From the creator of the global hit TV show How I Met Your Mother comes a saga of modern life and love. Set in NYC, and with a cast of characters with noses pressed firmly up against their iPhone as they date, mate, and search for happiness, this sprawling romantic comedy is for the people who love the film Love Actually and are looking for a lighter escape from our day-to-day word.
THE MUTUAL FRIEND
by Carter Bays
Dutton, Summer/Fall 2022
THE MUTUAL FRIEND is an observational romantic comedy in the vein of Jane Austen, about how technology has changed the way we relate to the world and each other, and how we relate to that technology. It takes place over the summer of 2015, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Our hero, Alice Quick, is a 26-year-old former classical pianist child prodigy, now floating through life as a nanny. Alice has a dream: She wants to be a doctor. Once upon a time, in an impassioned Facebook post, Alice announced to all her friends that she’s finally gonna get her act together, take the MCAT, apply to medical school, and make something of her life. That post got hundreds of likes. But now it’s been three years and she still hasn’t done any of it. This summer, that’s all going to change. One day in June, when Alice moves in with her wild new roommate Roxy, and then goes on an unplanned blind date with a somewhat-mysterious 40-year-old bachelor named Bob, the wheels are set in motion for Alice to sign up for the MCAT, and spend the next 81 days studying like crazy, so she can pass the test and finally get into Medical School. But it’s not going to be easy. To complete her journey, Alice must do battle with a dragon, and the name of this dragon is distraction…
THE MUTUAL FRIEND is an immersive and richly-detailed exploration of life in two different worlds – the world outside our phones, and the world inside our phones – and how hard it has become to say for sure which one is real.
Carter Bays is the creator of the show How I Met Your Mother, which ran on CBS for nine years. The show received thirty Emmy nominations and won ten, including one for best song, which was written by Bays. The show now streams on Hulu and has a cult following. Carter lives in LA with his wife and three children.
The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line are the heroes of the Greatest Generation that you hardly ever hear about. These women who did extraordinary things didn’t expect thanks and shied away from medals and recognition. Despite their amazing accomplishments, they’ve gone mostly unheralded and unrewarded. No longer. These are the women of World War II who served, fought, struggled, and made things happen―in and out of uniform. Liane B. Russell fled Austria with nothing and later became a renowned U.S. scientist whose research on the effects of radiation on embryos made a difference to thousands of lives. Gena Turgel was a prisoner who worked in the hospital at Bergen-Belsen and cared for the young Anne Frank, who was dying of typhus. Gena survived and went on to write a memoir and spent her life educating children about the Holocaust. Ida and Louise Cook were British sisters who repeatedly smuggled out jewelry and furs and served as sponsors for refugees, and they also established temporary housing for immigrant families in London. Retired U.S. Army Major General Mari K. Eder wrote this book because she knew their stories needed to be told―and the sooner the better. For theirs is a legacy destined to embolden generations of women to come.
One family. One tragedy. One incredible decision to change their fate. A quiet lakeside resort in Vermont seems like the perfect summer getaway for Olivia and Harry Somerville and their three young boys. But in a single moment, their idyllic family retreat becomes a mother’s worst nightmare. Returning from a solo hike one afternoon, Olivia learns from a passing stranger that one of her sons has drowned—but not which one. In that moment, Olivia makes a panicked decision that will change her family forever. If she never knows which son has drowned, can Olivia convince herself that none of them have? By shielding herself from reality, can she continue to live in a world where all three boys are still alive? An emotional and heartfelt meditation on the nature of loss, the gift of recovery, and the bonds of love, THE ONES WE KEEP tells the story of one family as they learn to face their grief and fight for hope. Your next gripping book club read exploring the depths of a mother’s love, the endurance of family, and the mind-bending paths we take to shield ourselves from heartache.
Over the last few centuries, humans have successfully unraveled much of the language of the universe, exploring and defining formerly mysterious phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, and matter through the beauty of mathematics. But some secrets remain beyond our realm of understanding—and seemingly beyond the very laws and theories we have relied on to make sense of the universe we inhabit. It is clear that the quantum, the world of atoms and electrons, is entwined with the cosmos, a universe of trillions of stars and galaxies…but exactly how these two extremes of human understanding interact remains a mystery. WHERE DID THE UNIVERSE COME FROM? and Other Cosmic Questions allows readers to eavesdrop on a conversation between award-winning physicists Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis as they examine the universe through the two unifying and yet often contradictory lenses of classical physics and quantum mechanics, tackling questions such as: Where did the universe come from? Why do dying stars rip themselves apart? Do black holes last forever? What is left for humans to discover?