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News & Stories
State-of-the-art library-on-wheels makes its debut, offering greater accessibility, modern features.
On Thursday, August 13, the library’s centennial celebration continued by Celebrating a Century of Fun at the Arlington Heights Senior Center.
Throughout 2026, we'll be sharing stories from our community that showcase the impact our library has had throughout the decades.
Your Next Great Read

Vivt︠s︡i t︠s︡ili : [roman]
Kuzni︠e︡t︠s︡ova, I︠E︡vhenii︠a︡,
880-05

The complex
Mahajan, Karan,
In a sprawling apartment complex in Delhi built by a powerful political patriarch, the members of the Chopra family struggle to build their own futures while living under the weight of his legacy. As India enters a time of political change, the family's ambitions, rivalries, and loyalties begin to collide. Sachin Chopra and his wife, Gita, attempt to start a new life in the United States, hoping to escape the pressures of the family compound. But the pull of home remains strong, especially as Sachin's uncle Laxman rises in a growing nationalist political movement and long-buried secrets begin to surface. As personal betrayals and political upheaval threaten the family's fragile unity, the Chopras must confront the true cost of power, ambition, and loyalty

How to get away with murder
Philipson, Rebecca,
" "If you picked up this book because you truly want to get away with murder, you will not be disappointed. Simply turn the page and we'll get started." This fresh debut thriller finds a Scotland Yard detective trying to find the author of a self-help book that promises quite literally to teach readers how to get away with murder, which seems to have inspired London's newest murderer. Detective Inspector Samantha Hansen has been on leave for six months, recovering from a breakdown she suffered at work, but when a fourteen-year-old girl is murdered in a local park, Sam jumps at the chance to return to the job and prove that she's still got what it takes to be the Yard's most successful homicide detective. One of the case's only leads is a copy of a self-help book found in the victim's backpack called How To Get Away With Murder by a man named Denver Brady. Brady claims to be the most successful serial killer of our time, which is why no one's ever heard of him. Chapter by chapter, he details his methodology and his past victims, and as Sam's investigation progresses and the details of the book go viral, Sam begins to suspect that there's more to the author than what he's revealed. But in order to find a killer and get justice for young Charlotte, Sam must learn to trust her instincts once again, before Denver Brady--or someone else--really does get away with murder."--

Discipline
Pham, Larissa,
This novel follows Christine, a writer touring for her debut book, which draws on a past relationship with a former professor. While traveling, she reflects on questions of artistic creation, ethics, and personal responsibility through conversations with acquaintances, former partners, and strangers. Christine's reflections are disrupted when the professor who inspired her novel contacts her after a long period of silence, initiating a renewed exchange. When he invites her to visit him on a remote island off the coast of Maine, Christine is forced to confront issues of power, authorship, and control over personal narratives. The novel explores the complexities of intimacy, memory, and the boundaries between lived experience and artistic representation

The castaways
Hilderbrand, Elin,
"With rumors of infidelity straining Greg and Tess MacAvoy's marriage, the couple head out on their sailboat on early-summer day to celebrate their wedding anniversary, hoping the roughest waters are behind them. But in a mysterious accident off Nantucket, they drown, leaving behind two small children as well as three couples who have long been their closest friends. The tragedy brings to the surface long-simmering conflicts and emotions, and the MacAvoy's six grieving friends find themselves unprepared for the revelations of secret upon secret as they struggle to answer this question: What happened to Greg and Tess? The Castaways probes the boundaries of friendship and forgiveness as it tells a page-turning story of passion, betrayal, and suspense" -- Back cover

Two can play
Hazelwood, Ali,
"An enemies-to-lovers spicy novella set in the world of video gaming from the New York Times bestselling author of Problematic Summer Romance-now in print and ebook! Viola Bowen has the chance of a lifetime: to design a video game based on her all-time favorite book series. The only problem? Her colead is Jesse F-ing Andrews, aka her archnemesis. Jesse has made it abundantly clear over the years that he wants nothing to do with her-and Viola has no idea why. When their bosses insist a wintry retreat is the perfect team-building exercise, Viola can't think of anything worse. Being freezing cold in a remote mountain lodge knowing Jesse is right next door? No, thank you. But as the snow piles on, Viola discovers there's more to Jesse than she knew, and heat builds in more ways than one"-- Provided by publisher

How to commit a postcolonial murder
McConigley, Nina Swamidoss,
"A bold, inventive, and fiercely original debut novel that begins with an uncle dead and his tween niece's private confession to the reader-she and her sister killed him, and they blame the British."--

A box full of darkness
St. James, Simone,
"Simone St. James, the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel, returns with her scariest, most shocking novel yet in this pulse-pounding story about siblings who return to the house they fled 18 years before, called back by the ghost of their long-missing brother and his haunting request: Come home. Strange things happen in Fell, New York. A mysterious drowning at the town's roadside motel. The unexplained death of a young girl whose body is left by the railroad tracks. For the Esmie siblings--Violet, Vail, and Dodie--the final straw was the shocking disappearance of their little brother. It started as a normal game of hide-and-seek. The three closed their eyes and counted to ten while Ben went to hide. But this time, they never found their brother--he was gone and the ongoing search efforts turned up no clues. As their parents grew increasingly distant, Violet, Vail, and Dodie were each haunted by visions and frightening events that made them leave town and never look back. Violet still sees dead people--spirits who remind her of Sister, the menacing presence that terrorized her for years. And now after two decades running from their past, it's time for a homecoming. Because Ben is back, and he's ready to lead them to the answers they've longed for and long feared. If the ghosts of Fell don't get to them first. A Box Full of Darkness is another propulsive thriller from the author of The Broken Girls and The Book of Cold Cases, a surprising horror story from a writer who is "particularly gifted at doling out twists" (The New York Times)"--

The writing in the water : a thriller
Ajvide Lindqvist, John, 1968-
Julia Malmros is thriving. A former police officer making her way in the world of crime fiction, she's turning popularity into fame by writing the next book in a world-renowned suspense series. To help her research, Julia connects with Kim Ribbing. More hacker than man, Kim bears a dark past that's the very antithesis of the promising future she has planned for herself. They share an undeniable spark--yet it's likely to implode. That's the least of Julia's worries. Hounded by publicity, Julia retreats to her cottage in the Stockholm archipelago. It's there that she begins to reevaluate her life, reunite with Kim...and return to her investigative roots after tragedy unfolds on a nearby pier. The victim: a billionaire, her childhood friend. Julia's ex, Jonny, leads the official investigation, but Julia knows there's no such thing as coincidence. And as she and Kim follow the trail of cash, corruption follows dangerously close behind

Departure(s)
Barnes, Julian,
"Shortly after our narrator, a writer named Julian, begins this compact book by discussing the workings of involuntary memory, he interrupts himself with a bulletin to the reader: "There will be a story--or a story within the story--but not just yet." Of course, whether Departure(s) is mostly fiction or not, there is a lot of its author in it, including Barnes's reckoning with the blood disorder he has been living with since he was diagnosed in 2020, his long preoccupation with dying and grief, and his mordant sense of the indignities and lost opportunities we're prey to in love. The story he promises to deliver is a love story, that of two friends he met at university in the 1960s, that time of touted but rarely experienced sexual freedom. Julian played matchmaker to Stephen (tall, gangling, uncertain) and Jean (tart and attractive); as the third wheel he was deeply invested in the success of their love and insulted when they broke up. Time is swift, and forty years later, he tries again, watching as their rekindled affair produces joys, betrayals, and disappointments of a different order. "Life and memory can be so . . . quixotic, don't you find?" Barnes uses both his novelistic memory and his (real?) personal diary entries to examine not just the quixotic relationship of Jean and Stephen but his writer's eye upon it, and how his efforts in their behalf add up in the end. Having promised them he'd never write about them, he breaks the promise to fulfill one, amply, to his readers, in this delightful and poignant novelist's game that only Julian Barnes knows how to play"--

The moonlight runner
Robards, Karen,
"Ireland, 1918. In a world brutalized by the Great War and devastated by the Spanish flu, twenty-two-year-old Rynn Carmichael is suddenly pulled into the war of independence when Donal O'Reilly, the boy she has loved for most of her life, takes up gunrunning in support of the rebellion. Raised in a small Irish village on the shores of Donegal Bay, Rynn is working as a nurse in a convalescent home for soldiers wounded in the Great War when she overhears a British officer gloating over the trap that has been set for Irish gunrunners bringing a boat full of smuggled arms ashore. Knowing that Donal must be involved, she rushes out at midnight to warn the incoming boat, only to find herself caught up in a terrifying and tragic series of events that take her from the glittering ballrooms of London to the narrow back alleys of Dublin as she and those she loves fight for their lives and their country. A bold, sweeping epic with an unforgettable heroine, bestselling author Karen Robards' latest novel is a powerful testament to love, courage, and the eternal struggle for freedom."--Provided by publisher

And the crowd went wild
Phillips, Susan Elizabeth,
After experiencing a highly public professional setback, Dancy Flynn seeks privacy at the secluded lake house of her former high school boyfriend, whom she has not seen in nearly twenty years. Clint Garrett, now a professional quarterback for the Chicago Stars, is still affected by the end of their teenage relationship and is reluctant to welcome the unexpected disruption to his carefully managed life. He arranges for Dancy to stay in a renovated railroad caboose on the property while she works to reassess her career and personal circumstances. As Dancy attempts to rebuild her professional reputation and Clint focuses on his athletic career, unresolved issues from their past resurface. Complicating matters are family dynamics, community concerns, outside relationships, and shared responsibilities. Their renewed proximity prompts both to reconsider their past relationship and the possibility of a future together

Skate it till you make it
Mazarura, Rufaro Faith,
"Ari Shumba never expected to make it to the Winter Games, let alone be the one to lead Great Britain's women's hockey team through the most important competition of their lives. But when an unexpected injury catapults her to the role of team captain, Ari reluctantly shoulders the responsibility, all while trying to dodge her toxic ex. Drew Dlamini has always feared taking risks. But after uncovering a family secret, breaking up with his ex-girlfriend, and dropping out of medical school, he's desperate for a fresh start. So when he finds himself in London for the holidays, he decides to rekindle his hidden dream of becoming a professional photographer. When Ari and Drew bump into each other on New Year's Eve, neither one is looking to fall in love. Despite their instant chemistry, they're from opposite sides of the Atlantic, and when they reveal all of their red flags, they realize that things between them would never work out. But then, when their paths unexpectedly cross two months later in the snowy Swiss Alps, memories of what they almost did that night resurface. And the combination of complicated exes, over- involved families, and stress-inducing teammates convinces them that the perfect solution to their problems is to fake date their way through the Games. After all, there's no risk of falling in love if it is doomed from the start . . . right?"-- Provided by publisher

The friend situation
Parish, Lyra,
"After the charming billionaire and I successfully play matchmaker, he asks me to be his fake fiancée. Saying yes might be the biggest slip-up of my life, but what are friends for? Weston Calloway is the last man I imagined meeting after one of my boring breakups. But there he was, in a dive bar, drinking cheap whiskey, looking like my next favorite mistake. Instead of hooking up, we become secret friends. When his jealous ex stirs up unnecessary drama, Weston asks me to go public with our friendship, but things quickly escalate and we lose control of the situation. Now, we're roommates, and I'm wearing a diamond ring that he slipped on my finger. This game may be fun, but we agreed to one unbreakable rule--no falling in love"--Page 4 of cover

This is not about us fiction
Goodman, Allegra,
"Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubenstein family, it could go either way. When their beloved older sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into decades of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives-divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals-their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible. With This is Not About Us, master storyteller Allegra Goodman--whose prior collection was heralded as "one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life" (The Boston Globe)--returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, This is Not About Us is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters. A big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations"--

Peace be with you! my words to the church and to the world
Leo XIV, Pope, 1955-
With his first public appearance before the world, Pope Leo XIV expressed hope for an 'unarmed and disarming' peace. Collected in a beautiful edition are the sermons and speeches Pope Leo XIV has delivered since his May 8, 2025, election. These initial addresses convey some of Pope Leo XIV's priorities: the primacy of God, communion in the Church, and the pursuit of peace. His countless calls for reconciliation are addressed not only to politics, but to the heart of every person

Better ways to read the Bible transforming a weapon of harm into a tool of healing
Lambert, Zach W., 1988-
"A popular pastor dismantles four common lenses for reading the Bible that almost always lead to harm before offering four revolutionary lenses that promote healing and wholeness"--

The encyclopedia of ugly fashion a hilarious introspective of history's best worst fashion trends
Żebrowska, Karolina,
Revel in the bad decisions of others with this collection of history's most bizarre fashion trends that will leave you asking, "Who would even wear this?" Featuring historical context and illustrations pulled directly out of the past, fashion historian and influencer Karolina Zebrowska appraises each look with an equal amount of thoughtfulness and humor. From 16th-century German hats shaped like plates to the 1950s bullet bra, this unique capsule not only uncovers the intention behind these kooky, sometimes oppressive, always outrageous trends but theorizes how they all went so horribly wrong. Perfect for fashion fanatics, history buffs, and everyone in between, this book is sure to provide hours of entertainment

A giant leap how AI is transforming healthcare and what that means for our future
Wachter, Robert M.,
In A Giant Leap, physician and healthcare expert Robert Wachter explores how artificial intelligence is beginning to transform medicine. Drawing on interviews with doctors, tech innovators, and policymakers, he shows how AI is helping with everything from drafting notes and interpreting images to recommending treatments and guiding surgeries. Wachter honestly addresses the risks-bias, errors, and misinformation-while highlighting AI's potential to improve care, reduce clinician burnout, and enhance patient experiences. Blending engaging stories with clear analysis, this book is a practical, hopeful guide to the future of healthcare in the age of AI

The deserving what the lives of the condemned reveal about American justice
Vartkessian, Elizabeth S. (Elizabeth Stanislawa), 1981-
"Elizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist. She isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context. Founder and director of nonprofit mitigation team Advancing Real Change Inc., Vartkessian weaves powerful, gripping stories from her ... career into an inspiring argument for dignity in American justice. Her unique experience has taught her that when personal or generational trauma enters the body, it finds its way out eventually, sometimes through violence. She contends that we cannot hold her clients solely responsible for their actions, nor can we continue to stomach harsh penalties that deny real justice to perpetrators and victims alike"--

Slip life in the middle of eating-disorder recovery
Tarpley, Mallary Tenore,
"Written by journalist and professor at the University of Texas-Austin Mallary Tenore Tarpley, Slip offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding eating disorder recovery and interweaves poignant personal stories, immersive reporting, and cutting-edge science. When Mallary Tenore Tarpley lost her mother at eleven years old, she wanted to stop time. If growing up meant living without her mother, then she wanted to stay little forever. What started as small acts of food restriction soon turned into a full-blown eating disorder, and a year later, Tarpley was admitted to Boston's Children's Hospital. With honesty and grace, Slip chronicles Tarpley's childhood struggles with anorexia to her present-day experiences grappling with recovery. This book tells Tarpley's story, but it also transcends her personal narrative. A journalist by trade, Tarpley interviewed and surveyed hundreds of patients, doctors, and researchers to provide a deeper understanding of eating disorder treatment. She draws on this original reporting, as well as cutting-edge science, to illuminate what has changed in the years since she was first diagnosed. As Tarpley came to learn, "full recovery" from an eating disorder is complicated. And that idea provides the basis for the groundbreaking new framework explored in this book: that there is a "middle place" between sickness and full recovery, a place where slips are accepted as part of the process but progress is always possible. With new insights and an uplifting message, Slip brings much-needed attention to an issue that affects many. It offers a beacon of hope with its revolutionary perspective on recovery. This inspiring and life-affirming book is a must-read for individuals with eating disorders, their loved ones, educators, medical professionals, and anyone seeking to understand eating disorders and the path to recovery"--

After the flood inside Bob Dylan's memory palace
Polito, Robert, 1951-
"Blending biography and archival history, After the Flood asks of Bob Dylan, "If your dreams are fulfilled at twenty, what do you do with the rest of your life?" A prevailing narrative goes: Bob Dylan, the voice of Sixties counterculture, disappeared in the 1970s, then released arguably the worst music of his career in the 1980s-only to be resurrected in 2016, when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Dylan's concerts once began with an announcer intoning a deadpan version of just such a narrative. That is not this story. Drawing on thousands of pages of archival materials, After the Flood reveals Dylan's output during the last three decades as his most ambitious yet. Across an abecedarium of chapters surveying his albums, performances, films, and books since the early 1990s, celebrated poet and biographer Robert Polito shows how Dylan evolved a late musical style that has embodied and resisted its era-interweaving Ovid and Americana, film noir and the Civil War. Imaginatively researched, After the Flood is both an essential revision and continuation of the Dylan saga"-- Provided by publisher

The high-protein plate
DeVaux, Rachael,
"In The High Protein Plate, Rachael DeVaux, New York Times bestselling author of Rachael's Good Eats, shows how anyone at any stage of life can easily incorporate protein into their diet."--Amazon

US World War I & II records cheat sheet discovering 20th century soldiers
MacEntee, Thomas,
If you're tracing the brave men and women in your family who served during World War I or World War II, you're in the right place! These twentieth-century conflicts generated a vast range of military and civilian documents--many of which survive to this day in archives, libraries, and online databases. With so many record types out there, knowing where to start can be a challenge. This cheat sheet cuts through the confusion by showing you the core collections, how to interpret them, and how to find those hidden gems that reveal a deeper story of service and sacrifice. Armed with the tips here, you'll be ready to uncover new details about your ancestors' wartime experiences and honor their legacy for generations to come

Manufacturing delusion how the left uses brainwashing, indoctrination, and propaganda against you
Sexton, Buck,
"A former CIA analyst draws on his experience combatting jihadi terror movements and the history of totalitarian regimes to show how citizens lose touch with reality. Some of history's greatest empires have devolved into genocidal lunacy--often with shocking compliance from their own people. What methods can create this madness? In Manufacturing Delusion, acclaimed conservative commentator and former CIA officer Buck Sexton offers answers. Drawing on his intelligence experience, expertise in crowd psychology, knowledge of propaganda, and research into some of history's darkest totalitarian chapters, he equips you to identify mind control tactics used to form compliant citizens. He explores the eight tactics of mass delusion through examining: how Stalin used Pavlovian mind games to establish absolute control; how Chinese thought reform transformed opposition into terrorized pawns; how Jihadist preachers replace shared humanity with weaponized fear. Using these examples and others, Sexton walks you through a history of controlling regimes and the methods they used to create passive citizens. More importantly, he shows you how some of the early stages of mass delusion have already occurred right here in the United States of America, on issues of public health, gender, and racial justice. An unnerving explanation of how Orwell's 1984 could become reality, Manufacturing Delusion is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how to stand strong when everyone around them is going crazy."--Amazon

Passport to flavor 100 global dishes you can make anywhere
Cheshire, Abby,
"Journey alongside private yacht chef and social media influencer Abby Cheshire to fourteen port cities to bring recipes from all over the globe to the comfort of your home."--Page 4 of cover

How to live a meaningful life using design thinking to unlock purpose, joy, and flow every day
Burnett, Bill, 1957-
How to Live a Meaningful Life is a nonfiction self-help book by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans that explores approaches to finding meaning and purpose in everyday life. Drawing on design thinking principles developed through Stanford University's Life Design Lab, the authors examine contemporary research on well-being and personal fulfillment. The book presents practical strategies for cultivating qualities such as engagement, coherence, community, and reflection, with the goal of helping readers make intentional choices about how they live and work. Emphasizing small, actionable steps, the authors offer tools intended to support personal growth and life satisfaction

Once there was a town the memory books of a lost Jewish world
Ziegelman, Jane,
"A powerful exploration of the books created by Jewish Holocaust survivors to honor their lost world By the close of World War II, six million Jews had been erased from the face of the earth. Those who eluded death had lost their homes, families, and entire way of life. Their response was quintessentially Jewish. From a people with a long-history of self-narration, survivors gathered in groups and wrote books, yizkor books, remembering all that had been destroyed. Jane Ziegelman's Once There Was a Town takes readers on a journey through this largely uncharted body of writing and the vanished world it depicts. Once There Was a Town resounds with the voices of rich and poor, shopkeepers and tradespeople, scholars and peddlers, Zionists and Communists, men and women telling stories of the towns that were their homes. Stops are made in the bustling market squares where Jewish merchants catered to local farmers; study houses where men recited Torah; kitchens where homemakers baked 20-pound loaves of bread; cemeteries where mourners conversed with departed loved ones and wooded groves where young couples met for the occasional moonlit tryst. Of the many towns on Ziegelman's itinerary, she always circles back to Luboml, her family's ancestral shtetl and the point of departure for her own journey of discovery. In conversation with classics by IB Singer and Roman Vishniac, Once There Was a Town is a landmark of rediscovery, and a love song to a vanished world"-- Provided by publisher

Lonely Planet. Los Angeles & Southern California

Moon handbooks. U.S. civil rights trail : a traveler's guide to the people, places, and events that made the movement

Making the low notes a life in music
Harrison, Bill,
"Bill Harrison chronicles his journey from bumbling music student to successful professional bass player in late twentieth-century Chicago. Told with a mixture of wry humor and hard-won insight, Making the Low Notes gives readers an insider's peek into the prosaic life of a working musician. Harrison describes periods of camaraderie, disappointment, pain, and joy as he toils in venues as divergent as bowling alleys, jazz clubs, recording studios, hotels, orchestra pits, and concert halls. He shares the stage with jazz greats, including Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, Clark Terry, Bunky Green, and Max Roach. Along the way, the bassist struggles to reconcile the dissonance between his desire to be heard and his impulse to hide silently in the shadows" --

Saved a war reporter's mission to make it home
Hall, Benjamin,
When veteran war reporter Benjamin Hall woke up in Kyiv on the morning of March 14, 2022, he had no idea that, within hours, Russian bombs would nearly end his life. As a journalist for Fox News, Hall had worked in dangerous war zones like Syria and Afghanistan, but with three young daughters at home, life on the edge was supposed to be a thing of the past. Yet when Russia viciously attacked Ukraine in February 2022, Hall quickly volunteered to go. A few weeks later, while on assignment, Hall and his crew were blown up in a Russian strike. With Hall himself gravely injured and stuck in Kyiv, it was unclear if he would make it out alive

From the corner of the oval
Dorey-Stein, Beck,
"In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein was just scraping by in DC when a posting on Craigslist landed her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama's stenographers. For five years, Beck was a part of the elite team of men and women who accompanied the president wherever he went, recorder and mic in hand. She got to know everyone from the White House butler to the secret servicemen, advance team, speechwriters, photographers, and press secretaries, and on whirlwind trips across time zones, she forged friendships with a tight group of fellow travelers in the bubble--young men and women who, like her, left their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president. But as she learned the ropes of protocol, Beck became romantically entangled with one of the President's closest aides...who was already otherwise engaged... Set against the backdrop of a White House full of glamour, drama, and intrigue, this is the compulsively readable story of a young woman finding friends, falling in love, getting her heart broken, finding her voice as a writer, and finding herself in the process"--

Normal a mother and her beautiful son
Newman, Magdalena,
"A moving memoir from the mother of a child with Treacher Collins Syndrome, with a foreword by R.J. Palacio, author of Wonder"--

Don't buy what I'm selling on breaking up with advertising and finally learning to love my whole, fat self
Chekowsky, Lu,
"As a high-level advertising creative director for 14 years, Lu Chekowsky willed inanimate objects to life and made people want to buy stuff they didn't need. Her colleagues called her "Mary Manifesto" because she could whip up an emotional ad campaign like no one else. Need someone to channel Michael Jordan so people will line up and buy his latest sneaker? That's Lu. Need to convince a cranky teen heartthrob to take his shirt off for an ad designed to get teenage girls across America to swoon? That's her too. It was a regular workday when she made same-day cross-country trips between New York and LA to satisfy the CEOs who counted on her to pump up their profits--ignoring her own voice and using it in service of their company's bottom line. Chekowsky was great at her job because she'd trained for it her whole life. She'd gotten the memo about how worthless her body was at moving products--because she was the one who wrote it. As someone whose body was always far from what the world held up as ideal, Chekowsky grew up trying to find a place where she could fit in. Everywhere she looked, the images she saw were designed to make girls feel terrible. The only person who could make her feel worthy was her larger-than-life mom; but even that was complicated when her mother got sick with cancer when she was just eleven years old. For years, Chekowsky tried to look past what it felt like to be underestimated by her male colleagues, the 14-hour work days spent satisfying the demands of the latest celebrity/boss/pop star/social media app, and her work that required her to, every day, perpetuate unrealistic beauty standards, before she went home and binged alone on bags of takeout."--

And finally matters of life and death
Marsh, Henry, 1950-
"From the bestselling neurosurgeon and author of Do No Harm, comes Henry Marsh's And Finally, an unflinching and deeply personal exploration of death, life and neuroscience. As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age. But he is also more entranced than ever by the mysteries of science and the brain, the beauty of the natural world and his love for his family. Elegiac, candid, luminous and poignant, And Finally is ultimately not so much a book about death, but a book about life and what matters in the end"--

Tart misadventures of an anonymous chef
Slutty Cheff,
"When Slutty Cheff finds herself bored and fed-up with her 9-5 job in corporate marketing, she turns to the only thing that she really likes to do: cooking. So she quits her job, swaps emails for emulsions, and sets off to pursue her dreams of becoming a chef. The world of London's fine dining restaurants is so much more than she imagined: it's more challenging, and more exciting too. There are the exhausting lows of sixty-hour work weeks in windowless kitchens, and the shock of stepping into the changing room as the only woman. There are the thrilling highs of a busy night, when service is running smoothly; electrifying run-ins with hot bartenders and even hotter chefs; and, always, the exhilaration of cycling hands-free through a city that is still sleeping, on a morning where anything can happen. This is a story about searching for your purpose, and experiencing and embracing life to the fullest along the way. The pleasure and the chaos too..."--

Run to overcome the inspiring story of an American champion's long-distance quest to achieve a big dream
Keflezighi, Meb,
The inspirational story of Meb Keflezighi, the first American man in 31 years to win the Boston Marathon

How I learned to understand the world a memoir
Rosling, Hans,
The late WHO advisor, co-founder of Sweden's Doctors Without Borders traces his remarkable career spent in environments ranging from an emergency clinic in Mozambique to the World Economic Forum at Davos

Destroy this house : a memoir
Uhle, Amanda,
"The Long family's love was fierce, their lifestyle bizarre, and their deceptions countless. Once her parents were gone, Amanda Uhle realized she was closer to them than anyone else, yet she found herself utterly confounded by the lives they had led. Amanda's striving fashion designer mother and her charismatic wheeler-dealer father wove a complex life together that spanned ten different homes across five states over forty perplexing years. Throughout her childhood, as her mother's hoarding disorder flourished and her father's schemes crumbled, contradictions abounded. They bartered for dental surgery and drove their massive Lincoln Town Car to the food bank. When financial ruin struck, they abandoned their repossessed mansion for humble parish housing, and Amanda's father became a preacher. They swung between being filthy rich and dirt poor, devious and virtuous, lonely and loved, fake and real. In Destroy This House, Amanda sets out to document her parents' unbelievable exploits and her own hard-won escape into independence. With humor and tenderness, Uhle has crafted a heartfelt and utterly unique memoir, capturing the raucousness, pain, joy, and ultimately, the boundless love that exists between all parents and children." --

Jimmy Page the anthology
Page, Jimmy,
Documents Jimmy Page's musical career through personally-selected material from his rich personal archives, including guitars and stage costumes, rare posters and vinyl pressings, correspondence and diary entries, and previously unseen photographs. Each image is accompanied by new text provided by the artist, placing it within the story of his career

War story sometimes the real fight starts after the battle
Elliott, Steven (Steven V.), 1981-
"Everyone knows about Pat Tillman, the hero who didn't come home after a tragic encounter with friendly fire in Afghanistan. Aftermath is the untold story of what happened in the accident's wake--and the fall and unlikely redemption of Steven Elliot, a fellow soldier behind the bullets that killed Tillman. Though Elliott was only a young man in his first gunfight, following his superior officer's direction, the shame and regret over his actions wrecked his life. In the years that followed, he suffered from PTSD, depression, and alcohol addiction--and saw no way out beyond suicide. But then a supernatural encounter with God changed everything, restored his broken marriage, and set him on the path to a new mission of helping veterans through the trauma that too often comes in the aftermath of their service. A story of war and faith, love and tragedy, and ultimate healing"--

Question 7
Flanagan, Richard, 1961-
"By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die. At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, place and memory is about how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves"--

Tell me everything a memoir
Kelly, Minka, 1980-
"Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly's life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. At times they even lived in storage units. She reconnected with her father, Aerosmith's Rick Dufay, and eventually made her way to Los Angeles, where she landed the role of a lifetime on Friday Night Lights. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer. She has poured her soul into the pages of this book, which ultimately tells a story of triumph over adversity, and how resilience and love are all we have in the end."--

Living history
Clinton, Hillary Rodham

Paradise
Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321

Home
Hanson, Whitney,
A first collection of poetry from a 20-year-old university student

An introduction to poetry
Kennedy, X. J

The complete poems of Emily Dickinson
Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886
The only edition currently available that contains all of Dickinson's poems. The works were originally gathered by editor Johnson and published in a three-volume set in 1955

Essential prose
Snyder, Gary, 1930-
"This volume gathers the essential prose writings of our 'poet laureate of Deep Ecology,' spanning the entire arc of his seventy-year career and sounding his deepest themes: How can we learn to tread lightly on the land we inhabit? What can ancient faiths and traditions teach us about living creatively and in community in the here and now? A companion to Snyder's Collected Poems, it completes the definitive Library of America edition of his writings, which has been prepared in close collaboration with the author by his friend and longtime editor, Jack Shoemaker. The volume begins with essays, memoirs, and poetic notebooks from Snyder's landmark first prose collection, Earth House Hold: Technical Notes & Queries to Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries (1969). In 'Lookout's Journal,' he describes his life as a young fire spotter in the mountains of Washington State, and his emerging sense of vocation as a poet; in 'Spring Sessin at Shokoku-ji' and 'Suwa-no-se Island and the Banyan Ashram,' he recounts his experiences as an initiate in a Kyoto monastery and in communal living on a remote island in the Ryukyus; and in 'Buddhism and the Coming Revolution,' he foresees the 'nation-shaking implications' of personal enlightenment and spiritual discovery. Selections from He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village: The Dimensions of a Hidden Myth (1979) reflect Snyder's lifelong studies in Native American religions and cultures. His sense of humor and conversational brilliance shine through in wide-ranging interviews from The Real Work 91980) and elsewhere. In chapters from Passage Through India (1984), his account of a six-month tour through South Asia with his wife Joanne and his friend Allen Ginsberg, he explores holy sites both ancient and modern, from the temples at Khajuraho to the Dalai Lama's residence-in-exile at Dharamshala. In The practice of the Wild (1990), now considered a classic of American environmental writing in the tradition of Walden and A Sand County Almanac, Snyder offers an "exquisite, far-sighted articulation of what freedom, wildness, and grace mean, using the lessons of the planet to teach us how to live," as Gretel Ehrlich puts it. Essays from A place in Space (1995) and Back on the Fire (2007) explore bioregionalism, forestry practices, sustainability, and the ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada, where Snyder has lived since 1970. The Great Clod: Notes and Memoirs on Nature and History in East Asia (2016), included here in its entirety, meditates on the intersections of nature and culture in Asian art, literature, and history over millennia."

Negotiations poems
Birdsong, Destiny O., 1981-
"What makes a self? In her remarkable debut collection of poems, Destiny O. Birdsong writes fearlessly towards this question. Laced with ratchetry, yet hungering for its own respectability, Negotiations is about what it means to live in this America, about Cardi B and top-tier journal publications, about autoimmune disease and the speaker's intense hunger for her own body-a surprise of self-love in the aftermath of both assault and diagnosis. It's a series of love letters to black women, who are often singled out for abuse and assault, silencing and tokenism, fetishization and cultural appropriation in ways that throw the rock, then hide the hand. It is a book about tenderness and an indictment of people and systems that attempt to narrow black women's lives, their power. But it is also an examination of complicity-both a narrative and a black box warning for a particular kind of self-healing that requires recognizing culpability when and where it exists"--

Horses poems
Skeets, Jake,
"Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Jake Skeets's highly anticipated second collection patiently tracks the impacts of climate change on the land and its myriad inhabitants"-- Provided by publisher

The poetry of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy
"Over 125 poetic companions for all life's ups and downs. The Buddha once told a disciple that good spiritual friends are the whole of holy life. The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in such spiritual friendship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection--poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago. The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice--the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can't be matched by other modes of writing. Its unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets' lives. A short essay at the back of the book on "Mindful Reading" helps readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and illustrates the similarities between meditation and the mindful reading of poetry. Brehm also includes a guided meditation on sound that helps readers appreciate the sonic qualities of poetry and shows how the anthology might be used in ongoing spiritual practice"--

Two minds poems
Siskel, Callie,
"Does loss define us, or do we define loss? Tracing the duality of grief as it reverberates through a family, Callie Siskel wrestles with questions of identity and inheritance in precise, lucid poetry. Two Minds indulges and therefore exposes the vanity of turning private pain into art and the pursuit of self-revelation. Drawing on ekphrasis, ars poetica, and the prose poem, Siskel expands the elegiac genre as she oscillates between childhood and adulthood, art and mythology, as well as the natural and domestic world. At once cerebral and emotional, Two Minds is an essential meditation on the ways that loss cleaves and doubles our perceptive power."--

Living nations, living words : an anthology of first peoples poetry
"A powerful, moving anthology that celebrates the breadth of Native poets writing today. Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and unequivocal contributions to American poetry. This companion anthology features each poem and poet from the project to offer readers a chance to hold the wealth of poems in their hands. With work from Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Long Soldier, among others, Living Nations, Living Words showcases, as Joy Harjo writes in her stirring introduction, "poetry [that] emerges from the soul of a community, the heart and lands of the people. In this country, poetry is rooted in the more than 500 living indigenous nations. Living Nations, Living Words is a representative offering.""--

When death takes something from you give it back Carl's book
Aidt, Naja Marie, 1963-
"In March 2015, Naja Marie Aidt's son Carl died at twenty-five years old in a tragic accident. When Death Takes Something from You, Give It Back describes the first year after that devastating phone call, until the shock slowly wears off. It is at once a sober account of life after losing a child--showing how grief transforms your relationship to reality, your loved ones, and time--and a book about the language of poetry, loss, and love. How do you approach the impossible to write about your deceased child? The book's complex form enacts the rupture and process of assembling the pieces. There are short prose sections addressed to Carl and intense lyric passages. There are fragments from the present that merge with flashbacks and journal entries from the past. Quotes appear throughout from an array of literary voices, woven together with Naja Marie Aidt's own voice. This multifarious book defies genre or any singular description"--

Late in the day poems 2010-2014
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-2018,

Ovid's Metamorphoses the Arthur Golding translation, 1567
Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D

100 essential American poems
This compilation of great American poetry contains some of the most fondly remembered works of all time. Representing the earliest days of the Nation through the golden age of the 19th century and up to the present day, this classic collection also includes the lyrics of canonical songs, from "The Star-Spangled Banner" to "This Land is Your Land." Each poet's work is preceded by an introduction.--From publisher description

The Emily Dickinson cookbook recipes from Emily's table alongside the poems that inspire them
Osborne, Arlyn

Brawler stories
Groff, Lauren,
"Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region--from New England to Florida to California--these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans' dark and light angels"--

The Italian summer kitchen timeless recipes for la dolce vita
Whims, Cathy,
"For a culinary tour of Italy, or a master class in creating the nation's many regional gems in your home kitchen, you couldn't ask for a better tour guide than Cathy Whims. Cathy brings together dishes from Italy's many and varied regions, united by her masterful interpretation of cucina povera - literally 'food of the poor', which means fresh produce, local meats, handmade pasta and pizza and simple cooking methods. These recipes for drinks, appetisers, pasta, pizza, risottos, meat and fish and desserts are united not by region but by feeling: everything is authentically Italian yet easy for the home cook to create no matter where they live"--

A proposal to die for
Harper, Molly,
"A fast-paced, witty, and delightful new mystery about a former wedding planner whose biggest job yet is threatened by a dead body (or two). Jessamine Bricker loves a plan. Contingencies and pros and cons lists are her love language, and because of that, her proposal planning business is thriving. But with rising rent costs, she jumps at the chance to plan a proposal between her snobby high school classmate, Diana, and her very wealthy boyfriend, Trenton Tillard ... the Fourth. Jess joins Diana's bachelorette retreat at the family-run Golden Ash resort. But their first day is anything but relaxing: Diana is furious about the spa's "no cell phone" rule, the couple next door is fighting, and Jess swears she just saw a drug deal go down. To top it all off, she's warned to stay out of the woods by the gruff and sexy chef, Dean Osbourne. Is this a retreat or a horror movie? As Jess tries to do her job while placating the bride-to-be and her increasingly over-the-top demands, she finds herself spending time with Dean-just to avoid the drama, of course. But when an "accident" claims the life of one guest and Jess discovers another body (in the sauna of all places), it's clear secrets abound at the Golden Ash. Now it's up to Jess to unravel the mysteries here in the mountains--before she's silenced for good"--

The mother-daughter book club
Patterson, Susan, 1957-
"Between their busy lives and their far-flung residences, the Mother-Daughter Book Club--four longtime college friends and their five daughters--more often discuss the books on their nightstands via 2 a.m. texts than in-person meetings. And maybe it's just as well, after what happened at their last get-together... So it's an emotional reunion when they finally gather again, this time on the spectacular shores of Italy's Lake Como. Sightseeing excursions, reminiscing fueled by "Como-politans," and a hint of vacation romance all build toward the book club's trademark "Night of Secrets." These friends, and sometimes rivals, are close readers--of novels, memoirs, and of each other. But as the years and the distance cast shadows and doubt, confidences and sympathies turn into surprising revelations"--

Die for me
Obuobi, Shirlene,
"A stay-up-all-night, smart, spicy romance following a doctor who finds herself falling for an alluring, much-younger man with a deadly secret. Sean's not in the market for love. The only female, let alone Black, interventional cardiologist at her hospital, she's watched too many of her male colleagues divorce their first wives to marry younger models-and then there's the abusive relationship she's spent the better part of her early 30s healing from. Her passions are reserved for her best friend, her goddaughter, and her job. Then she meets Julian. Brooding, beautiful and eleven years her junior. In short: A bad idea. Julian pursues her in a way that sets off alarm bells in her mind, but she finds herself unable to resist their undeniable chemistry-even starts fantasizing about him in dreams that feel altogether too real. They also have a lot in common despite their age gap. So, to hell with it: If men can date younger, why can't she? But the more Sean gets to know him, the more impossible Julian seems: He has a depth and sorrow to him that's beyond his years, and sometimes there's a look in his eyes that's less than human, and leaves her feeling more like prey. Plus, Sean herself has been exhibiting odd symptoms-memory lapses, a lack of restraint that's unlike her, persistent exhaustion-that all trace back to Julian, making Sean feeling more than a little afraid. Who-or what-is she falling, irrevocably, in love with? Extraordinarily transfixing, suspenseful, and addictive, Die for Me is nothing short of a seduction"--Provided by publisher

The ultimate meal prep cookbook one grocery list. a week of meals. no waste.
America's Test Kitchen (Firm),
The experts from America's Test Kitchen offer a selection of varied, quick-prepare meal plans designed to save both time and money, outlining recommendations for pre-making vegetables and grains, organizing bulk pantry ingredients and effectively storing leftovers

The brittle age
Di Pietrantonio, Donatella,
In the Maiella mountains of Central Italy, a brutal crime shatters the peace of a small town. It is the 1990s and Lucia is twenty years old at the time. The only survivor of the crime is her best friend. Years later, Lucia is a physiotherapist separating from her husband. When the pandemic forces her daughter Amanda to return from Milan to the family home, Lucia's memories are reawakened, and with them the impact of past trauma. This gripping family drama weaves together Lucia and Amanda's personal struggles with the mysteries surrounding the tragedy that scarred their family land decades earlier. Inspired by true events.

Python's kiss stories
Erdrich, Louise,
Written over the past two decades, Louise Erdrich's magnificent story collection features a range of characters--a tribal newsletter editor whose son tells her a story that nothing in her experience can encompass, immigrant farmers whose tenuous hold on the earth, and sanity, is challenged, and ordinary people, bird lovers, artists, grade-school teachers, and romantics. A girl decides to spend her life with a stone. A man is confronted with a folk-singing thief. A woman enters a corporately owned afterlife to seek revenge on her father. Accompanied by specially commissioned artwork by Aza Erdrich Abe--an intimate and revelatory creative collaboration between mother and daughter--these stories offer an opportunity to celebrate the wisdom and brilliant, wide-ranging imagination of one of America's most important writers

And the crowd went wild
Phillips, Susan Elizabeth,
"After a mortifying--and very public--humiliation, Dancy Flynn is desperate to find sanctuary far from the crowd. But where can a washed-up sex symbol hide? How about making an unannounced appearance at the secluded lake house of the sweet, sensitive high school boyfriend she hasn't seen in almost twenty years? But Chicago Stars quarterback Clint Garrett is no longer the kid Dancy remembers. Now he's a grid iron superhero, still holding a massive grudge against her for breaking his teenage heart. With no room in his life for either complexity or distractions, he banishes Dancy to a refurbished old railroad caboose tucked away in the woods--and out of his sight"--

I'm a lot surviving myself and all the people I've been
Leiby, Alison,
"Have you ever frozen when someone asks, 'So, tell me about yourself?' If so, take a page from I'm a Lot. Alison Leiby proudly embraces the identities we're often encouraged to hide: Housewives stan. Discount shopaholic. Former jock. Happily single. Childless by choice and proud cat mom. Through these different roles and identities, Leiby reveals her hard-earned wisdom about what it's like to be a woman who does it all (except for the things that make her say 'uh, no thank you'). When she was nineteen years old, a complication from back surgery left Leiby on her deathbed. After a surprising recovery, you might assume Leiby was ready to seize life by the you-know-whats. But instead of letting this one miraculous experience define her, Leiby's brush with death made her realize there is nothing more beautiful in this life than just getting to be yourself. And while women are still expected to conform to many patriarchal labels, Leiby ignores the pressure to be palatable and instead champions all the joyful, weird, and complicated selves she brings to the world. In fourteen personal essays full of deadpan jokes, tender moments of candid introspection, and insightful social commentary, Leiby encourages us to ditch the manufactured Instagram persona and embrace the fact that sometimes the puzzle pieces don't always fit to create a perfect picture, but that doesn't mean we are incomplete." --

The widow
Grisham, John,
"#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham is the acclaimed master of the legal thriller. Now, he's back with his first-ever whodunit, even more suspenseful than his courtroom dramas, as a small-time lawyer accused of murder races to find the real killer to clear his name. Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it. Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn't commit: murder. Simon knows he's innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer..."-- Provided by publisher

Nothing tastes as good
Dumas, Luke,
"Retail worker Emmett Truesdale has never fit the Southern California mold of six-pack, suntanned masculinity. Over three hundred pounds, he carries the weight of his childhood trauma and millennial ennui around his waist and in his soul. After trying every diet under the sun, he remains stuck--in his dead-end job, in love, and in his body. Desperate for help, he enrolls in a clinical trial for a new weight loss product called Obexity. The treatment is as horrifying as the results are miraculous and as Emmett sheds pounds at superhuman speed, every part of his life improves overnight. Unfortunately, Obexity comes with some killer side effects, including lost stretches of time and overwhelming cravings. Worse, people who were cruel to him have started disappearing and when the police warn of a cannibalistic killer on the loose, he fears that Obexity is turning him into a monster. But how can he give it up now that people are finally starting to treat him like he's human?"--

The summer table : recipes and menus for casual outdoor entertaining
Lemke, Lisa, 1981-
"Summertime--and the outdoor entertaining is easy! Warm the grill, whip up some sides and sweets, and prepare to share these simple, delicious dishes. Festive menus feature a Mexican Grill Party, Father's Day Barbecue, Beach Buffet, and Cocktail Party, along with picnics, pizza, lunches, and brunches. Filled with cooking tips and ideas for marinades, sauces, salsas, and more, The Summer Table celebrates the season's best"--

An American beauty
Abé, Shana,
"When a railroad baron falls for a uniform girl at a gambling parlor thirty years his junior, he moves her to New York posing as a well-heeled Southern widow where her shrewd investing instincts build her a fortune"--

After the fall
Ashton, Edward (Science fiction writer),
"Part alien invasion story, part buddy comedy, and part workplace satire, After The Fall by Edward Ashton, author of Mickey7 (inspiration for the film Mickey 17), asks an important question: would humans really make great pets? Humans must be silent. Humans must be obedient. Humans must be good. All his life, John has tried to live by those rules. Most days, it's not too difficult. A hundred and twenty years after The Fall, and a hundred years after the grays swept in to pick the last dregs of humanity out of the wreckage of a ruined world, John has found himself bonded to Martok Barden nee Black Hand, one of the "good" grays. Sure, Martok is broke, homeless, and borderline manic, but he's always treated John like an actual person, and sometimes like a friend. It's a better deal than most humans get. But when Martok puts John's bond up as collateral against an abandoned house in the woods that he hopes to turn into a wilderness retreat for wealthy grays, John learns that there are limits to Martok's friendship. Soon he finds himself caught between an underworld boss who thinks Martok is something that he very much is not, a girl who was raised by feral humans and has nothing but contempt for pets like John, and Martok himself, whose delusions of grandeur seem to be finally catching up with him. Also, not for nothing, something in the woods has been killing people"-- Provided by publisher

Dolly all the time
Monaghan, Annabel,
"If they start by pretending, can they end with something real? Dolly Brick has never met a problem she couldn't solve. Not when her mom left when she was twelve, and not at thirty-nine when she moves with her son back to Whitfield, Rhode Island for the summer to keep her dad and brother from losing the family home. So when she comes across Stewart Whitfield: annoyingly handsome scion of the Whitfield family: with a flat tire and at the wrong end of a very public, very humiliating breakup, it's in her nature to help. But Stewart's proposed arrangement ends up being more than either of them bargained for, because as public dinners and high society benefits turn into sunset boat rides and kisses that hit her bloodstream like a ghost pepper, Dolly starts to feel something more than helpful. She's never relied on anyone besides herself, can she really start now?"--Provided by publisher

Before I forget
Henwood Hoen, Tory,
"A funny, heartfelt, late coming-of-age story that examines the role of memory in holding us back-and in moving us forward-for fans of The Collected Regrets of Clover and Maame. Call it inertia. Call it a quarter-life crisis. Whatever you call it, Cricket Campbell is stuck. Despite working at a zeitgeisty wellness company, the 26-year-old feels anything but well. Still adrift after a tragedy that upended her world a decade ago, she has entered early adulthood under the weight of a new burden: her father's Alzheimer's diagnosis. When Cricket's older sister Nina announces it is time to move Arthur from his beloved Adirondack lake house into a memory-care facility, Cricket has a better idea. In returning home to become her father's caretaker, she hopes to repair their strained relationship and shake herself out of her perma-funk. But even deeply familiar places can hold surprises. As Cricket settles back into the family house at Catwood Pond-a place she once loved, but hasn't visited since she was a teenager-she discovers that her father possesses a rare gift: as he loses his grasp of the past, he is increasingly able to predict the future. Before long, Arthur cements his reputation as an unlikely oracle, but for Cricket, believing in her father's prophecies might also mean facing the most painful parts of her history. As she begins to remember who she once was, she uncovers a vital truth: the path forward often starts by going back. With laugh-out-loud humor and profound grace, Before I Forget explores the nuances of family, the complexities of memory, and how sometimes, the people we know the best are the ones who surprise us the most"-- Provided by publisher

A horse's world a neuroscientist's journey into the equine mind
Jones, Janet L. (Neuroscientist),
In the spirit of An Immense World and Soul of an Octopus, an award-winning neuroscientist and veteran horse trainer illuminates the mysteries of equine cognition and behavior, through her own extraordinary bond with a horse named True North

Upon a starlit tide
Woods, Kell,
"Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taughtto sail by Samuel, her best friend--and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea. Immediately drawn in by the stranger's charm, Luce is plunged into a world of glittering balls and faerie magic, seduction and brutality. Secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface, but as Luce wrestles with warring desires, she finds that her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper--or the scales of a sea-maid's tail"--

Play nice
Harrison, Rachel, 1989-
"Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so-glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio's parent's messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That's not what Clio's sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house. After Alex's sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house-flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother's claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother's book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio's beautiful life to its very foundation"--

The possession of Alba Díaz
Cañas, Isabel,
"When a demonic presence awakens deep in a Mexican silver mine, the young woman it seizes must turn to the one man she shouldn't trust... from bestselling author Isabel Cañas. In 1765, plague sweeps through Zacatecas. Alba flees with her wealthy merchant parents and fiancé, Carlos, to his family's isolated mine for refuge. But safety proves fleeting as other dangers soon bare their teeth: Alba begins suffering from strange hallucinations, sleepwalking, and violent convulsions. She senses something cold lurking beneath her skin. Something angry. Something wrong. Elías, haunted by a troubled past, came to the New World to make his fortune and escape his family's legacy of greed. Alba, as his cousin's betrothed, is none of his business. Which is of course why he can't help but notice her every time she enters a room or the growing tension between them... and why he notices her deteriorate when the demon's thirst for blood grows stronger. In the fight for her life, Alba and Elías become entangled with the occult, the Church, long-kept secrets, and one another... not knowing that one of these things will spell their doom"--

My name is Emilia del Valle
Allende, Isabel,
"In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man's pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny." --

The Grand Paloma Resort
Natera, Cleyvis,
"The Grand Paloma Resort is a lush paradise in the Dominican Republic where the guests enjoy incredible luxury, and the staff is always eager to please-that is, until they are pushed to the brink"-- Provided by publisher

Hombrecito
Sanchez, Santiago Jose,
"A novel by a brilliant new voice, Hombrecito is a queer coming-of-age story about a young immigrant's complex relationships with his mother and his motherland."--

Catalina
Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla,
"Catalina is trying to work out her own life as she leaves her undocumented family behind to enter Harvard. Suffering from bouts of PTSD, she struggles to connect to her new world just as she struggled to make sense of her old one. She infiltrates the subcultures of elite undergrads-internships and college newspapers, parties and secret societies-and observes them like an anthropologist, but then falls in love, or something like love, with a fellow student, an actual anthropology scholar who wants to teach her about the Andean world she was born in but never knew. They are drawn to each other by the strange attraction of exocticized fascination-she, a real live Latin American, becomes a subject of academic interest; he, in turns, draws her fascination as a white legacy admit born into the strange world she now navigates. Catalina is uncertain: should she let herself become what he wants her to be and take up residence in his secure and privileged world? Or should she return to the life she's known, with all its thorny precarity? Who is she anyway?"--

The dance and the fire
Saldaña París, Daniel, 1984-
"After years apart, three high school friends return to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where an intense love triangle once left an indelible mark on their adolescence. The city, surrounded by a ring of claustrophobic wildfires, brings out the past and confronts them with their present: they must once again face the entanglement of friendship and desire, the seemingly distant discovery of sexuality, complex parental relationships, and the daunting task of artistic fulfillment. In the background, two forces of chaos and destruction are a constant presence. As fires ravage the physical landscape, one of the friends begins choreographing an ecstatic dance inspired by the German expressionist Mary Wigman and medieval Danse Macabre. What starts as a coping mechanism for the anxieties of youth and climate catastrophe becomes an overpowering, all-consuming hysteria. Mysterious powers are awakened, the boundary between reality and myth begins to blur, and the friends find themselves immersed in an increasingly turbulent and uncertain universe"--

Loca
Heredia, Alejandro, 1994-
"It's 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he's held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she'd escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo's worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other." --

Speak to me of home
Cummins, Jeanine,
"What does it mean to call a place home? From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeanine Cummins comes a deeply felt multigenerational family story On her wedding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1968, Rafaela Acuña y Daubón has mild misgivings, but she marries Peter Brennan Jr. anyway in a blaze of romantic optimism. She has no way of knowing how dramatically her life will change when she uproots her young family to start over in the American Midwest, unleashing a fleet of disappointments. In the 1980s, against the backdrop of her mother's isolation in St. Louis, Missouri, Rafaela's daughter, Ruth Brennan, wants only to belong. Eager to fit in, Ruth lets go of her language, habits, and childhood memories of Puerto Rico. It's not until decades later when Ruth's own daughter, Daisy, returns to San Juan that her mother and grandmother begin to truly reflect on the choices that have come to define their lives. When a hurricane ravages the island in 2023, leaving Daisy critically injured, Rafaela and Ruth return to the city where it all began. As they gather at Daisy's bedside, we follow them back into the pasts that brought them to this point: we watch as they come of age, fall in love, take risks, and contend with all the heartbreaks, triumphs, and reversals of fortune--both good and bad--that make up a meaningful life. As old memories come to light, so do buried secrets, leaving everyone in the family wondering exactly where it is that they belong. A striking, resonant examination of marriage, family, and identity, Speak to Me of Home is ultimately a story of mothers and daughters that asks: How can three women who share geography and genetics have such wildly different ideas of where they come from? And, more importantly, can they discover a common language to find their way back home?"--

The intrigue
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia,
"Handsome con artist Ulises has long charmed lonely women via letters to steal their money, but money is hard to come by in 1940s Mexico. Ulises knows his looks won't last forever, and he's desperate to get his hands on a real fortune. He thinks he's found it when he captivates his newest correspondent, Perla, the owner of a small-town boardinghouse in picturesque Veracruz. But when he meets her, he finds something he didn't expect. The woman has a niece, Inés, who is as observant as she is desperate to escape her aunt's household. When Inés discovers Ulises' true intentions, she wants in on the scheme. They'll convince her aunt that Ulises is a great catch, Perla will marry him, and her money will vanish. Easy, fast and clean. But Perla is not the desperate, silly spinster Ulises imagines. She harbors secrets. And although Ulises does not believe in true romance, Inés is more alluring than he bargained on. Suddenly, a simple plan may become perilously complicated. Venture into the streets of a small town where the patina of convention and good manners conceals a cauldron of avarice and lust"--

Last night in Brooklyn
Gonzalez, Xochitl, 1977-
"New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbor's secret past, laying bare the mounting tensions at play in a rapidly gentrifying, early 2000's Fort Greene, Brooklyn. SPRING, 2007 At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She's in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother's beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and moves in. No one embodies this more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza's life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself. But when Alicia's wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza's precarious lives. Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of color living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy--and the destruction of what it can't"--

I give you my silence
Vargas Llosa, Mario, 1936-2025,
"In his final novel, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa returns to his native Peru"-- Provided by publisher

Autobiography of cotton
Rivera Garza, Cristina, 1964-
"In 1934, a young Jose Revueltas traveled to Tamaulipas to support the cotton workers' strike in Estacion Camaron, which became the basis of his landmark novel Human Mourning. In her own groundbreaking novel, Autobiography of Cotton, Cristina Rivera Garza recounts her grandparents' journey from mining towns to those same cotton fields as it intersects with Revueltas's life in a vivid and evocative history of cotton cultivation along the Mexico-US border. Through archival research and personal narrative, Rivera Garza chronicles the way cotton transformed the borderlands by reconstructing the cotton workers' strike and reveals how cycles of deprivation and ecocide persist across generations. Deeply personal and politically acute, Rivera Garza crafts a new kind of border novel that tells how a brittle land radically altered her grandparents' lives and the territories they helped develop. An intimate fictionalization, Autobiography of Cotton reveals a rich social history of agricultural colonization, labor activism, environmental degradation, and cross-border migration"-- Provided by publisher

Frida's cook
Etcheves, Florencia, 1971-
"This colorful, emotive historical debut whisks us to the home of Frida Kahlo, where food, art, and love weave together an unforgettable story of friendship and loyalty, with a bright Coyoacán as a vivid background. A hidden painting. A buried past. A legacy waiting to be uncovered. Mexico City, 1939: Young and determined Nayeli Cruz flees from her Oaxaca home to arrive in Mexico City with neither friends nor prospects. Alone and armed only with her sharp wit and extraordinary talent in the kitchen, she finds herself in front of La Caza Azul, the home of Frida Kahlo. As she begins work as the artist's cook, Nayeli is pulled into Frida's world of pain, passion, and defiance. But it isn't long before amid the vibrant tapestry of flavors, scents, and colors, the two women form a deep bond--one that will shape the course of Nayeli's life and leave behind a secret buried in art. Buenos Aires, Present Day: Paloma, Nayeli's granddaughter, stumbles upon a mysterious painting depicting her grandmother as a young woman. The artist's identity is unknown, but the artwork's existence threatens to unravel long-held family secrets. As Paloma delves into her grandmother's past, she uncovers a tale of passion, betrayal, and resilience that challenges everything she thought she knew about the one woman who raised her"--

My name is Emilia del Valle
Allende, Isabel,
"In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man's pen name. When these fictional worlds can no longer satisfy her sense of adventure, she turns to journalism, convincing an editor at The Daily Examiner to hire her. There she is paired with another talented reporter, Eric Whelan. As she proves herself, her restlessness returns, until an opportunity arises to cover a brewing civil war in Chile. She seizes it, as does Eric, and while there, she meets her estranged father and delves into the violent confrontation in the country where her roots lie. As she and Eric discover love, the war escalates and Emilia finds herself in extreme danger, fearing for her life and questioning her identity and her destiny." --

Deeper than the ocean
Ojito, Mirta A.,
"One hundred years after the shipwreck of the Valbanera, known to history as the 'poor man's Titanic', Mara Denis gets an assignment to report on the Canary Islands, where her ancestors lived before they moved to Cuba. Unexpectedly, she discovers that the grandmother her mother cherished was listed among the dead of the Valbanera, years before Mara's mother was even born. This fateful twist changes everything Mara thought she knew about her family and herself, and sends her on a quest to find the truth. If her great grandmother is a ghost, who is she and where did she come from?"--

Malinalli
Chapa, Veronica,
An imaginative retelling of the triumphs and sorrows of one of the most controversial and misunderstood women in Mexico's history and mythology

Last night in Brooklyn
Gonzalez, Xochitl, 1977-
"New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a captivating story about a young woman whose life becomes ensnared in her glamorous neighbor's secret past, laying bare the mounting tensions at play in a rapidly gentrifying, early 2000's Fort Greene, Brooklyn. SPRING, 2007 At twenty-six, Alicia Canales Forten feels smothered by her future. She's in a long-distance relationship, living at home with her mother's beliefs, saving up for her wedding to a future doctor. But after Alicia ventures out one night in the neighborhood of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, she finds herself lured by the siren song of youth and possibility that the striving crowd of creatives holds, and moves in. No one embodies this more than La Garza, a larger-than-life, up-and-coming fashion designer whose epic house parties fuel neighborhood lore. La Garza's life, observed by Alicia from her apartment across the street, seems to hold the allure and fearlessness Alicia has never dared to imagine for herself. But when Alicia's wealthy banker cousin moves to the neighborhood, she finds herself increasingly drawn into both his and La Garza's precarious lives. Against the backdrop of a potentially life-changing presidential election and a looming once-in-a-generation fiscal crisis, Last Night in Brooklyn explores the dark compromise of the American Dream for people of color living, unknowingly, in the twilight of a cultural moment. It is a story about everything money can buy--and the destruction of what it can't"--
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