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Books for Adults Book Clubs
Books Page 1 of 2, showing 10 records out of 13 total
Olga Dies Dreaming
Xochitl Gonzalez

A blazing talent debuts with the tale of Olga, a status-driven wedding planner, grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, this is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream - all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.

(15 copies)  Reserve

Oliver Twist
Charles Dickens

The adventures of an orphan boy who lives in the squalid surroundings of a 19th century English workhouse until he becomes involved with a gang of thieves.

(15 copies)  Reserve

Vincent Lam

In his downtown Toronto condo, Dr. Chen awakens to the sound of streetcars below, but it is not the early morning traffic that keeps him from sleep. News banners run across his phone: Fentanyl Crisis; Toxic Drug Supply; Record Number of Deaths. From behind the headlines, on the same screen, glow the faces of his patients, the faces of the what-ifs: What if he had done more, or less? Or something different? Would they still be alive? Claire is a violinist; she feels at one with her music, taking flight in its melody, free in its movement. But now she rises and falls with the opioids in her system, becoming increasingly reckless. After two overdoses in twenty-four hours, she sits in the blue light of her computer, searching a notice board for recommendations: my doctor saved my life; my doctor is just another dealer. And then another message catches her attention, about Chen’s clinic: be a guinea pig—why not get paid to take it? When Claire’s life intersects with Chen’s, the doctor is drawn ever more deeply into the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship, the implication and meaning of his intention to treat. Chen must confront just how far he would go to save a life.

(10 copies)  Reserve

One by One
Ruth Ware

When an offsite company retreat is upended by an avalanche that strands them in a remote mountain chalet, eight coworkers are forced to set aside their corporate rankings and mutual distrust in order to survive.

(15 copies)  Reserve

One Step Too Far
Tina Seskis

Emily Coleman apparently has a happy marriage, a beautiful son, and a lovely home. So what makes her get up one morning and walk right out of her life to start all over again? Has she had a breakdown? Was it to escape her dysfunctional family, especially her flawed twin sister Caroline who always seemed to hate her? And what is the date that looms, threatening to force her to confront her past?

(12 copies)  Reserve

One True Loves
Taylor Jenkins Reid

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure. On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever. Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma's second chance at happiness. That is, until Jesse is found. He's alive, and he's been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves. Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly? Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She's just not sure what it's saying.

(12 copies)  Reserve

Open Book
Jessica Simpson

Jessica Simpson reveals for the first time her inner monologue and most intimate struggles, guided by the journals she's kept since age 15 and brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity. First celebrated for her voice, she became one of the most talked-about women in the world, whether for music and fashion, her relationship struggles, or as a walking blonde joke. Her book shares the wisdom and inspirations she's learned and shows the real woman behind all the pop-culture cliches. Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member, Nick Lachey. Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.

(12 copies)  Reserve

Operation Paperclip
Jacobsen, Annie

In the chaos following WWII, many of Germany's remaining resources were divvied up among allied forces. Some of the greatest spoils were the Third Reich's scientific minds--the minds that made their programs in aerospace and rocketry the best in the world. The United States secretly decided that the value of these former Nazis' forbidden knowledge outweighed their crimes, and the government formed a covert organization called Operation Paperclip to allow them to work without the knowledge of the American public. Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, with access to German archival documents (including, notably, papers available only to direct descendants of the former Third Reich's ranking members), files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, and lost dossiers she recently discovered at the National Archives, Annie Jacobsen will follow more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into one of the most complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secrets of the 20th century.

(15 copies)  Reserve

Orenda, The
Joseph Boyden

An epic story of first contact between radically different worlds, steeped in the natural beauty and brutality of our country's formative years.

(15 copies)  Reserve

Orphan Master's Son, The
Adam Johnson

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the North Korean state soon recognize the boy's loyalty and keen instincts. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il to save the woman he loves.

(13 copies)  Reserve