The German Army begins to shatter before the advancing Soviet forces in 1944. Two Russian soldiers burrow into the crypt of a German church, where, clutched in the hands of a priest's skeleton, they discover a priceless icon last seen in the grasp of Rasputin, the mad monk who mesmerized the Romanovs. When news of the discovery reaches Moscow, Stalin calls upon his most trusted investigator, Inspector Pekkala, to unravel the secret of the icon's past....

"A human raised on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith has just arrived on planet Earth. Among his people for the first time, he struggles to understand the social mores and prejudices of human nature that are so alien to him, while his own "psi" powers -- among them telepathy, clairvoyance, telekenesis, and teleportation -- make him a type of messiah figure among humans. Stranger in a Strange Land grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a classic...

"Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town's top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, and to Darryl, one of its most committed members. Caught...

"A dazzling new novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980's Chicago and contemporary Paris, by the acclaimed and award-winning author Rebecca Makkai. In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920's paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS...

An investigation into the Word of Faith Fellowship, a secretive evangelical cult whose charismatic female leader, Jane Whaley, is a master of manipulation. Starting in 1979 with a small group of followers, the group has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. Gives the story of a singular female cult leader, a terrifying portrait of life inside the cult, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades. In...

Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest, born into an ultra-religious cult - the Field, as members called it - run by her grandfather, who believed that his chosen followers must prepare themselves to survive doomsday. Bound by the group's patriarchal rules and literal interpretation of the Bible, Michelle and her siblings lived a life of deprivation, isolated from Outsiders and starved for both love and food. She was forced...