WSJ’s Top Book Recommendations-Cary Regional

Discover the best books of the year, handpicked by the editors of The Wall Street Journal. From thought-provoking nonfiction to engrossing fiction, our Top Book Recommendations offer a curated list of exceptional reads that will inform, inspire, and entertain. Featuring titles from acclaimed authors and emerging voices, our selection spans genres and subjects, ensuring there's something for every reader. Dive into the world of ideas, stories, and perspectives that will change the way you think, feel, and see the world.

Showing 1 - 20 of 30  There are a total of 302 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "All her little secrets"
Star rating for All her little secrets
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Everyone has something to hide...Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a "for fun" relationship with a rich, charming executive, who just happens to be her white boss. But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice arrives in the executive suite and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head. And then she walks away like nothing...
Book cover for "The anarchy"
Star rating for The anarchy
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "Anatomy of a murder"
Star rating for Anatomy of a murder
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
This book was ranked #1 as the best book on courtroom drama by the WSJ on May 18th, 2025.
Description:
First published by St. Martin's in 1958, Robert Traver's Anatomy of a Murder immediately became the number-one bestseller in America, and was subsequently turned into the now classic Otto Preminger film of the same name, starring Jimmy Stewart and Duke Ellington. It's not only the most popular courtroom drama in American fiction, but one of the most popular novels of our time. A gripping tale of deceit, murder, and a sensational trial, Anatomy of...
Book cover for "The arsenal of democracy"
Star rating for The arsenal of democracy
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Tells the incredible story of how Detroit answered the call to arms during WWII, centering on Henry Ford and his tortured son Edsel, who, when asked if they could deliver 50,000 airplanes, made an outrageous claim: Ford Motor Company would erect a plant that could yield a "bomber an hour."
Book cover for "Badlands"
Star rating for Badlands
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the New Mexico badlands, the skeleton of a woman is found-and the case is assigned to FBI Agent Corrie Swanson. The victim walked into the desert, shedding clothes as she went, and died in agony of heatstroke and thirst. Two rare artifacts are found clutched in her bony hands-lightning stones used by the ancient Chaco people to summon the gods. Is it suicide or... sacrifice? Agent Swanson brings in archaeologist Nora Kelly to investigate. When...
Book cover for "Blood grove"
Star rating for Blood grove
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
After being approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man, Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from mountaintops to the desert, through South Central and into sex clubs and the homes of the fabulously wealthy, facing hippies, the mob, and old friends perhaps more dangerous than anyone else.
Book cover for "The bookseller of Florence"
Star rating for The bookseller of Florence
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Against the ... backdrop of Renaissance Florence, [this book] brings to light an extraordinary story about the city and its culture--that of Vespasiano da Bisticci, the 'king of the world's booksellers,' Florence's most indispensable and prolific merchant of knowledge. His bookshop in the heart of Florence was a gathering place for the city's most prominent poets and philosophers, and it was there that Vespasiano and his team of scribes created beautiful...
Book cover for "A civil action"
Star rating for A civil action
Average Rating:
5 stars
Notes:
Ranked #4 by the WSJ as the best book on courtroom drama on May 18, 2025.
Book cover for "Cuba"
Star rating for Cuba
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile,...
Book cover for "The enigma of room 622"
Star rating for The enigma of room 622
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time. Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his...
Book cover for "The extinction of Irena Rey"
Star rating for The extinction of Irena Rey
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "The failed promise"
Star rating for The failed promise
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"The absorbing narrative of Frederick Douglass's heated struggle with President Andrew Johnson reveals a new perspective on Reconstruction's demise. When Andrew Johnson rose to the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, African Americans were optimistic that Johnson would pursue aggressive federal policies for Black equality. Just a year earlier, Johnson had cast himself as a 'Moses' for the Black community. Frederick Douglass, the country's...
Book cover for "Founding brothers"
Star rating for Founding brothers
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "A heart of blood and ashes"
Star rating for A heart of blood and ashes
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "Jane Austen's bookshelf"
Star rating for Jane Austen's bookshelf
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars, a page-turning literary adventure that introduces readers to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen [Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Charlotte Smith, Hannah More, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth]--and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves"--
Book cover for "Light perpetual"
Star rating for Light perpetual
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: the Woolworths on Bexford High Street in southeast London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages--after all, everything's been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children. Who were they? What futures did they lose? This brilliantly constructed novel lets an alternative reel of time...
Book cover for "The lords of easy money"
Star rating for The lords of easy money
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"The New York Times bestselling business journalist Christopher Leonard infiltrates one of America's most mysterious institutions--the Federal Reserve--to show how its policies over the past ten years have accelerated income inequality and put our country's economic stability at risk"--
Book cover for "The Netanyahus"
Star rating for The Netanyahus
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Corbin College, not-quite-upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian--but not an historian of the Jews--is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host, to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction...
Book cover for "The new wilderness"
Star rating for The new wilderness
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs...
Book cover for "Platonic"
Star rating for Platonic
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Is understanding the science of attachment the key to building lasting friendships and finding "your people" in an ever-more-fragmented world?"--