Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and CDC recommendations, we are postponing Lauren Akins’ LIVE IN LOVE book tour event. The new date is August 26 and your ticket will be honored if you already purchased it..
Join Lauren Akins this spring to celebrate her first book Live in Love, a deeply personal love story of her modern family with long-time partner and childhood best friend, multi-PLATINUM selling performer Thomas Rhett.
In this hour-long moderated talk, Lauren will offer inspiring guidance from her own experiences on staying in love, balancing children and marriage, practicing faith, and living a life of purpose. Guests will get a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges of being married to her music star best friend and the struggle to find her own footing in the frenzy of her husband’s fame.
Lauren will open up about her life-changing experiences doing mission work in Uganda, where she met the precious baby who would become their first daughter a year later. From sharing the romance of their handwritten wedding vows, to the challenges they faced as they adjusted to the reality of becoming first-time parents, Lauren will share her path to self-discovery.
Every ticket includes a signed copy of Live in Love (a $28 value, published by Ballantine Books).
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now.
Published: Ballantine Books - August 18th, 2020
In this refreshing and inspiring memoir, Lauren Akins, the wife of country music star Thomas Rhett, shows what it’s really like to be “the perfect couple” fans imagine, and reveals what it actually takes to live in love, stay in love, and grow together.
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Published: Feiwel & Friends - January 8th, 2019
The target audience for this lovely little number is ages eight to twelve, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same. Drawn from the Irish tradition of hanging one's wishes on a particular tree on a particular day once every year, Wishtree is narrated by Red, a several-hundred year-old (you guessed it) Wishtree with a knack for storytelling. According to Red, trees are not only very much alive, but are able to communicate verbally with non-tree beings. While it's expressly forbidden for trees to talk to people, Red has no problem conversing with the delightful cast of creatures living in her nooks, crannies, and branches. But when a boy carves into Red's trunk a hateful message directed at the Muslim family that just moved to her suburban American neighborhood, Red becomes fed up with all of the intolerance she's witnessed over the years and begins struggle with her role as observer, silently standing by.
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Published: One World - October 30th, 2018
Through a series of essays originally published in The Atlantic (among them "A Case for Reparations" and "The Black Family in the Age of Incarceration"), Coates established himself as one of the most important commentators on race in the United States. We Were Eight years in Power provides us those eight essays - one for each year of the Obama administration - along with an additional eight previously unpublished personal essays in which Coates reflects on his experiences from each of those years. Culminating in an innovative and profoundly sobering piece written about the 2016 election, We Were Eight Years in Power is not one to miss.
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Published: Graywolf Press - September 1st, 2015
For some, reading this book would be tantamount to having teeth pulled or listening to someone recount their most recent dream at length and in great detail. That being said, I love everything about it.
This was easily my number one pick of books I read in the year 2014. The Wake is an utterly unique and imaginative debut novel wherein Kingsnorth crafted a language with his own vocabulary and set of rules, much in the tradition of books like Finnegan’s Wake, Trainspotting, and A Clockwork Orange. Balking at the thought of writing a historical novel using contemporary language, Kingsnorth opted to create what he calls a “shadow tongue” that uses a combination of a phonetic dialect, Middle and Old English, and selective exclusion of words that didn’t enter the English language until after the time-period in which the story took place. The Wake is set in 1066 immediately following the Norman invasion and conquest of England. The story is narrated by and follows an English farmer from the rural North of the country who takes to the forests and swamps of his countryside in hopes of joining the fight in the underground resistance against the Normans. The story itself is an excellent one, but Kingsnorth’s adaptation, modification and mastery of the language in telling this story is what makes this book incredible. At first glance, this “ghost language” can admittedly be daunting to new readers, but with the aid of the brief “Note on Language” and the partial glossary found at the back of the book, the rules and rhythms of the text are remarkably easy to pick up, and it’s profoundly rewarding to find oneself gliding through the sentences without pause – even to the point of hearing the cadence and brogue of the narrator, Buccmaster of Holland. While I fully understand that this kind of book isn’t for everyone, if this sounds like something that remotely appeals to you as a reader, I would strongly encourage you to give it a try; I can’t overstate what a joy this was to read.
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Published: Graywolf Press - August 1st, 2017
Fans of The Wake will understand the excitement with which I announce that Paul Kingsnorth is back with the second installment of the Buckmaster Trilogy, and he didn't disappoint. Set a thousand years after the events in The Wake, The Beast comes from the mind of Edward Buckmaster (a modern-day 'buccmaster of holland') who has walked away from society, technology and modernity to seek peace and wisdom in the isolation of an empty moor in the west of England. Starting out, Buckmaster harbors romantic notions of himself as some kind of noble hermit-martyr (as opposed to, say, a deadbeat husband and father who couldn't deal) but there's nothing quite like a good and brutal mauling from an unseen (dare I say it?) beast to pull a dreamer out of the clouds. Buckmaster awakens, mangled and confused, his world suddenly one of immediacy and survival. The rest of the world, beyond the moor, fades into mist as Buckmaster embarks on a slow descent into madness or, perhaps, enlightenment. With brilliant demonstration of craft and a narrative intensity that unapologetically demands your attention, Kingsnorth continues to push the boundaries of conventional fiction with resounding success.
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Published: Graywolf Press - October 3rd, 2017
Carmen Maria Machado’s debut is everything I want from a modern collection of short stories; it’s immersive, explosive, surprising, lovely and terrifying. Machado grabs you by the heartstrings from the first and refuses to relax her grip until the very last, and even then her stories stick with you, come to you at night and rehash their darkness and delight. The stories in Her Body and Other Parties are utterly and brazenly unique, never asking that you suspend disbelief, instead suffusing you with their urgent and overwhelming reality. While each story exists independently from the others, narratives involving the lives and bodies of women operate as the thematic thread pulling them all together.
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Published: Penguin Books - March 28th, 2017
I have to give a shout-out to Bloomington's own Adrian Matejka and his fantastic fourth book of poetry, Map to the Stars. Oft-nominated, award-winning Matejka knocked a home-run into outer space with his most recent collection, in which he constructs the narrative of a young black man growing up in poverty and uncertainty in Reagan-Era Indianapolis. These poems interweave depictions of the harsh realities of 1980's midwestern poverty, racism and classism with historical events, and the escapism afforded by (1980's) pop culture and looking to the stars. Within even single stanzas Matejka seamlessly combines the hard city street imagery of concrete and steel with evocations of the other-wordly, celestial and ethereal. This is the kind of poetry we need in this world - the kind that's conscious, bold, and unwilling to look the other way.
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Published: Graywolf Press - September 3rd, 2019
She Would Be King is a rich and enchanting tale, a strikingly original and perfectly executed blend of historical fiction and magical realism. Through an utterly unique narrative perspective, Wayétu Moore presents us with a far-reaching and multifacted story revolving around the Transatlantic slave trade and the formation of Liberia. Yet another excellent, boundary-pushing, bar-raising debut from Graywolf Press.
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Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - February 6th, 2018
Winner of the 2017 Man Booker Prize(only the second time an American has received the award), the debut novel from acclaimed short-fiction writer George Saunders is a unique, inventive work of fiction unlike any fiction you've ever encountered. Deriving the premise from the Tibetan belief regarding the state of one's existence following death and awaiting rebirth, Lincoln in the Bardo is written in a multitude of disparate voices - mostly comprised of spirits lingering in a D.C. graveyard, but also passages from newspaper articles, personal accounts, memoirs, and letters - pieced together to create a startingly original yet eminently readable narrative. The story begins several years into the American Civil War with ten-year-old Willie Lincoln, the eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln, dying of a fever. Unable to leave Washington, Lincoln temporarily entombs his dead son in a mausoleum in a nearby cemetary, a place he begins to visit late at night. Unwilling to pass over to whatever awaits beyond, the spirit of Willie Lincoln opts to stay in the cemetary, where he meets a slew of other obstinate spirits from various periods of time and walks of life who also (for one reason or another) prefer to remain in limbo - in the Bardo - instead of facing whatever awaits them in the great beyond.
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Published: Seven Stories Press - September 26th, 2017
As far as collected works go, this new volume of (my favorite Hoosier) Kurt Vonnegut's short stories reaches borderline perfection. Edited by longtime friends of and experts on Vonnegut, Jerome Klinkowitz and Dan Wakefield, and with a thoughtful forward by Dave Eggers, this collection is clearly a labor of love. The 97 stories - including five previously unpublished works unearthed not long before the book went to the presses - are organized thematically ("War," "Women," "Science," "Romance," "Work Ethic vs. Fame and Fortune," "Behavior," "The Band Director" and "Futuristic"), each section given a brief introduction by one of the two editors, providing some background and context on Vonnegut's relationship to the theme. Even the book as an object (masterfully constructed by Seven Stories Press) is a wonder to behold.
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Published: Picador - September 13th, 2016
A collection of short stories by Alexander Weinstein exploring humanity in the technological age. These stories occupy various iterations of our world in the near future; dystopian worlds eerily familiar to present day wherein new technologies have fundamentally impacted the way people live and relate. In one people never leave their homes, and all social interaction occurs in a virtual world populated by avatars and accessed via full-body suits and electrical wires. In another, the internet, computers, and the human mind have synched to the point that our fields of vision are set up like a desktop and with click and scroll with our eyes. We don't know what direction the technological revolution is going to take us, but these stories act as a sobering reminder that just because we can do something doesn't mean we should.
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Published: One World - July 14th, 2015
There isn't anything I can say about this that hasn't already been said more eloquently by someone else. Profoundly thoughtful, this may be the most important book to come out in the last two years. Presented as a letter written from Coates to his sixteen year-old son, Between the World and Me is a meditation on race in America.Invoking the writing of James Baldwin, Coates is candid and clear, and provides a level of perspective and understanding that we need to hear.
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Published: Graywolf Press - June 7th, 2016
Short and sweet, this is a meditation on the process of grief and where it can take us. This little book is weird as hell. In a combination of prose, poetry, narrative, and drama, we're shown a man and his two sons shortly after the death of his wife and their mother. Grief comes to them as a strange and powerful crow to aid them in their process of mourning, albeit in occasionally unconventional ways. Moving, resonant, disturbing, and unique, Grief is the Thing with Feathers is a quick read that will stay with you long after you close the cover.
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Published: Penguin Books - August 16th, 2016
I'm a tiny bit smitten with Ottessa Moshfegh. Her writing is dark and unforgiving, a gritty and unwashed place of moral ambiguity interspersed with glimpses of humanity and an occasional image or turn of phrase so stunning or beautifully crafted as to give us pause. Her first novel, McGlue was a skinny little thing, but fantastic and packing a punch. Eileen is longer, and more of a slow-burn; the title character is a twenty-something wallflower who works at a youth correctional facility in Massachusetts. Quiet, sort-of pretty and unassuming, Eileen is a pretty unremarkable individual. Under the surface, however, she's strange and sinister as hell. There's some action, sure, a bit of violence, but Moshfegh makes you work for it. The entire novel is one of anticipation, but in waiting for the gun to fire, the blade to drop, we're drawn under the spell of a narrator we're cheering for without knowing why, a character we want to like but are repulsed by, a fate we believe in but know we shouldn't. Keep an eye out for Ottessa Moshfegh's forthcoming collection of short stories.
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Published: Picador - March 1st, 2016
This year’s winner of the Man-Booker prize, and the first American author to receive the award, Paul Beatty has presents us with some of the finest satire ever written. In this hilarious, heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, thought-provoking, and incredibly timeless novel, we're told the story of a man who, through a series of strange events and dire circumstances, reinstitutes slavery and segregation in his hometown of Dickens, a suburb of Los Angeles. While I know that doesn't sound even remotely funny, I found myself laughing out loud with tears in my eyes. The humor of Beatty's work lies in his approach to reality and the way he uses the ridiculous aspects of our lives and our society to lambast the status quo, our history, and the things we accept as normative or true.
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Published: Vintage - August 23rd, 2016
In her last book, Just Kids, Patti Smith chronicled her beginnings in New York City as a 20-year-old with no money and no contacts trying to figure out her place in the counter-culture of the sixties. M Train picks up on the other end of her long career, sitting in a coffee shop and musing on a life of creativity and love. The title is ironic, as the progression of M Train isn't remotely straightfoward or consistent, but is rather meanders through personal history, insight and revelation. That being said, it is a lovely meditation on art, the creative process, love, relationships, and the passage of time.
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Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - February 25th, 2014
This one took me by surprise, had me laughing out loud one minute and suppressing a sob the next, all the while hanging on every word. Fowler here successfully takes some intellectual risks, operating on the outskirts of the comfortable confines of the stylistic and structural norms she established in her previous work; the result is an emotionally complex, pseudo-sibling story within which Fowler dissects and inspects the fragility of the human condition, the nature of familial love, and the ethical ambiguity of scientific research that requires living, breathing subjects. This is one of those books has the capability to renew and reinforce one’s love of reading.
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Published: Vintage - May 5th, 2015
“You can hide memories, but you can’t erase the history that produced them.” This revelation is the impetus for one young Japanese man’s attempt to confront his painful past in the hope of attaining some measure of enlightenment and redemption. Newcomers to Murakami and long-time fans alike won’t be disappointed with the excellent addition to the celebrated writer’s remarkable oeuvre.
Master of the morally ambiguous, our prolific author Denis Johnson is back to deliver us another sock in the gut. Set adrift in the chaotic and labyrinthine society and politics of Western Africa, a jaded ex-CIA operative in a post-9/11 world attempts to navigate a whiplash-inducing thrill ride of cynicism, deceit, absurdity and humanity. Johnson fans think: TreeofSmoke meets NobodyMove.
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Published: Ig Publishing - February 17th, 2015
The debut novel by Kentucky writer and short story virtuoso Alex Taylor. Here Taylor presents us with some Grit Lit at its finest – a ravaged landscape, an all-but-forgotten element of rural Kentucky, and no shortage of violence and vigilantism. Try it out!
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Published: Del Rey - January 16th, 2018
Paris, 1941. Nazis have conscripted demons from hell, Surrealist artworks have manifested as corporeal, sentient, violent combatants and adrift in it all is a lone resistance fighter staggering through the nightmarish hellscape of his crumbling city just trying to make it through the occupation with his sanity and body intact.
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Published: Graywolf Press - February 13th, 2018
A spellbinding debut novel about a boy whose typical coming-of-age narrative is abruptly derailed by the death by suicide of his father. In the wake of his father’s wake, our young narrator is must learn to navigate puberty, sexuality, and his burgeoning adulthood under the specter of tragedy and a hazy surreality while what remains of his family dissolves around him.
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Published: Picador - September 24th, 2013
Down an unlikely side street in an underlit part of San Francisco, Sloan presents us with an intriguing crossroads where collides the last gasp of the printed word, the technological overhaul of the 21st Century, a centuries-old secret society and an unlikely cast of oddball characters. Fittingly, a hapless of hopeful (and fairly resourceful) bookseller leads us through this delightful tale of mystery, wit, wonder, wisdom, and no small amount of snark.
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Published: New Directions - December 17th, 2003
Latin-American literary legend Roberto Bolaño delivers a searing, intriguing, thought-igniting treatise on church and state as told from the deathbed of a Chilean Jesuit priest. Although objectively little happens by way of action throughout this tale, the story is driven by remembrances of fast-paced dialogues held between various intellectuals, thinkers and artists of differing backgrounds and opinions and sporadically broken up by alternatively poignant and profound reflections from the dying man on his long and tumultuous life. Chris Andrews’ translation from the original Spanish does well to retain and do justice to Bolaño’s wit and poeticism and renders the text universally accessible – which is to say the reader needn’t have real prior knowledge of the Chilean cultural and historical background to still thoroughly enjoy this work. If you haven’t read Bolaño yet, fix that, and start here.
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Published: Pantheon - September 8th, 1998
Thoughtful, poignant, transportive, artful, exquisite…this book may be flawless. Duras is careful with her words; her story unfolds in paragraphs that almost seem like photographs being spilled out of a near-empty album. This is a story of a place and time told through the bittersweet glimpses of a passionate and tumultuous love affair.
A remarkable short-fiction cycle telling the stories of characters from the fringes of the Bible – soldiers, prostitutes, thieves and more – weaving a harrowing and entrancing tale of good and evil.
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Published: Hogarth - March 6th, 2018
A gripping coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of Ireland’s Troubles. A young man navigates his own sexuality and his single mother’s shame within the staunchly Catholic Irish society. One of the best books of 2017.
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Published: Scribner - May 16th, 2017
If you aren’t familiar with the work of Don Delillo, you ought to be. In the last forty years, he’s published seventeen novels and a collection of stories, establishing an incredible oeuvre of criticism and observation regarding modern American life and culture. His innate understanding of the human condition renders his work haunting, hilarious, and everything in between.
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Published: Graywolf Press - May 16th, 2017
A boundary-pushing thrill ride, a fantastical story that manages to go beyond itself, questioning the very nature of storytelling and the role of the reader as “impartial observer”
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Published: Penguin Books - January 8th, 2019
A sailor sobering up in the hold of a ship, suffering from a head injury and the DTs and grappling with the possibility that he may have killed a man. Equal parts poetry and brutality, quick and succinct like a knife to the gut, leaving you long after to ponder the wound. I love this book.
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Published: Picador - April 27th, 2009
From the author of Confederates in the Attic, Horwitz is at his best in this exciting exploration of early American history, chronicling the ill-fated European forays into the “new world” prior to the landing of the pilgrims at Plymouth. Witty and thorough, Horwitz retraces the steps of Vikings, conquistadors, French and Spanish explorers, and even one Genoan through the modern American landscape.
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Published: Back Bay Books - January 8th, 2019
This book turned out to be so much better, so much more than I had hoped for. Gripping, enchanting, thrilling and thought-provoking. An alternate history for our time.
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Published: Anchor - January 30th, 2018
Impossibly, Whitehead has managed to imagine an antebellum South even more dystopian than the real thing. Exceptional, phenomenal, exquisite, flawless. Whitehead has demonstrated the art and craft of fiction at its finest. This book is perfect, and I don’t say that lightly.
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Published: Random House - November 13th, 2018
A darkly comic fable in which a fox’s pack is endangered by the construction of a shopping mall, leading him to pen a letter to the “Yumans” asking them to explain their cruelty. Utterly delightful.
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Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - January 8th, 2019
The last collection of fiction from one of America’s greatest short fiction writers of all time. His America is sad and beautiful, full of ghosts and dreams deferred.
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Published: Mariner Books - October 23rd, 2018
A debut collection of stories from an absolute powerhouse of a young writer, Adjei-Brenyah puts American racism and consumerism under a microscope, then ties them to a chair and doesn’t pull a single punch. DO NOT MISS THIS BOOK.
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Published: Picador - March 4th, 2008
One of my all-time favorite books. Bolaño here presents us with two young poets adrift in Mexico, isolated in their idealism. While his characters seek to revert Literature from an institution to a discussion, Bolaño himself simply asks that we reevaluate our understanding of how great novels are written.
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Published: Vintage - July 26th, 2016
City on Fire is a panoramic view of New York City in the 1970s. The birth of punk rock, the heroin epidemic, the subsequent AIDS epidemic, the top-down corruption, growing unrest in the city and the disparity between those with and those without, all culminating in the city-wide blackout. It follows the interwining and overlapping stories of a handful of diverse characters, from a teenage anarchist squatting in a run-down tenement to one of the wealthiest families in the city. Reminiscent of Bonfire of the Vanities, this novel goes a lot of different places and strikes a lot of different chords. It's a big one (700-some odd pages) but well worth it.
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Published: Cider Mill Press - September 24th, 2019
"[...] takes readers through a journey of the most beautiful moments in life and ruins them, because there is a certain divine comedy in lackluster internet poetry. This long-anticipated parody of the NYT #1 bestseller mMilk and Honey is divided into no chapters and offers no reral opportunity for personal growth, self-reflection, or deeper-thinking."
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Published: NYRB Classics - May 20th, 2008
In The Summer Book Tove Jansson distills the essence of the summer—its sunlight and storms—into twenty-two crystalline vignettes. This brief novel tells the story of Sophia, a six-year-old girl awakening to existence, and Sophia’s grandmother, nearing the end of hers, as they spend the summer on a tiny unspoiled island in the Gulf of Finland.
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Published: Penguin Classics - February 25th, 2020
"Sister Outsider's teachings, by one of our most revered elder stateswomen, should be read by everyone." -Essence
Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature, with a foreword by Mahogany L. Browne.
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Published: Tor Books - March 17th, 2020
Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy A USA Today Bestseller! An Indie Next Pick! One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020" One of Book Riot’s “20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies”
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Published: Random House Graphic - January 21st, 2020
This princess can't resist the lure of adventure, but her parents aren't quite on board in this fantastical graphic novel perfect for fans of Princess in Black and Phoebe and Her Unicorn!
Robin? Robin? Robin?! Where are you?
She couldn't have gone far. . . .
Princesses don't run away to have their own adventures. Right?
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Published: Catapult - November 5th, 2019
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"A poignant and piercing examination of the phenomenon of tears--exhaustive, yes, but also open-ended. . . A deeply felt, and genuinely touching, book." --Esm Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias
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Published: Tin House Books - April 21st, 2020
The celebrated New York Times Bestseller
A Best Book of the Year pick at theNew York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, TIME, Washington Post, Oprahmag.com, Thrillist, Shelf Awareness, Good Housekeeping and more.
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Published: Picador - May 7th, 2019
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance.
"A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org
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Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - January 8th, 2019
Twenty-five years after Jesus’ Son, a haunting new collection of short stories on mortality and transcendence, from National Book Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson
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Published: Vintage - June 2nd, 2015
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.
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Published: Atria Books - June 5th, 2018
It has been long since I have willingly lost sleep to finish a book I chose to read out of pleasure instead of necessity. I am absolutely in love with this book. The way the stories are intertwined is so beautifully crafted, I wish I could go back and re-read this book again for the first time and rediscover the plot over again. I loved the short chapters that held my attention and begged me to keep learning about the complex lives of William, George, and Tao. This book is so beautiful and I feel lucky to have discovered it. What an incredible story with a powerful lesson on the importance of bees and our lives connected to them, all with an aura of hope for the future.
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Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing - May 28th, 2019
As an introvert, I related hard to this book. The experiences and subsequent reactions to the crazy shenanigans she put herself through made me laugh and blush. I initially went into reading this book because I appreciated the cover and the synopsis Jessica Pan provides, but I came out of this book with such a greater knowledge of what it means to be introverted and extroverted and how saying "yes" really isn't the worst thing in the world.
I would highly recommend this book if you're (a) looking for ideas and ways to expand your comfort zone, (b) wanting to laugh at someone else's various successes and/or failures for putting themselves out of their comfort zone, or (c) just wanting to read a really fun story of what it is like to like to continually grow and do things we never thought we would do in our lives.
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Published: Philomel Books - September 24th, 2019
Oh how I adored this sweet book! Eleven-year-old Tilly has the ability to travel into her favourite books, and the adventures she finds herself in reminded me of books I loved reading as a kid and made me wish I was a bookwanderer, too!
A powerful story highlighted with the importance of family, love, and books made this one of my favourites for 2019!
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Published: Wednesday Books - October 8th, 2019
Young Adult Fiction
An exciting mix of horror, survival, romance, and friendship, this book is a roller coaster from start to finish. I could not put it down. Kim Liggett has truly outdone herself. With a strong female lead and suspenseful plot, this young adult dystopian novel is a great read for any Hunger Games or Handmaid's Tale lover out there.
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Published: First Second - February 25th, 2020
Middle Grade Graphic Novel
"John Patrick Green's goofy graphic novel series follows the super spy alligator duo the InvestiGators as they travel through the sewers and fight the forces of evil."
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Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - September 10th, 2019
Young Adult Fiction
A short and powerful read about a twelve-year old boy who is shot and killed by a police officer. As a ghost, twelve-year old Jerome watches on as his death tears apart his family and community. This book beautifully weaves historical and socio-political issues of race and police brutality in America and is an appropriate story for readers of all ages. Books like this one make change happen and spark important thought and action among young people.
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Published: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books - October 8th, 2019
Middle Grade / Young Adult Fiction
Yet another book by Jason Reynolds that I absolutely adore. This story follows various students on their way home from school; ten different tales for each block walked. While overall lighthearted and consumable, this book also deals with difficult topics, such as divorce, bullying, and death. Any reader can find at least one character to relate to, demonstrating the ways in which we are all dynamic and complex individuals that happen to share, at the very least, a walk home.
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Published: Compendium Publishing & Communications - September 15th, 2019
Children's Picture Book
With absolutely stunning illustrations, this whimsical picture book takes readers on a journey through all of the endless possibilities life has in store for us. It is a gentle reminder that everyone has potential for greatness.
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Published: Holt Paperbacks - May 5th, 2020
Fiction
"As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults."
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Published: Random House Books for Young Readers - May 15th, 2018
Children's Picture Book
It's okay to be grumpy, it's okay to be upset, it's okay to want some time alone. Another hilariously adorable book by Suzanne Lang. This time, one that explores all of our not-so-desirable (but all too real) emotions that we face on a daily basis.
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Published: G.P. Putnam's Sons - December 31st, 2019
Fiction
"A story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both."
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Published: St. Martin's Press - March 10th, 2020
Fiction
"Told from multiple points of view, A Good Neighborhood asks big questions about life in America today―What does it mean to be a good neighbor? How do we live alongside each other when we don't see eye to eye?―as it explores the effects of class, race, and heartrending star-crossed love in a story that’s as provocative as it is powerful."
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Published: Harry N. Abrams - October 2nd, 2018
A delightful children's book about compassion. Susan Verde shows how each of us is instilled with amazing qualities, yet at the same time capable of making mistakes. The book teaches how to handle our imperfections with grace. Beautiful teamwork (again) with illustrator Peter Reynolds!
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Published: HarperCollins - April 8th, 2008
Sharon Creech describes the heart-felt journey of a young boy's love for his dog. The story is told through a poetry journal with the boy's teacher. Be prepared to shed a tear!
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Published: Tilbury House Publishers - October 1st, 2019
This book is a fun cross between monsters and classic art. The illustrations have vivid colors and a cute hamster who tends to all the art supplies. The end of the book contains a section with a brief, kid-friendly description of each artist contained within. Fun and educational!
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Published: Sterling Children's Books - March 6th, 2018
This is a true story about a young boy who finds refuge from the chaos of the city by building treehouses in the trees of Central Park. Unfortunately, each of the treehouses is discovered and removed. Over the course of eight years, Bob Redman builds a total of 13 treehouses in the Central Park trees!
The author first met Bob Redman when she was looking for an arborist to help prune a tree for her! Be sure to read the book jacket flaps for more fun facts.
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Published: Chronicle Books - November 5th, 2019
What a clever way to introduce or discuss the topic of perspective with children! R. Henderson has created a book that is read with two people sitting across from each other, allowing the illustrations to be viewed differently. What one sees is not the same as what the other sees! This gem is likely to spark some good conversations!
Love You Head to Toe is illustrator's Ashley Barron's first book. In this book, she compares babies and their actions to different animals. The comparisons flow throughout different adventures in the life of a baby. Barron's cut-paper collage illustrations are quite delightful! A sweet book just in time for new parents or as a valentine book for children.
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Published: Beach Lane Books - March 10th, 2020
An Ordinary Day tells the story of two families simultaneously. The parallel stories are both of extraordinary love happening on an ordinary day. It's sweet and sad and beautiful all at once, with amazing illustrations.
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Published: Penguin Workshop - January 14th, 2020
Tomorrow I'll Be Kind is a follow-up to Jessica Hische's award-winning book, Tomorrow I'll Be Brave. Hische's words and illusrations weave together beautifully, showing examples of ways that all of us can make the world a better place. Through kindness, patience, honesty, generosity, gentleness and more, we can make a difference! An excellent and uplifting read, especially during this difficult time our nation is facing.
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Published: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky - January 14th, 2020
Bedtime for Sweet Creatures is a lovely book written by Award-winning author Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon. The author weaves a variety of animals and their movements into her tale of the bedtime process, creating a fun story for parents and kids. The illustrator does an amazing job with the child's facial expressions, and the collages she uses throughout the story are wonderful!
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Published: Random House Books for Young Readers - September 3rd, 2019
This adorable story about the fictionalized royal family of the United States combines both simpathetic characters with elegant prose. Once I began this book, I was completely captivated by a world where America is lead by royalty and finished it within days! The tension between duty and love is woven throughout each character's story in a way that is simaultaneoulsly beautiful and heartbreaking.
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Published: Ballantine Books - May 12th, 1987
Mists of Avalon is a wonderful addition to the longstanding tradition of the Arthurian Legend. Told from the perspective of Arthur's sister, Morgaine, this novel focuses on the women involved during the reign of King Arthur and their often underappreciated role in this enduring legend. Bradley harnesses the use of elegant prose to explore gender roles in the face of a cultural battle between Christianity and the dying Druid culture.
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Published: Little, Brown and Company - June 18th, 2019
Both a quaint beach read and a historical pearl, Summer of '69 pays homage to the tumultuous energy of the 1960s and its impact on a nation, a distant island, and a family. Elin Hilderbrand commanders this riveting world to captivate your attention until the very last page in one of the best books of the summer.
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Published: W. W. Norton & Company - October 11th, 2010
For anyone who has ever wondered about the great mysteries of our universe, leading string theorist Brian Greene makes the sophisticated world of modern physics accessible to the ordinary reader through the use of clever anecdotes. A testament to the power of thought, this novel celebrates brilliance of humanity and asks us to accept the magnitude of our ignorance.
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Published: Little, Brown and Company - April 10th, 2018
Poignant, powerful, and a timeless story, Madeline Miller's book is a a fresh take on the many interconnected stories of Greek mythology through the eyes of an unlikely heroine.
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Published: Harper Perennial - April 5th, 2011
I recommend this book to anyone who loves a good book about ballet or communist Russia. Telling the story both through their experiences in Russia and their recollections of the past, the characters grapple with their love for art and each other in a time where both were deadly.
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Published: Liveright - October 29th, 2019
Is there anything more important than human hope? In this engaging and curious look at spiritualism, specifically at Camp Etna in Maine, Ptacin beautifully brings the history and the characters of the camp alive.
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Published: Grand Central Publishing - March 10th, 2020
Do you still have the hots for Tim Riggins? Did you or do you still worship at the altar of Winona Ryder? In this short story collection from local author Leesa Cross-Smith, the hearts of girls and women are caught in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness. These forty-two short stories beat with a tremendous amount of heart, written by a woman described by award-winning author Roxane Gay as "a consummate storyteller."
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Published: Vintage - May 19th, 2020
Khakpour is not one to shy away from controversy. In this new collection, she writes of the personal and socio-political while tackling the erasure of race in America. A beautifully rendered essay collection that is not to be missed in 2020.
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Published: NYRB Classics - October 8th, 2019
As a woman from the frontlines of '70s LA bohemia, Babitz writes with a voluptuous confidence that makes you want to be her best friend. Her writing is sharp, funny, and daringly witty.
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Published: Little, Brown and Company - September 24th, 2019
Leslie Jamison's new collection of essays is a mesmerizing hybrid of journalism, memoir, and criticism. As one of my literary heros Jamison has solidified her status as the definitive chronicler of human connection and the beauty of mundanity. For fans of Joan Didion, but with a more modern and less smug approach.
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Published: Hub City Press - August 13th, 2019
In a quiet meditation on love and grief, local author Cross-Smith tells the story of the lives of three friends and how to go on living after a tragedy. Her debut novel is a slow and beautiful burn that will make your heart skip a beat.
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Published: Harper Perennial - June 5th, 2018
A honest and beautifully written memoir about living with a chronic illness. Beyond this, it's a remarkable story about living through trauma, toxic relationships and addiction that will remind the reader about the value of empathy.
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Published: Harper Perennial - June 12th, 2018
Written by one of my favorite leaders of the modern feminist movement, Roxane Gay's "Hunger" is a brutally honest account about living in her body. The simplicity of her langauge as well as the straightforwardness of her storytelling make the reader feel as though they are sitting across the table from a close friend. For Gay, writing about personal issues like sexual assault and overeating means being able to take up space and to use that space in order to help lead to more understanding.
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Published: Scribner - January 8th, 2019
Eve Babitz may not be a household name but for anyone interested in what it was like to live in Los Angeles and Hollywood in the '60s and '70s this book is a must read. Party girl, artist, muse and writer, I immediately became obsessed with Eve and ordered two of her own books. Friends with Joan Didion and an "It Girl" of Hollywood, Babitz's writing has often been overlooked. She left me hungry for more.
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Published: St. Martin's Press - March 10th, 2020
In a departure from her bestselling historical fiction, the author writes a story about a contemporary neighborhood in North Carolina. This book is a perfect book club selection for the new year because there is plenty to discuss about class, race, love, and more. The story of two completely different families who become neighbors poses many questions. What makes a neighborhood “good?” What does it mean to be a good neighbor? And above all, what does it mean to be a good person? A Good Neighborhood will stay with you long after you read the final page.
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Published: Wednesday Books - October 8th, 2019
In this YA dystopian thriller, sixteen year old girls are banished to the wilderness for a year to release their “magic” and return purified and prepared for marriage. Tierney James realizes that her greatest threat may not be the elements or poachers of the wilderness; it may very well be the other girls. This fierce page-turner is a timely examination of women’s relationships with one another and survival in a fragmented society.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January took me on an adventure through generations, continents, and worlds. It is a beautiful mix of genres but ultimately a coming-of-age story about exploration, change, family, and true love. I was lost in January's world and fascinated by the book-within-a-book that had a completely different tone. If you need a magical escape, this is the book for you!
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Published: Knopf - May 21st, 2018
This true crime story about the fall of Silicon Valley startup, Theranos, and its CEO and founder, Elizabeth Holmes, is expertly researched and told. The details are so insane, I couldn't put it down. I'm fascinated by this story and the fact that Holmes was so magnetic she could sell a technology that never worked. Bill Gates also recommends this book!
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Published: Atheneum Books for Young Readers - July 23rd, 2019
"Skulls are safe and snug, like a car seat for your brain." I can't wait to share this book with my four year old. The information told in the main text focuses on the science of the skull in a fun and lighthearted way. It's a positive look at a very important part of our bodies. Scott Campbell's watercolor illustrations are lovely. Not your typical picture book, but it's so fun!
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Published: Gallery Books - June 18th, 2019
Set during both the political upheaval in Tehran during 1953 and 60 years later, The Stationery Shop tells the story of young love torn apart and a country's changing future. It has excellent descriptions and character development. The book is a slow burn with a big payoff. It's a fascinating exploration of Iranian culture with a captivating love story.
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Published: Random House - January 15th, 2019
In a small college town in California, a contagious illness quickly spreads among the residents. The infected cannot be roused from slumber and are displaying heightened levels of brain activity. It is clear they are dreaming, but of what? This is a thought-provoking novel written in clear and elegant prose. The book flows like a dream.
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Published: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers - April 2nd, 2019
The story of a father trying to destroy the dandelion growing in his perfect lawn and his daughter's efforts to save and befriend it. This book is precious and has a valuable message.
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Published: Tin House Books - January 15th, 2019
The exceptional imagery used in this novel sets it apart from other historical fiction placed in Word War II. I felt as if I arrived at the marsh alongside the young orphan Virginia and felt the decay of the home in her later years. The events that haunt the elder Virginia are revealed in an unforgettable way.
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Published: HarperCollins - April 23rd, 2019
This is a companion book to the #1 NYT bestseller Dear Girl,. It is an inspirational picture book for boys ages 4-8. The lessons and advice are accompanied with stunning illustrations and it is the perfect book for caretakers to read with their own dear boy!
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Published: Back Bay Books - April 2nd, 2013
This book is thoroughly entertaining. It is whip-smart, hilarious, and heartwarming all at the same time. Agoraphobic Bernadette is loving, eccentric, and gone. It is up to her teenage daughter Bee to find her. A modern day epistolary that will make you belly laugh.
