Author: Strong, Karen, editor. Winters, Julian. Our joy, our power. Pennant, Shari B. Book club. Bayron, Kalynn. Nina Evans, in the round. Zoboi, Ibi Aanu. Earth is ghetto. Published: 2023 Call Number: Y COOL Format: Books Summary: Featuring exclusively Black characters, this multi-genre story collection--drawing from contemporary, historical, fantasy, sci-fi, magical and realistic--celebrates and redefines the many facets of Blackness and geekiness, both in the real world and those imagined. A girl who believes in UFOs; a boy who might have finally found his Prince Charming; a hopeful performer who dreams of being cast in her school's production of The Sound of Music; a misunderstood magician of sorts with a power she doesn't quite understand. These plot-lines and many more compose the eclectic stories found within the pages of this dynamic, exciting, and expansive collection featuring exclusively Black characters. From contemporary to historical, fantasy to sci-fi, magical to realistic, and with contributions from a powerhouse list of self-proclaimed geeks and bestselling, award-winning authors, this life-affirming anthology celebrates and redefines the many facets of Blackness and geekiness--both in the real world and those imagined.
Author: Vuolo, Jinger, author. Williams, Corey (Communications officer), author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B VUOLO Format: Books Summary: "Jinger Vuolo, the sixth child in the famous Duggar family of TLC's 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On, recounts how she began to question the unhealthy ideology of her youth and learned to embrace true freedom in Christ"-- Growing up in the public eye-- a reality star in the Duggar family documentaries-- Vuolo grew up believing the Bible was primarily a rulebook and that faith was about executing God's laws to perfection. These ingrained principles were less about God's love and grace and more about man's willingness to manipulate Scripture to harness fear and increase influence. Now she continues to work on disentangling the religion she grew up with and the faith she is accepting as her own. Christianity is about knowing Jesus-- and true freedom is found in His grace. -- adapted from jacket When Jinger Duggar Vuolo was growing up, she was convinced that obeying the rules was the key to success and God's favor. She zealously promoted the Basic Life Principles of Bill Gothard: fastidiously obeying the modesty guidelines (no shorts or jeans, only dresses); eagerly submitting to the umbrella of authority (any disobedience of parents would place her outside God's protection); promoting the relationship standard of courtship; and avoiding any music with a worldly beat, among others. Jinger, along with three of her sisters, wrote a New York Times bestseller about their religious convictions. She believed this level of commitment would guarantee God's blessing, even though in private she felt constant fear that she wasn't measuring up to the high standards demanded of her. In Becoming Free Indeed, Jinger shares how in her early twenties, a new family member--a brother-in-law who didn't grow up in the same tight-knit conservative circle as Jinger--caused her to examine her beliefs. He was committed to the Bible, but he didn't believe many of the things Jinger had always assumed were true. His influence, along with the help of a pastor named Jeremy Vuolo, caused Jinger to see that her life was built on rules, not God's Word. Jinger committed to studying the Bible--truly understanding it--for the first time. What resulted was an earth-shaking realization: much of what she'd always believed about God, obedience to His Word, and personal holiness wasn't in-line with what the Bible teaches. Now with a renewed faith of personal conviction, Becoming Free Indeed shares what it was like living under the tenants of Bill Gothard, the Biblical truth that changed her perspective, and how she disentangled her faith with her belief in Jesus intact.
Author: Christie, Annette, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F CHRISTIE Format: Books Summary: A second try at love becomes more than one woman bargained for in this delightfully funny and romantic new novel from the author of The Rehearsals. Can one little lie lead to a big second chance? Layla's chaotic life transformed when she met Ian Barnett. Ambitious, committed, and thoughtful, Ian has been everything she'd dreamed of, and she knows he'd say the same of her. So when he breaks up with her out of the blue, Layla is stunned. What went wrong? But then, Layla gets a call from the local hospital. Ian's had a biking accident. He's okay, but he needs someone--his someone--to get him home safely. As it becomes clear Ian doesn't remember he ended things, it also becomes clear that the accident has given him a new outlook on life...and Layla a second chance to get things right. That is, until Ian's younger brother comes to town. Matt is restless, unpredictable, and threatens to upset the careful balance Layla and Ian have rebuilt. As things get more complicated both at home and at work, Layla realizes she might lose her chance at real love--and real happiness--if she doesn't come clean about the stories she's been telling: to Ian, to Matt, to her family, and most importantly, to herself.
Author: Bailey, Tessa, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F BAILEY Format: Books Summary: "Hallie Welch fell hard for Julian Vos at fourteen, after they almost kissed in the dark vineyards of his family's winery. Now the prodigal hottie has returned to their small Napa town. When Hallie is hired to revamp the gardens on the Vos estate, she wonders if she'll finally get that smooch. But the grumpy professor isn't the teenager she remembers and their polar opposite personalities clash spectacularly. One wine-fueled girls' night later, Hallie can't shake the sense that she did something reckless--and then she remembers the drunken secret admirer letter she left for Julian. Oh shit. On sabbatical from his ivy league job, Julian plans write a novel. But having Hallie gardening right outside his window is the ultimate distraction. She's eccentric, chronically late, often literally covered in dirt--and so unbelievably beautiful, he can't focus on anything else. Until he finds an anonymous letter sent by a woman from his past. Even as Julian wonders about this admirer, he's sucked further into Hallie's orbit. Like the flowers she plants all over town, Hallie is a burst of color in Julian's grey-scale life. For a man who irons his socks and runs on tight schedules, her sunny chaotic energy makes zero sense. But there's something so familiar about her...and her very presence is turning his world upside down."--
Author: Rollins, James, 1961- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F ROLLINS Format: Books Summary: "The second book in the New York Times bestselling Moonfall series from thriller-master James Rollins, The Cradle of Ice is a page-turning tale of action, adventure, betrayal, ambition, and the struggle for survival in a harsh world that hangs by a thread. To stop the coming apocalypse, a fellowship was formed. A soldier, a thief, a lost prince, and a young girl bonded by fate and looming disaster. Each step along this path has changed the party, forging deep alliances and greater enmities. All the while, hostile forces have hunted them, fearing what they might unleash. Armies wage war around them. For each step has come with a cost-in blood, in loss, in heartbreak. Now, they must split, traveling into a vast region of ice and to a sprawling capital of the world they've only known in stories. Time is running out and only the truth will save us all."--
Author: V, 1953- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B V Format: Books Summary: A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Memoir of the Season. The work of a lifetime from the Tony Award-winning, bestselling author of The Vagina Monologues--political, personal, profound, and more than forty years in the making. "The newest book from V (formerly Eve Ensler), Reckoning invites you to travel the journey of a writer's and activist's life and process over forty years, representing both the core of ideas that have become global movements and the methods through which V survived abuse and self-hatred. Seamlessly moving from the internal to the external, the personal to the political, Reckoning is a moving and inspiring work of prose, poetry, dreams, letters, and essays drawn from V's lifelong journals that takes readers from Berlin to Oklahoma to the Congo, from climate disaster, homelessness, and activism to family. Unflinching, intimate, introspective, courageous, Reckoning explores ways to create an unstoppable force for change, to love and survive love, to hold people and states accountable, to reckon with demons and honor the dead, to reclaim the body, and to see oneself as connected to a greater purpose. It reimagines what seems fixed and intractable, providing a path to understand one's unique experience as deeply rooted in the world, to break through one's own boundaries, and to write oneself into freedom."--Amazon.
Author: Anderson, Pamela, 1967- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B ANDERSON Format: Books Summary: A heartrending, intimate memoir from the iconic pin-up and former star of Baywatch. "Pamela Anderson's blond bombshell image was ubiquitous in the 1990s. Discovered in the stands during a Canadian football game, she was immediately rocket launched into fame, becoming Playboy's favorite cover girl and an emblem of Hollywood glamour and sexuality. Yet the Pamela Anderson we think we know was created through happenstance rather than careful cultivation. Love, Pamela brings forth her true story, that of a small-town girl getting tangled up in her own dreams. Growing up on Vancouver Island, the daughter of young, wild, and unwittingly stylish parents, Pamela Anderson lived a hardscrabble existence but developed a deep love for nature, populating her world with misfits, apparitional friends, and animals in need. Eventually overcoming her natural shyness, Pamela let her restless imagination propel her into a new life few can dream of, Hollywood and the Playboy Mansion. And as her star rose, she found herself becoming a fixture of tabloid fodder, at the height of an era when paparazzi tactics were bent on destroying a person's image and self-esteem. Pamela forged ahead with grace, finding sanctuary in her love of art and literature, and emerged a devoted mother and activist. Now having returned to the island of her childhood, after a memorable run starring as Roxie in Chicago on Broadway, Pamela is telling her story, a story of an irrepressible free spirit coming home and discovering herself anew at every turn. With vivid prose interspersed with bursts of original poetry, Love, Pamela is a pensive, layered, and unforgettable memoir"--
Author: Moyes, Jojo, 1969- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F MOYES Format: Books Summary: "A story of mix-ups, mess-ups and making the most of second chances, this is the new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jojo Moyes, author of Me Before You and The Giver of Stars. Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else's shoes? Nisha Cantor and Sam Kemp are two very different women. Nisha, 45, lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband inexplicably cuts her off entirely. She doesn't even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That's because Sam--47, middle-aged, struggling to keep herself and her family afloat--has accidentally taken Nisha's gym bag. Now Nisha's got nothing. And Sam's walking tall with shoes that catch eyes--and give her a career an unexpected boost. Except Nisha wants her life back--and she'll start with her shoes... Someone Else's Shoes is a funny, moving and heartfelt story about how, for any of us just one little thing can suddenly change everything"--
Author: Vittoria, Amber, author, artist. Published: 2023 Call Number: 811.6 Format: Books Summary: "These are my big girl pants is a collection of poetry and artwork from award-winning artist Amber Vittoria that embraces womanhood and all of its inherent intricacies. A celebration of femininity, as well as an exploration of themes of enlightenment, analysis, and independence, Amber leverages the naivete of simple line and brush strokes against deep and meaningful poetry and prose, creating a powerful journey deep into female empowerment, individuality, and emotion"--Back cover.
Author: Honig, Elie, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 364.1323 Format: Books Summary: "A book about how powerful politicians, criminals and others get away with lawbreaking"-- In this vital, incisive book, Honig explains how men like Trump repeatedly beat the system. He goes inside the hall of the Justice Department to report for the first time on how federal prosecutors went light on Trump in an infamous case involving hush money payments and campaign finance violations. From his insider's perspective, Honig exposes what makes so many prosecutors treat powerful criminals as untouchable--and how we can upend this untenable situation. -- adapted from jacket
Author: Chen, Mike, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F CHEN Format: Books Summary: When Ian, a long-lost teenage relative, finds her, Louise Chao, punk rock vampire extraordinaire, feels a connection for the first time in ages, but when he discovers her true identity, he asks her for the ultimate favor--one that might change everything vampires know about life and death forever.
Author: Taylor, Goldie, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: B TAYLOR Format: Books Summary: An acclaimed journalist and human rights activist shares the harrowing yet deeply hopeful story of her troubled childhood in East St. Louis--a memoir of family, faith and the power of books. Aunt Gerald takes in anyone who asks, but the conditions are harsh. For her young niece Goldie Taylor, abandoned by her mother and coping with trauma of her own, life in Gerald's East St. Louis comes with nothing but a threadbare blanket on the living room floor. But amid the pain and anguish, Goldie discovers a secret. She can find kinship among writers like James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. She can find hope in a nurturing teacher who helps her find her voice. And books, she realizes, can save her life. Goldie Taylor's debut memoir shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post-Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul.
Author: Mukherjee, Siddhartha, author. Published: 2023 2022 Call Number: LP 571.6 MUKHERJE Format: Large print Summary: "From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. Rich with Mukherjee's revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human. Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves--hearts, blood, brains--are built from these compartments. Hooke christened them "cells". The discovery of cells--and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem--announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer's dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia--all could be re-conceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies. In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. He seduces you with writing so vivid, lucid, and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Told in six parts, laced with Mukherjee's own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate--a masterpiece"--
Author: George, Jessica, 1994- author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F GEORGE Format: Books Summary: ""An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys--and the guilt--of trying to find your own way in life." --Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit heartbreaking and, most of all, unforgettable." --Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman. It's fair to say that Maddie's life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson's. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting. When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she's ready to experience some important "firsts": She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils--and rewards--of putting her heart on the line. Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures-and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong"--
Author: Shearer, Eleanor, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F SHEARER Format: Books Summary: "Rare. Moving. Powerful. This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother's gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery marks the arrival of a remarkable new talent. Her search begins with an ending.... The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs. Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children--the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children... and her freedom"--
Author: Maloof, Molly, MD, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: 613.0424 Format: Books Summary: "Inside of you, there is a spark--it's what animates you, and without it, you could not live. This energy creation isn't mystical, nor is it spiritual; it is science. We know from research that our cellular machinery transforms the food we eat and the air we breathe into the electricity that fuels us. With the right lifestyle inputs, we glow with energy; but when the demands on our bodies exceed our capacity--as is true for so many of us--we become burned out, mentally and physically. Now, in The Spark Factor, Dr. Molly Maloof shares a program uniquely tailored to the biology of women--a plan that targets the mitochondria, the power source of the cells. As Dr. Maloof shows, the intense, all-or-nothing approaches commonly used by biohackers to optimize health--including sustained fasting, ultra-low-carb diets, and intense training--can be harmful, especially for women, because they create excessive stress in an already-stressed body, which can make us tired, weak, and prone to illness."--
Author: Moeng, Gothataone, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F MOENG Format: Books Summary: "Richly drawn stories about the lives of ordinary families in contemporary Botswana as they navigate love, relationships, tradition, caretaking and grieving in a rapidly changing world. A young widow who for a nearly a year wears mourning clothes in part as a warning to those who believe the old superstitions about bad luck following--even though she's unsure what the traditions mean or whether she is ready to meet the world without their protection. A girl who blossoms into womanhood as her once vibrant aunt lays dying in the room next to hers, torn by familial obligation and her growing desire for independence. An older sister who returns home from a confusing time in America only to explain at every turn why she's left the land of opportunity. A younger sister hiding her sexual exploits from her family while her older brother openly flaunts his infidelity. The stories collected in CALL AND RESPONSE introduce women whose desires and obligations will be achingly familiar and who anchored to a place that's new in fiction - in the village of Serowe, where the author is from, and in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana. The protagonists here chart the emotional journeys of seeking love and opportunity beyond the barriers of tradition and circumstance. Suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, Gothataone Moeng--part of a new generation of writers coming out of Africa whose voices are ready to explode onto the literary scene in the West--explores the inherent clashes between tradition and modernity, ancestral expectations and imported dreams. In the tradition of writers like Chimamanda Adiche and Jhumpa Lahiri, her work offers us insight into communities, experiences and landscapes that have been underexplored, through stories that are cinematic in their sweep, with unforgettable female protagonists"--
Author: Cai, Delia, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F CAI Format: Books Summary: "A young woman's rootless past and uncertain future collide when she brings her white fiancé home to meet her Chinese immigrant parents, toppling her carefully constructed life in this vibrant, insightful debut from an exciting new voice in fiction. Audrey Zhou left Hickory Grove, the tiny town in central Illinois where she grew up, as soon as high school ended, and she never looked back. She moved to New York City and became the person she always wanted to be, complete with a high-paying, high-pressure job and a seemingly faultless fiancé, Ben. But if she and Manhattan-bred Ben are to build a life together, in the dream home his parents will surely pay for, Audrey can no longer hide him, or the person she's become, from those she left behind. But returning to Hickory Grove is . . . complicated. Audrey's relationship with her parents has been soured by years of her mother's astronomical expectations and slights. The friends she's shirked for bigger dreams have stayed behind and started families. And then there's Kyle, the easygoing stoner and her unrequited crush from high school that she finds herself drawn to again despite having a seemingly perfect man on her arm. Ben might be a perfect fit for New Audrey, but Kyle was always the only one who truly understood her growing up, and being around him again after all these years has Old Audrey bubbling up to the surface. Over the course of one disastrous week, Audrey's proximity to her family and to Kyle forces her to confront the past and reexamine her fraught connection to her roots before she undoes everything she's worked toward and everything she's imagined for herself. But is that life really the one she wants?"--
Author: Saab, Gabriella, author. Published: 2023 Call Number: F SAAB Format: Books Summary: Russia 1917: Beautiful, educated Svetlana Petrova defied her stifling aristocratic family to join a revolution promising freedom. Now, released after years of imprisonment, she discovers her socialist party vying for power against the dictatorial Bolsheviks and her beloved uncle, a champion of her cause, was murdered by a mysterious assassin named Orlova. Her signature? Blinding her victims before she kills them. Svetlana resolves to avenge his death by destroying this vicious opponent, even as she longs to reunite with the daughter she has not seen in years. USSR 1941: Now living in obscurity in a remote village, Svetlana opens her home to Mila Rozovskaya, the eighteen-year-old granddaughter from Leningrad she has never met. She hopes to protect Mila from the oncoming Nazi invasion, but when the enemy occupies the village, Svetlana sees the young woman fall under the spell of the resistance, echoing her once-passionate idealism. As Mila takes up her fight, dangerous secrets and old enemies soon threaten all Svetlana holds dear. To protect her family, she must confront her long-buried past, yet if the truth emerges victorious, it holds the power to save or shatter them. A risk Svetlana has no choice but to take.
