“When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” – Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time
The Apothecary’s Wife: The Hidden History of Medicine and How It Became a Commodity by Karen Bloom Gevirtz
nonfiction / history / science / medicine.
The running joke in Europe for centuries was that anyone in a hurry to die should call the doctor. As far back as ancient Greece, physicians were notorious for administering painful and often fatal treatments—and charging for the privilege. For the most effective treatment, the ill and injured went to the women in their lives. This system lasted hundreds of years. It was gone in less than a century.
Contrary to the familiar story, medication did not improve during the Scientific Revolution. Yet somehow, between 1650 and 1740, the domestic female and the physician switched places in the cultural consciousness: she became the ineffective, potentially dangerous quack, he the knowledgeable, trustworthy expert. The professionals normalized the idea of paying them for what people already got at home without charge, laying the foundation for Big Pharma and today’s global for-profit medication system. A revelatory history of medicine, The Apothecary’s Wife challenges the myths of the triumph of science and instead uncovers the fascinating truth. Drawing on a vast body of archival material, Karen Bloom Gevirtz depicts the extraordinary cast of characters who brought about this transformation. She also explores domestic medicine’s values in responses to modern health crises, such as the eradication of smallpox, and what benefits we can learn from these events.
“…witty, deeply researched… A lively medical, scientific, and economic history.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“…compelling… The Apothecary’s Wife is a stunning history book about the effects of the Scientific Revolution on the practice of medicine.” – Carolina Ciucci, Foreword Reviews
Believe: The Untold Story Behind Ted Lasso, the Show That Kicked Its Way Into Our Hearts by Jeremy Egner
nonfiction / television.
When Ted Lasso first aired in 2020, nobody—including those who had worked on it—knew how a show inspired by an ad, centered around soccer, filled mostly with unknown actors, and led by a wondrously mustached “nice guy” would be received. Now, eleven Emmys and one Peabody Award later, it’s safe to say that the show’s status as a pop culture phenomenon is secure. And, for the first time, New York Times television editor Jeremy Egner explores the creation, production, and potent legacy of Ted Lasso.
Drawing on dozens of interviews from key cast, creators, and more, Believe takes readers from the very first, silly NBC Premier League commercial to the pitch to Apple executives, then into the show’s writer’s room, through the brilliant international casting, and on to the unforgettable set and locations of the show itself.
Egner approaches his reporting as a journalist and as a cultural critic, but also with an affection and admiration fans will appreciate, carefully and humorously telling Ted Lasso’s story of teamwork, of hidden talent, of a group of friends looking around at the world’s increasingly nasty discourse and deciding that maybe simple decency still had the power to bring us together—a story about what happens when you dare to believe.
“Fans will find plenty to cheer for.” – Publishers Weekly
“Solid arts reporting, and excellent fodder for Lasso fans.” – Kirkus Reviews
“New York Times TV editor Egner takes his material and makes it shine with accuracy and admiration.” – Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
The Co-op by Tarah DeWitt
fiction / romance.
LaRynn Lavigne and Deacon Leeds had one short and contentious summer fling when they were teens—certainly nothing to build a foundation on. But a decade later, when their grandmothers have left them with shared ownership of their dilapidated Santa Cruz building, they’re thrust back together and have to figure out how to brace up the pieces.
LaRynn has the money, but in order to access her trust, she has to be married. Deacon has the construction expertise, but lacks the funds. A deal is struck: Marry for however long it takes to fix up the property, collect a profit, and cut ties.
Thrust into a home without walls, LaRynn and Deacon quickly learn that it’s easy to hide behind emotional ones, even in a marriage. But with all the exposure and pitfalls that come with living with the opposite sex (and none of the perks, much to their growing mutual frustration) they’ll also have to learn what it means to truly cooperate as a team.
Filled with crackling tension, The Co-op is a steamy second chance romance about restoration and renovation, and uncovering all the things that build character within ourselves. It’s about the never-ending construction project that partnership is, and finding enjoyment at every stage.
“A swoony slow-burn romance that lives in the little moments.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“DeWitt tackles tough issues without ever losing sight of the fun and effectively uses the renovations as a metaphor for rebuilding damaged relationships. This satisfies.” – Publishers Weekly
“This atmospheric tale is set against a stunning backdrop and will appeal to fans of slow-burn, emotionally charged romances.” – Migdalia Jimenez, Library Reads
Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik ★
nonfiction / biography / history / writing.
Could you write what you write if you weren’t so tiny, Joan? – Eve Babitz, in a letter to Joan Didion, 1972
Joan Didion, revealed at last…
Eve Babitz died on December 17, 2021. Found in the wrack, ruin, and filth of her apartment, a stack of boxes packed by her mother decades before. The boxes were pristine, the seals of duct tape unbroken. Inside, a lost world. This world turned for a certain number of years in the late sixties and early seventies, and centered on a two-story rental in a down-at-heel section of Hollywood. 7406 Franklin Avenue, a combination salon-hotbed-living end where writers and artists mixed with movie stars, rock ’n’ rollers, and drug trash.
7406 Franklin Avenue was the making of one great American writer: Joan Didion, a mystery behind her dark glasses and cool expression; an enigma inside her storied marriage to John Gregory Dunne, their union as tortured as it was enduring. 7406 Franklin Avenue was the breaking and then the remaking—and thus the true making—of another great American writer: Eve Babitz, goddaughter of Igor Stravinsky, nude of Marcel Duchamp, consort of Jim Morrison (among many, many others), a woman who burned so hot she finally almost burned herself alive. Didion and Babitz formed a complicated alliance, a friendship that went bad, amity turning to enmity.
Didion, in spite of her confessional style, is so little known or understood. She’s remained opaque, elusive. Until now.
With deftness and skill, journalist Lili Anolik uses Babitz, Babitz’s brilliance of observation, Babitz’s incisive intelligence, and, most of all, Babitz’s diary-like letters—letters found in those sealed boxes, letters so intimate you don’t read them so much as breathe them—as the key to unlocking Didion.
“[A] crackling dual biography of two of L.A.’s brightest literary lights.” – Publishers Weekly
“…Anolik unearths a complicated, contentious—and scandalously overlooked—alliance between these two glamorous behemoths of Californian literature… What results is a love letter in the form of this detailed biography that reads like a propulsive novel. You’ll be reaching for Didion’s and Babitz’s books to search for evidence of the messy truths revealed on these pages.” – Mandie Montes, Oprah Daily
“[As] Lili Anolik argues in this joint biography, Didion & Babitz represent more than what it means to be a woman who writes: They’re two halves of American womanhood. It’s a big swing, but one that Anolik knocks out of the park, showing readers how Didion was the sun to Babitz’s moon, the superego to her id.” – Samantha Leach, Bustle
“Lili Anolik established herself as the Eve Babitz whisperer with her unforgettable magazine stories about the then-mostly-forgotten-but-now-celebrated L.A. author and her book Hollywood’s Eve. Her new release further explores Babitz’s friendship and rivalry with that other California girl, Joan Didion—and while Anolik’s own allegiance is clear, her book is a captivating look into the way two very brilliant, very different writers maneuvered around one another, and the starry, messy world they inhabited. Someone get Ryan Murphy a copy, we smell a new season of Feud.” – Town & Country
Games Untold by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
fiction / young adult / short stories / romance / mystery / fantasy / suspense.
There is nothing frivolous about the way a Hawthorne man loves.
An amnesiac playboy and the woman with every reason to hate him. A daredevil, his favorite heiress, and three nights in Prague. An unlikely pairing between a cowboy and a goth. Four brothers with an inescapable bond, strengthened by the family they chose, in a house of wonders that promises to always deliver one more secret.
Discover their stories of love and loss, power, puzzles, and life-and-death secrets in this mind-blowingly romantic collection that proves that when you love the way Hawthornes love, there is no going back.
“[T]his romantic collection of stories set in the world of The Inheritance Games will leave you wanting more.” – Syameen Salehaldin, Harper’s Bazaar
Hardy Women: Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Muses by Paula Byrne
nonfiction / biography / history / books.
“He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all.”
Thomas Hardy is one of the most beloved and most-read British authors. His influence on literature and the minds of his readers is singular. But how is it that the novelist who created some of the most memorable and modern female characters in literature had such troubled relationships with real women?
In this highly innovative book, acclaimed biographer Paula Byrne re-examines Hardy’s life through the eyes of the women who made him – mother, sisters, girlfriends, wives, muses. The story veers from shocking scenes such as his obsession with the sight of a woman hanged, to poignant vignettes of unfulfilled passion, to fascinating details of working women’s lives in the nineteenth century.
Hardy Women is the story of how the magnificent fictional women he invented would not have been possible without the hardship and hardiness of the real ones who shaped his passions and his imagination. It is only through understanding and witnessing these hardy women that we can truly enter the heart of this great novelist and poet.
“An acutely sensitive portrait.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…compelling… Raising fascinating questions about the creation of fictional characters, Hardy Women is an essential read for any Thomas Hardy afficionado, and as a fact-filled narrative, a book to return to time and again.” – Ben Bergonzi, Historical Novel Society
“Byrne, through diligent and masterful detective work, uncovers the obscure parts of his lifelong fascination (invariably erotic) with women… informative without being salacious and sympathetic without being hagiographic. It treats both Hardy and the women he was emotionally involved with respectfully… for the Hardy lover who wants to find out more about what lies behind the man and his works, Byrne’s book is indispensable reading.” – Aaron Kyereh-Mireku, Open Letters Review
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music by Rob Sheffield
nonfiction / music / biography.
A cultural phenomenon. A worldwide obsession. An agent of emotional chaos. There’s no parallel to Taylor Swift in history: a teenage girl who turns into the world’s favorite pop star, songwriter, storyteller, guitar hero, live performer, changing how music is made and heard. An all-time great on the level of The Beatles, Prince, or David Bowie.
Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music is the first book that goes deep on the musical and cultural impact of Taylor Swift. Nobody can tell the story like Rob Sheffield, the bestselling and award-winning author of Dreaming the Beatles, On Bowie, and Love Is a Mix Tape. The legendary Rolling Stone journalist is the writer who has chronicled Taylor for every step of her long career, from her early days to the Eras Tour. Sheffield gets right to the heart of Swift and her music, her lyrics, her fan connection, her raw power.
At once one of the most beloved music figures of the past two decades and one of the most criticized, Taylor Swift is known as much for her life beyond her music as she is for her hits—the most public of stars, yet also the weirdest and most mysterious. In the tradition of Sheffield’s Dreaming the Beatles, Heartbreak Is the National Anthem will inform and delight a legion of fans who hang on every word from Taylor and every word Rob writes on her.
“An unprecedented look into the life of Taylor Swift, told by the only journalist close enough to tell it. This is a must-have for any Swifties looking for the next great insight into her stardom.” – Isabelle McConville, B&N Reads
“Pop confectionery with surprising depth, much like its subject. For Swift fans and those who love them.” – Genevieve Williams, Library Journal
“Readers will revel in the unrestrained delight with which Sheffield captures his subject, mixing a fan’s exuberance with a music critic’s nuanced analysis. Swifties won’t be able to put this down.” – Publishers Weekly
Lazarus Man by Richard Price ★
fiction.
East Harlem, 2008. In an instant, a five-story tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash. As the city’s rescue services and media outlets respond, the surrounding neighborhood descends into chaos. At day’s end, six bodies are recovered, but many of the other tenants are missing.
In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, one of the greatest chroniclers of life in urban America, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster.
Anthony Carter—whose miraculous survival, after being buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, transforms him into a man with a message and a passionate sense of mission.
Felix Pearl—a young transplant to the city, whose photography and film work that day provokes in this previously unformed soul a sharp sense of personal destiny.
Royal Davis—owner of a failing Harlem funeral home, whose desperate trolling of the scene for potential “customers” triggers a quest to find another path in life.
And Mary Roe—a veteran city detective who, driven in part by her own family’s brutal history, becomes obsessed with finding Christopher Diaz, one of the building’s missing.
Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and, most recently, The Whites, has created a bravura portrait of a community on the edge of disintegration. Rich with indelible characters and high drama, Lazarus Man is a riveting work of suspense and social vision by one of our major writers.
“An affecting novel by a literary urbanologist in top form.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“[A] remarkable excavation of urban angst… Price once again proves he’s the bard of New York City street life.” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“The incomparable Richard Price weaves the perspectives of individual characters into the voice of a community shaken by disaster. This is a snapshot of life and death from the author of Freedomland.” – Isabelle McConville, B&N Reads
“…gritty and compassionate… contains many cinematic moments… On Price’s mean streets, parents worry their children will be corrupted by gangs or drugs, or hit by a gunshot meant for someone else. Racism and poverty are facts of life. Everyone’s a hustler. And yet this is not a cynical novel. As Anthony tells his growing audiences of people just looking for a little reason to hope: ‘If you have the will to stand fast long enough against the crushing blow, one day you will find that your tables have turned and your heart has healed.’” – Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times
Martha: The Cookbook by Martha Stewart
nonfiction / food / cooking / memoir.
Martha Stewart celebrates her landmark 100th book with an intimate collection of 100 treasured recipes, along with stunning photos from her personal archives and the stories behind them. A must for anyone who has ever been inspired by the one and only Martha.
Join Martha in the kitchen as she shares favorite recipes and invaluable tips. Learn how to cook her mother’s humble Potato Pierogi, her decadent Gougères, a comforting Apple Brioche Bread Pudding, and the famous Paella she makes for the luckiest friends who visit her in summer. You’ll find something to satisfy everyone’s taste, whether it’s a simple meal you make for yourself, a weeknight family dinner, or a special celebration, recipes range from breakfast & brunch to soups & salads, hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, dinner, and of course dessert.
Like a scrapbook of Martha’s life in cookbook form, this is the ultimate collection for devotees as well as newer fans who want to become more confident in the kitchen and do what Martha does best: Start with the basics and elevate them. From timeless classics to contemporary delights, these recipes reflect storied moments from her legendary, trailblazing career.
“If cookbook authors were like famous musicians and published greatest-hits albums, this would be Stewart’s… full of the wisdom and charm readers have come to treasure from the domestic icon… This is definitely a career-spanning tribute to Stewart, but also a loving thank-you to those who have followed her story and career. This cookbook offers home cooks a complete collection of treasured recipes and a glimpse at a storied culinary journey.” – Ron Block,Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW
Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers
fiction / historical fiction.
In all failed relationships there is a tipping point. It goes unnoticed at the time but can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park…
The London suburb of Croydon,1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she’s an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor.
One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she’s admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge.
When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man’s past, Helen’s own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel…
A gorgeously written and life-affirming novel about life’s delicate layers of experience and connection, Shy Creatures reveals all the different ways we can be confined… and liberated.
“[A] finely detailed and modulated work… A composed period piece that pays sharp attention to the little things.” – Kirkus Reviews
“…quirky, acutely observed and beautifully written… Chambers’s exquisite prose is a consistent pleasure, while the acuity of her observation possesses beauty and universality… The novel’s ending is subtle but complete, and infinitely moving.” – Joanna Briscoe, The Guardian
“Chambers’s imaginative sympathies take us far. She describes the details of Tapping’s past and present, his schoolboy crushes and fears, his eccentric life with a diminishing circle of elderly aunts, with real practical insight… She writes very well, too: solid and unfussy, yet subtle and vivid prose.” – Benjamin Markovits, The Telegraph
To Die For by David Baldacci
fiction / mystery / suspense.
Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’s given. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to a meeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead, he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy–the girl on the train.
But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.
It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the train to come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies–and in some cases, they might well be both.
“Fast-moving excitement with a satisfying finish.” – Kirkus Reviews, STARRED REVIEW
“To Die For is a triumphant addition to David Baldacci’s already impressive body of work. It delivers everything readers have come to expect from the author—pulse-pounding action, intricate plotting, and characters you can’t help but root for—while still finding ways to surprise and innovate within the genre… Gripping, intelligent, and impossible to put down, To Die For is David Baldacci at the top of his game. Don’t miss this thrilling new chapter in The 6:20 Man saga.” – Book Club
Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures by Katherine Rundell ★
nonfiction / science / nature / animals / history.
The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world’s most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction.
Consider the seahorse: couples mate for life and meet each morning for a dance, pirouetting and changing colors before going their separate ways, to dance again the next day. The American wood frog survives winter by allowing itself to freeze solid, its heartbeat slowing until it stops altogether. Come spring, the heart kick-starts itself spontaneously back to life. As for the lemur, it lives in matriarchal troops led by an alpha female (it’s not unusual for female ring-tailed lemurs to slap males across the face when they become aggressive). Whenever they are cold or frightened, they group together in what’s known as a lemur ball, paws and tails intertwined, to form a furry mass as big as a bicycle wheel.
But each of these extraordinary animals is endangered or holds a sub-species that is endangered. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures.
Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.
“The best writer you’re not reading (yet)… Vanishing Treasures is composed of nearly two dozen hilarious, strange, totally true essays about the natural world that summon real wonder.” – Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
“A clarion call for preservation by way of a delightful bestiary.” – Kirkus Reviews
“There is a constant joy in the book… A sense throughout of delight and wonder, and a reminder that these emotions also matter—may even save us. This is the point.” – New Statesman
“[Rundell] illuminates this collection of essays with fable, legend, myth, and truth stranger than fiction… [she] urges everyone to think about what has already been lost and to use that as a call to action… Although it is a sobering glimpse at the destruction humanity has wrought on other living things, Vanishing Treasures is ultimately an uplifting and inspiring exploration of the wonder left in the world and how humanity can fit within it, and add to its extraordinary quality.” – Michelle Anya Anjirbag, Shelf Awareness
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