The Rooster Bar, by John Grisham
After three law students at a for-profit law school realize they have been duped, they set out to expose “The Great Law School Scam,” and maybe make some money along the way.
Written with the same verve Grisham brought to his previous Camino Island, this novel delivers a similar sense that this best-selling author is feeling real pleasure, and not just obligation, in creating his work.
"As in all of Grisham’s best books, the reader of “The Rooster Bar” gets good company, a vigorous runaround and — unlike those poor benighted suckers at Foggy Bottom — a bit of a legal education."
—Janet Maslin, Filma and Literary Critic for The New York Times
Conversations With Friends, by Sally Rooney
Shortlisted for the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, this debut novel is a sharply intelligent story about friendship, lust, jealousy, and the unexpected complications of adulthood in the 21st century.
Sally Rooney was born in the west of Ireland in 1991. She studied English at Trinity College, Dublin, and her writing has been featured in The Dublin Review, The Stinging Fly, and Granta.
"Sally Rooney is a planter of small surprises, sowing them like landmines. They relate to behavior and psychology—characters zigging when you expect them to zag, from passivity to sudden aggression and back."
Katy Waldman, staff writer for Slate
Uncommon Type, by Tom Hanks
It should come as no surprise that these 17 stories, each written on a different antique manual typewriter from the author’s collection, exist in a world of kindness and empathy – they are, after all, the words of Tom Hanks. From lightheartedness to whimsical narratives to sentimental moments, these charming stories bask in the memory of simpler times and feel-good undertones.