NBS recommends thrilling reads

EAT, PRAY, LOVE: ONE WOMAN’S SEARCH FOR EVERYTHING ACROSS ITALY, INDIA AND INDONESIA

By Elizabeth Gilbert

P285

In her early 30s, Elizabeth Gilbert had everything a modern American woman was supposed to want — husband, country home, and a successful career — but instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she felt consumed by panic and confusion. This wise and rapturous book is the story of how she left behind all these outward marks of success, and of what she found in their place. Following a divorce and a crushing depression, Gilbert sets out to examine three different aspects of her nature, set against the backdrop of three different cultures: pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and on the Indonesia island of Bali, a balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence.

CLUB DEAD

By Charlaine Harris

P299

There’s only one vampire who cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is involved with (at least voluntarily) and it is Bill Compton. But recently he’s been a bit distant — in another state distant. So Sookie sets off to Mississippi after him and finds herself mingling with the underworld at Club Dead — a little haunt where the vampire elite go to chill out. And when she finally tracks down Bill — catching him in an act of serious betrayal — she’s not sure whether to save him or sharpen some stakes.

PRIVATE

By James Patterson

P655

Former CIA agent Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. Jack is already deep into the investigation of a multimillion-dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slaying of eighteen schoolgirls when a romantic case hits close to home: his best friend’s wife, Jack’s former lover, has been slain. It nearly pushes him over the edge — until he pushes back and devotes all Private’s resources to tracking down her killer.

But Jack doesn’t have to play by the rules. As he closes in on the murderer, the operative must choose between revenge and justice — even as a workplace love affair threatens to blow the roof off his plans. With a plot that moves at death-defying speeds, Private introduces James Patterson’s sleekest, most electrifying series yet.

HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY

By Audrey Niffenegger

P545

Julia and Valentina Poole are 20-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a letter to their house in the suburbs of Chicago with the news that their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in that flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents should not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins and so were the girl’s aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.

The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover and a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including — perhaps — their aunt.

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH

By Ken Follett

P335

As a new age dawn in England’s 12th century, the building of a mighty Gothic cathedral sets the stage for a story of intrigue, power, revenge and betrayal. It is in this rich tapestry where kings and queens are corrupt, that the common man shows eternal promise — and one majestic creation will bond them forever.