"We catch glimpses of the Reverend John Ames' much younger second wife, Lila, in Robinson's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel,  Gilead. . .We now learn Lila's astonishing story, which begins with a thunderbolt opening scene, in which an abused little girl is swept up by a strange young woman called Doll. The two roam the countryside as itinerant workers, settling down just long enough for Lila to learn to read and write. As life grows even more harrowing during the Great Depression, and Doll's dangerous secrets catch up to her, capable and strong Lila fends for herself. . .The wanderer and the minister embark on a wondrously unlikely and fitful courtship as Lila asks confounding questions about existence, belief, trust, and justice. . ." - Booklist, Starred Review

Paperback; $16.00

Publisher: Picador USA; ISBN: 9781250074843

"Why do pirates appeal? Because, as 14-year-old Gwen Needle puts it, when you're a pirate, you can 'go anyplace' and 'do whatever you want.' Compelling ideas to Gwen and her friend Amber, whose supervised lives (Gwen is not even allowed to take the bus alone) are the opposite of pirate freedom. The pirate lore comes from Amber's grandfather, Errol, who's just as trapped, in his case by Alzheimer's and an old-age home he loathes. While Gwen and Amber visit Errol and plot kidnap and ruin together, Gwen's father, Phil, tries to make it big in radio, which might be consolation for a wife who doesn't like him much, a house he can't afford, and a very angry daughter. . ." - Publishers Weekly

What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? The Innovators is a masterly saga of collaborative genius destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution -- and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. Isaacson begins the adventure with Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, who pioneered computer programming in the 1840s. He explores the fascinating personalities that created our current digital revolution, such as Vannevar Bush, Alan Turing, John von Neumann, J.C.R. Licklider, Doug Engelbart, Robert Noyce, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, and Larry Page.

". . . In alternating chapters, Gibson tells the stories of Flynne Fisher, master gamer in the near future, and Wilf Netherton, London publicist in a more distant future. In the intervening years, a series of catastrophic events resulting from climate change and known as the jackpot has killed off 80 percent of the population yet somehow allowed the survivors to unleash incredible new technologies, such as nanobots known as assemblers, to help rebuild society. Somewhere in all of this, the ability to communicate with the past (quantum tunneling) has become a vogue among continua enthusiasts who fiddle with the past as a hobby, sometimes with dire consequences. . ." - Booklist