BEST-SELLERS

Fiction

  1. THE INVENTION OF WINGS, by Sue Monk Kidd. The relationship between wealthy Sarah Grimké of Charleston, who will grow up to become a prominent abolitionist, and the slave she is given for her 11th birthday.

  2. 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.

  3. STILL LIFE WITH BREAD CRUMBS, by Anna Quindlen. An aging photographer rents a rural cottage and discovers sparks of creativity and desire.

  4. FIRST LOVE, by James Patterson and Emily Raymond. Sixteen-year-old Axi Moore invites her best friend, whom she secretly loves, on a road trip.

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

  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. GONE GIRL, by Gillian Flynn. A woman disappears on her fifth anniversary; is her husband a killer?

  8. AN OFFICER AND A SPY, by Robert Harris. A fictionalized account of the Dreyfus Affair focuses on Lt. Col. Georges Picquart, who discovered evidence exonerating Dreyfus and bravely defended him.

  9. COMMAND AUTHORITY, by Tom Clancy with Mark Greaney. President Jack Ryan and his son, a covert intelligence expert, try to counter a Russian threat.

  10. UNDER THE WIDE AND STARRY SKY, by Nancy Horan. A novel about Robert Louis Stevenson’s troubled marriage.

Nonfiction

  1. DUTY, by Robert M. Gates. The former defense secretary recounts his experience serving Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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

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

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

  5. LEAN IN, by Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell. The chief operating officer of Facebook urges women to pursue their careers without ambivalence.

  6. 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.

  7. MY AGE OF ANXIETY, by Scott Stossel. A study of anxiety disorder by the editor of The Atlantic, drawing on research as well as personal experience.

  8. 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.

  9. UNBROKEN, by Laura Hillenbrand. An Olympic runner’s story of survival as a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II after his plane went down over the Pacific.

  10. MY PROMISED LAND, by Ari Shavit. An Israeli journalist expresses both solidarity with and criticism of his countrymen in this memoir and history.

Paperback fiction

  1. WINTER’S TALE, by Mark Helprin. In 19th-Century New York, an Irish burglar begins a love affair with a beautiful concert pianist dying of consumption; the basis for a movie.

  2. LIFE AFTER LIFE, by Kate Atkinson. Atkinson’s heroine, born in 1910, keeps dying and dying again as she experiences the alternate courses her destiny might have taken.

  3. A WEEK IN WINTER, by Maeve Binchy. A peek into the lives of people from various walks of life brought together at a newly opened inn on Ireland’s west coast; the final book by Maeve Binchy, who died in 2012.

  4. ORPHAN TRAIN, by Christina Baker Kline. A historical novel about orphans swept off the streets of New York and sent to the Midwest in the 1920s.

  5. ME BEFORE YOU, by Jojo Moyes. A young woman who has barely been farther afield than her English village finds herself while caring for a wealthy, embittered quadriplegic.

Paperback nonfiction

  1. LONE SURVIVOR, by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. The only survivor of a Navy SEALs operation in northern Afghanistan describes the battle and his escape. First published in 2007; the basis for the movie.

  2. THE MONUMENTS MEN, by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. An Allied group recovers stolen artworks from the Nazis.

  3. PROOF OF HEAVEN, by Eben Alexander. A neurosurgeon recounts his near-death experience during a coma from bacterial meningitis.

  4. THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, by Jordan Belfort. The rise and fall of a financial insider; the basis for a recent film.

  5. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed; it has to do with luck and opportunities as well as talent.

Perspective, Pages 77 on 02/16/2014

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