Author: Wibberley, Emily, author. Siegemund-Broka, Austin, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y WIBBERLE Format: Books Summary: Three months after she breaks up with her now ex, Dean, seventeen-year-old Kaylee and her family go on their annual vacation with Dean's family, and so to avoid an awkward trip, Kaylee tries to set some ground rules with him but finds herself falling for him all over again. Seventeen-year-old volleyball star Kaylee Jordan lives a life of player rankings, constant training, and a carefully curated social media full of followers watching to see if she'll go pro out of high school like her famous mom. Her one refuge, and the thing she looks forward to every summer? The vacation her family spends in Malibu with the Freeman-Yus. This year, there's only one problem: Kaylee and their son, Dean, dated for the past three months, and Kaylee just unceremoniously dumped him. Hoping to spare them the worst summer ever, Kaylee comes to Dean with her unconventional solution: she's going to walk him through her rules for getting over an ex. When Dean grudgingly cooperates, Kaylee's got her work cut out for her. But helping Dean follow her own rules starts becoming difficult when the pressures of Kaylee's family legacy and perfect life start to feel less like a plan and more like a prison...and amid warm California nights and stolen laughs, Kaylee feels herself falling for Dean for the same reasons and some new ones. With their trip coming to an end, Kaylee has to make the complicated choice between doing what's expected and taking a (second) chance on love.
Author: Chao, Gloria, 1986- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y CHAO Format: Books Summary: "A romance about teens who devote themselves to granting other people's wishes, but are too afraid to let them selves have their own hearts' desires--each other"-- "Liya and Kai had been best friends since they were little kids--but they haven't spoken since a humiliating incident sparked The Biggest Misunderstanding Of All Time. When Liya discovers her family's wishing lantern store is struggling, she decides to resume a tradition she had with her beloved late grandmother: secretly fulfilling the wishes people write on the lanterns they send into the sky. It may save the store, but she can't do it alone--and Kai is the only one who cares enough to help. Their feuding families and their changing futures threaten to tear them apart again. Can they find a way to make their own wishes come true?"--
Author: Pelletier, Cathie, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 974.043 Format: Books Summary: Tells the story of the winter storm that significantly impacted the New England region in 1952. The February 1952 snowstorm that blanketed New England offers a valuable reminder about nature's capacity for destruction as well as insight into the human instinct for preservation. Housewives and lobstermen, loggers and soldiers were all trapped as snow piled in drifts twenty feet high. The storm smothered hundreds of travelers in their cars, covered entire towns, and broke ships in half. In the midst of the blizzard's chaos, there were remarkable acts of heroism and courageous generosities. It is likely that none of us know how we would handle a confrontation with a blizzard or other natural disaster. Pelletier shows that we have it inside to fight for survival in some of the harshest conditions that nature has to offer. - adapted from jacket
Author: Kelly, Mary Louise, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 306.874 Format: Books Summary: "The time for do-overs is over. Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said "next year." Next year will be the year she makes it to her son James's soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR's All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions. The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I'll get on the plane, and next year I'll find a way to be there for the mom stuff. Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father as well as a surprising turn in her marriage, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on. Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It's what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents, and that marriages change. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong. This chronicle of her eldest child's final year at home, of losing her father, as well as other curve balls thrown at her, is not a definitive answer--not for herself and certainly not for any other parent. But her questions, her issues, will resonate with every parent. And, yes, especially with mothers, who are judged more harshly by society and, more important, judge themselves more harshly. What would she do if she had to decide all over again? Mary Louise's thoughts as she faces the coming year will speak to anyone who has ever cared about a child, a parent, or a spouse. It. Goes. So. Fast. is honest, funny, poignant, revelatory, and immensely relatable"--
Author: Talty, Stephan, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B KORESH Format: Books Summary: "The first comprehensive account of David Koresh, the tragedy at Waco, and the rise of government mistrust in America"-- The first comprehensive account of David Koresh's life, his road to Waco, and the rise of government mistrust in America, from a master of narrative nonfiction. No other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians' enigmatic leader, David Koresh. Drawing on first-time, exclusive interviews with Koresh's family and survivors of the siege, bestselling author Stephan Talty paints a psychological portrait of this infamous icon of the 1990s. Born Vernon Howell into the hyper-masculine world of central Texas in the 1960s, Koresh experienced a childhood riven with abuse and isolation. He found a new version of himself in the halls of his local church, and love in the fundamentalist sect of the Branch Davidians. Later, with a new name and professed prophetic powers, Koresh ushered in a new era for the Davidians that prized his own sexual conquest as much as his followers' faith. As one survivor has said, "What better way for a worthless child to feel worth than to become God?" In his signature immersive storytelling, Talty reveals how Koresh's fixation on holy war, which would deliver the Davidians to their reward and confirm himself as Christ, collided with his paranoid obsession with firearms to destructive effect. Their deadly, 51-day standoff with the embattled FBI and ATF, he shows, embodied an anti-government ethic that continues to resonate today. Now, thirty years after that unforgettable moment, Koresh presents the tragedy at Waco -- and the government mistrust it inspired -- in its fullest context yet. - Publisher.
Author: Benedict, Jeff, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B JAMES Format: Books Summary: Presents a definitive biography of one of the greatest athletes of all time that chronicles not only LeBron James' meteoric rise to fame but also his solid family, political activism, and business empire. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron James's ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined. He won his destiny despite overwhelmingly long odds; his mother placed him with a family that gave him stability and put a basketball in his hands. Benedict shows the gradual rise of a star who, surrounded by a tight-knit group of teenage friends and adult mentors, accelerated into a speeding comet during high school. He went from a lost boy in Akron to a hero who uses his fortune to educate underprivileged children and lift up needy families-- and brought home Cleveland's first NBA championship. Benedict delves into LeBron's relationship with fame and power: how he has cultivated it, harnessed it, suffered from it, and leveraged it. -- adapted from jacket
Author: Rubin, Gretchen, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 152.1 Format: Books Summary: "The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, and love: by tuning in to the five senses. For more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she'd been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She'd spent so much time stuck in her head that she'd allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world rediscovered by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. In this revelatory journey of self-experimentation, she explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world. From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Met and attending Flavor University, Rubin show us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us an immediate, sustainable way to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us-as well as a way to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent. A Life in Five Senses is an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives-and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love"--
Author: Daniels, B. J., author. Published: 2023 Call Number: PB DANIELS Format: Books Summary: "Deputy Jaxson Gray has found the fresh start he needed in small-town Montana. In Luna Declan, he finds something he didn't even know he craved. Wary of getting too close, he backs away, only to become enmeshed in a local investigation that brings his past and present crashing together. Because whoever killed town matriarch Vi Mullen knows about an older crime that implicated Jaxson. Luna has heard the rumors swirling around Jaxson, but there's a connection between them that makes her determined to clear his name. As the local hairdresser and a trained investigator, Luna knows a lot about her neighbors. But as she and Jaxson get closer to the truth, they realize that someone has secrets they're willing to kill--again and again--to protect..."--
Author: Kennedy, Jonathan, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 614.4 Format: Books Summary: "A sweeping look at how the major transformations in history--from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism--have been shaped not by humans but by germs. According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires. Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through 60,000 years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world's major religions. By placing disease at the center of his wide--ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past--and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story"--
Author: Metcalfe, Anna, 1987- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F METCALFE Format: Books Summary: "Chrysalis is the story of a mysterious young woman transforming first her body and then her digital presence, told by three distinct people, each differently mesmerized by her. Elliot, a recluse who notices her at the gym, witnesses her physical evolution as she becomes bigger and stronger, in order to still her body and mind. Bella, her mother, worries about the strange, dark effect her daughter's new way of life is beginning to have on others as she reflects on their relationship, a close cocoon from which her daughter has broken free. Susie, her ex-colleague and best friend, houses and feeds her as she makes the transition to self-created online phenomenon, posting videos of herself meditating for hours in strange physical positions and encouraging her followers to renounce their previous lives and join her in meditative solitude"--
Author: Weber, Charlotte Fox, author. Published: 2023 2022 Call Number: 153.8 Format: Books Summary: "This inspiring and moving exploration of the twelve fundamental psychological needs we all share goes behind the closed doors of therapy to guide us in navigating our deepest longings"-- "Each of us, at certain moments in our lives, can feel lost or confused. We often don't know how to get what we want, or what we think we want, but we share these universal desires: to love and be loved; understanding, power, attention, freedom; to create, to belong, to win, to connect, to control; and we want what we shouldn't. In each of these twelve chapters, focused on one of these universal desires, psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber takes you behind the closed doors of a therapy session to bear witness as she guides a client towards profound insights, change, and growth. Written with warmth and compassion, full of dramatic, intimate, and moving personal stories, and based on careful research as well as firsthand observations, Tell Me What You Want is an inspirational guide to living well."--Amazon.com
Author: Hertog, Thomas, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 523.12 Format: Books Summary: "Stephen Hawking's closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar's final thoughts on the cosmos--a dramatic revision of the theory that made him the heir to Einstein's legacy. Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. Pondering this mystery led Hawking to study the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse--countless different universes, most far too bizarre to harbor life. Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked shoulder to shoulder for twenty years on a new quantum theory of the cosmos. As their journey took them deeper into the big bang, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away... This new theory profoundly transforms the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove Hawking's biggest legacy"--
Author: Sherwood, Kim, 1989- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F SHERWOOD Format: Books Summary: "James Bond is missing--and only the elite team of MI6 agents he trained can find him and thwart a nefarious scheme to expand worldwide terrorism--in this breathtaking new Bond novel"-- James Bond is missing... 007 has been captured, perhaps even killed, by a sinister private military company. His whereabouts unknown. Meet the new generation of spies... Johanna Harwood, 003. Joseph Dryden, 004. Sid Bashir, 009. They represent the very best and brightest of MI6. Supremely skilled, ruthless, with a license to kill, they will do anything to protect their country. The fate of the world rests in their hands... Tech billionaire Sir Bertram Paradise claims he can reverse the climate crisis and save the planet. But can he really? The new spies must uncover the truth, because the future of humanity hangs in the balance. Time is running out.
Author: Cleeton, Chanel, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F CLEETON Format: Books Summary: "In 1934, the ultimate vacation becomes a fight for survival as the secrets of two women's pasts collide aboard a luxury cruise liner on a round-trip voyage from New York to Havana in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton's page-turning new novel inspired by the true story of the tragedy of the SS Morro Castle. New York heiress Catherine Dohan seemingly has it all. There's only one problem. It's a lie. As soon as the Morro Castle leaves port, Catherine's past returns with a vengeance and threatens her life. Joining forces with a charismatic jewel thief, Catherine must discover who wants her dead--and why. Elena Palacio is a dead woman. Or so everyone thinks. After a devastating betrayal left her penniless and on the run, Elena's journey on the Morro Castle is her last hope. Steeped in secrecy and a burning desire for revenge, her return to Havana is a chance to right the wrong that has been done to her--and her prey is on the ship. As danger swirls aboard the Morro Castle and their fates intertwine, Elena and Catherine must risk everything to see justice served once and for all"--
Author: Greenfield, Robert, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B SHEPARD Format: Books Summary: "An intimate portrait of the iconic playwright, actor, and director Sam Shepard, whose wide-ranging and enduring body of work places him at the center of the American canon, from an award-winning biographer. True West is the story of an American icon, a lasting portrait of Sam Shepard as he really was, revealed by those who knew him best. This sweeping biography charts Shepard's long and complicated journey from a small town in southern California to his standing as an internationally known playwright and movie star. The son of an alcoholic father, Shepard crafted a public persona as an authentic American archetype: the loner, the cowboy, the drifter, a stranger in a strange land. Despite his great critical and financial success, he seemed, like so many of his characters, to remain perpetually dispossessed. Much like Robert Greenfield's biographies of Jerry Garcia and Timothy Leary, this book delves deeply into Shepard's life as well as the ways in which his work illuminates it. True West takes readers through the world of downtown theater in lower Manhattan in the early sixties, the jazz scene at the Village Gate, fringe theatre in London in the seventies, Bob Dylan's legendary Rolling Thunder tour, the making of classic films like Zabriskie Point, Days of Heaven, and The Right Stuff, and Broadway productions of Buried Child, True West, and Fool for Love. For this definitive biography, Greenfield interviewed dozens of people who knew Shepard well, many of whom had never before spoken on the record about him. While exploring his relationships with Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jessica Lange across the long arc of his brilliant career, Greenfield makes the case for Shepard not just as a great American writer but a unique figure who first brought the sensibility of rock 'n' roll to serious theater"--
Author: Grann, David, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 910.9 Format: Books Summary: "From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z, a mesmerizing story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes. But then ... six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death-for whomever the court found guilty could hang. The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound. Most powerfully, he unearths the deeper meaning of the events, showing that it was not only the Wager's captain and crew who were on trial - it was the very idea of empire"--
Author: Maas, Sarah J., author. Published: 2023 2012 Call Number: F MAAS Format: Books Summary: After she has served a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, Crown Prince Dorian offers eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien her freedom on the condition that she act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king's champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass--and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.--
Author: Hendrickson, John (Atlantic senior editor), author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B HENDRICK Format: Books Summary: "An intimate and revealing memoir of a lifelong struggle to speak"-- In the fall of 2019, John Hendrickson wrote a groundbreaking story for The Atlantic about Joe Biden's decades-long journey with stuttering, as well as his own. The article went viral, reaching readers around the world and altering the course of Hendrickson's life. Overnight, he was forced to publicly confront an element of himself that still caused him great pain. He soon learned he wasn't alone with his feelings: strangers who stutter began sending him their own personal stories, something that continues to this day. Now, in this reported memoir, Hendrickson takes us deep inside the mind and heart of a stutterer as he sets out to answer lingering questions about himself and his condition that he was often too afraid to ask. In Life on Delay, Hendrickson writes candidly about bullying, substance abuse, depression, isolation, and other issues stutterers like him face daily. He explores the intricate family dynamics surrounding his own stutter and revisits key people from his past in unguarded interviews. Readers get an over-the-shoulder view of his childhood; his career as a journalist, which once seemed impossible; and his search for a romantic partner. Along the way, Hendrickson guides us through the evolution of speech therapy, the controversial quest for a "magic pill" to end stuttering, and the burgeoning self-help movement within the stuttering community. Beyond his own experiences, he shares portraits of fellow stutterers who have changed his life, and he writes about a pioneering doctor who is upending the field of speech therapy.
Author: Eagle, Jake, author. Amster, Michael, author. Chernyaev, Karen, 1961- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 615.852 Format: Books Summary: ""Mindfulness" has become a part of our everyday lingo, yet it is a practice that many find elusive. Now Jake Eagle, a therapist and longtime mindfulness practitioner and instructor, and Dr. Michael Amster, a physician specializing in chronic pain, share their bite-sized approach to this life-changing practice, using wonder and awe as an entry point. Their proprietary, science-based A.W.E. method itself is comprised of just three steps: Attention (giving your focus fully to something you value or find amazing), Wait (take a deep breath and appreciate this cherished item), and Exhale and Expand (as you exhale slowly, allow whatever you are feeling to expand and grow)--for a total of only about 5-15 seconds. Practiced two or three times a day, these micro-doses of mindfulness have been proven to help reduce anxiety, burnout, chronic pain and inflammation, and confer a host of benefits. You might think you need to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon, see the ocean at sunrise, or watch a legendary musician perform to truly feel awe; indeed, all other studies had previously relied on taking participants to breathtaking vistas or replicating that experience with virtual reality. Jake and Michael's accessible practice allows you to find awe everywhere, every day. In "The Power of Awe," you'll learn: the surprising and little-known science of awe; how we unwittingly cut ourselves off from feeling awe; the practice of A.W.E. to improve relationships, alleviate existential anxiety, and manage chronic pain; and more. The results of the practice speak for themselves: Jake saw greater connectedness, joy, and satisfaction in his clients, as well as, amazingly, decreased existential dread. Michael's chronic pain patients experienced decreased chronic pain and less acute pain flare-ups. Participants in the UC Berkeley studies, even those who were front-line healthcare workers in the early stages of the pandemic, experienced decreased stress and burnout, lower perceived loneliness, and greater feelings of overall well-being. There is a wide range of readers with heightened anxiety and disconnect about where they find themselves in the world. Micro-dosing mindfulness through the A.W.E. program is a simple, powerful antidote"--
Author: Reilly, Linda S., author. Published: 2023 Call Number: PB REILLY Format: Books Summary: Winter in Balsam Dell is a snowy affair, and to add in some cheer after the holidays Carly's former classmate Klarissa Taddeo is hosting her extravagant bridal shower at the historic Balsam Dell inn. But when a double-booking throws some mold in the cheese, Klarissa is left scrambling. Dawn, the maid of honor and wedding planner, saves the day by moving the shower to her family's mansion and books Carly to cater the party. It seems the group is going to pull off the shower without a hitch. That is, until Klarissa's fiance crashes the event. She's furious with her groom-to-be and when a loud argument ensues, everyone is shocked by what they hear. When the groom is later found dead at the bottom of the stairs, his drink spiked with a hefty dose of poison, Carly must put her nose to the rind and save Klarissa from being suspect #1. Because you know what they say: it's always the (almost) wife.
