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In Ascension
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZEAn astonishing novel about a young microbiologist
investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a
journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage
of a single human life Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an
escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the
undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the
globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic
ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth's
first life forms - what she instead finds calls into question everything we
know about our own beginnings.
Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space
agency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic
trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each
piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows
that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining
mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with
her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos.
Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve
for the stars, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive
epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence,
looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows
how - no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope - we
will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home. -
Hook Shot
From award-winning author Kennedy Ryan comes the steamy, powerful second installment of the Hoops trilogy.
If Jared Foster had a dollar for every time Banner Morales made his heart skip a beat--the heart everyone assumes is frozen over--he'd be richer than he already is. He's found success as a sports agent by always assuming "no" means "I'll think about it." And he knows Banner's thinking about him. Her simmering anger? The way she puts him in his place? Foreplay. She thinks she's won the game, but they're just getting started.
If Banner had a dollar for every time Jared broke her heart, she'd have exactly one dollar. One epic failure of a night. After parting on such bad terms, Banner has no intention of ever giving Jared a second chance. She's found success in a field ruled by men like him. She's learned to call the shots and block them when she has to.
So she'll ignore the way he makes her heart pound. Sure, he seems carved from her most private fantasies, but she can get past that.
She's got her one dollar, and Jared won't have her.
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Sasaki and Miyano, Vol. 5
Sasaki is...Sasaki is what to me? A heated exchange between the two leads to absolutely nothing. Well, Miyano isn't living in a BL story, so that's fine, right? Except Miyano feels like he's going to explode, because he can't stop thinking about hugging his upperclassman...and taking care of him...What does it mean to like someone anyway? -
How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed: A Journal for Grief
An illustrated journal for meeting grief with honesty and kindness--honoring loss, rather than packing it away
With her breakout book It's OK That You're Not OK, Megan Devine struck a chord with thousands of readers through her honest, validating approach to grief. In her same direct, no-platitudes style, she now offers How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed--a journal filled with unique, creative ways to open a dialogue with grief itself. "Being allowed to tell the truth about your grief is an incredibly powerful act," she says. "This journal enables you to tell your whole story, without the need to tack on a happy ending where there isn't one." Grief is a natural response to death and loss--it's not an illness to be cured or a problem to be fixed. This workbook contains no clichés, timetables, or checklists of stages to get through; it won't help you "move past" or put your loss behind you. Instead, you'll find encouragement, self-care exercises, and daily tools, including: - Writing prompts to help you honor your pain and heartbreak
- On-the-spot practices for tough situations--like grocery store trips, the sleepless nights, and being the "awkward guest"
- The art of healthy distraction and self-care
- What you can do when you worry that "moving on" means "letting go of love"
- Practical advice for fielding the dreaded "How are you doing?" question
- What it means to find meaning in your loss
- How to hold joy and grief at the same time
- Tear-and-share resources to help you educate friends and allies
- The "Griever's Bill of Rights," and much more Your grief, like your love, belongs to you. No one has the right to dictate, judge, or dismiss what is yours to live. How to Carry What Can't Be Fixed is a journal and everyday companion to help you enter a conversation with your grief, find your own truth, and live into the life you didn't ask for--but is here nonetheless. -
2666
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of SantaTeresa--a fictional Juárez--on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.
THE POSTHUMOUS MASTERWORK FROM "ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST INFLUENTIAL MODERN WRITERS" (JAMES WOOD, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) -
Hit Parade of Tears: Stories
A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy. A philandering husband receives a bestial punishment from a wife with her own secrets to keep; a music lover finds herself in a timeline both familiar and as wrong as can be; a misfit band of space pirates discover a mysterious baby among the stars; Emma, the Bovary-like character from one of Suzuki's stories in Terminal Boredom, lands herself in a bizarre romantic pickle. Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other. These eleven stories offer readers the opportunity to delve deeper in this singular writer's work. -
Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston's homeless community--by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains "I couldn't put Rough Sleepers down. I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better."--Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, BookPage, Chicago Public Library Tracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as "a master of the nonfiction narrative." In Rough Sleepers, Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O'Connell, a gifted man who invented a community of care for a city's unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets--the "rough sleepers." After Jim O'Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General, the hospital's chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? That year turned into O'Connell's life's calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O'Connell and his colleagues as they work with thousands of homeless patients, some of whom we meet in this illuminating book. We travel with O'Connell as he navigates the city streets at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the city's most endangered citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls "a system of friends." Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder explores how Jim O'Connell and a dedicated group of people have improved countless lives by facing and addressing one of American society's most difficult problems, instead of looking away. -
The Fountains of Silence
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Gray comes a gripping, extraordinary portrait of love, silence, and secrets under a Spanish dictatorship. Madrid, 1957. Under the fascist dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, Spain is hiding a dark secret. Meanwhile, tourists and foreign businessmen flood into Spain under the welcoming promise of sunshine and wine. Among them is eighteen-year-old Daniel Matheson, the son of an oil tycoon, who arrives in Madrid with his parents hoping to connect with the country of his mother's birth through the lens of his camera. Photography--and fate--introduce him to Ana, whose family's interweaving obstacles reveal the lingering grasp of the Spanish Civil War--as well as chilling definitions of fortune and fear. Daniel's photographs leave him with uncomfortable questions amidst shadows of danger. He is backed into a corner of difficult decisions to protect those he loves. Lives and hearts collide, revealing an incredibly dark side to the sunny Spanish city. Master storyteller Ruta Sepetys once again shines light into one of history's darkest corners in this epic, heart-wrenching novel about identity, unforgettable love, repercussions of war, and the hidden violence of silence--inspired by the true postwar struggles of Spain. Includes vintage media reports, oral history commentary, photos, and more. Praise for The Fountains of Silence "Spain under Francisco Franco is as dystopian a setting as Margaret Atwood's Gilead in Ruta Sepetys's suspenseful, romantic and timely new work of historical fiction . . . Like [Shakespeare's family romances], 'The Fountains of Silence' speaks truth to power, persuading future rulers to avoid repeating the crimes of the past." --The New York Times Book Review "Full of twists and revelations...an excellent story, and timely, too." --The Wall Street Journal "A staggering tale of love, loss, and national shame." --Entertainment Weekly
* "[Sepetys] tells a moving story made even more powerful by its placement in a lesser-known historical moment. Captivating, deft, and illuminating historical fiction." --Booklist, *STARRED REVIEW* * "This gripping, often haunting historical novel offers a memorable portrait of fascist Spain." --Publishers Weekly, *STARRED REVIEW* * "This richly woven historical fiction . . . will keep young adults as well as adults interested from the first page to the last." --SLC, *STARRED REVIEW* * "Riveting . . . An exemplary work of historical fiction." --The Horn Book, *STARRED REVIEW* -
The Storm of Echoes: Book Four of the Mirror Visitor Quartet
In this gripping finale to Christelle Dabos's international best-selling Mirror Visitor saga, the mirror-traveling heroine Ophelia and her husband Thorn discover that the truth they have been seeking has always been hidden behind the mirror.
Ophelia and Thorn, at the center of a great universal game in which the stakes are life and death, arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to put a stop to the destruction and death and bring balance and harmony to their world.
"A hallucinatory marriage of Pride and Prejudice and A Game of Thrones."--Matthew Skelton, author of the Endymion Spring books
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2001: A Space Odyssey
The classic science fiction novel that captures and expands on the vision of Stanley Kubrick's immortal film--and changed the way we look at the stars and ourselves. From the savannas of Africa at the dawn of mankind to the rings of Saturn as man ventures to the outer rim of our solar system, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a journey unlike any other. This allegory about humanity's exploration of the universe--and the universe's reaction to humanity--is a hallmark achievement in storytelling that follows the crew of the spacecraft Discovery as they embark on a mission to Saturn. Their vessel is controlled by HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent supercomputer capable of the highest level of cognitive functioning that rivals--and perhaps threatens--the human mind. Grappling with space exploration, the perils of technology, and the limits of human power, 2001: A Space Odyssey continues to be an enduring classic of cinematic scope. -
The Brightest Star: A Historical Novel Based on the True Story of Anna May Wong
A LIBRARYREADS PICK AND BEST BOOK CLUB PICK OF 2023
"A writer of astonishing grace, delicacy, and feeling."--Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
"A beautiful, haunting book."--Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
The beloved bestselling author of The Color of Air, Women of the Silk, and The Samurai's Garden returns with this magnificent historical novel based on the life of the luminous, groundbreaking actress Anna May Wong--the first and only Asian American woman to gain movie stardom in the early days of Hollywood.
At the dawn of a new century, America is falling in love with silent movies, including young Wong Liu Tsong. The daughter of Chinese immigrants who own a laundry, Wong Liu and her older sister Lew Ying (Lulu) are taunted and bullied for their Chinese heritage. But while Lulu diligently obeys her parents and learns to speak Chinese, Wong Liu sneaks away to the local nickelodeons, buying a ticket with her lunch money and tips saved from laundry deliveries. By eleven Wong Liu is determined to become an actress and has already chosen a stage name: Anna May Wong. At sixteen, Anna May leaves high school to pursue her Hollywood dreams, defying her disapproving father and her Chinese traditional upbringing--a choice that will hold emotional and physical consequences.
After a series of nothing parts, nineteen-year-old Anna May gets her big break--and her first taste of Hollywood fame--starring opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad. Yet her beauty and talent isn't enough to overcome the racism that relegates her to supporting roles as a helpless, exotic butterfly or a vicious, murderous dragon lady while Caucasian actresses in yellowface" are given starring roles portraying Asian women. Though she suffers professionally and personally, Anna May fights to win lead roles, accept risqué parts, financially support her family, and keep her illicit love affairs hidden--even as she finds freedom and glittering stardom abroad, and receives glowing reviews across the globe.
Powerful, poignant, and imbued with Gail Tsukiyama's warmth and empathy, The Brightest Star reimagines the life of the first Asian American screen star whose legacy endures--a remarkable and inspiring woman who broke barriers and became a shining light in Hollywood history.
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The Daughters of Block Island
In this ingenious and subversive twist on the classic gothic novel, the mysterious past of an island mansion lures two sisters into a spiderweb of scandal, secrets, and murder.
Two sisters, strangers since birth yet bound by family secrets, are caught up in a century-old mystery on an isolated island.
After arriving on Block Island to find her birth mother, Blake Bronson becomes convinced she's the heroine of a gothic novel--the kind that allowed her intermittent escape from a traumatic childhood. How else to explain the torrential rain, the salt-worn mansion known as White Hall, and the restless ghost purported to haunt its halls? But before Blake can discern the novel's ending, she's found dead, murdered in a claw-foot tub. The proprietress of White Hall stands accused.
Summoned by a letter sent from Blake before she died, Thalia Mills returns to the island she swore she'd left for good. She finds that Blake wasn't the first to die at White Hall under suspicious circumstances. Thalia must uncover the real reason for Blake's demise before the forces conspiring to keep Block Island's secrets dead and buried rise up to consume her too.
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The Stardust Thief
Inspired by stories from One Thousand and One Nights, this book weaves together the gripping tale of a legendary smuggler, a cowardly prince, and a dangerous quest across the desert to find a legendary, magical lamp.
Neither here nor there, but long ago . . .
Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land.
With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything--her enemy, her magic, even her own past--is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.
Praise for The Stardust Thief: "A thrilling adventure about found families, ancient magic, and stories that linger." ―Shannon Chakraborty, author of The City of Brass "The Stardust Thief will transport you, enchant you, and revive your belief in the magic of storytelling." ―Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun -
Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Edition, Vol. 3
Alchemy tore the Elric brothers' bodies apart. Can their bond make them whole again? A hardcover collector's edition of one of the most beloved manga and anime of all time! Fully remastered with an updated translation and completely fresh lettering, and presented with color pages on large-trim, archival-quality paper, this gorgeous hardcover edition presents the timeless dark adventures of the Elric brothers as they were truly meant to be seen. Includes brand-new cover art, with a new color insert and behind-the-scenes character sketches from author Hiromu Arakawa! In an alchemical ritual gone wrong, Edward Elric lost his arm and his leg, and his brother Alphonse became nothing but a soul in a suit of armor. In the search to get their bodies back, the duo unwittingly sets in motion sinister mechanisms that spell disaster for one of their friends. -
Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 13
When the Agency and the Port Mafia receive a visit from an old mutual friend, they learn where Dostoyevsky's clandestine base is hidden. Two sworn enemies--Atsushi and Akutagawa--must now bite the bullet and infiltrate the site together under Dazai's orders, but will this forced teamwork give birth to an invincible duo...or will it stir hatred once more? -
Heroes of Olympus, The, Book Four: House of Hades, The-Heroes of Olympus, The, Book Four
At the conclusion of The Mark of Athena, Annabeth and Percy tumble into a pit leading straight to the Underworld. The other five demigods have to put aside their grief and follow Percy's instructions to find the mortal side of the Doors of Death. If they can fight their way through the Gaea's forces, and Percy and Annabeth can survive the House of Hades, then the Seven will be able to seal the Doors from both sides and prevent the giants from raising Gaea. But, Leo wonders, if the Doors are sealed, how will Percy and Annabeth be able to escape? They have no choice. If the demigods don't succeed, Gaea's armies will never die. They have no time. In about a month, the Romans will march on Camp Half-Blood. The stakes are higher than ever in this adventure that dives into the depths of Tartarus.