GIST
A heavy-handed parable that mocks some modern expressions of Christmas (expensive parties, glitzy decorations, extravagant foods, fancy presents) and celebrates sentimental ones (families and friends).

CAUTION
N/A

GIST
James Patterson's thrillers have become increasingly bizarre, as if in order to shock he needs to depict ever more depraved behaviors. Murder is no longer sufficiently evil in itself; his killers are sadistic, sexually depraved predators, who hunt their prey like beasts and suck their blood like vampires.

CAUTION
N/A

GIST
Reviewers love this novel, not in spite of, but because of its portrait of family dysfunction. The characters find that nothing satisfies, but they have no solution. Reacting to their parents' mistakes, each grown child makes corrections-and thus ends up with mistakes of his own.

CAUTION
N/A

GIST
A complicated thriller involving an ace FBI agent who, as the ambush's only survivor, becomes suspect. In his search for the real culprits he uncovers several bands of bad guys including white supremacist terrorists and drug dealers. He also gets his head examined by a beautiful psychiatrist.

CAUTION
Bad language.

GIST
Caroline Kennedy put together this short, 100-poem collection as a way of honoring her mother and her mother's love for language and literature. Each section is illustrated by a family photo, and Caroline's short introductions recall her parents and their interests.

CAUTION
N/A