BEST-SELLERS

Fiction

  1. COMMAND AUTHORITY, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney. President Jack Ryan and his son, a covert intelligence expert, try to counter a Russian threat in Tom Clancy’s last novel before his death.

  2. SYCAMORE ROW, by John Grisham. A sequel about race and inheritance to A Time to Kill.

  3. THE GODS OF GUILT, by Michael Connelly. Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer, defends a “digital pimp” accused of murder. Outside the courtroom, he confronts killers, crooked cops and an angry daughter.

  4. DOCTOR SLEEP, by Stephen King. Now grown up, Dan, the boy with psycho-intuitive powers in The Shining, helps another threatened child with a gift.

  5. CROSS MY HEART, by James Patterson. Alex Cross’ family is threatened by a genius intent on proving that he is the greatest mind in the history of crime.

  6. THE FIRST PHONE CALL FROM HEAVEN, by Mitch Albom. A small Michigan town is transformed when its residents receive phone calls said to be from heaven.

  7. THE GOLDFINCH, by Donna Tartt. A painting smuggled out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after a bombing becomes a boy’s prize, guilt and burden.

  8. TAKEDOWN TWENTY, by Janet Evanovich. New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum pursues a mobster on the lam.

  9. KING AND MAXWELL, by David Baldacci. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, former Secret Service agents turned private investigators, scrutinize the report of a soldier’s mysterious death in Afghanistan.

  10. INFERNO, by Dan Brown. Symbologist Robert Langdon, on the run in Florence, must decipher a series of codes created by a Dante-loving scientist.

Nonfiction

  1. THINGS THAT MATTER, by Charles Krauthammer. Three decades’ worth of essays from the conservative columnist.

  2. KILLING JESUS, by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. The host of The O’Reilly Factor recounts the events leading to Jesus’ execution.

  3. GEORGE WASHINGTON’S SECRET SIX, by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger. The story of the Culper spy ring, which aided the American cause during the Revolution.

  4. DAVID AND GOLIATH, by Malcolm Gladwell. How disadvantages can work in our favor.

  5. MIRACLES AND MASSACRES, by Glenn Beck with Kevin Balfe and Hannah Beck. Little-known stories from the American past.

  6. THE BULLY PULPIT, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. The author of Team of Rivals explores the relationships between Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the muckraking press.

  7. HUMANS OF NEW YORK, by Brandon Stanton. Four hundred color photos of New Yorkers, with brief commentary by Stanton.

  8. I AM MALALA, by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb. The experience of a Pakistani girl who advocated for women’s education and was shot by the Taliban.

  9. SI-COLOGY 1, by Si Robertson with Mark Schlabach. Tales from Phil Robertson’s youngest brother, who works in the Duck Commander workshop.

  10. ONE SUMMER, by Bill Bryson. The author of A Short History of Nearly Everything describes the events of the summer of 1927: Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight, Babe Ruth’s 60 homers, the great Mississippi flood.

Paperback fiction

  1. DARK WITCH, by Nora Roberts. With an optimistic attitude and an innate talent with horses, Iona Sheehan arrives in Ireland, intent on learning more about her family’s history and legacy of magic.

  2. DEAR LIFE, by Alice Munro. The latest collection of stories by this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

  3. THE STORYTELLER, by Jodi Picoult. A New Hampshire baker finds herself in the midst of two Holocaust stories: her grandmother’s tale of survival and the confessions of an elderly German SS officer.

  4. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY, by E.L. James. An inexperienced college student falls in love with a tortured man who has particular sexual tastes; the first book in a trilogy.

  5. WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, by Maria Semple. A teenage daughter compiles emails, official documents and secret correspondence in an effort to find her eccentric mother.

Paperback nonfiction

  1. PROOF OF HEAVEN, by Eben Alexander. A neurosurgeon recounts his near-death experience during a coma.

  2. LONE SURVIVOR, by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. A harrowing Navy SEALs operation.

  3. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed.

  4. QUIET, by Susan Cain. Introverts are undervalued in American society.

  5. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, by Piper Kerman. A memoir about a year in a women’s prison. The basis for the Netflix series.

Perspective, Pages 81 on 12/22/2013

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