The Echo Park Castaways


Book Description

From the author of The Other Boy comes a poignant and heartfelt novel that explores what it means to be a family. Perfect for fans of Counting by 7s. Nevaeh, Vic, and Mara are veterans of the Los Angeles foster care system. For over a year they’ve been staying with Mrs. K in Echo Park. Vic spends most of his time living in a dream world, Mara barely speaks, and Nevaeh is forced to act as a back-up parent. Though their situation isn’t ideal, it’s still their best home yet. Then Child Protective Services places Quentin in the house, and everything is turned upside down. Nevaeh really can’t handle watching over anyone else, especially a boy on the autism spectrum. Meanwhile, Quentin is having trouble adjusting and attempts to run away. So when Vic realizes Quentin just wants to see his mom again, he plans an “epic quest” to reunite them. It could result in the foster siblings getting sent to different group homes. But isn’t family always worth the risk?




The Other Boy


Book Description

A beautifully heartfelt story about one boy’s journey toward acceptance. A book that Jill Soloway, the award-winning creator of Transparent, called “a terrific read for all ages” and Ami Polonsky, author of Gracefully Grayson, called “an emotionally complex and achingly real read.” Twelve-year-old Shane Woods is just a regular boy. He loves pitching for his baseball team, working on his graphic novel, and hanging out with his best friend, Josh. But Shane is keeping something private, something that might make a difference to his friends and teammates, even Josh. And when a classmate threatens to reveal his secret, Shane’s whole world comes crashing down. It will take a lot of courage for Shane to ignore the hate and show the world that he’s still the same boy he was before. And in the end, those who stand beside him may surprise everyone, including Shane.




Castaways


Book Description

When a group of people come to a lush, deserted island to compete on a popular reality TV show, they soon discover that they are being eliminated from the game permanently and violently when they fall victim to the monstrous half-human creatures that live in the jungle.




The Blue Bistro


Book Description

Elin Hilderbrand, author of the enchanting Summer People and The Beach Club, invites you to experience the perfect getaway with her sparkling novel, The Blue Bistro. Adrienne Dealey has spent the past six years working for hotels in exotic resort towns. This summer she has decided to make Nantucket home. Left flat broke by her ex-boyfriend, she is desperate to earn some fast money. When the desirable Thatcher Smith, owner of Nantucket's hottest restaurant, is the only one to offer her a job, she wonders if she can get by with no restaurant experience. Thatcher gives Adrienne a crash course in the business...and they share an instant attraction. But there is a mystery about their situation: what is it about Fiona, the Blue Bistro's chef, that captures Thatcher's attention again and again? And why does such a successful restaurant seem to be in its final season before closing its doors for good? Despite her uncertainty, Adrienne must decide whether to open her heart for the first time, or move on, as she always does. Infused with intimate Nantucket detail and filled with the warmth of passion and the breeze of doubt, The Blue Bistro is perfect summer reading.




Just Beyond the Very, Very Far North


Book Description

Duane the polar bear and the other animals of the very, very far north find their friendships deepening as they are challenged by the arrival of a contentious weasel and an unexpected departure.




Time Castaways: The Forbidden Lock


Book Description

In this action-packed conclusion to the Time Castaways series from Liesl Shurtliff, New York Times bestselling author of Rump, it’s up to the Hudson kids to defeat Captain Vincent once and for all. With magic, mystery, and adventure, this series is perfect for fans of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and Percy Jackson. With the power of the Aeternum, Captain Vincent can rewrite history to create his perfect future. And thanks to Alfred Nobel, the notorious inventor of dynamite, Captain Vincent will soon be able to erase people from time altogether—including those pesky Hudson kids. Mass chaos unfolds as time periods begin crashing into one another. Central Park becomes a playground for dinosaurs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is overrun by the very historical figures it features. And the Hudsons begin to disappear, one by one, and Matt finds himself increasingly alone. But hope comes from an unexpected source: a Vermillion rebel and Hudson ally has been keeping her own timeline a secret. A race to the Forbidden City reveals that Captain Vincent broke the lock on the three pillars of the universe—matter, space, and time—that created order in the world. Only the Hudson kids are able to mend what he broke…and the key is in Matt’s birthplace, Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City of Colombia, where the Hudsons and Captain Vincent face off in the ultimate showdown—a battle for time itself.




A Castaway in Cornwall


Book Description

Set adrift on the tides of fate by the deaths of her parents and left wanting answers, Laura Callaway now lives with her uncle and his disapproving wife in North Cornwall. There she feels like a castaway, always viewed as an outsider even as she yearns to belong. While wreckers search for valuables along the windswept Cornwall coast--known for its many shipwrecks but few survivors--Laura searches for clues to the lives lost so she can write letters to next of kin and return keepsakes to rightful owners. When a man is washed ashore after a wreck, Laura acts quickly to protect him from a local smuggler determined to destroy him. As Laura and a neighbor care for the survivor, they discover he has curious wounds and, although he speaks in careful, educated English, his accent seems odd. Other clues wash ashore, and Laura soon realizes he is not who he seems to be. Despite the evidence against him, the mysterious man might provide her only chance to discover the truth about her parents' fate. With danger pursuing them from every side, and an unexpected attraction growing between them, will Laura ever find the answers she seeks?




Unbroken


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks




The Opposite Field


Book Description

Here is one of the most remarkable, ambitious, and utterly original memoirs of this generation, a story of the losing and finding of self, of sex and love and fatherhood and the joy of language, of death and failure and heartbreak, of Los Angeles and Portland and Nicaragua and Mexico, and the shifting sands of place and meaning that can make up a culture, or a community, or a home. Faced with the collapse of his son’s Little League program–consisting mostly of Latino kids in the largely Asian suburb of Monterey Park, California–Jesse Katz finds himself thrust into the role of baseball commissioner for La Loma Park. Under its lights the yearnings and conflicts of a complex immigrant community are played out amid surprising moments of grace. Each day–and night–becomes a test of Jesse’s judgment and adaptability, and of his capacity to make this peculiar pocket of L.A.’s Eastside his home. While Jesse soothes egos, brokers disputes, chases down delinquent coaches and missing equipment, and applies popsicles to bruises, he forms unlikely alliances, commits unanticipated errors, and receives the gift of unexpected wisdom. But there’s no less drama in Jesse’s complicated personal life as he grapples with a stepson who seems destined for trouble, comforts his mother (a legendary Oregon politician) when she’s stricken with cancer, and receives hard lessons in finding–and holding on to–the love of a good woman. Through it all, Jesse’s emotional mainstay is his beloved son, Max, who quietly bests his father’s brightest hopes. Over nine springs and summers with Max at La Loma, Jesse learns nothing less than what it takes to be a father, a son, a husband, a coach, and, ultimately, a man. This is an epic book, a funny book, a sexy book, a rapturously evocative and achingly poignant book. Above all it is true, in that it happened, but also in a way that transcends mere facts and cuts to the quick of what it means to be alive.




The William H. Gass Reader


Book Description

Throughout his career, William Gass relentlessly pushed at the boundaries of language, celebrating the music of the sentence and the aesthetics of the written word. Now, the best and most important of his work is collected in one volume. There are essays on Plato, Hobbes, James, Joyce, Beckett, Stein, Gaddis, Sterne, Ford Madox Ford, Thomas Mann. There are pieces that examine the inner workings of writing. There is his masterful short fiction, from the perfectly crafted novella “In Camera” to the mythical “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.” And there are excerpts from his novels, including his magnum opus, The Tunnel. Taken together, this collection is a peerless, essential celebration of literature—and an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to understand how great writing works.