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New Books on CD

Return to New Items

Passions in death [sound recording (CD)] / J. D. Robb.
cover imageOn a hot August night, Lt. Eve Dallas and her husband, Roarke, speed through the streets of Manhattan to the Down and Dirty club, where a joyful, boisterous pre-wedding girls' night out has turned into a murder scene. One of the brides lies in a pool of blood, garroted in a private room where she was preparing a surprise for her fiancée, two scrimped and saved-for tickets to Hawaii. Despite the dozens of people present, useful witnesses are hard to come by. It all brings back some bad memories for Eve who once suffered an assault in the very same room, but she'd been able to fight back and survive. She'd gotten justice. And now she needs to provide some for poor young Erin. Eve knows that the level of violence and the apparent premeditation involved suggest a volatile mix of hidden, heated passion and ice-cold calculation. This is a crime that can be countered only by hard detective work and relentless dedication, and Eve will not stop until she finds the killer who destroyed this couple's dreams before the honeymoon even began.

House of glass [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Sarah Pekkanen.
cover imageOn the outside they were the golden family with the perfect life. On the inside they built the perfect lie. A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying? Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny, in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce, and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella's mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help. From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found. As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny's murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny's boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella's supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?

Long division : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Kiese Laymon.
cover imageIn 2013, after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen "City" Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he's sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie, where a young girl named Baize Shephard has recently disappeared. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book's main characters is also named City Coldson, but Long Division is set in 1985. This 1985-version of City, along with his friend and love interest, Shalaya Crump, discovers a way to travel into the future, and steals a laptop and cellphone from an orphaned teenage rapper called Baize Shephard. They ultimately take these items with them all the way back to 1964, to help another time-traveler they meet to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan.

The ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Briony Cameron.
cover imageWhen her way of life is threatened, Jacquotte Delahaye is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa. Jacquotte and her band become indentured servants to the infamous Blackhand, a ruthless pirate captain who rules his ship with an iron fist. As they struggle to survive his brutality, Jacquotte finds herself unable to resist Teresa despite their differences. When Blackhand hatches a dangerous scheme to steal a Portuguese shipment of jewels, Jacquotte must rely on her wits, resourcefulness, and friends to survive.

The final act of Juliette Willoughby [sound recording (CD)] / Ellery Lloyd.
cover imageIn 1938, heiress artist Juliette Willoughby perished in a studio fire in Paris. Fifty years later, two Cambridge art history students are confounded when they stumble across proof that the fire was no accident.

The tiger's apprentice [sound recording (CD)] / Laurence Yep.
cover imageTom Lee's life changes forever the day he meets a talking tiger named Mr. Hu and discovers that he has magical powers and great responsibilities that he never imagined. Despite his doubts and fears, Tom joins Mr. Hu's ragtag band of creatures in their fight to keep an ancient talisman out of the hands of the worst possible enemy.

Watership Down [sound recording (CD)] / Richard Adams.
cover imageAfter Fiver senses danger, a small band of rabbits must leave their warren to search for a new home.

Stuart's cape [sound recording (CD)] / by Sara Pennypacker.
cover imageBored because there is nothing to do in the house to which his family has just moved and worried about starting third grade in a new school, Stuart makes a magical cape out of his uncle's ties and has a series of adventures.

Shakespeare's tales retold for children [sound recording (CD)] : 16 books / Samantha Newman.
cover imageThis box set brings the Bard's timeless tales to life for a younger generation. Samantha Newman's cleverly reworked text retains many of Shakespeare's own inimitable turns of phrase, while simplifying and clarifying the language and plots to make stories accessible to children.

A book of balance [sound recording (CD)] : Kogi wisdom for a good life and thriving Earth / Lucas Buchholz.
cover imageIn this slim volume of spiritual introspection, they ask us to share in their practice, posing nine questions that focus our minds and hearts on who we are, who we can become. Throughout we hear the words of the Kogi elders, wisdom that offers revelations, inspiration, and direction for our everyday lives.

The sons of El Rey [sound recording (CD)] / Alex Espinoza.
cover imageThis saga, spanning 1960s Mexico City to contemporary Los Angeles, follows a family of free-style wrestlers, Luchadores, with daredevil rock-star status, as they contend with changing times and Hollywood's underbelly.

The borrowed hills [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Scott Preston.
cover imageIn 2001, after a disease decimates the sheep population of northern England, two neighboring shepherds who lost everything turn to sheep rustling. But the heists lead to more difficult decisions involving the wife of one of the shepherds and the increasing influence of a lawless outsider. And the struggles of this land of moors and mountains are never far away.

You are here [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / David Nicholls.
cover imageWhen a persistent mutual friend conspires to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse, until they discover exactly what they've been looking for.

Sandwich [sound recording (CD)] / a novel by Catherine Newman.
cover imageFor decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family's yearly escape to their humble beach rental on Cape Cod. But this year, Rocky is sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents and is experiencing menopausal bouts of rage and melancholy. Then events trigger the past, forcing her to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

Sipsworth [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Simon Van Booy.
cover imageFollowing the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.

The air they breathe [sound recording (CD)] : a pediatrician on the frontlines of climate change / Debra Hendrickson, MD.
cover imagePediatrician Debra Hendrickson is based in Reno, the fastest warming city in America, where ash rains during wildfires. Here she recounts patients harmed by air pollution to show health impacts of climate change.

We have always lived in the castle [sound recording (CD)] / by Shirley Jackson.
cover imageSix years after four family members died suspiciously--of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods--elder, agoraphobic sister Constance; wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian; and eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine, or, Merricat--live together in pleasant isolation. Merricat has developed an idiosyncratic system of rules and protective magic to guard the estate against intrusions from hostile villagers. But one day a stranger arrives--cousin Charles, with his eye on the Blackwood fortune--and manages to penetrate into their carefully shielded lives. Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods, resulting in crisis, tragedy, and the revelation of a terrible secret--Container.

The Briar Club [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Kate Quinn.
cover imageWashington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, an all-female boardinghouse where secrets hide. But when Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship. When an act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

The dark wives [sound recording (CD)] / Ann Cleeves.
cover imageA man's body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a care 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. DI 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.

Our kind of game [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Johanna Copeland.
cover image2019. Stella Parker has the life she's always wanted: a loving husband, two happy children that she gave up her law career to raise, and a beautiful house in the tony suburbs of Washington, DC. But when her neighbor Gwen shows up at her door, claiming to know things about her, Stella's life is thrown into turmoil and she's forced to reckon with the dark secret upon which she's built her life.

The summer pact [sound recording (CD)] / Emily Giffin.
cover imageFour freshmen arrive at college from completely different worlds: Lainey, a California party girl with a flair for drama; Tyson, a brilliant scholar and law school hopeful from D.C.; Summer, a recruited athlete and perfectionist from the Midwest; and Hannah, a mild-mannered southerner who is content to quietly round out the circle of big personalities. Soon after moving into their shared dorm, they strike up a conversation in a study lounge, and the seeds of friendship are planted. As their college years fly by, their bond intensifies and the four become inseparable. But as graduation nears, their lives are forever changed after a desperate act leads to tragic consequences. Stunned and heartbroken, a pact is made to be there for each other in their time of need, no matter how separated they are by circumstances or distance. Ten years later, Hannah is anticipating what should be one of the happiest moments of her life when everything is suddenly turned upside down. Calling on her closest friends, it soon becomes clear that they are facing their own crossroads. True to their promise, they agree to take a time out from lives headed in wrong directions and embark on a journey of self-discovery, forgiveness, and acceptance.

The bright sword [sound recording (CD)] : a novel of King Arthur / Lev Grossman.
cover imageA gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he's too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive. They aren't the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They're the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur's fool, who was knighted as a joke. They're joined by Nimue, who was Merlin's apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance. But Arthur's death has revealed Britain's fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur's half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they'll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain's dark past.

What you leave behind : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Wanda M. Morris.
cover imageDeena Wood's life has fallen apart in the aftermath of losing her beloved mother, her marriage, and her prestigious job at an Atlanta law firm. She returns to her childhood home in Brunswick, Georgia, to heal. One day, she unwittingly finds herself on the oceanfront property of a loner widower who is fighting to keep land that has been in his family since the end of the Civil War. He threatens her and warns her to never return. But shortly after, he disappears, and his very expensive property is quickly put up for sale. Curious about what has happened to the man, Deena digs into his disappearance and finds a family legacy at risk.

Don't let the devil ride : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Ace Atkins.
cover imageAddison McKellar knows she and her husband Dean don't have the perfect marriage, but she's still shocked when he completely vanishes from her life. Addison turns to an old friend of her father, Memphis PI Porter Hayes. As Porter and Addison dig deeper into Dean's affairs, they quickly discover that he was never the hardworking business owner and family man he pretended to be.

The witchstone [sound recording (CD)]/ Henry H. Neff.
cover imageMeet Laszlo, 800-year-old demon and Hell's least productive Curse Keeper. He oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black stone. Laszlo's ratings are so abysmal that he's given six days to shape up or he'll be returned to the Primordial Ooze. Meet Maggie Drakeford, nineteen-year-old Curse Bearer. The future looks hopeless, until Laszlo appears and informs them that they have six days to break the spell before it becomes permanent. Can Maggie trust the glib and handsome Laszlo?

The midnight feast : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Lucy Foley.
cover imageGuests gather for the opening of the Manor hotel, the new jewel on the Dorset coastline. The wine is flowing, the guest list sparkling, the sun setting on a lovely summer solstice. But the Manor has a secret history, built in the shadows of an ancient wood. Now old friends and enemies are creeping out of the shadows. And they'll soon discover what else comes out at night.

Moral injuries : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Christie Watson.
cover imageRuthlessly ambitious Olivia, anxious perfectionist Laura, and free-spirited risk-taker Anjali couldn't be more different. Yet their friendship, which began the first day of medical school, has kept them inseparable these past twenty-five years. Long ago, they promised that nothing would come between them, and to do anything for one another, including burying that night they have never spoken about: a university party fueled by drugs, sex, and secrets that forced them to make a deadly choice that could have destroyed them. When an eerily similar tragedy strikes involving the women's teenaged children, everything the three friends have built threatens to crumble around them, forcing them to decide how far they can stretch their friendship before it snaps.

Perfume and pain : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Anna Dorn.
cover imageHaving recently moved both herself and her formidable perfume bottle collection into a tiny bungalow in Los Angeles, mid-list author Astrid Dahl finds herself back in the Zoom writer's group she cofounded, Sapphic Scribes, after an incident that leaves her and her career lightly canceled. But she temporarily forgets all that by throwing herself into a few sexy distractions, like Ivy, a grad student researching 1950s lesbian pulp who smells like metallic orchids, or her new neighbor, Penelope, who smells like patchouli. Penelope, a painter living off Urban Outfitters settlement money, immediately ingratiates herself in Astrid's life, bonding with her best friends and family, just as Astrid and Ivy begin to date in person. Astrid feels judged and threatened by Penelope, a responsible older vegan, but also finds her irresistibly sexy. When Astrid receives an unexpected call from her agent with the news that actress and influencer Kat Gold wants to adapt her previous novel for TV, Astrid finally has a chance to resurrect her waning career. But the pressure causes Astrid's worst vice to rear its head, the Patricia Highsmith, a blend of Adderall, alcohol, and cigarettes, and results in blackouts and a disturbing series of events.

Blue pastures [sound recording (CD)]/ Mary Oliver.
cover imageMary Oliver shares fifteen prose pieces on nature, writing, herself, and those around her. She praises Whitman, denounces cuteness, notes where to find the extraordinary, and extols solitude.

Swiped : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ L. M. Chilton.
cover imageGwen Turner has made a bloody mess of her life. She recently broke up with the best man she's ever known for reasons even she can't admit to herself and quit a lucrative job to open her own coffee shop. To top it all off, her best friend is getting married and leaving her behind in singlehood. Along with too much cheap wine and bad reality TV, Gwen turns to a dating app to help fill the void in her life. Swiping through the few eligible bachelors left in town, she spends her evenings out on one disastrous date after another. But when a string of murders suddenly occurs in her small coastal English city, she's shocked by the connection between each of the victims-they've all been on a date with her. Before she knows what's happening, Gwen finds herself the main suspect in a serial killer's murderous spree, and the only way she can clear her name is to track down her former dates (even those that have ghosted her) and unmask a killer before it's too late.

Middletide : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Sarah Crouch.
cover imageWhen the lifeless body of Dr. Erin Landry is found in front of failed writer Elijah Leith's home, the town turns against him. Elijah must fight for his innocence against an unexpected foe cunning enough to frame him for murder.

The safekeep [sound recording (CD)]/ Yael van der Wouden.
cover imageIt is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be, led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel's doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel's antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn't. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house, a spoon, a knife, a bowl, Isabel's suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva, nor the house in which they live, are what they seem.

How the light gets in : a novel [sound recording (CD)]/ Joyce Maynard.
cover imageFollowing the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby's older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface.

Enlightenment [sound recording (CD)]/ Sarah Perry.
cover imageThomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship. In the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely for London. Over the course of twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace will find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a devastating tale of love and scientific pursuit.

Captain Underpants and the attack of the talking toilets : [the second epic novel] / by Dav Pilkey.
cover imageGeorge and Harold's latest prank backfires, and they accidentally invent an army of terrifying talking toilets. Luckily, they know a superhero with enough snap in his waistband to save the day! This looks like another job for the amazing Captain Underpants!

Captain Underpants and the perilous plot of Professor Poopypants [sound recording (CD)] : [the fourth epic novel] / by Dav Pilkey.
cover imageWhen Professor Pippy P. Poopypants comes to Jerome Horwitz Elementary School to teach science, and he goes off the deep end because students make fun of his name, Only Captain Underpants can save the school from the professor's perilous plot.

Captain Underpants and the invasion of the incredibly naughty cafeteria ladies from outer space (and the subsequent assault of the equally evil lunchroom zombie nerds) [sound recording (CD)] : the third epic novel / by Dav Pilkey.
cover imageGeorge and Harold have played a trick or two on nearly everyone at Jerome Horwitz Elementary. When their latest prank causes the school's cranky cafeteria ladies to quit, Mr. Krupp hires a trio of unusual replacements, who happen to look an awful lot like aliens! Will that curtain-caped crusader, Captain Underpants, save the day once more? Or will those outer space cafeteria ladies have him for lunch?

Sounder [sound recording (CD)] / William H. Armstrong.
cover imageAngry and humiliated when his sharecropper father is jailed for stealing food for his family, a young black boy grows in courage and understanding by learning to read and with the help of the devoted dog Sounder.

Jack's boys [sound recording (CD)] / John Katzenbach.
cover imageFive serial killers gather in an encrypted chat room to relish each other's crimes. But when their hidden enclave is hacked by a pair of teenagers threatening to expose them, the killers must emerge from the shadows.

Last house [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Jessica Shattuck.
cover imageIt's 1953, and for Nick Taylor, WWII veteran turned company lawyer, oil is the key to the future. He takes the train into the city for work and returns to the peaceful streets of the suburbs and to his wife, Bet, former codebreaker now housewife, and their two children, Katherine and Harry. Nick comes from humble origins but thanks to his work for American Oil, he can provide every comfort for his family, including Last House, a secluded country escape. Deep in the Vermont mountains, the Taylors are free from the stresses of modern life. Bet doesn't have to worry about the Russian H-bombs that haunt her dreams, and the children roam free in the woods. Last House is a place that could survive the end of the world. It's 1968, and America is on the brink of change. Protestors fill the streets to challenge everything from the Vietnam War to racism in the wake of MLK's shooting, to the country's reliance on Big Oil. As Katherine makes her first forays into adult life, she's caught up in the current of the time and struggles to reconcile her ideals with the stable and privileged childhood her Greatest Generation parents worked so hard to provide. But when the Movement shifts in a more radical direction, each member of the Taylor family will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the choices they've made for the causes they believed in.

Soldier sailor [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Claire Kilroy.
cover imageThe author takes listeners into the early days of motherhood, conjuring the raw emotions of a new mother as her marriage strains and she struggles with questions of equality, autonomy, and creativity.

The great river : the making & unmaking of the Mississippi [sound recording (CD)]/ Boyce Upholt.
cover imageBoyce Upholt tells the epic story of human attempts to own and contain the Mississippi River. He delivers a startling account of what happens when we try to fight against nature instead of acknowledging and embracing its power.

The ministry of time [soundrecording (cd)] : a novel/ Kaliane Bradley.
cover imageIn the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible, for the body but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a "bridge": living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic. Over the course of an unprecedented year, Gore and the bridge fall haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences they never could have imagined.

The cats of Silver Crescent [sound recording (CD)] / Kaela Noel.
cover imageWhile visiting her aunt, twelve-year-old Elsby meets the neighbors: talking cats that walk on their hind legs. They need Elsby's help to renew the magic that made them, but every enchantment comes at a price.

The day I fell into a fairy tale [sound recording (CD)] / Ben Miller.
cover imageLana loves stories, especially the ones she and her brother, Harrison, share in their make-believe games. But when Harrison decides he's too grown-up to play with Lana anymore, she's too lonely to find the wonder in storytelling, until something magical happens.

The phantom tollbooth [sound recording (CD)] / Norton Juster.
cover imageA journey through a land where Milo learns the importance of words and numbers and finds a cure for his boredom.

Into the wild [sound recording (CD)] / Erin Hunter.
cover imageFor generations, four Clans of wild cats have shared the forest according to the laws laid down by their ancestors. But the warrior code has been threatened, and the ThunderClan cats are in grave danger. The sinister ShadowClan grows stronger every day. Noble warriors are dying, and some deaths are more mysterious than others.

Just add water [sound recording (CD)] : my swimming life / Katie Ledecky.
cover imageKatie Ledecky has won more individual Olympic races than any female swimmer in history. She is a three-time Olympian, a seven-time gold medalist, a twenty-one-time world champion, eight-time NCAA Champion, and a world record-holder in individual swimming events. Time and again, the question is posed to her family, her coaches, and to her, what makes her a champion? Now, for the first time, she shares what it takes to compete at an elite level. Again and again, Ledecky has broken records: those of others and, increasingly, her own. She is both consistent and innovative, consistent at setting goals and shattering them, and innovative in the way she approaches her training. A true competitor, she sets her goals by choosing the ones that feel the scariest. But, crucially, she never sacrifices the joy of competition, even in the face of adversity. Her positive mental outlook and a great support system provides the springboard to her success. Just Add Water charts Ledecky's life in swimming. It details her start in Bethesda, Maryland, where she played sharks and minnows and first discovered the joy of the pool; her early foray into the Olympics at the tender age of fifteen where, as the youngest member of the American team, she stunned everyone by winning her first gold medal; her time balancing competition and her education at Stanford University; how she developed a champion's mindset that has allowed her to persevere through so many meets, even under intense pressure; and how she has maintained her dominance in a sport where success depends on milliseconds. You learn how every element of her life, from the support of her family to the tutelage of her coaches, from her childhood spent in summer league swimming to the bright lights of Olympic pools in London, Rio, and Tokyo, set her up to become the champion she is. In the end, Katie's story is about testing yourself against the difficult, and seeing who you become on the other side.

The last murder at the end of the world [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Stuart Turton.
cover imageOutside 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. Until one of the scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. If the murder isn't solved within ninety-two 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.

Mirrored heavens [sound recording (CD)]/ Rebecca Roanhorse.
cover imageSerapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled. Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won't talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised. And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.

The summer escape [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Jill Shalvis.
cover imageAnna Moore finds herself racing against the clock to prove her father did not steal an expensive necklace. Sexy Owen Harris thinks her dad is guilty. Together they must hunt for clues to the past, and maybe find love.

A walk in the park [sounnd recording (CD)] : the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon / Kevin Fedarko.
cover imageA few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be "a walk in the park." Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as "the toughest hike in the world." The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined, and came within a hair's breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through the all but impenetrable reaches of its truest wilderness, a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril, and where, even today, there is still no trail along the length of the country's best-known and most iconic park. Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, where only a handful of humans have ever laid eyes. Members of the canyon's eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the center of our national parks, and exposed them to the impinging threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko's dying father, who had first pointed him toward the canyon more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape. And always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving but suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty.

How to become famous [sound recording (CD)] : lost Einsteins, forgotten superstars, and how the Beatles came to be / Cass R. Sunstein.
cover imageFocusing on both famous and forgotten (or simply overlooked) artists and luminaries in music, literature, business, science, politics, and other fields, Cass Sunstein explores why some individuals become famous and others don't, and offers a new understanding of the role of greatness, luck, and contingency in the achievement of fame.

Woman of interest [sound recording (CD)] : a memoir / Tracy O'Neill.
cover imageIn 2020, thirtysomething Tracy O'Neill was just out of a ten-year relationship, and she was driven by an acute awareness that the mysterious mother she'd never met might be dying somewhere in South Korea. In this memoir, O'Neill bends the detective genre to her own will as a writer, stepping out of the shadows of her own self-conception to illuminate the hopes of the woman of interest she is both chasing and becoming.

When the sea came alive : an oral history of D-Day [sound recording (CD)] / Garrett M. Graff.
cover imageD-Day is a human drama that fundamentally changed the trajectory of history. This book covers it all, exploring the full impact of this world-changing event.

The cemetery of untold stories [sound recording (CD)] / Julia Alvarez.
cover imageAlma Cruz doesn't want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories, literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives.

The burning [sound recording (CD)] / Linda Castillo.
cover imageNewlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father. Kate knows all too well that the Amish prefer to handle their problems without interference from the outside world, and no one will speak about the murdered man. From what she's able to piece together, Swanz led a deeply troubled life and had recently been excommunicated. But if that's the case, why are the Amish so reluctant to talk about him? Are they protecting the memory of one of their own? Or are they afraid of something they dare not share? When her own brother is implicated in the case, Kate finds herself not only at odds with the Amish, the world of which she was once a part, but also the English community and her counterparts in law enforcement. The investigation takes a violent turn when Kate's life is threatened by a mysterious stranger. To uncover the truth about the death of Milan Swanz, Kate must dive deep into the Anabaptist culture, peering into all the dark corners of its history, only to uncover a secret legacy that shatters everything she thought she knew about the Amish themselves, and her own roots.

A death in Cornwall [sound recording (CD)] / Daniel Silva.
cover imageArt restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into London to attend a reception at the Courtauld Gallery celebrating the return of a stolen self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh. But when an old friend from the Devon and Cornwall Police seeks his help with a baffling murder investigation, he finds himself pursuing a powerful and dangerous new adversary. The victim is Charlotte Blake, a celebrated professor of art history from Oxford who spends her weekends in the same seaside village where Gabriel once lived under an assumed identity. Her murder appears to be the work of a diabolical serial killer who has been terrorizing the Cornish countryside. But there are a number of telltale inconsistencies, including a missing mobile phone. And then there is the mysterious three-letter cypher she left behind on a notepad in her study. Gabriel soon discovers that Professor Blake was searching for a looted Picasso worth more than a $100 million, and he takes up the chase for the painting as only he can, with six Impressionist canvases forged by his own hand and an unlikely team of operatives that includes a world-famous violinist, a beautiful master thief, and a lethal contract killer turned British spy. The result is a stylish and wildly entertaining mystery that moves at lightning speed from the cliffs of Cornwall to the enchanted island of Corsica and, finally, to a breathtaking climax on the very doorstep of 10 Downing Street.

Look again [sound recording (CD)] : the power of noticing what was always there / Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein.
cover imageHave you ever noticed that what is thrilling on Monday tends to become boring on Friday? Even exciting relationships, stimulating jobs, and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while. People stop noticing what is most wonderful in their own lives. They also stop noticing what is terrible. They get used to dirty air. They stay in abusive relationships. People grow to accept authoritarianism and take foolish risks. They become unconcerned by their own misconduct, blind to inequality, and are more liable to believe misinformation than ever before. But what if we could find a way to see everything anew? What if you could regain sensitivity, not only to the great things in your life, but also to the terrible things you stopped noticing and so don't try to change? Now, neuroscience professor Tali Sharot and Harvard law professor (and presidential advisor) Cass R. Sunstein investigate why we stop noticing both the great and not-so-great things around us and how to "dishabituate" at the office, in the bedroom, at the store, on social media, and in the voting booth. This groundbreaking work, based on decades of research in the psychological and biological sciences, illuminates how we can reignite the sparks of joy, innovate, and recognize where improvements urgently need to be made. The key to this disruption, to seeing, feeling, and noticing again, is change. By temporarily changing your environment, changing the rules, changing the people you interact with, or even just stepping back and imagining change, you regain sensitivity, allowing you to more clearly identify the bad and more deeply appreciate the good.

They came for the schools [sound recording (CD)] : one town's fight over race and identity, and the new war for America's classrooms / Mike Hixenbaugh.
cover imageJournalist Mike Hixenbaugh tells the story of how a school board win for the conservative right in one Texas suburb inspired a Christian nationalist campaign now threatening to undermine public education in America.

Clete [sound recording (CD)] / James Lee Burke.
cover imageClete Purcel, private investigator, ex-member of the New Orleans Police Department, and war veteran with a hard shell and just a few soft spots, is Dave Robicheaux's longtime friend and partner in detective work. But he has a troubled past. When Clete leaves his car at the local car wash, only to return to find it ransacked by a group of thugs tied to the drug trade from Mexican cartels to Louisiana, it feels personal, his grandniece died of a fentanyl overdose, and his fists curl when he thinks of the dealers who sold it. Just as Clete starts to trail the culprits, Clara Bow, a woman with a dark past hires Clete as a detective to investigate her scheming, slippery ex-husband, and a string of brutal deaths all link back to a heavily tattooed man who seems to lurk around every corner. Clete is experiencing shockingly lifelike hallucinations and questioning Clara's ulterior motives when he and Dave start to hear rumors of a dangerous substance with potentially catastrophic effects. The thugs who destroyed his car might have been pawns in a scheme far darker than they could've imagined.

Familiaris [sound recording (CD)] / David Wroblewski.
cover imageIt is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble, again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's northwoods, where they hope to make a fresh start, and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends, to realize their dreams.

The road to freedom [sound recording (CD)] : economics and the good society / Joseph E. Stiglitz.
cover imageForces on the political Right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more. How did we get here? In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America's current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. These movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom. As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. As he argues, the failures follow from the elites' unshakeable dedication to "the neoliberal experiment." The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms--one that considers what to do when one person's freedom conflicts with another's.

The sheltering sky : a novel / Paul Bowles.
cover imageThree American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II encounter the limits of human existence in the form of a land and a people utterly alien to them.

Act of defiance [sound recording (CD)]/ by Andrews & Wilson.
cover imageUS intelligence is reporting turmoil in the Russian navy. Their deadliest submarine, the Belgorod, has unexpectedly launched, and taken along with it a long list of questions. Who authorized the departure? What mission is it on? And, most disturbing of all, what weapons do the giant doors on the sub's bow hide? It's been four decades since a similar incident with the Soviet sub, Red October, ended happily, thanks to a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan. Now, President Jack Ryan finds himself with fleets of ships, squadrons of jets, and teams of SEALs at his command, but what he doesn't have is insight into the plans of the Belgorod's commander. It falls to a younger generation of Ryans to do the dangerous work that will reveal that information. But there's always a price to be paid. When the final moments tick away, will Jack Ryan have to choose between the safety of his country and the safety of his child?

The coast road [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Alan Murrin.
cover imageIn 1994, Colette Crowley, a poet, left her husband for a married man in Dublin. When she returns, her husband only gives her access to her children if housewife Izzy Keaveney, their neighbor, acts as a go-between.

The monarchs of Winghaven [sound recording (CD)] / Naila Moreira.
cover imageSammie, a budding naturalist, knows of a secret and wonderful place: Winghaven, an abandoned lot in the middle of the suburbs where wildlife flourishes. When Bram, a new boy, turns up with his camera, Sammie worries he'll give away her hidden haven, after all, the other boys at school bully her. But Bram is a scientist like Sammie, and together they observe tiny pond creatures, a pileated woodpecker with a red crest like a pirate's bandana, and thriving monarch butterflies whose habitats are becoming scarce. When Sammie and Bram discover bright flagging tape encircling the trees, they learn Winghaven is in danger from a local developer, and it's going to take courage, spirit, and science to save it.

Lost birds [sound recording] / Anne Hillerman.
cover imageRetired Navajo policeman Joe Leaphorn researches a case involving an Indigenous child adopted by non-Native parents, while Officer Bernadette Manuelito investigates an explosion and a missing person.

Road to ruin [sound recording (CD)] / Hana Lee.
cover imageJin-Lu has the most dangerous job in the wasteland. She's a Courier, one of the few who venture outside the domed cities on motorcycles powered by magic. Every day, she braves the wasteland's dangers, deadly storms, roving marauders, and territorial beasts, to deliver her wares. Her most valuable cargo? A prince's love letters, addressed to Yi-Nereen: a princess desperate to escape the clutches of her abusive family and soon-to-be husband. Jin, desperately in love with her and the prince both, can't refuse to help. She and the princess flee across the wastes, pursued by Yi-Nereen's furious father, her scheming betrothed, and a bounty hunter with mysterious powers. A storm to end all storms is brewing, and dark secrets about the heritability of magic are coming to light. Jin's heart has led her into peril before, but this time she might not find her way back.

Spitting gold [sound recording (CD)] : a novel / Carmella Lowkis.
cover imageParis, 1866. When Baroness Sylvie Devereux receives a house call from Charlotte Mothe, the sister she disowned, she fears her shady past as a spirit medium has caught up with her. But with their father ill and Charlotte unable to pay his bills, Sylvie is persuaded into one last con. Their marks are the de Jacquinots: dysfunctional aristocrats who believe they are haunted by their great aunt, brutally murdered during the French Revolution. The scheme underway, the sisters deploy every trick to terrify the family out of their gold. But when inexplicable horrors start to happen to them too, the duo question whether they really are at the mercy of a vengeful spirit. And what other deep, dark secrets may come to light?

In my time of dying : how I came face-to-face with the idea of an afterlife [sound recording (CD)] / Sebastian Junger.
cover imageFor years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. "It's okay," his father said. "There's nothing to be scared of. I'll take care of you." That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger, a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical, to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die. How do we begin to process the brutal fact that any of us might perish unexpectedly on what begins as an ordinary day? How do we grapple with phenomena that science may be unable to explain? And what happens to a person, emotionally and spiritually, when forced to reckon with such existential questions?

The paradise problem [sound recording (CD)] / Christina Lauren.
cover imageAnna Green thought she was marrying Liam "West" Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she'd signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways. Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There's just one catch. Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather's will, Liam won't see a penny until he's been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he's in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he's afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents, his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife. But in the presence of his family, Liam's fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

The light eaters [sound recording (CD)] : how the unseen world of plant intelligence offers a new understanding of life on Earth / Zoë Schlanger.
cover imageExamining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Zoë Schlanger probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom and reveals the astonishing capabilities of the green life all around us.

What this comedian said will shock you [sound recording (CD)] / Bill Maher.
cover imageBill Maher revisits more than a decade of editorial segments from his show Real Time on free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, the generations, cancel culture, and more, rewriting, reimagining, updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we're in.

Amphibious soul [sound recording (CD)] : finding the wild in a tame world / Craig Foster.
cover imageIn this thrilling memoir of a life spent exploring the most incredible places on Earth--from the Great African Seaforest to the crocodile lairs of the Okavango Delta--Craig Foster reveals how we can attend to the earthly beauty around us and deepen our love for all living things, whether we make our homes in the country, the city, or anywhere in between. Foster explores his struggles to remain present to life when a disconnection from nature and the demands of his professional life begin to deaden his senses. And his own reliance on nature's rejuvenating spiritual power is put to the test when catastrophe strikes close to home. Foster's lyrical, riveting Amphibious Soul draws on his decades of daily ocean dives, wisdom from Indigenous teachers, and leading-edge science.

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