The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.

Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.

Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.

Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.

Number the Stars (1989) by Lois Lowry

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend, Ellen Rosen, often think about life before the war. But it's now 1943, and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching in their town. The Nazis won't stop. The Jews of Denmark are being "relocated," thus Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be part of the family. Then Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission. Somehow she must find the strength and courage to save her best friend's life. There's no turning back now.

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues. But that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still-? No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world's great storytellers presents a surprising tale that explores the nature of mystery itself-

Fall from Grace by Richard North Patterson

From #1 bestselling author Richard North Patterson comes a “spellbinding”* psychological puzzle filled with unexpected legal twists, potentially criminal turns, and one family’s shocking fall from grace. After ten years away from home, Adam Blaine returns to Martha’s Vineyard to attend the funeral of his estranged father, Ben, a famous and charismatic writer who was fond of sailboats, good wine—and women other than his wife. When Adam learns that Ben disinherited his family in favor of his mistress, he begins to wonder if his father’s death—caused by an inexplicable fall from a cliff—might have been suicide or murder. Using his training as a CIA operative, Adam unearths some shattering revelations about the mistress’s past. But even more disturbing are the family secrets that can’t stay buried any longer—secrets that make Adam question everything he thought he knew about every player in this fateful game. Even himself. . . .

The Death of Lucy Kyte: A Josephine Tey Mystery by Nicola Upson

In this atmospheric, intriguing historical mystery brimming with psychological tension, an unexpected inheritance plunges beloved British mystery author Josephine Tey into a disturbing puzzle of dark secrets eerily connecting the present and the past. When Josephine Tey unexpectedly inherits Red Barn Cottage from her estranged godmother, the will stipulates that she must personally claim the house in the Suffolk countryside. But Josephine is not the only benefactor—a woman named Lucy Kyte is also in Hester’s will. Sorting through the artifacts of her godmother’s life, Josephine is intrigued by an infamous death committed on the cottage’s grounds a century before. Yet this old crime—dubbed the Red Barn murder—still seems to haunt the tight-knit village and its remote inhabitants. Is it just superstition, or is there a very real threat that is frightening the locals? Could the truth be related to the mysterious Lucy Kyte, who no one in the village admits to knowing? With a palpable sense of evil thickening around her, Josephine must untangle historic tragedy from present danger and prevent a deadly cycle from beginning once more.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

When Cameron Post’s parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief she’ll never have to tell them that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl.

But that relief soon turns to heartbreak, as Cam is forced to move in with her conservative aunt Ruth. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and not making waves, and Cam becomes an expert at this—especially at avoiding any questions about her sexuality.

Then Coley Taylor moves to town. Beautiful pickup-driving Coley is a perfect cowgirl with the perfect boyfriend to match. To Cam’s surprise, she and Coley become best friends—while Cam secretly dreams of something more. Just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, her secret is exposed. Ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to “fix” her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self—even if she’s not quite sure who that is.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) by Truman Capote

A writer from New York, whose name is never mentioned, meets a woman named Holly Golightly and is pulled into an on again and off again friendship wih her. They are both tenants in a Manhattan brownstone and meet when he notices she had lost her room key and causes a commotion. She begins frequently ringing him to let her in to the apartment and he becomes fascinated with her. One night, Holly climbs in through the narrator’s window after one of her lover turns aggressive in bed. He reads her one of his short stories and eventually they fall asleep together.

Holly and "Fred" (she calls him Fred after her brother) grow closer over time, despite their on and off friendship. In New York, Holly has a lot of lovers, most of which are very wealthy. Holly tells the narrator that all of her “mean reds” can be solved at Tiffany’s.

Throughout the book we see that Holly is a wild thing, hates to be tamed, and is seeking a home that she may never find. She has few real friends, despite being a socialite and entertaining many people (mostly men) all the time. She won't open up about her past or things she feels, putting on her sunglasses even to read personal letters. However, the narrator learns about Holly's past from her abandoned husband, Doc Golightly. Holly and the real Fred ran away after their parents died and lived on only what they could find or steal. In the end, Golightly fears that she will never know what is really hers, until after she has thrown it away. She abandons her friend to seek her ever elusive goal of finding both riches and a place to call home.

She is only in the narrator's life for a brief time, perhaps a couple years, but the narrator has been forever touched by her and will never forget her.

The Chase (2014) by Janet Evanovich, Lee Goldberg

Internationally renowned thief and con artist Nicolas Fox is famous for running elaborate and daring scams. His greatest con of all: convincing the FBI to team him up with the only person who has ever caught him, and the only woman to ever capture his attention, Special Agent Kate O’Hare. Together they’ll go undercover to swindle and catch the world’s most wanted—and untouchable—criminals.

Their newest target is Carter Grove, a former White House chief of staff and the ruthless leader of a private security agency. Grove has stolen a rare Chinese artifact from the Smithsonian, a crime that will torpedo U.S. relations with China if it ever becomes public. Nick and Kate must work under the radar—and against the clock—to devise a plan to steal the piece back. Confronting Grove’s elite assassins, Nick and Kate rely on the skills of their ragtag crew, including a flamboyant actor, a Geek Squad techie, and a band of AARP-card-carrying mercenaries led by none other than Kate’s dad.

A daring heist and a deadly chase lead Nick and Kate from Washington, D.C., to Shanghai, from the highlands of Scotland to the underbelly of Montreal. But it’ll take more than death threats, trained henchmen, sleepless nights, and the fate of a dynasty’s priceless heirloom to outsmart Fox and O’Hare.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

The novel draws you in to 10 year old Melanie's strange world through her narrative voice. Carey presents Melanie as innocent, alone and vulnerable, struggling to balance the cold and hostile environment she regards as home, with her yearning for love and recognition. Carey controls the reveal skilfully, as Melanie and the reader learns of Melanie's past and the reality she finds herself in.

Thereafter, the narrative branches out into a variety of perspectives. I have to say I am not normally a reader of post apocalyptic thrillers or horror novels. The horror here is not only in some graphic descriptions, but in a recognition of our capacity for violence, endurance and a desire to survive against all the odds. The afterward, identifies that the novel originated as a movie 'pitch' and it does read very 'visually'.

In the Woods by Tana French

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

Endangered Species (1997) by Nevada Barr

In the midst of a dangerously dry season, national park ranger Anna Pigeon has been posted to Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast for a monotonous, twenty-one day fire watch. But her boredom is short-lived, for this remote and marshy place is breeding ground for more than just the imperiled Loggerhead turtle; it also spawns eccentricity and secrets, greed, suspicion. . .and murder.

A small plane crashes into the palmetto thickets nearby. Anna and her crew arrive in time to control the blaze, but too late to save pilot and his passenger, Cumberland's sole law enforcement ranger. When the cause of the "accident" is determined to be sabotage, Anna becomes entangled in an investigation that threatens to upset the very delicate balance of this fragile ecological preserve. For she is precariously close to exposing dark, clandestine crimes both old and new that someone has worked very diligently to conceal. . .and which make Anna Pigeon the most endangered creature on the island.

Dead Man's Folly (Hercule Poirot, #31) by Agatha Christie

It's a weekend party game of mock murder, but the fun stops when someone takes the game a little too seriously. With one dead player, Hercule Poirot and hostess Ariadne Oliver are playing detective to the end.

The Girl of His Dreams (2008) by Donna Leon

In The Girl of His Dreams when a friend of Brunetti’s brother, a priest recently returned from years of missionary work, calls with a request, Brunetti suspects the man’s motives. A new, American-style Protestant sect has begun to meet in the city, and it’s possible the priest is merely apprehensive of the competition. But the preacher could also be fleecing his growing flock, so Brunetti and Paola, along with Inspector Vianello and his wife, go undercover. But the investigation has to be put aside when, one cold and rainy morning, a body is found floating in a canal. It is a child, a gypsy girl. Brunetti suspects she fell off a nearby roof while fleeing an apartment she had robbed. He has to inform the distrustful parents, encamped on the mainland, and soon finds himself haunted by the crime--and the girl. Thought-provoking, eye-opening, and profoundly moving, The Girl of His Dreams is classic Donna Leon, a spectacular, heart-wrenching addition to the series.

The Son: A novel (2014) by Jo Nesbø

The author of the internationally best-selling Harry Hole series now gives us an electrifying stand-alone novel set amid Oslo's hierarchy of corruption, from which one very unusual young man is about to propel himself into a mission of brutal revenge. Sonny Lofthus, in his early thirties, has been in prison for the last dozen years: serving time for crimes he didn't commit. In exchange, he gets an uninterrupted supply of heroin—and the unexpected stream of fellow prisoners seeking out his uncanny abilities to soothe and absolve. His addiction started when his father committed suicide rather than be exposed as a corrupt cop, and now Sonny is the center of a vortex of corruption: prison staff, police, lawyers, a desperate priest—all of them focused on keeping him stoned and jailed, and all of them under the thumb of Oslo's crime overlord, the Twin. When Sonny learns some long-hidden truths about his father he makes a brilliant escape, and begins hunting down the people responsible for the hideous crimes he's paid for. But he's also being hunted, by the Twin, the cops, and the only person who knows the ultimate truth that Sonny is seeking. The question is, what will he do when they've cornered him?