ŷ������

Gardening can get quite expensive. I hope she enjoys the books.

True, re. expensive. This is why the returns are so important. In Oregon we got more slugs than veggies and here in Texas , the heat at our harvest, so to speak. It gets discouraging, as you might imagine.

------ Alabama v. King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights...
by Dan Abrams and Fred D. Gray with David Fisher

What it is: a memoir from Black attorney and activist Fred D. Gray, who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when King was tried for his involvement in the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-1956.

Read it for: a revealing account of a pivotal moment in Dr. King's emergence as a civil rights icon.

Try this next: Gilbert King's Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America.



----- Corrections in Ink
by Keri Blakinger

What it's about: In 2001, Olympic hopeful Keri Blakinger's dreams were crushed when her figure skating partner quit. Turning to heroin to cope, she later wound up in prison for nearly two years.

Why you should read it: In her candid debut, Blakinger investigates how her white privilege afforded her rehabilitation opportunities rarely given to prisoners of color; her experiences, paired with extensive research, offer a clear-eyed call for prison reform.

For fans of: Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman.



------ Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness
by Melissa Bond

What it is: journalist Melissa Bond's memoir of her battles with benzodiazepine addiction.

Is it for you? Bond's evocative cautionary tale doesn't shy away from the disturbing aspects of her withdrawal and recovery process.

Want a taste? "I feel like a house that has somehow remained standing in the wake of a massive fire."



------ Directed by James Burrows: Five Decades of Stories from the Legendary Director of...
by James Burrows with Eddy Friedfeld; foreword by Glen and Les Charles

What it is: a nostalgic behind-the-scenes account of prolific Emmy Award-winning sitcom director James Burrows' five-decade career.

Featuring: never-before-told stories about the making of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Cheers, and many more.

Try this next: For another upbeat memoir written by an iconic TV industry veteran, read Norman Lear's Even This I Get to Experience.



------ The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There
by Jenna Fischer & Angela Kinsey

What it is: a funny and intimate chronicle of the making of NBC sitcom The Office, written by costars Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, who currently cohost the Office Ladies podcast.

What's inside: never-before-seen photographs; insights on the pair's nearly two-decade friendship.

Try this next: For another engaging memoir from an Office alum, read Welcome to Dunder Mifflin by Brian Baumgartner.



------ Miss Memory Lane
by Colton Haynes

What it's about: Arrow and Teen Wolf actor Colton Haynes' redemptive journey toward self-acceptance after enduring numerous personal and professional setbacks in his pursuit of fame.

Is it for you? Haynes' moving debut unsparingly details the actor's battles with anxiety and addiction, surviving physical and sexual abuse, and losing out on roles because of his sexuality.

Reviewers say: "Fans will be left breathless by the grit and courage on display" (Publishers Weekly).



----- Hometown Victory: A Coach's Story of Football, Fate, and Coming Home
by Keanon Lowe with Justin Spizman

What it's about: After a former high school friend and teammate died of an opioid overdose, San Francisco 49ers offensive analyst Keanon Lowe quit his job and returned to his Oregon hometown to coach an underfunded and underperforming high school football team.

Read it for: an inspiring sports story of overcoming the odds.

Movie buzz: A Disney+ film adaptation produced by Dwayne Johnson is currently in the works.



------ Happy-Go-Lucky
by David Sedaris

What it is: a candid and irreverent collection of essays by bestselling author and humorist David Sedaris that chronicles life during COVID.

Don't miss: the moving title essay, which sees Sedaris and his siblings gathering at the deathbed of their nonagenarian father, Lou, with whom they had a complicated relationship.

Reviewers say: "This is Sedaris at his best" (Library Journal); "as rich and rewarding as ever" (Publishers Weekly).



------ Rough Draft
by Katy Tur

What it is: MSNBC anchor Katy Tur's account of her life and journalism career, told with equal parts humor and candor.

Topics include: Tur supporting her father, helicopter journalist Zoey Tur, during her transition despite the pair's fraught history; becoming tabloid fodder in her early 20s during her relationship with Keith Olbermann; her marriage to CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil, with whom she has two children.

Want a taste? "Journalism is the world's best career for avoiding your own problems."

What a variety of career fields and events covered! Thanks for the titles, Alias.

I have the audio of ------ Happy-Go-Lucky
by David Sedaris on hold.

Lucky you, right? ;-) I hope you enjoy it when it comes in. An audio of a humorous book is usually a pleasure.

madrano wrote: "Lucky you, right? ;-) I hope you enjoy it when it comes in. An audio of a humorous book is usually a pleasure."

:)

I usually enjoy David Sedaris books, especially when he narrates.

I had to pause my old, however, as I need to finish up the audio
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old because it fits our 100 challenge for
#52- book written in letters or diary- epistolary.

I think I may also get the eBook. Sometimes the music is so loud at the gym, I can't hear the audio book or concentrate. :( I do better with audio books when I exercise walk outside. Though with this heat, it will probably be September for I do that again !

I also can't do audio books if I am doing other tasks. I can't multi task with audio books for some reason. Exercise walking seems to work for me as I can just focus on the book as the walking takes care of itself. :)

Alias Reader wrote: "I also can't do audio books if I am doing other tasks. I can't multi task with audio books for some reason. Exercise walking seems to work for me as I can just focus on the book as the walking takes care of itself. :)..."

I hear you on this! I have many, many family members who are now into audio walks because the walk itself seems to fly while listening. Listening while driving helps as well.

------ When Women Were Dragons
by Kelly Barnhill

What it is: a character-driven alternate history that's one part satire and one part coming-of-age story, which examines gender and society in the wake of a terrifying (and liberating) supernatural event.

What happened? One day in 1955, hundred of thousands of women spontaneously (and inexplicably) turned into dragons and took the skies.

Is it for you? Although the premise sounds like anything but traditional historical fiction, Kelly Barnhill paints a moving portrait of a 1950s world that readers will appreciate amidst the allegory.



----- In the Face of the Sun
by Denny S. Bryce

The premise: Fleeing her abusive husband, Frankie Saunders turns to her aunt Daisy, and the two Black women leave Chicago for Los Angeles at the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

The problem: Frankie is excited for a new start, but she doesn't know that Daisy has other reasons to travel to the City of Angels, and a score to settle once they arrive that goes all the way back to the 1920s.

Read it for: the strong sense of place and time; Aunt Daisy's delightful way with words and unbreakable spirit.


------ Trust
by Hernán Díaz

What it's about: the life and myth surrounding Andrew Bevel, a recently deceased financial magnate who managed to preserve and increase his fortune through the 1929 stock market crash until his death a decade later.

How it's told: through four documents that reveal truths Bevel tried to keep hidden while alive -- Bonds, an unflattering novel based on his life; an unfinished memoir he began to counter the novel; the autobiography of a journalist Bevel hires to help destroy the career of author of Bonds; the journal entries of Bevel's enigmatic wife Mildred.

For fans of: the thought-provoking, experimental literary fiction of Vladimir Nabokov, Italo Calvino, and Jose Saramago.



------ Woman of Light
by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

What it is: a sweeping, thought-provoking family saga about the stories we tell each other and ourselves, and the powerful yet intangible nature of narrative.

Starring: Denver-based Chicana Luz Little Light, who is getting by during the Great Depression on what she earns from doing laundry and reading fortunes in tea leaves.

Why you might like it: Luz has a special connection with her family's indigenous roots, and her journey to come to grips with things will take readers through defining moments in the history of the Old West.



----- The Mayfair Bookshop
by Eliza Knight

Where it begins: a tiny London bookshop, where a curious curator learns about her surprising connection to novelist Nancy Mitford.

Cameos by: novelist Evelyn Waugh; Nancy's five younger sisters, who joined her in the society pages and each left their own marks on the world.

For fans of: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.



------- The Foundling
by Ann Leary

What it's about: In 1927 Mary Engle starts a job as a doctor's secretary at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. But her pride in her job and respect for her employer begin to crumble when she discovers that Lillian, her childhood best friend, was wrongfully incarcerated in the facility and begs Mary to help her escape.

Reviewers say: Author Ann Leary's wit "complements her serious approach to historical and psychological issues in this thoroughly satisfying novel" (Kirkus Reviews).

You might also like: The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas; The Girls With No Names by Serena Burdick.



------ The Colony
by Audrey Magee

What it is: a lyrical, atmospheric story about two outsiders who visit a small Irish island during the Troubles and the unintended consequences of their arrival.

The visitors: an English artist known only as Mr. Lloyd, who is drawn to the island out of a desire for something "primal" to paint; French linguist Jean-Pierre Masson, who hopes to study Gaelic away from outside influences on the dialect.

Read it for: the exploration of colonialism and how it intersects with the personal as much as it does the political.



------ Take My Hand
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

What it's about: Nursing school grad Civil Townsend starts a new job at a family planning clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, where she hopes to help the local Black community. But after noticing disturbing choices her white supervisors make about patient care, Civil puts her career on the line to protect two young girls from an unjust system.

Why you should read it: Take My Hand is incredibly timely, beginning in 1973 before Roe v. Wade while also exploring the forced sterilization of Black people by government and and medical institutions.

Reviewers say: Take My Hand is "an exceptional read" and despite the heaviness of the topic, author Dolen Perkins-Valdes gives "nuance and dignity to her characters, along with glimmers of hope" (Library Journal).



------- The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
by Jennifer Ryan

What it is: an engaging and richly detailed story about three young women who become unlikely friends while helping the vicar's daughter sew her wedding dress.

The needleworkers: Grace, the vicar's daughter, who runs herself ragged helping the community her father serves; Cressida. a fashion designer who lost her home and her business in the Blitz; Cressida's niece Violet, who is thrilled at her aunt's return to the family manor house.

You might also like: A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier; The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly.



------- Four Treasures of the sky
by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

What it's about: Daiyu is a young Chinese woman who moves to an Idaho mining town after escaping sexual slavery in 1880s San Francisco. Living as "Jacob Li" she works for a kindly pair of Chinese general store owners, until her new life is threatened by increasingly racist attitudes toward Asian people.

Why you should read it: Through Daiyu's story, author Jenny Zhang explores the complex history of Chinese Americans in the shadow of the uptick in anti-Asian violence during the COVID pandemic.

For fans of: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang (no relation); The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin.

----- The City Inside
Basu, Samit
The City Inside, a near-future epic by the internationally celebrated Samit Basu, pulls no punches as it comes for your anxieties about society, government, the environment, and our world at large-yet never loses sight of the hopeful potential of the future. "They'd known the end times were coming but hadn't known they'd be multiple choice." Joey is a Reality Controller in near future Delhi. Her job is to supervise the multimedia multi-reality livestreams of Indi, one of South Asia's fastest rising online celebrities-who also happens to be her college ex. Joey's job gives her considerable culture-power, but she's too caught up in day-to-day crisis-handling to see this, or to figure out what she wants from her life. Rudra is a recluse estranged from his wealthy and powerful family who fled to an impoverished immigrant neighborhood where he loses himself in video games and his neighbors' lives.


----- We Had to Remove This Post: A Novel
Bervoets, Hanna
To be a content moderator is to see humanity at its worst--but Kayleigh needs money. So she takes a job working for a social media platform whose name she isn't allowed to mention. Her task: review offensive videos and pictures, rants and conspiracy theories, and decide which need to be removed. It's grueling work. Kayleigh and her colleagues spend all day watching horrors and hate on their screens, evaluating them with the platform's ever-changing moderating guidelines. Yet Kayleigh is good at her job, and she finds in her colleagues a group of friends--even a new girlfriend--and for the first time in her life, her future seems bright. But soon the job seems to change them all, shifting their worlds in alarming ways. How long before the moderators' own senses of right and wrong begin to bend and flex?


----- The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found
Bruni, Frank
From New York Times columnist and bestselling author Frank Bruni comes a wise and moving memoir about aging, affliction, and optimism after partially losing his eyesight. One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience. Overnight, a rare stroke had cut off blood to one of his optic nerves, rendering him functionally blind in that eye--forever. And he soon learned from doctors that the same disorder could ravage his left eye, too. He could lose his sight altogether. In The Beauty of Dusk, Bruni hauntingly recounts his adjustment to this daunting reality, a medical and spiritual odyssey that involved not only reappraising his own priorities but also reaching out to, and gathering wisdom from, longtime friends and new acquaintances who had navigated their own traumas and afflictions.


------ Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Cho, Nam-ju
In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of ... Seoul, Kim Jiyoung--a millennial 'everywoman'--spends her days caring for her infant daughter. Her husband, however, worries over a strange symptom that has recently appeared: Jiyoung has begun to impersonate the voices of other women--dead and alive, both known and unknown to her ... As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, Jiyoung's concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist, who listens to her narrate her own life story--from her birth to a family who expected a son, to elementary school teachers who policed girls' outfits, to male coworkers who installed hidden cameras in women's restrooms and posted the photos online.


------ The Emma Project: A Novel
Dev, Sonali
Emma gets a fresh Indian-American twist from award-winning author Sonali Dev in her heartwarmingly irresistible Jane Austen inspired rom com series. No one can call Vansh Raje's life anything but charmed. Handsome--Vogue has declared him California's hottest single--and rich enough to spend all his time on missions to make the world a better place. Add to that a doting family and a contagiously sunny disposition and Vansh has made it halfway through his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game. A couple years from turning forty, Knightlina (Naina) Kohli has just gotten out of a ten-year-long fake relationship with Vansh's brother and wants only one thing from her life ... fine, two things. One, to have nothing to do with the unfairly blessed Raje family ever again. Two, to bring economic independence to millions of women in South Asia through her microfinance foundation and prove her father wrong about, well, everything. Just when Naina's dream is about to come to fruition, Vansh Raje shows up with his misguided Emma Project ... And suddenly she's fighting him for funding and wondering if a friends-with-benefits arrangement that's as toe-curlingly hot as it is fun is worth risking her life's work for.


------ Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art
Duffek, Karen
Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art brings together contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with extraordinary works of historical Northwest Coast art that transcend the category of "art" or "artifact" and embody distinct ways of knowing and being in the world. Dozens of Indigenous artists and community members visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia to engage with these objects and learn from the hands of their ancestors. The photographs and their commentaries speak to the connections between tangible and intangible cultural belongings; how "art" remains part of Northwest Coast peoples' ongoing relationships to their territories and governance; Indigenous experiences of reconnection, reclamation, and return; and critical and necessary conversations around the role of museums.


------ One Two Three: A Novel
Frankel, Laurie
Mab is the "normal" one, never mind Bourne Memorial High School has banned that term, and besides, she's a stickler for words and definitions and knows normal isn't normal in Bourne. Monday is a stickler for everything else. She doesn't like abbreviations, contractions, lies, typos, or wearing green clothes on yellow days. When the Bourne library shut down-funds desperately needed elsewhere-she stashed the books under her bed, behind the sofa, along the stairs, inside the microwave, and lends them from home. Mirabel's the smart one, the slow one, the stuck one. Much of her body requires augmentation-she needs a wheelchair to navigate the world, a voice app to speak to it-but her right arm and hand work flawlessly. And so do her brain and her heart. Nora gave her girls "M" names with escalating syllables so she'd be able to keep them straight. As if single parenting sixteen-year-old triplets weren't enough, her two jobs-Bourne's only therapist and its only bartender-are both in unusually high demand. And then there's the job she can't let go-lead plaintiff in Bourne's class-action lawsuit against Bison Chemical.


------Other People's Clothes: A Novel
Henkel, Calla
Hoping to escape the pain of the recent murder of her best friend, art student Zoe Beech finds herself studying abroad in the bohemian capital of Europe--Berlin. Zoe, rudderless, relies on the arrangements of fellow exchange student Hailey Mader, who idolizes Warhol and Britney Spears and wants nothing more than to be an art star. On Craigslist, Hailey unknowingly stumbles on an apartment sublet posted by a well-known thriller writer. Feeling as though they've won the lottery, the girls move into the high-ceilinged prewar flat. Soon they realize that their landlady Beatrice, who is supposed to be on a residency in Vienna, is watching them--and her next book appears to be based on their lives.


----- Get a Life, Chloe Brown: A Novel
Hibbert, Talia
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. She's come up with seven directives to help her "Get a Life", and she's already completed the first: finally moving out of her family's mansion. She's ready to enjoy a drunken night out, ride a motorcycle, and other adventures. But it's not easy being bad, and Chloe knows just the man to help her complete her list. Redford 'Red' Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and sex appeal, who paints at night but hides his work. When she enlists Red to help her rebel, she discovers what really lies beneath his rough exterior.


------The Hiking Book from Hell
Kalvø, Are
Jim Gaffigan meets Cheryl Strayed in this blisteringly funny memoir about the call of the wild, from one of Scandinavia's biggest comedians. Sometime around his forties, Are Kalvø starts losing his friends ... to the mountains. Friends who used to meet him at the pub are now hiking and skiing every weekend, and when they do show up, all they talk about is feeling at one with nature (without a hint of irony). When Are realizes he's the only person who hasn't posted a selfie on a mountain, he starts to wonder: does he have it all wrong? To find out, Are buys some ridiculously expensive gear and heads into the woods.The result of his sardonic trek is at once a smart and funny take-down of outdoors culture, and a reluctant surrender to nature's undeniable pull. An adventure, a comedy, and a tragedy, The Hiking Book from Hell is destined to become a nature writing (and nature hating) classic.


----- Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service
Leonnig, Carol
Carol Leonnig has been covering the Secret Service for The Washington Post for most of the last decade, bringing to light the gaffes and scandals that plague the agency today--from a toxic work culture to outdated equipment and training to the deep resentment among the ranks with the agency's leadership. But the Secret Service wasn't always so troubled. The Secret Service was born in 1865, in the wake of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but its story begins in earnest in 1963, with the death of John F. Kennedy. Shocked into reform by their failure to protect the president on that fateful day, this once-sleepy agency was rapidly transformed into a proud, elite unit that would finally redeem themselves in 1981 by valiantly thwarting an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. But this reputation for courage and efficiency would not last forever. By Barack Obama's presidency, the Secret Service was becoming notorious for break-ins at the White House, an armed gunman firing at the building while agents stood by, a massive prostitution scandal in Cartagena, and many other dangerous lapses.


-----The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by the Bees
May, Meredith
Meredith May recalls the first time a honeybee crawled on her arm. She was five years old, her parents had recently split and suddenly she found herself in the care of her grandfather, an eccentric beekeeper who made honey in a rusty old military bus in the yard. That first close encounter was at once terrifying and exhilarating for May, and in that moment she discovered that everything she needed to know about life and family was right before her eyes, in the secret world of bees.

Alias Reader wrote: "
----- That Noodle Life: Soulful, Savory, Spicy, Slurpy
by Mike Le and Stephanie Le ..."

This just went on my request list at the library. I'm 27th in line!! It's popular.

Alias Reader wrote: "

------ Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris ..."

I look forward to this one. I've enjoyed the other books by him that I've listened to.

Alias Reader wrote: "

------The Hiking Book from Hell by Kalvø, Are

-----The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by the Bees by May, Meredith .."

I've put these two on my "For Later" list at the library. Both sound very interesting.

I enjoy long walks, so the hiking book will be entertaining.

I'm intrigued by the blurb about Four Treasures of the Sky--Jenny Tinghui Zhang. At the bottom of that is written: "For fans of: How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang (no relation); The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin."

I read & liked both of those books, so have added this to my TBR.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982--Cho Nam-Joo sounds remarkable. The idea of "Everywoman" exploring her life in the only way she can while her nation begins to challenge the very actions they've long advocated. Interesting concept.

Where the Power Is: Indigenous Perspectives on Northwest Coast Art--Karen Duffek is now on my TBR, although i'm not sure it's what i really want. I've visited the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and would like to know what tribal members think about it. One thing i've noticed is that NW tribal art seems less about economics, the way SW tribal art does. I think some of that is because in the SW it's been turned into a sort of money maker, while i don't see that facet as much up north.

Other People's Clothes--Calla Henkel sounds fascinating. To my mind it sounds a tad horror-filled but the GR blurb makes it sound more millennial confusion than anything else. Very Interesting.

The Hiking Book from Hell--Are Kalvø, which Petra mentioned, sounds odd. Marie, who regularly posts on our monthly round up of books, reads many horror novels. As i recall last month she read a book which featured hiking somewhere in Scandanavia, which has me wondering about that area. Horror? Self-help? LOL--who knows? I'm intrigued!

Finally, thanks for the title & author of Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service--Carol Leonnig. I've heard about it but couldn't locate further info. What's happened of late with them is disappointing.

Great mix of books, Alias. Thanks.

I'm glad you enjoyed the lists, Petra and Deb. Some of the books you mentioned I'm also interested in. I look forward to your reviews.

------ This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something...
by Tabitha Carvan

What it is: a reflective and irreverent meditation on the power of our passions to help us get through tough times, express ourselves, and form connections with other devotees of whatever -- or whoever -- we feel enthusiastic about.

Read it for: the skillful balance of serious observations about topics like motherhood and identity with and a self-aware sense of humor.

Book buzz: This book is a "weird-in-the-best-way account of self-discovery that brims with humor and insight" (Publishers Weekly).



------ Future Tense: Why Anxiety Is Good for You (Even Though It Feels Bad)
by Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, PhD

What it's about: the importance of anxiety as part of the human experience, what we get out of it, and how we can learn to live with it.

The gift(s) of fear: improved focus, heightened situational awareness, and caution (in appropriate amounts).

Why you might like it: In a world where there are plenty of legitimate reasons to feel anxious, Future Tense can help readers be proactive about their relationship with a feeling that isn't going away any time soon.



------ Building A Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your...
by Tiago Forte

The premise: Every day we take in more information than we can process and retain. With a little practice however, we can learn better ways to synthesize information, draw inspiration from the things we learn, and improve our recall skills.

Suggestions include: building a personal repository of information that you find yourself having to look up regularly to save the time and energy you spend performing the same searches.

You might also like: Content by Kate Eichhorn; The Shallows by Nicholas Carr; Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.



----- Surviving: Why We Stay and How We Leave Abusive Relationships
by Beverly Gooden

What it is: a candid and reflective exploration of surviving domestic violence and the complex social, psychological, and financial forces that keep people trapped in abusive relationships.

Read it for: the unflinching look at abusive relationships from the inside; the valuable advice for people who are ready to leave and compassion for those who are not; the examination of the unique obstacles faced by domestic violence survivors with marginalized identities.

Try these next: No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder; Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles M. Blow.



------ Overthinking About You: Navigating Romantic Relationships When You Have Anxiety, OCD...
by Allison Raskin

What it's about: how to handle the complexities of dating and relationships while managing mental illness.

Topics include: how and when to disclose to new partners; self-aware (but not self-conscious) understanding of how your symptoms present; and how to navigate breakups.

About the author: Writer and comedian Allison Raskin co-hosts the podcast and YouTube series Just Between Us with fellow BuzzFeed alum Gaby Dunn. The pair also co-authored the novel I Hate Everyone But You and its sequel Please Send Help.



----- Who is Wellness For? An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who it Leaves Behind
by Fariha Róisín

What it is: a thought-provoking analysis of wellness culture and how it has become inaccessible to many people from the communities whose practices are regularly appropriated by the wellness industry.

How it's written: with candid, lyrical prose and reflections on the author's experiences growing up as a Bangladeshi Muslim in Australia.

Reviewers say: "A vulnerable, intensely trenchant analysis of the ways capitalism denies wellness for so many around the world" (Kirkus Reviews).



----- The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and...
by Michael Slepian

What it's about: the psychological aspects of secrets including why we keep them, how they affect us, and what it means to share them with each other.

Read it for: the thorough scientific research, which is condensed and explained in a way that's accessible to general readers.

Try these next: Useful Delusions by Shankar Vedantam; The State of Affairs by Esther Perel.



------ Don't Trust Your Gut: Using Data to Get What You Really Want in Life
by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

What it's about: how and why to make data-informed decisions about your career, relationships, leisure time, and more.

For fans of: Dataclysm by Christian Rudder; Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg.

About the author: Economist and former Google data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is a New York Times op-ed columnist known for his previous data-focused book Everybody Lies.



----- Permission to Come Home: Reclaiming Mental Health as Asian Americans
by Jenny T. Wang, PhD

What it is: an accessible and thought-provoking look at the impact cultural expectations have on the mental health of Asian Americans, with insights pulled from both scientific research and the author's own life experiences.

Why you should read it: With the prevalence of meditation, mindfulness, and other practices of Asian origin entering psychology (such as through Dialectal Behavior Therapy), it's important to check in on the mental health journeys of people of Asian descent.

Reviewers say: "This is a timely and insightful reconsideration of mental health in the Asian American community" (Publishers Weekly).



------ Golden: The Power of Silence in A World of Noise
by Justin Zorn and Leigh Marz

What it's about: the psychological, scientific, spiritual, and philosophical aspects of silence and its benefits in a society full of noise.

Advice includes: building small, regular moments of quiet into your workday, which the authors call "the healthy successor to the smoke break."

Did you know? Scientists have observed that the slowdown in global shipping during the pandemic and the subsequent decrease in sea noise has resulted in reduced stress levels in marine life.

What a good variety of books. Thanks for sharing the titles for those of us who might have questions about these topics.

madrano wrote: "What a good variety of books. Thanks for sharing the titles for those of us who might have questions about these topics."

You're very welcome !

----- Love on the Brain
by Ali Hazelwood


"Bee's worked hard to get her big break leading a NASA project. However, she learns that she'll be working with Levi, an old acquaintance who detests her. Or does he? Hazelwood's done it again with another fantastic romance filled with the real-world struggles of being a woman in STEM. For fans of Helen Hoang and Christina Lauren."

Brenna Timm, High Plains Library District, Greeley, CO
NoveList read-alike: The Marriage Code by Brooke Burroughs



----- Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
by R.F. Kuang

"What power do words really have? Kuang explores this question in a unique standalone fantasy where a magical system drawn from translation and silverwork fuels colonialism. With beautiful writing and well-developed characters, this is a fabulous book. For readers of Katherine Addison, Zen Cho and N.K. Jemisin."

Danielle Deaver, Montgomery County Public Libraries, Bethesda, MD
NoveList read-alike: The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake



------ The Couple at Number 9: A Novel
by Claire Douglas

"Pregnant Saffy and her partner Tom are thrilled when her ailing grandmother gives them a cottage to make their home -- until they find two bodies buried on the property. Featuring multiple points of view and realistic characters, the latest twisty thriller from Douglas will appeal to fans of taut page-turners like The Turn of the Key and The Guest List."

Amy Medeiros, Westport Free Public Library, Westport, MA
NoveList read-alike: The Witch Elm by Tana French



------ Daisy Darker: A Novel
by Alice Feeney

"Darker isn't just Daisy's surname: it's the mood of this closed-room mystery as Daisy's family members die one by one at a remote island home. Deftly told, this nod to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None mixes suspense and secrets with heartbreaking and poignant observations about family and childhood."

Jennifer Ohzourk, West Des Moines Public Library, West Des Moines, IA
NoveList read-alike: The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse


------ The Hookup Plan
by Farrah Rochon

"Dedicated pediatric surgeon London looks to de-stress through a no-strings-attached hookup with her former high school nemesis (and current millionaire) Drew. But Drew wants more than a one-night stand. London jumps off the page with her vibrant personality, and it's fun to see a man pursuing a woman in an enemies to lovers tale. For fans of Abby Jimenez and Talia Hibbert."

Hannah Spratt, New York Public Library, New York, NY
NoveList read-alike: How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams



------ Husband Material
by Alexis Hall

"Luc has grown up and feels the pressure to get married. Oliver is still a devoted boyfriend, but his problems are now acknowledged. It's great to see character development even in minor characters, and how they've progressed in the two years since Boyfriend Material."

Claire Sherman, Clearwater Countryside Library, Clearwater, FL
NoveList read-alike: True Colors series by Annabeth Albert



------- The Last Housewife: A Novel
by Ashley Winstead

"When yet another of her college roommates turns up dead, Shay investigates with the help of her BFF true crime podcaster. Will Shay find answers in her past, which includes a misogynistic sex cult, or will she be lured back in? Psychological thriller fans, take this to the beach! For fans of I'll Be You or This Might Hurt."

Lori Hench, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD
NoveList read-alike: Don't Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman



------ Other Birds: A Novel
by Sarah Addison Allen

"To keep a connection to her late mother, Zoey relocates into her old apartment on Mallow Island, S.C. The complex and its residents are characters, too. This book is a quick and sweet read about the stages of love from the tickle of a spark to the longing its absence can bring."

Sarah Schettler, Scottsdale Public Library, Scottsdale, AZ
NoveList read-alike: Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather S. Webber



------ Shutter
by Ramona Emerson

"Rita Todacheene, a crime scene photographer for the Albuquerque PD, can communicate with the dead. Her latest job involves a woman who allegedly killed herself... but she won't leave Rita alone. A cinematic thriller set on the edge of the Navajo Nation, Emerson's debut is a must-read."

Erin Downey Howerton, Wichita Public Library, Wichita, KS
NoveList read-alike: When the Reckoning Comes by Latanya McQueen



------ The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
by Sangu Mandanna

"Mika is one of the few witches secretly living in Britain when someone reaches out for help teaching three young witches. She becomes entangled in the lives of her pupils and the household, including the handsome yet grouchy librarian Jaime. A cozy romance for fans of The House in the Cerulean Sea."

Danielle Geiger, Brentwood Public Library, Brentwood, TN
NoveList read-alike: Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper

----- The Woman in the Library
by Sulari Gentill

The letters: Hannah, a published author, provides chapters from her work-in-progress to Leo, a longtime fan, who chattily emails his feedback...but his correspondence grows disturbing.

The book: In Hannah's novel, after a disturbing incident at the Boston Public Library, four visitors strike up a friendship, but one of them may be a killer.

For fans of: twisty novel-within-a-novel mysteries, Anthony Horowitz's books, Eva Jurczyk's The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, and Jane Pek's The Verifiers.



----- The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions: The Ultimate Miss Phryne Fisher Story Collection
by Kerry Greenwood

What it is: a witty, entertaining collection of 15 stories (including four new ones), all starring the elegant, irrepressible Phryne Fisher, who amuses herself solving crimes in 1920s Australia.

Stories include: "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Overheard on a Balcony," "The Bells of St. Paul's," "Carnival," "Marrying the Bookie's Daughter."

Reviewers say: "delightful" (Kirkus Reviews); "a favorite sleuth who dispenses justice in her own inimitable way" (Publishers Weekly).



----- Something Wicked
by David Housewright

The setup: Cop turned unofficial PI Rush McKenzie is taking it easy in St. Paul, Minnesota, after investigating a case that almost killed him. But then his wife's friend needs help after her wealthy grandmother dies.

What happens: Rush stays at the deceased woman's luxury hotel, located in a 19th-century castle situated by a lake, but his inquiries are thwarted by a cremated body and feuding relatives. Then there's a second death.

Read this next: For another mystery series starring a cop who left the force after a large payday, pick up Stephen Mack Jones' August Snow series, which is set in Detroit.



------ The Bangalore Detectives Club
by Harini Nagendra

Starring: Kaveri Murthy, a 19-year-old Sherlock Holmes and mathematics fan who's moved to Bangalore in 1921 after her arranged marriage to handsome young doctor Ramu.

What happens: When a party at the Century Club ends with a murder and a vulnerable woman is connected to the crime, Kaveri investigates, going everywhere from shacks and brothels to an Englishman's mansion.

For fans of: Alexander McCall Smith, Sujata Massey, Vaseem Khan, and lighthearted mysteries with charming characters.



------ Last Call at the Nightingale
by Katharine Schellman

1924 Manhattan: After sewing in a factory all day, Vivian escapes to the Nightingale, a speakeasy run by Honor "Hux" Huxley where people dance and drink together, no matter their class, race, or sexual orientation.

What happens: Vivian finds a murdered man outside the club, and then gets caught in a police raid. When Hux bails her out of jail, she asks Vivian to help find out who the dead man was and who wanted him dead.

For fans of: evocative New York City-set historical mysteries with entertaining characters, such as Stephen Spotswood's Pentecost and Parker mysteries.



------ The Key to Deceit
by Ashley Weaver

Starring: Electra McDonnell, who's part of a family of locksmiths and safecrackers and occasionally helps out British intelligence.

What happens: In 1940 London, Electra's given a new job from handsome Major Ramsey: she's to unlock a strange bracelet found on the body of a drowned woman. Electra makes quick work of the lock, then she and the major try to find out if the victim was a spy, and if so, who she was working for.

Series alert: Following A Peculiar Combination, The Key to Deceit is the 2nd in a fun series and a "thoroughly ingenious blend of rom-com and spy cozy" (Booklist).


🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵 Musical Mysteries 🎵🎵🎵🎵🎵


----- The Killer in the Choir
by Simon Brett

Friends and neighbors: Fifty-somethings Carole, who's retired, and Jude, who works as a healer, live in the seaside Sussex village of Fethering.

What happens: An elderly man dies after falling down the stairs, then his daughter accuses her stepmother of murder at the funeral. Since the widow is a dedicated member of the community choir, Carole and Jude join it and investigate.

Series alert: The 19th Fethering cozy mystery features humor, red herrings, and entertaining characters. The 21st novel, Death and the Decorator, comes out this month.



------ Star Island
by Carl Hiaasen

Missing: Ann DeLusia, the secret body double of pop star Cherry Pye, who struggles with addictions and doesn't always make it to events.

What happens: Cherry's entourage (a mixed bag, to be sure) has to rescue Ann from an obsessed paparazzo who thinks she's Cherry, while also keeping Ann's existence a secret not only from Cherry's adoring public, but also from Cherry herself.

Why you might like it: Star Island is "classic Carl Hiaasen -- demented, hilarious, and utterly over the top" (Booklist) and features a creatively wacky plot that pokes fun at the world of celebrity.


------ Trouble Is What I Do
by Walter Mosley

What happens: A 92-year-old Black Mississippi bluesman, Catfish Worry, is targeted by an infamous assassin. New York detective Leonid McGill takes the case to keep Catfish safe and to get a message to Catfish's wealthy white granddaughter, to let her know of her heritage.

Want a taste? "They both wore new blue jeans, checkered blue work shirts, and hard leather shoes that had counted more miles than a Fitbit could imagine."

Series alert: This is the 6th and most recent Leonid McGill mystery and it offers compelling dialogue, fascinating characters, and a gritty look at contemporary New York City.



------- Tie Die
by Max Tomlinson

Starring: unlicensed PI Colleen Hayes, who spent ten years in prison for killing her abusive ex and who is the mother of an adult daughter in a cult.

How it begins: Though he was a British rock star as a teen, 29-year-old Steve Cook now works construction in 1978 San Francisco and is dad to a difficult 11-year-old girl.

What happens: When his daughter is kidnapped, desperate Steve turns to Colleen for help. Knowing what it's like to lose your child, Colleen investigates in this compelling, atmospheric follow-up to Vanishing in the Haight, which introduced the resilient PI.

Thanks for the busy bag of mysteries, Alias. So many eras, so many occupations, so many nations for crime solving. Immediately on my TBR--Shutter--Ramona Emerson sounds intriguing. There's crime scene photography, Navajo nation and ghosts! I'm in!

Thank you for delivering these to us.

:) You're welcome.

------- Sweeter Than Honey
by Joy Avery

What it's about: Feeling pressure from family to start dating again, widowed baker Rylee Harris pretends to be involved with Sheriff Canten Barnes, her brother's best friend, who is more than happy to play along.

Why you might like it: This 2nd Honey Hill novel, after Something So Sweet, serves up likeable characters, small-town charm, and an upbeat friends-to-lovers romance.



----- Honey and Spice
by Bolu Babalola

Introducing: Kikiola "Kiki" Banjo, a British Nigerian student who, as the host of the popular campus radio show Brown Sugar, dispenses relationship advice to her Black peers at Whitewell University.

What happens: Caught kissing Malakai Korede, whom she has publicly denounced as a "Wasteman of Whitewell," Kiki embarks on a face-saving fake relationship with Malakai that soon feels all too real.

Book buzz: This novel by the author of the short story collection Love in Colour is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection.



------ Lucie Yi Is Not A Romantic
by Lauren Ho

What it's about: Determined to pursue her dream of motherhood, single management consultant Lucie Yi connects with software engineer Collin Read through an elective co-parenting website.

Everything is going to plan... until a pregnant Lucie returns home to Singapore with Collin in tow, much to the dismay of her parents -- and her ex-fiancé, who wants to pick up where they left off.

Reviewers say: Kirkus Reviews calls this novel by the author of Last Tang Standing "a beautiful exploration of both grief and romance starring a lovably hilarious heroine."



------ Dream On
by Angie Hockman

.What it is: a "wonderfully original spin on amnesia romance" (Publishers Weekly) by the author of Shipped.

What happens: Law student Cass Walker wakes up from a coma and asks for her boyfriend, Devin, who isn't real. Or is he? A chance encounter with the man of her dreams -- and his attractive brother, Perry -- prompts Cass to find out if there's any truth to her false memories.

For fans of: quirky, lightly magical twist-of-fate stories such as Hannah Orenstein's Meant to Be Mine or Lizzy Dent's The Setup.



----- American Royalty
by Tracey Livesay

What it's about: In need of some good publicity to counter a potentially career-derailing viral incident, hip hop star Danielle "Duchess" Nelson agrees to perform at a charity concert in the UK, where she meets the reserved and scholarly Prince Jameson.

For fans of: Talia Hibbert's The Princess Trap or Alyssa Cole's Reluctant Royals series.

About the author: Tracey Livesay is best known for her popular Girls Trip series.



------ You Were Made to Be Mine
by Julie Anne Long

What it's about: Hired by the shady Earl of Brundage to locate his missing fiancée, Lady Aurelie Capet, former British spymaster Christian Hawkes locates the woman in question at a London boardinghouse and must decide if he really wants to return her to her betrothed.

Series alert: This slow-burning romance is the 5th book in the Palace of Rogues series, which begins with Lady Derring Takes a Lover.

For fans of: Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady, K.C. Bateman's To Steal a Heart.



------ On Rotation
by Shirlene Obuobi

Starring: Angie Appiah, a high-achieving Ghanaian American medical student who never questions her life choices until, within a span of days, she gets dumped, nearly flunks an important exam, and meets charismatic artist Ricky Gutierrez.

For fans of: Kimmery Martin's medical dramas or Jane Igharo's novels about women from immigrant families navigating young adulthood.



------ The Dead Romantics
by Ashley Poston

Starring: Florence Day, a ghostwriter for a bestselling romance writer, and her new editor, Benji Andor, an actual ghost.

What happens: When her father unexpectedly dies, Florence must return to her hometown, while also dealing with Benji, who is not about to let anyone's death interfere with Florence's looming, last-chance deadline.

Is it for you? Although it ends happily, this Good Morning America Book Club pick tackles some heavy themes.



------ A Matter of Temptation
by Stacy Reid

She demands satisfaction! Disguised as her twin brother, accomplished fencer Miss Wilhelmina Crawford bests Simon Loughton, the Earl of Creswick, in a duel.

He needs help! Impressed by Mina's gumption, the Earl hires her as his secretary. But despite their undeniable mutual attraction, Mina resists Simon, aware that her scandalous past could sink his political career.

More to come! A Matter of Temptation kicks off a new series by the author of the Sinful Wallflower Regency romances.



------ Fake It Till You Bake It
by Jamie Wesley

If you can't take the heat... In the aftermath of her disastrous stint on reality TV, Jada Townsend-Matthews wants nothing but a quiet life out of the public eye.

Get out of the kitchen: But Jada's new job at Sugar Blitz, the San Diego cupcakery owned by pro football player Donovan Dell, proves to be anything but uneventful once they realize that a fake relationship could be mutually beneficial.

You might also like: Chandra Blumberg's Stirring Up Love, Erin La Rosa's For Butter or Worse, or Jackie Lau's Donut Fall in Love.

------ Wild Witchcraft: Folk Herbalism, Garden Magic, and Foraging for Spells, Rituals, and Remedies
by Rebecca Beyer

What it's about: the Wiccan approach to herbalism, with accessible advice for reconnecting with nature, foraging, and cultivating your own garden.

What makes it unique: the in-depth exploration of historical herbal lore across West African, Native American, Anglo-Saxon, and Appalachian folk traditions.

Topics include: regionally and seasonally appropriate gardening; responsibly gathering wild plants; poison gardens.



----- Fierce Love: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Purpose
by Sonya Curry

What it is: the engaging and heartwarming memoir of educator Sonya Curry, mother of NBA stars Steph and Seth Curry.

What's inside: candid musings on her family and their Christian faith, from her impoverished Virginia childhood to her own parenting style.

Reviewers say: "Strength and candor mark this brisk, heartfelt story of faith, resilience, and, of course, basketball" (Kirkus Reviews).



------ Truth's Table: Black Women's Musings on Life, Love, and Liberation
by Ekemini Uwan, Christina Edmondson, and Michelle Higgins

What it's about: Black Christian women's perspectives on "religion, relationships, and race" (Publishers Weekly).

Read it for: the accessible writing that explores a wide variety of thought-provoking theological topics, from American religious history to their own personal experiences.

About the authors: Theologian Ekemini Uwan, trauma therapist and educator Christina Edmondson, and minister Michelle Higgins co-host the titular Truth's Table podcast.



------ This Book Won't Make You Happy: Eight Keys to Finding True Contentment
by Niro Feliciano, LCSW

What's inside: an enlightening look at the differences between happiness and contentment, with suggestions for how to distinguish between the two, and why that distinction matters.

Why you might like it: Author Niro Feliciano discusses these topics as they relate to her Christian faith, but the well-organized advice presented here will benefit readers of all (or no) religions.

Reviewers say: "This witty and insightful guide elevates keeping it real to a new level" (Publishers Weekly).



------ The Religious Revolution: The Birth of Modern Spirituality, 1848-1898
by Dominic Green

What it is: a sweeping and richly detailed exploration of the social, philosophical, and scientific forces that radically reshaped the Western world's understanding of and relationship with religion in the second half of the 19th century.

Topics include: Transcendentalism, Spiritualism, nationalism, and Darwinism.

You might also like: Christian Citizens by Elizabeth L. Jemison; Kingdom of Nauvoo by Benjamin E. Park; American Sage by Barry M. Andrews.



----- Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned
by Brian D. McLaren

What it's about: how to navigate the complexities of doubt and disillusionment as a Christian and meet the questions that arise without fear.

Why you might like it: Although the title suggests a focus on leaving, the author doesn't urge readers to leave or stay, only to pursue the right course of action for them after careful evaluation.

Reviewers say: "This earnest inquiry solidifies McLaren’s place as one of the more thoughtful interrogators of modern Christianity" (Publishers Weekly).



----- It's Not You, It's Everything: What Our Pain Reveals About the Anxious Pursuit of the...
by Eric Minton

What it is: an incisive appeal to readers who feel burnt out and overwhelmed by the demands of their personal, professional, and spiritual lives to embrace "radical okayness" and resist the pressure to always do more, have more, and be more.

Read it for: the persuasive case for learning to evaluate your struggles as part of wider social structures; the examination of modern American Christianity in the shadow of capitalism.

About the author: Eric Minton is a marriage and family therapist with a Baptist minister background who coaches pastors and business leaders on the topics listed above and regularly writes for Baptist News.



------ Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future
by Haroon Moghul

What it is: a candid and thought-provoking study of the origins and possible future of Islam by the author of How to Be a Muslim.

Is it for you? Though Haroon Moghul is deeply invested in Islam and his identity as a Muslim, he doesn't shy away from taking contrarian stances on controversial topics.

Try this next: Love Thy Neighbor by Ayaz Virji; Demystifying Shariah by Sumbul Ali-Karamali.



------ What We Wish Were True: Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death
by Tallu Schuyler Quinn

What it is: a candid and moving collection of essays reflecting on faith, life, and loss while making peace with terminal disease.

Reviewers say: What We Wish Were True is "a gentle, uplifting contribution to the literature of death and dying" and "a prayer to life" (Kirkus Reviews).

About the author: Minister and Union Theological Seminary graduate Tallu Schuyler Quinn was the founder of the Nashville Food Project, a nonprofit working to build community and address local food insecurity. She died of cancer in February 2022.

--------- When women were dragons : a novel
by Kelly Regan Barnhill

After the Mass Dragoning of 1955, when thousands of women, including her beloved Aunt Marla, transformed into dragons, left a trail fiery destruction and took to the skies, young Alex Green must face the consequences of this event as she learns to accept people as they really are.



------ Murder at the Mayfair Hotel : A Christmas Mystery
by C. J. Archer

It was the most fashionable place to stay in London, until murder made a reservation. Solve the puzzle in this new cozy historical mystery from USA Today bestselling author of the Glass and Steele series.



------ Switchboard soldiers : a novel
by Jennifer Chiaverini

In 1917, Grace Banker from N.J., Marie Moissec from France, and Valerie DeSmedt, originally from Belgium, are recruited as a telephone operators, aka switchboard solders, to help American forces communicate between troops as bombs fell around them.



------Mediocre : the dangerous legacy of white male America
by Ijeoma Oluo

A history of American white male identity by the best-selling author of So You Want to Talk About Race imagines a merit-based, non-discriminating model while exposing the actual costs of successes defined by racial and sexual dominance.



------ Take your breath away : a novel
by Linwood Barclay

Finally putting his life back together six years after the disappearance of his wife, Brie, Andy Mason, settling down with a new partner, finds his future, and the lives of those closest to him, in danger when a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Brie shows up.



------ The therapist
by B. A. Paris

When a mysterious man turns up on her doorstep, claiming that a murder took place 18 months before in her new home, Alice becomes obsessed with finding the truth.



------ A prayer for the crown-shy
by Becky Chambers

Returning from Panga, Sibling Dex, a Tea Monk, and Mosscap, a robot, focus on finding answers and making new friends on the small moon they call home, in the second novel of the series following A Psalm for the Wild-Built.



----- The locked room
by Elly Griffiths

Nelson, investigating a series of murder-suicides he has connected to an archaeological discoveryand to Ruths seemingly sweet new neighbor, Sally, he enlists Ruths help until she, Sally and Kate go missing and he is left scrambling to find them before its too late.



------ The Thursday murder club
by Richard Osman

Meeting weekly in their retirement village’s Jigsaw Room to exchange theories about unsolved crimes, four savvy septuagenarians propose a daring but unorthodox plan to help a woman rookie cop solve her first big murder case.

Romance! Religion/Spirituality! Mysteries! Alias, you have quite a gamut going here.

NOTE: Jennifer Chiaverini's book is actually Switchboard Soldiers, not witchboard soldiers, which actually sounded interesting. ;-)

(Last year i read a good novel about WWII female soldiers who organized the mail in Europe, something akin to this, Sisters in Arms--Kaia Alderson. I recently read a good article about them-- . How's this for waylaying a topic?)



From the mystery list, the last, The Thursday Murder Club--Richard Osman, is a pleasure to read. There is already a second in the series.

Also, i must say i enjoy Elly Griffiths's series which features British archaeologist Ruth Galloway. The Locked Room is her latest in the group. I've not read it but i do enjoy the bits i learn about history & archaeology.

madrano wrote:
NOTE: Jennifer Chiaverini's book is actually Switchboard Soldiers, not witchboard soldiers, which actually sounded interesting. ;-)."

LOL

Thanks ! I corrected it.

LOL--it was amusing.

--------- The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America
by Michelle Wilde Anderson

Welcome to...Stockton, CA; Josephine County, OR; Detroit, MI; and Lawrence, MA.

Where you'll explore...how systemic inequities and late-stage capitalism adversely affect working-class communities throughout America.

Further reading: For another thought-provoking book on the subject, check out Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.



---- Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
by Ken Auletta

What it is: a sobering account of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's decades of unchecked sexual assault that situates his crimes within the context of his evolving career.

Author alert: Journalist Ken Auletta reported on Weinstein's abuses in a 2002 New Yorker profile; here, he expands on his previous coverage with new interviews and research.

Who it's for: Readers who enjoyed She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey or Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.



----- The Colony: Faith and Blood in a Promised Land
by Sally Denton

What it's about: In 2019 Northern Mexico, nine Mormon women and children were killed by a local drug cartel, targeted for their ties to a fundamentalist sect in the region.

Read it for: a compelling and well-researched chronicle of the tensions between breakaway Mormon communities in Mexico and their neighbors.

For fans of: Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven and its recent miniseries adaptation.



------ The Earth Is All That Lasts: Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux...
by Mark Lee Gardner

What it is: a fast-paced dual portrait of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, the Lakota chiefs who helped defeat George Armstrong Custer's forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

Why you should read it: Award-winning historian Mark Lee Gardner's evocative latest is "a strong work of Western history that strives to bring the Native American view to center stage" (Kirkus Reviews).



----- Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks
by Patrick Radden Keefe

What's inside: a thought-provoking collection of 12 previously published New Yorker articles by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe that focus on crimes and the schemers who commit them.

Why you might like it: Keefe's incisive profiles of notorious figures like Mexican drug lord El Chapo and Dutch gangster Wim Holleeder reveal their stories without glamorizing their misdeeds.

Don't miss: updates at the end of each essay.


------ We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys
by Erin Kimmerle

What it is: a sobering investigation of the Dozier School for Boys, the abusive Florida reform school featured in Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys.

What happened: After the school was shuttered in 2011 due to allegations of torture and murder, author and forensic anthropologist Erin Kimmerle located its cemetery and uncovered dozens of bodies buried in unmarked graves, utilizing forensic and DNA testing to reunite the victims with their families and reveal the causes of their deaths.



------ Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden: Two Sisters Separated by China's Civil War
by Zhuqing Li

Starring: Hong and Jun Chen, two close-knit sisters who became separated during the Chinese Civil War and who were unable to reunite for decades.

Author alert: Zhuqing Li is a professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University and the niece of Hong and Jun.

Further reading: For more books on how the tumultuous changes of 20th-century China impacted family relationships, read The House of Yan by Lan Yan or Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang.



------Sisters in Resistance: How a German Spy, a Banker's Wife, and Mussolini's Daughter...
by Tilar J. Mazzeo

How it began: After he became disillusioned with the Third Reich, Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano began pouring his frustrations into his diaries, documenting numerous state secrets.

What happened next: An unlikely trio of women helped deliver Ciano's diaries to the Allies; these documents later became crucial evidence during the Nuremberg trials.

Read it for: a pulse-pounding narrative worthy of a John le Carré novel.



----- Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic
by Michael Smith and Jonathan Franklin

What it's about: the ill-fated journey of the Zaandam, the Holland America cruise ship which set sail from Buenos Aires on March 7, 2020 and quickly became stranded during the early days of COVID-19.

What's inside: a vivid you-are-there narrative offering firsthand accounts from passengers and crew who fought to maintain hope in the midst of illness, isolation, and dwindling provisions.

Reviewers say: "A harrowing thriller that brings the wide-ranging impacts of the COVID pandemic into the microcosmic enclosed world of a cruise ship" (Library Journal).

------ My Summer Darlings
by May Cobb

What it's about: Recently divorced Jen Hansen has just returned to her small East Texas hometown and reconnected with her childhood best friends Cynthia and Kittie. The happy reunion is cut short by the arrival of mysterious and handsome Will Harding, whose entanglements with each woman set off a chain reaction with shocking, violent results.

Read it for: tense, compelling mind-games and recriminations narrated by each character in alternating point of view chapters.

For fans of: The Lying Club by Annie Ward.


------- Magpie
by Elizabeth Day

What it is: a thoughtful combination of domestic and psychological suspense that delves into issues of infertility, jealousy, mental illness, and the nature of the truth.

Who it stars: young London couple Marisa and Jake, who are looking forward to having a baby; Jake's cold and imperious mother Annabelle; Kate, a lodger the couple take in whose connection with Jake makes Marisa increasingly uneasy.

About the author: Magpie is the 6th novel by English journalist Elizabeth Day, who also hosts the award-winning podcast How to Fail.



------ More Than You'll Ever Know
by Katie Gutierrez

1985: Lore Rivera's double life comes crashing down around her after the husbands she has on either side of the Texas-Mexico border find out about each other and one man murders the other.

The present: True crime writer Cassie Brown grows obsessed with the case and desperate for an interview, she shows up unannounced at Lore's front door. Lore reluctantly agrees to be interviewed, but the story she tells will end up changing Cassie's personal and profession lives in ways she never could have anticipated.

Reviewers say: This debut novel by Katie Gutierrez is "a compelling, character-driven crime story that holds the reader’s interest to its very end" (Booklist).



----- Breathless
by Amy McCulloch

The premise: Outdoorsy journalist Cecily Wong has landed a career-making chance to interview famous climber Charles McVeigh, but only if she's willing to meet him on the Himalayan peak he's currently ascending.

The problem: The climb is notoriously dangerous for even the most experienced mountaineers, and along the way more than one of Cecily's traveling companions dies under circumstances that look like something much more suspicious than accidents or altitude sickness.

For fans of: adventure thrillers where Mother Nature and our fellow humans compete to see who is the bigger threat.



----- The Wild One
by Colleen McKeegan

What it is: an engaging coming-of-age thriller about what happens when past and present are put on an unstoppable, calamitous collision course.

Starring: Manhattan grad student Amanda, whose seemingly perfect life with her boyfriend is propped up on a rickety foundation of troubling relationship dynamics, unaddressed trauma, and the events of a dark summer night in her childhood that she's managed to keep hidden until now.

Reviewers say: The Wild One "has hints of Tana French and Tara Isabella Burton" and "touches on tough topics without becoming voyeuristic" (Kirkus Reviews).



------ The Dark Flood
by Deon Meyer

Series alert: The Dark Flood is the 7th entry in South African author Deon Meyer's crime series featuring police detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido.

This time: Griessel and Cupido have been demoted from the elite unit they used to belong to after looking too closely into the wrong corruption case. Assigned to investigate the disappearance of a gifted college student, things take a high-profile turn as connections emerge between their case and the activities of a notorious billionaire.

Read it for: the dialect-filled banter between the two detectives and the unexpected moments of dark humor they share.



------ Geiger
by Gustaf Skördeman

What it's about: Stockholm police detective Sara Nowak gets drawn into the investigation of her childhood next door neighbor Agneta Broman, who inexplicably shot her retired TV presenter husband.

For fans of: police procedurals, gritty Scandinavian crime novels, and thrillers with connections to the Cold War.

You might also like: Treachery Times Two by Robert McCaw; The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock.



----- Cold Fear
by Brandon Webb

What it is: an action-packed techno-thriller about a Navy SEAL on the run after being accused of war crimes whose efforts to clear his name are complicated his missing memories and the threat of another SEAL who is trying to hunt him down.

Series alert: Cold Fear is the sequel to Steel Fear, which first introduced readers to troubled mononymous veteran Finn.

Read it for: the richly detailed settings, intricate plotting, and well-developed characters.



------ The Lunar Housewife
by Caroline Woods

What it is: an atmospheric and stylistically complex historical thriller set during the Red Scare about CIA plans to use the work of American writers as anti-Soviet propaganda and one woman's attempt to hone her craft in spite of it.

How it's written: as the story of journalist and budding novelist Louise -- who publishes under a male pseudonym while dealing with her unsupportive fellow writer boyfriend -- wrapped around the titular sci-fi novel-within-the-novel that Louise is writing.

Reviewers say: The Lunar Housewife is a "tantalizing slice of literary history" that will "draw readers across all genres" (Booklist).

I've been wondering what to read for my 100 Challenge #��98- Book set on a plane, train or cruise ship. Now i know--Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic--Jonathan Franklin. Just the book to read for our October Alaska cruise, right? Thanks for the tip, Alias.

I must admit The Lunar Housewife--Caroline Woods intrigues. However, it has an enormous possibility to become muddled, as well. And yet the GR reviews mention a surprising and delightful ending. Hmmm.

-----Dinner for One: How Cooking in Paris Saved Me
by Sutanya Dacres

Love in a Manhattan bar: New Yorker Sutanya Dacres hit it off with a handsome Frenchman and eventually moved to Paris and married him.

Alone in Paris: The marriage ended after three years, leaving Sutanya adrift and ashamed. At a breaking point, she started cooking simple dishes, such as pasta salad and leek risotto (recipes included), as she rebuilt her life.

For fans of: the author's podcast, Dinner for One; David Lebovitz's Paris books, which mix memoir and recipes; Julie Powell's Julie & Julia.



----- Downton Shabby: One American's Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family's English...
by Hopwood DePree

Midlife crisis: After two deaths in his family, a 40-something Hollywood actor/producer reexamined his life and researched his ancestors.

True story: When he saw an article about a Lord Hopwood, he realized that his grandfather's tales about a family castle were actually real. With little money, he moved to England to renovate the derelict 600-year-old home, getting help from a colorful cast of locals and neighbors.

Critics say: "marvelous" (Publishers Weekly); "delightful" (Booklist).



----- Pig Years
by Ellyn Gaydos

What it's about: Drawn to the job despite low pay, Ellyn Gaydos became an itinerant farmhand in New England while still a teen, continuing the work through college and after.

Is it for you? Without ignoring the stark realities of raising animals for food, she lyrically chronicles several years of seasonal farm life and ponders her future as she falls for a man and dreams of kids.

Want a taste? "Elderflowers scent the farmer's yard and hang around the fence like wedding veils."



----- Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World: Essays
by Barry Lopez

What it is: a collection of more than 20 essays, some never before published, broken into sections called Conversations, Thresholds, Sky, and River, and written during the award-winning author's final decades.

What's inside: details of travels, including to Antarctica and Australia; stories about his Oregon home; musings on the natural world; memories from his California childhood, including surviving sexual abuse.

Reviewers say: " A sterling valediction" (Kirkus Reviews); Lopez was "a crucial and profound writer of spirit, commitment, benevolence, and reverence" (Booklist).



----- Cabin Fever: The Harrowing Journey of a Cruise Ship at the Dawn of a Pandemic
by Michael Smith and Jonathan Franklin

Setting sail: The Zaandam, a Holland America cruise ship carrying 1,200 passengers and 600 crew, left Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 8, 2020, as the COVID-19 virus spread across the world. Soon, the ship had sick and dying people, but no port would allow them to dock.

What it is: an engrossing account by award-winning reporters that depicts what life was like on the ship and includes first-hand accounts of passengers, crew members, family members back home, and more.

Read this next: Chaney Kwak's The Passenger, which details his 2019 North Atlantic voyage on a cruise ship that was hit by a bomb cyclone.


** Science and Travel **


------ The Last Winter: The Scientists, Adventurers, Journeymen, and Mavericks Trying to Save...
by Porter Fox

What it is: an immersive, meticulously researched, and adventure-filled blend of travelogue, history, and climate science.

Featuring: a sprawling cast of "scientists, ranchers, adventurers, vagabonds, time travelers, hunters, and guides" who live and work in the coldest and most inhospitable places on Earth.

Further reading: the author's first book, Northland; Dahr Jamail's The End of Ice.



------ Underland: A Deep Time Journey
by Robert Macfarlane

What it is: a lyrical and wide-ranging exploration of the world beneath our feet, including tunnels, caves, catacombs, bunkers, and more.

Why you might like it: Nature and science writer Robert Macfarlane goes on journeys both literal (England, France, Finland, and other locales) and metaphorical, connecting real-world observations to representations of the underworld in mythology, art, and literature.

Want a taste? "Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save."



----- Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life
by Jess Phoenix

Starring: Jess Phoenix, a geologist, volcanologist, Explorers Club Fellow, and co-founder of a nonprofit that produces research and works with students in hopes of bringing more diversity to scientific fields.

What it's about: Phoenix discusses her winding path to a science career, the barriers she's faced in a male-dominated field, her eye-opening time shooting a TV segment, and her adventures in California, Hawaii, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, and New York City.

For fans of: Meg Lowman's The Arbornaut; Jill Heinerth's Into the Planet.



------ Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
by Jonathan C. Slaght

What it's about: a conservationist's five-year study of the endangered Blakiston's fish owl in its natural habitat, the Primorye region of Russia.

Read it for: an authentically detailed account of scientific fieldwork, vivid descriptions of the terrain and its inhabitants (both animal and human), and, of course, the quest for an elusive bird.

For fans of: avian-themed travelogues, such as Andrew Darby's Flight Lines, Jon Dunn's The Glitter in the Green, or Vernon R.L. Head's The Rarest Bird in the World.

Downton Shabby: One American's Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family's English Castle--Hopwood DePree sounds fun. Good title.

The others, Underland: A Deep Time Journey--Robert Macfarlane sounds as though it would be informative but i'm not sure i want to read it. Preferred is Ms. Adventure: My Wild Explorations in Science, Lava, and Life--Jess Phoenix. Unfortunately, her book isn't much appreciated in the GR reviews. Back to Macfarlane, maybe.

And i must, yet again, sing the praises of Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl--Jonathan C. Slaght, the last on the list. I liked reading about the owl and his research.

Recent Releases

-----Our Wives Under the Sea
by Julia Armfield

Trapped: A deep-sea research sub malfunctions, stranding marine biologist Leah on the ocean floor for six terrifying months. Leah returns home but isn't at all the same loving partner that her wife Miri knows. Are they just drifting apart? Or is something stranger happening?

Read it for: a "moody and intimate debut novel, both a portrait of a marriage and a subtle horror fantasy" (Publishers Weekly).

Try this next: Ally Blue's Down stars complex LGBTQIA characters confronting (less subtle) oceanic horror.



------Either/Or
by Elif Batuman

Starring: Selin -- the brainy daughter of Turkish immigrants -- who's in pursuit of love, sex, and booze at Harvard during the 1990s.

What it is: A sardonic own voices story with a likeable, introspective yet unpretentious protagonist (think Bridget Jones with an obsessive love of Russian literature).

Reading notes: Elif Batuman's earlier novel The Idiot introduces Selin. While readers can jump in here, they may enjoy getting her backstory.



------Counterfeit
by Kirstin Chen

Friendship and fakery: Ava Wong bumps into former college roomie Winnie Fang. Ava is quickly drawn into Winnie's designer handbag scam to earn money for her son's school fees.

But who's hustling who? Narrated by Ava and Winnie in turn, this witty caper novel leaves readers guessing who they can trust.

Reviewers say: Counterfeit is a "sly and subversive... examination of motherhood and an incisive look at culture and class" (Booklist).



------Cult Classic
by Sloane Crosley

What it's about: Sloane, on the verge of marrying her "perfect guy," is suddenly tripping over her (still pretty darn attractive) exes. Her former boss -- a self-styled, wanna-be psychology guru -- is using her for one of his experiments... but to what end?

A mashup of: "your favorite rom-com meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with a light soupçon of Ghostbusters" (Booklist).

Further reading: The Arc by Tory Henwood Hoen or Emily Henry's Book Lovers.



------Fellowship Point
by Alice Elliott Dark

What it's about: the luminous lifelong friendship of octogenarians Agnes and Polly, whose families jointly own the pristine slice of coastal Maine known as Fellowship Point.

Hidden secrets... put them at odds while developers eye their land.

Want a taste? "There wasn't time for withholding, not in this short life when you were only given to know a few people, and to have a true exchange with one or two."


------Nuclear Family
by Joseph Han

Hawai'i, 2018: Family and international tensions collide as North Korea boasts nuclear weapons. Siblings Grace and Jacob Cho (third-generation Hawaiian Korean) face the fallout.

What happens: Jacob makes an ill-timed effort to enter North Korea (to be fair, he's possessed by his grandfather's North Korean ghost). His antics draw unwanted attention to the whole family and sink the family business that Grace tries to keep afloat. She gives up and turns to drugs.

Reviewers say: "Filled with campy humor, Han's novel will be appreciated by readers looking for a light, fun, yet meaningful read" (Library Journal).



------Ways the World Could End
by Kim Hooper

Starring: Dave, a neurodivergent widower now solo-parenting the baffling creature that is his teen daughter; and 15-year-old Cleo, who's grappling with both her mother's death and her attraction to a new girl in class.

Read it for: A touching portrait of love's many forms (parent and child, husband and wife, same-sex teen romance) and the deep grief that emerges after a traumatic death.

Reviewers say: "This memorable and stirring story of survival brings the goods" (Publishers Weekly).



------Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
by Gabrielle Zevin

What it's about: A chance encounter launches a 30-year friendship between brilliant video game designers Sadie Green and Sam Masur. Mistakes are made, lessons are learned, and video game fortunes rise and fall.

Is it for me? Do you like ability diverse characters, Oregon Trail, Neal Stephenson's Reamde, gaming fandom at large, and/or the ride-or-die friendships forged therein? If yes, then smash "play" on this.

Read this next: The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker, or Jason Rekulak's The Impossible Fortress.

Here are some nonfiction book suggestions from Simon & Schuster publishing house.


----Life on the Mississippi
By Rinker Buck
The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand “flatboat era�� of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America’s first western frontier.


------Path Lit by Lightning
By David Maraniss
A riveting new biography of America’s greatest all-around athlete by the bestselling author of the classic biography When Pride Still Mattered.


------Bully Market
By Jamie Fiore Higgins
A rare, riveting insider’s account on Wall Street—an updated Liar’s Poker—where greed coupled with misogyny and discrimination enforces a culture of exclusion in the upper echelons of Goldman Sachs.


------I'm Glad My Mom Died
By Jennette McCurdy
A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.


-----American Rascal
By Greg Steinmetz
The gripping biography of Jay Gould, the greatest 19th-century robber barons, whose brilliance, greed, and bare-knuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms.


------Operation Pineapple Express
By Scott Mann
An edge-of-your-seat thriller about a group of retired Green Berets who come together to save a former comrade—and 500 other Afghans—being targeted by the Taliban in the chaos of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.


-------The Road Taken
By Patrick Leahy
A historic, sweeping memoir from United States Senator Patrick Leahy, currently the chamber’s longest-serving senator and President Pro Tempore.


-------Saving Freud
By Andrew Nagorski
A dramatic true story about Sigmund Freud’s last-minute escape to London following the German annexation of Austria and the group of friends who made it possible.


-------The Newlyweds
By Mansi Choksi
A literary investigation into India as a society in transition through the lens of forbidden love, as three young couples reject arranged marriages and risk everything for true love in the midst of social and political upheaval.



-------The Afghanistan Papers
By Craig Whitlock
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021, now available in paperback
The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock.


--------The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden
By Peter L. Bergen
Now available in paperback
The world’s leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the “riveting�� (The New York Times) definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today.

Our Wives Under the Sea��Julia Armfield sounds intriguing. I hope to read that from the first list.

Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure��Rinker Buck sounds good. His The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey has been on my TBR awhile.

Thanks for this list, Alias.

You're welcome, deb.

----- Dr. B.
by Daniel Birnbaum

What it is: a fast-paced, richly detailed debut novel about a German Jewish journalist who escapes to Sweden at the beginning of World War II and gets involved in anti-Nazi expat espionage.

About the author: Dr. B. is the debut novel by Daniel Birnbaum, former director of the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm and is based on his grandfather's wartime experiences.

Reviewers say: "A moving evocation of a life beset by conflicts in a troubled time" (Kirkus Reviews).



----- The Grand Design
by Joy Callaway

What it's about: In 1946, interior designer Dorothy Draper is renovating the scenic West Virginia Greenbrier resort after it was used as a hospital during the war. As she works, she reminisces about a formative summer she spent there in her youth.

1908: Under pressure from her parents to choose a suitable husband from among the other blue-blooded families who summer at the Greenbrier, Dorothy instead falls for the glamorous race car driver nephew of a visiting Italian diplomat.



------ Our Last Days in Barcelona
by Chanel Cleeton

What it is: the intricately plotted follow-up to The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba, which first introduced readers to the women of the Perez family of Cuban exiles.

This time: It's 1964 and Isabel goes to Barcelona, where impulsive Beatriz has vanished after getting mixed up in anti-Franco espionage. In flashback sequences, the story also explores their mother's life in the 1930s, during the Spanish Civil War.



----- On Gin Lane
by Brooke Lea Foster

The setup: It's the summer of 1957 and NY socialite Everleigh "Lee" Farrows is looking forward to traveling to the Hamptons, even more so after her fiancé Roland surprises her with a hotel built and named in her honor.

What goes wrong: A shocking event on the hotel's opening weekend leaves the building in rubble and her relationship with Roland changed forever. As he grows increasingly distant and secretive, Lee starts questioning not just the future they'd planned together, but everything she's been taught about her place in the world.



----- The Twilight World
by Werner Herzog

Author alert: Yep, that Werner Herzog.

What it's about: the harrowing true story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who arrived in the Philippines during World War II and was the second to last known "holdout" until he surrendered in 1974.

Read it for: the atmospheric tone of this character-driven narrative, which is all the more moving for the spare, poetic writing style Herzog deploys.



----- By Her Own Design
by Piper Huguley

Who it's about: fashion designer Ann Lowe, who is best known for designing the dress Jacqueline Bouvier wore for her wedding to John F. Kennedy.

How it begins: Several days before the Bouvier-Kennedy wedding a burst pipe in her shop ruins Jackie's dress. Lowe, who has risen from Jim Crow Alabama to become the designer of choice to the society register, reflects on her life while working tirelessly with her staff to create a replacement.

You might also like: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini, the story of Elizabeth Keckley, another Black woman who dressed a First Lady. To hear from Keckley herself, try her autobiography Behind the Scenes.



------ December '41
by William Martin

What it's about: Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi agent Martin Browning, who has been working in Los Angeles, plots to assassinate President Roosevelt during the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.

What makes it unique: the people in a position to stop Browning's plan from coming to fruition include some unlikely candidates, including a low-ranking Hollywood script reader and a former aspiring actress who has decided to return home to Maryland.



------ A Trail of Crab Tracks
by Patrice Nganang

Series alert: A Trail of Crab Tracks is the final entry in Patrice Nganang's well-received trilogy about Cameroon's journey to independence from France, which began with Mount Pleasant and its follow-up When the Plums Are Ripe.

This time: After Mount Pleasant took readers to the period before World War II and Plums was set during it, readers will now be taken to the violent, chaotic revolution of the 1960s and the subsequent civil war that tore the country apart.

Reviewers say: "Both intimate and sweeping, this epic brings a satisfying and profound closure to historic events" (Publishers Weekly).



------- The Book Woman's Daughter
by Kim Michele Richardson

What it is: the engaging sequel to The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, which followed Cussy, a woman with a medical condition that made her skin appear blue, who brought books to remote parts of Kentucky working for the New Deal Pack Horse Library Project.

Starring: the new book woman in the holler, Cussy's plucky 16-year-old daughter Honey, who in 1953 is left to fend for herself after anti-miscegenation laws land her parents in prison.

For fans of: The Last Blue by Isla Morley; All the Forgiveness by Elizabeth Hardinger.



------ Daughters of the Occupation
by Shelly Sanders

What it's about: In 1970s Chicago, a young Jewish woman learns a devastating family secret tied to the Nazi and Soviet occupations of her grandmother's native Latvia.

Read it for: the compelling, moving examination of issues like wartime trauma, family separation, estrangement, and the sacrifices sometimes required to survive.

Try these next: Shadows of Berlin by David R. Gillham; Stella's Carpet by Lucy E.M. Black.

Oooo! A couple of great possibilities! I’ve been intrigued by Dorothy Draper since i found her book Decorating Is Fun!: How to Be Your Own Decorator at Salvation Army in the ��70s. Our tastes aren’t similar but her attitude and energy are a pleasure to read.

Therefore, The Grand Design��Joy Callaway sounds wonderful to me.

Kim Michele Richardson’s latest, The Book Woman's Daughter intrigues. I very, very much liked her The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

Thanks, Alias.

---- Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure
by Rinker Buck

What it's about: In 2016, journalist Rinker Buck constructed a flatboat similar to the ones used in the 19th century and spent four months traveling 2,000 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.

Read it for: an engaging blend of history, memoir, and travelogue that tries to re-capture the experience of 19th-century settlers and pioneers.

Author alert: Buck retraced the Oregon Trail in an award-winning 2015 history of the same name.



----- Asian American Histories of the United States
by Catherine Ceniza Choy

What it is: an insightful and well-researched history that foregrounds the Asian American experience from the 19th century to the present.

Why you should read it: Exploring themes of violence and resistance, this latest volume in the ReVisioning History series offers illuminating perspectives on the erasure of Asian Americans from U.S. histories.

Further reading: The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee; the anthology My Life: Growing Up Asian in America.



----- The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American...
by Jonathan Lemire

What it is: an incisive look at the damaging impact of disinformation campaigns launched before, during, and after Donald Trump's presidency.

About the author: Journalist Jonathan Lemire is the White House bureau chief at Politico and the host of Way Too Early on MSNBC.

Further reading: Battling the Big Lie: How Fox, Facebook, and the MAGA Media Are Destroying America by Dan Pfeiffer.



------ The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America
by John Wood Sweet

What it's about: the first known recorded rape trial in American history.

What happened: In 1793 New York City, well-to-do Harry Bedlow raped 17-year-old seamstress Lanah Sawyer. Though Sawyer took Bedlow to court for his crimes, an all-male jury acquitted him.

Why it matters: The trial and subsequent aftermath sparked conversations about class privilege, sexual politics, and the limitations of the criminal justice system that endure to this day.


Focus on: Hispanic Heritage Month


----- The Undocumented Americans
by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

What it is: journalist and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's impassioned reportage on undocumented people living in the United States.

What's inside: compelling and empathetic profiles of immigrants trying to get by in a country that often dehumanizes them.

Awards buzz: The Undocumented Americans was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and a National Book Award finalist.



------- El Norte: The Epic and Forgotten Story of Hispanic North America
by Carrie Gibson

What it is: a sweeping five century history of the influential role Hispanic people and cultures have played in North America's origins.

Why it matters: This thought-provoking work from historian Carrie Gibson (Empire's Crossroads) eschews Anglo-American narratives in favor of elevating marginalized or overlooked perspectives.

Reviewers say: "an essential acquisition for all American history collections" (Booklist).



------ An African American and Latinx History of the United States
by Paul Ortiz

What it is: an intersectional history that investigates the role American imperialism has played in marginalizing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous peoples.

Why you might like it: Historian Paul Ortiz's concise and accessible account incorporates oral histories and other primary sources to illuminate the overlapping struggles for emancipation among denizens of the Global South (Latin America, Africa, and the Caribbean).



----- Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity
by Paola Ramos

What it's about: Vice journalist Paola Ramos' travels throughout the United States to amplify "the voices that are often neglected in the back of the room."

What's inside: profiles and photographs of diverse Hispanic and Latino/a people who have embraced the inclusivity of the term "Latinx," including queer and trans people, Muslim Latinx, "Blaxicans" (Black Mexicans), and undocumented immigrants.

----- Harlem Sunset
by Nekesa Afia

1927 Harlem: Louise Lloyd happily works at a club owned by her girlfriend Rosa's brother. But when the three awaken after a party to find Rosa covered in blood and a body nearby, Louise turns sleuth again in this atmospheric sequel to Dead Dead Girls.

Reviewers say: "A vivid crime story and an engrossing depiction of an era" (Kirkus Reviews).

Read this next: For other mysteries set in 1920s New York, try Stephen Spotswood's Fortune Favors the Dead or Katharine Schellman's Last Call at the Nightingale.



----- Rock of Ages
by Timothy Hallinan

What happens: Junior Bender, a burglar and unofficial PI, is hired by Hollywood mobster Irwin Dressler to find out who's skimming money from his music tour featuring aging rock stars. Complicating matters, Junior's teenage daughter, who's staying with him while his ex is away, has no idea what he does for a living.

Series alert: Rock of Ages is the clever, funny 8th Junior Bender mystery; the 1st is Crashed, but newcomers can start here.

Reviewers say: "Outstanding" (Publishers Weekly); "The one-liners come as if fired from a Gatling gun in this gem of a novel" (Booklist).



------ Death and Hard Cider
by Barbara Hambly

Starring: Benjamin January, a free Black musician in 1840 New Orleans who trained as a surgeon and occasionally works as a detective.

What happens: During a political campaign party featuring Henry Clay, violence breaks out over a young woman, who is later murdered. To clear a friend's name, January battles racism and powerful men.

Reviewers say: This evocative 19th Benjamin January outing is "one of the best in a not-to-be-missed series" (Booklist).



------ Vera Kelly Lost and Found
by Rosalie Knecht

Family problems: In 1971, Brooklyn PI Vera Kelly and her girlfriend Max are asked to visit Los Angeles and Max's wealthy family, who disowned Max for being gay several years earlier. When Max disappears not long after their arrival, Vera goes undercover to find her.

Series alert: Following Who Is Vera Kelly? and Vera Kelly Is Not a Mystery, this 3rd book once again offers a stylish, well-plotted novel.

Read this next: Nicole Upson's Josephine Tey mysteries, which feature a lesbian main character a couple of decades earlier in England, or Max Tomlinson's 1970s San Francisco-set Colleen Hayes novels.



-------Peril at the Exposition
by Nev March

Location changes: In 1893, PI Jim Agnihotri and his new wife Diana move from British-ruled India to Boston, but Jim's new job soon sends him to Chicago to investigate a murder at the World's Fair. After receiving an odd message about explosives and no word from Jim for days, Diana heads to the Windy City herself, determined to find her husband.

Series alert: This is the compelling 2nd in the Captain Jim Agnihotri series following the award-winning Murder in Old Bombay.

For fans of: richly detailed historical mysteries with intriguing characters, such as Sujata Massey's Perveen Mistry books, Rhys Bowen's Molly Murphy mysteries, and Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January novels.



------Death and the Conjuror
by Tom Mead

What happens: Joseph Spector, a magician in 1936 London, helps his friend, Scotland Yard Inspector George Flint, after a psychotherapist is found brutally murdered in his locked office.

For fans of: acclaimed debut novels; Golden Age mysteries; impossible crime mysteries; John Dickson Carr.

Reviewers say: "stellar" (Publishers Weekly); a "superior pastiche" (Kirkus Reviews).


------If you like: Laura Childs' Tea Shop Mysteries
Laura Child's popular Tea Shop cozy mysteries feature appealing characters, tidy plotting, and vividly described settings, usually around Charleston, South Carolina. Plus, recipes and information about tea are included. While you're waiting to read the 24th and latest Tea Shop mystery, A Dark and Stormy Tea, try these books:


-------A Deadly Inside Scoop
by Abby Collette

Introducing: Bronwyn "Win" Crewse, a 20-something MBA grad who's returned to small-town Ohio to reopen her family's traditional ice cream parlor.

What happens: A con artist with a connection to Win's family shows up, and after Win discovers his body in the snow, the cops suspect her dad. So it's up to Win, her grandfather, and her friends to clear his name.

Why you might like it: This appealing cozy mystery series opener features a warm relationship between Win and her family, plus ice cream-making details and recipes.



-----Tea & Treachery
by Vicki Delany

Introducing: Lily Roberts, a former Manhattan pastry chef who has opened a small tea shop near her grandmother's beautiful Cape Cod bed-and-breakfast.

What happens: A real estate developer planning to build a huge hotel next door is found murdered near the B&B's steep staircase to the beach.

Why you might like it: Combining a coastal setting, clever plotting, tea facts, and yummy recipes, this 1st in a series should delight Laura Childs fans who love all things tea related.



--------The Pawful Truth
by Miranda James

Starring: widowed grandfather and kindly college librarian Charlie Harris, whose Maine Coon cat, Diesel, goes with him almost everywhere.

What happens: After Charlie enrolls in a history course at his Mississippi college, another older student is found dead. With the help of friends, Charlie investigates in this 11th Cat in the Stacks series entry.

Why you might like it: The Pawful Truth is intricately plotted, funny, filled with Southern charm and quirkiness, and the characters are just as important as the plot.



-------Mango, Mambo, and Murder
by Raquel V. Reyes

Introducing: Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith, who moves from New York with her preschooler and husband to his hometown of Coral Shores, which is near Miami, where Miriam grew up.

What happens: Miriam deals with her disapproving mother-in-law and gets a job cooking on a Spanish-language morning TV show. Then, a murder occurs, and Miriam investigates to clear her best friend's name.

Why you might like it: Incorporating cooking tips and recipes, this series starter serves up a well-described setting, interesting characters, and a compelling plot. If you want more of Miriam, her 2nd outing, Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking, comes out in October.

------Dead Silence
Barnes, S. A.
Titanic meets The Shining in S.A. Barnes' Dead Silence, a SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended. A GHOST SHIP. A SALVAGE CREW. UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS. Claire Kovalik is days away from being unemployed-made obsolete-when her beacon repair crew picks up a strange distress signal. With nothing to lose and no desire to return to Earth, Claire and her team decide to investigate. What they find at the other end of the signal is a shock: the Aurora, a famous luxury space-liner that vanished on its maiden tour of the solar system more than twenty years ago. A salvage claim like this could set Claire and her crew up for life. But a quick trip through the Aurora reveals something isn't right.


-------On Immunity: An Inoculation
Biss, Eula
Upon becoming a new mother, Eula Biss addresses a chronic condition of fear: fear of the government, the medical establishment, and what is in children's food, mattresses, medicines, and vaccines. Biss investigates the metaphors and myths surrounding the conception of immunity and its implications for the individual and the social body. As she hears more and more fears about vaccines, Biss researches what they mean for her own child, her immediate community, America, and the world.


-------The Lowering Days: A Novel
Brown, Gregory
David Almerin Ames and his brothers, Link and Simon, believed the wild patch of Maine where they lived along the Penobscot River belonged to them. Their affinity for the natural world derives from their parents: Arnoux, a romantic artist and Vietnam War deserter who builds boats by hand, and Falon, an activist journalist who runs The Lowering Days, a community newspaper which gives equal voice to indigenous and white issues. Then a bankrupt paper mill, once the Penobscot Valley's largest employer, is burned to the ground on the eve of reopening. Falon receives a letter from a Penobscot Nation teenager confessing to the crime - an act of justice for a sacred river under centuries of assault from toxic waste. The divide within the community widens, ending in a cycle of violence.


--------Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin
Cushway, Philip and Michael Warr (editors/compilers)
Included in this extraordinary volume are the poems of 43 of America’s most talented African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize–winning poets Rita Dove, Natasha Tretheway, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Tracy K. Smith, as well as the work of other luminaries such as Elizabeth Alexander, Ishmael Reed, and Sonia Sanchez.


-------Send a Runner: A Navajo Honors the Long Walk
Eskeets, Edison
The Navajo tribe the Diné are the largest tribe in the United States and live across the American Southwest. But over a century ago, they were nearly wiped out by the Long Walk, a forced removal of most of the Diné people to a military-controlled reservation in New Mexico. The summer of 2018 marked the 150th anniversary of the Navajos' return to their homelands. One Navajo family and their community decided to honor that return: Edison Eskeets and his family organized a ceremonial run from Spider Rock in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, to Santa Fé, New Mexico, in order to deliver a message and to honor the survivors.


------Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home: A Memoir
Goldberg, Natalie
When longtime Zen practitioner and world-renowned writing teacher Natalie Goldberg learns that she has a life-threatening illness, she is plunged into the challenging realm of hospitals, physicians, unfamiliar medical treatments, and the intense reality of her own impermanence. In navigating this foreign landscape, Natalie illuminates a pathway through illness that is grounded in the fierce commitment to embrace the suffering directly. In the middle of this, her partner discovers that she too has cancer. The cancer twins, as Natalie calls them, must together and apart grapple with survival, love, and the rawness of human connection.


-------The Murder of Mr. Wickham
Gray, Claudia
After many years of happy marriage, Emma Knightley and her husband are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances-not all of whom are well known to the Knightleys but are certainly beloved by every Jane Austen fan: Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Anne and Captain Wentworth, and Fanny and Edmund Bertram. Very much not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him newfound wealth-and a broadening array of enemies. With his unexpected arrival, tempers flare and secrets are revealed, making it clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet the Knightleys and their guests are all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered-except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst. With everyone a suspect, it falls to the house party's two youngest guests to solve the mystery of who finally delivered to Wickham his just deserts: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry Tilney, eager for adventure outside Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, Elizabeth and Darcy's eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem relaxed. A tantalizing fusion of Austen and Christie.


------Camino Winds
Grisham, John
Just as Bruce Cable's Bay Books is preparing for the return of bestselling author Mercer Mann, Hurricane Leo veers from its predicted course and heads straight for the island ... The hurricane is devastating: homes and condos are leveled, hotels and storefronts ruined, streets flooded, and a dozen people lose their lives. One of the apparent victims is Nelson Kerr, a friend of Bruce's and an author of thrillers. But the nature of Nelson's injuries suggests that the storm wasn't the cause of his death: he has suffered several suspicious blows to the head.


-----I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
Murphy, Mannie
What begins as an affectionate reminiscence of Mannie Murphy's 1990s teenage infatuation with the late actor River Phoenix -- specifically his role in Gus Van Sant's classic film, My Own Private Idaho -- slowly transforms into a remarkable, sprawling account of the city of Portland and state of Oregon's long and shameful history of white nationalism. Told in the style of an illustrated diary, with wet, blue ink washes, the form reveals the author to be the other protagonist in this story as a genderqueer kid discovering a complicated history.


------Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting
Pooley, Clare
Every day Iona Iverson, a ... magazine advice columnist, rides the train to work with her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname ... Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do. Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He'd have died were it not for the ... intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver. This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people discovers that talking to strangers can teach you quite a bit about the world around you--and even more about yourself.


-------Under Prairie Skies: The Plants and Native Peoples of the Northern Plains
Shay, C. Thomas
Writer and anthropologist C. Thomas Shay traces the key roles of plants since humans arrived in the Northern Plains at the end of the Ice Age and began to hunt the region's woodlands, fish its waters, and gather its flora.

What a delightful array of books to consider. The Sewing Girl's Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America��John Wood Sweet sounds well researched, despite the fact readers are reading about how well-to-do have always been able to get away with criminal acts on this continent , too.

Most of the mysteries listed are historical, which continue to please readers. I’ve read one which is contemporary, Mango, Mambo, and Murder��Raquel V. Reyes, which was a pleasant book featuring food with a Latin flavor.

The final list of books held several of interest to me. While many readers know of the forced Trail of Tears, from North Carolina to Oklahoma by members of many tribes, including the Cherokee, few are aware that the Dine of the Southwest also suffered a horrible forced march. Send a Runner: A Navajo Honors the Long Walk��Edison Eskeets tells that story.

Fans of Jane Austen may relish a mystery which includes couples from her novels. Claudia Gray’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham. This could be good!

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden��Mannie Murphy, a book featuring Portland, Or., could be fun to read while we are living here.

Such variety, Alias. Thanks for the options.

Glad for the feedback and hope you find some winners in the group.

----- The Ultimate Flower Gardener's Guide: How to Combine Shape, Color, and Texture to Create...
by Jenny Rose Carey

What's inside: an inspiring approach to flower gardening by a renowned expert who covers flower color, shape and texture; time of year; layout; planting; and more; as well as tips to get going and lovely color photos.

Reviewers say: an "outstanding floral masterclass" (Publishers Weekly); "a thorough approach to landscaping" (Booklist)



------ Classic Calligraphy for Beginners: Essential Step-By-Step Techniques for Copperplate...
by Younghae Chung

What's inside: detailed step-by-step instructions for beginners who want to learn two classic calligraphy styles, Copperplate and Spencerian; color photos; recommended tools and supplies; troubleshooting tips.

Projects include: Personalized Menu, Bookmark, Addressing Envelopes, Cake Topper, Garden Labels, "Welcome" Wooden Signage.



------ Tomato Love: 44 Mouthwatering Recipes for Salads, Sauces, Stews, and More
by Joy Howard

What's inside: everyday recipes for breakfast, snacks, salads, soups, and mains that use tomatoes of all sorts, fresh, sun-dried, canned, etc.

Recipes include: Caprese Pasta Salad with Salami, Spicy Gazpacho, Fall Vegetable Curry, Worth-the-Wait Pot Roast, No-Cook Tomato Sauce.

Read this next: For a fun historical look at the popular fruit, check out Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World by William Alexander.



------ Trap Kitchen: Mac n' All Over the World
by Malachi Jenkins and Roberto Smith

What it is: the follow-up to Trap Kitchen: Bangin' Recipes from Compton by former rival gang members turned famous chefs, who offer 50 creative, globally inspired takes on macaroni and cheese.

Recipes include: Paella Mac, Texas Brisket Mac, Indian lentil Mac, Carnitas Mac, Vegan Mac, Greek Gyro Mac, Cajun Mac, Prison Mac.

Reviewers say: "No ounce of cheese or expletive is wasted in these deliciously outrageous recipes" (Publishers Weekly).



------ How to Zoom Your Room: Room Rater's Ultimate Style Guide
by Claude Taylor and Jessie Bahrey; illustrations by Chris Morris

What it is: an entertaining, user-friendly guide with examples and charming illustrations that shows readers how to curate their webcam backgrounds.

Don't miss: the top 25 décor items, common violations (including unsightly cords), alternative setups, bookshelf help, and tips for better lighting and webcam angles.

Author buzz: Claude Taylor and Jessie Bahrey created the Room Rater Twitter account, which went viral at the start of the pandemic.



----- Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew
by Michael W. Twitty

What it is: a fascinating and thought-provoking combination of memoir, cookbook, and exploration of African Jewish cooking.

Recipes include: Koshersoul Spring Rolls, Black-Eyed Pea Hummus, Matzo Meal Fried Chicken, Berbere Brisket, Okra Gumbo, Yam Kugel.

Series alert: Koshersoul is the 2nd in a planned trilogy focusing on the intersection of food and identity; it follows 2018's James Beard Book of the Year Award winner The Cooking Gene.



**** Getting Schooled on Pie



----- Pie Squared: Irresistibly Easy Sweet & Savory Slab Pies
by Cathy Barrow

What it is: a beautifully photographed cookbook that highlights versatile slab pies, which are great for crowds and families, and offers details on equipment, prep, and baking, as well as easy-to-follow instructions for a wide-variety of crusts and toppings.

Recipes include: Sausage and Biscuit Slab Pie; Asparagus, Fontina, and Pancetta Slab Pie; Curried Chicken Slab Pie; Peach Melba Slab Pie; Lemon Cream Slab Pie; Grande Mocha Cappuccino Slab Pie.



----- Pieometry: Modern Tart Art and Pie Design for the Eye and the Palate
by Lauren Ko

What's inside: vibrant color photos plus instructions for making 50 of Instagram star Lauren Ko's geometrically intricate tarts and pies.

Savory and sweet: recipes have creative flavor combinations like the Mother of Swirl (spicy maple nut pie with a dragon fruit crust) and the Herb Appeal (sausage and sun-dried tomato pie with a carrot crust).

Doughs include: Basic Pie Dough, Blueberry Pie Dough, Spinach Pie Dough, Nutella Pie Dough, Whole Wheat Cheddar Pie Dough.



----- The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies
by Erin Jeanne McDowell

What's inside: an appealing guide to pie that covers equipment, ingredients, toppings, and more, as well as over 100 recipes and variations.

Doughs include: Gluten-Free Pie Dough, Caramelized Pie Crust, Basic Nut Crust, Phyllo Dough Crust, Herby Olive Oil Press-In Crust.

Pies include: Mixed-Berry Hand Pies, Classic Key Lime Pie, Birthday Cake Pie, Breakfast Pie, Green Veggie Quiche, Reuben Pie.



------ Pie Academy: Master the Perfect Crust and 255 Amazing Fillings, with Fruits, Nuts, Creams...
by Ken Haedrich

What it is: a comprehensive, friendly guide for bakers of all levels that includes favorite tools and ingredients, 250 sweet recipes (including for a variety of doughs), and an illustrated, step-by-step pie-making tutorial.

Recipes include: Two-Berry Mint Pie; Cheddar-Crusted Apple Pie; Maple Pecan Pie; Amish Milk Pie; Peach Custard Pie; Fried Cherry Pies; Creamsicle Ice Cream Pie; Richard's Rice and Ricotta Pie.

------- The Marriage Portrait: A Novel
by Maggie O'Farrell


"In 16th-century Italy, teen Lucrezia de Medici passes from her father's control to her husband's, with neither considering her a person with a right to her own life. O'Farrell's poetic writing pulls you into this tale based on the likely subject of Robert Browning's poem "My Last Duchess". For fans of Geraldine Brooks, Isabel Allende, and Hilary Mantel."

Diana Armstrong, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR
NoveList read-alike: Matrix by Lauren Groff



------ The American Roommate Experiment: A Novel
by Elena Armas

"The follow-up to The Spanish Love Deception has all the makings of a great rom-com: a good slow burn, forced proximity, a mix of steamy and funny scenes, and two leads that are easy to root for. Recommend to anyone in need of a delightful contemporary romance in the vein of The Bride Test and Get a Life, Chloe Brown."

Danielle Willett, Grace A. Dow Memorial Library, Midland, MI
NoveList read-alike: Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu




------- Bindle Punk Bruja: A Novel
by Desideria Mesa

"Luna is both a daughter of Mexican immigrants trying to establish herself in the 1920s Kansas City underworld and a bruja, an earth witch who can read emotions and bend others to her will. Complex character relationships enhance this entertaining historical fantasy. For fans of The Chosen and the Beautiful and The Gods of Jade and Shadow."

Gwen Inman, Anne Arundel County Public Library, Annapolis, MD
NoveList read-alike: Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye




------ The Bullet That Missed: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery
by Richard Osman

"The Thursday Murder Club crack open the decade-old death of a journalist who was hot on the trail of a fraud scheme when she was murdered. Another hilarious mystery featuring the quirky (but highly effective) quartet and all their friends. For fans of Julia Chapman and SJ Bennett."

Sarah Walker, Indianapolis Public Library, Indianapolis, IN
NoveList read-alike: The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood




------ Ghost Eaters: A Novel
by Clay McLeod Chapman

"Chapman puts a new spin on ghost stories with a tale of a drug that allows people to be 'haunted' by dead loved ones. Featuring a strong subplot about the roots of colonization, this excellent horror novel examines being addicted to grief and the lengths some go to hang onto those they love. For fans of Paul Tremblay and Grady Hendrix."

Rosemary Kiladitis, Queens Public Library, Corona, NY
NoveList read-alike: Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo



------ The Kiss Curse: A Novel
by Erin Sterling

"Gwyn owns the Graves Glen's witchcraft shop, and life is good until Wells Penhallow comes back to create havoc at the school and in town. Sterling is very good at the love/hate relationship with a great pinch of wit, and the spell is cast for a fun rom-com."

Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Library, Austin, TX
NoveList read-alike: Witch Please by Ann Aguirre




------- A Merry Little Meet Cute: A Novel
by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

"Christmas movie star Bee is forbidden to disclose she is also an adult film star. Co-star Nolan is trying to prove he can be a responsible actor. Sparks fly, they cannot keep their hands off each other. Murphy's diverse characterizations paired with Simone's off-the-charts sexy scenes makes for a romantic and steamy happily-ever-after, brimming with sex and body positivity."

Alicia Ahlvers, Henrico County Public Library, Henrico, VA
NoveList read-alike: The Holiday Trap by Roan Parrish




------- People Person
by Candice Carty-Williams

"Dimple Pennington might have accidentally killed her ex, and reaches out to her four half-siblings -- all raised by their mothers and sharing a neglectful father -- in a panic. They learn the kind of family they can be as they deal with the fallout and their abandonment issues in this dark comedy."

Julie Graham, Yakima Valley Libraries, Yakima, WA
NoveList read-alike: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid




------- Spells for Forgetting: A Novel
by Adrienne Young

"Another stunner by Young! When August Salt, the love of Emery Blackwood's life, returns to clear his name after being accused of killing Lily Morgan fourteen years ago, dark secrets arise in Saiorse Island. The prose flows like the magical elements throughout."

Suzy Card, Grapevine Library, Grapevine, TX
NoveList read-alike: The Orphan Witch by Paige Crutcher




------ The Ways We Hide: A Novel
by Kristina McMorris

"When World War II starts, Fenna Vos is recruited by MI9 to use her skills to make escape aids. Based on true events about one woman's journey, this is a thrilling look at a little known part of the war effort, with well developed characters and terrifying adventures."

Melanie Liechty, Morgan Library, Morgan, UT
NoveList read-alike: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

Ooooo! All those pie recipes and ideas. Good prep for pie-making season ahead.

The Ways We Hide��Kristina McMorris sounds most interesting. I do like learning about these previously little known bits from WWII. If it’s in a novel, i can handle that.

Interesting topics today, Alias. We appreciate the work entailed.

Thank you, Deb.

Recent Releases

------ Kismet
by Amina Akhtar

What it is: one part character-driven thriller, one part biting send-up of New Age culture and its affluent devotees.

Where it's set: the glamorous Kismet retreat center, which draws clients in with scenic Sedona vistas and an endless array of wellness services.

Who it stars: new arrival Ronnie Khan, who jumped at the chance to leave her controlling family behind in New York; Ronnie's friend Marley Dewhurst, a volatile wannabe wellness guru; a large, mysterious flock of ravens that always seem to be lurking around town.



------ Out of Her Depth
by Lizzy Barber

How it starts: Sebastian Hale has just been granted the chance to appeal the murder conviction that landed him behind bars, news which greatly concerns an unnamed English teacher who was with him on the hot summer day that changed both of their lives forever.

Three decades earlier: Before she was due to enroll at Cambridge, working class Rachel Bailey accepted a summer housekeeping job at a Tuscan villa where she befriended rich girl Diana Turner, who encouraged Rachel to pursue Sebastian -- then a well-heeled Oxford student -- with dire consequences for all three of them.



------- The Last Paladin
by P.T. Deutermann

Series alert: The Last Paladin is the 9th of P.T. Deutermann's historical thrillers set in the Pacific theater of World War II.

This time: USS Holland commander Mariano deTomasi and his crew set off on a tense search and destroy mission following a group of Japanese submarines on its way to devastate the main body of the U.S. Pacific fleet.

Reviewers say: "Deutermann ably conveys naval battle tactics, day-to-day life aboard a vessel, and the pandemonium of warfare" (Publishers Weekly).



------ The Couple at Number 9
by Claire Douglas

The setup: Expectant mom Saffron Cutler has just moved into her grandmother's former home when construction workers stumble across human remains on the building site.

The twist: The police want to question grandma Rose, who lives in a nearby nursing home. Though Rose has Alzheimer's disease and can only provide limited details, Saffron can tell that her grandmother remembers something that she can't -- or won't -- talk about.

For fans of: Carolina Moonset by Matt Goldman; The Fixer by Joseph Finder.



------ The Disinvited Guest
by Carol Goodman

What it is: a creepy and menacing gothic quarantine story about unprocessed trauma and the lessons we fail to learn from history.

How it begins: Ten years after the initial COVID pandemic, Lucy Harper, her husband Reed, and a small group of their friends and family travel to Maine to isolate themselves from a new, even deadlier virus, only to discover they're not safe from each other either.

Reviewers say: The Disinvited Guest is a "smooth cocktail of refreshingly chilly suspense" (Publishers Weekly).



------ We Lie Here
by Rachel Howzell Hall

The setup: Shortly after TV writer Yara Gibson reluctantly travels home for her parents' 20th anniversary party, she begins to receive increasingly urgent messages from a family friend who dies in a suspicious "accident" before the two can meet up.

Read it for: the well-developed characters, strong sense of place, and well-crafted small town dialogue.

You might also like: All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers; All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda.



------ The Devil Takes You Home
by Gabino Iglesias

The premise: Down-on-his-luck hitman Mario agrees to "one last job" to help make ends meet. His assignment? Rob a Mexican drug cartel.

What happens next: En route to Mexico, Mario grapples with disturbing and unexplained phenomena that make him question his aptitude for the job -- and his chances of coming home alive.

Is it for you? Rising author Gabino Iglesias' nail-biting latest offers an unflinching blend of paranormal thriller and barrio noir that doesn't shy away from the violence and brutality its characters face.



------ The Lost Kings
by Tyrell Johnson

What it is: a compelling and intricately plotted story about a flawed, traumatized young woman looking to learn more about her past and her estranged family's many secrets.

Starring: Jeanie King, who is fighting to keep her self-destructive impulses at bay long enough to discover the disturbing truth about why her family fell apart years ago.

For fans of: unreliable narrators, dysfunctional family dynamics, and stories of survival.



------ Complicit
by Winnie M. Li

Who it's about: Sarah Lai, a college lecturer and Hollywood has-been who is offered the chance to air the dirty laundry of the rich and powerful after a journalist comes asking questions about a magnate who ruined her career ambitions.

Read it for: its thought-provoking tone and intricate plotting.

Is it for you? Inspired by the survivors of Harvey Weinstein's abuse, Complicit deals with triggering topics like emotional manipulation and sexual assault.



----- The Swell
by Allie Reynolds

Featuring: former surfer Kenna, who swore off the waves after her boyfriend's drowning death years earlier; her best friend Mikki, who introduces Kenna to her alluring new group of surfing-obsessed friends.

One last ride: Worried about the company Mikki has been keeping, Kenna agrees to return to the waves temporarily to serve as a counterbalance. But the more Kenna learns about the group the less she trusts them, especially after finding out about their ties to a tourist who recently disappeared under very mysterious circumstances.

Reviewers say: The Swell is an "exhilarating, adrenaline-filled tale" (Kirkus Reviews) full of "twists and turns keep readers guessing until the end" (Booklist).

There are several different careers and scenarios in that list. I’m surprised none call to me. I guess i’m too focused on completing my 100 Challenge. It’s been daunting to locate books i like, of late, so i’ve been reading far too many synopses.

Nonetheless i appreciate that you shared these with us, Alias.