book

“. . . we’re only as healthy as the environment in which we live.” This statement from the introduction to Grow Now is the underlying theme of this book. Every chapter makes a case for gardening beyond organic, rewilding your land, sequestering carbon, and supporting biodiversity. 

In the chapter on composting Murphy explains multiple techniques which might be right for you and your home. She leads with how compost sequesters carbon, protects soil and soil structure, decreases runoff, and keeps food waste out of landfills. Murphy says, “You may have heard it said that if food waste were a

Lone Women by Victor LaValle blends the best of several genres, giving us western, historical fiction, horror, thriller, and plenty of social commentary to boot. The year is 1914 and our heroine, Adelaide Henry, is fleeing California – her parents are dead and all she has with her is a suspiciously heavy locked steamer trunk. She makes her way to Montana where, thanks to the Homestead Act, single women were able to claim plots of land, work it for three years, and then “prove up” to owning the land. The harsh Montana environment is difficult enough for anyone to survive, let alone a young

On Wednesdays we put a spotlight on a book on our Adult Fiction New Release shelf that's absolutely worthy of your attention. We call it #NoWaitWednesday, and we hope you take a closer look at any of our New Release shelves at your local Library branch the next time you come in, as there's always tons of great titles just waiting for you to check them out. 

Last week we looked a title that's a bit moodier and darker to match the approaching fall season. We're continuing the trend this week with an atmospheric psychological thriller for patrons who love novels from authors like Alice Feeney or R

Hello and welcome to #NoWaitWednesday, where we take a look at a title that's available on the New Release shelves at one of our branch libraries, just waiting for some lucky patron to place a hold on it.

With the official start of fall finally in the rearview mirror, some patrons might be looking for a novel that's a bit darker than some of the titles we've previously discussed in this space - something more moody to fit the changing weather, perhaps. Something that's written with an elegant yet gripping prose, with the kind of story where you never really know where it's going but it grabs

I believe that keeping backyard chickens could have an extremely positive impact on diverting compostable waste from landfills, directly impacting food insecurity, while building community and boosting personal joy. When I stumbled upon Let’s All Keep Chickens! I checked it out because the title speaks to me. I read it because Dalia Monterroso speaks my language. She says, “If we can learn to raise chickens in a sustainable and inclusive way, we can actually change the world.” I believe this.

I love that she focuses on keeping chickens in the best way for their health, while also recognizing

Want a good book to read at the library but don't want to be 347th in line? Hello and welcome to #NoWaitWednesday, where we shine the spotlight on a title on our New Release shelves that's ready and waiting for you to check it out!

Cozy mysteries are a genre that every librarian needs to know about, as they are ideal to recommend to patrons at any age level, from teen readers who are just starting to explore the adult section to older readers who wish to avoid harsh language or explicit violence in their reading. Cozy mysteries also have a deep bench, as the genre is rich with dozens of

Hello and welcome to #NoWaitWednesdays, where we pick an item off the New Release shelf at one of our library branches that's available for a lucky reader to discover. There are always plenty of gems at the library to find that don't require a two-month wait on the hold lists, and the New Release shelves are always a great place to explore and find your next favorite read.

Medusa is a familiar figure in Greek mythology - a female monster with snakes for hair and a gaze that turns men to stone, usually presented as an antagonist to the hero Perseus, who then cuts off her head to use as a weapon

Hello and welcome to #NoWaitWednesday, where we take a look at a title that's sitting on our New Release shelves that's just waiting for a lucky patron to check it out.

Set in the hills of the Ozarks on the Missouri-Arkansas border during the Great Depression, a young woman, Gracelynn Doherty, lives a quiet life as she helps her grandmother get by as a midwife and apothecary to the local community, supplying herbs, advice, and rudimentary medical care to those around Tin Mountain. Whispers abound that Gracelynn - and her Granny - are actually witches, but people still come to their remote

Part Willy Wonka, part The Westing Game, a little reverse Notting Hill and ALL heart! I loved this gentle charmer about Lucy, a kindergarten aide and Christopher, the lonely boy she wants to adopt if only their wishes could make it so. Hope springs eternal in the pages of the bestselling Clock Island kid's books that Lucy and Christopher read together. Some adult themes bring depth to the story but don't distract from the overall feeling of wonder. The ending won't be a surprise but you will race to get there, smiling all the way!

Looking for a good book? (Who isn't, really?) We at the library love pointing out all the great books we have on our shelves for patrons to enjoy. For those of you who are in a hurry, on Wednesdays we wear pink love spotlighting a great book that's available on our New Release shelves right now - or, at least, available the last time we checked. Find a great book right here and right now that doesn't require you to be number on a long wait list! We call this #NoWaitWednesdays, and we hope it helps you find your next great read.

Some Desperate Glory isn't a debut, exactly, but it is Emily Tesh's

Here at the library, we love books. We especially love books that we don't have to wait for. This is why on #NoWaitWednesdays, we spotlight a book that - at the time of this writing, anyway - is sitting on the New Release shelf at a local branch, just waiting for someone to come by and check it out. So if this book sounds like something you might be interested in, go ahead and press that hold button! You might be deeply immersed in its pages far faster than you might expect.

Many of our book group patrons LOVE a good multi-generational novel. There's something about a story where one generation

If you're a regular reader of this space, you might know that we occasionally spotlight books on their release date. But there is often a delay between the time when a book gets published and the time it can be bought, shipped, cataloged, tagged, and delivered to the shelves of your local library. So today we're introducing #NoWaitWednesdays, where we take a look at a title on the shelves of the New Release section of one of our branches that is desperately waiting for you to check it out. We can't guarantee there will be no wait at all, of course, but if it's on the shelf when we publish our

Hello and welcome to the New Title Tuesday for this week! Patrons can't seem to get enough of feel-good reads, and to be honest, neither can we - especially during times of great stress, there's nothing like making a mug of tea and sinking deep into a book that has a heartwarming plot, engaging characters, and a feel-good ending that you just KNOW will lift your spirits. This week, for our New Title Tuesday pick, make sure that you have The Air Raid Book Club by Annie Lyons on your holds lists if that's the sort of thing you're looking for.

The novel begins with a widow named Gertie who owns a

So you know the basic idea of the fairy-tale and folklore-inspired fiction: Princess Aurore had a christening party which was interrupted by a slighted uninvited guest who casts a curse over the poor child. In the fantasy fiction curse when she turns 16 she will prick her finger and one drop of blood will fall and Aurore will die. Another guest utters a counterspell in the suspenseful tale, and the guest at least is not a fairy in this book.

Like in the traditional once upon a time, Aurore will not die, she will fall into a deep, deep sleep that will last 100 years until she is awakened by the

Nobody's Princess is a great historical fiction story about Helen of Troy. It does not support history but tells a mythological fiction story about her based on what we know. This was such a great girls disguised as boys themed book. I am looking forward to reading the sequel about our main woman of steel Helen. It is a very good book but it drops off at the end so you need the sequel about Helen's adventures in the Mediterranean Region.

In this book Helen starts out strong with some great adventures. Long before the Trojan War there was a young girl named Helen who was good at disguises

Red Vengeance is not bad for a teen thriller franchise book. This is a superhero story that features Black Widow and Red Widow, her protege. It is a sequel, and I am hoping there will be a third in the series as well about Natasha's past in the shadow organizations.

When I read Black Widow: Forever Red last year, I thought Natasha's vengeance as a story couldn't be topped. Of course, it wasn't until the Women of Marvel event that Margaret Stohl would announce a follow up book about these women of steel and I would learn how wrong I could be. This is an action-packed story that fits very well

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of New Title Tuesday, where we take a closer look at a new release that's hitting the publishing world this week.

Summer is in full swing, and some of our patrons might be looking for a deeply immersive novel - something that grabs us and transports us to another place and another time. Banyan Moon, a debut novel by Thao Thai, is a sprawling, epic, multi-generational novel that focuses on interweaving mother-daughter relationships through three generations of fierce, independent women that stretch from the modern Florida coast to back, years ago, to the

“The real dragon haunted my head and heart.”

What makes Dragon's Keep work for me is its approach: a medieval fantasy written more like historical fantasy than high fantasy.  Yet it has that sliver of magic and magical creatures (dragons, of course) to spice up the lyrical story.   In other words, the author avoids over-doing the chosen one approach, and instead creates very believable characters in a believable world.

I wasn't sure I would like this 12th century-esque story, but I was pleasantly surprised.  I would recommend this woman-of-steel protagonist for teen readers who aren't sure

We Rule the Night caught me completely off guard with its immersive fantasy historical fiction world and narrative of fierce women. People who like the concepts of living aircraft, military, wartime, and magic will enjoy this. There is also the idea of traitors thrown into the mix. This fighter-pilot fantasy is a bit more of a slow burn.  I wasn't sure how I would react to this wartime fantasy setting, but I love how Bartlett used it and the intensifying pace to point out the flaws both in her world and our real world. It still has action elements to it, but it also has women pilots training

Kimmerer has the scientific training--rational, evidence-based, data-driven--of a botanist; the indigenous culture, worldview, and beliefs of a Potawatomi Anishinaabe; and the language, spirit, and skill of a poet. In this book she wonderfully melds those three ways of seeing, of knowing, of understanding and communicating. She beautifully shares an ecological message of the possibility of harmonious co-existence with plants and nature, a perspective deeply supported by science. More than any other book I know, it spoke equally to my head, my heart, and my soul.

If there's a single concept at

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2023

Imagine you want to write about the opioid epidemic in Appalachia, a place you are from and have loved your whole life. Then imagine you are on a book tour in England and stay in Charles Dickens’s house, Bleak House, and you sit at his desk and lay your head down and ask the master writer, how? And you receive the answer, “let the orphan tell the story.” And with that, Demon Copperhead, a retelling of David Copperfield, is born. 

This is the origin story of Barbara Kingsolver's newest book, Demon Copperhead. The author of numerous stunning works

R. F. Kuang is known for her fantasy novels but steps outside of the genre in this satirical, unreliable-narrator novel. Yellowface is, if nothing else, a compulsively interesting read. Some of the Goodreads reviews are pretty divided on it, which I think is testament to the complexity of the satire that R. F. Kuang has introduced. Kuang, who is Chinese-American, writes from the perspective of a white woman whose friend is a successful Asian writer. When that friend dies in a freak accident, the narrator steals her manuscript and publishes it as her own work. What follows is a critique of

What a perfectly sinister, unsettling little book. Well, not so much a "little book," more a little amount of unease. A mildly sinister and unsettling book--in the best possible way. It is subtle. A tickle. Something not quite right gnawing at the edges, never openly stated, never resolved. Ambiguous and open to interpretation, with no interpretation feeling like a good one.

This is a fictional memoir set in a fictional though familiar world, ours with an alternate history the last century or so. Something like World War I happened, then grew and spread to literally involve every part of the

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

The Seventh Wish, by Kate Messner, interweaves fantasy and real life.  This middle-grade fiction novel focuses on magic, empathy, overcoming obstacles, and family/friend relationships. 

Charlie Brennan, twelve-years-old, is ice fishing when she catches her first fish.  The fish offers her a wish in trade for its freedom. 

Charlie takes up ice fishing to pay for the perfect solo dress for her upcoming Irish dancing competition.  She desperately wants to move up

I was, I think, 18 years old when I saw the movie Flatliners; just the right age for it to make a vivid impression on me even though it has never been thought of as a particularly good film. The characters are medical students who agree to take turns temporarily dying ("flatlining") before being revived by the others. They hope to experience a moment of the afterlife to gain insight and wisdom. They wanted, in the parlance of this book, to learn from a visit to the land of the dead.



McDonald writes that we don't have to actually die to gain that wisdom, though, as stories of visits to the

Six contestants compete to win the Golden Spoon in a baking competition TV show, but nobody can guess the outrageous events in store for them. There's an unspoken rivalry between the established baking judge Betsy Martin (and owner of the grand Grafton Manor house where the TV show is filmed) and the smarmy new judge, Archie Morris. Tensions rise as the pressure to create the best bake and keep the show relevant are all on the line. Some contestants have secret reasons for wanting to be on the show, and someone seems to be tampering with competitor's ingredients (Gasp! Sabotage!). I was

I loved The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches sooooo much! Everything about it sparkles with stardust. Found family, sweet romance, slow-smile humor and magical mayhem are all here for your enjoyment. The main characters are wonderfully developed and even with their secrets and flaws you want to serve them tea, give them hugs and wrap them up in soft blankets. If the villain is a bit stereotypical and the foreshadowing is occasionally obvious, these things are easy to overlook because you'll be too wrapped up in warm fuzzies to care. Highly recommend!

The end of the world.



"The end of the world." It's a phrase that gets used a lot. In a lot of different contexts. So just what does it mean? The dinosaurs experienced the end of the world--but the world itself didn't end, did it? For millennia people have worried the end of the world is imminent. Natural disasters, war, disease, famine, climate change, artificial intelligence, aliens, and so much more. For millennia people have told stories about what life will be like after world's end. What life will be like for those who survive the end of the world. Because in every scenario we imagine

The line between everyday truth and emotionally generated, alternative truth thins with every page turned in this new literary novel about a twelve-year-old girl, Cassandra, who loses her younger brother to undertow while swimming alone with him on a Delaware beach. But even at the beginning of this book, all is not as it seems. A few chapters in, Cassandra loses her brother again: this time, to a careless driver in their home neighborhood of suburban Baltimore. Rich sensory details make both versions of events feel believable, and as the novel progresses and Cassandra grows older, many more

This book by Canadian author Moira Young stands out in the crop of dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction.  The action-packed storyline throws many obstacles and adventures ahead of our protagonist Saba. Saba remains likeable throughout the bleak tone.  There is a bit of Katniss Everdeen in her in the familiar determination, stubbornness, strength, charisma, and heightened survival instincts while fighting the romantic tone of the story.  The first half of this book is intense and suspenseful, colored by Saba's single desire to save her twin brother, Lugh, after he is kidnapped.  It's a very