“She folds the pages of the books she reads when she wants to remember something important. Her favorite books are accordions, testaments to an endless search for meaning.” – Gary Shteyngart, Little Failure
All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris
Fiction / Mystery / Suspense.
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—her white boss, Michael.
But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice goes to meet Michael… and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head.
And then she walks away like nothing has happened. Why? Ellice has been keeping a cache of dark secrets, including a small-town past and a kid brother who’s spent time on the other side of the law. She can’t be thrust into the spotlight—again.
But instead of grieving this tragedy, people are gossiping, the police are getting suspicious, and Ellice, the company’s lone black attorney, is promoted to replace Michael. While the opportunity is a dream-come-true, Ellice just can’t shake the feeling that something is off.
When she uncovers shady dealings inside the company, Ellice is trapped in an impossible ethical and moral dilemma. Suddenly, Ellice’s past and present lives collide as she launches into a pulse-pounding race to protect the brother she tried to save years ago and stop a conspiracy far more sinister than she could have ever imagined…
Description from Goodreads.
“Wanda M. Morris is ready to shake up the legal thriller as only one who knows that world inside out can.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Attorney Morris puts her experiences as a Black woman navigating the corridors of corporate power to good use in her strong debut… John Grisham fans will be pleased.” – Publishers Weekly
“All Her Little Secrets builds to an exciting conclusion, marking Morris as an electrifying new voice in the genre. Morris’s debut will prove perfect for readers looking for thrillers that reveal dark secrets and twisted webs of lies alongside hard truths about the realities of racism and sexism in corporate America.” – Shelf Awareness
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu
Fiction / Fantasy.
In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.
Over the next decade, his family unravels, and every relationship he relied on—father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin—starts falling apart. Traveling from India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and spans continents and faiths, in an expansive and heartfelt look at the need for belief in our globally interconnected world.
Description from Goodreads.
“An explosive, provoking examination of what we are forced to or choose to believe to be true.” – Booklist
“Sindu’s excavations of Kalki’s internal struggles are detailed, nuanced, and rich… Remarkably moving in its explorations of faith, doubt, and what it might mean to be a charlatan.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…marvelous… The imagery is vivid and the slow-burn narrative by the end becomes incandescent. Sindu’s stunning effort more than delivers on her initial promise.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Cokie: A Life Well Lived by Steven V. Roberts
Nonfiction / Biography / Television / Journalism.
The extraordinary life and legacy of legendary journalist Cokie Roberts—a trailblazer for women—remembered by her friends and family.
Through her visibility and celebrity, Cokie Roberts was an inspiration and a role model for innumerable women and girls. A fixture on national television and radio for more than 40 years, she also wrote five bestselling books focusing on the role of women in American history. She was portrayed on Saturday Night Live, name checked on The West Wing, and featured on magazine covers. She joked with Jay Leno, balanced a pencil on her nose for David Letterman, and was the answer to numerous crossword puzzle clues. Many dogs, and at least one dairy cow, were named for her. When the legendary 1980s Spy Magazine ran a diagram documenting all her connections with the headline “Cokie Roberts – Moderately Well-Known Broadcast Journalist or Center of the Universe?” they were only half-joking.
Cokie had many roles in her lifetime: Daughter. Wife. Mother. Journalist. Advocate. Historian. Reflecting on her life, those closest to her remember her impressive mind, impish wit, infectious laugh, and the tenacity that sent her career skyrocketing through glass ceilings at NPR and ABC. They marvel at how she often put others before herself and cared deeply about the world around her. When faced with daily decisions and dilemmas, many still ask themselves the question, “What Would Cokie Do?”
In this loving tribute, Cokie’s husband of 53 years and bestselling-coauthor Steve Roberts reflects not only on her many accomplishments, but on how she lived each day with a devotion to helping others. For Steve, Cokie’s private life was as significant and inspirational as her public one. Her commitment to celebrating and supporting other women was evident in everything she did, and her generosity and passion drove her personal and professional endeavors. In Cokie, he has a simple goal: “To tell stories. Some will make you cheer or laugh or cry. And some, I hope, will inspire you to be more like Cokie, to be a good person, to lead a good life.”
Description from Goodreads.
“A moving testimony of the remarkable life and legacy of his wife, trailblazing journalist Cokie (1943–2019). Through depictions of her faith, family, work, writing, and friendships, Roberts shares engrossing anecdotes about his partner from their over 50 years together… This loving tribute is likely to gain the celebrated journalist a whole new crop of fans.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Demonstrates… both the painful loss and the rich and enduring legacy of this pioneering journalist and compassionate human being.” – Booklist
“An upbeat portrait of a productive life that was so important to journalists and women everywhere.” – Kirkus Reviews
Available Formats:
Print Book | Large Print Book | Audiobook | eBook | eAudiobook
The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu
Fiction / Romance.
Jasmine Tran has landed herself behind bars—maple bars that is. With no boyfriend or job prospects, Jasmine returns home to work at her parents’ donut shop. Jasmine quickly loses herself in a cyclical routine of donuts, Netflix, and sleep. She wants to break free from her daily grind, but when a hike in rent threatens the survival of their shop, her parents rely on her more than ever.
Help comes in the form of an old college crush, Alex Lai. Not only is he successful and easy on the eyes, to her parents’ delight, he’s also Chinese. He’s everything she should wish for, until a disastrous dinner reveals Alex isn’t as perfect as she thinks. Worse, he doesn’t think she’s perfect either.
With both sets of parents against their relationship, a family legacy about to shut down, and the reappearance of an old high school flame, Jasmine must scheme to find a solution that satisfies her family’s expectations and can get her out of the donut trap once and for all.
Description from Goodreads.
“Talk about a sweet romance.” – Washington Post
“While Jasmine and Alex’s swift romance is adorable, Jasmine’s post-college struggles and feelings of uncertainty carry Tieu’s thoughtful debut. The Donut Trap isn’t just a tale where a boy meets a girl, and they fall in love. It’s a family story in which Tieu perfectly builds tension between Jasmine and her parents as she tries to find her own path.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America by Michael Eric Dyson
Nonfiction / History / Current Events.
For more than thirty years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson’s consistent celebration of the outsized impact of African American culture and politics on this country. Black people were forced to entertain white people in slavery, have been forced to entertain the idea of race from the start, and must find entertaining ways to make race an object of national conversation. Dyson’s career embodies these and other ways of performing Blackness, and in these pages, he entertains race with his pen, voice and body, and occasionally, alongside luminaries like Cornel West, David Blight, Ibram X. Kendi, Master P, MC Lyte, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alicia Garza, John McWhorter, and Jordan Peterson.
Most of this work will be new to readers, a fresh light for many of his long-time fans and an inspiring introduction for newcomers. Entertaining Race offers a compelling vision from the mind and heart of one of America’s most important and enduring voices.
Description from Goodreads.
“Offers razor-sharp insights into American history, politics, and art. This is a feast of insights.” – Publisher’s Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“A thoughtful, elegantly argued contribution to the literature of Black lives in America.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Dyson’s essays and writings address a rich assortment of thought-provoking topics… an expansive and accessible overview of the inquiries of an important social and cultural thinker.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book
The Family by Naomi Krupitsky
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate.
Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, a loud, untamed thing. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends from birth, their homes share a brick wall and their fathers are part of an unspoken community that connects them all: the Family. Sunday dinners gather the Family each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love.
Until Antonia’s father dares to dream of a different life and goes missing soon after. His disappearance drives a whisper-thin wedge between Sofia and Antonia as they become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. Both women are pushing against the walls of a prison made up of expectations, even as they remain bound to one another, their hearts expanding in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.
Description from Goodreads.
“Mario Puzo meets Elena Ferrante in Krupitsky’s dynamite debut novel… Depicting twentieth-century Mafia families primarily from the female viewpoint is a fabulous concept that Krupitsky carries out with aplomb. Perspective shifts are smooth, and the backdrops of Prohibition and WWII are superbly realized. Italian American traditions (including delicious casseroles) are highlighted, and the unique immigration stories show why and how Italian and Jewish newcomers get pulled into organized crime. Fans of Adriana Trigiani and Lynda Cohen Loigman will inhale this tense, engrossing novel about family ties, women’s friendships, and the treacherous complications of loyalty.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Krupitsky beautifully captures [Sofia and Antonia’s] day-to-day lives under never-ending tension. The women’s rich stories make this worthwhile.” – Publishers Weekly
“[A] female version of The Sopranos… That’s the sign of an interesting book: when the narrator or protagonist lives an unusual, fascinating world—but doesn’t even really know it. As voyeurs, we get to watch two women love and lose, feel and learn, while losing ourselves in the staccato melody of Naomi’s prose.” – Katie Couric Media
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight by Janet Evanovich
Fiction / Mystery.
When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude who she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy.
Turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Stephanie may not be the most technologically savvy sleuth, but she more than makes up for that with her dogged determination, her understanding of human nature, and her willingness to do just about anything to bring a fugitive to justice. Unsure if Diesel is her partner or her competition in this case, she’ll need to watch her back every step of the way as she sets the stage to draw Wednesday out from behind his computer and into the real world.
Description from Goodreads.
“Plum remains sassy, outspoken, brave, and definitely one-of-a-kind… a hilariously madcap, action-packed caper filled with crazy twists and some nail-biting suspense. [Game On] finds the irrepressible Stephanie and cohorts in absolutely top form.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
“Fans will be delighted.” – AudioFile
“…fast and funny… The master of the diverting diversion, Evanovich brings to life the zany antics of Stephanie’s dysfunctional but loving family and of her fellow bounty hunter, the outrageous, always-in-motion Lula. As usual, Readers are treated to a merry-go-round of handsome hunks who have made their way into Stephanie’s bed over the years. This is pure entertainment.” – Publishers Weekly
Available Formats:
Print Book | Large Print Book | Audiobook | Playaway | eBook | eAudiobook
God of Mercy by Okezie Nwọka
Fiction / Fantasy.
God of Mercy is set in Ichulu, an Igbo village where the people’s worship of their gods is absolute. Their adherence to tradition has allowed them to evade the influences of colonialism and globalization. But the village is reckoning with changes, including a war between gods signaled by Ijeoma, a girl who can fly.
As tensions grow between Ichulu and its neighboring colonized villages, Ijeọma is forced into exile. Reckoning with her powers and exposed to the world beyond Ichulu, she is imprisoned by a Christian church under the accusation of being a witch. Suffering through isolation, she comes to understand the truth of merciful love.
Reimagining the nature of tradition and cultural heritage and establishing a folklore of the uncolonized, God of Mercy is a novel about wrestling with gods, confronting demons, and understanding one’s true purpose.
Description from Goodreads.
“While this tremendous work is most readily described as magical realism or as a work of fable, God of Mercy is too powerful to stay within the confines of a single genre… Written in verse that recalls the rhythm of fables, Nwoka eloquently details the perseverance and thriving of a young woman descended from a people who have resisted colonization at every turning point in history.” – Locus
“In Okezie Nwọka’s dazzling and disquieting novel God of Mercy, battles between gods reignite a war between religions… Rife with magical realism and full of promise… God of Mercy undertakes a scrupulous review of the destructive power of colonialism through an imprisoned, gifted girl.” – Foreword Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Nwoka trusts readers to follow the story without much expository cultural background, and the result feels authentic and organic. Book clubs looking for stories to inspire deep discussion need look no further.” – Shelf Awareness
Available Formats:
Hoopla eAudiobook
Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive by Philipp Dettmer
Nonfiction / Science / Health.
You wake up and feel a tickle in your throat. Your head hurts. You’re mildly annoyed as you get the kids ready for school and dress for work yourself. Meanwhile, an epic war is being fought, just below your skin. Millions are fighting and dying for you to be able to complain as you head out the door.
So what, exactly, is your immune system?
Second only to the human brain in its complexity, it is one of the oldest and most critical facets of life on Earth. Without it, you would die within days. In Immune, Philipp Dettmer, the brains behind the most popular science channel on YouTube, takes readers on a journey through the fortress of the human body and its defenses. There is a constant battle of staggering scale raging within us, full of stories of invasion, strategy, defeat, and noble self-sacrifice. In fact, in the time you’ve been reading this, your immune system has probably identified and eradicated a cancer cell that started to grow in your body.
Each chapter delves into an element of the immune system, including defenses like antibodies and inflammation as well as threats like bacteria, allergies, and cancer, as Dettmer reveals why boosting your immune system is actually nonsense, how parasites sneak their way past your body’s defenses, how viruses work, and what goes on in your wounds when you cut yourself.
Enlivened by engaging graphics and immersive descriptions, Immune turns one of the most intricate, interconnected, and confusing subjects—immunology—into a gripping adventure through an astonishing alien landscape. Immune is a vital and remarkably fun crash course in what is arguably, and increasingly, the most important system in the body.
Description from Goodreads.
“Bringing both insight and humor to an important and relevant topic, Dettmer’s book is essential reading, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.” – Library Journal
“…immersive… Dettmer does an admirable job of staying out of the weeds, and colorful illustrations bring the whimsy of his YouTube channel to the page. Full of facts and fun, this survey is sure to entertain.” – Publishers Weekly
“A compelling view of the human immune system and its heroes and assassins… exactly the book we need right now… manages to make scientific concepts understandable without abandoning complexity… maintains a compelling plotline, expresses awe at the body’s evolutionary intelligence and offers observations that are frequently funny and sometimes profound.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. The taverna is the only place that Kostas and Defne can meet in secret, hidden beneath the blackened beams from which hang garlands of garlic and chili peppers, creeping honeysuckle, and in the center, growing through a cavity in the roof, a fig tree. The fig tree witnesses their hushed, happy meetings; their silent, surreptitious departures. The fig tree is there, too, when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns—a botanist, looking for native species—looking, really, for Defne. The two lovers return to the taverna to take a clipping from the fig tree and smuggle it into their suitcase, bound for London. Years later, the fig tree in the garden is their daughter Ada’s only knowledge of a home she has never visited, as she seeks to untangle years of secrets and silence, and find her place in the world.
A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.
Description from Goodreads.
“A beautiful contemplation of some of life’s biggest questions about identity, history and meaning.” – Time
“Shafak’s writing is magnetic, and while reading, one is completely absorbed by the world of both Cyprus and London (the story switches time frames and locations with ease) and the grief of the characters is palpable. And, in a narrative choice I loved, it’s partly narrated by the fig tree in the backyard. You don’t want to miss this one.” – Hey Alma
“Shafak, alternating between bracing matter-of-factness and glorious metaphorical descriptions, casts light on the atrocities of ethnic violence, the valor of those who search for and excavate mass graves, the inheritance of trauma, and the wonders of trees and nature’s interconnectivity… an enthralling, historically revelatory, ecologically radiant, and emotionally lush tale of loss and renewal.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book
The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts
Fiction / Biography / History.
Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon–a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff’s preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.
In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III’s American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.
Description from Goodreads.
“Teems with detail, ideas and elegance. Roberts is a great writer—and this is one of his greatest achievements.” – Aspects of History
“A compendious product of intricate investigation. Roberts has read everything… The letters and diaries of delicious characters such as Fanny Burney and Lady Mary Coke are combed for color and detail, and troop movements and economic fluctuations are carefully reconstructed. It is a magnificent achievement.” – The Spectator
“Superb… A book so diligently researched cannot fail to be rich in curious detail and amusing turns of phrase. There are plums on almost every page.” – The Oldie
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook | eAudiobook
The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth by Sam Quinones
Nonfiction / Current Events.
Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths—at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States.
Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,” he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable.
Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones’s award-winning Dreamland.
Description from Goodreads.
“This well-researched follow-up traces the next stage of the epidemic, with synthetic drugs and the next generation of kingpins. There is plenty of heartache, yes, but there is also hope in its exploration of communities trying to repair themselves.” – New York Post
“Journalist Quinones follows Dreamland with a sweeping portrait of the destruction wrought by pharmaceutical companies, Mexican cartels, and other drug profiteers, and an inspirational call for a renewed sense of community to combat the isolation of addiction… This is a richly rewarding report from the front lines of an ongoing emergency.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Readers looking for the latest take on the drug trade and recovery as well as those who flock to well written journalism will dig into this.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Print Book
On Decline: Stagnation, Nostalgia, and Why Every Year is the Worst One Ever by Andrew Potter
Nonfiction / Current Events.
What if David Bowie really was holding the fabric of the universe together?
The death of David Bowie in January 2016 was a bad start to a year that got a lot worse: war in Syria, the Zika virus, terrorist attacks in Brussels and Nice, the Brexit vote―and the election of Donald Trump. The end-of-year wraps declared 2016 “the worst… ever.” Four even more troubling years later, the question of our apocalypse had devolved into a tired social media cliché. But when COVID-19 hit, journalist and professor of public policy Andrew Potter started to wonder: what if The End isn’t one big event, but a long series of smaller ones?
In On Decline, Potter surveys the current problems and likely future of Western civilization (spoiler: it’s not great). Economic stagnation and the slowing of scientific innovation. Falling birth rates and environmental degradation. The devastating effects of cultural nostalgia and the havoc wreaked by social media on public discourse. Most acutely, the various failures of Western governments in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the legacy of the Enlightenment and its virtues―reason, logic, science, evidence―has run its course, how and why has it happened? And where do we go from here?
Description from Amazon.
“Like its historic ancestors, On Decline deserves a wide general audience and should be required reading for the incoming federal government.” – Winnipeg Free Press
“[A] short sharp shock in the pamphleteering tradition… short, argumentative, and enjoyably discursive…” – Literary Review of Canada
Available Formats:
Hoopla eBook
Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart ★
Fiction.
It’s March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaulate whom they love and what matters most. The unlikely cast of characters include: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family.
In a remarkable literary feat, Gary Shteyngart has documented through fiction the emotional toll of our recent times: a story of love and friendship that reads like a great Russian novel set in upstate New York. Both elegiac and very, very funny, Our Country Friends is the most ambitious book yet by the author of the beloved bestseller, Super Sad True Love Story.
Description from Goodreads.
“The Great American Pandemic Novel only Shteyngart could write, full of hyphenated identities, killer prose, and wild vitality.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“A perfect novel for these times and all times, the single textual artifact from the pandemic era I would place in a time capsule as a representation of all that is good and true and beautiful about literature.” – New York Times
“Shteyngart knows how to make you belly laugh, and he’s in his element here, poking fun at the claustrophobia of privilege. He perfectly captures the nature of adult friendships and the petty jealousies, disappointments, and dependencies that can define them.” – Vulture
“Shteyngart’s big-hearted drama is timely yet timeless with its penetrating and nuanced social commentary exploring identity, racism, celebrity culture, social media, and humanity. Above all, Shteyngart artfully exemplifies love in its many registers—parental, brotherly, romantic—in what is ultimately a ‘super sad true love’ story.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
The Prince of the Skies by Antonio Iturbe
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
In the 1920s, long before he wrote The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was an accomplished pilot. Along with Jean Mermoz and Henri Guillaumet, he was chosen to pioneer new mail routes across the globe. No distance was too far and no mountain too high—each letter had to reach its destination. The three friends soared through the air, while back on solid ground, they dealt with a world torn apart by wars and political factions.
This is a gripping narrative of friendship and exploration, and an homage to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an unforgettable writer who touched the lives of millions of readers, and who was able to see the world through the eyes of a child.
Description from Goodreads.
“Iturbe (The Librarian of Auschwitz) exuberantly tells the story of author Antoine de Saint-Expuery and his passion for flying, poetry, and beautiful women… The author does a wonderful job of dramatizing how exhilarating and dangerous the early years of civil aviation were for a handful of bold and intrepid pilots. He also recreates in sparkling fashion interwar French society. Saint-Ex, his colleagues, and their loves come to life in a novel that would do the author of The Little Prince proud.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Saint-Ex, Mermoz, and Guillaumet feel so realistic – they practically leap of the pages… engrossing… It’s a wonderful thing when a novel brings a not often merited part of history to the foreground. And when it’s done in such an accomplished way as it has been in The Prince of the Skies, you truly have something magical.” – Page to Stage Reviews
Available Formats:
Print Book
Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Fiction / Young Adult / Fantasy.
A way to survive.
A way to serve.
A way to save.
Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata–a mermaid–collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.
But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi does the unthinkable–she saves his life, going against an ancient decree. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy it.
To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But something is amiss. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail…
Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she doesn’t, then she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.
Description from Goodreads.
“A story bursting with innovative inspiration… a divine debut.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“Give this book to everyone, but especially fans of mythological and well-crafted fantasy.” – School Library Journal
“Reinvigorating the image of West Africa as not merely a site of human suffering but a historical place of great invention, fellowship, and hope, Bowen relays a story as lushly described as it is cinematic, centering a brave, headstrong protagonist coming into her own power in an age of change.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Fiction / Historical Fiction.
We just need to know what the heart’s capable of, Evelyn.
And do you know what it’s capable of?
I do. Grace and fury.
It’s 1944 and in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as the Allied troops advance and bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening together.
Ulysses Temper is a young British solider and one-time globe-maker, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and relive her memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.
These two unlikely people find kindred spirits in each other and Evelyn’s talk of truth and beauty plants a seed in Ulysses’ mind that will shape the trajectory of his life – and of those who love him – for the next four decades.
Moving from the Tuscan Hills, to the smog of the East End and the piazzas of Florence, Still Life is a sweeping, mischievous, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.
Description from Goodreads.
“[A] winsome, large-hearted novel… [Still Life] pulses from the page.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Still Life is a lot of things—a history of Italy in the post-war years, an ode to chosen families, a homage to A Room with a View by E.M. Forster, a reminder of the importance of art and art history—but most of all, it’s just a really good story.” – Hey Alma
“In this thoroughly warm, witty, entertaining, and character-driven novel spanning decades, Winman shares bighearted ideas about friendship, love, art, and community… It is hard to envision a reader who won’t be smitten by Winman’s characters and their banter, like old Cressy, who takes his advice from a tree, and Claude, the blue parrot who may be Shakespeare reincarnated. These lives may not be the stuff of legend, but they are still life.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
The Stranger in the Lifeboat by Mitch Albom
Fiction.
Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, nine people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in.
“Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says.
“I am the Lord,” the man whispers.
So begins Mitch Albom’s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet.
Albom has written of heaven in the celebrated number one bestsellers The Five People You Meet in Heaven and The First Phone Call from Heaven. Now, for the first time in his fiction, he ponders what we would do if, after crying out for divine help, God actually appeared before us? What might the Lord look, sound and act like?
In The Stranger in the Lifeboat, Albom keeps us guessing until the end: Is this strange and quiet man really who he claims to be? What actually happened to cause the explosion? Are the survivors already in heaven, or are they in hell?
The story is narrated by Benji, one of the passengers, who recounts the events in a notebook that is later discovered—a year later—when the empty life raft washes up on the island of Montserrat.
It falls to the island’s chief inspector, Jarty LeFleur, a man battling his own demons, to solve the mystery of what really happened.
A fast-paced, compelling novel that makes you ponder your deepest beliefs, The Stranger in the Lifeboat suggests that answers to our prayers may be found where we least expect them.
Description from Goodreads.
“…inspirational… a thought-provoking yarn.” – Kirkus Reviews
“[An] inspiring novel full of big questions around God and divinity, leaving the reader to think about their deepest held beliefs.” – Reader’s Digest
Available Formats:
Print Book | Large Print Book | Audiobook | Playaway | eBook | eAudiobook
Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu ★
Fiction.
Willa Chen has never quite fit in. Growing up as a biracial Chinese American girl in New Jersey, Willa felt both hypervisible and unseen, too Asian to fit in at her mostly white school, and too white to speak to the few Asian kids around. After her parents’ early divorce, they both remarried and started new families, and Willa grew up feeling outside of their new lives, too.
For years, Willa does her best to stifle her feelings of loneliness, drifting through high school and then college as she tries to quiet the unease inside her. But when she begins working for the Adriens—a wealthy white family in Tribeca—as a nanny for their daughter, Bijou, Willa is confronted with all of the things she never had. As she draws closer to the family and eventually moves in with them, Willa finds herself questioning who she is, and revisiting a childhood where she never felt fully at home. Self-examining and fraught with the emotions of a family who fails and loves in equal measure, Win Me Something is a nuanced coming-of-age debut about the irreparable fissures between people, and a young woman who asks what it really means to belong, and how she might begin to define her own life.
Description from Goodreads.
“A lovely coming-of-age story that will resonate with anyone who’s felt separate, or questioned where they belong.” – Washington Post
“A poignant, impressive debut that should herald the rise of a literary force to be reckoned with.” – Shondaland
“I’ve never read a novel quite like Win Me Something, which is to say that I’ve never seen the nuances of navigating a biracial identity put, so beautifully, in fiction… Readers will recognize themselves in Willa’s loneliness, and they will feel that they are, finally, in good company.” – Literary Hub
“Impressive… expect subtle surprises as Willa’s relationships evolve in a satisfying accumulation of carefully drawn small moments that build toward her understanding, even acceptance, of both an imperfect world and herself.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
Available Formats:
Print Book | eBook
You Can Go Your Own Way by Eric Smith
Fiction / Young Adult / Romance.
No one ever said love would be easy… but did they mention it would be freezing?
Adam Stillwater is in over his head. At least, that’s what his best friend would say. And his mom. And the guy who runs the hardware store down the street. But this pinball arcade is the only piece of his dad that Adam has left, and he’s determined to protect it from Philadelphia’s newest tech mogul, who wants to turn it into another one of his cold, lifeless gaming cafés.
Whitney Mitchell doesn’t know how she got here. Her parents split up. She lost all her friends. Her boyfriend dumped her. And now she’s spending her senior year running social media for her dad’s chain of super successful gaming cafés—which mostly consists of trading insults with that decrepit old pinball arcade across town.
But when a huge snowstorm hits, Adam and Whitney suddenly find themselves trapped inside the arcade. Cut off from their families, their worlds, and their responsibilities, the tension between them seems to melt away, leaving something else in its place. But what happens when the storm stops?
Description from Goodreads.
“A sweet romance with a quirky premise.” – School Library Journal
“Readers will appreciate the sweet and satisfying romance, but what will ultimately resonate are Smith’s well-rounded characters who are dealing with grief, loss, and letting go. Snappy dialogue, second chances, and heartfelt relationships.” – Kirkus Reviews
“The story is colored by wonderfully specific details around pinball and horticulture—which will thrill fans of those niches—but it’s anchored by a satisfying enemies-to-lovers romance that will please any fan of the genre.” – Booklist
Available Formats:
Hoopla eAudiobook
You Can’t Be Serious by Kal Penn
Nonfiction / Memoir.
In this refreshingly candid memoir, Kal Penn recounts why he rejected the advice of his aunties and guidance counselors and, instead of becoming a doctor or “something practical,” embarked on a surprising journey that has included acting, writing, working as a farmhand, teaching Ivy League University courses, and smoking fake weed with a fake President of the United States, before serving the country and advising a real one.
You Can’t Be Serious is a series of funny, consequential, awkward, and ridiculous stories from Kal’s idiosyncratic life. It’s about being the grandson of Gandhian freedom fighters, and the son of immigrant parents: people who came to this country with very little and went very far—and whose vision of the American dream probably never included their son sliding off an oiled-up naked woman in a raunchy Ryan Reynolds movie… or getting a phone call from Air Force One as Kal flew with the country’s first Black president.
With intelligence, humor, and charm on every page, Kal reflects on the most exasperating and rewarding moments from his journey so far. He pulls back the curtain on the nuances of opportunity and racism in the entertainment industry and recounts how he built allies, found encouragement, and dealt with early reminders that he might never fit in. And of course, he reveals how, after a decade and a half of fighting for and enjoying successes in Hollywood, he made the terrifying but rewarding decision to take a sabbatical from a fulfilling acting career for an opportunity to serve his country as a White House aide.
Above all, You Can’t Be Serious shows that everyone can have more than one life story. Kal demonstrates by example that no matter who you are and where you come from, you have many more choices than those presented to you. It’s a story about struggle, triumph, and learning how to keep your head up. And okay, yes, it’s also about how he accidentally (and very stupidly) accepted an invitation to take the entire White House Office of Public Engagement to a strip club—because, let’s be honest, that’s the kind of stuff you really want to hear about.
Description from Goodreads.
“Reading Kal Penn’s memoir is like getting a visit from that friend you always look forward to seeing for his well spun hilarious tales… A gift for anyone in need of a laugh or pep talk, You Can’t Be Serious is loaded with a perfect blend of ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ and ‘don’t stop believing’ fun.” – SRQ