A biweekly selection from our shelves, as curated by your favorite SPL librarians!
For the week of July 6, 2021: Fiction | Nonfiction
Fiction
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All My Mother’s Lovers by Ilana Masad
When Maggie's mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home to discover, along with Iris's will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed to a mysterious man she's never heard of. In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris - Maggie embarks on a road trip, determined to hand-deliver the letters. Maggie quickly discovers Iris's second, hidden life, which shatters everything she knew about her parents' relationship. |
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All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter
Long ago Miren O'Malley's family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer: safety for their ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and have fallen into decline. Miren's grandmother is determined to restore their glory, even at the price of Miren's freedom. |
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Blood Grove by Walter Mosley
It is 1969, and flames can be seen on the horizon, protest wafts like smoke though the thick air, and Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. The young man has a story that makes little sense. He and his lover, a beautiful young woman, were attacked in a citrus grove at the city's outskirts. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences. This is a thrilling race through a California of hippies and tycoons, radicals and sociopaths, cops and grifters, both men and women. |
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The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon
When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it's just another one of her sister's episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother's estate. A modern-day ghost story that illuminates how the past, though sometimes forgotten, is never really far behind us. |
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The Ghost Variations by Kevin Brockmeier
Ghost stories tap into our most primal emotions as they encourage us to confront the timeless question: What comes after death? Here, in tales that are by turn scary, funny, philosophic, and touching, you'll find that question sharpened, split, reconsidered--and met with a multitude of answers. |
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Out Past the Stars by K.B. Wagers
The finale of the Farian Wars SciFi trilogy is twisty and clever and full of political maneuvers. Once again, the fate of the galaxy is on the line and Hail will have to make one final gamble to leverage chaos into peace, and she is prepared to die trying. Wagers builds a deep world and deeper personality traits throughout. This is character-driven with a strong female lead, and an exciting dose of space opera, personal relationships, and trauma all action and emotion packed! |
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The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina
The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected "wind" phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami. |
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A Question Mark is Half a Heart by Sofia Lundberg
After escaping a childhood of poverty in Sweden, Elin forged a career as a successful and sought-after photographer in New York City, and built a loving family. But all is not as it appears. Unfulfilled by her career and her never present husband, Elin is also usually at odds with her teenage daughter. Monumental past secrets, a mysterious piece of mail, and then -- memories both good and bad from her life in Sweden come roaring back, further threatening her strained work and family situations, as well as her psychological well-being. |
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The Social Graces by Renee Rosen
A peek behind the curtain at one of the most remarkable feuds in history: Mrs. Vanderbilt and Mrs. Astor's notorious battle for control of New York society during the Gilded Age, from the bestselling author of Park Avenue Summer In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, where wives turn a blind eye to husbands' infidelities, and women have few rights and even less independence, society is everything. |
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Ten Arrows of Iron by Sam Sykes
Sal the Cacophony - outlaw, outcast, outnumbered - destroys all that she loves. Her lover lost and cities burned in her wake, all she has left is her magical gun and her all-consuming quest for revenge against those who stole her power and took the sky from her. When the roguish agent of a mysterious patron offers her the chance to participate in a heist to steal an incredible power from the famed airship fleet, the Ten Arrows, she finds a new purpose. |
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Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim
Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people's fortunes-or misfortunes-in tea leaves. Ever since she can remember, Vanessa has been able to see people's fortunes at the bottoms of their teacups. After a matchmaking appointment, Vanessa sees death for the first time. She decides that she can't truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. |
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When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
Opal Pruitt is just about to turn 18 in the oppressively hot summer of 1936. The young black teenager's journey to adulthood will be forged in fire, though, as the Ku Klux Klan attacks her Colored Town neighborhood and she endures a vicious beating at the hands of an unknown white attacker. Although slavery is over, Parsons, Georgia is still starkly divided along unequal racial lines and Opal begins to fear the community's thirst for justice on her behalf could ignite a chain reaction with devastating consequences. |
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The Complete Bag Making Masterclass: A Comprehensive Guide to Modern Bag Making Techniques by Samantha Hussey
Expert bag designer, Mrs. H, has created a collection of the latest bag making techniques and 8 full-size bag patterns, based on her popular weekend bag making retreats. |
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TheDadLab: 50 Awesome Science Projects for Parents and Kids by Sergei Urban
TheDadLab has become an online sensation, with weekly videos of fun and easy science experiments that parents can do with their kids. Urban goes off-screen with 50 step-by-step projects featuring detailed explanations which simplify scientific concepts for parents and help answer their childrens’ hows and whys. Explore new fun ways to paint; make slime with only two ingredients; defy gravity with a ping-pong ball; produce your own electricity, and more! |
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The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups by William J. Bernstein
As revealing about human nature as they are historically significant, Bernstein's chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania: for example, belief in dispensationalist End-Times has over decades profoundly affected U.S. Middle East policy. Bernstein observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of mass delusion, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact. |
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#Eat Meat Less: Good for Animals, the Earth & All by The Jane Goodall Institute
Planet-friendly recipes inspired by noted global activist Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, provide readers with a user-friendly call-to-action to improve human and environmental health and improve wellbeing for other animals alike. |
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The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale
London, 1938. In the suburbs of the city, a young housewife has become the eye in a storm of chaos. In Alma Fielding's modest home, china flies off the shelves and eggs fly through the air; stolen jewelry appears on her fingers. The culprit is incorporeal. As Alma cannot call the police, she calls the papers instead. With characteristic rigor and insight, Kate Summerscale brilliantly captures the rich atmosphere of a haunting that transforms into a very modern battle between the supernatural and the subconscious. |
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The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town by Brian Alexander
By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes readers into the world of the American medical industry in a way no book has done before. Americans are dying sooner, and living in poorer health. Alexander argues that no plan will solve America's health crisis until the deeper causes of that crisis are addressed. |
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I am the Rage by Dr. Martina McGowan
I Am the Rage is a poetry collection that explores racial injustice from the raw, unfiltered viewpoint of a Black woman in America. Dr. Martina McGowan is a retired MD, a mother, and a poet. Her poetry provides insights that no think piece on racism can; putting readers in the uncomfortable position of feeling, reflecting, and facing what it means to be a Black American. This entire collection was created during 2020, many shortly after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, to name but a few. |
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I'm So Effing Tired: A Proven Plan to Beat Burnout, Boost Your Energy, and Reclaim Your Life by Amy Shah
A guide to conquering burnout and increasing your energy from a leading internal medicine and allergy/immunology physician. Dr. Shah identifies the main culprit and considers food choices that exacerbate the hormonal imbalance that causes women to feel like they are running on empty. Many of the symptoms and solutions overlap and will sound familiar, like adding fiber, monitoring dairy, eliminating sugar, and avoiding processed foods. What really makes all this advice is Shah's charming storytelling style with comprehensive, reassuring advice. |
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Rock Force: The American Paratroopers who Took Back Corregidor and Exacted Macarthur's Revenge on Japan by Kevin Maurer
In December 1941, General Douglas MacArthur is forced to retreat to Corregidor, a jagged, rocky island fortress at the mouth of Manilla Bay. Months later the general is whisked away, leaving his troops to their fate. In early 1945, MacArthur returns to the Philippines, his eyes affixed firmly on Corregidor. To take back the island from Japanese defenders, he calls on the 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment, a highly-trained veteran airborne unit. |
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The Shadows of Empire: How Imperial History Shapes Our World by Samir Puri
Organized by region, and covering vital topics such as security, foreign policy, national politics and commerce, The Shadows of Empire combines gripping history and astute analysis to explain why the history of empire affects us all in profound ways; it is also a plea for greater awareness, both as individuals and as nations, of how our varied imperial pasts have contributed to why we see the world in such different ways. |
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The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt by Audrey Clare Farley
The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance, both genetic and monetary, between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her mother Maryon. This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive the women who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds? |
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White Magic: Essays by Elissa Washuta
In this collection of intertwined essays, Washuta writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life--Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham--to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule. |