| The sheltering sky : a novel / Paul Bowles. |
 Three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II encounter the limits of human existence in the form of a land and a people utterly alien to them. |
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| Act of defiance [sound recording (CD)]/ by Andrews & Wilson. |
 US intelligence is reporting turmoil in the Russian navy. Their deadliest submarine, the Belgorod, has unexpectedly launched, and taken along with it a long list of questions. Who authorized the departure? What mission is it on? And, most disturbing of all, what weapons do the giant doors on the sub's bow hide? It's been four decades since a similar incident with the Soviet sub, Red October, ended happily, thanks to a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan. Now, President Jack Ryan finds himself with fleets of ships, squadrons of jets, and teams of SEALs at his command, but what he doesn't have is insight into the plans of the Belgorod's commander. It falls to a younger generation of Ryans to do the dangerous work that will reveal that information. But there's always a price to be paid. When the final moments tick away, will Jack Ryan have to choose between the safety of his country and the safety of his child? |
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| In my time of dying : how I came face-to-face with the idea of an afterlife [sound recording (CD)] / Sebastian Junger. |
 For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. "It's okay," his father said. "There's nothing to be scared of. I'll take care of you." That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger, a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical, to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions? |
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| What this comedian said will shock you [sound recording (CD)] / Bill Maher. |
 Bill Maher revisits more than a decade of editorial segments from his show Real Time on free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, the generations, cancel culture, and more, rewriting, reimagining, updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we're in. |
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| Shelterwood [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Lisa Wingate. |
 Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn₂t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the remote Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them, or worse. Oklahoma, 1990. Law enforcement ranger Valerie Boren-Odell arrives at newly minted Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she₂s faced with local controversy over the park₂s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children unearthed in a cave. Val₂s quest for the truth wins an ally among the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police but soon collides with old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself. |
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| The queen's fool [sound recording (CD)] / Philippa Gregory. |
 Winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee with her father from their home in Spain. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee; she has the gift of 'Sight, ' the ability to foresee the future, priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward's protector, who brings her to court as a 'holy fool' for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up with her own yearnings and desires. |
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| Challenger : a true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space [sound recording (CD)] / Adam Higginbotham. |
 From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster based on fascinating new archival research and in-depth reporting, a riveting history that reads like a thriller. |
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| Last time she saw him [sound recording (CD)] / Kate White. |
 Kiki Reed is left reeling when her former fiancé appears to take his own life, and she becomes desperate to prove it was actually murder. |
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| Feline fatale [sound recording (CD)] / Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown. |
 When one of the pages who assists the Virginia House of Delegates dies under mysterious circumstances, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen calls on her beloved pets to help her crack the case. |
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| Every time we say goodbye : a novel [sound recording (CD)] / Natalie Jenner. |
 In 1955, Vivien Lowry is facing the greatest challenge of her life. Her latest play, the only female-authored play on the London stage that season, has opened in the West End to rapturous applause from the audience. The reviewers, however, are not as impressed as the playgoers and their savage notices not only shut down the play but ruin Lowry's last chance for a dramatic career. With her future in London not looking bright, at the suggestion of her friend, Peggy Guggenheim, Vivien takes a job in as a script doctor on a major film shooting in Rome's Cinecitta Studios. There she finds a vibrant movie making scene filled with rising stars, acclaimed directors, and famous actors in a country that is torn between its past and its potentially bright future, between the liberation of the post-war cinema and the restrictions of the Catholic Church that permeates the very soul of Italy. As Vivien tries to forge a new future for herself, she also must face the long-buried truth of the recent World War and the mystery of what really happened to her deceased fianč. |
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| Stop people pleasing : and find your power [sound recording (CD)] / Hailey Magee. |
 For most of Hailey Magee's life, people-pleasing came so naturally to her that she didn't even have a word for it. When somebody wanted something from her, even a stranger, she gave it, no matter how uncomfortable, exhausted, or resentful she felt inside. People-pleasing, she learned, was a coping mechanism that had kept her physically and emotionally safe in the past, but wreaked havoc on her life in the present, and she was committed to breaking the pattern once and for all. The solution that social media and self-help shelves gave her was to "Advocate for yourself! Speak up! Set boundaries!" But after years of ignoring her feelings and needs, Magee needed more than boundaries; she needed to reconnect with the "self" who was supposed to be doing the advocating. You can't express yourself if you're cut off from your feelings. You can't fight for your needs if you don't know what they are. And you can't set boundaries with others until you believe you're worthy of more than the bare minimum. Radically reconnecting with herself gave Magee the confidence and self-respect she needed to stand up for herself in her relationships. As she experienced a freedom she never thought possible, she became a certified life coach with the mission of helping others do the same. Stop People Pleasing explains how anyone can break the pattern by learning their own feelings, needs, values, and desires; ending cycles of enmeshment and codependency; overcoming guilt; developing physical and sexual agency; and more. Combining social science, psychology, and hands-on coaching exercises, Stop People Pleasing teaches you how to connect with your own feelings, needs, and dreams; courageously advocate for yourself in your relationships with friends, family, and colleagues; soothe yourself through the growing pains of healing; and dive headfirst into pleasure and play. With fresh insight, heartfelt empathy, and a keen personal understanding of the pitfalls of people-pleasing, Magee helps you say what you need and get what you deserve. |
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| Dispatches from parts unknown [sound recording (CD)] / Bryan Bliss. |
 Since her dad died, Julie has heard his favorite wrestler in her head, voicing running commentary on her life. But as her grief retreats with senior year, maybe she'll figure out why it is there, and how to let it go. |
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| The stellar debut of Galactica MacFee [sound recording (CD)] / Alexander McCall Smith. |
 Approached in the park by a shadowy αgure, Angus Lordie is mistaken for a journalist and becomes privy to some controversial plans of the Scottish Parliament, but just what is he meant to do about it? At school, a new member of Bertie's class, Galactica MacFee, quickly comes between Bertie and Olive, leaving him no choice but to skip town. And the indomitable Irene αnds herself yet again in Edinburgh, but this time there might be romance in the air. |
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| Graysen Foxx and the treasure of Principal Redbeard [sound recording (CD)] / J. Scott Savage. |
 Fifth-grader Graysen Foxx is hot on the trail of the legendary treasure of long-since-retired Principal Redbeard, which includes a decades' worth of confiscated gadgets, rare comic books, and more. |
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| Maple's theory of fun [sound recording (CD)] / Kate McMillan & Ruthie Prillaman. |
 In order to win back her best friend, sixth grade aspiring astronaut Maple McNutt pursues a serious scientific transformation to become fun. It's risky research, but Maple has no other choice to save her friendship. |
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| Rachel takes the lead [sound recording (CD)] / Marilyn Kaye. |
 When the spyglass reveals an image of Rachel walking a dog, she knows it's pure fantasy. Her overprotective moms would never let her walk a dog alone, much less own one. To the dismay of her Spyglass Sisters, Rachel would rather avoid the whole thing altogether. However, she can't avoid it for long when a lost dog follows her home. |
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| Ellie makes her move [sound recording (CD)] / Marilyn Kaye. |
 When Ellie's family moves into a rickety one-hundred-year-old house complete with a turret, Ellie is certain that she is going to be a loner, until she discovers an old-fashioned spyglass. When she peers through it, she spots a community center that hasn't been built yet and one of her new classmates flying around on a broomstick. To figure out what the magical images mean, Ellie recruits other self-described loners, Alyssa and Rachel. When they see a vision of fellow student Kiara playing tag with a tiger and a donkey, they have their first real spyglass secret to solve. |
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| The demon of unrest [sound recording (CD)] / Erik Larson. |
 On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter. Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln's election and the Confederacy's shelling of Sumter, a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were "so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them." At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter's commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between them. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous secretary of state, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable, one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans. Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink, a dark reminder that we often don't see a cataclysm coming until it's too late. |
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| Darling girls [sound recording (CD)] / Sally Hepworth. |
 For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life. But their childhood wasn't the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects? |
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| Southern man [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Greg Iles. |
 Penn Cage is alone, until a music festival triggers a mass shooting. That propels Southern war hero Bobby White into a run for the 2024 presidential election, stoking Black vs. white, states vs. federal government, democracy vs. fascism. Penn, with his daughter, and joined by an ex-con, must expose White's secrets before the America of our Constitution slides into the abyss. |
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| The heist [sound recording (CD)] / by Jack Du Brul. |
 In the summer of 1914, Isaac Bell attends a private meeting on Woodrow Wilson's presidential yacht, as Wilson addresses the newly launched regional Federal Reserve banks. Bell is present as a security agent with his father, who will be the head banker of the Boston region. Just after Wilson introduces a plan for new currency notes, the yacht comes under attack from a bi-wing airplane. Bell shoots down the plane with a machine gun and saves everyone aboard. But the attack on the yacht was only the first of Bell's problems. While responding to a curious murder scene in Rhode Island, he learns of a heist planned for the new federal printing and engraving building in D.C., where the new currency has been printed. Bell must track down the thieves and the currency before the new Federal Reserve system, and America's economy, is destroyed. |
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| Long Island [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Colm Tóibín. |
 Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony's parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades. One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis's doorstep. It is what Eilis does, and what she refuses to do, in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín's novel so riveting. |
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| One perfect couple [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Ruth Ware. |
 "Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she's pretty sure they won't extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren't going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, One Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples--Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana--in order to win a cash prize. Not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real--and the stakes are life or death"-- Provided by publisher. |
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| Miss Morgan's book brigade [sound recording (CD)] / Janet Skeslien Charles. |
 1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild destroyed French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen--children's libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears. 1987: When NYPL librarian and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a passing reference to Jessie Carson in the archives, she becomes consumed with learning her fate. In her obsessive research, she discovers that she and the elusive librarian have more in common than their work at New York's famed library, but she has no idea their paths will converge in surprising ways across time. |
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| Rebel rising [sound recording (CD)] : a memoir / Rebel Wilson. |
 For decades, Rebel Wilson had single-mindedly focused on her career, making a name for herself through her iconic roles in Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids, and Isn₂t It Romantic. Now, she₂s ready to chronicle the emotional and physical lessons she learned, as well as her most embarrassing experiences. A malaria-induced hallucination? An all-style martial arts fighting tournament? Junior handling at dog shows? And this was all before she moved to Hollywood! Rebel Rising follows Rebel Wilson₂s incredible journey of "making it," constantly questioning, "Am I good enough? Will I ever find love? Will I ever change and become healthy?" Rebel writes for the first time about the most personal and important moments in her life, from fertility issues, weight gain and loss, sexuality, overcoming shyness, rejections, and, well...okay there₂s at least one story thrown in about Brad Pitt! It's all here. This memoir shows us how to love ourselves while making us laugh uncontrollably. |
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| The age of magical overthinking [sound recording (CD)] / Amanda Montell. |
 "Magical thinking" can be broadly defined as the belief that one's internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: Think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain's coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven. In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the "Halo effect" cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger than life celebrities, to how the "Sunk Cost Fallacy" can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we've realized they're not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell's prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while, or even hear a melody in it. |
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| The rulebreaker [sound recording (CD)] : the life and times of Barbara Walters / Susan Page. |
 Barbara Walters was a force from the time TV was exploding on the American scene in the 1960s to its waning dominance in a new world of competition from streaming services and social media half a century later. She was not just a groundbreaker for women (Oprah announced when she was seventeen that she wanted to be Barbara Walters), but also expanded the big TV interview and then dominated the genre. By the end of her career, she had interviewed more of the famous and infamous, from presidents to movie stars to criminals to despots, than any other journalist in history. Then at sixty-seven, past the age many female broadcasters found themselves involuntarily retired, she pioneered a new form of talk TV called The View. She is on the short list of those who have left the biggest imprints on television news and on our culture, male or female. So, who was the woman behind the legacy? Susan Page conducts 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her mercurial and famous impresario father attempted suicide. But she never lost the fear of an impending catastrophe, which is what led her to ask for things no woman had ever asked for before, to ignore the rules of misogynistic culture, to outcompete her most ferocious competitors, and to protect her complicated marriages and love life from scrutiny. Page breaks news on every front, from the daring things Walters did to become the woman who reinvented the TV interview to the secrets she kept until her death. This is the eye-opening account of the woman who knew she had to break all the rules so she could break all the rules about what viewers deserved to know. |
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| An unfinished love story [sound recording (CD)] : a personal history of the 1960s / Doris Kearns Goodwin. |
 Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of America's most beloved historians, artfully weaves together biography, memoir, and history. She takes you along on the emotional journey she and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin embarked upon in the last years of his life. |
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| Annie Bot [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Sierra Greer. |
 Annie Bot, created to be the perfect girlfriend, is trying hard to please Doug. She's learning, too. But as she becomes more human, her relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult. |
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| The new couple in 5B [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Lisa Unger. |
 Rosie and Chad inherit a luxury apartment in NYC. But as they settle in, they begin to suspect that there's more to the building. When a neighbor turns up dead, Rosie is determined to learn the truth. |
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| The house of hidden meanings [sound recording (CD)] : a memoir / RuPaul. |
 From his early years growing up as a queer Black kid in San Diego to forging an identity in the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, to finding enduring love with his husband Georges LeBar and self-acceptance in sobriety, RuPaul excavates his own biography life-story, uncovering new truths and insights in his personal history. |
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| The first state of being [sound recording (CD)] / Erin Entrada Kelly. |
 Life for twelve-year-old Michael is ordinary, until a boy named Ridge appears out of nowhere, the world's first time traveler. The boys become good friends. If Ridge returns home, must Michael say goodbye forever? |
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| Gigi Shin is not a nerd [sound recording (CD)] / Lyla Lee. |
 Jiyoung "Gigi" Shin loves to create, from her zany outfits to self-executed haircuts. She dreams of becoming an artist and doodles every chance she gets, at school instead of taking notes, in choir instead of singing, and at home instead of homework. Art is her way of escaping her boring life in suburban Middle of Nowhere, Texas. Unfortunately, her working class, immigrant parents want her to focus on her studies and pursue something more "practical." Gigi only really feels like herself in art class and at lunch with her best friends, Carolina and Zeina. When Gigi learns about an elite art camp on the east coast, she's determined to go. But she knows her parents won't let her, much less pay for it. After overhearing her little brother Tommy complain about how hard math is and how his teacher goes too fast for him, Gigi has a brilliant idea: forming a tutoring club with her friends to make enough money for the art camp. With Carolina, Zeina, and Carolina's friend, Emma, the girls go all in, each with a reason for wanting the business to succeed. But the first few sessions with their classmates are a little chaotic, and Gigi wonders if she will end up sacrificing more than she bargained for to achieve her dreams. |
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| Extinction [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Douglas Preston. |
 Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators. As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection, but extinction. |
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| Godzilla x Kong : the new empire [sound recording (CD)] / the official movie novelization by Greg Keyes. |
 This time the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla face a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence, and our own. The latest epic delves further into the histories of these Titans, their origins, and the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever. |
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| Greatest hits [sound recording (CD)] / Harlan Ellison ; edited by J. Michael Straczynski ; foreword by Neil Gaiman ; introduction by Cassandra Khaw. |
 Harlan Ellison's work shaped the science-fiction, fantasy, and horror genres in the twentieth century, and this collection of his best-known and most-acclaimed stories is a perfect treasury for old Ellison fans as well as listeners discovering this zany, polyphonic writer for the first time. |
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| Everyone is watching [sound recording (CD)] / Heather Gudenkauf. |
 Five contestants have been chosen to compete for ten million dollars on the game show One Lucky Winner. But the contestants soon realize this is no longer just a reality show, someone is out for blood. |
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| The Morningside [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Téa Obreht. |
 After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia's aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality. Enchanted by Ena's stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia's mission to unravel the truth about this woman's life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything. |
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| The princess of Las Vegas [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Chris Bohjalian. |
 Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy's daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy's sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy's carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. |
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| New from here [sound recording (CD)] / Kelly Yang. |
 When the coronavirus hits Hong Kong, ten-year-old Knox Wei-Evans's mom makes the last-minute decision to move him and his siblings back to California, where they think they will be safe. Suddenly, Knox has two days to prepare for an international move, and for leaving his dad, who has to stay for work. At his new school in California, Knox struggles with being the new kid. His classmates think that because he's from Asia, he must have brought over the virus. At home, Mom just got fired and is panicking over the loss of health insurance, and Dad doesn't even know when he'll see them again, since the flights have been cancelled. And everyone struggles with Knox's blurting-things-out problem. As racism skyrockets during COVID-19, Knox tries to stand up to hate, while finding his place in his new country. Can you belong if you're feared; can you protect if you're new? And how do you keep a family together when you're oceans apart? Sometimes when the world is spinning out of control, the best way to get through it is to embrace our own lovable uniqueness. |
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| Chicano Frankenstein [sound recording (CD)] / Daniel A. Olivas. |
 An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a world that both needs and resents him in this modern retelling of the Mary Shelley classic. |
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| You like it darker [sound recording (CD)] : stories / Stephen King. |
 These 12 stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as King's novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel 'the exhilartion of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,' and in You Like It Darker, listeners will feel that exhilaration too, again and again. "Two Talented Bastids explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream, a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In Rattlesnakes, a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance, with major strings attached. In The Dreamers, a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. The Answer Man asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful. |
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| Worry [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Alexandra Tanner. |
 It's March of 2019, and twenty-eight-year-old Jules Gold, anxious, artistically frustrated, and internet-obsessed, has been living alone in the apartment she once shared with the man she thought she'd marry when her younger sister Poppy comes to crash. Indefinitely. Poppy is a year out from a suicide attempt only Jules knows about, and as she searches for work and meaning in Brooklyn, Jules spends her days hate-scrolling the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for life to happen. Then the hives that've plagued Poppy since childhood flare up. Jules's uterus turns against her. Poppy brings home a maladjusted rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. The girls' mother, a newly devout Messianic Jew, starts falling for the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules's online mommies. A trip home to Florida ends in disaster. Amy Klobuchar may or may not have rabies. And Jules struggles halfheartedly to scrape her way to the source of her ennui, slowly and cruelly coming to blame Poppy for her own insufficiencies as a friend, a writer, and a sister. As the year shambles on and a new decade looms near, Jules and Poppy, comrades, competitors, permanent fixtures in each other's lives, must ask themselves what they want their futures to look like, and whether they'll spend them together or apart. |
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| The instruments of darkness [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / John Connolly. |
 In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone, ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk, has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty. But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist, one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife's guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that should never have been built. A house, and what dwells beneath. |
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| Camino ghosts [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / John Grisham. |
 Popular bookseller Bruce Cable tells Mercer Mann an irresistible tale that might be the basis for her next novel. A giant resort developer is using its political muscle and deep pockets to claim ownership of a deserted island between Florida and Georgia. However, the last living inhabitant of the island, Lovely Jackson, stands in its way. What the developer doesn't know is that the island has a remarkable history, and locals believe it is cursed, and that the past is never the past. |
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| Say more [sound recording (CD)] : lessons from work, the White House, and the world / Jen Psaki. |
 Not many White House Press Secretaries capture the nation's interest the way Jen Psaki did. Refreshingly candid and clear, Psaki quickly became known for her ability to break through the noise and successfully deliver her message. In her highly anticipated book, Psaki shares her journey to the Briefing Room and beyond, taking readers along the campaign trail, to the State Department, and inside the White House under two Presidents. With her signature wit, Psaki writes about reporting to bosses from the hot-tempered Rahm Emanuel to the coolly intellectual Barack Obama to the surprisingly tenderhearted John Kerry. She also talks about her time working closely with President Joe Biden from the start of his administration to set a new tone for the country, restoring a sense of calm and respect for the role of the media in our Democracy. Since leaving the White House, Psaki's star has continued to rise. She launched a highly rated show on MSNBC and was so successful that in just six months she was given an additional primetime Monday slot, ahead of Rachel Maddow. And Psaki's work doesn't end at the office. She is the mother of two young children and shares her stories about the journey of communicating as a parent: During one bedtime briefing, her young daughter asked the question, "Why do wars start?", which Jen carefully explained and then got a follow up: "Have you ever seen a unicorn?" In Say More, Psaki explains her straightforward approach to communication, walking readers through difficult conversations as well as moments where humor saves the day-whether it is with preschoolers, partners, or presidents. She addresses the best ways to give and receive feedback, how to connect with your audience, how to listen actively, and much more. Say More is the book Psaki wishes she had when she started her career, and is a trove of entertaining, essential lessons from one of the most prominent voices in American politics today. |
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| Medgar & Myrlie [sound recording (CD) : Medgar Evers and the love story that awakened America / Joy-Ann Reid. |
 Joy-Ann Reid traces the extraordinary lives and legacy of civil rights icons Medgar and Myrlie Evers, situating Medgar Evers's assassination as a catalyzing moment in American history. |
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| Pay dirt [sound recording (CD)] / Sara Paretsky. |
 After a failed job, V.I. Warshawski is second-guessing herself. For vacation, she visits a friend. But when her friend's roommate disappears, V.I. agrees to stay behind to try to find her. |
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| Lore of the wilds [sound recording (CD)] / Analeigh Sbrana. |
 In a land ruled by ruthless Fae, twenty-one-year-old Lore Alemeyu's village is trapped in a forested prison. When it is threatened, she agrees to catalog a cursed library that may contain the magic needed to escape. As Lore navigates the hostile world outside, she's forced to rely on two Fae males to survive. When undeniable chemistry ignites, she's not just in danger of losing her life, but her heart to the very creatures she can never trust. |
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| Mind games [sound recording (CD)] / Nora Roberts. |
 As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother's. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie's handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they're about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb. Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened. The kids will be staying with Grammie now in Redbud Hollow, and thanks to Thea's vision, their parents' killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career, find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her, and though Grammie calls it a gift, it feels more like a curse-because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. He knows it, and hungers for vengeance. A long, silent battle will be waged between them--and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head. |
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| She's not sorry [sound recording (CD)] / Mary Kubica. |
 Nurse Meghan Michaels has always tried to stay emotionally detached from her patients, but when Caitlin is brought in, comatose, with a traumatic brain injury, she mistakenly lets herself get too close until she's deeply entangled in Caitlin's and her family's lives. Only when it's too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims. |
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| Studies at the school by the sea [sound recording (CD)] / Jenny Colgan. |
 Beloved literature teacher Maggie Adair loves her life at the prestigious Downey House boarding school on the gloriously sunny, windy English coast. But these days Maggie's feeling restless, lured by the promise of a different life back in her Scottish hometown. How can you follow your heart when it seems to be taking you in two directions at once? Meanwhile, Maggie's favorite students are abuzz at the thought of graduation and set to fly the nest to their next adventure. What will life hold for mercurial Fliss, glamorous Alice, and shy, hard-working Simone when they finally finish their studies at the school by the sea? Will Maggie stay to welcome the next class of girls, or will she too graduate to new adventures? |
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| Bits and pieces [sound recording (CD)] : my mother, my brother, and me / Whoopi Goldberg. |
 If it weren't for her mother Emma, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010--and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later--she felt deeply alone. In this memoir, Whoopi shares many deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time. |
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| Lucky [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Jane Smiley. |
 Jodie Rattler thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then, through a combination of hard work and serendipity, she started a singing career. Jodie comes of age in recording studios, backstage, and on tour, and she tries to hold her own in the wake of Janis Joplin, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell. Yet it feels like something is missing. Could it be true love? Or is that not actually what Jodie is looking for? |
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| The familiar [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Leigh Bardugo. |
 In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position. What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen, and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor. Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the lines between magic, science, and fraud are never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive, even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both. |
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| Supercommunicators [sound recording (CD)] : how to unlock the secret language of connection / Charles Duhigg. |
 Supercommunicators know the importance of recognizing, and then matching, each kind of conversation, and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that color so much of what we say and how we listen. In this book, you will learn why some people are able to make themselves heard, and to hear others, so clearly. Charles Duhigg teaches the tips and skills we need to navigate conversations more successfully. |
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| The last word [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Elly Griffiths. |
 Natalka and Edwin are improbable partners in a detective agency. When a local writer dies, they must go undercover to investigate a creative writing weekend at isolated Battle House, where another murder occurs. |
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| Summers at the Saint [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Mary Kay Andrews. |
 Welcome to the St. Cecelia, a landmark hotel on the coast of Georgia, where traditions run deep and scandals run even deeper. Everyone refers to the St. Cecelia as "the Saint." If you grew up coming here, you were "a Saint." If you came from the wrong side of the river, you were "an Ain't." Traci Eddings was one of those outsiders whose family wasn't rich enough or connected enough to vacation here. But she could work here. One fateful summer she did, and married the boss's son. Now, she's the widowed owner of the hotel, determined to see it return to its glory days, even as staff shortages and financial troubles threaten to ruin it. Plus, her greedy and unscrupulous brother-in-law wants to make sure she fails. Enlisting a motley crew of recently hired summer help, including the daughter of her estranged best friend, Traci has one summer season to turn it around. But new information about a long-ago drowning at the hotel threatens to come to light, and the tragic death of one of their own brings Traci to the brink of despair. Traci Eddings has her back against the pink-painted wall of this beloved institution. And it will take all the wits and guts she has to see wrongs put to right, to see guilty parties put in their place, and maybe even to find a new romance along the way. |
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| Christmas in Plains [sound recording (CD)] / Jimmy Carter. |
 The President warmly remembers Christmas in Plains, with its spiritual inspiration, respite, family ties, friendship, vacation fun, and the simplicity of community. |
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| The unbeatable Lily Hong [sound recording (CD)] / Diana Ma. |
 If there's one thing Lily Hong can't stand, it's being second best. That's why she and Max Zhang have been bitter rivals ever since he swooped into town as the new kid with the cool clothes and his fancy downtown Chinese school and showed her up in the fifth-grade reading challenge. She had wanted to be the one to win the pizza party for their class. Okay, so that was two years ago, her best friends Kelli and Lauren didn't totally get it, but they were on her side. And that's why they agreed to help Lily with her submission for the Clarktown's Got Talent video competition. Filmmaking is Lily's passion, which means winning is more important to her than ever. Unfortunately, finding time to work on her video submission is proving harder than ever. In addition to doing regular homework and attending the Chinese school her parents own and run out of the Clarktown Community Center, Lily's been getting weird vibes from her parents lately and she can tell something is up. Then her mom announces that the Clarktown Community Center is having its first showcase, and the students of Hong Chinese Academy will be performing as a group, traditional Chinese dance! Lily is more confused than anything else. The community center is practically falling apart and they think this is a good time to put on a show? Could it be that the community center is in trouble and the only way to save it is to make the showcase a huge success? Lily has no choice. She'll have to juggle the video competition and the art of Chinese dance simultaneously. But when Max Zhang unexpectedly shows up in her class at Chinese school with his perfect Mandarin and his surprisingly good dance skills, Lily might just have to embrace her longtime rival as a key part of her plan to save the community center. |
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| The treacherous tower [sound recording (CD)] / StacyPlays. |
 Stacy and her intelligent wolves live together in a forest cave where they get news that a lost baby ocelot is trapped in a dangerous tower. Can Stacy and her wolf, Basil, rescue the ocelot in time? |
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| Graysen Foxx and the curse of the Illuminerdy [sound recording (CD)] / J. Scott Savage. |
 Graysen Foxx must use his extraordinary detective skills to solve the strange, mind-bending clues of the Illuminerdy, a secret society of school nerds who guard a powerful treasure. |
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| Slugfest [sound recording (CD)] / Gordon Korman. |
 A group of underdogs come together when they attend summer school for failing PE. Teaming up with the most hapless crew in school can really surprise a person. And their teacher might be hiding the biggest surprise yet. |
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| The lost tomb [sound recording (CD)] : and other real-life stories of bones, burials, and murder / Douglas Preston ; foreword by David Grann. |
 Douglas Preston brings together a collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present. |
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| The hunter [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Tana French. |
 It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less: he's built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he's gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places. But then Trey's long-absent father reappears, bringing along an English millionaire and a scheme to find gold in the townland, and suddenly everything the three of them have been building is under threat. Cal and Lena are both ready to do whatever it takes to protect Trey, but Trey doesn't want protecting. What she wants is revenge. |
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| Being peace [sound recording (CD)] : classic dharma talks / by Thich Nhat Hanh. |
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| Why we read [sound recording (CD)] : on bookworms, libraries, and just one more page before lights out / Shannon Reed. |
 "We read to escape, to learn, to find love, to feel seen. We read to encounter new worlds, to discover new recipes, to find connection across difference, or simply to pass a rainy afternoon. No matter the reason, books have the power to keep us safe, to challenge us, and perhaps most importantly, to make us more fully human. Shannon Reed, a longtime teacher, lifelong reader, and New Yorker contributor, gets it. With one simple goal in mind, she makes the case that we should read for pleasure above all else. In this whip-smart, laugh-out-loud-funny collection, Reed shares surprising stories from her life as a reader and the poignant ways in which books have impacted her students. From the varied novels she cherishes (Gone Girl, Their Eyes Were Watching God) to the ones she didn’t (Tess of the d’Urbervilles), Reed takes us on a rollicking tour through the comforting world of literature, celebrating the books we love, the readers who love them, and the ways in which literature can transform us for the better." -- Amazon.com |
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| The bad weather friend [sound recording (CD)] / Dean Koontz. |
 Benny Catspaw's perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fianče, and his favorite chair. He's not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn't know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he's never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. How strange, though it's a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what's inside the crate. He's a seven-foot-tall self-described "bad weather friend" named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. Spike will take care of it. He'll find Benny's enemies. He'll deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn't such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation. In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure, the likes of which never would have crossed the mind of a decent guy like him. |
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| Till human voices wake us [sound recording (CD)] / Rebecca Roque. |
 "Black Mirror meets A Good Girl‘s Guide to Murder when a teenage girl's relentless investigation into her best friend's death plunges her deep into a dangerous underground society where every secret has a price. Seventeen-year-old Cia lived in a house of secrets until she was five, when her father literally burned it all down. The price of his clandestine operation? Cia's entire family, and her leg. So, when her best friend Alice says she has a secret too, Cia wants nothing to do with it--even if it could shed light on her family's dark past. But Alice doesn't let go so easily, especially when her search for answers might help find Noah, the boy who broke her heart before going missing two months ago. But then the police find Alice's body floating in the quarry. Now Cia would give anything to know Alice's secrets. Because Alice would never have jumped, no matter what the cops think. Desperate to figure out what happened to her friend, Cia picks up the threads of Alice's investigation, plunging deep into a shadow world of augmented reality. As she untangles one web of lies after another, Cia finds herself pursued by an enemy that will pay any price to keep their secrets buried. But the girl who already lost everything isn't about to back down now. Her only chance to avenge Alice lies in exposing an underground society preying on those they think no one will miss--but danger lies closer to home than she imagined." -- Goodreads.com |
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| Normal women [sound recording (CD)] : nine hundred years of making history / Philippa Gregory. |
 Most histories have been written by men, about men, relegating women - with the exception of a few queens - to the shadows of time. Now, the author reveals the importance of ordinary women, providing a balanced chronicle that expands and adds rich detail to the story of Great Britain. Gregory draws on an archive of primary and secondary sources to rewrite British history, focusing on the agency, persistence, and effectiveness of everyday women throughout periods of social and cultural transition. She sweeps from the making of the Bayeux tapestry in the eleventh century to the Black Death in 1348 - after which women were briefly paid the same wages as men, the last time for seven centuries - to the 1992 ordination of women by the Church of England, when the church accepted that a woman could perform the miracle of the mass. Through the stories of the female soldiers of the civil war, the guild widows who founded the prosperity of the City of London, highwaywomen and pirates, miners, ship owners, international traders, the women who ran London theaters and commissioned plays from Shakespeare, and the "female husband" who married each other legally in church and lived as husband and wife, Gregory redefines "normal" female behavior to include heroism, rebellion, crime, treason, money-making, and sainthood. As she makes clear, normal women make history. |
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| A smoking bun [sound recording (CD)] / Ellie Alexander. |
 The mountains are calling in Ashland, Oregon, where pastry chef turned amateur sleuth, Jules Capshaw, is baking up a bevy of spiced curry buns and chai cookies for a moonlit snowshoe tour. The annual Downhill Dummy competition is a fun and festive atmosphere until one of the dummies takes a deadly detour and lands atop Fitz Baskin. Can Jules catch the killer before they strike again, or will the truth be buried under fluffy layers of fresh snow? |
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| Table for two [sound recording (CD)] : fictions / Amor Towles. |
 The millions of listeners of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of comprise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles's novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, "Eve in Hollywood" describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself, and others, in the midst of Hollywood's golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. |
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| Mania [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Lionel Shriver. |
 In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." College English instructor Pearson Converse is against this movement. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend with whom she can speak frankly. Or at least she thinks she can, until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes. |
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| Sex with a brain injury [sound recording (CD)] : on concussion and recovery / Annie Liontas. |
 Annie Liontas suffered multiple concussions in her thirties. She writes about what it means to be one of the "walking wounded," facing her fear, her rage, and the effects of head trauma on her relationships. |
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| Expiration dates [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / by Rebecca Serle. |
 Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it, the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she'd spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there's only a name: Jake. But as Jake and Daphne's story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper's prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn't, information that, if he found out, would break his heart. |
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