12:10 to 1 p.m.
Central Library
West Room

While analyzing the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, conservator Hannah Heath discovers several tiny clues in the book – a white hair, an insect wing, a drop of salt, etc. These clues lead to the book’s past and into the lives of the people who protected the book on its journey to the present.

The deadly Spanish Flu spreads throughout the United States, and the citizens of a small mill town in the Pacific Northwest vote to quarantine their town against the contagion. When an ill soldier begs for sanctuary, the resulting events threaten the town’s very survival.

A very religious student tells her mother just what her sex education teacher, Ruth Ramsay, said about a certain sex act and war is declared between the liberals and evangelicals in the suburb of Stonewood Heights. Life becomes even more interesting for Ruth when she falls in love with her daughter's soccer coach, ex-stoner Tim, who leads the team in prayer and wants the girls to come to his church.

During a performance of a tragic, romantic opera in 17th Century China, Peony has a forbidden chance encounter with a young poet. Lovesick with yearning for the poet, facing the unknown of an arranged marriage, and trapped by the rigidity of society, she allows herself to waste away like the opera’s heroine, Liniang. Through Peony’s encounters in life and the afterlife - her coming-of-age story, a ghost story, and family saga - are all experienced and enriched by the customs and superstitions of her culture.

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson invited Alexander Hamilton and James Madison to a very private dinner in hopes of heading off a potentially destructive feud developing between him and Hamilton. Find out why this rift could have injured the nation and how Hamilton's ambitions could have established a new monarchy. The author also provides plenty of culinary information about the lavish meal, including the actual recipes.

A groundbreaking book in its time, this story follows the lives of eight Vassar graduates through the 1930's. Though time has subsumed some of its hot issues, the biting satire, class analysis and absorbing tale of friendship are compelling and thought provoking. It remains a model of what a women's story can be.

Clay Jenkins received a box of cassette tapes in the mail. Recorded by his classmate Hannah, the tapes detailed the events that led up to Hannah’s suicide. By listening to the tapes and visiting the places Hannah visited, Clay tries to understand what led Hannah to believe that suicide was her only option.

Henry II summons a “master of the art of death” to Cambridge after young children are found murdered and mutilated. When a woman, Adelia Ortese arrives, England is shocked. Appalled at the difference between learned Salerno and backwards Cambridge, Adelia immerses herself in the medical investigation. With its tight plotting and suitably gruesome 12th century detail, this is a superior historical mystery.

In post World War II 1940’s, a school teacher’s life is completely altered when her husband suddenly buys a farm in a rural Mississippi Delta region. Told in a narrative of alternating first-person accounts, the complications of the harsh existence, racial strife and social injustice surface as the lives of two families, the landowners and the tenant farmers, become irrevocably intertwined.

A classic American novel, The Great Gatsby is set in New York City and Long Island during the Roaring Twenties. Nick Carraway, a Midwestern transplant, narrates the tale of the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the married Daisy Buchanan. A double tragedy leads Nick to contemplate the lavish lifestyle of his peers.

Teenage Edgar Sawtelle was born mute and speaks only in sign. He lived with his parents in rural Wisconsin raising a special breed of dogs until his father's suspicious death. Edgar then leaves to live in the wild with three young dogs after he unsuccessfully tries to prove that his uncle was responsible for the death.