Frank Carlson Library

While searching for his missing wife, Japanese lawyer Toru Okada has strange experiences and meets strange characters. A woman wants phone sex, a man describes wartime torture, he finds himself at the bottom of a well. Part detective story, part philosophical meditation.

Sunny is an expat in Kabul who blissfully runs a coffee shop for other Americans in the country. When Yazmina, a pregnant young woman from a nearby village, is kidnapped and later abandoned near the coffee shop, Sunny instinctively comes to her aid. Candace, a wealthy American, also pitches in, while Isabel, a journalist, chronicles Yazmina's woe. Meanwhile, Halajan, a local mother, is reeling from a forbidden love affair.

"It's Halloween in Pico Mundo, California, and there's a whiff of something wicked in the autumn air. While the town prepares for its annual festivities, young fry cook Odd Thomas can't shake the feeling that make-believe goblins and ghouls aren't the only things on the prowl. And he should know, since he can see what others cannot: the spirits of the restless dead. But even his frequent visitor, the specter of Elvis Presley, can't seem to point Odd...

"A mesmerizing, psychologically taut novel about a marriage's end and the secrets we all carry. A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split...

Grace Hammond Barnett grew up in the emotionally desolate company of the strangers who were her mother and father. Her only happy memories are of the times spent with her younger sister, Melanie, and Jemma, the warm-hearted family housekeeper who helped fill the void left by Grace's detached, inaccessible parents. Now a mother herself, Grace feels trapped in a sterile marriage to a prominent surgeon and haunted by the recurrent dreams of drowning....

"An utterly compelling, heartbreaking novel that introduces a revelatory young voice to the U.S. market. Meet Luca, a curious young boy living with his mother, a taciturn woman who "every now and then tries out a new father." Luca keeps to himself, his cat, Blue, and his words--his favorite toys. One February morning his mom doesn't wake up to bring him to school, so Luca--with a father who's long gone and driven by a deep fear of being an orphan...

"From an award-winning young author, a novel following a feisty heroine's idiosyncratic quest to reclaim her past by mining the wisdom of her literary icons--even as she navigates the murkier mysteries of love. Zebra is the last in a line of anarchists, atheists, and autodidacts. When war came, her family didn't fight; they took refuge in books. Now alone and in exile, Zebra leaves New York for Barcelona, retracing the journey she and her father made...

"A juicy, powerful read featuring twin sisters who have drifted apart, and the shocking family secrets that bind them--for readers of The Woman in Cabin 10 and I Let You Go When the past knocks, someone must answer. In a bustling suburban neighborhood in Manchester, England, sits an unassuming house. There is no sign of life behind the unwashed windows, but Robin Marshall is inside. Driven by fears and obsessions, racked by anxiety, Robin is frantically...