Book Friends Forever

She hunts killers. He is one. Opposites attract has never been so literal.Crime journalist Oakley Novak has built her career exposing Boston’s darkest secrets, but she never expected a serial killer to turn the tables and stalk her.

Xander Rhodes spent weeks watching her through hidden cameras, captivated by her sharp mind and relentless drive, until she catches him red-handed and, instead of running, challenges him with a glare that could melt steel.

Xander’s either found his soulmate or lost his damn mind. Probably both.

When Oakley recruits him for her revenge plan against the man who murdered her parents, their partnership shatters every rule of Xander’s secret murder society.

Now they’re being hunted by both sides—the law and the shadows—while racing against time to take down the untouchable enemy who took everything from her.

If you’re obsessed with dark romance laced with wicked humor, serial killers with a knack for banter, and heroines who wield wit as sharply as weapons, this sinful story will carve its way into your soul.

All Hail Chaos is Sarah Rees Brennan’s wicked, unmissable sequel to Long Live Evil.

“Delicious, subversive.” —Leigh Bardugo, NYT bestselling author of The Ninth House

One of the New York Times “Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2024”

THE EMPEROR IS HERE. AND SHE MADE HIM WORSE.

Rae is a fantasy reader who’s been transported to her favorite fictional world of swords and sorcery, castles and monsters. Playing the villainess, she thought she could change the narrative, but this version of the plot is far more deadly than the one she knew. Her friends are on the run: the Cobra shelters in an eerie manor haunted by dark secrets, while Emer and Lia stoke a revolution in the gutters. Undead armies roam the kingdom, raiders camp at the city gates, and the all-powerful Emperor—Rae’s favorite character ever, now possibly the greatest monster in the land—wants her to be his evil queen.

Romantic in fiction, complicated in reality. What’s a villainess to do? Time for wicked bargains and fake engagements, in a fantasy where the most dangerous thing you can do is believe in someone.

The epic story of how a handful of surprisingly simple mathematical ideas have sparked today’s technological breakthroughs—from Netflix’s recommendation algorithm to medical imaging to artificial intelligence and beyond—while also slipping further and further from our understanding, with potentially earth-shaking consequences. 

We live in a world fueled by math that we barely notice. It’s in every photo you post to Instagram, every Google search you make, and every answer you get back from ChatGPT. It routes our packages and planes, maps social networks, and predicts the weather. This is Big Math, and it is quietly running our world—while also reshaping it in ways we can’t yet comprehend. A toolkit of powerful ideas such as matrices and vectors, networks and optimization, Big Math allows humanity to tackle problems too vast to hold in our heads. It is transforming how we shop, communicate, live, and heal. Yet the tools themselves are not especially new or mysterious. We created them, and for most of their history we understood them and controlled them. But once we began supercharging them with computers to explore truly enormous systems, things changed.

Now, as celebrated mathematicians Steven Strogatz and Alex Townsend reveal in this dazzling and unsettling book, Big Math is beginning to drift beyond our grasp, even as it delivers greater gifts and power through machine learning and, soon, quantum computing. What happens when Big Math outgrows its creators—when it becomes something we no longer understand, but only witness? And how can we learn to live wisely with tools that grow stronger and stranger every day?

A NOVEMBER SPOTIFY EDITOR’S PICK

From THE Trisha Paytas, icon of our digital age and your favorite influencer’s favorite influencer, a raw and uproarious memoir that explores what happens when the lines between fame and infamy blur.

No person has reinvented themselves more times than Trisha Paytas. Like a phoenix, she has risen from the ashes again and again—outliving social media platforms, navigating ill-fated and explosively popular podcasts alike, and finding herself on the wrong end of more messy feuds than she can count. As one of the world’s first influencers, she helped create the blueprint for a new kind of celebrity. But across a career marked by both dizzying highs and earth-shattering lows, one question has followed her for years: What the hell was she thinking?

In Crying on the Kitchen Floor, Trisha sets out to find the answer once and for all by opening up like never before. She recounts in vivid, shocking detail how an insatiable need for fame led a quiet girl from Illinois to life on the seedy streets of Hollywood. From dangerous encounters with potential serial killers to abusive relationships with former child stars, countless reality TV cameos, and, ultimately, taking over the internet, Trisha’s desperate search for identity nearly cost her everything. Now, after decades spent battling mental health issues and weathering endless cancellations, she shares how she managed to fight her way to high ground, even as the world she helped build transformed beneath her feet.

Combining the grittiness of Julia Fox’s Down the Drain and the unsparing honesty of Bunnie XO’s Stripped Down, Crying on the Kitchen Floor serves as a beacon of hope for anyone still searching for their happily ever after as Trisha details how she was able to find peace by looking for answers not in fame, money, or men—but in herself.

The Japanese term tsundoku sums up a concept that may sound familiar to many readers: buying books and often putting them aside to read at a later date. The fact is that these books we’ve accumulated and which now reside in “piles of shame” on our bedside table, in overflowing bookcases, or even on the floor number too many to be read in a single lifetime.

This is where the art of living tsundoku comes in: the joy of choosing and buying books, rebellion against must-read lists, and creative ways to organize your bookshelves. Learn the best excuses for when you are caught red-handed buying yet another new book, and the forbidden pleasure of rereading. Enjoy the endless possibilities of stories yet to be discovered by having a house of unread books. But, above all, this philosophy reminds us that we do not necessarily have to have read all the books we own to love them unconditionally. Feelings of guilt, be gone! Books are a cure for the soul: just leafing through one makes us feel better immediately. Included throughout are quizzes, creative prompts, and whimsical illustrations.

A deep dive into Dawson’s Creek, one of the most popular teen dramas of all time, full of never-before-heard stories and behind-the-scenes insight into fan-favorite characters, from one of the show’s stars, Kerr Smith.

Welcome back to Dawson’s Creek, where the banter is fast-paced, a soulful, pop music soundtrack underscores every emotional moment, and friendships have the potential to turn on a dime and transform into something more. Written by one of its stars, this nostalgic trip down memory lane of the WB’s paradigm-shifting show will transport fans back to Capeside, Massachusetts, revealing all the fun, romance, friendships, and drama that occurred—on screen and off—in that charming coastal place we know as Dawson’s Creek.

From episode deep dives to wild stories of crazy days on set and crazier nights after filming wrapped, Dawson’s star Kerr Smith takes us behind the scenes of the classic show that kickstarted the teen TV revolution of the late 90s and early 2000s. Featuring interviews with his fellow cast members, crew, network and studio executives, creator Kevin Williamson and the writing staff, Smith has produced the ultimate yearbook for Capeside High, revealing the origin stories of Dawson, Pacey, Joey, Jen, and others; providing insights on how classic Dawson’s storylines came to be—and how a few almost didn’t—while telling his own personal story, from growing up in a small town of his own to what it was like to be part of that iconic first gay kiss on American primetime.?

I Don’t Want to Wait is the ultimate chronicle of a show that fans can’t help but return to, time and time again. As Joey Potter would tell you, “Things change. People change.” But Dawson’s Creek is forever.

In this queer political necromantasy, a secret marriage pact for suvival might undo a kingdom…

As the daughter of a foreign ambassador, Rissa hoped living abroad would protect her from home’s puritanical customs where women are forbidden to walk at night or use magic except to support a necromancer’s dual identity.

Alek, the youngest prince of the Memric Isle, hasn’t yet taken his Second body. Fearing he’ll be accused of sin and his body claimed as a Second himself, Alek lives piously while studying abroad, even though he’s distracted by magic—and his handsome roommate, Gable.

When Alek meets Rissa by chance, his quiet life is thrown into chaos. One of Rissa’s fathers has been abducted, and Alek and Gable are witnesses. Alek and Rissa form a secret alliance to find her father and uncover the truth behind the conspiracy, risking life and freedom as they follow clues straight to the heart of the Memric Isle’s government.

A deeply personal and funny novel from the winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award, about embracing one’s own troubled self, demons and all. Perfect for readers of Percival Everett, Kevin Wilson, and Brandon Taylor’s The Late Americans.

Fresh out of grad school in Michigan, on the brink of despair, directionless, David worries his parents. They don’t know how to heal him. His doctor suggests that he needs to gain some perspective, and possibly a relocation would help. Maybe there is such a thing as a geographical cure?

Snowy, grey Buffalo is not the first place that comes to mind when you think of a curative place, but maybe time with his cousin Flip will help David to forget his own troubled past. But as it turns out, Flip’s life and state of mind is even unsteadier than his own. Suddenly enlisted to take care of his cousin and to even fill in for him at his job, David falls into a new life and a new way of seeing the world. A world where, come to think of it, he doesn’t mind the snow.

Don’t Stop Snowing is a fresh and honest—and funny—story of the struggles we all face as we realize that we don’t just inherit eye, hair, and skin color, but also the complicated psyches of our parents.

From the dark imagination of underground horror sensation Andy Marino comes a haunted house story like you’ve never read before…

“Marino’s work is unlike any others in the genre—horrifying, complex, fascinating, and utterly unique.” —Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of the Wilderwood series

Deep in the woods, on the side of a mountain, there sits an old, sprawling manor. Only those who truly need it will find it. Mara and Soren are the latest residents. The two are broke, deeply in love, and desperate for a home. But something is wrong with the house.

Soren begins to receive messages from a nameless entity that he has dubbed The Great Other. The first direction is simple: Invite more to this home. The second: Relieve them of their sorrow. Mara, too, hears this otherworldly voice. She has been running from her past for a long time. The Great Other offers her the solace she seeks, if she has the courage to walk the home’s shadowed halls. Soon more wanderers begin to arrive: a collection of outcasts, drawn in by Soren’s magnetic ideology.

Within the shifting walls of this ancient house, something darkly miraculous is unfolding. Wounds have been suffered in this place. Wounds that are. Wounds that will be.

“Andy Marino understands horror in a way that very few writers do.” —Keith Rosson, author of Coffin Moon

An elderly bookseller improbably keeps his shop open in Palestine, telling a foreign correspondent the ways in which literature has provided him with refuge and inspiration.

“An essential novel to remind us that those in Gaza continue to read, they continue to exist.” —David Diop, author of Beyond the Door of No Return and At Night All Blood Is Black

A young French photographer travels to Palestine to report on the bombings in the Gaza Strip. One morning, during a ceasefire, he wanders far from his hotel into the narrow alleys of the city. Roaming aimlessly, he stumbles across a bookseller sitting on the doorstop of his shop—an old man, surrounded by stacks of books. As the photographer raises his camera, the bookseller calls out to him and asks him to listen to his story, not simply take his picture.

The story that unfolds is one that encompasses exile and imprisonment, activism and political disillusionment, the joys of love and art and watching your children grow up and thrive, and the tragedies that tear your loved ones from you. Each event is tied to the book that helped him understand and, in some cases, survive it, from Milan Kundera to Frantz Fanon to Umberto Eco to Ernest Hemingway, among many others.

There’s a saying that when an old man dies a library burns, and it’s this very library that the bookseller opens and describes. Rachid Benzine gives us a magnificent modern tale that explores the power of words against barbarism, of books as the last bastions of resistance against the loss of empathy, of literature as a means of sustenance during our darkest hours.