Staff Picks

Through her early childhood, adolescence and up through her famous appearance on Saturday Night Live, then into her later life, Sinéad O'Connor shares her life story with raw honesty, compassion, grit, and charm. An insightful read, with lots of musical references--I read it with YouTube at hand and watched moments, music videos, and performances as they came up in the book for a full featured multimedia reading experience!

 

Publisher's description:

Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O’Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous -- living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II’s photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O’Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother’s Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince’s 'Nothing Compares 2U.' Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad’s memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

 

This book transports you to West Virginia and through the lens of the very relatable autistic trans boy Miles, who struggles against systemic police brutality and a generations-long class war. Along the way, he gets help from the ghost of his martyred coal miner ancestor. Equal parts gut-wrenching and heart-warming, this is a book you can't put down.

 

Publisher's description:

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident” that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him. The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners’ rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death. In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidently kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

 

A strangers-to-friends-to-lovers dream romance that you won't want to put down. The two main characters are authentic, amusing, and their relationship is one built on mutual trust, care, and respect. Perfect for romance readers who like witty banter, men-written-by-women, and mutual pining! I laughed and cried my way through it then immediately recommended it to everyone I know.

 

Publisher’s description:
Tiffy and Leon share an apartment. Tiffy and Leon have never met. After a bad breakup, Tiffy Moore needs a place to live. Fast. And cheap. But the apartments in her budget have her wondering if astonishingly colored mold on the walls counts as art. Desperation makes her open minded, so she answers an ad for a flatshare. Leon, a night shift worker, will take the apartment during the day, and Tiffy can have it nights and weekends. He’ll only ever be there when she’s at the office. In fact, they’ll never even have to meet. Tiffy and Leon start writing each other notes – first about what day is garbage day, and politely establishing what leftovers are up for grabs, and the evergreen question of whether the toilet seat should stay up or down. Even though they are opposites, they soon become friends. And then maybe more. But falling in love with your roommate is probably a terrible idea…especially if you've never met.

Find The Flatshare in our online catalog

A very cute story that has a really refreshing take on death that I hadn't seen before. The theme takes a gentle and meaningful approach to dealing with grief and the unanswered question of what comes next after death, endearing you to its characters to the point where you feel like you yourself are experiencing their feelings, all in a cute and cozy setting, taking place primarily in a tea shop with a bunch of kooky and interesting characters popping in for a drink away from busy life. FUN!

 

Publisher's description:

A ... queer love story ... When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he's definitely dead. But even in death he's not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days. Hilarious, haunting, and kind; an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.

 

This book was an excellent depiction of the complexities of life when you are working to provide for yourself and those you love and how that can be exploited. Written with such distinct voice that allows you to deeply empathize with the characters, Mottley has created a wonderfully insightful read.

 

Publisher's description:

Kiara Johnson and her brother Marcus are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex that calls itself, optimistically, the Royal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent-which has now more than doubled-and to keep the 9-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. What begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger one night soon becomes the job Kiara never wanted but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. And her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland police department.

 

This book made me laugh, cry, and everything in between. Careful if you read it in public--you might not be able to control your reactions. A tender, hilarious, and heartfelt journey of unexpected connections and new beginnings. Phoebe completely won my heart!

Publisher description:
It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years--she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan--which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other. This is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagine--and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

Find The Wedding People in our online catalog

A woman on a mysterious mission and her (mostly) unwilling Lyft driver embark on an road trip across the present-day US, pursued by friends, family, strangers, and -- oh, yes -- an online mob, all with motives of their own. A surprisingly optimistic take on the power of human connection in the 21st century, with an equal measure of satisfying laughs and heartfelt thought about the future of the species.

 

Publisher description:

A standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin. Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC. But there are rules: He cannot look inside the box. He cannot ask questions. He cannot tell anyone. They must leave immediately. He must leave all trackable devices behind. As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war. The truth promises to be even stranger, and may change how you see the world.

 

Find I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom in our online catalog

 

Abdurraqib's writing is passionate, jumps off the page at times, and has rhythm and meaning for every word and at the corners of every sentence. He articulates what it means to be a true fan, how that fandom is intertwined with the city you're from, and how a lot of times that city lets you down but you keep showing up, because you've always dreamed of the day your team, your city, can rise above it and get national recognition for redemption, even if it's just for that moment.

 

Publisher's description: 

While Hanif Abdurraqib is an acclaimed author, a gifted poet, and one of our culture's most insightful music critics, he is most of all, at heart, an Ohioan. Growing up in Columbus in the '90s, Abdurraqib witnessed a golden era of basketball, one in which legends like LeBron were forged, and countless others weren't. His lifelong love of the game leads Abdurraqib into a lyrical, historical, and emotionally rich exploration of what it means to make it, who we think deserves success, the tensions between excellence and expectation, and the very notion of role-models, all of which he expertly weaves together with memoir: "Here is where I would like to tell you about the form on my father's jumpshot," Abdurraqib writes. "The truth, though, is that I saw my father shoot a basketball only one time.

 

Estela, our potentially unreliable narrator, recounts her seven years working as a housemaid for a wealthy family whose little girl has just died. Trabucco Zerán delivers a reflective thriller that interrogates socio-economic power dynamics. Ideal for fans of Alfonso Cuarón's award-winning film, Roma.

 

Publisher description:
Estela came from the countryside, leaving her mother behind, to work for the señor and señora when their only child was born. They wanted a housemaid: "smart appearance, full time," their ad said. She wanted to make enough money to support her mother and return home. For seven years, Estela cleaned their laundry, wiped their floors, made their meals, kept their secrets, witnessed their fights and frictions, raised their daughter. She heard the rats scrabbling in the ceiling, saw the looks the señor gave the señora; she knew about the poison in the cabinet, the gun, the daughter's rebellion as she grew up, the mother's coldness, the father's distance. She saw it all. After a series of shocking betrayals and revelations, Estela stops speaking, breaking her silence only now, to tell the story of how it all fell apart. Is this a story of revenge or a confession? Class warfare or a cautionary tale? Building tension with every page, Clean is a gripping, incisive exploration of power, domesticity, and betrayal from an international star at the height of her powers.

 

If you're captivated by Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air or tales of mountaineering disasters, this story of a local editor for Outside Magazine offers a profound exploration of healing, humility, and self-discovery. A compelling narrative of personal growth amidst perilous journeys.

 

Publisher's description:

Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself and the world again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health. Journey with him as he travels across Israel and the West Bank, before moving on to India, a candle-lit cave on a mountaintop in the Himalayan foothills, and a life-changing encounter with a 100-year-old yogi. Wetzler's writing is full of the poignant, amusing, and occasionally heart‑breaking situations that unfold when we finally decide to confront depression (or any mental health struggle) and declare ourselves ready to heal: How do we heal our past and thrive again? What does it mean to live a good life? How can we transform our suffering and serve others? His answer: live to tell the story and find the humility and courage to be the best human you can be.

 

Find Into the Soul of the World in our online catalog