Fiction
- PERSONAL, by Lee Child. Jack Reacher, a former military cop, helps the State Department and the CIA stop a sniper who has targeted a G8 summit.
- SOMEWHERE SAFE WITH SOMEBODY GOOD, by Jan Karon. The Mitford character Father Tim finds friends and family wrestling with difficulties.
- FESTIVE IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. At Christmas, Lt. Eve Dallas investigates the murder of a narcissistic personal trainer; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously.
- THE CHILDREN ACT, by Ian McEwan. A judge wrestles with a challenging case and a crisis in her marriage.
- THE WITCH WITH NO NAME, by Kim Harrison. The final book of the Hollows series.
- THE BONE CLOCKS, by David Mitchell. Interconnected tales in settings from England in the ’80s to the apocalyptic future revolve around a central character.
- THE SECRET PLACE, by Tana French. Detectives Stephen Moran and Antoinette Conway investigate a murder on the grounds of a girls’ school in the Dublin suburbs.
- THE KING’S CURSE, by Philippa Gregory. As chief lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, Margaret Pole is torn between the queen and her husband, Henry VIII.
- THE EYE OF HEAVEN, by Clive Cussler and Russell Blake. Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo discover a Viking ship full of pre-Columbian artifacts.
- COLORLESS TSUKURU TAZAKI AND HIS YEARS OF PILGRIMAGE, by Haruki Murakami. A young man’s difficult coming-of-age.
Nonfiction
- WHAT IF?, by Randall Munroe. Scientific and often humorous answers to hypothetical questions.
- HOURS, by Mitchell Zuckoff with members of the Annex Security Team. Six CIA contract employees discuss their experience during the attack on the State Department compound and the nearby CIA station called the “annex” in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
- WAKING UP, by Sam Harris. This exploration of consciousness proposes that spirituality can and should be divorced from religion.
- WORLD ORDER, by Henry Kissinger. The elder statesman offers a view of how to build an international order in today’s world.
- DIARY OF A MAD DIVA, by Joan Rivers. Humorous reflections about life, pop culture and celebrities.
- UNPHILTERED, by Phil Robertson with Mark Schlabach. What the Duck Commander (from the A&E show Duck Dynasty) really thinks about various topics.
- ONE NATION, by Ben Carson with Candy Carson. Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, now a Fox News contributor, offers solutions to problems.
- OFF THE SIDELINES, by Kirsten Gillibrand. The New York senator tells her personal story and urges women to become more involved in politics.
- IN THE KINGDOM OF ICE, by Hampton Sides. An 1879 polar voyage goes terribly wrong.
- THE ROOSEVELTS, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. A companion volume to the PBS series examines the lives of Theodore, Eleanor and Franklin.
Paperback fiction
- GONE GIRL, by Gillian Flynn. A woman disappears from her Missouri home on her fifth anniversary; is her bitter, oddly evasive husband a killer?
- THE ALCHEMIST, by Paulo Coelho. In this fable, a Spanish shepherd boy ventures to Egypt in search of treasure and his destiny.
- 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.
- SYCAMORE ROW, by John Grisham. A sequel, about race and inheritance, to A Time to Kill.
- 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.
Paperback nonfiction
- 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.
- THE BOYS IN THE BOAT, by Daniel James Brown. A group of American rowers pursue gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
- OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell. Why some people succeed.
- WILD, by Cheryl Strayed. A life-changing hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
- HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent. A young boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels.