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Best Mysteries of 2020
Running out of road
Summary:""Daniel Friedman has done it again-only better."- Michael Sears, bestselling author of Black Fridays Once, Detective Buck Schatz patrolled the city of Memphis, chasing down robbers and killers with a blackjack truncheon and a .357. But he’s been retired for decades. Now he’s frail and demented, and Rose, his wife of 72 years, is ill and facing a choice about her health care that Buck is terrified to even consider. The future looks short and bleak, and Buck’s only escape is into the past. But Buck’s past is under attack as well. After 35 years on death row, convicted serial killer Chester March finally has an execution date. Chester is the oldest condemned man in the United States, and his case has attracted the attention of NPR producer Carlos Watkins, who believes Chester was convicted on the strength of a coerced confession. Chester’s conviction is the capstone on Buck’s storied career, and, to save Chester’s life, Watkins is prepared to tear down Buck’s reputation and legacy."
The missing American
Summary:"When her dreams of rising through the police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her life in Accra. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private detective agency tracking down missing persons, thefts, and marital infidelities. It’s not the future she imagined, but it’s her best option. Meanwhile, Gordon Tilson, a middle-aged widower in Washington, DC, has found solace in an online community after his wife’s passing. Through the support group, he’s even met a young Ghanaian widow he really cares about, and when her sister gets into a car accident, he sends her thousands of dollars to cover the hospital bill–to the horror of his only son, Derek. When Gordon runs off to Ghana to surprise his new love and disappears, Derek chases after him, fearing for his father’s life. The case of the missing American man will drag both Emma and Derek into a world of Sakawa scams, fetish priests, and those willing to keep things secret through death."
The eighth detective : a novel
Summary:"There are rules for murder mysteries. There must be a victim. A suspect. A detective. The rest is just shuffling the sequence. Expanding the permutations. Grant McAllister, a professor of mathematics, once sat down and worked them all out – calculating the different orders and possibilities of a mystery into seven perfect detective stories he quietly published. But that was thirty years ago. Now Grant lives in seclusion on a remote Mediterranean island, counting the rest of his days. Until Julia Hart, a sharp, ambitious editor knocks on his door. Julia wishes to republish his book, and together they must revisit those old stories: an author hiding from his past, and an editor, keen to understand it. But there are things in the stories that don’t add up. Inconsistencies left by Grant that a sharp-eyed editor begins to suspect are more than mistakes. They may be clues, and Julia finds herself with a mystery of her own to solve."
Death in the east : a novel
Summary:1905, London. As a young constable, Sam Wyndham is on his usual East London beat when he comes across an old flame, Bessie Drummond, attacked in the streets. The next day, when Bessie is found brutally beaten in her own room, locked from the inside, Wyndham promises to get to the bottom of her murder. But the case will cost the young constable more than he ever imagined. 1922, India. Leaving Calcutta, Captain Sam Wyndham heads for the hills of Assam, to the ashram of a sainted monk where he hopes to conquer his opium addiction. But when he arrives, he sees a ghost from his life in London–a man thought to be long dead, a man Wyndham hoped he would never see again. Wyndham knows he must call his friend and colleague Sergeant Banerjee for help. He is certain this figure from his past isn’t here by coincidence. He is here for revenge.
Murder in old Bombay
Summary:"In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lays in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to read but newspapers. The case that catches Jim’s attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by the widower of one of the victims – his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide – Jim approaches the Framjis and is hired by the Parsee family to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon. But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Jim’s investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. Based on real events, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India, Nev March’s lyrical debut Murder in Old Bombay brings this tumultuous historical age to life."
A royal affair
Summary:"In London 1946, The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is just beginning to take off and the proprietors, Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, are in need of a bigger office and a secretary to handle the growing demand. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have the necessary means. So when a woman arrives-a cousin of Gwen’s-with an interesting and quite remunerative proposition, they two of them are all ears. The cousin, one Lady Matheson, works for the Queen in "some capacity" and is in need of some discreet investigation. It seems that the Princess Elizabeth has developed feelings for a dashing Greek prince and a blackmail note has arrived, alluding to some potentially damaging information about said prince. Wanting to keep this out of the palace gossip circles, but also needing to find out what skeletons might lurk in the prince’s closet, the
Best Thrillers of 2020
The golden cage : a novel
Summary:Tthe story of the scorned wife of a billionaire, and her delicious plot to get her revenge and bring him to his knees"
My mother’s house : a novel
Summary:Moving his family to an immigrant enclave in New York in the hopes of starting over, an emotionally damaged Haitian man succumbs to dark impulses that have dangerous ripple effects for the others living in his home.
Little disasters : a novel
Summary:"In this novel, a doctor is faced with an ethical dilemma when her friend’s child lands in the emergency room"
Catherine house : a novel
Summary:Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years–summers included–completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.
The illness lesson
Summary:The year is 1871. In Ashwell, Massachusetts, at the farm of Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, a mysterious flock of red birds descends. Samuel, whose fame as a philosopher has waned in recent years, takes the birds’ appearance as an omen that the time is ripe for his newest venture. He will start a school for young women, guiding their intellectual development as he has so carefully guided his daughter’s. Despite Caroline’s misgivings, Samuel’s vision–revolutionary, as always; noble, as always; full of holes, as always–takes shape. It’s not long before the students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms. Rashes, fits, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. In desperation, the school turns to the ministering of a sinister physician–based on a real historic treatment–just as Caroline’s body, too, begins its betrayal. As the girls’ conditions worsens, long-buried secrets emerge, and Caroline must confront the all-male, all-knowing authorities around her, the ones who insist the voices of the sufferers are unreliable. In order to save herself, Caroline may have to destroy everything she’s ever known.
A hundred suns
Summary:"An evocative historical novel set in 1930’s Indochine, about the American wife of a Michelin heir who journeys to the French colony in the name of family fortune, and the glamorous, tumultuous world she finds herself in-and the truth she may be running from.
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Remembering Jan Morris, 1926-2020
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In my mind’s eye : a thought diary
Summary:“Ranging widely from the idyllic confines of her North Wales home, Morris offers diverse sallies on her preffered form of exercises (walking briskly), her frustration at not recognizing a certain melody humming in her head (Beethoven’s Pathétique, incidentally), and her nostalgia for the erstwhile ‘essential niceness’ of small-town America.”–Inside dust jacket.
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The world : travels 1950-2000
Summary:“The career of Jan Morris began auspiciously enough fifty years ago “with an imperial exploit” that burst like a salvo into newspapers throughout the world. Assigned by The Times of London to cover the first successful ascent of Mount Everest, “the supreme mountain of the world,” Morris was the only reporter allowed on Sir John Hunt’s expedition. Morris’s great “scoop,” published in London on June 2, 1953, the very morning of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, not only marked the beginning of a “new Elizabethan age,” but also established the twenty-six-year-old as the foremost travel essayist of the age.” “Fifty years later, we now have The World, which provides us with as complete an overview of Morris’s work as we will ever see. Dividing the volume into five decades, Morris presents history with an unparalleled dramatic flair, creating a riveting portrait of the twentieth century, from the political idealism of the postwar years to its more recent tensions and excesses.”–BOOK JACKET
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Contact! : a book of encounters
Summary:The travel writer presents tales of the people she’s encountered in the places she’s visited over the years, including a Sherpa guide who scaled Mt. Everest, a lascivious Manhattan cabbie, and a spy wearing a raincoat.
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Fifty years of Europe : an album
Summary:Is there really a new Europe? Have the extraordinary transformations of the last half century – the rise and fall of the Eastern Bloc, Germany’s reunification, ethnic warfare, even the ongoing creation of a common parliament and currency – rendered our culture not only unrecognizable but unimaginable? These are among the myriad questions posed by Jan Morris in Fifty Years of Europe. Morris, one of our era’s most engaging historians and celebrated travelers, revisits the continent she’s long known so well and tries to discover whether she now knows it at all. How she contrasts her European experiences today with those of two generations past makes for an insightful and highly personal study.
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A writer’s house in Wales
Summary:“Journalist, historian, travel writer, novelist, Jan Morris has guided countless readers through faraway places with her keen eye and eloquent turns of phrase. In this intimate and fascinating memoir, she invites us into her own home in the magical heartland of Wales.” ‘Wales is a realm unto itself, ancient, unique, and unforgettable. In this craggy country lashed by the Atlantic dwell the last of the original Britons, a people with a colorful history and a language all their own. Long before English was spoken, Welshmen – cymry, in their native language – were composing epics in their lilting Celtic.’ “Morrises have inhabited this far western corner of Britain for centuries, and Trefan Morys – Jan Morris’s house between the sea and the mountains – is the eighteenth-century stable block of her former family home nearby. Morris regards this modest building not only as a reflection of herself and her life but also as epitomizing Wales, which has for centuries defiantly preserved its own identity.”–BOOK JACKET.
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Trieste and the meaning of nowhere
Summary:One hundred years ago, Trieste was the chief seaport of the entire Austro-Hungarian empire, but today many people have no idea where it is. This fascinating Italian city on the Adriatic, bordering the former Yugoslavia, has always tantalized Jan Morris with its moodiness and melancholy. She has chosen it as the subject of this, her final work, because it was the first city she knew as an adult — initially as a young soldier at the end of World War II, and later as an elderly woman. This is not only her last book, but in many ways her most complex as well, for Trieste has come to represent her own life with all its hopes, disillusionments, loves and memories.
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Hav : comprising last letters from Hav of the Myrmidons
Summary:“… part erudite travel memoir, part speculative fiction, part cautionary political tale… transports the reader to an extraordinary place that never was, but could well be”–From publisher description.
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Battleship Yamato : of war, beauty and irony
Summary:“An extraordinary–and strikingly illustrated–reflection on the meaning of war from one of our greatest living writers. The battleship Yamato, of the Imperial Japanese Navy, was the most powerful warship of World War II and represented the climax, as it were, of the Japanese warrior traditions of the samurai–the ideals of honor, discipline, and self-sacrifice that had immemorially ennobled the Japanese national consciousness. Stoically poised for battle in the spring of 1945–when even Japan’s last desperate technique of arms, the kamikaze, was running short–Yamato arose as the last magnificent arrow in the imperial quiver of Emperor Hirohito. Here, Jan Morris not only tells the dramatic story of the magnificent ship itself–from secret wartime launch to futile sacrifice at Okinawa–but, more fundamentally, interprets the ship as an allegorical figure of war itself, in its splendor and its squalor, its heroism and its waste. Drawing on rich naval history and rhapsodic metaphors from international music and art, Battleship Yamato is a work of grand ironic elegy.”–Provided by publisher.
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Lincoln : a foreigner’s quest
Summary:“With her iconoclasm and humor and marvelous sense of place, Morris seamlessly blends travel narrative, history and biography with transatlantic insights into the origins of the American Empire to reveal the real Lincoln – maverick, artist, oddball, natural aristocrat.”–BOOK JACKET.
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Transgender Awareness Month
Apsara engine
Summary:"In trans illustrator Bishakh Som’s debut work of fiction, questions of gender, the body, and existential conformity are explored over the course of eight speculative and graphic short stories"
Fairest : a memoir
Summary:"A heartrending immigrant memoir and a uniquely intersectional coming-of-age story of a life lived in duality and the in-between, and how one navigates through race, gender, and the search for love"
Tomorrow will be different : love, loss, and the fight for trans equality
Summary:"A captivating memoir that will change the way we look at identity and equality in this country. Before she became the first transgender person to speak at a national political convention in 2016 at the age of twenty-six, Sarah McBride struggled with the decision to come out–not just to her family but to the students of American University, where she was serving as student body president. She’d known she was a girl from her earliest memories, but it wasn’t until the Facebook post announcing her truth went viral that she realized just how much impact her story could have on the country. Four years later, McBride was one of the nation’s most prominent transgender activists, walking the halls of the White House, advocating inclusive legislation, and addressing the country in the midst of a heated presidential election. She had also found her first love and future husband, Andy, a trans man and fellow activist, who complemented her in every way … until cancer tragically intervened. Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds. As McBride urges: ‘We must never be a country that says there’s only one way to love, only one way to look, and only one way to live.’ The fight for equality and freedom has only just begun."–Dust jacket.
Beyond trans : does gender matter?
Summary:Goes beyond transgender to question the need for gender classification. Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places and forms just mechanisms of exclusion? Heath Fogg Davis offers an impassioned call to rethink the usefulness of dividing the world into not just Male and Female categories but even additional categories of Transgender and gender fluid. Davis, himself a transgender man, explores the underlying gender-enforcing policies and customs in American life that have led to transgender bathroom bills, college admissions controversies, and more, arguing that it is necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters. He examines four areas where we need to re-think our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking from his own experience and drawing upon major cases of sex discrimination in the news and in the courts, Davis presents a persuasive case for challenging how individuals are classified according to sex and offers concrete recommendations for alleviating sex identity discrimination and sex-based disadvantage.
The house of impossible beauties
Summary:"A gritty and gorgeous debut that follows a cast of gay and transgender club kids navigating the Harlem ball scene of the 80s and 90s, inspired by the real House of Xtravaganza made famous by the seminal documentary "Paris is Burning""
Gumballs
Summary:"Gumballs dispenses an array of bright, candy-colored short comics about Erin’s gender transition, anecdotal tales of growing up as a triplet, and fictional stories of a socially inept lovestruck teenager named Tobias. The wide-ranging series is filled with single-page gag cartoons, visual diaries of everyday life, funny faux personal ads, and real-life horror stories from customers at his day job. Gumballs offers a variety of flavors that will surely delight anyone with a taste for candid self-reflection and observations of humanity"–Page [2] of cover.
Confessions of the fox : a novel
Summary:"Set in the eighteenth century London underworld, this bawdy, genre-bending novel reimagines the life of thief and jailbreaker Jack Sheppard to tell a profound story about gender, love, and liberation. Recently jilted and increasingly unhinged, Dr. Voth throws himself into his work, obsessively researching the life of Jack Sheppard, a legendary eighteenth century thief. No one knows Jack’s true story–his confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. Voth discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled Confessions of the Fox. Dated 1724, the manuscript tells the story of an orphan named P. Sold into servitude at twelve, P struggles for years with her desire to live as "Jack." When P falls dizzyingly in love with Bess, a sex worker looking for freedom of her own, P begins to imagine a different life. Bess brings P into the London underworld where scamps and rogues clash with London’s newly established police force, queer subcultures thrive, and ominous threats of an oncoming plague abound. At last, P becomes Jack Sheppard, one of the most notorious–and most wanted–thieves in history. An imaginative retelling of Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, Confessions of the Fox blends high-spirited adventure, subversive history, and provocative wit to animate forgotten histories and the extraordinary characters hidden within."/span
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Jewish Book Month : Teens
In the neighborhood of true
Summary:In the very white, very Christian world of Atlanta society in 1958, New York transplant Ruth decides not to tell her new high school friends and boyfriend that she is Jewish, but when a violent act rocks the city, Ruth must figure out where her loyalties lie.
Recommended for you
Summary:Shoshanna Greenburg loves her job at the bookstore, Once Upon, until Jake Kaplan joins the staff, a handsome non-reader who challenges her for a bonus she needs.
Crying laughing
Summary:Winnie Friedman has been waiting for the world to catch on to what she already knows: she’s hilarious. It might be a long wait, though. After bombing a stand-up set at her own bat mitzvah, Winnie’s been keeping her jokes to herself. Well, herself and her dad, a former comedian and her inspiration. Then, on the second day of tenth grade, the funniest guy in school actually laughs at a comment she makes in the lunch line and asks her to join the improv troupe. Maybe he’s even flirting. Just when Winnie’s ready to say yes to comedy again, her father reveals he’s been diagnosed with ALS. That’s not funny. Her dad’s still making jokes, though, which seems like a good thing. And Winnie’s prepared to be his straight man if that’s what he wants. But is it what he needs? Caught up in a spiral of epically bad dates, bad news, and bad performances, Winnie’s struggling to see the humor in it all. But finding a way to laugh is exactly what will get her through.
It’s a whole spiel : love, latkes, and other Jewish stories
Summary:"From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It’s a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be"
Summary:"From stories of confronting their relationships with Judaism to rom-coms with a side of bagels and lox, It’s a Whole Spiel features one story after another that says yes, we are Jewish, but we are also queer, and disabled, and creative, and political, and adventurous, and anything we want to be"
Today tonight tomorrow
Summary:"Throughout the years both Rowan and Neil have been at competition with one another on everything from who has the best ideas for school functions to which one will be their graduating class’s valedictorian. However, in the twenty-four hours left they have as high school students, the two learn they share something much deeper than a rivalry"
The Way Back
Summary:A historical fantasy that follows Eastern European teens Yehuda and Bluma on a journey through the Far Country, the Jewish land of the dead.
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Memoir Writing Month
The dragons, the giant, the women : a memoir
Summary:"When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States." –Publisher’s description.
Memorial Drive : a daughter’s memoir
Summary:"At age nineteen, Natasha Trethewey had her world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma and now explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. With penetrating insight and a searing voice that moves from the wrenching to the elegiac, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores this profound experience of pain, loss, and grief as an entry point into understanding the tragic course of her mother’s life and the way her own life has been shaped by a legacy of fierce love and resilience. Moving through her mother’s history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a "child of miscegenation" in Mississippi, Trethewey plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985."–Amazon.
Unbowed : a memoir
Summary:"Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya. Born in a rural village in 1940, she was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her become the first woman both in East and Central Africa to earn a PhD and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government; the establishment, in 1977, of the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages; and how her courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves.–From publisher description."
This is what America looks like : my journey from refugee to Congresswoman
Summary:"An intimate and rousing memoir by progressive trailblazer Ilhan Omar-the first African refugee, the first Somali-American, and one of the first Muslim women, elected to Congress. Ilhan Omar was only eight years old when war broke out in Somalia. The youngest of seven children, her mother had died while Ilhan was still a little girl. She was being raised by her father and grandfather when armed gunmen attacked their compound and the family decided to flee Mogadishu. They ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya, where Ilhan says she came to understand the deep meaning of hunger and death. Four years later, after a painstaking vetting process, her family achieved refugee status and arrived in Arlington, Virginia. Aged twelve, penniless, speaking only Somali and having missed out on years of schooling, Ilhan rolled up her sleeves, determined to find her American dream."
Men we reaped : a memoir
Summary:In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life–to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth–and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends.
Hunger : a memoir of (my) body
Summary:"Gay has written … about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as ‘wildly undisciplined,’ Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care."
Once I was you : a memoir of love and hate in a torn America
Summary:"Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist Maria Hinojosa shares her personal story interwoven with American immigration policy’s coming-of-age journey at a time when our country’s branding went from "The Land of the Free" to "the land of invasion.""
The beauty in breaking : a memoir
Summary:"A series of connected personal stories drawn from the author’s life and work as an ER doctor that explores how we are all broken–physically, emotionally, and psychically–and what we can do to heal ourselves as we try to heal others."
More myself : a journey
Summary:"An intimate, revealing look at one artist’s journey from self-censorship to full expression As one of the most celebrated musicians of our time, Alicia Keys has enraptured the nation with her heartfelt lyrics, extraordinary vocal range, and soul-stirring piano compositions. Yet away from the spotlight, Alicia has grappled with
Polar Bear Week
The three snow bears
Summary:Retells the story of Goldilocks, set in an Inuit village and featuring a family of polar bears.
I love you with all my heart
Summary:Polo the polar bear asks his mother how she loves him, and she explains that she loves him with her eyes, her nose, her paws, and all her heart.
The last polar bear
Summary:Tigluk and his grandmother paddle out into the Arctic Ocean where they find a young polar bear whose mother has died because of the changes brought about by the warming climate, and they bring the cub back to their town so they can teach it how to survive in a changing world.
Polar bear night
Summary:After wandering out at night to watch a magical star shower, a polar bear cub returns home to snuggle with her mother in their warm den.
Sea bear : a journey for survival
Summary:A polar bear waits patiently for spring when the ice breaks up, but after months of hunting, paddling, and resting on ice floes, summer ends and the bear must swim very far to find land. Includes facts about polar bears and the effect of climate change on their environment.
The ice bear
Summary:A bear-child is found by a hunter and his wife who care for him for seven years but, after the child wanders off, the hunter finds the child with his bear mother and the child must decide if he will go with the hunter or stay with his mother.
Nanuk the ice bear
Summary:At the top of the world, a polar bear hunts, swims, courts, raises cubs, and worries as they go off on their own.
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For Fans of The Haunting of Bly Manor
The woman in the mirror
Summary:"For more than two centuries, Winterbourne Hall has stood atop a bluff overseeing the English countryside of Cornwall and the sea beyond. In 1947, Londoner Alice Miller accepts a post as governess at Winterbourne, looking after Captain Jonathan de Grey’s twin children. Falling under the de Greys’ spell, Alice believes the family will heal her own past sorrows. But then the twins’ adoration becomes deceitful and taunting. Their father, ever distant, turns spiteful and cruel. The manor itself seems to lash out. Alice finds her surroundings subtly altered, her air slightly chilled. Something malicious resents her presence, something clouding her senses and threatening her very sanity. In present day New York, art gallery curator Rachel Wright has learned she is a descendant of the de Greys and heir to Winterbourne. Adopted as an infant, she never knew her birth parents or her lineage. At long last, Rachel will find answers to questions about her identity that have haunted her entire life. But what she finds in Cornwall is a devastating tragic legacy that has afflicted generations of de Greys. A legacy borne from greed and deceit, twisted by madness, and suffused with unrequited love and unequivocal rage."
The girl from Rawblood : a novel
Summary:At the turn of England’s century, as the wind whistles in the lonely halls of Rawblood, young Iris Villarca is the last of her family’s line. They are haunted, through the generations, by "her," a curse passed down through ancient blood that marks each Villarca for certain heartbreak. Iris forsakes her promise to her father, to remain alone, safe from the world. She dares to fall in love, and the consequences of her choice are immediate and terrifying. As the world falls apart around her, she must take a final journey back to Rawblood where it all began and where it must all end.
The turn of the screw.
Summary:What seems to start out as a Christmas Eve ghost story quickly becomes a tale of psychological horror as a young governess struggles—and ultimately fails—to protect her charges from the “corruption” that only she can conceive of.–
Abigale Hall : a novel
Summary:"Amid the terror of the Second World War, seventeen-year-old Eliza and her troubled little sister Rebecca have had their share of tragedy, having lost their mother to the Blitz and their father to suicide. Forced to leave London to work for the mysterious Mr. Brownwell at Abigale Hall, they soon learn that the worst is yet to come. The vicious housekeeper, Mrs. Pollard, seems hell-bent on keeping the ghostly secrets of the house away from the sisters and forbids them from entering the surrounding town-and from the rumors that circulate about Abigale Hall. When Eliza uncovers some blood-splattered books, ominous photographs, and portraits of a mysterious woman, she begins to unravel the mysteries of the house, but with Rebecca falling under Mrs. Pollard’s spell, she must act quickly to save her sister, and herself, from certain doom. Perfect for readers who hunger for the strange, Abigale Hall is an atmospheric debut novel where the threat of death looms just beyond the edge of every page. Lauren A. Forry has created a historical ghost story where the setting is as alive as the characters who inhabit it and a resonant family drama of trust, loyalty, and salvation"–,"A creepy psychological thriller in a Victorian gothic tradition that recalls Shirley Jackson and Angela Carter."
Starter house
Summary:A pregnant woman who moves into her dream home discovers she must solve the mystery of a decades-old murder to rid herself of a ghostly little boy and save her unborn child.
The widow’s house
Summary:When Jess and Clare Martin move from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to their former college town in the Hudson River valley, they are hoping for rejuvenation — of their marriage, their savings, and Jess’s writing career. They take a caretaker’s job at Riven House, a crumbling estate and the home of their old college writing professor. While Clare once had dreams of being a writer, those plans fell by the wayside when Jess made a big, splashy literary debut in their twenties. It’s been years, now, since his first novel. The advance has long been spent. Clare’s hope is that the pastoral beauty and nostalgia of the Hudson Valley will offer some inspiration. But their new life isn’t all quaint town libraries and fragrant apple orchards. There is a haunting pall that hangs over Riven House like a funeral veil. Something is just not right. Soon, Clare begins to hear babies crying at night, see strange figures in fog at the edge of their property. Diving into the history of the area, she realizes that Riven House has a dark and anguished past. And whatever this thing is — this menacing force that destroys the inhabitants of the estate — it seems to be after Clare next.…
House of echoes : a novel
Summary:"A young New York City couple with a boy and a baby in tow, Ben and Caroline Tierney had it all…until Ben’s second novel missed the mark, Caroline lost her lucrative banking job, and something went wrong with 8-year-old Charlie. When Ben inherits land way upstate from his grandmother, the two of them began to believe in second chances. But upon arriving in Swannhaven, a town that seems to have been forgotten by time, they’re beset by strange sights and disconcerting developments…and they begin to realize they might have made their worst mistake yet. But what dark secret is buried in this odd place? And will Ben and Caroline figure it out soon enough to save their young family?"
The grownup
Summary:A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A
Joyful Families
Hair love
Summary:A little girl’s daddy steps in to help her arrange her curly, coiling, wild hair into styles that allow her to be her natural, beautiful self.
Grandma’s tiny house : a counting story
Summary:In rhyming text, when the whole family and guests show up for the big dinner at Grandma’s house, it becomes clear that the house is much too small to hold them all.
Saturday
Summary:When all of their special Saturday plans go awry, Ava and her mother still find a way to appreciate one another and their time together.
Bedtime bonnet
Summary:As family members braid, brush, twirl, roll, and tighten their hair before bedtime, putting on kerchiefs, wave caps, and other protective items, the little sister cannot find her bonnet.
We sang you home
Summary:This celebration of the bond between parent and child captures the wonder new parents feel as they welcome their new baby.
Amy Wu and the perfect bao
Summary:Amy is determined to make a perfect dumpling like her parents and grandmother do, but hers are always too empty, too full, or not pinched together properly.
First laugh : welcome, baby!
Summary:A Navajo family welcomes a new baby into the family with love and ceremony, eagerly waiting for that special laugh. Includes brief description of birth customs in different cultures.
Welcome to the party
Summary:"Inspired by the eagerly awaited birth of her daughter, Kaavia James Union Wade, … author and … actress Gabrielle Union pens a festive and universal love letter from parents to little ones, [meant to welcome] a baby to the party of life"–Publisher marketing.
The night is yours
Summary:From a vantage point high in their apartment, a parent narrates as Amani plays hide-and-seek at night with her friends in the neighborhood.
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Teentober
Clap when you land
Summary:Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people… In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance — and Papi’s secrets — the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.
Wicked as you wish
Summary:Years after the evil Snow Queen desolated the magical kingdom of Avalon, Prince Alexei, his friend Tala, and a ragtag band, inspired by the appearance of the Firebird, try to reclaim their land.
The henna wars
Summary:Nishat doesn’t want to lose her family, but she also doesn’t want to hide who she is, and it only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life. Flávia is beautiful and charismatic, and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat decide to showcase their talent as henna artists. In a fight to prove who is the best, their lives become more tangled–but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush, especially since Flávia seems to like her back. As the competition heats up, Nishat has a decision to make: stay in the closet for her family, or put aside her differences with Flávia and give their relationship a chance.
Bloom
Summary:"The invasion begins–but not as you’d expect. It begins with rain. Rain that carries seeds. Seeds that sprout–overnight, everywhere. These new plants take over crop fields, twine up houses, and burrow below streets. They bloom–and release toxic pollens. They bloom–and form Venus flytrap-like pods that swallow animals and people. They bloom–everywhere, unstoppable.Or are they? Three kids on a remote island seem immune to the toxic plants. Anaya, Petra, Seth. They each have strange allergies–and yet not to these plants. What’s their secret? Can they somehow be the key to beating back this invasion? They’d better figure it out fast, because it’s starting to rain again."
Yes no maybe so
Summary:Jamie Goldberg, who chokes when speaking to strangers, and Maya Rehrman, who is having the worst Ramadan ever, are paired to knock on doors and ask for votes for the local state senate candidate.
We didn’t ask for this
Summary:"Central International School’s annual lock-in is legendary. Bonds are made. Contests are fought. Stories are forged that will be passed down from student to student for years to come. This year’s lock-in begins normally enough. Then a group of students led by Marisa Cuevas stage an ecoprotest and chain themselves to the doors, vowing to keep everyone trapped inside until their list of demands is met. Some students rally to their cause — but others are aggrieved to watch their own plans fall apart. Amira has trained all year to compete in the school decathlon on her own terms. Peejay intended to honor his brother by throwing the greatest party CIS has ever seen. Kenji was looking forward to making a splash at his improv showcase. Omar wanted to spend a little time with the boy he’s been crushing on. Celeste, adrift in a new country, was hoping to connect with someone — anyone. And Marisa, once so certain of her goals, must now decide how far she’ll go to attain them. Every year, lock-in night changes lives. This year, it might just change the world."
Felix ever after
Summary:Felix Love, a transgender seventeen-year-old, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.
Only mostly devastated
Summary:When his aunt’s illness keeps Ollie in North Carolina, he hopes his summer fling with Will can grow into something more, but at school Will proves to be a completely different–and firmly closeted–man.
Heartstopper. Volume 1
Summary:"Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player NIck Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn’t think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works."
The gravity of us
Summary:When his volatile father is picked to become an astronaut for NASA’s mission to Mars, seventeen-year-old Cal, an aspiring journalist, reluctantly moves from Brooklyn to Houston, Texas, and looks for a story to report, finding an ally (and crush) in Leon, the son of another astronaut.
Layoverland : a novel
Summary:"Beatrice Fox deserves to go straight to hell. At least, that’s what she believes. Her last day on Earth, she ruined the life of the person she loves most—her little sister, Emmy. So when Bea awakens from a fatal car accident to find herself on an airplane headed who knows where, she’s confused, to say the least. Once on the ground, Bea receives some truly harrowing news: she’s in purgatory. If she ever wants to catch a flight to heaven, she’ll have to help five thousand souls figure out what’s keeping them from moving on. But one of Bea’s first assignments is Caleb, the boy who caused her accident and the last person Bea would ever want to send to the pearly gates. And as much as Bea would love to see Caleb suffer for dooming her to a seemingly endless future of