A biweekly selection from our shelves, as curated by your favorite SPL librarians!
For the week of October 26, 2021: Fiction | Nonfiction | Graphic Novels | Movies/TV, Music & More
Fiction
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A Lot Like Adios by Alexis Daria
The national bestselling author of You Had Me at Hola returns with a seductive second-chance romance about a commitment-phobic Latina and her childhood best friend who has finally returned home. |
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Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka
A massive bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with an incredible energy and surprising humor as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwind. Award-winning author Kotaro Isaka takes readers on a tension packed journey as the bullet train hurtles toward its final destination. Who will make it off the train alive--and what awaits them at the last stop? |
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An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene Tursten
Eighty-eight-year-old Maud is never looking for trouble, but it always seems to find her. First, a woman in her building met an untimely end: tragic. Then, just recently, a dead body mysteriously appeared in her very own apartment, prompting an investigation by the local Gothenburg authorities. Such a strange coincidence. When it seems suspicion has fallen on her, little old lady that she is, Maud decides to skip town and splurges on a trip to South Africa for herself. |
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In the Country of Others by Leila Slimani
The award-winning, #1 internationally bestselling new novel by the author of The Perfect Nanny, about a woman in an interracial marriage whose fierce desire for autonomy parallels her adopted country's fight for independence. |
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People Like Them by Samira Sedira
With piercing psychological insight and gripping storytelling, People Like Them asks: How could a seemingly "normal" person commit an atrocious crime? How could that person's loved ones ever come to terms with it afterward? And how well can you really know your own spouse? |
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Winterlight by Kristen Britain
This seventh novel of the Green Rider series follows the adventures of messenger, magic wielder, and knight Karigan G'ladheon as she fights to save the king and country from dark magic and a looming war. |
Nonfiction
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Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South by Winfred Rembert
Vivid, confrontational, revelatory, and complex, Chasing Me to My Grave is a searing memoir in prose and painted leather that celebrates Black life and summons readers to confront painful and urgent realities at the heart of American history and society. |
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The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell
The inside story of WeWork, its audacious founder, and what its epic unraveling says about a financial system drunk on the elixir of Silicon Valley innovation--from the Wall Street Journal correspondents (recently featured in the WeWork Hulu documentary) whose scoop-filled reporting hastened the company's downfall. |
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The Energy Paradox: What to do When Your Get-up-and-go Has Got Up and Gone by Steven R Gundry
The author of the bestselling Plant Paradox series takes a fresh look at one of the top health issues plaguing Americans--fatigue--and offers a revolutionary plan for boosting energy and revitalizing mental and physical stamina. |
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The Irish Assassins: Conspiracy, Revenge, and the Phoenix Park Murders that Stunned Victorian England by Julie Kavanagh
A brilliant work of historical true crime charting a pivotal event in the 19th century, the Phoenix Park murders in Dublin, that gripped the world and forever altered the course of Irish history, from renowned journalist, formerNew Yorker London editor, and Costa Biography Award finalist Julie Kavanagh. |
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The Joy of Sweat: The Strange Science of Perspiration by Sarah Everts
Deeply researched and written with great zest, The Joy of Sweat is a fresh take on a gross but engrossing fact of human life. |
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Music is History by Questlove
In Music Is History, bestselling author and Sundance award-winning director Questlove harnesses his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music and his deep curiosity about history to examine America over the past fifty years. Choosing one essential track from each year, Questlove unpacks each song's significance, revealing the pivotal role that American music plays around issues of race, gender, politics, and identity. |
Graphic Novels
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Drawing the Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Voting in America by Tommy Jenkins
Coinciding with the 2020 US presidential election, Drawing the Vote, an original graphic novel, looks at the history of voting rights in the United States and how it affects the way we vote today. Throughout the book, the author, Tommy Jenkins, identifies events and trends that led to the unprecedented results of the 2016 presidential election that left American political parties more estranged than ever. |
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Factory Summers by Guy Delisle
For three summers beginning when he was 16, cartoonist Guy Delisle worked at a pulp and paper factory in Quebec City. Factory Summers chronicles the daily rhythms of life in the mill, and the twelve hour shifts he spent in a hot, noisy building filled with arcane machinery. |
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It's Life as I See It: Black Cartoonists in Chicago, 1940-1980 by Dan Nadel
Originally published by Chicago's Black press, long neglected by mainstream publishing, and now included in a Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago exhibition, these comics showcase some of the finest Black cartoonists. |
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Wake: The Hidden History of Women-led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall
Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour-de-force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall's efforts to uncover the truth about these women warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. |
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The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces by Courtney Cook
In her illustrated memoir, The Way She Feels: My Life on the Borderline in Pictures and Pieces, Courtney Cook shares what it’s been like to live and love with Borderline Personality Disorder. |
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What are you Raising Them For?: Tim Devin Tells You All About 70s Hippie Parenting by Tim Devin
This zine looks at parenting ideas found in 1970s hippie publications—and compares them with what grown-up hippie writers have to say about their youth. Topics include alternative schools, food, and gender roles. |
Movies/TV, Music & More
Movies/TV
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Chéche Lavi by Sam Ellison Format: DVD In this indictment of America's asylum process, two Haitian migrants find their lives in stasis after their journey through multiple countries stalls at the US-Mexico border in Tijuana. When friends Robens and James are separated, this contemplative look at a bond forged through struggle shifts into a moving exploration of the longing to discover one's place, and the barriers, both figurative and all too literal, that stand in the way. |
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The Green Knight by David Lowery Format: DVD A fantasy adventure based on the Arthurian legend, the film tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur's headstrong nephew, who embarks on a quest to confront the eponymous knight, a gigantic tree-like creature. |
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Paradise Hope by Ulrich Seidl Format: DVD The third installment in Ulrich Seidl's Paradise trilogy tells the story of the overweight thirteen-year-old Melanie and her first love. Melanie spends her summer vacation at a strict diet camp for overweight teenagers. Between physical education and nutrition counseling, pillow fights, and her first cigarette, Melanie falls in love with the camp director, a doctor 40 years her senior. As the doctor struggles with the guilty nature of his desire, Melanie had imagined her paradise differently. |
Music
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BTS, the Best by BTS Format: CD K-pop group BTS has become one of the biggest acts in the world. This collection features Japanese versions of 23 of their biggest hits, including Dynamite; Film Out; and Boy with Luv. |
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No Gods No Masters by Garbage Format: CD No Gods No Masters is the seventh studio album by American rock band Garbage. |
& More
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The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria C Murray Format: Spoken CD The remarkable story of J. P. Morgan's personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched the nation. |