Staff Picks

Zadie Smith doesn't disappoint with her new novel set in Victorian England. Its focus is a real-life trial that went on for years, but it's also about much more: race, class, gender, and sexual politics. Smith plays with structure in interesting ways, and her observations are trenchant and insightful.

 

Publisher description:

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper–and cousin by marriage–of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems. Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story. The "Tichborne Trial"--wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title--captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task.

 

Is this gut-wrenching? You bet. It's like someone took you out, beat you senseless and then said, "Are you ready for more?" It's also laugh out loud hilarious and one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Definitely read the audiobook because you'll get more out of hearing him read it.

 

Publisher description:

In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son, Henry, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The family had moved from Los Angeles to London with their two young boys when Rob’s wife was pregnant with Henry, their third. The move was an adventure that would bind them even more tightly together as they navigated the novelty of London, the culture clashes, and the funhouse experience of Rob’s fame -- thanks to his role as co-creator and co-star of the hit series Catastrophe. Henry’s illness was a cataclysm that changed everything about their lives. Amid the hospital routine, surgeries, and brutal treatments, they found a newfound community of nurses, aides, caregivers, and fellow parents contending with the unthinkable. Two years later, Henry died, and his family watched their world fall away to reveal the things that matter most. A Heart That Works is Delaney’s intimate, unflinching, and fiercely funny exploration of what happened -- from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains. In the madness of his grief, Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. Delaney’s memoir—profound, painful, full of emotion, and bracingly honest -- offers solace to those who have faced devastation and shows us how grace may appear even in the darkest times.

 

This one's a doozy. Four unreliable narrators. Jumbled time. Every time you think you know what's going on, there's one rug pull after another. Even when you get to the end, you might not necessarily feel like you have solved everything. The less said about plot here, the better.

 

Publisher's description: 

In a boarded-up house on a dead-end street at the edge of the wild Washington woods lives a family of three. A teenage girl who isn't allowed outside, not after last time. A man who drinks alone in front of his TV, trying to ignore the gaps in his memory. And a house cat who loves napping and reading the Bible. An unspeakable secret binds them together, but when a new neighbor moves in next door, what is buried out among the birch trees may come back to haunt them all.

 

Based on a D&D podcast done by the McElroy family, this graphic novel (first in a series) is extremely funny, has eye-catching visuals, is self-referential, and Meta with a capital "M". You don't have to play D&D or know anything about it (I certainly fall into both of those camps) to enjoy this.

 

Publisher description: 
Welcome to the Adventure Zone!
SEE! The illustrated exploits of three lovable dummies set loose in a classic fantasy adventure!
READ! Their journey from small-time bodyguards to world-class artifact hunters!
MARVEL! At the sheer metafictional chutzpah of a graphic novel based on a story created in a podcast where three dudes and their dad play a tabletop role playing game in real time!
Join Taako the elf wizard, Merle the dwarf cleric, and Magnus the human warrior for an adventure they are poorly equipped to handle AT BEST, guided ("guided") by their snarky DM, in a graphic novel that, like the smash-hit podcast it's based on, will tickle your funny bone, tug your heartstrings, and probably pants you if you give it half a chance.
With endearingly off-kilter storytelling from master goofballs Clint McElroy and the McElroy brothers, and vivid, adorable art by Carey Pietsch, The Adventure Zone: Here There be Gerblins is the comics equivalent of role-playing in your friend's basement at 2am, eating Cheetos and laughing your ass off as she rolls critical failure after critical failure.

 

Virtuosic, beautiful, heart-wrenching but filled with moments of joy, this is the work of two artists at the top of their game. The idea of a COVID book could be wearisome in the wrong hands, but this is a work of beauty about the pandemic, George Floyd, mental health, and being black in the U.S.

 

Publisher's description: 

A smash up of art and text that viscerally captures what it means to not be able to breathe, and how the people and things you love most are actually the oxygen you most need. Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW. And so for anyone who didn’t really know what it means to not be able to breathe, REALLY breathe, for generations, now you know. And those who already do, you’ll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.

Find Ain't Burned All the Bright in our online catalog. 

This book has it all: wizards, London history, police procedurals, magical history, ghosts, and it's compulsively readable, too. The plot follows Peter Grant, a London police constable who is drawn into the unseen world of magic that exists behind our reality and becomes an apprentice wizard. It has been called "a cross between Harry Potter and CSI" but I think that's reductive because the tone and feel are so much different. It's also a lot funnier. Aaronovitch, who used to write for Doctor Who, is very, very witty and sharp. It has now become the first book in the Rivers of London series (there are nine in all, so far), with novellas, graphic novels, and short stories as well. Even if you're not a big Fantasy/Sci-Fi fan, this is a perfect place to dip your toe in the water.

 

Publisher's description:

Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.