Read it First: At Home Edition

Florence Green has opened a bookstore in Hardborough. A small, quaint store that hopes to brighten the lives of her customers and, perhaps, turn a small profit. But when she manages to do well, her success disturbs the other local business owners, setting off a series of unfortunate events that may not all be accidental.

A movie based off a book about a movie. The Room was an underground classic written, directed, and produced by Tommy Wiseau. With seemingly no knowledge of filmmaking and a confusingly abundant supply of funds, Wiseau created what has been referred to as “the Citizen Kane of bad movies.” Greg Sestero, a former classmate and friend of Wiseau’s, provides a first hand account of this cinematic feat.

Ronit Krushka escaped the tight knit and all encompassing Orthodox Jewish community of her youth, but her father’s death draws her back home for one last visit. There she reunites with the childhood crush that forced her to turn away from the community many years before.

A near future tale of two sisters abandoned in their remote Northern California home during a frightening collapse of society. As things fall apart both near and far, they must decide who they are and how they fit into this new world. Jean Hegland's Into the Forest draws the reader into a world where we must relearn the meaning of humanity

The local grump must contend with new extroverted neighbours whose exuberance threatens to bring him out of his shell and reintroduce him to the world and all its wonders. Fredrick Backman's A Man Called Ove was hailed as an instant classic upon its publication.

After her parents are killed in a car crash, Cameron is sent to live with her conservative aunt and grandmother in Montana. Though she desperately tries to suppress her burgeoning sexuality and remain invisible in this traditional community, she finds beautiful Coley Taylor impossible to ignore. When Cameron and Coley strike up a relationship, her aunt sends her away to God’s Promise, a gay re-education camp. There, Cameron must defy the camp counselors and her loved ones in order to remain true to herself.

Mitch Cullin's novel, A Slight Trick of the Mind, explores the life of an elderly Sherlock Holmes as he lives out his later years tending bees in Sussex. Frail and forgetful, the famed genius begins to increasingly rely on his housekeeper's teenage son. As he bonds with this young man, Holmes reminisces about his past and revisits two cases which may hold answers to his current predicament.

The (possibly) true story of Henri Charrière, a man who escaped the penal colony of French Guiana after enduring innumerable hardships. This tale has everything; forced labor, daring open water escapes, treacherous quicksand, cannibalism and, possibly, a grain of truth in it all. Many contend that, although Charrière did indeed spend time in French Guiana, much of his account is greatly exaggerated. Either way, it makes for a riveting story.

The true story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. When James Murray began the overwhelming task of compiling a comprehensive dictionary, he turned to scores of volunteer researchers to help him document the English language. One such volunteer was Dr. W.V. Minor, a Civil War veteran and a resident of an asylum for the criminally insane. Minor ended up contributing over 10,000 entries to the venerable dictionary and forging a friendship with Murray that would last the rest of his life.

In Michel Faber's modern horror story Under the Skin, an otherworldly woman picks up male hitchhikers on the isolated highways of Scotland.