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Disclaimer(s)
Family Literacy Center program
This program presented by the Family Literacy Center. Please call the Family Literacy Center at (810) 664-2737 to register.
Character Assassination - A Look at Michigan’s Unknown Presidential Candidate
New Arrivals
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the complete guide to drawing for beginners
An easy-to-follow, yet comprehensive beginner's guide to drawing.
In The Complete Guide to Drawing for Beginners, experienced art instructor Yoshiko Ogura explains the basics of pencil drawing through a series of lessons that provide insights on artistic composition, simulating highlights and shadows, depicting realistic forms, rendering texture and creating a sense of depth in your artwork. At the beginning of the book, she provides you with all the information you need to get started--what materials to buy, how to prepare your work surface, pencils and erasers--even how to sit correctly when drawing.
Once you know these, Ogura provides a series of easy and clear step-by-step lessons showing you how to draw simple objects while gaining an understanding of the essential concepts of perspective, how to convey hard and soft surfaces and textures, composition and balance. From here, you progress to more complex shapes and objects including landscapes and portraits of people and animals, as she explains all the additional concepts needed to draw these realistically.
This book teaches you how to draw the following interesting subjects:
- Simple forms (an apple, a milk carton, an egg, a mug)
- Hard & soft surfaces (fabric, a loaf of bread, a stone, a book)
- Transparent objects (water droplets, a glass)
- Complex objects (a piece of squash with seeds and pulp, a sunflower)
- Human anatomical features (hands, faces)
- Landscape elements (trees, buildings)
- Animals (a cat, a parakeet)
- Still life (fruit, flowers)
- Plus, many other inspirational examples and ideas!
By the end, all your drawings will begin to look impressively polished and realistic! As you work through the lessons, you'll master all the skills and knowledge that seasoned artists demonstrate in their work. -
Answers in the Form of Questions
"For 36 years, Jeopardy! has been a TV mainstay. In that time, it has become a deeply entrenched American tradition and the sort of cross-generational touchstone the likes of which are few and far between in modern television -- a show beloved by everyone from Solange Knowles to George Clooney to the Auburn Tigers. This is the book about Jeopardy!: its history and how it comes together how the most successful players use strategy to dominate the man-myth-legend that is host Alex Trebek what life looks like after winning big on Jeopardy! the Saturday Night Live spoofs that time the Clue Crew almost slid off a glacier -- and everything in between. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS will delve into the world of the trivia fanatics who spend years training for their chance to compete on Jeopardy!, drilling themselves on Norse mythology and isotopes and rigging homemade buzzers to perfect the art of ringing in. Notable Jeopardy! champs from years past, including Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer, and Buzzy Cohen will appear to explain their strategies: when to hunt for Daily Doubles or bet it all, and what makes a "good" Final Jeopardy wager. And the people who make Jeopardy! happen -- from the writers and producers to the wardrobe assistant responsible for Trebek's collection of 45 suits and 215 ties-will help break down what the show is looking for in aspiring contestants. Readers will be a fly on the wall, following along from the early-morning clue assembly in Jeopardy!'s famous library to the moment producers make the final cuts. Jeopardy! is a beloved institution in a moment of profound transition. America's favorite quiz show, which has deviated very little in all its years on the air, is about to see a great deal of change. ANSWERS IN THE FORM OF QUESTIONS is a moment to celebrate everything that has made the show such an enduring success, from Merv Griffin and Art Fleming to the present, as well as a look at the future and what lies ahead"--
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Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man
An urgent primer on race and racism, from the host of the viral hit video series
"Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man"
"You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have." So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. "There is a fix," Acho says. "But in order to access it, we're going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations."In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask--yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and "reverse racism." In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader's curiosity--but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.
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A Very Punchable Face
In these hilarious essays, the Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor learns how to take a beating.
"I always wanted to punch his face before I read this book. Now I just want to kick him in the balls."--Larry David
If there's one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it's being able to take a punch--metaphorically and, occasionally, physically.
From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school and "seeing the sights" (like watching a Russian woman throw a stroller off the back of a ferry), to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump.
You'll also discover things about Jost that will surprise and confuse you, like how Jimmy Buffett saved his life, how Czech teenagers attacked him with potato salad, how an insect laid eggs inside his legs, and how he competed in a twenty-five-man match at WrestleMania (and almost won). You'll go behind the scenes at SNL (where he's written some of the most memorable sketches and characters of the past fifteen years) and Weekend Update (where he's forced by Michael Che to tell racist jokes). And you'll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian--from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall.
For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). And for every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother's experience on the scene of the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11). Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy--with a face you can't help but want to punch. -
The Star Wars Book
This is the Star Wars book you're looking for.
If you want to comprehend the epic and intricate Star Wars saga, this is the book for you. It is a unique and insightful examination of this beloved franchise, including Star Wars: The Mandalorian, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Written by Star Wars experts, including fan-favorite Pablo Hidalgo, this book is packed with stunning film and TV stills, illuminating infographics and curated essays that reveal the mysteries of the Star Wars galaxy. From legendary heroes like Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa to fascinating species like the Wookiees and Tusken Raiders, this book explores the central characters, technology, governments, and events that have shaped the epic saga.
The book is divided into key subject areas - the galaxy, science and technology, the Force, the Skywalkers, galactic governments and their dissidents, and galactic denizens. Whether you are a devoted Star Wars fan or a casual reader curious to learn more, The Star Wars Book is an invaluable roadmap to this galaxy, far far away....
© (tm) 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd -
In Case You Get Hit by a Bus
A step-by-step program for getting your life in order, so you’re prepared for the unexpected.
The odds of getting hit by a bus are 495,000 to 1. But the odds that you’re going to die some day? Exactly.
Even the most disorganized among us can take control of our on- and off-line details so our loved ones won’t have to scramble later. The experts at Everplans, a leading company in digital life planning, make it possible in this essential and easy-to-follow book. Breaking the task down into three levels, from the most urgent (like granting access to passwords), to the technical (creating a manual for the systems in your home), to the nostalgic (assembling a living memory), this clear, step-by-step program not only removes the anxiety and stress from getting your life in order, it’s actually liberating. And deeply satisfying, knowing that you’re leaving the best parting gift imaginable.
When you finish this book, you will have:- A system for managing all your passwords and secret codes
- Organized your money and assets, bills and debts
- A complete understanding of all the medical directives and legal documents you need––including Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Trusts
- A plan for meaningful photos, recipes, and family heirlooms
- Records of your personal history, interests, beliefs, and life lessons
- An instruction manual for your home and vehicles
- Your funeral planned and obituary written (if you’re up for it)
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Murder in Old Bombay
In 19th century Bombay, Captain Jim Agnihotri channels his idol, Sherlock Holmes, in Nev March’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut.
In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lies in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to do but re-read the tales of his idol, Sherlock Holmes, and browse the daily papers. The case that catches Captain Jim's attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by Adi, the widower of one of the victims — his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide — Captain Jim approaches the Parsee family and is hired to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon.
But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Captain Jim's investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. And when lively Lady Diana Framji joins the hunt for her sisters’ attackers, Captain Jim’s heart isn’t safe, either.
Based on a true story, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India, Nev March's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning lyrical debut, Murder in Old Bombay, brings this tumultuous historical age to life. -
Dancing with the Octopus
For readers of Educated and The Glass Castle, a harrowing, redemptive and profoundly inspiring memoir of childhood trauma and its long reach into adulthood.
One Omaha winter day in November 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted at knifepoint from a church parking lot. She was thrown into a van, assaulted, held for ransom, and then left to die as an ice storm descended over the city.
Debora survived. She identified her attacker to the police and then returned to her teenage life in a dysfunctional home where she was expected to simply move on. Denial became the family coping strategy offered by her fun-loving, conflicted father and her cruelly resentful mother.
It wasn't until decades later - when beset by the symptoms of PTSD- that Debora undertook a radical project: she met her childhood attacker face-to-face in prison and began to reconsider and reimagine his complex story. This was a quest for the truth that would threaten the lie at the heart of her family and with it the sacred bond that once saved her.
Dexterously shifting between the past and present, Debora Harding untangles the incident of her kidnapping and escape from unexpected angles, offering a vivid, intimate portrait of one family's disintegration in the 1970s Midwest.
Written with dark humor and the pacing of a thriller, Dancing with the Octopus is a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking narrative of reckoning, recovery, and the inexhaustible strength it takes to survive. -
The Lady Brewer of London
An unforgettable historical tale set in fifteenth-century England of a brilliant woman's defiance, courage, and ingenuity--from the author of The Locksmith's Daughter and The Chocolate Maker's Wife.
1405: The daughter of a wealthy merchant, Anneke Sheldrake suddenly finds her family bankrupted when her father's ship is swept away at sea. Forced to find a way to provide for herself and her siblings, Anneke rejects an offer of marriage from a despised cousin and instead turns to her late mother's family business: brewing ale.
Armed with her mother's recipes, she then makes a bold deal with her father's aristocratic employer, putting her home and family at risk. Thanks to her fierce determination, Anneke's brew wins a following and begins to turn a profit. But her rise threatens some in her community and those closest to her are left to pay the price.
As Anneke slowly pieces her life together again, she finds an unlikely ally in a London brothel owner. Determined not only to reclaim her livelihood and her family, Anneke vows not to let anyone stand in the way of her forging her own destiny.
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Clean Mind, Clean Body
An easy reset for feeling and living better.
-- DEEPAK CHOPRATara makes purposeful self-care easy and enjoyable!
-- DAPHNE OZA life-changing detox for body and mind that will transform your daily routine and your habits, from wellness expert and Strala Yoga founder Tara Stiles.
Most of us are constantly plugged in and stressed out--tethered to our phones and e-mail, overworked and inactive at our desk jobs, and out of touch with what our bodies and our brains really need. Clean Mind, Clean Body is the ultimate reset button, an immersive experience in mental and physical self-care that will transform your daily routine and your habits.
In Clean Mind, Clean Body, Tara leads readers on a 4-week detox for body, mind, and spirit that can be done easily at home, and that covers:
WEEK 1 - MENTAL CLEANSE - Eliminate toxic relationships, create a home sanctuary, and unplug from devices.
WEEK 2 - SPIRITUAL CLEANSE - Establish a meditation practice, slow down, and live with intention.
WEEK 3 - CHANGE THE WAY YOU EAT - Embrace an East Meets West diet, eat clean, and love your body.
WEEK 4 - CHANGE THE WAY YOU MOVE - Redefine exercise, get outside, and embrace the power of rest.
Packed with ancient healing practices adapted for modern living and clean living rules for life, Clean Mind, Clean Body is your personal blueprint for physical and spiritual realignment.
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Broke Millennial Talks Money
A comprehensive guide to talking about money in every aspect of your life, including at work, with friends and family, and in relationships, from the author of the Broke Millennial series.
Let's face it--talking about money is always awkward. In this user-friendly and approachable guide, finance writer Erin Lowry helps take the stress out of these tricky conversations. With scripts, tips, and troubleshooting advice, she takes you through every possible money talk scenario, including:
- how to tell your friends you can't afford the same lifestyle they can
- how to ask your parents if they can afford retirement and if they'll need your support as they age
- how to talk to your coworkers about your salary and negotiate with your boss
- how to broach the subject of a prenup with your fiancéLowry arms you with all of the financial knowledge you'll need in order to get the most out of each interaction, whether that's with your friends, your spouse, your employer, or your mom. It's time to demystify our money and hash out these tough topics with the important people in our lives, and this helpful book will make it all much easier.
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Fitness for Everyone
No matter who you are, you can perform every exercise in this book.
You want to get into shape but feel limited by your weight, age, or ability. You want to exercise but think everything seems too difficult. You want to develop a fitness routine but don't want to be forced into something. You want simple, flexible, and effective.
You know that exercise can benefit you physically and mentally, including lowering stress, increasing energy, and, yes, burning fat. But you also know that if you're not exercising consistently, you're not giving yourself the best chance to bring your body into balance.
Fitness for Everyone can help you with these goals and many more. This book offers these features:
50 exercises that have modifications for every body type
10 fitness routines for specific physical and mental benefits
Expert fitness advice on how to incorporate fitness into your everyday life
If you thought you couldn't do a pushup or a jumping jack or a burpee, Fitness for Everyone has the right modification for you to allow you to do these exercises and dozens others. And you'll soon start saying "Yes, I can do every exercise in this book!" -
The Deep, Deep Snow
In an intense, emotional mystery that spans a decade in the life of a small town, bestselling author Brian Freeman brings us an unforgettable heroine who discovers that the dead may sometimes be easier to rescue than the living.
Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing--and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child.
The only evidence of what happened to ten-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby's hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend's young daughter--they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future.
Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah's life doesn't get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring.
When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one's life untouched--including her own.
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American Cheese
From the author of Away with Words, a deeply hilarious and unexpectedly insightful deep-dive into a cultural and culinary phenomenon: cheese.
"Who knew it was possible to enjoy reading about cheese as much as eating it? Remarkably entertaining, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious, American Cheese goes far beyond the plastic yellow slices we all know, and some love, revealing a community as quirky, passionate, and creative as the cheese they put into the world."
-- Jim Gaffigan, comedian/actor and New York Times bestselling author of Food: A Love StoryJoe Berkowitz loves cheese. Or at least he thought he did. After stumbling upon an artisinal tasting at an upscale cheese shop one Valentine's Day, he realized he'd hardly even scratched the surface. These cheeses were like nothing he had ever tasted--a visceral drug-punch that reverberated deliciousness--and they were from America. He felt like he was being let in a great cosmic secret, and instantly he was in love.
This discovery inspired Joe to embark on the cheese adventure of a lifetime, spending a year exploring the subculture around cheese, from its trenches to its command centers. He dove headfirst into the world of artisan cheese; of premiere makers and mongers, cave-dwelling affineurs, dairy scientists, and restauranteurs. The journey would take him around the world, from the underground cheese caves in Paris to the mountains of Gruyere, leaving no curd unturned, all the while cultivating an appreciation for cheese and its place in society.
Joe's journey from amateur to aficionado eventually comes to mirror the rise of American cheese on the world stage. As he embeds with Team USA at an international mongering competition and makes cheese in the experimental vats at the Dairy Research Center in Wisconsin, one of the makers he meets along the way gears up to make America's biggest splash ever at the World Cheese Awards. Through this odyssey of cheese, an unexpected culture of passionate cheesemakers is revealed, along with the extraordinary impact of one delicious dairy product.
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All the Young Men
In 1986, 26-year old Ruth visits a friend at the hospital when she notices that the door to one of the hospital rooms is painted red. She witnesses nurses drawing straws to see who would tend to the patient inside, all of them reluctant to enter the room. Out of impulse, Ruth herself enters the quarantined space and immediately begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. Before she can even process what she's done, word spreads in the community that Ruth is the only person willing to help these young men afflicted by AIDS, and is called upon to nurse them. As she forges deep friendships with the men she helps, she works tirelessly to find them housing and jobs, even searching for funeral homes willing to take their bodies - often in the middle of the night. She cooks meals for tens of people out of discarded food found in the dumpsters behind supermarkets, stores rare medications for her most urgent patients, teaches sex-ed to drag queens after hours at secret bars, and becomes a beacon of hope to an otherwise spurned group of ailing gay men on the fringes of a deeply conservative state.
Throughout the years, Ruth defies local pastors and nurses to help the men she cares for: Paul and Billy, Angel, Chip, Todd and Luke. Emboldened by the weight of their collective pain, she fervently advocates for their safety and visibility, ultimately advising Governor Bill Clinton on the national HIV-AIDS crisis.
This deeply moving and elegiac memoir honors the extraordinary life of Ruth Coker Burks and the beloved men who fought valiantly for their lives with AIDS during a most hostile and misinformed time in America.
Staff Picks
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Race the Sands
"National Velvet with monsters and a big helping of palace intrigue, Race the Sands is monstrous (literally), heartwarming, and empowering in equal measure. An incredibly fun and inspiring read." - Katherine Arden, New York Times bestselling author of The Bear and the Nightingale
In this epic standalone fantasy, the acclaimed author of the Queens of Renthia series introduces an imaginative new world in which a pair of strong and determined women risk their lives battling injustice, corruption, and deadly enemies in their quest to become monster racing champions.
Life, death, and rebirth--in Becar, who you are in this life will determine your next life. Yet there is hope--you can change your destiny with the choices you make. But for the darkest individuals, there is no redemption: you come back as a kehok, a monster, and are doomed to be a kehok for the rest of time.
Unless you can win the Races.
After a celebrated career as an elite kehok rider, Tamra became a professional trainer. Then a tragic accident shattered her confidence, damaged her reputation, and left her nearly broke. Now, she needs the prize money to prevent the local temple from taking her daughter away from her, and that means she must once again find a winning kehok . . . and a rider willing to trust her.
Raia is desperate to get away from her domineering family and cruel fiancé. As a kehok rider, she could earn enough to buy her freedom. But she needs a first-rate trainer.
Impressed by the inexperienced young woman's determination, Tamra hires Raia and pairs her with a strange new kehok with the potential to win--if he can be tamed.
But in this sport, if you forget you're riding on the back of a monster, you die. Tamra and Raia will work harder than they ever thought possible to win the deadly Becaran Races--and in the process, discover what makes this particular kehok so special.
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Prelude to Bruise
Praise for Saeed Jones:
"Jones is the kind of writer who's more than wanted: he's desperately needed."—FlavorWire
"I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness, and outright joy."—D. A. Powell
"Prelude to Bruise works its tempestuous mojo just under the skin, wreaking a sweet havoc and rearranging the pulse. These poems don't dole out mercy. Mr. Jones undoubtedly dipped his pen in fierce before crafting these stanzas that rock like backslap. Straighten your skirt, children. The doors of the church are open."—Patricia Smith
"It's a big book, a major book. A game-changer. Dazzling, brutal, real. Not just brilliant, caustic, and impassioned but a work that brings history—in which the personal and political are inter-constitutive—to the immediate moment. Jones takes a reader deep into lived experience, into a charged world divided among unstable yet entrenched lines: racial, gendered, political, sexual, familial. Here we absorb each quiet resistance, each whoop of joy, a knowledge of violence and of desire, an unbearable ache/loss/yearning. This is not just a "new voice" but a new song, a new way of singing, a new music made of deep grief's wildfire, of burning intelligence and of all-feeling heart, scorched and seared. In a poem, Jones says, "Boy's body is a song only he can hear." But now that we have this book, we can all hear it. And it's unforgettable."—Brenda Shaughnessy
"Inside each hunger, each desire, speaks the voice of a boy that admits "I've always wanted to be dangerous." This is not a threat but a promise to break away from the affliction of silence, to make audible the stories that trouble the dimensions of masculinity and discomfort the polite conversations about race. With impressive grace, Saeed Jones situates the queer black body at the center, where his visibility and vulnerability nurture emotional strength and the irrepressible energy to claim those spaces that were once denied or withheld from him. Prelude to a Bruise is a daring debut."—Rigoberto González
From "Sleeping Arrangement":
Take your hand out
from under my pillow.
And take your sheets with you.
Drag them under. Make pretend ghosts.
I can't have you rattling the bed springs
so keep still, keep quiet.
Mistake yourself for shadows.
Learn the lullabies of lint.
Saeed Jones works as the editor of BuzzfeedLGBT. -
All Systems Red
Now available in hardcover, All Systems Red is the first entry in Martha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries.
Winner: 2018 Hugo Award
Winner: 2018 Nebula Award
Winner: 2018 Alex Award
Winner: 2018 Locus Award
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.
But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.
On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.
But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
The Murderbot Diaries
#1 All Systems Red
#2 Artificial Condition
#3 Rogue Protocol
#4 Exit Strategy -
The Nightingale
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France ... but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child's life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another. Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can ... completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real -- and deadly -- consequences. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France.
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Educated
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'A memoir to stand alongside the classics by the likes of Jeanette Winterson and Lorna Sage ... compelling and ultimately joyous' Sunday Times________________________Tara Westover grew up preparing for the End of Days, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. She spent her summers bottling peaches and her winters rotating emergency supplies, hoping that when the World of Men failed, her family would continue on, unaffected. She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she'd never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn't believe in doctors or hospitals. According to the state and federal government, she didn't exist. As she grew older, her father became more radical, and her brother, more violent. At sixteen Tara decided to educate herself. Her struggle for knowledge would take her far from her Idaho mountains, over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd travelled too far. If there was still a way home. EDUCATED is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief that comes with the severing of the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, from her singular experience Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers- the perspective to see one's life through new eyes, and the will to change it.________________________Shortlisted for the 2018 BAMB Readers' AwardsRecommended as a summer read by Barack Obama, Antony Beevor, India Knight, Blake Morrison and Nina Stibbe
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Early Warning
From the Pulitzer Prize-winner: the second installment, following Some Luck, of her widely acclaimed, best-selling American trilogy, which brings the journey of a remarkable family with roots in the Iowa heartland into mid-century America Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch, Walter, who with his wife, Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between.
As the country moves out of post-World War II optimism through the darker landscape of the Cold War and the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and '70s, and then into the unprecedented wealth--for some--of the early 1980s, the Langdon children each follow a different path in a rapidly changing world. And they now have children of their own: twin boys who are best friends and vicious rivals; a girl whose rebellious spirit takes her to the notorious Peoples Temple in San Francisco; and a golden boy who drops out of college to fight in Vietnam--leaving behind a secret legacy that will send shock waves through the Langdon family into the next generation.
Capturing a transformative period through richly drawn characters we come to know and care deeply for, Early Warning continues Smiley's extraordinary epic trilogy, a gorgeously told saga that began with Some Luck and will span a century in America. But it also stands entirely on its own as an engrossing story of the challenges--and rewards--of family and home, even in the most turbulent of times, all while showcasing a beloved writer at the height of her considerable powers. -
Tools of Engagement
In Tessa Bailey's latest rom-com, two enemies team up to flip a house... and the sparks between them might burn the place down or ignite a passion that neither can ignore!
Hair, makeup, clothing, decor... everything in Bethany Castle's world is organized, planned, and styled to perfection. Which is why the homes she designs for her family's real estate business are the most coveted in town. The only thing not perfect? Her track record with men. She's on a dating hiatus and after helping her friends achieve their dreams, Bethany finally has time to focus on her own: flip a house, from framework to furnishings, all by herself. Except her older brother runs the company and refuses to take her seriously.
When a television producer gets wind of the Castle sibling rivalry, they're invited on Flip Off, a competition to see who can do the best renovation. Bethany wants bragging rights, but she needs a crew and the only member of her brother's construction team willing to jump ship is Wes Daniels, the new guy in town. His Texas drawl and handsome face got under Bethany's skin on day one, and the last thing she needs is some cocky young cowboy in her way.
As the race to renovate heats up, Wes and Bethany are forced into close quarters, trading barbs and biting banter as they remodel the ugliest house on the block. It's a labor of love, hate, and everything in between, and soon sparks are flying. But Bethany's perfectly structured life is one kiss away from going up in smoke and she knows falling for a guy like Wes would be a flipping disaster.
"Her voice feels as fresh and contemporary as a Netflix rom-com." --Entertainment Weekly
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99 Percent Mine
Readers and critics alike raved over USA Today bestselling author Sally Thorne’s smash hit debut, The Hating Game, which has sold in over 20 countries. Now she’s back with an unforgettable romantic comedy about a woman who finally has a shot at her long time crush—if she dares.
Crush (n.): a strong and often short-lived infatuation, particularly for someone beyond your reach…
Darcy Barrett has undertaken a global survey of men. She’s travelled the world, and can categorically say that no one measures up to Tom Valeska, whose only flaw is that Darcy’s twin brother Jamie saw him first and claimed him forever as his best friend. Despite Darcy’s best efforts, Tom’s off limits and loyal to her brother, 99%. That’s the problem with finding her dream man at age eight and peaking in her photography career at age twenty—ever since, she’s had to learn to settle for good enough.
When Darcy and Jamie inherit a tumble-down cottage from their grandmother, they’re left with strict instructions to bring it back to its former glory and sell the property. Darcy plans to be in an aisle seat halfway across the ocean as soon as the renovations start, but before she can cut and run, she finds a familiar face on her porch: house-flipper extraordinaire Tom’s arrived, he’s bearing power tools, and he’s single for the first time in almost a decade.
Suddenly Darcy’s considering sticking around to make sure her twin doesn’t ruin the cottage’s inherent magic with his penchant for grey and chrome. She’s definitely not staying because of her new business partner’s tight t-shirts, or that perfect face that's inspiring her to pick up her camera again. Soon sparks are flying—and it’s not the faulty wiring. It turns out one percent of Tom’s heart might not be enough for Darcy anymore. This time around, she’s switching things up. She’s going to make Tom Valeska 99 percent hers.
This next hilarious romance includes a special PS section with two Happily Ever Afters—one for this novel featuring Darcy and Tom and the other, an epilogue featuring fan favorites Lucy Hutton and Josh Templeman from The Hating Game!
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The Wall of Winnipeg and Me
"Vanessa Mazur knows she's doing the right thing. She shouldn't feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary. But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she's beyond shocked. For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn't even find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He's asking for the unthinkable. What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?"--Page [4] of cover.
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This Much Country
A memoir of heartbreak, thousand-mile races, the endless Alaskan wilderness and many, many dogs from one of only a handful of women to have completed both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod.
In 2009, after a crippling divorce that left her heartbroken and directionless, Kristin decided to accept an offer to live at a friend's cabin outside of Denali National Park in Alaska for a few months. In exchange for housing, she would take care of her friend's eight sled dogs.
That winter, she learned that she was tougher than she ever knew. She learned how to survive in one of the most remote places on earth and she learned she was strong enough to be alone. She fell in love twice: first with running sled dogs, and then with Andy, a gentle man who had himself moved to Alaska to heal a broken heart.
Kristin and Andy married and started a sled dog kennel. While this work was enormously satisfying, Kristin became determined to complete the Iditarod -- the 1,000-mile dogsled race from Anchorage, in south central Alaska, to Nome on the western Bering Sea coast.
THIS MUCH COUNTRY is the story of renewal and transformation. It's about journeying across a wild and unpredictable landscape and finding inner peace, courage and a true home. It's about pushing boundaries and overcoming paralyzing fears.
"THIS MUCH COUNTRY is the next best thing to stepping on the runners of your own dogsled. A gorgeous, intimate story of wildness and belonging."--Blair Braverman, author of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube -
Factfulness
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates
“Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates
"Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.
When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.
In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).
Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.
It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.
Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future.
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“This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017. -
An Irish Country Doctor
Barry Laverty, M.B., can barely find the village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there, but already he knows that there is nowhere he would rather live than in the emerald hills and dales of Northern Ireland. The proud owner of a spanking-new medical degree and little else in the way of worldly possessions, Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice.
At least until he meets Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly.
The older physician, whose motto is to never let the patients get the upper hand, has his own way of doing things. At first, Barry can't decide if the pugnacious O'Reilly is the biggest charlatan he has ever met, or the best teacher he could ever hope for. Through O'Reilly Barry soon gets to know all of the village's colorful and endearing residents, including:
A malingering Major and his equally hypochondriacal wife;
An unwed servant girl, who refuses to divulge the father of her upcoming baby;
A slightly daft old couple unable to marry for lack of a roof;
And a host of other eccentric characters who make every day an education for the inexperienced young doctor.
Ballybucklebo is long way from Belfast, and Barry is quick to discover that he still has a lot to learn about the quirks and traditions of country life. But with pluck and compassion and only the slightest touch of blarney, he will find out more about life--and love--than he ever imagined back in medical school.
An Irish Country Doctor is a charming and engrossing tale that will captivate readers from the very first page--and leave them yearning to visit the Irish countryside of days gone by.
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Still Life
Winner of the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys awards.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surêté du Québec and his team of investigators are called in to the scene of a suspicious death in a rural village south of Montreal. Jane Neal, a local fixture in the tiny hamlet of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border, has been found dead in the woods. The locals are certain it's a tragic hunting accident and nothing more, but Gamache smells something foul in these remote woods, and is soon certain that Jane Neal died at the hands of someone much more sinister than a careless bowhunter.
Still Life introduces not only an engaging series hero in Inspector Gamache, who commands his forces---and this series---with integrity and quiet courage, but also a winning and talented new writer of traditional mysteries in the person of Louise Penny. -
Fated for Felony
In New York Times bestselling author Victoria Laurie's newest Psychic Eye Mystery, Abby is after a serial killer who's simply fated for felonies.When three newbie agents at the Austin's FBI cold-case bureau resent having to work alongside a psychic consultant, Abby Cooper finds herself in hot water after they contact super-popular podcaster Mike Toscano--a former agent and huge skeptic of Abby's abilities.To prove that she's the real deal, Abby will have to solve Toscano's oldest--and coldest--case, and she'll have to do it on air with millions of Toscano's fans critiquing her every move. To make matters worse, the D.C. brass is threatening to shut down the Austin offices if Abby doesn't bring home a win. But helping to solve the unsolvable is what Abby does best, and she'll be bringing her A-game to Toscano's podcast. The only trouble is the killer could be listening...
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The Holdout
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - One juror changed the verdict. What if she was wrong? From the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and bestselling author of The Last Days of Night. . . .
An ID Book Club Selection - "Exhilarating . . . a fiendishly slippery game of cat-and-mouse suspense and a provocative, urgent inquiry into American justice (and injustice) in the twenty-first century."--A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
It's the most sensational case of the decade. Fifteen-year-old Jessica Silver, heiress to a billion-dollar real estate fortune, vanishes on her way home from school, and her teacher, Bobby Nock, a twenty-five-year-old African American man, is the prime suspect. The subsequent trial taps straight into America's most pressing preoccupations: race, class, sex, law enforcement, and the lurid sins of the rich and famous. It's an open-and-shut case for the prosecution, and a quick conviction seems all but guaranteed--until Maya Seale, a young woman on the jury, convinced of Nock's innocence, persuades the rest of the jurors to return the verdict of not guilty, a controversial decision that will change all their lives forever.
Flash forward ten years. A true-crime docuseries reassembles the jury, with particular focus on Maya, now a defense attorney herself. When one of the jurors is found dead in Maya's hotel room, all evidence points to her as the killer. Now, she must prove her own innocence--by getting to the bottom of a case that is far from closed.
As the present-day murder investigation weaves together with the story of what really happened during their deliberation, told by each of the jurors in turn, the secrets they have all been keeping threaten to come out--with drastic consequences for all involved.