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 41 - 60 of 302  There are a total of 302 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "A case of mice and murder"
Star rating for A case of mice and murder
Author:
Series:
Description:
"When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms at exactly two minutes to seven on a sunny May morning in 1901, his mind is so full of his latest case--the disputed authorship of bestselling children's book, Millie the Temple Church Mouse--that he scarcely registers the body of the Lord Chief Justice of England on his doorstep. But even he cannot fail to notice the judge's dusty bare feet, in shocking contrast to his flawless evening dress, nor...
Book cover for "The cause"
Star rating for The cause
Description:
"A culminating work on the American Founding by one of its leading historians, The Cause rethinks the American Revolution as we have known it. George Washington claimed that anyone who attempted to provide an accurate account of the war for independence would be accused of writing fiction. At the time, no one called it the 'American Revolution': former colonists still regarded themselves as Virginians or Pennsylvanians, not Americans, while John Adams...
Book cover for "Charles Sumner"
Star rating for Charles Sumner
Description:
"A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and Reconstruction Charles Sumner is mainly known as the statesman who barely survived a brutal caning on the Senate floor by the slaveholder Preston Brooks in 1856. This violent episode has obscured Sumner's epic life as one of America's most visionary constitutional thinkers, a man who advocated for multiracial democracy and championed equal rights more than one hundred...
Book cover for "Charlie Hustle"
Star rating for Charlie Hustle
Description:
"A page-turning work of narrative nonfiction chronicling the incredible story of one of America's most iconic, charismatic, and still polarizing figures, baseball immortal Pete Rose; and an exquisite cultural history of baseball and America in the second half of the twentieth century Pete Rose is a legend. A baseball god. He had compiled more hits than anyone in the history of baseball, a record he set decades ago, which still stands. At the same...
Book cover for "Chilean poet"
Star rating for Chilean poet
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"The internationally acclaimed author, heralded as one of the most important writers of his generation, returns with the most substantial work of his career: an emotionally captivating, very funny novel about fathers and sons, ambition and failure, and the many forms of family."-- After a chance encounter at a Santiago nightclub, aspiring poet Gonzalo reunites with his first love, Carla. Though their desire for each other is still intact, much has...
Book cover for "Choice"
Star rating for Choice
Book cover for "The CIA book club"
Star rating for The CIA book club
Description:
"Recounts a covert Cold War operation led by George Minden to smuggle banned literature into Eastern Europe, focusing on the cultural and psychological battle against Soviet censorship and the role underground reading networks played in weakening totalitarian control, especially in Poland"--
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 "Click"
Star rating for Click
Author:
Description:
"From the New York Times bestselling authors of Sprint, a guide for starting big projects the smart way-based on firsthand experience with more than three hundred new products and businesses"--
Book cover for "The colony"
Star rating for The colony
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A novel examining the long, complicit aftermath of colonialism, told through the summer of 1979 and a remote island in the west of Ireland, one of the last places where people speak everyday Irish, and two men who come to experience it"--
Book cover for "A complicated kindness"
Star rating for A complicated kindness
Average Rating:
4 stars
Notes:
Ranked #3 as Best Book on Life In Small Towns in the WSJ on July 25-26th, 2025.
Description:
Doomed to work at the Happy Family Farm, a chicken slaughterhouse in a town run by a Mennonite community, sixteen-year-old Nomi Nickel nevertheless manages to bear witness to the dissolution of her family with a dark, sly wit.
Book cover for "Countdown"
Star rating for Countdown
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"FRESH, CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE: Most books on nuclear weapons are focused on the past, especially World War II and the Cold War. Scoles offers the first modern analysis of nuclear weaponry today that goes beyond just geopolitical consequences but cultural as well"--
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 "Cultures of growth"
Star rating for Cultures of growth
Description:
"Discover how a culture of growth helped make outdoor retailer Patagonia a leader in its field; how Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft; how winemakers Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John are leading with a mindset to disrupt and diversify the entire wine industry; and how a New York school superintendent reversed massive inequities for children of color by reshaping the district's mindset culture. Drawing on compelling examples from her work...
Book cover for "Dare to lead"
Star rating for Dare to lead
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
In her number one New York Times best sellers, Brené Brown has taught what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she's showing listeners how to put those ideas into practice so they can step up and lead.
Book cover for "Dark music"
Star rating for Dark music
Series:
Rekke volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Summer 2003: A soccer referee -- an immigrant from war-torn Afghanistan -- is found dead after a youth match in a Stockholm suburb. The father of one of the players, who had threatened the ref, is quickly arrested, but he protests his innocence. The police decide to consult Professor Hans Rekke, a world-renowned authority on interrogation and prisoner confessions. Things do not proceed as planned as Rekke challenges the team's assumptions and demolishes...
Book cover for "Dark sacred night"
Star rating for Dark sacred night
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
Detective Renee Ballard is working the graveyard shift again, and returns to Hollywood Station in the early hours only to find that an older man has snuck in and is rifling through old file cabinets.The intruder is none other than legendary LAPD detective Harry Bosch, working a cold case that has gotten under his skin. Ballard kicks him out, but eventually Bosch persuades her to help and she relents. Bosch is investigating the death of fifteen-year-old...
Book cover for "A day in September"
Star rating for A day in September
Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
"The Battle of Antietam, which took place on September 17, 1862, remains the single bloodiest day in America's history: more than 3,600 men died in twelve hours of savage fighting, and more than 17,000 were wounded. As a turning point in the Civil War, the narrow Union victory is well-known as the key catalyst for Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation. Yet Antietam was not only a battle that dramatically changed the fortunes and meaning of...
Book cover for "Days of light"
Star rating for Days of light
Description:
"A sweeping, sensual historical novel about one woman's unconventional life lived in search of an answer by the award-winning author of The End We Start From and The Harpy. In 2017, Megan Hunter burst onto the literary scene with her debut novel, The End We Start From, a startlingly beautiful story of climate change and motherhood that is now a feature film starring Jodie Comer. Her second book, The Harpy, fiercely explored marriage and power through...
Book cover for "Death in Venice"
Star rating for Death in Venice
Average Rating:
4.7 stars