Staff Picks

If you've seen the movie with Rosalind Russell, you'll love this book. Irreverent and hilarious, Auntie Mame will keep you laughing and wondering what she will get up to next. A great read for when you're in the mood for something uplifting.

 

Publisher's description:

With an introduction by Paul Rudnick and a swank new cover, Auntie Mame is back in print, the classic novel that introduced the world to America's most madcap, fun-loving, and irresistible aunt. Afterword by Michael Tanner.

 

A beautifully written and captivating tale of Damon (mispronounced by his kinfolk as "Demon") Copperhead (the surname of his cryptic, legendary, and deceased father), a "melungeon" boy in millennial Appalachia. A blend of Hillbilly Elegy, The Lincoln Highway, and Dickensian themes with a modern twist.

 

Publisher description:

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.

 

Viola Davis vividly shares the childhood trauma alongside the moments of joy growing up in a tightly connected family experiencing extreme poverty. Education and discovering acting offered the teenage Davis new horizons. I highly recommend listening to the audiobook, which is read by the author.

 

Publisher's description: 

"In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote [this book], my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be...you. 

 

You may remember Harris Wittels as a loveable and zany animal control officer from the show, Parks and Recreation. What you might not know is that he died from a drug overdose at the age of 30 right at the height of his rising star as a Hollywood comedian. In this gripping and moving memoir, Harris' sister Stephanie recounts the love and grief she holds for her brother. This is a powerful account of addiction that profoundly affected me and left me speechless.

 

Publisher's description:

One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs' life forever.. Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation. This compelling portrait of a comedic genius and a profound exploration of the love between siblings is A Year of Magical Thinking for a new generation of readers. A heartbreaking but hopeful memoir of addiction, grief, and family, Everything is Horrible and Wonderful will make you laugh, cry, and wonder if that possum on the fence is really your brother's spirit animal.

 

Edgar Award-winner Walter Mosley is widely acknowledged as a master of noir. The second novel in his latest series follows investigator Joe King Oliver as he once again tackles issues of white nationalism and systemic corruption. As always, Mosley delivers fast-paced suspense with poetic style.

 

Publisher's description:

When friend of the family and multi-billionaire Roger Ferris comes to Joe with an assignment, he's got no choice but to accept, even if the case is a tough one to stomach. White nationalist Alfred Xavier Quiller has been accused of murder and the sale of sensitive information to the Russians. Ferris has reason to believe Quiller's been set up and he needs King to see if the charges hold. This linear assignment becomes a winding quest to uncover the extent of Quiller's dealings, to understand Ferris' skin in the game, and to get to the bottom of who is working for whom. Even with the help of bodyguard and mercenary Oliya Ruez--no regular girl Friday--the machine King's up against proves relentless and unsparing. As King gets closer to exposing the truth, he and his loved ones barrel towards grave danger. Mosley once again proves himself a "master of craft and narrative" (National Book Foundation) in this carefully plotted mystery that is at once a classic caper, a family saga and an examination of fealty, pride and how deep debt can go.

 

Legendborn (and Bloodmarked) are fun and exciting imaginings of King Arthur's legacy in the present day. I laughed and cheered for Bree as she learned to control her own power. It reminded me of a cross between the Girls of Paper and Fire series and the Bitter Root comics.

 

Publisher description:

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

 

What happens when a security unit goes rogue and then starts caring for the humans it is assigned to protect, in spite of its self-professed apathy? You just might catch the feels, too. Murderbot may be only now learning how to care for others, but it has already earned a place in my heart.

 

Publisher's description: In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

 

As a Greek mythology freak, I was immediately curious to see how Ovid's stories could be adapted. This book does not disappoint, with stories as short as a page still leaving you feeling as if you got some secret insight into the gods and heroes of old. Each vignette has a different voice, and somehow still carries the weight of ancient powers in its modern prose. Reading this, I felt as riled up as I do after hearing the Xena theme song.

 

Publisher's description: Presents a reimagining of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" that artfully reconstructs and astrologically connects the stories of such classic figures as Narcissus, Pygmalion, and Midas.

 

This collection from activist Greta Thunberg gathers leading thinkers--from scientists and engineers to historians and philosophers--to go beyond the question "Is it already too late?" and give some real guidance on what we can do now. Kirkus calls this "vital reading for anyone who cares about the planet."

 

Publisher's description:

You might think it's an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all the odds. There is hope--but only if we listen to the science before it's too late. In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts--geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and indigenous leaders--to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Throughout, illuminating and often shocking grayscale charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations underscore their research and their arguments. Alongside them, she shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, but also our greatest source of hope. Once we are given the full picture, how can we not act? And if a schoolchild's strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do collectively if we tried? We are alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity. Together, we can do the seemingly impossible. But it has to be us, and it has to be now.