"The coming of Spring usually means renewal, but for Linnea Rutledge, Spring 2020 threatens stagnation. Linnea faces another layoff, this time from the aquarium she adores. For her--and her family--finances, emotions, and health teeter at the brink. To complicate matters, her new love interest, Gordon, struggles to return to the Isle of Palms from England. Meanwhile, her old flame, John, turns up from California and is quarantining next door. She...

"With her trademark spare, crystalline prose-a voice infused with "intimate, fragile, desperate humanness" (The Washington Post)-Elizabeth Strout once again turns her exquisitely-tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, this time following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton and Oh William! through the early days of the pandemic. As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and...

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis. Diana O'Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She's an associate specialist at Sotheby's...

"From the Man Booker Prize shortlisted-author of the brilliant Seasonal Quartet series-a major new novel that promises to capture the present moment with Ali Smith's genius and bold spirit. "A story is never an answer. A story is always a question." Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future?...

At her stepdaughter's wedding day to her pandemic boyfriend--the last gathering at the family's beach house in Cape Cod--Sarah is faced with lovers being revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings, and secrets, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same. When her stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved...

"It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next few months new bonds of friendship and love will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge among this unlikely cast of characters, each richly drawn and achingly human: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American...

Julie and Michael Marshall have stayed together through thick and thin, through better and worse -- and, for the last few years, it has mostly been worse. As their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary approaches, Julie realizes something: she doesn't want to pretend anymore. Divorce papers at the ready, she's just about to have The Talk with Michael when everything changes. Lockdown begins and Julie and Michael face the greatest terror they can imagine:...

"From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. Having spent a ground-breaking career studying the racialization, policing, and criminalization of HIV, Dr. Thrasher has come to understand a deeper truth at the heart of our society: that there are vast inequalities in who is able to...

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis. Diana OToole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. Shes an associate specialist at Sothebys now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she...

A harrowing narrative of the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam, which set sail with a deadly and little-understood stowaway-Covid-19-days before the world shut down in March, 2020. In early 2020, the world was on edge. An ominous virus was spreading on different continents, and no one knew what the coming weeks would bring. Far from the hotspots, the cruise ship Zaandam, owned by Holland America, was preparing to sail from Buenos Aires, Argentina,...