Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

by Steven Pinker

Can reading a book make you more rational? Can it explain why there seems to be so much irrationality in the world, including, let's be honest, in each of us? These are the goals of Steven Pinker's follow-up to Enlightenm...

The Hundred-Foot Journey

directed by Lasse Hallström

Hassan is a culinary ingenue with the gastronomic equivalent of perfect pitch. Displaced from their native India, his family settles in a quaint village in the south of France. They plan to open an Indian restaurant &am...

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

by Isabel Wilkerson

One of the most important books to appear in years. The author, who also wrote The Warmth of Other Suns, looks at how an unspoken caste system has shaped America and compares it to caste systems in India and in Nazi Germany. There are a...

These Truths: A History of the United States

by Jill Lepore

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American ...

A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

Reviewed by Linda:An utterly charming and moving tale of a Russian count, one Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who is called before a Bolshevik tribunal in 1922 for having written an incendiary poem, and is sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol,...

A Little Chaos

directed by Alan Rickman

A romantic drama following Sabine (Kate Winslet), a strong-willed and talented landscape designer, who is selected to build one of the main gardens at King Louis XIV's new palace at Versailles. In her new position of power...

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

Reviewed by Linda:This gripping history of human beings begins 70,000 years ago by asking why we sapiens are the only species of human — there were at least six that scientists know of so far — still in existence. T...

Full Mouth: Poems about Food

by Sara Eddy

“Amid the many delicious feasts contained in Full Mouth — ranging from caviar and oysters to donuts and dumplings — you’ll find the “sweet improbable globes” of oranges, and the batte...

Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide

by Tony Horwitz

The author retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's journey across the American South in the 1850s, on the eve of the Civil War. Olmsted roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, and the New York Times published his dispatches about slavery and ...

The Man Who Invented Christmas (streaming video)

directed by Bharat Nalluri

A film about the magical journey that led to the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer), Tiny Tim, and other classic characters from A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) mixed real-life inspirations with h...

A Long Petal of the Sea

by Isabel Allende

In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them...

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II

by Sonia Purnell

Reviewed by Linda:Open this book and meet a truly remarkable woman, one who was instrumental in liberating France from the Nazis. Virginia Hall was considered a most unlikely candidate to be a spy: a socialite from Baltimore who had a pros...

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

by Isabel WilkersonIn this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern an...

My Afternoons with Margueritte (Le Tête en Friche) (streaming video)

directed by Jean BeckerThis film stars Gerard Depardieu who plays Germain, a 45-year-old, illiterate handyman. Margueritte is a lovely 95-year-old lady who loves any good book to share with others. The two meet in the afternoons where Margueritte reads an...

Becoming Astrid (streaming video)

directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen

This film follows the early life of the Swedish children author, Astrid Lindgren. She is considered to be the world’s third most-translated children’s author. She has written more than a 100 titl...

1985 (streaming video)

directed by Yen Tan

This film is shot on black-and-white super 16mm film and centers on a pivotal time in America during the first wave of the AIDS crisis. Adrian returns to Texas to celebrate Christmas and reconnect with his family. Unresolved issues forc...

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

In this bestselling and delightfully quirky debut novel from Sweden, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.

Elephant Company

by Vicki Croke

The remarkable story of James Howard "Billy" Williams, whose uncanny rapport with the world’s largest land animals transformed him from a carefree young man into the charismatic war hero known as Elephant Bill.

Call Me American: A Memoir

by Abdi Nor Iftin

Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop artists like Michael Jackson and watching films starring action heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines lan...

The Improvisatore

by Hans Christian Andersen; translated by Frank Hugus

This semi-autobiographical novel, inspired by Andersen’s travels in Italy, was recently translated by Frank Hugus, Amherst resident and UMass Professor of German & Scandinavian Studies.

The Rosie Project

by Graeme Simsion

Reviewed by Janet:Don Tillman is a socially challenged professor who decides it is time to marry. Being a researcher, he decides to use a specially designed questionnaire for the Wife Project, as he calls it. However, things go contrary t...

The Battle for Christmas

by Stephen Nissenbaum

In 1659 the Massachusetts Bay General Court declared the celebration of Christmas to be a criminal offense. What the Puritans were trying to suppress was a holiday marked by boisterous invasions of the homes of the wealthy. As recentl...

The End of American Childhood

by Paula S. Fass

A sweeping look at the history of American childhood and parenting, from the nation's founding to the present day. Renowned historian Paula Fass shows how, since the beginning of the American republic, independence, self-definition, and in...

Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

by Cokie Roberts

Cokie Roberts's number one New York Times bestseller, We Are Our Mothers' Daughters, examined the nature of women's roles throughout history and led USA Today to praise her as a "custodian of time-honored values." Her second best...

Sisters In Law

by Linda Hirshman

The relationship between Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Republican and Democrat, Christian and Jew, western rancher's daughter and Brooklyn girl — transcends party, religion, region, and culture. Strengt...

Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties

by Madeleine May Kunin

Many readers are already familiar with Madeleine Kunin, the former three-term governor of Vermont, who served as the deputy secretary of education and ambassador to Switzerland under President Bill Clinton. The topic of this — her mo...

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

by Trevor Noah

Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at the time such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggl...

The Hidden Life of Trees

by Peter Wohlleben

A forester's fascinating stories, supported by the latest scientific research, reveal the extraordinary world of forests and illustrate how trees communicate and care for each other.

Just Mercy

by Bryan Stevenson

The executive director of a social advocacy group for prisoners tells the story of Walter McMillian, a man condemned to death row for a murder he didn't commit — and explains why justice and mercy must go hand-in-hand.

American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West

by Nate Blakeslee

The enthralling story of the rise and reign of O-Six, the celebrated Yellowstone wolf, and the people who loved or feared her. Before men ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hu...

The Locals

by Jonathan Dee

Reviewed by Linda:I once met a librarian from the Berkshires who told me that many of the new houses in his hometown have helicopter pads in the backyards. I thought of him as I devoured Jonathan Dee’s new novel about a small Berk...

Becoming

by Michelle Obama

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive Whit...

RGB

directed and produced by Betsy West & Julie Cohen

At the age of 85, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a lengthy legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But the unique personal journey of her rise to the na...

The Library Book

by Susan Orlean

Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metro...

Revolution Song: A Story of Freedom

by Russell Shorto

In his epic new book, Russell Shorto takes us back to the founding of the American nation, drawing on diaries, letters and autobiographies to flesh out six lives that cast the era in a fresh new light. They include an African man who free...

Let's Take the Long Way Home

by Gail Caldwell

In this moving memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gail Caldwell reflects on her own coming-of-age in midlife, as she learns to open herself to the power and healing of sharing her life with a best friend.

The Hanging Judge

by Michael Ponsor

When a drive-by shooting in Holyoke, Massachusetts, claims the lives of a Puerto Rican drug dealer and a hockey mom volunteering at an inner-city clinic, the police arrest a rival gang member. With no death penalty in Massachusetts, the U...

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia

by Steven Stoll

An original investigation into the rise of the Appalachian homestead explores the impact of coal mining, timber and other industries on victimizing and marginalizing the region, sharing insights into how Appalachia became wrongly associated...

The Stranger in the Woods

by Michael Finkel

For readers of Jon Krakauer and The Lost City of Z, a remarkable tale of survival and solitude — the true story of a man who lived alone in a tent in the Maine woods, never talking to another person and surviving by stealing supplies from...

Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

Seven-year-old Rachel is forcibly removed from her family's 1890s Honolulu home when she contracts leprosy and is placed in a settlement, where she loses a series of new friends before new medical discoveries enable her to reenter the worl...

Saints for All Occasions

by J. Courtney Sullivan

A sweeping novel about two sisters — one the matriarch of a boisterous Irish Catholic family, the other a cloistered nun, hidden from the world — and the secret that drove them apart.

News of the World

by Paulette Jiles

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, an elderly widower and itinerant news reader, is offered fifty dollars to bring an orphan girl, who was kidnapped and raised by Kiowa raiders, from Wichita Falls back to her ...

Mr. and Mrs. Prince

by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

This dual portrait of a pioneering African-American poet and her Revolutionary War veteran husband describes their groundbreaking court battle to retain their land in Vermont and Massachusetts when bigoted neighbors attempted t...

Austin and Mabel

by Polly Longsworth

The romance between Mabel Loomis Todd and Austin Dickinson, the brother of the poet Emily Dickinson, is portrayed in a selection of letters.

The Secret History of Wonder Woman

by Jill Lepore

This cultural history of Wonder Woman traces the character's creation and enduring popularity, drawing on interviews and archival research to reveal the pivotal role of feminism in shaping her seven-decade story.

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House

by Kate Andersen Brower

America's first families are unknowable in many ways. No one has insight into their true character like the people who serve their meals and make their beds every day. Full of stories and details by turns dramatic, humorous, and hea...

Strangers in Their Own Land

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

In Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country – a stronghold of the conserva...

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

by J.D. Vance

Provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction i...

Born on a Blue Day

by Daniel Tammet

An autistic savant with genius-level mathematical talents describes how he was shunned by his classmates in spite of his super-human capacity for math and language and offers insight into how he experiences the world.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore

by Ilene Beckerman

In a volume originally intended just for friends, the author reflects on her fortunes and misfortunes through the clothes she has worn, clothes that have expressed her hopes and dreams — from her Brownie uniform to her first maternity dr...

The Sixth Extinction

by Elizabeth Kolbert

Provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extin...

The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.

Fates and Furies

by Lauren Groff

An exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception.

The Job: True Tales from the Life of a New York City Cop

by Steve Osborne

A retired NYPD lieutenant shares the most entertaining and engrossing true stories from his two decades on the beat, including when he mistook a dentist as an armed robbery suspect and a strange request made by the mother of a suspected cr...

An Unmarked Grave

by Charles Todd

When battlefield nurse Bess Crawford, while contending with wounded soldiers and influenza patients, stumbles upon the body of an officer and family friend who has been murdered, she – using her father's connections in the military – search...

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

by Atul Gawande

Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Gawande asserts that medicine can comfort and enhanc...

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (DVD)

directed by John Madden

When seven cash-strapped seniors decide to 'outsource' their retirement to a resort in far-off India, friendship and romance blossom in the most unexpected ways.

Mr. Holmes (DVD)

directed by Bill Condon

In 1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holm...

Strangers in Good Company (DVD)

directed by Cynthia Scott

Seven elderly women and their bus driver band together to survive when their bus breaks down in the Quebec countryside. As they draw closer, the women begin to share stories from their pasts.

Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility

by Ellen J. Langer

If we could turn back the clock psychologically, could we also turn it back physically? For more than thirty years, award-winning social psychologist Ellen Langer has studied this provocative question, and now, in Counter Clockwise, she ...