Staff Picks

Liz Moore's Long Bright River is a propulsive tale of sisters on different paths in a struggling area of Philadelphia, a police officer and an addict. A duality of good and bad is woven through the plot: life choices, crime, policing, parenting. This is a harrowing but redemptive whodunnit.

 

Publisher's description:

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling. Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit, and her sister, before it's too late.

 

Patrick Bringley introduces readers to art in a unique way when he becomes a museum guard in the wake of his older brother's death at 26. Needing to be surrounded by calm and beauty in that wake of that tragedy, he goes on an emotional, cultural tour of one of the great Museums of the world. Lovely!

 

Publisher's description:

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards -- a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns.

 

Tan diverges from her normal fare to share personal bird observations. I read this during a time when I added my own backyard birdfeeders and began observing my avian neighbors up close. Tan's book makes one understand the amazing intricacies that are easily missed if we don't observe closely!

 

Publisher's description:

In 2016, author Amy Tan grew overwhelmed by the state of the world: Hatred and misinformation became a daily presence on social media, and the country felt more divisive than ever. In search of peace, Tan turned toward the natural world just beyond her window and, specifically, the birds flocking to the feeders in her yard. But what began as an attempt to find solace turned into something far greater--an opportunity to savor quiet moments during a volatile time, connect to nature in a meaningful way, and imagine the intricate lives of the birds she admired. Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time--from before the pandemic to the days of quarantine--through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

 

Intermezzo is a chess tactic where a player makes an unexpected move, mid-sequence, to disrupt an opponent's plans. Sally Rooney's latest is about brothers (one a chess pro) finding their way, both together and apart, after their father's death. Add a May-December romance and...Intermezzo!

 

Publisher description:

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

 

 

 

James offers a dignified take from a slave's perspective on the classic Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. It's a quick read, but it packs a punch. Thoughtful, imaginative, with a couple of curve balls. By the author of Erasure, on which the movie American Fiction is based.

Publisher description:

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

 

This adorable children's picture book provides kids with a roadmap to think and imagine their dreams into existence. It allows little ones to understand that they have a role to play in their own thoughts, feelings, and outcomes. With its beautiful illustrations, this book offers a welcome and uplifting message.

 

Publisher description:
A children's book that inspires dreams, kindles hopes, and empowers you to believe in yourself. Permeate your children's minds and their actions with positivity.

 

This is a fast-paced, revelatory novel about Brooklyn-based siblings who are required to wrangle with their cultural and parental heritage, and the challenges of balancing personal integrity with personal comfort in ways both wonderful and troubling. The characters are believable and relatable, and I learned some history along the way. This is a fantastically entertaining debut novel. I can't wait for this author's next book!

 

Publisher's description:

It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's powerbrokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets. Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

 

This book spans several decades that cover the end of WWII and forward. The focus is on snapshots of the daily lives and experiences of several thoughtful and optimistic characters who reside variably in England and Florence, Italy. It's a heartwarming, life-affirming novel about enduring the hardships that come for us all. Serendipity, the value and influence of art, friendship in its various forms, and the arc of life are believably highlighted in this lovely book. A sweet tonic and contextual reminder for our unsettling times.

 

Publisher's description:

Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit amidst the rubble of war-torn Italy, and set off on a course of events that will shape Ulysses's life for the next four decades. As Ulysses returns home to London, re-immersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parot--a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics--he carries his time in Italy with him. And when an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills