Staff Picks

Hardly any plot, no compelling characters, and a timeline of one sleepless night make for a surprisingly compelling dive into the economics of John Maynard Keynes, the concept of Utopia, and the life of a mother, wife, economics professor, feminist, and guest lecturer. This is an intellectual gem.

 

Publisher's description:  Martin Riker's poignant and startlingly original novel asks how to foster a brave mind in anxious times, following a newly jobless academic rehearsing a speech on John Maynard Keynes for a surprising audience. In a hotel room in the middle of the night, Abby, a young feminist economist, lies awake next to her sleeping husband and daughter. Anxious that she is grossly underprepared for a talk she is presenting tomorrow on optimism and John Maynard Keynes, she has resolved to practice by using an ancient rhetorical method of assigning parts of her speech to different rooms in her house, and has brought along a comforting albeit imaginary companion to keep her on track-Keynes himself. Yet as she wanders with increasing alarm through the rooms of her own consciousness, Abby repeatedly finds herself straying from her prepared remarks on economic history, utopia, and Keynes's pragmatic optimism. A lapsed optimist herself, she has been struggling under the burden of supporting a family in an increasingly hostile America after being denied tenure at the university where she teaches. Confronting her own future at a time of global darkness, Abby undertakes a hero's quest through her memories to ideas hidden in the corners of her mind-a piecemeal intellectual history from Cicero to Lewis Carroll to Queen Latifah-as she asks what a better world would look like if we told our stories with more honest and more hopeful imaginations

 

This book is sweet, tender, and devastating. It is gorgeously written and so creative. I loved the Greek Goddess and God element. There is excellent commentary on war, racism, and sexism throughout history. I also cried a lot. So gorgeous.

 

Publisher's description:

It's 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She's a shy and talented pianist; he's a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it's immediate and deep--and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields. Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who's played Carnegie Hall, he's a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that's before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who's already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans. Thirty years after these four lovers' fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love.

 

"Alone is how we survive, you've said, but one thing I do know is that alone is not how we live."  Mika Moon, an isolated witch who never stays in one place for long, answers a Witch Wanted ad and finds her home, the family she has been longing for, and the work that makes her happy.

 

Publisher's description: 

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family-and a new love-changes the course of her life. As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don't mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she's used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously. But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic.

 

 

When I finished this book, I closed the cover and said out loud, "that was cool." It's comfort fiction at its best. Yay libraries!!

 

Publisher's description: What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi's unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is about the magic of libraries and the discovery of connection. This inspirational tale shows how, by listening to our hearts, seizing opportunity and reaching out, we too can fulfill our lifelong dreams. Which book will you recommend?

 

A fascinating (if biased) biography about an incredible creative. If you grew up with the Muppets or Sesame Street and want to catch a glimpse of the man behind the curtain, this is the book for you.

 

Publisher's description: 

Jim Henson was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters he created: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. The Muppets made Jim Henson a household name, but they were just part of his remarkable story.

 

Find Jim Henson: The Biography in our online catalog.

This book led me to think more deeply about how history is presented in monuments, historical markers, and museums--and specifically, whose perspective is presented and whose is left out. Most useful: ten questions to ask about any presentation of history, to look for missing stories and perspectives.

 

Publisher description:

A book by the bestselling, American Book Award-winning author. In Lies Across America, James W. Loewen continues his mission, begun in the award-winning Lies My Teacher Told Me, of overturning the myths and misinformation that too often pass for American history. This is a one-of-a-kind examination of historic sites all over the country where history is literally written on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, historic houses, forts, and ships. New changes and updates include: - A town in Louisiana that was the site of a major but now-forgotten slave uprising - A totally revised tour of the memory and intentional forgetting of slavery and the Civil War in Richmond, Virginia - The hideout of a gang in Delaware that made money by kidnapping free blacks and selling them into slavery Entertaining and enlightening, Lies Across America also has a serious role to play in contemporary debates about white supremacy and Confederate memorials.

 

Mackenzie has always been plagued by vivid dreams but it's a particularly bad omen to wake up with a severed crow head in your hand. But what kind of bad is coming? This book drips with indigenous horror, intergenerational trauma, and grief. Stephen Graham Jones fan will likely enjoy the atmosphere.

 

Publisher's description: 

Young Cree woman Mackenzie increasingly dreams about a long-ago weekend at her family's lakefront campsite that transpired before her sister Sabrina's death. The dreams are full of fierce crows, and now crows are following her in real life, so she heads home to rural Alberta to get help from her family. A debut for Nehiyaw author Johns, a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta.

 

Colorado author Ausma Zehanat Khan returns with the second book in her Blackwater Falls series, which features Det. Inaya Rahman of the Denver Police Department's Community Response Unit. This twisty, fast-paced series is recommended for fans of Tana French, Michael Connelly, and James Lee Burke.

 

Publisher's description:

In Blackwater Falls, Colorado, veteran police officer Harry Cooper is hot on the heels of some local vandals when the situation turns deadly: believing one of them has a gun, Harry opens fire and Duante Reed, a young Black man, is killed. The "gun" in his hands was a bottle of spray paint. Meanwhile, in nearby Denver, a drug raid goes south and a Latino teen, Mateo Ruiz, is also killed. Detective Inaya Rahman is all too familiar with the name of the young cop who has seemingly killed Mateo: Kelly Broda. Kelly is the son of the police officer John Broda, who led a violent attack on her when they were both in Denver. No one is more surprised than Inaya when John turns up on her doorstep, pleading for her help in proving the innocence of his son. With the Denver Police force spread thin between the two cases, protests on both sides of the cases begin. Inaya and her boss Lieutenant Waqas Seif have their work cut out for them to consider the guilt of the perpetrators and their victims. Harry was by all accounts an officer dedicated to the communities he served: was this shooting truly a terrible mistake? Duante was, to some, a street artist with no prior record, but to others, he was a vandal. Mateo was either in the wrong place at the wrong time, or a dangerous drug dealer. In either case, was lethal force truly necessary? Forced to reckon with her own prejudices and work through those of her colleagues around her, Inaya must discover the truth of what really happened on one fateful night in Blackwater Falls.