Staff Picks

This is the amazing true story of the first women to raft the Colorado river. Their motivation was not fame or adventure but rather to complete the first botanical survey of the Grand Canyon. Their tale is told through the history of botany, feminism, academia, and white-water rafting in the USA.

 

Publisher description:

In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first. Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring forty-three-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon’s secret nooks and crannies. Along the way, they chased a runaway boat, ran the river’s most fearsome rapids, and turned the harshest critic of female river runners into an ally. Clover and Jotter’s plant list, including four new cactus species, would one day become vital for efforts to protect and restore the river ecosystem.

 

Charlie has always loved to tell stories--or has Charlie always loved to lie? This dark thriller with twisting timelines follows several stories that ultimately all tie in to one horrific summer at an English beach. The consequences of the lies and stories told that summer will ripple for decades.

 

Publisher's description: For Charlie and her niece Katie, it's supposed to be a quiet holiday in the peaceful, out-of-the-way seaside town of Hithechurch, England. Charlie is researching a book on the folklore of the area, and the gloomy sea and dangerous caves seem to offer up plenty of material, while Katie is just there to run wild and get some fresh air. But Charlie's research reveals a deeper, darker secret, one that uncovers her own, carefully hidden past. Because young women are going missing again: a teenage girl snatched from the beach in broad daylight, and before that, other girls through the decades have vanished from the area, their families left with no answers and no bodies to bury. Charlie's creation was a thing of felt, straw, fury, and a rusty pair of scissors in the dark. It couldn't be her monster. Could it? Charlie is set on discovering the truth about the girls' disappearances, but she's about to encounter a force of pure, obsessive malevolence that threatens to destroy anything in its path 

 

 

"Alex Green is a young girl in a world much like ours. But this version of 1950s America is characterized by a significant event: the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary wives and mothers sprouted wings, scales, and talons, left a trail of fiery destruction in their path, and took to the skies. Was it their choice? What will become of those left behind? Why did Alex's beloved Aunt Marla transform but her mother did not?"

 

A dark, atmospheric visit to 17th-century Oxford during the Restoration, this book is a fast read--don't let its size intimidate you. Four unreliable narrators guide the story, each shedding light on the others' biases, misinterpretations, and outright lies. Fun and thought-provoking all at once.

 

Publisher description:

A novel on the way we interpret events to suit our purpose. The protagonists are four people giving evidence in a murder in 17th century England. One blames the crime on too much authority, another on the lack of it. A look at the controversies of the day, from medical experiments to religious freethinking.

 

The author, an infectious disease doctor, does a masterful job presenting the harm caused by ultra-processed foods (UPFs) to our physical and mental health, as well as the environment. This book motivated me to change my diet and see the need for marketing restrictions and warning labels on UPFs.

 

Publisher's description:

A manifesto to change how you eat and how you think about the human body.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

In a fast-paced and eye-opening narrative van Tulleken explores the origins, science, and economics of Ultra-Processed Food to reveal its catastrophic impact on our bodies and the planet. And he proposes real solutions for doctors, for policy makers, and for all of us who have to eat. A book that won’t only upend the way you shop and eat, Ultra-Processed People will open your eyes to the need for action on a global scale.

 

A haunting fantasy about a country immersed in mists and tradition and the girl whose hidden magic might just save them all. Elspeth Spindle has a hidden curse, a nightmare in her head that guides her and protects her--but at what cost? When she's pulled into a conspiracy, everything changes.

 

Publisher description:

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom she calls home--she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets. But nothing comes for free, especially magic. When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure the kingdom of the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King's own nephew, Captain of the Destriers ... and guilty of high treason. He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards--the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

 

 

Publisher's description:

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centered around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best-friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention.

This is a fantastic Regency era romance, for fans of the genre or for those who are curious after watching Bridgerton. A steamy joyride through high-society London in the 19th century, told through a modern lens, with LGBTQ+ characters and a very enticing hero who wears eyeliner.

 

Publisher's description: When Kieran Ransome's latest antics result in a massive scandal, his father issues an ultimatum: find a respectable wife or inherit nothing. But as one of London's most inveterate scoundrels, Kieran doesn't know any ladies who fit the bill. Or does he? Celeste Kilburn is a society darling, beloved by influential members of the ton. But keeping a spotless reputation leaves little room for adventure and she longs to escape her gilded cage, especially with her impending engagement to a stuffy earl. When Kieran--her older brother's best friend and an irresistibly attractive rogue--begs for her help, Celeste makes a deal: she'll introduce him to the right social circles if he'll show her the scandalous side of London. In between proper teas and garden parties, Kieran escorts Celeste--disguised as "Salome"--to rowdy gaming hells, wild ̊ftes, and sensual art salons. As they spend more time together, their initial attraction builds to a desperate desire that neither can ignore. But when someone discovers their midnight exploits, Celeste's freedom and reputation are endangered, and Kieran must save the woman he loves... respectable or not.

 

This lovely meditation on the world of winter--both the natural world of the author's English and Welsh homelands and the inner world of melancholy that he and many others experience during the season--is the perfect read for a January day by the fire with a hot drink.

 

Publisher's description:

Shortlisted for the Wales Creative Nonfiction Book of the Year 2019 Rediscover the light in the dark... 'A treasure of a book, wonderfully attentive in outlook and generous in spirit.' - Amy Liptrot As November stubs out the glow of autumn and the days tighten into shorter hours, winter's occupation begins. Preparing for winter has its own rhythms, as old as our exchanges with the land. Of all the seasons, it draws us together. But winter can be tough. It is a time of introspection, of looking inwards. Seasonal sadness; winter blues; depression - such feelings are widespread in the darker months. But by looking outwards, by being in and observing nature, we can appreciate its rhythms. Mountains make sense in any weather. The voices of a wood always speak consolation. A brush of frost; subtle colours; days as bright as a magpie's cackle. We can learn to see and celebrate winter in all its shadows and lights. In this moving and lyrical evocation of a British winter and the feelings it inspires, Horatio Clare raises a torch against the darkness, illuminating the blackest corners of the season, and delving into memory and myth to explore the powerful hold that winter has on us. By learning to see, we can find the magic, the light that burns bright at the heart of winter: spring will come again.

 

This book is among the most moving and powerful I've ever read. Frederick Douglass was a true survivor against the most perilous of odds, and someone whose strength and faith remained (and remain) alive in the written word--in the very abilities to read and write.

 

Publisher's description: 

This dramatic autobiography of the early life of an American slave was first published in 1845, when its young author had just achieved his freedom. Douglass' eloquence gives a clear indication of the powerful principles that led him to become the first great African-American leader in the United States. The personal account of a fugitive slave's privation and sufferings and his campaigns for Negro emancipation.

 

Find Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas in our online collection.