Madigan Library Popular Collection: October 2025

It's move-in day at Tiffin Academy and amidst the happy chaos of friends reuniting, selfies uploading, and cars unloading, shocking news arrives: America Today just ranked Tiffin the number two boarding school in the country. It's a seventeen-spot jump - was there a typo? The dorms need to be renovated, their sports teams always come in last place, and let's just say Tiffin students are known for being more social than academic. On the other hand, the campus is exquisite, class sizes are small, and the dining hall is run by an acclaimed New York chef. And they do have fun--lots of parties and school dances, and a piano man plays in the student lounge every Monday night. But just as the rarefied air of Tiffin is suffused with self-congratulation, the wheels begin to turn - and then they fall off the bus. One by one, scandalous blind items begin to appear on phones across Tiffin's campus, thanks to a new app called ZipZap, and nobody is safe. From Davi Banerjee, international influencer and resident queen bee, to Simone Bergeron, the new and surprisingly young history teacher, to Charley Hicks, a transfer student who seems determined not to fit in, to Cordelia Spooner, Admissions Director with a somewhat idiosyncratic methodology - everyone has something to hide. As if high school wasn't dramatic enough...As the year unfolds, bonds are forged and broken, secrets are shared and exposed, and the lives of Tiffin's students and staff are changed forever.

With the awakening of fire-breathing dragons, Among the Burning Flowers sees the first sparks of danger that threaten to consume the world in The Priory of the Orange Tree. Take your first steps into the epic. Yscalin, land of sunshine and lavender, will soon be ablaze. It has been centuries since the Draconic Army took wing, almost extinguishing humankind. Marosa Vetalda is a prisoner in her own home, controlled by her cold father, King Sigoso. Over the mountains, her betrothed, Aubrecht Lievelyn, rules Mentendon in all but name. Together, they intend to usher in a better world. A better world seems impossibly distant to Estina Melaugo, who hunts the Draconic beasts that have slept across the world for centuries. And now the great wyrm Fýredel is stirring, and Yscalin will be the first to fall . . . A story of human resilience in the face of dire circumstances, Among the Burning Flowers leads readers through the gripping and tragic events that pave the way for the opening of the million-copy bestseller The Priory of The Orange Tree. Richly illustrated with magical artwork by Rovina Cai (@rovinacai).

A few nights before Halloween, as Cork O'Connor gloomily ruminates on his upcoming birthday, he receives a call from his son, Stephen, who is working for a nonprofit dedicated to securing freedom for unjustly incarcerated inmates. Stephen tells his father that decades ago, as the newly elected sheriff of Tamarack County, Cork was responsible for sending an Ojibwe man named Axel Boshey to prison for a brutal murder that Stephen is certain he did not commit. Cork feels compelled to reinvestigate the crime, but that is easier said than done. Not only is it a closed case but Axel Boshey is, inexplicably, refusing to help. The deeper Cork digs, the clearer it becomes that there are those in Tamarack County who are willing once again to commit murder to keep him from finding the truth. At the same time, Cork's seven-year-old grandson has his own theory about the investigation: the Windigo, that mythic cannibal ogre, has come to Tamarack County...and it won't leave until it has sated its hunger for human blood.

1929, Blue Moon, Montana. A rugged new generation is taking the helm of the cattle town's most infamous and powerful families. But even as the future burns bright, old rivalries, heartbreaks, buried secrets, and ranching feuds still loom as large as the western sky in a tale perfect for fans of Yellowstone craving western familial sagas. At 24, Joseph Dollarhide is struggling to find his place as the future head of his ranching family. His father, Blake, may have been disabled in an accident but he's as domineering as ever. Joseph's childhood friend, Chase Calder, has inherited the rival Calder operation, and for both young men, longstanding battles over water and grass continue. But there's yet another weight on Joseph's shoulders. Years ago, Joseph abandoned his teenage love, Annabeth, to court glamorous Lucy Merriweather, a seductive trickster. The affair, of course, imploded, and Annabeth went on to marry a farmer, Silas Mosby, and have two children. But now Joseph has spotted Annabeth and her family in town . . . and he has no doubt that her oldest, a boy, is his. Joseph's love for Annabeth never died--and Annabeth, too, still has feelings for him, though they're tainted by anger. Learning that Silas is involved in a bootlegging ring leaves Joseph troubled. His natural father, Mason Dollarhide, is a reformed bootlegger, but the two have long been estranged, and Joseph won't ask his advice. Meanwhile, Joseph feels pressed to start his own family. The town's sweet new schoolteacher seems a perfect match. But as the strain of long-standing feuds persist and Lucy reappears, flush with stolen money and armed with blackmail, Joseph and some others in Blue Moon will find out just how strong they really are.   The epic tale of the settling of the American West comes to vivid life in this inspiring saga of love, hope, and endurance.

From a bestselling author of epic fiction comes the deeply human story of one of the world's greatest mysteries: the building of Stonehenge. A FLINT MINER WITH A GIFT Seft, a talented flint miner, walks the Great Plain in the high summer heat, to witness the rituals that signal the start of a new year. He is there to trade his stone at the Midsummer Fair, and to find Neen, the girl he loves. Her family lives in prosperity and offer Seft an escape from his brutish father and brothers within their herder community. A PRIESTESS WHO BELIEVES THE IMPOSSIBLE Joia, Neen's sister, is a priestess with a vision and an unmatched ability to lead. As a child, she watches the Midsummer ceremony, enthralled, and dreams of a miraculous new monument, raised from the biggest stones in the world. But trouble is brewing among the hills and woodlands of the Great Plain. A MONUMENT THAT WILL DEFINE A CIVILIZATION Joia's vision of a great stone circle, assembled by the divided tribes of the Plain, will inspire Seft and become their life's work. But as drought ravages the earth, mistrust grows between the herders, farmers and woodlanders--and an act of savage violence leads to open warfare . . .

The Central Intelligence Agency is in crisis. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Congress is questioning the organization's necessity. Interim CIA director Thomas Stansfield must fight for his agency's survival while explaining why the previous candidate for his job was found murdered in a French hotel--surrounded by booze, cash, and dead men. Worst yet, a brilliantly run sting operation in Moscow has resulted in the arrest of America's most prized Russian asset and the expulsion of his CIA handler. With the CIA's Moscow Station now paralyzed by the catastrophic intelligence failure, Stansfield seeks help from Mitch Rapp, a newly minted assassin in the secretive Orion program. But Rapp has problems of his own: when his Swiss girlfriend Greta's grandfather receives a box containing the head of a former Cold War comrade along with a note promising that Greta's head will be next, Rapp finds himself on the frontlines in a war between the American and Russian intelligence services. To protect the woman he loves and save the CIA from destruction, Rapp must be willing to risk everything.

The unmissable new mystery in the Thursday Murder Club series from bestselling author Richard Osman, now streaming on Netflix Who's got time to think about murder when there's a wedding to plan? It's been a quiet year for the Thursday Murder Club. Joyce is busy with table plans and first dances. Elizabeth is grieving. Ron is dealing with family troubles, and Ibrahim is still providing therapy to his favorite criminal. But when Elizabeth meets Nick, a wedding guest asking for her help, she finds the thrill of the chase is ignited once again. And when Nick disappears without a trace, his cagey business partner becomes the gang's next stop. It seems the duo have something valuable--something worth killing for. Joyce's daughter, Joanna, jumps into the fray to help the gang as they seek answers: Has someone kidnapped Nick? And what's this uncrackable code they keep hearing about? Plunged back into action once more, can the four friends solve the puzzle and a murder in time?

Sue and Mal Eastwood run an isolated rural pub called The Case is Altered where a weekly trivia game has revived its flagging fortunes--that is, until a body is found in the nearby river. Soon after, a mysterious new team arrives and shakes up the diverse field of regulars by scoring top marks in every round...every week. Meanwhile, Sue and Mal have a secret of their own. Before arriving here, they were caught up in a secret police operation which meant they had to leave town--and whatever happened back then seems to have finally caught up with them. Five years later, the pub lies derelict, and their nephew Dominic is determined to make a documentary about their story. What happened at this unassuming pub? And can a single question really kill?

Christine can't believe her luck. The iconic Gloria Beaufort, founder of the billion-dollar beauty empire Glo, has personally chosen her to cover her grandson's wedding for Bespoke, the cult fashion magazine that every A-list bride dreams of being featured in. A career-making scoop and a free trip to a castle turned five-star hotel on the Emerald Isle? It feels too good to be true... Because it is. Gloria is found dead on the very first morning of the celebratory weekend, and her entire family wants to keep her death a secret and for the wedding to march on. When Gloria's heirs issue a chilling warning to Christine to keep things quiet, she can't help but wonder if one of them is guilty. There's the son who's hiding a damaging lawsuit; the resentful daughter-in-law; the grandson who's had a few too many run-ins with the law; his ambitious wife who's hiding more than one secret; and Gloria's favorite grandchild, the picture-perfect groom. As Christine navigates a world where glamour masks grimy secrets and everyone she meets is a suspect, she realizes that among this glitzy elite, nothing is as it seems.

It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children. But when he arrives he finds a shocking scene: Archie's body, on an archaeological dig site and an ancient Westray story stone with precise spirals carved into it beside him, the clear murder weapon. The artifact, taken from a nearby museum, seems to suggest a premediated murder. But Perez is so close to the case that he struggles to maintain an objective distance from the potential suspects. He finds it difficult to question Archie's wife, whom he's known for years. Rumors swirl about the dead man's relationship with a young woman new to the island, an artist. With each new lead, the case becomes more twisted and Perez wonders if he will ever find out what happened in his friend's final days.

Sometimes a workplace isn't just a workplace but a place of safety, understanding, and acceptance. And sometimes murder threatens the sanctity of that beloved refuge.... In the leafy suburbs of Austin, Texas, a small branch library welcomes the public every day of the week. But the patrons who love the helpful, unobtrusive staff and leave rave reviews on Yelp don't always realize that their librarians are human, too. Hazel flees halfway across the world for what she hopes will be a new beginning. Jonathan, a six-foot-four former college football player, has never fit in anywhere else. Astrid tries to forget her heartbreak by immersing herself in work, but the man who ghosted her six months ago is back, promising trouble. And Sophie, who has the most to lose, maintains a careful and respectful distance from her coworkers, but soon that won't be enough anymore. When two patrons turn up dead after the library's inaugural murder mystery-themed game night, the librarians' quiet routines come crashing down. Something sinister has stirred, something that threatens every single one of them. And the only way the librarians can save the library--and themselves--is to let go of their secrets, trust one another, and band together.... All in a day's work.

After making his debut in 1997's The Killing Floor, Jack Reacher has quickly become one of the most popular--and most enduring--fictional heroes to emerge in the past half century. Now, his creator tells the stories behind the stories. These are the origin tales of all of the Reacher novels written solely by Lee Child, chock full of colorful anecdotes and intriguing inspirations. One by one, they expand upon each novel and place it in the context not only of the author's life, but of the world outside the books. And taken together, they chart the rise of an action icon, from 1999's The Killing Floor to 2019's Blue Moon. An afterword by crime fiction expert and bookseller Otto Penzler considers the importance of the character and novels in the canon of contemporary crime fiction. In addition to the essays, this collection also includes an original Reacher short story--the first new Reacher appearance entirely written by Lee Child since 2019.

For fear of summoning evil spirits, Native superstition says you should never, ever whistle at night. Henry Hotard was on the verge of fame, gaining a following and traction with his eerie ghost-hunting videos. Then his dreams came to a screeching halt. Now, he's learning to navigate a new life in a wheelchair, back on the reservation where he grew up, relying on his grandparents' care while he recovers. And he's being haunted. His girlfriend, Jade, insists he just needs time to adjust to his new reality as a quadriplegic, that it's his traumatized mind playing tricks on him, but Henry knows better. As the specter haunting him creeps closer each night, Henry battles to find a way to endure, to rid himself of the horror stalking him. Worried that this dread might plague him forever, he realizes the only way to exile his phantom is by confronting his troubled past and going back to the events that led to his injury. It all started when he whistled at night....

In her first nonfiction book in a decade, the #1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break free. In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe. What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening? All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love--or to any other passion, substance, or craving--and who yearns, at long last, for liberation.

A deaf writer's exploration of language, communication, and what it means to be articulate--and her journey to reclaim her voice Rachel Kolb was born profoundly deaf the same year that the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, and she grew up as part of the first generation of deaf people with legal rights to accessibility services. Still, from a young age, she contorted herself to expectations set by a world that prioritizes hearing people. So even while she found clarity and meaning in American Sign Language (ASL) and written literature, she learned to speak through speech therapy and to piece together missing sounds through lipreading and an eventual cochlear implant. Now, in Articulate, Kolb blends personal narrative with commentary to explore the different layers of deafness, language, and voice. She tells the story of how, over time, she came to realize that clear or articulate self-expression isn't just a static pinnacle to reach, a set of words to pronounce correctly, but rather a living and breathing process that happens between individual human beings. In chronicling her own voice and the many ways she's come to understand it, Kolb illuminates the stakes and complexities of finding mutual and reciprocal forms of communication. Part memoir, part cultural exploration, Articulate details a life lived among words in varied sensory forms and considers why and how those words matter. Told through rich storytelling, analysis, and humor, this is a linguistic coming-of-age in both Deaf and hearing worlds, challenging us to consider how language expresses our humanity--and offering more ways we might exist together.

Celebrate the great American tradition of food, family, and football with recipes straight from the kitchens of beloved sports personality Terry Bradshaw and crew! Nothing brings together America's first family of football like a home-cooked meal. Whether it's game day, a holiday, or an everyday gathering of the clan, when the Bradshaws get together it's always a party, and no one leaves hungry. As Terry and son-in-law Noah work the grill and smoker, you'll find wife Tammy joined in the kitchen by daughters Lacey and Rachel, everyone contributing their specialties to a feast worthy of a Hall of Famer. Drawing on the family's Southern heritage, their Texas roots, and an ever-evolving roster of new classics, The Bradshaw Family Cookbook offers nearly one hundred recipes that provide maximum flavor with minimal effort. Choose from Breakfast and Brunch offerings like Apple Monkey Bread and Nannie Bradshaw's Sausage Gravy and keep your gang happy with Starters and Snacks, including Famous Gridiron Nine-Layer Dip and Garlic Pull-Apart Pigs in a Blanket. Channel your inner grill master with Grilling and Smoking specialties like Braised Korean Short Ribs or Smoked Maple-Bourbon Pork Belly Bites, and entertain a crowd with the perfect dishes for Get-Togethers and Potlucks like Hatch Chile Chicken Stew and Baked Eggplant Parmesan, rounded out with Salads and Sides for any occasion. Treat everyone to the nostalgic flavors of Roots and Relatives with Herb Roasted Chicken and Biscuit Dumplings or Gumbo with Andouille or Maryland-Style Crab Cakes, and end it all with a selection of Desserts and Sweets like Sweet Orchard Peach Cobbler or Louisiana Coconut Cream Pie.

Hoda Kotb didn't expect to join the Today show at age 44. Or to become a mother at 52. Or to leave Today and embark on a new adventure at 60! Change doesn't always arrive when we expect it, and its effects are anything but predictable. But Hoda believes that the benefits of change can be extraordinary...if we're willing to listen to and learn from it. In the tradition of books like Savannah Guthrie's Mostly What God Does and Maria Shriver's I've Been Thinking comes Hoda Kotb's Jump and Find Joy - an intimate book that reveals for the first time what Hoda discovered as she started embracing change in every aspect of her life. In her quest to better understand change and how to work with (not against) it, Hoda relies on her reporting instincts to investigate HOW change works, WHO is approaching it with grace, and WHAT she can apply to her own life and share with others. Jump and Find Joy combines the wisdom of change experts, insights from the latest work on resilience, and deeply personal stories from celebrities and inspirational people in our own communities. From small shifts in daily routines to major leaps of faith, Hoda shows why change isn't to be feared but celebrated...and how each of us can thrive in the midst of changes we'll inevitably face ourselves.

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what's available--sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we're attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. How are we doing? Are we there yet? In Replaceable You, Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body's failings. When and how does a person decide they'd be better off with a prosthetic than their existing limb? Can a donated heart be made to beat forever? Can an intestine provide a workable substitute for a vagina? Roach dives in with her characteristic verve and infectious wit. Her travels take her to the OR at a legendary burn unit in Boston, a "superclean" xeno-pigsty in China, and a stem cell "hair nursery" in the San Diego tech hub. She talks with researchers and surgeons, amputees and ostomates, printers of kidneys and designers of wearable organs. She spends time in a working iron lung from the 1950s, stays up all night with recovery techs as they disassemble and reassemble a tissue donor, and travels across Mongolia with the cataract surgeons of Orbis International. Irrepressible and accessible, Replaceable You immerses readers in the wondrous, improbable, and surreal quest to build a new you.

Brené Brown returns with an urgent call to reimagine the essentials of courageous leadership. In a time when uncertainty runs deep and bluster, hubris, and even cruelty are increasingly framed as acceptable leadership, Brown delivers practical, actionable insights that illuminate the mindsets and skill sets essential to reclaiming focus and driving growth through connection, discipline, and accountability. Over the past six years, Brené Brown, along with a global community of coaches and facilitators, has taken more than 150,000 leaders in 45 countries through her Dare to Lead courage-building work. In Strong Ground, Brown shares the lessons from these experiences along with wisdom from other thinkers. This is a vital playbook for everyone from senior leaders developing and executing complex strategies to Gen Z-ers entering and navigating turbulent work environments. It is also an unflinching assessment of what happens when we continue to perpetuate the falsehood that performance and wholeheartedness are mutually exclusive. With equal amounts of optimism and caution about AI, Brown writes, "I hear a lot of experts trying to soothe people's anxiety about the pace of technological change by offering platitudes like, What makes us human will ensure our relevance. This is dangerous simply because, right now, we're not especially good at what makes us human. We're not hardwired for this level of uncertainty, and many of us feel as if the constant need to self-protect is driving the humanity right out of us. This is why organizational transformation today must foster deep connection, deep thinking, and deep collaboration. We need the courage to lead people in a way that honors and protects the wisdom of the human spirit." Brown offers a broad assessment of the skill sets and mindsets we need moving forward, including the capacity for respectful and difficult conversations, increased productive urgency and smart prioritization rather than reactivity, and strategic risk-taking, paradoxical thinking, and situational and anticipatory awareness skills. She identifies the toughest skill set as the discipline, humility, and confidence to unlearn and relearn. Brown writes, "Individuals and organizations are building new muscles. Finding our strong ground--that athletic stance--is the only thing that can provide both unwavering stability in a maelstrom of uncertainty and a platform for the fast, explosive change that the world is demanding."

A deeply personal exploration of the generational impact of guns on the Black experience in America A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had to confront what almost killed him--the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist, to relentless Black death; and of a family history scarred by enslavement, lynching, the Great Migration, the also insidious racism of the North, and gun violence that stole the lives of two great-uncles, a grandfather, a stepbrother, and two cousins. In this powerful narrative, Lee weaves together three strands: the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence, tallying the costs and riches generated by both the legal and illegal gun industries; and his own life story. With unflinching honesty he takes readers on a journey, from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to tracing the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors' footsteps, to confronting the challenges of representing his people in an overwhelmingly white and often hostile media world, and most importantly, to celebrating the enduring strength of his family and community. In A Thousand Ways to Die, Lee answers Nola and all who seek a more just America. He shares the hard truths and complexities of the Black experience, but he also celebrates the beauty and resilience that is Nola's legacy.

The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades--and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths. Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding--the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions--We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. "One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change," Lepore writes. "Another was to allow for change without violence." Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. Challenging both the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of "originalism," Lepore contends in this "gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past" that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process. Lepore's remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore "has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union." At a time when the Constitution's vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.