A biweekly selection from our shelves, as curated by your favorite SPL librarians!
For the week of June 22, 2021: Fiction | Nonfiction
Fiction
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Basil’s War by Stephen Hunter
Basil St. Florian is an accomplished agent in the British Army, tasked with dozens of dangerous missions for crown and country across the globe. But his current mission, going undercover in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, might be his toughest assignment yet. He will be searching for an ecclesiastic manuscript that doesn't officially exist, one that genius professor Alan Turing believes may hold the key to a code that could prevent the death of millions and possibly even end the war. Action-packed and bursting with WWII-era intrigue, Basil's War is a classic espionage thriller from Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, essayist, and bestselling novelist Stephen Hunter. |
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The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
They are the Beautiful Ones, Loisail's most notable socialites, and this spring is Nina's chance to join their ranks, courtesy of her well-connected cousin and his calculating wife. But the Grand Season has just begun, and already Nina's debut has gone disastrously awry. She has always struggled to control her telekinesis--neighbors call her the Witch of Oldhouse--and the haphazard manifestations of her powers make her the subject of malicious gossip. |
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Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling
It's the summer of 1996 and school's out forever for Andy, her boyfriend, her two best friends. When Andy's alcoholic mother predicts the apocalypse, the four teenagers decide to spend the end of the world at a deserted manor house, the site of a historic unsolved mystery. A diamond necklace, stolen fifty years ago, might still be somewhere on the manor grounds, and The Game - half treasure hunt, half friendly deception – begins, growing to encompass years of secrets, lies, and, ultimately, one terrible betrayal. |
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The Butcher’s Daughter by Wendy Corsi Staub
Investigative genealogist Amelia Crenshaw solves clients' genetic puzzles, while hers remains shrouded in mystery. Now she suspects that the key to her birth parents' identities lies in an unexpected connection to a stranger who's hired her to find his long-lost daughter. Bracing herself for a shocking truth, Amelia is blindsided by a deadly one. |
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First, Became Ashes by K.M. Szpara
K. M. Szpara follows Docile, one of the most anticipated science fiction novels of 2020, with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that blends pain and pleasure and will make readers question what is real, and what is magical. |
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Girl in the Walls by A.J. Gnuse
A mesmerizing and suspenseful coming-of-age novel about an orphan hiding within the walls of her former family home--and about what it means to be truly seen after becoming lost in life. Written with grace and enormous heart, Girl in the Walls is a novel about carrying on through grief, forging unconventional friendships, and realizing, little by little, that we don't need to fear what we do not understand. |
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Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray
The fur flies in this hilarious romantic comedy where the owner of a Brooklyn-based cat café and the local vet go ahead to head. The attraction is instant, but can you fight like cats and dogs and still be perfect for each other? |
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Love and Other Lies by Ben McPherson
Cal and Elsa seem to have the perfect marriage until their oldest daughter disappears. The tension in their household is ratcheted up when it becomes obvious one of their daughters is hiding something. And as the facts surrounding the other daughter's disappearance become known, the family is on the way to being completely torn apart... |
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Maggie Finds Her Muse by Dee Ernst
A bestselling author goes to Paris to overcome writer's block and rediscovers family, independence, and love along the way. With a marvelous apartment at her fingertips, a finished book--and her dream of finally taking her career over the top--is surely within her grasp. But the clock is running out, and between her charming ex-husband arriving in France for vacation and a handsome Frenchman appearing one morning in her bathtub, Maggie's previously undisturbed peace goes by the wayside. |
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Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston
Award-winning author Andrea Hairston weaves together African folktales and postcolonial literature into unforgettable fantasy in Master of Poisons. The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. |
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A Spy in the Struggle by Aya De León
Since childhood, Yolanda Vance has forged her desire to escape poverty into a laser-like focus that took her through prep school and Harvard Law. So when her prestigious New York law firm is raided by the FBI, Yolanda turns in her corrupt bosses to save her career—and goes to work for the Bureau. Soon she's sent undercover at Red, Black, and Green—an African-American “extremist” activist group back in her California college town. As the stakes escalate, and one misstep could cost her life, Yolanda will have to choose between betraying the cause of her people or invoking the wrath of the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency. |
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Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman
This horror story is full of cult leaders, serial killers, and stranger danger, with moral crusaders and televangelists to stoke the fires of panic. The pressure cooker environment, inspired by the McMartin preschool trial and the Satanic Panic of the '80s, delivers a nuanced portrait of parenthood and mass hysteria. |
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Bee People and the Bugs They Love by Frank Mortimer
Mortimer invites readers on an eye-opening journey into the secret world of bees-- and the singular world of his fellow bee-keepers. In connecting with a club of disparate but kindred spirits, he discovers the centuries-old history of the trade. Mortimer delivers an informative, funny, and galvanizing book about the symbiotic relationship between flower and bee, and bee and the beekeepers who are determined to protect the existence of one of the most beguiling and invaluable creatures on earth. |
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Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider by Charles Person
Buses Are a Comin' provides a front-row view of the struggle to belong in America, as Charles Person accompanies his colleagues off the bus, into the station, into the mob, and into history to help defeat segregation's violent grip on African American lives. |
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Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You): A How-To Guide from the First Family of Podcasting by Justin McElroy
A helpful and sometimes hilarious how-to-podcast guide. You'll find everything you need to know to make, produce, edit, and promote a podcast, and no guarantees, but possibly get rich??? Are you ready to start podcasting? |
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Everyone Can Bake: Simple Recipes to Master and Mix by Dominique Ansel
Acclaimed pastry chef Dominique Ansel shares his simple, foolproof recipes for tarts, cakes, jams, buttercreams, and more "building blocks" of desserts for home cooks to master and mix as they please. |
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How to Make a House a Home: Creating a Purposeful, Personal Space by Ariel Kaye
This sweet and short guide focuses on how to make your home the homiest one on the block! Begin with the flow of a house and why that is important to create a welcoming atmosphere. Move into color choice and lighting options - both absolutely essential, delve into texture, accents and space, then add those finishing touches of warmth to design a home that's not only beautiful, but mindful, functional, and nurturing. |
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Hype: How Scammers, Grifters, and Con Artists are Taking Over the Internet--and Why We're Following by Gabrielle Bluestone
The former "Vice" journalist and producer of the Netflix documentary, "Fyre," presents a revelatory examination of the con-artists, grifters, and scammers of the digital age that outlines recommendations for protecting consumers. |
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It's Always Freezer Season: How to Freeze Like a Chef with 100 Make-ahead Recipes by Ashley Christensen and Kaitlyn Goalen
Christensen and Goalen reveal how the freezer can easily become the single most important tool in your kitchen! By turning your freezer into a fully provisioned pantry stocked with an array of homemade staples, you'll save time, energy-- and still be able to put together delicious, complex dishes. Readers will find innovative recipes, helpful technical information, and tips on stocking your new "pantry." |
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Never a Lovely So Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren by Colin Asher
During his lifetime Nelson Algren (1909-1981) was a critically acclaimed author. His novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, which narrates the dissolution of a drug-addicted veteran, won the 1950 National Book Award. Today he's almost forgotten--and undeservedly so. He wrote beautifully and unflinchingly about the lives of the poor and the broken. And he was decades ahead of his time in his concern about what we would now call "income inequality." Colin Asher's biography returns Algren to us: his poverty, his struggles with writing, his persecution by the FBI, his stormy relationships, in a biography that, to quote one critic, "has heart and heft." |
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New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation by Thomas Dyja
A lively, immersive history by an award-winning urbanist of New York City's transformation, and the lessons it offers for the city's future. |
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To Raise a Boy: Classrooms, Locker Rooms, Bedrooms, and the Hidden Struggles of American Boyhood by Emma Brown
This is a must-read for anyone who is taking part in raising children (teachers, coaches, and parents), especially if they have been focused solely on protecting and raising up girls. What we want is for both boys and girls to be strong and gentle. Brown is clearly interested in a more equitable future, and finds lots of reasons for hope, but also doesn't pull punches as she describes what boys are up against. |
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The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower
A single photograph--an exceptionally rare "action shot" documenting the horrific final moment of the murder of a family--drives a riveting process of discovery for a gifted Holocaust scholar. Wendy Lower's forensic and archival detective work recovers astonishing layers of detail concerning the open-air massacres in Ukraine. The identities of mother and children, of the killers--and, remarkably, of the Slovakian photographer who openly took the image, as a secret act of resistance--are dramatically uncovered. |
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Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes From the Other Side of the Fist Bump by Ben Philippe
In the biting, hilarious vein of What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes Ben Philippe's candid memoir-in-essays, chronicling a lifetime of being the Black friend in predominantly white spaces. From cheating his way out of swim tests to discovering stray family members in unlikely places, he finds the punchline in the serious while acknowledging the blunt truths of existing as a Black man in today's world. |