1. The Last Patriot

By Brad Thor

In Brad Thor's seventh Scot Horvath novel, Scot pursues a mystery involving a recently discovered ancient Koran. This Koran suggests that a secret exists that will change the entire nature of the warlike extremist versions of Islam. Also, the book has links to Thomas Jefferson: his war on Muslim pirates, handwritten notes in Jefferson's first-edition copy of "Don Quixote" and other clues hidden in Jefferson's Monticello home. But as desperate as the U.S. government is to have the information brought to light, there are powerful forces aligned against it- men who are just as determined that Mohammed's mysterious revelation continue to remain hidden forever.

2. "When You Are Engulfed in Flames"

By David Sedaris

Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. Culminating in a brilliantly funny account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris triumphs with his sixth essay collection.

3. "The Shack"

By William Young

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

4. "Three Cups of Tea"

By Greg Mortenson

In 1993, following the author's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, an attempt that nearly killed him and left him being nursed by local Pakistani villagers for seven weeks, Greg Mortenson set out to build the village its first school.  Now, fifty schools later, Mortenson has made an enormous difference in the lives of children, especially girls, who attend the schools he has built in impoverished and rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.  In an area dominated by Islamic extremists, not the least of which was the Taliban, this was a dangerous job, but one which the author put his soul into.  The organization Mortenson founded, the Central Asia Institute, continues to open schools, as Mortenson places a convincing argument that if you want to fight terrorism, you need to do so through education and opportunities.

5. "Tailspin"

By Catherine Coulter

FBI Special Agent Jackson Crowne is flying his Cessna plane over the Appalachians with renowned psychiatrist Dr. Timothy Maclean as his passenger. Their destination is Washington, D.C. Upon their arrival, the FBI will protect the doctor and find out who wants him dead- but they don't make it. Agent Crowne is able to bring his plane down and haul the unconscious Dr. MacLean from the burning wreckage. When married FBI Special Agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock arrive on the scene, they find out that Dr. MacLean was recently diagnosed with frontal love dementia, and in the months prior to the crash his behavior had become erratic and uninhibited, his ability to maintain doctor-patient confidentiality badly compromised. With a patient list made up of Washington movers and shakers, is there someone out there so desperate that they'd kill the doctor for what he knows?

6. "Love the One You're With"

By Emily Giffin

Ellen's relationship to Andy doesn't just seem perfect on the surface, it really is perfect.  She loves his family, and everything about him, including that he brings out the best in her.  That is, until Ellen unexpectedly runs in to Leo. The one who got away. The one who brought out the worst in her. The one she can't forget. This is the story about why we chose to love the ones we love, and why we just can't forget the ones who aren't right for us.

7. "A New Earth"

By Eckhart Tolle

In his first full-length book in eight years, the author of "The Power of Now" presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity. He asks us to accept that this state is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind. He gives us an alternative to this potentially dire situation that will involve a radical inner leap from the current egoic consciousness to an entirely new one.

8. "A Summer Affair"

By Elin Hildebrand

Nantucket glass artist Claire Danner Crispin has pieces in private collections and one in the Whitney, but is overwhelmed with the needs of her husband and four kids. Her troubles worsen when Daphne, a friend she'd been drinking with, is severely injured in a drunken car wreck. Claire is convinced that Daphne's husband, Lockhart, holds her responsible, so she's shocked when he asks her to co-chair the Nantucket Children's Summer Gala. She ropes her former high school sweetheart, rock star Max West, into playing the gala and it looks like smooth sailing for Claire, until she promises a museum-quality piece of glass for the auction, offers her best friend the catering job, goes nose-to-nose with her Manhattan socialite co-chair, and begins an affair with Lockhart.

9. "Sail"

By James Patterson

Following the death of her husband, Anne Dunne and her three children have struggled. In an effort to save her family, Anne plans a sailing vacation to bring everyone together. But in just an hour after setting out, everything is going wrong.  Her teenage daughter, Carrie, plans to drown herself. Her teenage son, Mark, is high on drugs and 10-year-old Ernie is nearly catatonic. Anne tries to pull things together, but just as the family begins to heal, something catastrophic happens that threatens their survival.

10. "The Last Lecture"

By Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave- "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"-wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment. It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.