Adam Newman belongs to a strong and vibrant community of Jewish Londoners. His fiancée, Rachel Gilbert, and her large family have considered him one of their own for years. And as a junior member of his future father-in-law’s law firm, he’s entwined himself inextricably with the people among whom he has grown up. But it isn’t until one of Rachel’s cousins, the enigmatic and atypical Ellie Schneider, returns to London from New York, with the wake of a scandal at her heels, that Adam realizes just how inextricable his ties to the community really are.

At first put off by Ellie’s worldliness, Adam gradually comes to see Ellie, Rachel’s polar opposite, as a product of both her past and difficult present. He also comes to see her as a woman fully aware of her actions and their implications, but without regret – something that Adam finds both mystifying and compelling. His conversations with his fiancée’s cousin reveal her to be a woman better educated, more self-aware, and more complex than he ever realized. He also finds that he’s drawn to her intensely, and that perhaps his future life with Rachel is not the future he wants after all.

A modern-day recasting of Edith Wharton’s seminal novel The Age of Innocence, Francesca Segal’s The Innocents explores our intense and personal connections to family and community; the simultaneous dangers and protections of existence within such a community; and the seductive powers of experience beyond our own. Segal’s rich and evocative depiction of a contemporary London community reveals its strong parallels to late nineteenth-century New York, while her protagonist, Adam Newman, diverts from Wharton’s characters in important and enlightening ways.

It is that time again! Vote on which book the #BiggerBookClub should read in Septemeber! To vote you can respond to this post or tweet @BiggerBooks using hashtag #BiggerBookClub.

Fearless: The Heroic Story of One Navy SEAL’s Sacrifice in the Hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the Unwavering Devotion of the Woman Who Loved Him by Eric Blehm

When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready: In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen unless the worst happened, he wrote, “I’m not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me.”

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1945. Claire Randall is traveling with her husband when she touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is hurled back in time to a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord 1743. Catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, she soon realizes that an alliance with James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, might be the only way to survive. Thus begins a work of unrivaled storytelling that has become a modern classic.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Tina Fey, one of the most influential and beloved women in entertainment, brings sharp wit and uncanny observational skill to everything she does, from television to major motion pictures. She’s managed to be known as both the thinking man’s sex symbol, and every woman’s alter-ego/imaginary best friend. Now, for the first time, Fey takes her writing talent off-screen and into the pages of a book.