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You Are One of Them

by Elliott Holt

Hardcover, 304 pages, Penguin Group USA, $25.95, published May 30 2013 | purchase
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  • You Are One of Them
  • Elliott Holt

A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer traces the friendship between all-American girl Jenny and Sarah, the shy daughter of troubled parents, during the height of the Cold War, a bond that is nearly shattered by Jenny's unexpected fame and plane crash death that Sarah learns a decade later might have been a hoax.

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Inferno

Inferno

by Dan Brown

Hardcover, 461 pages, Random House Inc, $29.95, published May 14 2013 | purchase
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  • Inferno
  • Dan Brown

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history's most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces ... Dante's Inferno. Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle. By the author of The Da Vinci Code.

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A Delicate Truth

A Delicate Truth

by John Le Carre

Hardcover, 309 pages, Penguin Group USA, $28.95, published May 7 2013 | purchase
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  • A Delicate Truth
  • John Le Carre

Three years after the launch of a delicate counterterrorism operation organized to capture a high-value jihadist arms buyer, a disgraced Special Forces solider delivers a message that raises questions about the operation's success and a possible coverup.NPR Bestseller

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Life After Life

Life After Life

by Kate Atkinson

Hardcover, 529 pages, Little Brown & Co, $27.99, published April 2 2013 | purchase
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  • Life After Life
  • Kate Atkinson

The award-winning author of Behind the Scenes at the Museum follows the experiences of a woman who, after being born on a snowy night in 1910, repeatedly dies and reincarnates into the same life to correct missteps and, ultimately, save the world.NPR Bestseller

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The Burgess Boys

The Burgess Boys

by Elizabeth Strout

Hardcover, 320 pages, Random House Inc, $26, published March 26 2013 | purchase
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  • The Burgess Boys
  • Elizabeth Strout

Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, two brothers confront painful issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their lives. NPR Bestseller

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The Woman Upstairs

The Woman Upstairs

by Claire Messud

Hardcover, 272 pages, Random House Inc, $25.95, published April 30 2013 | purchase
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  • The Woman Upstairs
  • Claire Messud

Relegated to the status of schoolteacher and friendly neighbor after abandoning her dreams of becoming an artist, Nora advocates on behalf of a charismatic Lebanese student and is drawn into the child's family until his artist mother's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal. NPR Bestseller

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Gone Girl

Gone Girl

by Gillian Flynn

Hardcover, 416 pages, Crown Publishing, $25, published June 5 2012 | purchase
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  • Gone Girl
  • Gillian Flynn

After a woman disappears on her fifth wedding anniversary, her diary reveals hidden turmoil in her marriage. Her husband, desperate to clear himself of suspicion, realizes that something more disturbing than murder may have occurred.NPR Bestseller

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Maya's Notebook

Maya's Notebook

by Isabel Allende

Hardcover, 387 pages, HarperCollins, $27.99, published April 23 2013 | purchase
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  • Maya's Notebook
  • Isabel Allende

After the death of her beloved grandfather, 19-year-old Maya Vidal turns to drugs, alcohol and petty crimes. She becomes trapped in a war between assassins, the police, the FBI and Interpol, until her grandmother helps her escape to a remote island off the coast of Chile where she tries to make sense of her life. Translated by Anne McLean.NPR Bestseller

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Z

Z

A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

Hardcover, 375 pages, St Martins Pr, $25.99, published March 26 2013 | purchase
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  • Z
  • A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
  • Therese Anne Fowler

A tale inspired by the marriage of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald follows their union in defiance of her father's opposition and her scandalous transformation into a Jazz Age celebrity in the literary party scenes of New York, Paris and the French Riviera.NPR Bestseller

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The Interestings

The Interestings

by Meg Wolitzer

Hardcover, 464 pages, Penguin Group USA, $27.95, published April 9 2013 | purchase
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  • The Interestings
  • Meg Wolitzer

Forging a powerful bond in the mid-1970s that lasts throughout subsequent decades, six individuals pursue respective challenges into their midlife years, including an aspiring actress who harbors jealousy toward friends who achieve successful creative careers. NPR Bestseller

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The Flamethrowers

The Flamethrowers

by Rachel Kushner

Hardcover, 383 pages, Simon & Schuster, $26.99, published April 2 2013 | purchase
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  • The Flamethrowers
  • Rachel Kushner

Arriving in New York to pursue a creative career in the raucous 1970s art scene, Reno joins a group of dreamers and raconteurs before falling in love with the estranged son of an Italian motorcycle scion and succumbing to a radical social movement in 1977 Italy. NPR Bestseller

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All That Is

All That Is

by James Salter

Hardcover, 304 pages, Random House Inc, $26.95, published April 2 2013 | purchase
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  • All That Is
  • James Salter

Returning to America after World War II, former naval officer Philip Bowman finds a position as a book editor and loses himself in a world of intimate connections and surprising triumphs, until he is betrayed by the woman he loves.NPR Bestseller

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cover image from The Round House

The Round House

by Louise Erdrich

Hardcover, 321 pages, Harper, $27.99, published October 2 2012 | purchase
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  • The Round House
  • Louise Erdrich

When his mother, a tribal enrollment specialist on a reservation in North Dakota, slips into an abyss of depression after being brutally attacked, 13-year-old Joe Coutts sets out with his three friends to find the person who destroyed his family.NPR Bestseller

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Beautiful Ruins

Beautiful Ruins

by Jess Walter

Paperback, 16 pages, HarperCollins, $15.99, published April 2 2013 | purchase
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  • Beautiful Ruins
  • Jess Walter

On a rocky patch of Italian coastline, circa 1962, a daydreaming young innkeeper has an almost-love affair with a beautiful American starlet. She draws him into her glittering world, from the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the back lots of contemporary Hollywood, and both begin to cling to an improbable dream.NPR Bestseller

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Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

by Maria Semple

Paperback, 330 pages, Little Brown & Co, $14.99, published April 2 2013 | purchase
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  • Where'd You Go, Bernadette
  • Maria Semple

Bee Fox is a nice kid, a good musician and a great student. But her mother, Bernadette, is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect. Then, Bernadette goes missing, and Bee begins a search that will take her to the ends of the earth.NPR Bestseller

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The Orphan Master's Son

The Orphan Master's Son

A Novel

by Adam Johnson

Paperback, 456 pages, Random House Inc, $15, published August 7 2012 | purchase
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  • The Orphan Master's Son
  • A Novel
  • Adam Johnson

Pak Jun Do, the son of an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.NPR Bestseller

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The Language of Flowers

The Language Of Flowers

A Novel

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Paperback, 334 pages, Random House Inc, $15, published April 3 2012 | purchase
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  • The Language Of Flowers
  • A Novel
  • Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Victoria, the orphaned heroine of Vanessa Diffenbaugh's debut novel, is privy to a secret language of flowers that dates to Victorian England.NPR Bestseller

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The Yellow Birds

The Yellow Birds

by Kevin Powers

Paperback, 230 pages, Little Brown & Co, $14.99, published April 30 2013 | purchase
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  • The Yellow Birds
  • Kevin Powers

In Al Tafar, Iraq, 21-year-old Pvt. John Bartle and 18-year-old Pvt. Daniel Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. The two men do all they can to protect each other from the forces that are pressing in: the insurgents, physical fatigue and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes actions he could never have imagined.NPR Bestseller

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Bring Up the Bodies

Bring Up The Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

Paperback, 432 pages, Picador, $16, published May 7 2013 | purchase
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  • Bring Up The Bodies
  • Hilary Mantel

The spark has gone out of Henry VIII's second marriage. When his roving eye leaves Anne Boleyn and begins to settle on Jane Seymour, another woman at court, the monarch turns to his chief adviser, Thomas Cromwell, for help. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies is the second book in a planned trilogy about Cromwell.NPR Bestseller

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The Orchardist by Amanda Coblin.

The Orchardist

by Amanda Coplin

Paperback, 426 pages, HarperCollins, $15.99, published March 5 2013 | purchase
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  • The Orchardist
  • Amanda Coplin

When two skittish pregnant girls appear on his homestead, solitary orchardist Talmadge — who carefully tends the grove of fruit trees he has cultivated for nearly half a century — vows to save and protect them. The Orchardist evokes a powerful sense of place in the American West, mixing tenderness and violence as Talmadge tries to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past and faces the dramatic consequences of his actions.NPR Bestseller

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The Paris Wife

The Paris Wife

by Paula McLain

Paperback, 331 pages, Random House Inc, $15, published November 27 2012 | purchase
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  • The Paris Wife
  • Paula McLain

The Paris Wife follows the life of Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, as she navigates 1920s Paris.NPR Bestseller

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Broken Harbor

Broken Harbor

by Tana French

Paperback, 450 pages, Penguin Group USA, $16, published April 30 2013 | purchase
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  • Broken Harbor
  • Tana French

In the aftermath of a brutal attack that left a woman in intensive care and her husband and young children dead, brash cop Scorcher Kennedy and his rookie partner, Richie, struggle with perplexing clues and Scorcher's haunting memories of a shattering incident from his childhood.NPR Bestseller

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Istanbul Passage

Istanbul Passage

by Joseph Kanon

Paperback, 404 pages, Pocket Books, $16, published April 16 2013 | purchase
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  • Istanbul Passage
  • Joseph Kanon

The big war is over, and the Cold War has just begun. Leon Bauer, an American tobacco man, and his wife, Anna, a German Jew, made it to Istanbul just before World War II began. His U.S. passport and fluency in German and Turkish made him useful to Allied intelligence. But before he assumes a more peaceful life, Bauer is given a last big job — slip Alexi, a Romanian defector with important Soviet secrets, out of Istanbul. Alexi's secrets might help old allies — but the defector once helped massacre Jews in Romania. Bauer is being asked to help a man in this new war who represents what he fought in the last one.NPR Bestseller

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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry

by Rachel Joyce

Paperback, 343 pages, Random House Inc, $15, published March 26 2013 | purchase
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  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry
  • Rachel Joyce

For recently retired Harold Fry, little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives from a woman he hasn't heard from in 20 years: Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. With no warning or planning, Harold heads to Queenie's bedside, walking all the way from the very southernmost part of England to the very northernmost part.NPR Bestseller

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Americanah

Americanah

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Hardcover, 477 pages, Random House Inc, $26.95, published May 14 2013 | purchase
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  • Americanah
  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London. When the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, they face the toughest decisions of their lives.

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Little Green

Little Green

An Easy Rawlins Mystery

by Walter Mosley

Hardcover, 304 pages, Random House Inc, $25.95, published May 14 2013 | purchase
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  • Little Green
  • An Easy Rawlins Mystery
  • Walter Mosley

Surviving a near-fatal car wreck and cruising the streets of the Sunset Strip during the heyday of the late 1960s, Easy Rawlins investigates the disappearance of a young African-American, a case that is complicated by Rawlins's changing perspectives. By the O. Henry Award-winning author of the Socrates Fortlow series.

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Pacific

Pacific

by Tom Drury

Hardcover, 194 pages, Grove Press, $25, published May 7 2013 | purchase
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  • Pacific
  • Tom Drury

In Los Angeles to reunite with the mother who abandoned him seven years ago, 14-year-old Micah Darling finds himself way out of his league. Meanwhile, back home in the Midwest, his half-sister Lyris and their father Tiny find their lives unsettled by the arrival of an ethereal young woman.

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Red Moon

Red Moon

by Benjamin Percy

Hardcover, 544 pages, Grand Central Pub, $25.99, published May 7 2013 | purchase
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  • Red Moon
  • Benjamin Percy

On the eve of the emergence of a new and unrecognizable world that will challenge the existence of humanity, a group of people begin to notice they are different from everyone else.

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Live By Night

Live By Night

by Dennis Lehane

Paperback, 401 pages, HarperCollins, $16.99, published May 14 2013 | purchase
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  • Live By Night
  • Dennis Lehane

During Prohibition, Joe Coughlin defies his strict, law-and-order upbringing by climbing a ladder of organized crime. Starting as a petty thief in Boston, he travels south and eventually becomes the Gulf Coast's most successful rumrunner. In Tampa, Fla., and in Cuba, he encounters a dangerous cast of characters who are all fighting for their piece of the American dream.NPR Bestseller, Literary Award Winner

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The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman

The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman

by Andrzej Szczypiorski and Klara Glowczewska

Paperback, 204 pages, Pgw, $12, published April 1 1997 | purchase
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  • The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman
  • Andrzej Szczypiorski and Klara Glowczewska

In Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow passes as the wife of a Polish officer, until an informer spots her and drags her off to the Gestapo to await her fate

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Tenth of December

Tenth Of December

by George Saunders

Hardcover, 208 pages, Random House Inc, $26, published January 8 2013 | purchase
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  • Tenth Of December
  • George Saunders

A collection of stories includes "Home," a wryly whimsical account of a soldier's return from war; "Victory Lap," a tale about an inventive abduction attempt; and the title story, in which a suicidal cancer patient saves the life of a young misfit.NPR Bestseller

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The Dinner

The Dinner

by Herman Koch

Hardcover, 304 pages, Random House Inc, $24, published February 12 2013 | purchase
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  • The Dinner
  • Herman Koch

Meeting at an Amsterdam restaurant for dinner, two couples move from small talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' act of violence that has triggered a police investigation and revealed the extent to which each family will go to protect those it loves.NPR Bestseller

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