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Recommended Reading

Mort Zachter’s childhood revolved around a small shop on Manhattan’s Lower East Side known in the neighborhood as the “day-old bread store.” It was a bakery where nothing was baked, owned by his two eccentric uncles who referred to their goods as “the merchandise.” Zachter grew up sleeping in the dinette of a leaking Brooklyn tenement. He lived a classic immigrant storyone of a close-knit, working-class family struggling to make it in America. Only they were rich.

In 1893, inspired by their hero, master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, two cowboys, Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer, put their detecting skills to use to uncover the truth about the murder of a ranch hand on their Montana cattle ranch.

Hired to guard the Pacific Express during a trip to San Francisco, crime-solving cowboy sleuths Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer and his brother, “Big Red,” find themselves dealing with a scheming gang of outlaws, a baggage car containing a dangerous cache of secrets, and a killer hiding among the train’s colorful passengers.

The author recounts his experiences working as an assistant librarian in a public library in suburban Los Angeles, as he encounters patrons who range from bored latchkey kids left there for the afternoon, to rowdy teenagers, to Internet-obsessed adults, to drug-dealers.

A founding member of The Simple Way, a radical faith community in North Philadelphia, describes an authentic faith rooted in belief, action, and love, offering an invitation into the movement that begins inside each individual and extends into a broken world.

Three months after being unexpectedly fired from his banking job, David takes a temporary position at a local mortuary, where he experiences an inexplicable encounter with the unknown that transforms his relationships with everyone around him, forces him to confront the shifting nature of reality, and explores the boundary between the physical world and the spiritual one.

Struggling with single parenthood and a scandal that cost him his political career, Bernard Doyle fights his disappointment with his adopted sons’ career choices before a violent event forces the members of his family to reconsider their priorities.

Police detective Alan McAlpine is haunted by a decades-old case as he returns to Glasgow’s Patrickhill Station after a long absence to investigate a serial killer who positions his victims’ bodies as if they have been crucified.

When a not-so-innocent twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie inherits her eccentric uncle’s estate, she must join forces with Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton mage, to save the world from an ancient evil.

Set during the 1967-1968 school year, Holling Hoodhood finds his seventh-grade year one filled with many challenges as he spends afternoons with Mrs. Baker discussing the plays of Shakespeare, defends his tasty cream puffs from a determined bully, and prepares for his big debut in the school play — all while the issue of Vietnam looms on a daily basis.

Fearing that the sinister Lord Ombra was not destroyed, Peter and Molly travel to the land of Rundoon, which is ruled by the evil King Zarboff, and once again find themselves in a struggle to save themselves as well as the planet.

Although he comes from a family of theater people who don’t get involved in politics, ten-year-old Bamse and his Jewish friend Anton join Bamse’s brother and participate in the Danish Resistance during World War II.

As her irritating family prepares to celebrate her grandfather’s eightieth birthday, sixteen-year-old Lily yearns for just one whole perfect day together.

Taking refuge in fairy tales after the loss of his mother, twelve-year-old David finds himself violently propelled into an imaginary land in which the boundaries of fantasy and reality are disturbingly melded.

A personal memoir by the Olympic gold medallist shares the painful secrets of her private life, from her difficulties with her alcoholic father and her emotionally distant mother to her ex-husband’s fatal plane crash and her own struggles with depression and bankruptcy.

A masterful portrait of a mythic American hero offers a sweeping study of Daniel Boone in terms of his larger-than-life role in the early history of America, detailing his trailblazing journeys into the heart of the American wilderness, his participation in the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War, his relationship with the Indians, and more.

Fairy-tale detectives Sabrina and Daphne Grimm face their first case without Granny Relda’s help when the future gets mixed up with the past in Ferryport Landing, and because some of the future does not look bright, Puck helps them try to make some changes.

A fifth installment in the popular Thursday Next series takes place fourteen years after the 1988 SuperHoop, in a tale in which Thursday finds herself embroiled in cases involving the murders of Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple before receiving a death threat of her own.

Their lives shaped since childhood by their father’s role as a Traveler, one of an elite group of prophets able to attain pure enlightenment, Gabriel and Michael Corrigan find themselves at the center of a battle between the Harlequins, a band of warriors pledged to protect the Travelers, and the Tabulas, a ruthless cadre seeking world domination.

A British aristocrat with an eccentric family and a husband she does not love, Lady Julia Grey is stunned by the sudden death of her husband and enlists the help of private sleuth Nicholas Brisbane to unravel the mystery of his death and the threats that he had been receiving, all the while taking on an unconventional role in London society.