Leisure Reading: Staff & Student Picks

All you need to know is . . . I'm here to divide and conquer. Like all great tyrants do. --Aces
When two Niveus Private Academy students, Devon Richards and Chiamaka Adebayo, are selected to be part of the elite school's Senior Prefects, it looks like their year is off to an amazing start. After all, not only does it look great on college applications, but it officially puts them in the running for valedictorian, too.
Shortly after the announcement is made, though, someone who goes by Aces begins sending anonymous text messages to reveal secrets about the two of them that turn their lives upside down and threaten every aspect of their carefully planned futures.
As Aces shows no sign of stopping, what seemed like a sick prank quickly turns into a dangerous game, with all the cards stacked against them. Can Devon and Chiamaka stop Aces before things become incredibly deadly? (Back Cover)

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, Robin trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation--also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working--the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars--has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, he realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

York Author

Are you obsessed with John Carpenter's iconic music for the Halloween series? Do you thrill to the unforgettable stabs of the Psycho score, or the pounding synth of Goblin's soundtrack to Suspiria? Do you find yourself being pulled into the hair-raising modern scores for the likes of Get Out, Hereditary, and It Follows?
You're not alone.
Blood on Black Wax is a defining horror soundtrack volume that spotlights iconic franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Jaws, The Exorcist, Child’s Play, and George A. Romero's “living dead” films, highlighting both the music and the amazing, often rare artwork that graces the record sleeves. It also tells the stories behind the soundtrack, from the mouths of the musicians who made them, including John Carpenter, Fabio Frizzi, Christopher Young, Harry Manfredini, Charles Bernstein, Pino Donaggio, John Harrison, and more.
Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas, both of Rue Morgue magazine, have curated Blood on Black Wax to reflect their own passion for the darkest slabs of soundtrack music. Their journey into the fascinating history of horror movie scores contains reviews, release details, and the wild stories about the making of both iconic classics and the strange outliers of the genre – everything from the orchestral sounds of Hammer and Universal horror, to the truly experimental albums for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eraserhead, to the outlandish punk and metal songs of '80s soundtrack albums like The Return of the Living Dead and Shocker.
Go back to your favorite horror films one more time, through the jaw-dropping, spine-tingling music that helped solidify their place in cinematic history! (Publisher)

Three estranged sisters return to their family home in New York after their beloved fourth sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, hope, and the complexities of family, from the acclaimed author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein.
The three Blue sisters are exceptional--and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling.
A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.
But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.
Imbued with Coco Mellors's signature combination of humor and heart, Blue Sisters is a story of what it takes to keep living after loss--and, ultimately, to fall in love with life again. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.
Devon is part of the Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grew up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all book eater women—was raised on a carefully curated diet of fairytales and cautionary stories.
But real life doesn’t always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming...
   Nora Stephens' life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.
   Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.
   If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.   (Publisher)

You can get happier. And getting there will be the adventure of a lifetime.
When times are good, this is easy to believe. But sometimes life’s hardships can feel like impossible barriers, making happiness seem out of reach. In these times, the only way to get happier is to wait and hope things get better. Right? Wrong.
In Build the Life You Want, Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey invite you to begin a journey toward greater happiness, no matter how challenging your circumstances. Combining their decades of experience studying happiness from every angle, they show you how to improve your life right now – instead of waiting for the outside world to change. This is not another book with unrealistic promises of perfect bliss. It is a research-based work plan that meets you wherever you are and shows you how to make greater happiness a choice.
You will learn how to:
- Manage your emotions so they no longer control your outlook and behavior
- Turn life’s inevitable difficulties and challenges into opportunities for growth
- Strengthen your family ties by managing your expectations and building trust
- Create and preserve deep and lasting friendships at any age
- Develop an approach to work that fits your life and brings satisfaction
- Find your inner peace with a spiritual practice
Build the Life You Want introduces you to the cutting-edge science that can change your life, in understandable terms and with actionable strategies. Along the way, Arthur and Oprah share hard-earned wisdom from their own lives and careers, as well as the witness of regular people whose lives are joyful despite setbacks and hardship, including that of a professor who spent the last months of his life getting happier even while suffering from a terminal illness, and insights from a woman whose most fulfilling years came after a failed marriage and a career reset at forty-five. In every page, your happiness skills will grow, and you will learn amazing information you can’t wait to share with others.
Using the tools of emotional self-management, you can take control of your well-being, rather than hoping and waiting for your circumstances to improve. Build the Life You Want is your blueprint for a better life. (Author's Website)

A gothic-infused debut of literary suspense, set within a secluded, elite university and following a dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate who uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school's promise of prestige.
Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study has produced some of the world's best minds. For those lucky few selected, tuition is free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students must give Catherine three years completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their personal clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises its graduates a future of sublime power and prestige.
Among this year's incoming class is Ines, who expects to trade her blurry teenage nights of parties, pills, and cruel friends for rigorous intellectual discipline--only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school's enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore their minds and bodies, to find themselves and their place behind the formidable iron gates of Catherine.
For Ines, the house is the closest thing to a home she's ever had. But its strange protocols soon make this refuge feel like a lavish prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive group of students studying its most mysterious curriculum. (Back Cover)

The man's body is found in the early-morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up.
Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home's residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can't bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can't dismiss the possibility.
Vera, Joe, and new team member Rosie Bell are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible.
From New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves, this stunning new [11th] book in the Vera Stanhope series explores the web of secrets that surrounds a young man's death. (Book Jacket -- Inside Flap)

In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives...but what happens after?
From chain saws to summer camp slayers, Grady Hendrix's fast-paced and wickedly humorous thriller The Final Girl Support Group pays tribute to and slyly subverts our most popular horror films--movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Scream.
Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and Lynette's worst fears are realized--someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece.
But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up. (Back Cover)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation that spawns deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence.
Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, Tempe is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze and sees her misgivings justified. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and Tempe becomes suspicious about the property's ownership when she delves into its history.
The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon, the duo learns that back in the thirties and forties the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant--until the son of a Foggy Bottom Gang member is shot dead at his home in an affluent part of the district. Coincidence? Targeted attacks? So many questions.
As Tempe and Ivy dig deeper, an arrest is finally made. Then another Foggy Bottom Gang-linked property burns to the ground, claiming one more victim. Slowly, Tempe's instincts begin pointing to the obvious: somehow, her moves since coming to Washington have been anticipated, and every path forward seems to bring with it a lethal threat. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

Sixteen college first-years.
One college campus.
Endless possibilities.
Welcome to orientation at Rolland College! Get ready to make new friends, explore the bucolic campus, enjoy the party on tthe quad, and maybe even hunt a ghost or two in this interconnected, cross-genre YA anthology by sixteen acclaimed authors. (Back Cover)
With stories by:
Adi Alsaid * Anna Birch * Bryan Bliss * Gloria Chao * Jennifer Chen * Olivia A. Cole * Dana L. Davis * Kristina Forest * Lauren Gibaldi * Kathleen Glasgow * Sam Maggs * Farah Naz Rishi * Lance Rubin * Aminah Mae Safi * Eric Smith * Phil Stamper

He can't leave. You won't want to.
When, in 1922, thirty-year-old Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel near the Kremlin. An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must now live in an attic room as some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold. Unexpectedly, the Count's reduced circumstances provide him entry into a world of emotional discovery as he forges friendships with the hotel's denizens. But when fate puts the life of a young girl in his hands, he must draw on all his ingenuity to protect the future she deserves. Hailed for its humor, intrigue, and beautifully rendered scenes, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count's endeavor to become a man of purpose. (Back Cover)

30th Anniversary Edition
In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years in the ward for teenage girls at a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary.
Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching document that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery. (Back Cover)

New York Times bestselling author Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past--and your family--can haunt you like nothing else.
When Louise finds out that her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn't want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn't want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father's academic career and her mother's lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn't want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.
Most of all, she doesn't want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she'll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it'll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.
But some houses don't want to be sold, and Louise and Mark's home has other plans for both of them. . . .
Like his novels The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group, How to Sell a Haunted House is classic Hendrix: equal parts heartfelt and terrifying--it's a gripping new read from "the horror master" (USA Today). (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

Every day Iona, a larger-than-life advice columnist, rides the train to work with her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Mr.-Too-Good-to-Be-True. 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 timely 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. (Back Cover)

Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island, it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm, and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.
Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within one hundred and seven hours, the fog will smother the island--and everyone on it.
But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer--and they don't even know it. . . (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Comet's straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob's experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert's condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity. (Book Jacket , Inside Flap)

The inspiration behind Robert Lepage's The Library at Night, an immersive virtual reality experience now playing in Toronto (April - May 2022) https://lighthouseimmersive.com/library

A celebration of reading, of libraries, and of the mysterious human desire to give order to the universe
Inspired by the process of creating a library for his fifteenth-century home near the Loire, in France, Alberto Manguel, the acclaimed writer on books and reading, has taken up the subject of libraries. “Libraries,” he says, “have always seemed to me pleasantly mad places, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been seduced by their labyrinthine logic.” In this personal, deliberately unsystematic, and wide-ranging book, he offers a captivating meditation on the meaning of libraries.
Manguel, a guide of irrepressible enthusiasm, conducts a unique library tour that extends from his childhood bookshelves to the “complete” libraries of the Internet, from Ancient Egypt and Greece to the Arab world, from China and Rome to Google. He ponders the doomed library of Alexandria as well as the personal libraries of Charles Dickens, Jorge Luis Borges, and others. He recounts stories of people who have struggled against tyranny to preserve freedom of thought—the Polish librarian who smuggled books to safety as the Nazis began their destruction of Jewish libraries; the Afghani bookseller who kept his store open through decades of unrest. Oral “memory libraries” kept alive by prisoners, libraries of banned books, the imaginary library of Count Dracula, the library of books never written—Manguel illuminates the mysteries of libraries as no other writer could. With scores of wonderful images throughout, The Library at Night is a fascinating voyage through Manguel’s mind, memory, and vast knowledge of books and civilizations. (Publisher)

In the late 1990s, culture writer Lydia Perović immigrated from Montenegro to the open, optimistic country of Canada and threw herself into its vibrant artistic and cultural communities. She was happy with her decision until about five years ago, when Canada began to change. It turned inward, lost its will to be a nation and a culture, and grew increasingly illiberal in speech and imagination. At the same time, Perović noticed that Canadian arts journalism and criticism began to disappear, leaving her colleagues to take their expertise in topics like literature and opera to the United States, or even to real estate journalism.
Just as she felt she was losing her country, Perović lost her mother, and found herself at a crossroads, questioning all of her life choices. Is she really a Canadian? Is the Canadian project a lost cause? What is a life without a national culture? Why is it so difficult to find oneself an orphan in middle age?
In the company of Janet Ajzenstat, Charles Taylor, Northrop Frye, and Alice Munro, Perović explores some of the most profound questions of our times. Is it possible to feel at home anywhere anymore? Are meaningful lives and lasting friendships the inevitable casualties of our precarious political environment, ethnocentrism, and global media platforms?
Lost in Canada is a shrewd and moving account of one immigrant’s second thoughts about her second home, and a call for all Canadians to think harder about the future of their country and its culture. (Publisher)

In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, futurist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of liberation--queerness, race, gender plurality, and love--become tangled with future possibilities of memory and time in such a totalitarian landscape...and what it might cost to unravel and weave these threads into freedoms.
Whoever controls our memories controls the future.
Janelle Monáe and an incredible array of talented collaborators have crafted a collection of tales comprising the bold vision and powerful themes that have made Monáe such a compelling and celebrated storyteller. Dirty Computer introduced a world in which thoughts--as a means of self-conception--could be controlled or erased by a select few. And whether you were human, AI, or other, your life and sentience were dictated by those who'd convinced themselves they had the right to decide your fate.
That was until Jane 57821 decided to remember and break free.
Expanding from that mythos, these stories fully explore what it's like to live in such a totalitarian society . . . and what it takes to get out of it. Building off the tradition of speculative fiction writers such as Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Becky Chambers, and Nnedi Okorafor--and filled with powerful themes and Monáe's emblematic artistic vision--The Memory Librarian serves to readers tales that dissect the human trials of identity expression, technology, and love, reaching through to the worlds of memory and time, and the stakes and power that pulse there. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans. (Publisher)

In this engrossing and timely journey to the crossroads of food and identity, award-winning writer Anya von Bremzen explores six of the world’s most fascinating and iconic culinary cultures—France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey—brilliantly weaving cuisine, history, and politics into a work of scintillating connoisseurship and charm.
We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is—or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or . . . But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national food canon? Recipient of three James Beard awards, Anya von Bremzen has written definitive cookbooks on Russian, Spanish, and Latin American cuisines, as well as her internationally acclaimed memoir Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking. Now in National Dish, she sets out to investigate the truth behind the eternal cliché—“we are what we eat”—traveling to six storied food capitals, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to scholars to strangers in bars, in search of how cuisine became connected to place and identity.
Paris is where the whole idea of food as national heritage was first invented, and so it is where Anya must begin. With an inquisitive eye and unmistakable wit, she ponders the codification of French food and the current tension between locavorism and globalization. From France, she’s off to Naples, to probe the myth and reality of pizza, pasta, and Italian-ness. Next up, Tokyo, where Anya and her partner Barry explore ramen, rice, and the distance between Japan’s future and its past. From there they move to Seville, to search for the community-based essence of Spain’s tapas traditions, and then Oaxaca, where debates over postcolonial cultural integration find expression in maize and mole. In Istanbul, a traditional Ottoman potluck becomes a lens on how a former multicultural empire defines its food heritage. Finally, they land back in their beloved home in Queens, for a dinner centered on Ukrainian borsch, a meal that has never felt more loaded, or more precious and poignant.
A unique and magical cook’s tour of the world, National Dish brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country. (Publisher)

Collector's Edition ; New Bonus Chapter
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s morning when she needs it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help Jane. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, bighearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.
But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.
The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives. (Publisher)

Do you crank up your stereo and conduct air symphonies to John Williams' Star Wars? Know all of the lyrics to “The NeverEnding Story” or “Xanadu?” Have a burgeoning collection of space disco albums? Well, pluck those Ceti Alpha eels out of your ears and open this book - we've got you covered.
From the orchestral bombast of Jerry Goldsmith's Star Trek: The Motion Picture score, to the muscle-flexing might of Basil Poledouris' Conan the Barbarian, to the dreamy electronic soundscapes of Vangelis' Blade Runner and the pop styling of the Flash Gordon soundtrack, science fiction and fantasy films have inspired some of the most beloved and memorable soundtracks in film history.
Planet Wax covers the best, as well as the most unique and underrated scores the sci-fi and fantasy genres have to offer, while showcasing their original vinyl LP artwork over 240 pages. Franchises like Mad Max, The Terminator, and even the Indiana Jones films are spotlighted, along with television classics such as Doctor Who and Star Trek, making Planet Wax the definitive discography of soundtracks from the films and shows of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s that shaped multiple generations.
Featuring over twenty interviews, including composers Stu Phillips (Battlestar Galactica), Laurence Rosenthal (Clash of the Titans), and directors Richard Donner (Superman) and Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II), Planet Wax chronicles an era in film and music when the sounds were given as much prominence as the interstellar imagery.
Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas, co-authors of Blood on Black Wax: Horror Soundtracks on Vinyl, will take you on the ultimate trip to the far reaches of both the cosmos and their record collections. Planet Wax is the portal to your most fantastic and nostalgic dreams. (Publisher)

Inspired by the work of Souvankham Thammavongsa, Catherine Hernandez and Wayson Choy, this unforgettable novel follows the reunification of Filipino caregiver families over one Canadian winter—and the mysterious progress of Monolith, who appears and disappears in their lives.
When five-year-old Monolith is taken from the Philippines to live with his mother in Canada, he immediately lashes out. Unable or unwilling to speak, he attacks her and destroys his new home.
Everyone wants to know why—and everyone has a theory. But unlike the solid certainty his name suggests, the answer isn’t so simple.
From a cliffside town in the Tagaytay highlands of the Philippines, to the Filipino communities in the desert of Osoyoos, the Arctic world of Iqaluit, the suburbs of southern Ontario, Sarnia's Chemical Valley, Montréal’s Côte-des-Neiges, and Toronto’s Little Manila, Austria-Bonifacio takes readers into the kaleidoscope of the Filipino diaspora, uncovering the displacement, estrangement, resilience and healing that happen behind closed doors.
As each chapter unfolds, truths are revealed in humorous, joyful, devastating and surprising ways: through an incisive caregiver's instruction manual, a custody battle over texts and e-mails, a disarmingly direct self-help guide, a series of desperate résumés, a kundiman songbook, and more.
Monolith appears again and again, as a misbehaving boy in a store, the subject of town gossip, a face in a fundraising campaign, a client in questionable care, a dying man’s beacon of hope—and an unlikely new friend.
Compellingly readable, incisive and resonant, Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio’s stunning debut opens a window into the homes and hearts of the Filipino-Canadian community. (Publisher)

His words. His story.
It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow--and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling--and how their lives would play out from that point on.
For Harry, this is that story at last.
Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness--and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.
At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love.
Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother.. . .
For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief. (Publisher)

Read and enjoy. Do and feel. Meditate and transcend.
When we think of well-being, we often think of our physical and mental health--tending to our bodies and minds to find peace, purpose, and connection in our lives. As Daaji illuminates, there is a third system we too often overlook: The Spiritual Anatomy.
Acting as a sort of atlas for consciousness, the chakras--the centers of spiritual energy that comprise our spiritual anatomy--represent our path to elevated consciousness. As we come closer to the center of ourselves, we encounter the sustainable meaning and happiness we crave in our day-to-day lives. Best of all? We don't need to become a monk or meditate every waking minute to undertake the journey.
In Spiritual Anatomy, Daaji maps the chakras on a journey that leads us back to our hearts--the seat of life and the source of love. Along the way readers will learn the role and importance of the chakras, what blocks the field around the chakras and how to clean it, and proven Heartfulness meditation techniques that help you lead an integrated life guided by the heart's wisdom.
As grounding as it is groundbreaking, Spiritual Anatomy is a must-read for seekers, meditators, and anyone who wants to evolve their consciousness and cultivate joy in their life. (Back Cover)

Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett investigates a mysterious death at a secret high-tech facility in this riveting new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box.
While tracking a wounded elk through a snowstorm, Joe Pickett makes a gruesome discovery: the mutilated body of a university professor wedged inside a mysterious structure. When Joe attempts to learn more, his investigation is obstructed by federal agents, extremists, and Governor Colter Allen.
Meanwhile, Nate Romanowski is approached by a group of militant activists that is gaining power and influence and demanding that Wyoming join other western states and secede from the Union--by force, if necessary.
As a storm of peril gathers around them, Joe and Nate confront it in different ways--and maybe, for the first time, on opposite sides. (Back Cover)

2019 Toronto Book Awards, Finalist
2019 Governor General’s Literary Awards, Fiction Finalist

The Student is a portrait of a life in two snapshots.
It’s 1957 and Miriam Moscowitz is starting her final year of university with unwavering ambition. She is a serious and passionate student of literature who studies hard, dates a young Jewish man with a good job, and is the apple of her father’s eye and the worry of her mother’s. But then, in a single moment, her dreams crumble around her. Unsure of how to break a path for herself, she begins a reckless affair with an American student obsessed with the civil rights clashes in the south. When the young man abandons her to join the movement back home, Miriam gets on a bus to follow him, no longer sure of anything in her life.
Forty-eight years later, Miriam is about to witness her son’s wedding (a newly legal same-sex marriage). She climbs the stairs to her study to look at a book she had carried with her on the bus to Detroit. The marginalia written in her young, minuscule handwriting is familiar and strange, embarrassing and exhilarating, and she wonders what the young person who wrote all these words almost half a century ago has to do with the old woman who reads them now.
The Student is a compassionate and compelling work of fiction that brings together two pivotal times in history. With its innovative structure, masterful prose, and intelligently crafted characters, this book illustrates how we are shaped by — and can eventually overcome — the constraints of the times we occupy.
(Author's Website)

Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles. (Publisher)

With an introduction by Jeff VanderMeer that makes an ardent case for its relevance to today’s world, this rediscovered classic of Scandinavian fiction is still shockingly relevant more than fifty years after it was first published. Sven Holm’s Termush is a searing and prophetic study of humanity forced into a moral bind through its own doing.
Termush caters to every need of its wealthy patrons—first among them, a coveted spot at this exclusive seaside getaway, a resort designed for the end of the world.
Everyone within its walls has been promised full protection from the aftereffects of “the disaster.” The staff work behind the scenes to create a calming and frictionless mood; they pipe soothing music into the halls and quickly remove the dead birds that fall out of the sky. But the specter of death remains. Recon teams come and go in protective gear. Fear of contamination spreads as the hotel cautiously welcomes survivors only to then censor news of their arrival. As the days pass, the veneer of control begins to crack, and it becomes clear that the residents of Termush can insulate themselves from neither the physical effects of the cataclysm nor the moral fallout of using their wealth to separate themselves from the fate of those trapped outside. (Publisher)

In this exhilarating novel by the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, two friends--often in love, but never lovers--come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.
On a bitter cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and, above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

50th Anniversary Edition
Before Jackie Collins, Candace Bushnell and Lena Dunham, Jacqueline Susann held the world rapt with her tales of the private passions of Hollywood starlets, high-powered industrialists and the jet-set.
Valley of the Dolls took the world by storm when it was first published, fifty years ago. Never had a book been so frank about sex, drugs and show business. It is often sited as the bestselling novel of all time.
Dolls – red or black; capsules or tablets; washed down with vodka or swallowed straight. For Anne, Neely and Jennifer, it doesn’t matter, as long as the pill bottle is within easy reach. These three beautiful women become best friends when they are young and in New York, struggling to make their names in the entertainment industry. Only when they reach the peak of their careers do they find there’s nowhere left to go but down – to the Valley of the Dolls. (Publisher)

2020 National Book Award, Fiction Longlist

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it’s not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it’s everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person’s decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. (Publisher)

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just the chosen ones – those who are lost – will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as its new owner to find the pawnshop ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike other customers. For he offers help, instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice – through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own – and risk making a choice she will never be able to take back. (Author's Website)

What are you looking for?
So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it.
A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose.
In Komachi's unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is about the magic of libraries and the discovery of connection. This inspirational tale shows how, by listening to our hearts, seizing opportunity and reaching out, we too can fulfill our lifelong dreams. Which book will you recommend? (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last. (Publisher)

White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences…
Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. (Book Jacket, Inside Flap)

“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.
In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for. (Publisher)

The inspiration for the exhibit "Miriam's World", held at the Art Gallery of York University, May 8-12, 2019.
http://agyu.art/