October Picks

1. The Bamboo Stalk by Saud Alsanousi
   A rags-to-riches tale that holds a mirror to Kuwaiti society. The Bamboo Stalk is a retelling of the east-to-west immigrant narrative, but this time it's east-to-east: a half-Filipino, half-Kuwaiti teen moves from an impoverished life in the Philippines to the “paradise” of his father's Kuwait.

2. A Light in the Sky by Sina Reynolds
   Seventeen-year-old Aluma Banks has always dreamed of soaring freely through the skies astride a powerful winged steed of her own. But flying is a privilege granted only to the Riders of the king's Empyrean Cavalry, the aerial warriors who defend the borders of their land from the fallen kingdom of Laithlann.

3. Origin by Dan Brown

   Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace itself...and who will stop at nothing to silence Edmond Kirsch. On a trail marked by modern art and enigmatic symbols, Langdon and Vidal uncover clues that ultimately bring them face to face with Kirsch's shocking discovery...and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us.

4. Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih
   The late Sudanese author Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North is an engaging and complicated novel, by turns combative and wistful, about two men who leave Sudan to study in England and afterward belong in neither place.

5. The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein
   The graduating seniors of a Seven Sisters college, trying to decide whether to pattern themselves after Katharine Hepburn or Emily Dickinson. Two young women besieged by the demands of mothers, lovers, and careers—not to mention a highly persistent telephone answering machine—as they struggle to have it all. A brilliant feminist art historian trying to keep her bearings and her sense of humor on the elevator ride from the radical sixties to the heartless eighties.