 New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult, known for tackling today's hot-button issues, delivers the riveting tale of one small town's entanglement with high-school violence. New York Superior Court Judge Alex Cormier is assigned to preside over the case of the alleged Sterling High School shooter. Lawyer Jordan McAffee represents Peter, the boy who, on the day of the shooting, was found in the corner of the gymnasium holding a gun to his head with a shaky hand. Detective Patrick DuCharme has one star witness, but her story keeps changing. And then there's the biggest problem of all: the star witness happens to be Judge Cormier's daughter. Picoult, acclaimed for her penetrating explorations of the gray areas in modern society, asks difficult questions in Nineteen Minutes, which may be her most powerful and important novel yet.
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 New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate, a life and a role that she has never challenged, until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister, and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
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 What do you do? Whenever people asked him, Eric Cash used to have a dozen answers: artist, actor, screenwriter....But now he's 35 years old and he's still living downtown, still in the restaurant business, working night shifts and serving the people he always wanted to be. What does Eric do? He manages. Not like Ike Marcus. Ike Marcus had what the Lower East Side wanted: he was young, good-looking, people liked him. Ask him what he did, and he wouldn't say "tend bar". He was going places, and he was going to live forever - until two street kids stepped up to him and Eric on Eldridge Street one night and pulled a gun. Ike's last words were "Not tonight, my man". At least, that's Eric's version.
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 Pi Patel has been raised in a zoo in India. When his father decides to move the family to Canada and sell the animals to American zoos, everyone boards a Japanese cargo ship. The ship sinks, and 16-year-old Pi finds himself alone on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon it's just Pi, the tiger, and the vast Pacific Ocean - for 227 days. Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they reach the coast of Mexico, where the tiger disappears into the jungle. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story, so he tells a second one - more conventional, less fantastic. But is it more true? A realistic, rousing adventure and meta-tale of survival, Life of Pi explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character claims, to "make you believe in God."
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 Known for tackling hot-button issues in her timely fiction, Jodi Picoult has sold millions of books. Change of Heart explores capital punishment and organized religion through the tale of death row inmate Shay Bourne. Bourne's last request is to donate his heart to his victim's ailing sister. The situation gets more complicated when Bourne begins performing miracles in full view of witnesses - including his Catholic spiritual advisor.
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 Here's a satisfying tale of honor, chance, and star-crossed love infused with Southern wit, grace, and charm. After 20 years, Elizabeth "Betts" McGee has finally managed to put her past behind her. She hasn't been home to beautiful South Carolina and untouched Bulls Island since the tragic night that ended her engagement to Charleston's golden boy, J. D. Langley. And why is that? Really, this is the story of two old Southern families. The Langley family has more money than the Morgan Stanley Bank. And they think they have more class. The Barrett family made their 19th-century fortune in a less distinguished manner: corner grocery and liquor stores. It's no surprise that when J. D. and Betts fall in love and decide to marry, their parents are none too pleased. And when the love affair comes to an end, everyone is ready to place blame. Now 20 years have gone by, and Betts, a top investment bank executive, must leave her comfortable life in New York City to return to the home she thought she'd left behind forever. But spearheading the most important project of her career puts her back in contact with everything she's tried so hard to forget: her estranged sister, her father, J. D., and her past. Once she's home, can Betts keep the secret that threatens all she holds dear? Or will her fear of the past wreck her future happiness? And what about that crazy gator? All will be revealed on Bulls Island.
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 Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others to protect those we love. A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised herself when she was gripped by the sudden desire to head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she's made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt, the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake, and Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman. As their individual stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined, and that ultimately teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another.
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 Walker & Daughter is Georgia Walker's little yarn shop, tucked into a quiet storefront on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The Friday Night Knitting Club is the ad hoc creation of some of Georgia's regulars, who stroll into the shop looking for tips on knitting and end up finding much, much more. Once a week, they gather to work on their latest projects and to chat - and occasionally clash - over their stories of love, life, and everything in between. However, unexpected changes soon throw these women's lives into disarray, and the shop's comfortable world gets shaken up like a snow globe. When the unthinkable happens, they realize what they've created - not just a knitting club, but a sisterhood.
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 My mother, Joy Shapiro Krushelevansky writes in her diary late one night, "is the most embarrassing person to have ever been born." It's been almost 13 years since we've last seen Cannie Shapiro, the heroine of Good in Bed, whose journey toward happily-ever-after, and peace with her fractured family and plus-size body, made millions of women the world over laugh, cry, and see themselves on the page. The last decade of Cannie's life has brought some surprises. Her life story, in fictional form, became an unexpected best-seller, and Cannie has since choosen to retreat from fame's fallout, writing science fiction under a pen name. Her daughter, Joy, has descended into the throes of moody adolescence, just in time for her bat mitzvah. Her best friend, Samantha, is looking for love in all the wrong places (specifically, an online dating site called AJew4U.com). Her husband, Peter, has decided that he'd like to have a baby, and the family's first choice for a surrogate is none other than Cannie's flamboyant kid sister. Just when things can't get any worse - or weirder - Cannie's long-lost (and largely unlamented) father shows up at her doorstep, and Joy swipes her mother's credit card and heads West in pursuit of the grandfather she's only seen once. Funny and tender, with memorable characters and Weiner's trademark whip-smart dialogue and sharp observations about modern life, Certain Girls is a story about family (biological and chosen), love, loss, and the enduring bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands, and wives.
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 'Civilization slipped into its second dark age on an unsurprising track of blood but with a speed that could not have been foreseen by even the most pessimistic futurist. By Halloween, every major city from New York to Moscow stank to the empty heavens and the world as it had been was a memory.'
The event became known as The Pulse. The virus was carried by every cell phone operating within the entire world. Within hours, those receiving calls would become insane, or die.
In Boston, a young artist, Clayton Riddell, flees the explosive heart of the city. Clay's son has a little red cell phone. Often out of juice. But what if this time the battery is full? Clay has to reach his son, before his son reaches for his phone....
Who doesn't have a cell phone? This utterly gripping, gory, and fascinating novel doesn't ask the question 'Can you hear me now?' It answers it with a vengeance. High concept, ingenious, and terrifying: Cell is the perfect nightmare for a whole new generation of Stephen King listeners.
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