What are the most recommended books matching 'smart and unexpected'?

The mesmerizing New York Times bestseller by the author of Night Film

Marisha Pessl's dazzling debut sparked raves from critics and heralded the arrival of a vibrant new voice in American fiction. At the center of Special Topics in Calamity Physics i... Read more about Special Topics in Calamity Physics

Dinner at Hannah's was a honey-bunch tradition, held more or less every Sunday for the past three years. Charles and his friends looked forward to the hours at her house (the address itself, a little ...

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

Goodreads Choice Awards Semifinalist!

B & N Editor's Pick - Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017

From bestselling author Neal Stephenson and critically acclaimed novelist Nicole Galland comes a captivating and compl... Read more about The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

I MET TRISTAN LYONS IN the hallway outside the faculty offices of the Department of Ancient and Classical Linguistics at Harvard University. I was a lecturer, which means that I was given the most unp...

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#1 New York Times bestselling author J.R. Ward's ferociously inventive series continues as the most fearsome member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood discovers just how tempting the night can be…

A former blood slave, Zsadist still bears the scars from... Read more about Lover Awakened

"V, he's out! One-eighty us!" Phury's shoulder slammed against the window as Vishous sent the SUV into a controlled skid. The headlights swung around and caught Z rolling on the snow-covered asphalt i...

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The "mercilessly entertaining" (Vanity Fair) instant classic "about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships" (Lev Grossman, Time).

NAMED ONE OF... Read more about Gone Girl

When I think of my wife, I always think of her head. The shape of it, to begin with. The very first time I saw her, it was the back of the head I saw, and there was something lovely about it, the angl...

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Harry Potter has no idea how famous he is. That's because he's being raised by his miserable aunt and uncle who are terrified Harry will learn that he's really a wizard, just as his parents were. But everything changes when Harry is summoned to atten... Read more about Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or...

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A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print.

One day fourteen-year-old ... Read more about Sophie's World

Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots. Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. So...

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**THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**

"An unforgettable-and Hollywood-bound-new thriller... A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy."

-Entertainment Weekly

Alex Michaelides's The Silent Patient is a shocking... Read more about The Silent Patient

They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer. He had a distinctive style, shooting semi-starved, semi-naked wom...

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Now a Netflix film starring Lily James and Kristin Scott Thomas

"Last Night I Dreamt I went to Manderley Again..."

With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim ... Read more about Rebecca

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and ...

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Soon to be a Netflix Original Series!

"War of the Worlds for the 21st century." - Wall Street Journal

The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved sc... Read more about The Three-Body Problem

The Red Union commander was anxious, though not because of the defenders he faced. The more than two hundred Red Guards of the April Twenty-eighth Brigade were mere greenhorns compared with the vetera...

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NOW AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS, NOMINATED FOR EIGHT EMMY AWARDS, INCLUDING OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES

FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker face... Read more about Sharp Objects

My sweater was new, stinging red and ugly. It was May 12 but the temperature had dipped to the forties, and after four days shivering in my shirtsleeves, I grabbed cover at a tag sale rather than dig ...

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