"Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she's going in after him."-- Provided by publisher.

It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland,with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children.

December 1962, the West Country. Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that's already faltering. There is affection - if not always love - in both homes. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards - a true winter, the harshest in living memory - the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel. Where do you hide when you can't leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize

Budapest, autumn 1943. After four years of war, Hungary was firmly allied with Nazi Germany. Budapest swirled with intrigue and betrayal, home to spies and agents of every kind. But the city remained an oasis in the midst of conflict where Allied POWs and Polish and Jewish refugees found sanctuary. All that came to an end in March 1944 when the Nazis invaded.

On New Year's Eve, 1932, Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool travel to the Greek island of Lamperos to celebrate the holiday with a small group of residents living in a crumbling house. During a game of New Year's resolutions, one guest writes a disturbing message predicting a death before the year's end.

"This collection from one of the great pre-war writers, himself a member of Europe's Jewish diaspora, highlights the precarious position that Jewish people have occupied throughout millennia, in stories that move across centuries and nations but show the unchanging pressure of outsider status."-- Provided by publisher.

"Outside the island, there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island, it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm, and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murderer has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. "--Page 4 of cover.

Written with her television co-star Marie Iida, in Letter from Japan, Marie reflects on the myriad questions she received about her inspirations by examining the Japanese customs that she grew up with -- minute details of tea ceremonies, the art of taking care of gardens, and the power of passing seasons -- with her trademark gentle wisdom.

Behold, the story of Sophie Blanchard, an extraordinary woman who is largely forgotten despite her claim to being the very first female pilot in history. In eighteenth-century France, "balloonomania" has fiercely gripped the nation, but all of the pioneering aeronauts are men. The job of breaking that barrier falls to a most unlikely figure: a shy girl from a seaside village who is entirely devoted to her dream of flight.

Stay tuned as the Athenaeum celebrates ballooning history in January 2026 as part of  52 Weeks of Firsts

This book demonstrates the ecological and social impact of park systems and highlights the diverse challenges that communities face when implementing such projects. At the same time, it encourages a reevaluation of civic design as an intergenerational practice of urban design.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.

Shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize

A researcher abroad in Rome eagerly awaits a visit from her long-distance lover, only to find he is not the same man she remembers. An expat meets a childhood friend on a layover and is dismayed by her unexpected contentment. A newly pregnant woman considers the American taboo of sharing the news too soon, but can't resist when an opportunity comes to patch up a damaged friendship.

A global survey of 250 of the most creative women practicing interior design from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day.

From 1849 to the early 1980s, fewer than one hundred highly educated, white, European and American men created what became today's US federal historic preservation policy. Jeremy C. Wells argues that the orthodox historic preservation doctrine that this lineage formulated has too long dominated federal policy and watered down the richness of laypeople's relationships to their own heritage.

Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?

Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.

What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves.

Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.--From the Publisher

During World War II, French artist Henri Matisse and his family remained in Nazi-occupied France despite the dangers of war. Matisse at War examines this period of the artist's life, highlighting his and his family's connections to the French Resistance and the significant artworks he created during this time.

Matisse in Morocco tells the story of the artist's groundbreaking time in Tangier and how it altered Matisse's development as a painter and indelibly marked his work for the next four decades.

"Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Silber's most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways"-- Provided by publisher.

"This mini pocket Istanbul and the Aegean Coast travel guidebook is perfect for travellers looking for essential information about Istanbul and the Aegean Coast. It provides details on key places and main attractions, along with a selection of itineraries, recommendations for restaurants and top tips on how to make the most of your trip."--From the publisher.

A perceptive novel about a gay Black painter navigating the worlds of art, desire, and creativity.

Fifty-two that's all the time Mona has left to learn about beauty. Every Wednesday, Mona's grandfather picks her up after school and takes her to see a great work of art. Just one. A different masterpiece every Wednesday for a year. Fifty-two weeks of consummate beauty. Fifty-two weeks of visits to the museum before Mona loses her sight forever.

translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle

A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati’s life both as a woman and a writer.-- From the Publisher

Finalist for the Kirkus Prize

This exquisitely beautiful novel by National Book Award-winner László Krasznahorkai-perhaps his most serene and poetic work-describes a search for the unobtainable and the riches to be discovered along the way.

Krasznahorkai is the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature

Drawing on their personal history as a former urban equestrian, Black queer person, and child of Jamaican and Filipino immigrants, essayist and art critic Bitter Kalli contends the horse should be regarded as a critical source of power and identity in Black life.-- From the Publisher

An expert in memory must uncover the truth about her family's wartime past in this dazzling psychological thriller from the #1 international bestselling author of Anna O. Olivia Finn is a memory expert at Charing Cross Hospital in London. One night, she receives an urgent call from the police at the Hotel Lutetia on Paris's famous Left Bank. Olivia's French grandmother, Josephine Benoit, has appeared at the Lutetia in a distressed state claiming she once committed a murder in the hotel at the end of the Second World War. Traveling to Paris, Olivia finds her grandmother confused. But Josephine insists it is a recovered memory from the past. More disturbingly, hotel records show that a woman did die in that room of the Lutetia in 1945. Could her story really be true?

The halls are decked, the mistletoe hung, snow falling gently outside the window - and in the shadows, evil waits for darkness to fall. So draw up a chair, throw another log on the fire, and allow ten of history's greatest crime writers to surprise, delight and chill you to the bone with classic winter mysteries full of twists, turns, and treachery.

Verity Beresford is worried about her husband. Oliver didn't come home last night, so of course Verity goes straight to Judith Potts, Marlow's resident amateur sleuth, for help. Oliver, founder of the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society, had rented The Marlow Belle, a private pleasure cruiser, to host an exclusive party for the society, but no one remembers seeing him disembark. And when Oliver's body washes up on the Thames with two bullet holes in him, it's time for the Marlow Murder Club to leap into action.

Want to start at the beginning of the series? Look for The Marlow Murder Club

One winter evening, bestselling crime author Elín S. Jónsdóttir goes missing. There are no clues to her disappearance and it is up to young detective Helgi to crack the case before its leaked to the press. As Helgi interviews the people closest to her-a publisher, an accountant, a retired judge-he realizes that Elín's life wasn't what it seemed. In fact, her past is even stranger than the fiction she wrote. As the case of the missing crime writer becomes more mysterious by the hour, Helgi must uncover the secrets of the writer's very unexpected life.

A brilliant, playful new novel about identity and personality, from master storyteller Helen Oyeyemi. What if you had to share your body and life with six different versions of yourself? -- Provided by publisher.

In the nineteenth century, Manhattan's streets were so choked with pedestrians, horses, vehicles, and vendors that a trip from City Hall to Central Park could take hours. Alfred Beach had the perfect solution: build a giant pneumatic tube underneath Broadway from the Battery to Harlem.

The unforgettable memoir by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre, the woman who dared to take on Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

Setting out from New Bedford in 1878, the crew of the Esther is confident the sea will be theirs: in addition to cruising the Pacific for whale, they intend to hunt the teeming northern grounds before the ice closes. But as they sail to their final destination in the Chukchi Sea, where their captain Arnold Lovejoy has an urgent directive of his own to attend to, their encounters with the natural world become more brutal, harrowing, ghostly, and strange.

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Award in Fiction

This book presents the life story of an extraordinary woman in the world of corporate architecture during the Mad Men era of the 1950s to 1980s. Born in a small village in Germany, Brigitte Peterhans managed to come to America to study with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and then to work with Bruce Graham at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

Annie Ernaux's profound investigation into the life of her mysterious older sister, who died at six, two years before Annie was born.

In this collection of essays and reviews, renowned historian Eric Foner explores the evolving meaning of American freedom and its ongoing struggles. Covering topics from slavery and the Civil War to civil rights and contemporary politics, Foner examines key figures, events, and constitutional issues with clarity and insight. Highlighting how rights can be gained, lost, and must be continually defended, the book underscores the relevance of history in understanding today's political challenges and debates over how the past is remembered and taught.

A deeply personal and eye-opening memoir from journalist Beth Macy, exploring how her once-thriving Ohio hometown unraveled over four decades. Blending family history, reporting, and social insight, Macy traces the loss of community, the rise of anger and division, and the human cost of economic and cultural decline in small-town America.

With the stylistic mastery of Georges Perec and nihilism of Michel Houellebecq, Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico's first book to be translated into English, is a brilliantly scathing sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, beautifully written, impossibly bleak"-- Provided by publisher.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living out a dreary existence in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he's recruited by Arik Glitzman, the chief of a clandestine unit tasked with running targeted assassinations and sabotage inside Iran. At Glitzman's direction, Kam returns to his native Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency.

A leading figure in the New Perennial planting movement, garden and landscape designer Piet Oudolf emphasizes plant structure as the most important aspect of a successful garden, along with form, texture and colour. He uses perennials almost exclusively to create lasting, ecologically sound panoramas that relate to the greater landscape and the shifting seasons. This book features twenty-three of Oudolf's public and private gardens, along with detailed plans to provide inspiration and insight for small personal gardens and for the design of large-scale public landscapes.--From book flap.

Step into a Piet Oudolf garden and you are transported into a dreamlike meadowscape, filled with perennials, seasonal color, and texture. Made in close collaboration with Oudolf, this book showcases gardens throughout his career and across the globe from New York's acclaimed High Line to the newly planted Vitra Campus in Germany.

"Lonely Planet's local travel experts reveal all you need to know to plan an unforgettable trip to Chicago. Relax in Lincoln Park, root for a Cubs win at Wrigley Field, dig into deep-dish pizza, with the latest edition of our Pocket travel guide and find itineraries, fun walking tours and tips so you can discover twice the city in half the time."-- From the publisher.

A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work. --From the publisher.

Self-regard, in the works of Annie Ernaux, is always an excruciatingly painful and exact process. Here, she revisits the peculiar kind of self-fulfillment possible when we examine ourselves in the aftermath of a love affair, and sometimes, even, through the eyes of the lost beloved.

Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, born to wealth and privilege in New York's Hudson Valley during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were raised to make good marriages and supervise substantial households. Instead they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain--and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.

Queer people have always existed. In an era when this basic truth faces undue scrutiny, here is a dazzling work of restorative history that reveals the hard-won lives of those who dared to break the mold in the 'long eighteenth-century.' At once an illuminating romp through the historical archive and an evocative new chapter in our shared history, Dr. Anthony Delaney's Queer Enlightenments uncovers the remarkable queer people of that complex, sometimes paradoxical time.

"Explores the history of Philadelphia as a gentrifying city and the role of educational institutions in the city's transformation"-- Provided by publisher.

Two Indian American siblings are drawn into the dark allure of a beauty-tech company. Kashmira uses a product that can alter her appearance to escape her grief, while her brother Nikhil joins the company hoping to make a difference. But when the product's harmful effects surface, both must face painful truths about beauty, identity, and the cost of perfection.

After a stay in a psychiatric facility for depression, New York architect Tate Donovan heads to Cape Cod to design his best friend's summer home and start over. Still haunted by his sister Sylvia's death--and her unsettling claim that their family can see spirits--Tate tries to ground himself in logic and work. But everything changes when he meets Wren, a captivating young woman whose warmth and mystery draw him in instantly. As their connection deepens, Tate begins to sense that something dark lies beneath Wren's seemingly perfect small-town life.

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we're attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing?

London-based design studio Retrouvius has carved a unique and important niche in the interior design and architecture spheres by blending architectural salvage with innovative design.

At twenty-four, Betsy Cornwell runs away to Ireland. Leaving behind a painful past and chasing her lifelong dream of becoming a novelist, she finds a fresh start on the misty shores of the Aran Islands. Amid the beauty of the Irish countryside, her life takes on the glow of a fairy tale when she meets a charming horse trainer and elopes to Gretna Green. Five years later, her happy ending has twisted into a nightmare and Betsy finds herself trapped in an abusive marriage, isolated and afraid with a newborn baby. On her son's first birthday, she runs away, turning to the women around her--her local domestic violence group, a trusted family friend, and an online Smith College alumnae network--for help she'd never known she could ask for.

In this mesmerizing and profound novel, the arc of a woman's life in a devout, insular community challenges our deepest assumptions about what infuses life with meaning.

At the edge of the Salton Sea, in the blistering borderlands, something is out hunting... Malamar Veracruz has never left the dust-choked town of El Valle. Here, Mal has done her best to build a good life: She's raised two children, worked hard, and tried to forget the painful, unexplained disappearance of her sister, Elena. When another local girl goes missing, Mal plunges into a fresh yet familiar nightmare.

Set in an isolated hamlet, Satantango unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failure, infidelity, sudden hopes, and aborted dreams. At the center of Satantango is the eponymous drunken dance

Krasznahorkai is the winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize for Literature

Lonely Planet's local travel experts reveal all you need to know to plan a multi-week adventure to Scandinavia.

Cumin Baleen is a forty-one-year-old writer living in Philadelphia-this city of hospitals-who works at the upscale grocery Sea & Poison and is navigating the onset of an autoimmune condition.

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream. When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize

Robert Langdon, esteemed professor of symbology, travels to Prague to attend a groundbreaking lecture by Katherine Solomon--a prominent noetic scientist with whom he has recently begun a relationship. Katherine is on the verge of publishing an explosive book that contains startling discoveries about the nature of human consciousness and threatens to disrupt centuries of established belief. But a brutal murder catapults the trip into chaos, and Katherine suddenly disappears along with her manuscript. Langdon finds himself targeted by a powerful organization and hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague's most ancient mythology.

Innovative, witty, and tender, Seduction Theory exposes the intoxicating nature of power and attraction, masterfully demonstrating how love and betrayal can coexist"-- Provided by publisher.

Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a one-time strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he's found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who's taken a mind to go wandering. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, practitioners of the paranormal, outlaw motorcyclists, and the troubles that come with each of them.

A family saga about the lives of three sisters and a narrator named Jonas, spanning three decades and three continents

Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction

Publishers Weekly: 10 Best Books of 2025

Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home” has been more of an idea than a place. She knows being on the run is better than anything waiting for her as a “ward of the state”. But when the sharp-eyed and kind Mr. Jameson with an interest in her case comes looking for her, Lucy wonders if hiding from her past will ever truly keep her safe.

Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious and smart. But she wants to believe Mr. Jameson and his “friend-not-friend”, a tall and fierce-looking woman who say they want to look after her. They also tell Lucy the truth her father hid from her: She is Ojibwe; she has – had – a sister, and more siblings, a grandmother who’d look after her and a home where she would be loved.

But Lucy is being followed. The past has destroyed any chance at safety she had. Will the secrets she's hiding swallow her whole and take away any hope for the future she always dreamed of?

When the past comes for revenge, it’s fight or flight.--From the publisher

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick

Changing the world is difficult. One reason is that the most important problems, like climate change, racism, and poverty, are structural. They emerge from our collective practices: laws, economies, history, culture, norms, and built environments. The dilemma is that there is no way to make structural change without individual people making different—more structure-facing—decisions. In Somebody Should Do Something, Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva, and Daniel Kelly show us how we can connect our personal choices to structural change and why individual choices matter, though not in the way people usually think.

Two sisters examine what they owe each other and what they are willing to sacrifice to make their dreams come true.

How the architect Stanford White and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens transcended scandal to enrich their times.

In Storyteller, Leo Damrosch brings to life an unforgettable personality, illuminated by many who knew Stevenson well and drawing from thousands of the writer's letters in his many voices and moods--playful, imaginative, at times tragic.

We crave places that support us, nourish us and inspire us. We dream of going through our lives together, inclusively and tolerantly. Can we re-enchant the raw material of our shared everyday? This book frequently uses the word 'we'. We, as in the general public, engaged citizens, humans of planet Earth ... And we, Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat, together with our team at Daily tous les jours, as we seek new models for living together. --Back cover.

200+ Recipes to Savor: Enjoy a variety of comforting soups, stews, chowders, and bakery-quality breads.

The bestselling and award-winning German author Jenny Erpenbeck has gained international praise for her novels including Visitation, Kairos, and Go, Went, Gone. Things That Disappear is an exciting collection of interlinked miniature prose pieces that grapple with the phenomenon of disappearance on scales both large and small. The things that disappear in these pages range from everyday objects such as socks and cheese to close friends and the social norms of common courtesy, to sites and objects resonant with East German history, such as the Palace of the Republic or the lines of sight now blocked by new construction in Berlin.

In a rocky cove at Hakata Bay, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Standing on the cold beach, the police see nothing to investigate: The flush of the couple's cheeks and the empty juice bottle speak clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, senior detective Torigai Jutaro and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Matterhorn comes a heart-stopping thriller about a man who returns to a life of espionage to save the woman he loves and the City of Light.

"Why do you write?" the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempted answer from Toews -- all of them unsatisfactory to the organizer -- surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister's suicide. She has been keeping up, she realizes, a decades-old internal correspondence, filling a silence she barely understands. And we, her readers, come to see that the question is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. Marking the first time Toews has written her own life in nonfiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact a writer makes with memory.

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.

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Award in Fiction

"A history of the building codes in the United States and the role that wood frame construction has played in the development of American cities"-- Provided by publisher.

The young detectives think Alan Auhl is washed up, but that doesn't faze him. He does things his own way--and gets results. He still lives with his ex-wife, off and on, in a big house full of random boarders and hard-luck stories. And he's still a cop, even though he retired from Homicide some years ago. He works cold cases now.

Athenaeum Mystery Book Club - February 2026

Ellery Wainwright is alone at a luxury resort in Big Sur, California. A wedding is scheduled during her stay, but Ellery discovers the dead groom.

Everything was a puzzle, everything a trap set to mystify and hinder me. 1899. As the new century approaches, English hack-writer Evelyn Dolman marries Laura Rensselaer, the daughter of a wealthy American plutocrat. But in the midst of a mysterious rift between Laura and her father, Evelyn's plans of a substantial inheritance are thrown into doubt. As the unhappy newlyweds travel to Venice at Palazzo Dioscuri--the ancestral home of the charming but treacherous Count Barbarigo--a series of seemingly otherworldly occurrences exacerbate Evelyn's already frayed nerves: is it just the sea mist blanketing the floating city or is he losing his mind?

Secrets. Chocolate. A touch of magic. On the evening of July 4th, a young woman scatters her mother's ashes in New York and follows the call of the changing winds to the French coastal city of Marseille.

"An ambitious young journalist, Sara is sent to cover a war from the Beach Hotel in Gaza. The four-star hotel is a global media hub, promising safety and generator-powered Internet, with hotel staff catering tirelessly to the needs of the world's media, even as their own homes and families are under threat. Sara is determined to launch her career as a star correspondent. So, when her fixer Nasser refuses to set up the dangerous story she thinks will win her a front page, she turns instead to Fadi, the youngest member of a powerful militant family. Driven by the demons of her entitled yet damaging childhood, Sara will stop at nothing to prove herself in this war, even if it means bringing disaster upon those around her."-- Provided by publisher.

The Wayfinder is a novel set in the Polynesian islands of the South Pacific during the height of the Tu'i Tonga Empire. At its heart is Korero, a young girl chosen to save her people from the brink of starvation. Her quest takes her from her remote island home on a daring seafaring journey across a vast ocean empire built on power, consumption, and bloodshed.

We Are Green and Trembling is a queer baroque satire that blends elements of the picaresque with surreal storytelling. Its rich and wildly imaginative language forms a searing criticism of conquest, colonialism, and religious tyranny, as well as of the treatment of women and indigenous people.

Finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature 

2014: At a dinner for close friends and colleagues, renowned poet Francis Blundy honors his wife's birthday by reading aloud a new poem dedicated to her, 'A Corona for Vivien'. Much wine is drunk as the guests listen, and a delicious meal consumed. Little does anyone gathered around the candlelit table know that for generations to come people will speculate about the message of this poem, a copy of which has never been found, and which remains an enduring mystery.

"Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he's got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company ... though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he's expressed his love over the years"-- Provided by publisher

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it. Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn't commit: murder. Simon knows he's innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer...

Desiree, Danielle, January, Monique, and Nakia are in their early twenties and at the beginning of their careers, of marriage, of motherhood, and of big-city lives in New York and Los Angeles. Together, they are finding their way through the wilderness, that period of life when the reality of contemporary adulthood--overwhelming, mysterious, and full of freedom and consequences--swoops in and stays.

Longlisted for 2025 National Book Award for Fiction

In Winston and the Windsors, Andrew Morton, one of the world's best-known biographers and a leading authority on celebrity, presents a meticulously researched joint biography of Winston Churchill and the House of Windsor. Throughout the course of his career and life, Churchill's connection to the Windsors fluctuated wildly. At times, he was the royal family's trusted confidant. At others, he was their leading antagonist.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

In The Woman Dies, renowned author Aoko Matsuda approaches often-thorny subjects such as sexism, prejudice, the normalizing effect of violence against women on screen, or the aesthetics associated with technology, with an inventiveness and quirky humor that keep these stories on the thrilling cusp between seriousness and levity.

The future of cities is female... As cities around the world face mounting crises - climate change, traffic congestion and growing inequity - the need for bold, people-first solutions has never been greater. Enter the women leading the charge. In Women Changing Cities, Melissa and Chris Bruntlett highlight the groundbreaking work of female mayors, planners, advocates, and policymakers in reshaping urban spaces for the better.