Along Comes a Stranger by Lorie McCullough Lawson

September Staff Selection from Pat

Hayden, Wyoming, is such an insignificant, isolated community that the arrival of a new person in town is a cause either for celebration or concern. When Kate Colter's widowed mother-in-law introduces her new beau, Tom Baxter, Kate, a native New Englander, is overjoyed. Despite her satisfying marriage and the rewards and concerns of motherhood, Kate has never felt totally at home in the West, and she finds in Tom a kindred spirit, due to their mutual East Coast roots as well as their love for more stimulating, intellectual conversations than the locals can provide. But when elements of Tom's story fail to add up, Kate unwittingly puts herself and her family at risk. The daughter of historian David McCullough, Lawson's accomplished debut novel is an agile blend of keenly perceptive domestic drama and sharply escalating suspense. -Excerpt from Booklist

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichi

September Staff Selection from Molly

Ruth Reichl's account of her experience undercover in her position as food critic for The New York Times. She throws back the curtain on the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world to reveal the comic absurdity, artifice and excellence there, giving us (along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews) her remarkable reflections on role playing and identity.

Snow in August by Pete Hamill

September Staff Selection from Selma

In Brooklyn in the late 1940s, adolescent Michael Devlin is a dutiful son to his widowed mother and a conscientious altar boy at the parish church. One day, he meets Rabbi Judah Hirsch, a chance encounter that inaugurates a friendship with vast consequences, good and bad, for both of them. Michael lost his father in the war, and the rabbi, a recent immigrant to this country, lost his wife. The threads of their connection widen and strengthen as the rabbi endeavors to teach Michael about his native Prague and Jewish customs and lore, and the boy, in turn, instructs the rabbi about things American, including baseball. But Michael's awakening does not stop there; sadly, he learns hard lessons, to the point of bodily harm, about anti-Semitism. In fact, Michael must turn to extreme measures to effect a resolution to the problem of hatemongering; using his new storehouse of knowledge, he summons a golem! An intelligent, heartfelt, and ironically charming novel that will certainly enhance the reputation of this popular writer. - from Booklist