Author: Jones, Lesley-Ann, author. Published: 2024 Call Number: B MCVIE Format: Books Summary: "Christine McVie--born Christine Perfect--was the quintessentially English rock star, as both the backbone and the beating heart of Fleetwood Mac. Straddling the band's incarnations to achieve global fame alongside Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham and John McVie, the classic line-up, she wrote and performed many of their greatest hits. As famous for their occasionally life-threateningly decadent lifestyles as for their musical brilliance, they were held together by this strong, constant figure whom they dubbed 'the mother' of the band. It was Christine who contained the flock, regrouped them when they went AWOL, focused and blended their talents and always got them back on track. And yet, as the "engine" of the band during their Rumours era--an album which charted the complete romantic disintegration within the band--Christine's personal life was every bit as tempestuous as those of her bandmates, weathering affairs, divorce, addiction and fiery passion, all of which bled into her now iconic song-writing. Told by an author who herself was friends with Christine, and with new contributions from those who knew her best, Songbird offers a true insider's view, and deep psychological insight into Christine as a both a woman and a musician--the first, the only, the ultimate picture of a rock legend and a national treasure"--
Author: Halteman, Matthew C., author. Published: 2024 Call Number: 179.3 Format: Books Summary: "A heartfelt, humane, and even hilarious account of why rule-obsessed veganism fails and how a focus on flourishing can bring about an abundant future for all. Perhaps you've looked at factory farming or climate change and thought, I should become a vegan. And like most people who think that, very probably you haven't. Why? Well, in our world, roast turkey emanates gratitude, steak confers virility, and chicken soup represents a mother's love. Against that, simply swapping meat for plants won't work. In Hungry Beautiful Animals, philosopher Matthew C. Halteman shows us how-despite all the forces arrayed against going vegan-we can create an abundant life for everyone without using animals for food. It might seem that moral rectitude or environmental judgement should do the trick, but they can't. Going vegan must be about flourishing, for all life. Shame and blame don't lead to flourishing. We must do it with joy instead. Hungry Beautiful Animals is more than philosophy: it's a book of action, of forgiveness, of love. Funny and wise, this book frees us joyfully to want what we already know we need"--
Author: Buttermore, Jess, author, photographer. McGuinness, Lisa, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 396.368 Format: Books Summary: "Floriography and slow botanical styling entwine in this playful twist on traditional flower arranging. Blooming with inspirational lifestyle photography by Jess Buttermore of Cedar House Living, The Love Language of Flowers contains step-by-step instructions for creating impactful yet achievable arrangements infused with vintage meaning, floral poetry, and a wild yet elegant edge. With a comprehensive glossary of flowers, herbs, and botanicals alongside their meanings, and a toolbox filled with floral arranging necessities, authors Jess and Lisa show you how to fill your arms with meaningful botanical arrangements and your hearts with the self-care you deserve."--
Author: Chong, Jinwoo, author. Published: 2023 2022 Call Number: F CHONG Format: Books Summary: "A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious new employers have inadvertently discovered time travel--and are using it to cover up a string of violent crimes..."--Dust jacket flap. After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father, attempting to hold their lives together, begins to gradually retreat from the family. 28-year-old Brandon finds himself in an apartment he does not recognize, an office he sometimes cannot remember leaving, and comes to suspect that something far more sinister is happening behind the walls. 48-year-old Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, participates in a television expose of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity eventually claimed the lives of three people and nearly killed him. As the lives of Bo, Brandon and Blue intersect with each other, it becomes clear that their lives are more interconnected and interdependent than could have ever imagined. -- adapted from Goodreads.
Published: 2023 Call Number: 398.24 Format: Books Summary: "A guide to the timeless language of flowers. Revealing a world of secret messages contained within a single petal. Floriography - the language of flowers - is the ancient art of encoding hidden messages in the type, colour and arrangement of plants, allowing individuals to express emotions and sentiments that they may not be able to articulate through words. Featuring 100 of the most popular and available blooms from around the world, this beautifully illustrated gift book gives the botanical name for each plant, a description of its significance and place in folklore, and the story behind its meaning. It also reveals how floral symbolism has been used over the centuries in literature and art, from Hamlet's Ophelia handing out rosemary 'for remembrance' and pansies 'for thoughts', to Oscar Wilde urging his friends to wear green carnations as a subtle code for homosexuality. The idea that flowers have secret meanings would have been well understood by contemporary audiences - and we are seeing a revival of the practice today. From mimosa - which signifies chastity because its leaves close when touched - to the varied messages encoded within different colours of geraniums, Floriography offers a creative way to convey feelings and can add an extra layer of beauty and significance to a gift of flowers. The flowers in Kate Middleton's wedding bouquet signified love, happiness, gallantry and fidelity. If someone sends you a bouquet of hydrangea and lobelia, beware: they stand for heartlessness and malevolence"--Publisher's description.
Author: Gilmore, Lucy (Romance fiction writer), author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F GILMORE Format: Books Summary: "Sloane Parker lives a small, contained life as a librarian in her small, contained town. She never thinks of herself as lonely...but still she looks forward to that time every day when old curmudgeon Arthur McLachlan comes to browse the shelves and cheerfully insult her. Their sparring is such a highlight of Sloane's day that when Arthur doesn't show up one morning, she's instantly concerned. And then another day passes, and another. Anxious, Sloane tracks the old man down only to discover him all but bedridden...and desperately struggling to hide how happy he is to see her. Wanting to bring more cheer into Arthur's gloomy life, Sloane creates an impromptu book club. Slowly, the lonely misfits of their sleepy town begin to find each other, and in their book club, find the joy of unlikely friendship. Because as it turns out, everyone has a special book in their heart--and a reason to get lost (and eventually found) within the pages"--
Author: Hokin, Catherine, author. Published: 2022 Call Number: F HOKIN Format: Books Summary: "'What is this place?' She lowers her camera and takes in the frail bodies and desolate faces staring back at her. 'It's hell on earth. Where the desperate abandon their last hope.' In that moment, she knows that taking pictures is not enough, she has to help these people... 1933, Berlin. Ten-year-old Hanni Foss stands by her father watching the celebrations marking Adolf Hitler as Germany's new leader. As the torchlights fade, she knows her safe and happy childhood is about to change forever. Practically overnight, the father she adores is lost to his ruthless ambition to oversee an infamous concentration camp... Twelve years later. As the Nazi regime crumbles, Hanni hides from her father on the fringes of Berlin. In stolen moments, she develops the photographs she took to record the brutality of the camp - the empty food bowls and hungry eyes - and vows to get justice for the innocent people she couldn't help as a child. But on the day she plans to deliver these damning photographs to the Allies, Hanni comes face to face with her father again. Reiner Foss is now working with the British forces, his past safely hidden behind a new identity. He makes it clear that he will go to deadly lengths to protect his secrets, but Hanni knows she can't give up her fight. But what will she have to sacrifice in order to keep the promise she made?"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430, author. Constantine, Peter, 1963- translator. Published: 2019 Call Number: 270.2092 Format: Books Summary: This long-awaited translation of Confessions, which Stephen Greenblatt describes as central to the legacy of Adam and Eve, enlivens the beguiling world of late antiquity. No modern, well-versed literature lover can call her education complete without having read Augustine’s Confessions. One of the most original works of world literature, it is the first autobiography ever written, influencing writers from Montaigne to Rousseau, Virginia Woolf to Gertrude Stein―and most recently informing Stephen Greenblatt's provocative thesis about one of our foundational mythologies in The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. It is here that we learn how one of the greatest saints in Christendom overcame a wild and reckless past, complete with a rambunctious posse of friends, an overly doting mother, and an affair that produced a “bastard” child. Yet English translators have long emphasized the ecclesiastical virtues of Augustine’s masterpiece, often at the expense of its passion and literary vigor. Restoring the lyricism of Augustine's original language, Peter Constantine offers a masterful and elegant rendering of Confessions in what will be a classic for decades to come.
Author: Engeln, Renee, author. Published: 2018 2017 Call Number: 306.4613 Format: Books Summary: "Today's young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don't want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They're angry about the media's treatment of women but hungrily consume the very outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture's absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn't real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward."-- Today's young women are angry about the media's treatment of women but hungrily consume the very outlets that belittle them. Engeln reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls' appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. To truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves.
Author: Sonneborn, Julia, author. Published: 2018 Call Number: F SONNEBOR Format: Books Summary: "An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiance has just become the president of her college--and her new boss--in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen's classic Persuasion. Anne Corey is about to get schooled. An English professor in California, she's determined to score a position on the coveted tenure track at her college. All she's got to do is get a book deal, snag a promotion, and boom! She's in. But then Adam Martinez--her first love and ex-fiance--shows up as the college's new president. Anne should be able to keep herself distracted. After all, she's got a book to write, an aging father to take care of, and a new romance developing with the college's insanely hot writer-in-residence. But no matter where she turns, there's Adam, as smart and sexy as ever. As the school year advances and her long-buried feelings begin to resurface, Anne begins to wonder whether she just might get a second chance at love. Funny, smart, and full of heart, this modern ode to Jane Austen's classic explores what happens when we run into the demons of our past ... and when they turn out not to be so bad, after all"--
Author: Han, Kang, 1970- author. Smith, Deborah, 1987- translator, writer of introduction. Published: 2016 2014 Call Number: F HAN Format: Books Summary: When a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed in the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. Through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope unfolds the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. "Amid a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho's best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice..." --Amazon.com
Author: Harris, Robert, 1957- author. Published: 2016 Call Number: F HARRIS Format: Books Summary: "The Pope is dead. Behind locked doors of the Sistine chapel, 118 cardinals from around the world will cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men, but they are men of the world, and they have rivals. And over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth."--Dust jacket.
Author: Singh, Nalini, 1977- author. Published: 2013 Call Number: PB SINGH Format: Books Summary: Three distant races of supernatural beings sharing very different goals must fight their emotions and true natures when their uneasy coexistence starts to erode.
Author: Meissner, Susan, 1961- author. Published: 2025 Call Number: F MEISSNER Format: Books Summary: "1956, Malibu, California. Something is not right on Paradise Circle With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, out-of-work starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor and successful screenwriter, Elwood, but his agoraphobia only allows for short conversations through the windows. He's the closest thing she has to a friend in her exile, however, as she and her maid, Eva, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, rarely make conversation. Until they both happen to spot Elwood's sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his rose garden one morning just before dawn. After that, they don't see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone? Has something happened to Elwood? The two women can't help trying to find out. But as they sneak up on and into June's life, they discover an unexpected secret, and then a shared goal that's even more startling"--
Author: Dess, Sophie Madeline, author. Published: 2025 Call Number: F DESS Format: Books Summary: "A novel following two fiercely competitive and co-dependent siblings whose desires as artists, thinkers, and lovers come to a head when they fall for the same woman, forcing them to confront not only their precarious relationship with each other, but what it means to sacrifice for the sake of art."-- Demetri and his sister, Ava. Ava and her brother, Demetri. As fiercely competitive as they are co-dependent, the two have long been locked in an emotionally charged relationship. Ava, defiant and impassioned, grew up in the shadow of soft, charming, and intellectual Demetri. But in the aftershocks of familial trauma, it is Demetri who finds himself emotionally ruined, whereas Ava has no time nor patience for grief. As they grow up, following one another from city to city, the siblings are set on their own parallel paths as artists, thinkers, and lovers. Ava throws herself into her obsession with her art, which gradually leads to fame and financial stability – as well as extreme existential insecurity. But Demetri flounders in his own work, unable to escape the wake of tragedy; until, that is, he decides to make Ava his subject. When Nati, an Italian gallery owner, arrives in New York, Demetri and Ava orbit her, possessed by their own priorities. But when they both fall for her, Nati refuses to play their game. Once again, and perhaps for the last time, the brother and sister must face what they most want from each other, and what they’re unwilling to give.
Author: Gray, Shelley Shepard, author. Published: 2025 2024 Call Number: LP F GRAY Format: Large print Summary: "Siblings Martin, Kelsey, Beth, and Jonny are as different as can be, but they have one thing in common. They're all longing to reinvent their lives. Raised by their divorced lapsed-Amish father and English mother, they only knew real stability and a sense of family when visiting their Old Order grandparents, Josiah and Sylvia Schrock, in peaceful Holmes County, Ohio. Now the four want to try living with them and joining their faith--much to the Schrocks' surprise . . . Martin, the eldest, is feeling dissatisfied with his life, and is determined to make a fresh start. When he meets his grandparents' neighbor, Patti Coblentz, he's immediately drawn to her outgoing, helpful nature--but is so overwhelmed that he appears blunt and rude. Is there any way he can drop his defenses enough to admit she's captured his heart? Always self-conscious about the birthmark on her temple, Patti is resigned to never marrying and busying herself with the responsibilities of the large home and property she has inherited. Yet given time and patience--and adhering to their grandparents' unexpectedly challenging rules--the whole family might just find what they're looking for, even Martin and Patti."--
Author: McFadden, Freida, author. Published: 2025 2023 Call Number: LP F MCFADDEN Format: Large print Summary: Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward. Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital's inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out. And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy's worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D. And now she might never escape.
Author: Christensen, Lauren, 1967- author. Published: 2025 Call Number: B CHRISTEN Format: Books Summary: A heartbreaking yet hopeful memoir of love, loss, and resilience, recounting the joy of impending parenthood, the devastating loss of a child and the profound journey of grappling with grief while finding meaning in life's deepest paradoxes. "Lauren Christensen is a thirtysomething editor in New York City when she meets her future husband, Gabe, a writer with whom she falls in love right away. Her beloved grandfather is dying, but the young couple is bringing new life into the family: Lauren and Gabe joyfully discover she is pregnant with their daughter, Simone. As Lauren faces the prospect of becoming a parent, she learns to let go of the fear of abandonment and need for control instilled in her by growing up with a largely absent father and a high-powered mother who was often away on business. Lauren and Gabe are incandescently happy in their exuberant, messy, beautiful shared world. But just weeks after their wedding, they learn that their worst nightmare has come true: Simone is dying in the womb. In fierce, tender, spellbinding prose, Firstborn brings us to the very heart of the human paradox: How do we live when everyone who makes up our world will someday be gone? And how can we mourn when the cosmic order has been turned upside down--when a child dies before she is born?" --Amazon.com
Author: Gurnah, Abdulrazak, 1948- author. Published: 2025 Call Number: F GURNAH Format: Books Summary: "In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, a master storyteller captures young people in Tanzania in a time of dizzying global change. At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university in Dar es Salaam with a new swagger and sense of ambition. There he catches the eye of Fauzia, who sees in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. When the two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all, they little imagine how deeply their fates will entwine and diverge. As rapidly accelerating global change reaches even their quiet corner of the world, bringing tourists, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands."--
