Month: May 2022

New This Week

May 17, 2022

This week’s new releases bring us two exciting titles that have dodged a long hold list! The first is a feminist gothic, full of secrets and curses, by a critically acclaimed author. The second is a perfectly timed memoir about determination, endurance, and a deep love of the outdoors – just what’s needed as we head into summer!

The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker

This sophomore novel from the successful author of Dietland has been highly anticipated by fans, but somehow has avoided accumulating a long list of holds. It’s the story of a reclusive artist on the run from a tragic past, and the secret family history of cursed heiresses she’s hiding.

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Endure by Cameron Hanes

This book packs its pages full of both memoir and motivation, telling the story of the author’s disconnected youth and how discovering the challenge and thrill of bowhunting changed his life and personal outlook forever. Whether you’re an avid lover of the outdoors or just looking for a kick in the pants to get your life moving, Cameron Hanes has what you’re looking for.

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New This Week

May 10, 2022

This week in new releases brings us compelling historical fiction by one of the best respected novelists in British history, and a heartwarming picture book about the importance of community. Act fast to avoid growing holds lists!

The Last White Rose by Alison Weir

Elizabeth of York is not only at the center of this novel, but lived her life in the middle of major historical events. She was the daughter of King Edward IV, the marital objective of King Richard III, the wife of Henry Tudor, and the mother of King Henry VIII. Despite her importance to history, her story is seldom told. Historical fiction fans now have the perfect opportunity to change that!

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Sylvie by Jean Reidy

Jean Reidy won readers’ hearts with Truman, the story of a very brave turtle who went in search of his girl. Truman the turtle makes another appearance in Sylvie, the story of a spider who watches over the people in an apartment building. Sylvie has always watched the lives of her people, where everything is just so, but lately something has been missing and her people might need her to come out of the shadows and help them find what they need.

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Novellas (Read a short book)

Check out some fantastic quick reads with these books that are all under 200 pages!

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

Book / Large Print / eBook / CD Audiobook / Audio eBook

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

A tale of music and memory and the journey into adulthood. Berie Carr recalls for us the summer of 1972, when she and her best friend, Sills, were 15. Driven by their restlessness, and making their own loose rules, they embark on a summer that both shatters and intensifies the bond between them.

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The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

When a Victorian scientist propels himself into future, he is delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. He soon realizes, however, that this beauty hides a dark and terrible secret, and all is not as perfect as it seems.

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Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

A mathematical adventure set in a two-dimensional plane world, populated by a hierarchical society of regular geometrical figures-who think and speak and have all too human emotions. By imagining the contact of beings from different dimensions, the author fully exploited the power of the analogy between the limitations of humans and those of his two-dimensional characters.

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The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

A young governess is sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans, Miles and Flora. Unsettled by a dark foreboding of menace within the house, she soon comes to believe that something malevolent is stalking the children in her care. But is the threat to her young charges really a malign and ghostly presence, or something else entirely?

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Passing by Nella Larsen

Clare Kendry is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to “pass” as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision. Clare’s interest in Irene turns into a homoerotic longing for Irene’s black identity that she abandoned and can never embrace again, and she is forced to grapple with her decision to pass for white in a way that is both tragic and telling.

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Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez

A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27 years earlier, determined to get to the bottom of the story. The more that is learned, the less is understood, and as the story races to its inexplicable conclusion, an entire society–not just a pair of murderers–is put on trial.

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Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all.

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We the Animals by Justin Torres

Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful.

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Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.

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Road Less Traveled (Read a book about traveling)

Hit the road without ever leaving the comfort of home by reading a book about travel. We have some ideas, or try one of your own!

An Innocent Abroad by Don George

More than 20 well-known writers and celebrities share the travel experiences that shaped their personalities and changed their lives. Contributors include Dave Eggers, Richard Ford, Pico Iyer, John Berendt, Alexander McCall Smith and Jane Smiley.

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The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton

Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why. With the same intelligence and insouciant charm he brought to How Proust Can Save Your Life, de Botton considers the pleasures of anticipation; the allure of the exotic, and the value of noticing everything from a seascape in Barbados to the takeoffs at Heathrow.

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Lands of Lost Borders by Kate Harris

Having the kind of personality that refuses to live between the lines, Kate Harris set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. That trip inspired her to quit the laboratory and return to bike the entire length of the Silk Road. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

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Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about “those little towns that get on the map — if they get on at all — only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi.” His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

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Dark Star Safari by Paul Theroux

In the travel-writing tradition that made Paul Theroux’s reputation, Dark Star Safari is a rich and insightful book whose itinerary is Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town: down the Nile, through Sudan and Ethiopia, to Kenya, Uganda, and ultimately to the tip of South Africa. Going by train, dugout canoe, “chicken bus,” and cattle truck, Theroux passes through some of the most beautiful — and often life-threatening — landscapes on earth.

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Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Vagabonding is about taking time off from your normal life – from six weeks to four months to two years – to discover and experience the world on your own terms. Veteran shoestring traveler Rolf Potts shows how anyone armed with an independent spirit can achieve the dream of extended overseas travel.

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A Pilgrimage to Eternity by Timothy Egan

Moved by his mother’s death and his Irish Catholic family’s complicated history with the church, Timothy Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers to force a reckoning with his own beliefs. He embarked on a thousand-mile pilgrimage through the theological cradle of Christianity to explore the religion in the world that it created.

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The Hiking Book from Hell by Are Kalvø

Sometime around his forties, Are Kalvø starts losing his friends … to the mountains. Friends who used to meet him at the pub are now hiking and skiing every weekend, and when they do show up, all they talk about is feeling at one with nature (without a hint of irony). When Are realizes he’s the only person who hasn’t posted a selfie on a mountain, he starts to wonder: does he have it all wrong? To find out, Are buys some ridiculously expensive gear and heads into the woods. The result of his sardonic trek is at once a smart and funny take-down of outdoors culture, and a reluctant surrender to nature’s undeniable pull.

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I Came All This Way to Meet You by Jami Attenberg

In this brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation, Jami Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” (Entertainment Weekly) and the “poet laureate of difficult families” (Kirkus Reviews)—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?

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Lady Spies (Read a book featuring a female spy)

Read any of these books (or one you find yourself) for a thrilling adventure full of danger and heroism as women participate in espionage for family, friends, and country.

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

In the aftermath of World War II, Charlie is desperately trying to find her cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France. The trail leads to Eve, who was recruited to work as a spy during World War I. Together, they work to uncover the betrayal of the Alice Network in World War I and find out what happened to Rose.

Book / Large Print / eBook / CD Audiobook / Audio eBook

The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini

During the Civil War, Elizabeth Van Lew, a real historical figure, followed her convictions to help the union, despite being a Virginian. She used her skills and access to the Confederacy to pass intelligence to the Union. Often overlooked in history books, her story is told here.

Book / Large Print / CD Audiobook / Audio eBook

The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff

In the aftermath of World War II, Grace finds a suitcase in Grand Central Terminal and is determined to find the owner of the photographs within. Learning that they were secret agents deployed to France to aid the resistance, Grace sets out to learn their fates.

Book / Large Print / CD Audiobook / Audio eBook

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

A seasoned spy, Sally is given the mission to smuggle the book Doctor Zhivago out of the USSR. She is paired with inexperienced Irina. This thrilling Cold War espionage novel is based off of a real CIA plot.

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Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

During the heights of World War II, two young women in a British spy plane crash in Nazi-occupied France. Captured by the Gestapo, “Verity” relives her past while hoping that her confession will stave off an execution.

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A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell

Virginia Hall was an American spy during World War II whose story has gone untold until recently. The first woman to deploy to occupied France, she worked to coordinate and aid Resistance agents all the way through Normandy.

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Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy by Karen Abbott

In this narrative nonfiction, the stories of four women spies on both sides of the Civil War are told. Each went on their journey a little differently and each one occupied one of the four roles featured in the title.

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Code Name: Lise by Larry Loftis

Odette Sansom served as a British agent in occupied France. Successfully completing missions put her on the radar of the German Secret Police, who eventually succeed in capturing her. Though she experienced horrible atrocities in prison, she never wavered in her courage and heroism.

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Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams

Ruth’s estranged twin sister, Iris, was suspected of defecting to Russia with her husband and children. When Ruth receives a postcard from Iris asking for help, Ruth enters a perilous game to help get her out.

Book / Large Print / eBook / CD Audiobook

New This Week

May 3, 2022

This week’s under-the-radar new releases include one pick perfect for fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, and one horror story described as Mexican Gothic combined with Rebecca. Whether you’re in the mood for a story grounded in classical Greek mythology or one that will give you chills, these new releases have you covered.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint

The epic drama of the Trojan War is at the center of this dramatic mythological story. The stories of three famous mythological women meet in this exciting and beautifully written historical novel: Clytemnestra, the wife of Trojan invader Agamemnon, Cassandra, the Trojan princess who can see the future but is cursed to never be believed, and Elektra, the daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon who plots to kill her mother.

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The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

In addition to being a creepy gothic tale worth reading on its own, The Hacienda has been optioned for TV by a major streaming platform – keep an eye open in the future! Set in the 1820s during the time of the Mexican War of Independence, the story follows Beatriz, who loses both her father and her home when the government is overthrown. When Don Rodolfo Solorzano proposes she accepts him as the answer to her problems, ignoring the rumors about the fate of his first wife. In true gothic style, however, there is something sinister happening in Beatriz’s new home.

Book / eBook / Audio eBook