2022 - Fall Staff Reads


Showing 1 - 20 of 42  There are a total of 42 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Animal"
Star rating for Animal
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Joan has spent a lifetime enduring the cruelties of men. But when one of them commits a shocking act of violence in front of her, she flees New York City in search of Alice, the only person alive who can help her make sense of her past. In the sweltering hills above Los Angeles, Joan unravels the horrific event she witnessed as a child--that has haunted her every waking moment--while forging the power to finally strike back.--
Book cover for "The book of goose"
Star rating for The book of goose
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised--the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged, backwater town, they'd built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves--until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic...
Book cover for "Demon Copperhead"
Star rating for Demon Copperhead
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves,...
Book cover for "Doctors and friends"
Star rating for Doctors and friends
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Hannah, Compton, and Kira have been close friends since medical school, reuniting once a year for a much-needed vacation. Just as they gather to travel in Spain, an outbreak of a fast-spreading virus throws the world into chaos. When Compton Winfield returns to her job as an ER doctor in New York City, she finds a city changed beyond recognition-and a personal loss so gutting it reshapes every aspect of her life. Hannah Geier's career as an ob-gyn...
Book cover for "Extreme North"
Star rating for Extreme North
Description:
"Scholars and laymen alike have long projected their fantasies onto the great expanse of the global North, whether it be as a frozen no-man's-land, an icy realm of marauding Vikings, or an unspoiled cradle of prehistoric human life. Bernd Brunner reconstructs the encounters of adventurers, colonists, and indigenous communities that led to the creation of a northern "cabinet of wonders" and imbued Scandinavia, Iceland, and the Arctic with a perennial...
Book cover for "Finding the mother tree"
Star rating for Finding the mother tree
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and other living things in the forest--a moving, inspiring journey of discovery. Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communciation and intelligence; she's been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers...
Book cover for "Four thousand weeks"
Star rating for Four thousand weeks
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
"A lively philosophical guide to time and time management, setting aside superficial efficiency solutions in favor of reckoning with and finding joy in the finitude of human life"--
Book cover for "The galaxy, and the ground within"
Star rating for The galaxy, and the ground within
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"With no water, no air, and no native life, the planet Gora is unremarkable. The only thing it has going for it is a chance proximity to more popular worlds, making it a decent stopover for ships traveling between the wormholes that keep the Galactic Commons connected. If deep space is a highway, Gora is just your average truck stop. At the Five-Hop One-Stop, long-haul spacers can stretch their legs (if they have legs, that is), and get fuel, transit...
Book cover for "Ghost wars"
Star rating for Ghost wars
Author:
Description:
An account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars which sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and which provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979...
Book cover for "Happy-go-lucky"
Star rating for Happy-go-lucky
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
David Sedaris returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso. Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask - or not - was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian...
Book cover for "Home made"
Star rating for Home made
Author:
Description:
"Liz Hauck and her dad had a plan to start a weekly cooking program in a residential home for teen-aged boys in state care, which was run by the human services agency he co-directed. When her father died unexpectedly after a brief illness, Liz decided to attempt the cooking project without him. She didn't know what to expect volunteering with court-involved youth, but as a high school teacher she knew that teenagers are drawn to food-related activities,...
Book cover for "How not to drown in a glass of water"
Star rating for How not to drown in a glass of water
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From the beloved author of Dominicana, a GMA Book Club Pick and Women's Prize Finalist, an electrifying and indelible new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story. Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work. Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market...
Book cover for "I'm glad my mom died"
Star rating for I'm glad my mom died
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor - including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother - and how she retook control of her life." --
Book cover for "In the dream house"
Star rating for In the dream house
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
The author's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming.
Book cover for "Life on the Mississippi"
Star rating for Life on the Mississippi
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"The eagerly awaited return of master American storyteller Rinker Buck, Life on the Mississippi is an epic, enchanting blend of history and adventure in which Buck builds a wooden flatboat from the grand "flatboat era" of the 1800s and sails it down the Mississippi River, illuminating the forgotten past of America's first western frontier."--Amazon.
Book cover for "The long hangover"
Star rating for The long hangover
Description:
By cleverly exploiting the memory of the Soviet victory over fascism in World War II, Putin's regime has made ordinary Russians feel that their country is great again.Shaun Walker provides new insight into contemporary Russia and its search for a new identity, telling the story through the country's troubled relationship with its Soviet past. Walker not only explains Vladimir Putin's goals and the government's official manipulations of history, but...
Book cover for "Mean baby"
Star rating for Mean baby
Description:
"The first story Selma Blair Beitner ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby. With her mouth pulled in a perpetual snarl and a head so furry it had to be rubbed to make way for her forehead, Selma spent years living up to her terrible reputation: biting her sisters, lying spontaneously, getting drunk from Passover wine at the age of seven, and behaving dramatically so that she would be the center of attention. Although Selma went...

18. Mecca

Book cover for "Mecca"
Star rating for Mecca
Description:
"A California epic following several native, diverse Californians grasping for air in a world that continues to marginalize them"-- Johnny F̕ras has California in his blood. A descendant of the state's Indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California's forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie...
Book cover for "The murder book"
Star rating for The murder book
Series:
Description:
"Tom Thorne finally has it all. In Nicola Tanner and Phil Hendricks, Thorne has good friends by his side. His love life is newly reformed by a promising relationship and he is happy in the job he has devoted his life to. As he sets off hunting the woman responsible for a series of grisly murders, Thorne has no way of knowing that he will be plunged into a nightmare from which he may never wake. A nightmare that has a name. Thorne's past threatens...

20. My body

Book cover for "My body"
Star rating for My body
Description:
In this personal exploration of feminism, sexuality and power, of men's treatment of women and women's rationalizations for accepting that treatment, the acclaimed model and actress presents essays that chronicle moments of her life while investigating culture's fetishization of girls and female beauty.