Summer Reading
Join our Summer Reading Program: Adventure Begins at Your Library!
Dive into exciting books, fun activities, and win prizes. Open to all ages, it's a fantastic way to keep your mind active and entertained this summer.
Start your reading adventure at Asotin County Library on June 10!
Children
Challenge
Read (or be read to) at least 20 minutes a day for as many days as you can! Also, complete summer activities to collect a full set of trading cards.
How to Play
Register on Beanstack and come to the Downtown or Heights Branch to pick up your reading log, lanyard, and bag.
How to Win
You have two chances to pick a prize from our treasure chest at the Downtown Library, and one chance to enter a raffle for the Grand Prize!
Teens
Challenge
Genre book bingo! Read books and complete activities from the Summer Reading bingo sheet to complete a bingo. Continue reading to get a blackout!
How to Play
Register and play on Beanstack.
How to Win
Complete a bingo and come to the Downtown Library to choose between two gift cards. Complete a blackout and be entered in a raffle for the Grand Prize!
Need reading suggestions
Visit this curated list of books to help you play or visit the Reader's Corner.
Adults
Challenge
Book Bingo is a fun opportunity for adults to enjoy summer reading activities too!
How to Play
Your goal is to cover 5 squares in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row.
How to Win
First bingo earns you a Kenzie's Koffee or Crumbl Cookies gift card. A Blackout earns you entry into the Grand Prize $100 Visa Gift Card drawing! Learn more on the backside of the Bingo Card.
Need Reading Suggestions?
We curated a list of books for you or visit our Reader's Corner.
Kids Summer Reading
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The Lightning Thief
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is on the most dangerous quest of his life. With the help of a satyr and a daughter of Athena, Percy must journey across the United States to catch a thief who has stolen the original weapon of mass destruction — Zeus’ master bolt. Along the way, he must face a host of mythological enemies determined to stop him. Most of all, he must come to terms with a father he has never known, and an Oracle that has warned him of betrayal by a friend.
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Keeper of the Lost Cities
In this riveting series opener, a telepathic girl must figure out why she is the key to her brand-new world before the wrong person finds the answer first.
Twelve-year-old Sophie has never quite fit into her life. She’s skipped multiple grades and doesn’t really connect with the older kids at school, but she’s not comfortable with her family, either. The reason? Sophie’s a Telepath, someone who can read minds. No one knows her secret—at least, that’s what she thinks…
But the day Sophie meets Fitz, a mysterious (and adorable) boy, she learns she’s not alone. He’s a Telepath too, and it turns out the reason she has never felt at home is that, well…she isn’t. Fitz opens Sophie’s eyes to a shocking truth, and she is forced to leave behind her family for a new life in a place that is vastly different from what she has ever known.
But Sophie still has secrets, and they’re buried deep in her memory for good reason: The answers are dangerous and in high-demand. What is her true identity, and why was she hidden among humans? The truth could mean life or death—and time is running out. -
Wildwood
Prue McKeel's life is ordinary. That is, until her brother is abducted by a murder of crows and taken to the Impassable Wilderness, a dense, tangled forest on the edge of Portland. No one's ever gone in—or at least returned to tell of it.
So begins an adventure that will take Prue and her friend Curtis deep into the Impassable Wilderness. There they uncover a secret world in the midst of violent upheaval—a world full of warring creatures, peaceable mystics, and powerful figures with the darkest intentions. And what begins as a rescue mission becomes something much greater as the two friends find themselves entwined in a struggle for the very freedom of this wilderness. A wilderness the locals call Wildwood.
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The Bad Guys
I wish I'd had these books as a kid. Hilarious! -- Dav Pilkey, creator of Captain Underpants and Dog ManThis New York Times bestselling illustrated series is perfect for fans of Dog Man and Captain Underpants.They sound like bad guys, they look like bad guys . . . and they even smell like bad guys. But Mr. Wolf, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Snake, and Mr. Shark are about to change all of that...Mr. Wolf has a daring plan for the Bad Guys' first good mission. They are going to break two hundred dogs out of the Maximum Security City Dog Pound. Will Operation Dog Pound go smoothly? Will the Bad Guys become the Good Guys? And will Mr. Snake please stop swallowing Mr. Piranha?!
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The Last Last-Day-Of-Summer
Otto and Sheed are the local sleuths in their zany Virginia town, masters of unraveling mischief using their unmatched powers of deduction. And as the summer winds down and the first day of school looms, the boys are craving just a little bit more time for fun, even as they bicker over what kind of fun they want to have. That is, until a mysterious man appears with a camera that literally freezes time. Now, with the help of some very strange people and even stranger creatures, Otto and Sheed will have to put aside their differences to save their town--and each other--before time stops for good.
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The Last Kids on Earth
"Meet Jack Sullivan, self-described as a late-blooming, slow-developing 13-year-old who has so far survived the zombie apocalypse by hiding out in his treehouse. Overnight Jack's life has become like the plot of a video game and he has come up with his own ULTIMATE FEATS OF APOCALYPTIC SUCCESS: Locate Quint Baker, best friend and inventor ; Find and rescue June Del Toro, his secret love interest ; Defeat Blarg, the biggest, baddest monster in town ; Become a zombie-fighting, monster-bashing tornado of cool!"--Publisher's website description.
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Rain Forest Relay
On a once-in-a-lifetime race through the animal kingdom, it takes smarts, strength, and skill to win!
When Russell entered the race, he knew it was going to be a wild ride. Especially the first race course! He'd been studying up on the Amazon's animals and culture forever. But nothing could prepare him or his teammates for what they'd find in the rain forest: raging rapids, poisonous venom, and sneaky competitors who'd do anything to win. Can the red team work together to make it to the finish line in one piece? Each chapter in this action-packed adventure series is bursting with totally true facts about wild and wonderful creatures, dangerous habitats, maps, and more!
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The House with Chicken Legs
An extraordinary retelling of the Baba Yaga myth, this debut novel will wrap itself around your heart and never let go.
All 12-year-old Marinka wants is a friend. A real friend. Not like her house with chicken legs. Sure, the house can play games like tag and hide-and-seek, but Marinka longs for a human companion. Someone she can talk to and share secrets with. But that's tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardian who guides the dead into the afterlife. It's even harder when you live in a house that wanders all over the world . . . carrying you with it. Even worse, Marinka is being trained to be a Yaga. That means no school, no parties -- and no playmates that stick around for more than a day. So when Marinka stumbles across the chance to make a real friend, she breaks all the rules . . . with devastating consequences. Her beloved grandmother mysteriously disappears, and it's up to Marinka to find her -- even if it means making a dangerous journey to the afterlife. With a mix of whimsy, humor, and adventure, this debut novel will wrap itself around your heart and never let go.
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Everything & Everywhere
From Marc Martin, best-selling author and illustrator of the award-winning children's book A River, named Best Illustrated Picture Book by the New York Times.
From Hong Kong to Reykjavik, Ulaanbaatar to New York City, this beautifully illustrated, fact-filled adventure book will take curious kids on a lush and unexpected journey around the globe to discover what makes each place unique. Sleepy sloths, colorful cows, staggering skylines, and terrible traffic—countless surprises await globetrotting children of all ages. All you and your child need is a good travel guide and a big imagination. Let's go!
• Kids will have fun while they learn about different cultures
• Features facts about 15 places and cultures for a great introduction to the world
• Instills curiosity about the world and respect for others -
The Adventures of Beekle
An imaginary friend waits a long time to be imagined by a child and given a special name, and finally does the unimaginable--he sets out on a quest to find his perfect match in the real world.
Teens Summer Reading
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Hooky Volume 2
This magical adventure from the #1 digital comic platform WEBTOON continues as Dani and Dorian answer the question they've been avoiding: could one of them be the king of witches? A classic good-vs-evil struggle plays out on an epic stage in the second volume of this bestselling comic.
Dani and Dorian Wytte have been through everything together--including joining forces with trouble maker Nico, Princess Monica, and golden boy Mark to sneak into the witch's sabbath, spring hostages from prison, and defend the castle when it was attacked by witches.
With witches like their parents out for power and blood and non-magical people increasingly threatened by them, Dani and Dorian don't know whose side they're on . . .or if anyone's on their side. That includes their brother, Damien, who disappeared after being crowned King of Witches. But since Monica's father, the king, and her fiancé, Prince William disappeared, too, Dani and Dorian know they must set out to find their lost allies. Luckily, they aren't alone.
Based on the beloved webcomic from WEBTOON, Hooky Volume 2 picks up right where the action left off and is in stunning print format for the first time with exclusive new content sure to please fans new and old.
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Off the Page
Delilah and Oliver shouldn't be together. But they are together. And just as they're getting used to the possibility that happily ever after may really, truly be theirs, the universe sends them a message they can't ignore: they won't be allowed to rewrite their story.
Delilah and Oliver must decide how much they're willing to risk for love and what it takes to have a happy ending in a world where the greatest adventures happen off the page.
"Off the Page is just so sweet and magical. In high school, I would have given ANYTHING to crawl inside one of my favorite books to escape the real world. I wish!"--SARAH DESSEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Saint Anything -
This Rebel Heart
In the middle of Budapest, there is a river. Csilla knows the river is magic. During WWII, the river kept her family safe when they needed it most--safe from the Holocaust. But that was before the Communists seized power. Before her parents were murdered by the Soviet police. Before Csilla knew things about her father's legacy that she wishes she could forget.
Now Csilla keeps her head down, planning her escape from this country that has never loved her the way she loves it. But her carefully laid plans fall to pieces when her parents are unexpectedly, publicly exonerated. As the protests in other countries spur talk of a larger revolution in Hungary, Csilla must decide if she believes in the promise and magic of her deeply flawed country enough to risk her life to help save it, or if she should let it burn to the ground.
With queer representation, fabulist elements, and a pivotal but little-known historical moment, This Rebel Heart is Katherine Locke's tour de force. -
Punching Bag
The companion to Rex Ogle’s award-winning Free Lunch is a searing account of adolescence in a household torn by domestic violence.
Punching Bag is the compelling true story of a high school career defined by poverty and punctuated by outbreaks of domestic abuse. Rex Ogle, who brilliantly mapped his experience of hunger in Free Lunch, here describes his struggle to survive; reflects on his complex, often paradoxical relationship with his passionate, fierce mother; and charts the trajectory of his stepdad’s anger. Hovering over Rex’s story is the talismanic presence of his unborn baby sister.
Through it all, Rex threads moments of grace and humor that act as beacons of light in the darkness. Compulsively readable, beautifully crafted, and authentically told, Punching Bag is a remarkable memoir about one teenager’s cycle of violence, blame, and attempts to forgive his parents—and himself.
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When the Vibe Is Right
From the author of Where the Rhythm Takes You comes a delightful enemies-to-lovers, contemporary romance set during Trinidad's Carnival celebration.
There are two things Tess Crawford knows for sure:
She's destined to be a great Trinidadian Carnival costume designer like her renowned uncle, Russel Messina, and will one day inherit leadership of the family's masquerade band, Grandeur.
Her classmate, the popular social media influencer, Brandon Richards, is the bane of her existence. Everything about him irks her, from his annoying nickname for Tess ("Boop") to his association with David, her awful ex.
But when the future of Grandeur nears the brink of collapse in the face of band rivalry, Tess finds to her chagrin that she must team up with Brandon in a desperate attempt to revive the company.
As Tess and Brandon spend more time together, Tess begins to wonder if everything she thought she knew might not be so certain after all....
Set in lush, gorgeous Trinidad, this is a novel about finding love in the most unexpected places.
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So Let Them Burn
Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who's forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland--perfect for fans of Iron Widow and The Priory of the Orange Tree.
Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She's a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.
When she's forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn't expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon--or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.
As Faron's desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other's lives, as well as the fate of their world.
"By turns hopeful and devastating, So Let Them Burn is a masterful debut with a blazing heart. I was captivated from beginning to end by Cole's sharp, clever prose and by her protagonists--two remarkable sisters with an unforgettable bond." -- Chelsea Abdullah, author of The Stardust Thief -
Abuela, Don't Forget Me
Rex Ogle’s companion to Free Lunch and Punching Bag weaves humor, heartbreak, and hope into life-affirming poems that honor his grandmother’s legacy.
In his award-winning memoir Free Lunch, Rex Ogle’s abuela features as a source of love and support. In this companion-in-verse, Rex captures and celebrates the powerful presence a woman he could always count on—to give him warm hugs and ear kisses, to teach him precious words in Spanish, to bring him to the library where he could take out as many books as he wanted, and to offer safety when darkness closed in. Throughout a coming of age marked by violence and dysfunction, Abuela’s red-brick house in Abilene, Texas, offered Rex the possibility of home, and Abuela herself the possibility for a better life.
Abuela, Don’t Forget Me is a lyrical portrait of the transformative and towering woman who believed in Rex even when he didn’t yet know how to believe in himself.
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Scythe
Two teens must learn the “art of killing” in this Printz Honor–winning book, the first in a chilling new series from Neal Shusterman, author of the New York Times bestselling Unwind dystology.
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
Scythe is the first novel of a thrilling new series by National Book Award–winning author Neal Shusterman in which Citra and Rowan learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price. -
Blue Lock 1
A mad young coach gathers soccer players from across the country to compete in a series of bizarre challenges in a high-tech colosseum he calls Blue Lock. It's a no-balls-barred battle to become Japan's next top striker, in this Squid Game–meets–World Cup manga, now available in print!
After a disastrous defeat at the 2018 World Cup, Japan's team struggles to regroup. But what's mising? An absolute ace striker. The Football Union is hell-bent on creating a striker who hungers for goals and thirsts for victory, so Blue Lock -- a rigorous training ground for 300 of Japan's best and brightest youth players -- is created. To survive this battle royale, the last striker standing will have to out-muscle and out-ego everyone who stands in his way! -
Home Is Not a Country
my mother meant to name me for her favorite flower
its sweetness garlands made for pretty girls
i imagine her yasmeen bright & alive
& i ache to have been born her instead
Nima wishes she were someone else. She doesn’t feel understood by her mother, who grew up in a different land. She doesn’t feel accepted in her suburban town; yet somehow, she isn't different enough to belong elsewhere. Her best friend, Haitham, is the only person with whom she can truly be herself. Until she can't, and suddenly her only refuge is gone.
As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen—the name her parents meant to give her at birth—Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might be more real than Nima knows. And the life Nima wishes were someone else's. . . is one she will need to fight for with a fierceness she never knew she possessed. -
The Chosen
The Chosen introduces the first book in the Contender trilogy, an epic young adult fantasy from Taran Matharu, author of the New York Times–bestselling Summoner series.
Throughout history, people have vanished with no explanation. A group of teenagers are about to discover why.
Cade is settling into a new boarding school, contemplating his future, when he finds himself transported to another realm. He soon discovers their new world is populated with lost remnants from the past: prehistoric creatures, ancient relics, and stranger still—people. Overwhelmed by his new surroundings, Cade has little time to adjust, for soon he and his fellow classmates are forced to become contenders in a brutal game, controlled by mysterious overlords.
But who are these beings and why did they choose these teens? Cade must prepare for battle . . . because hiding is not an option. Fans of fantasy and LitRPG will welcome this new character and world from the author of the Summoner series. -
Topside
A wild outer-space fantasy about fixing your mistakes and the friends you meet along the way.
When Jo, a headstrong maintenance technician, makes an error that destabilizes her planet's core, she only knows one way to fix things: leaving her underground home for a trip to the planet's dangerous, unruly surface. Soon she's wandering through deserts, riding on the backs of giant beasts, and cutting deals with con artists and bounty hunters. Meanwhile, agents of the core are in hot pursuit. J. N. Monk and Harry Bogosian (co-creators of the web-comic StarHammer) present a wild outer-space fantasy about fixing your mistakes and the friends you meet along the way. -
Their Vicious Games
You must work twice as hard to get half as much.
Adina Walker has known this the entire time she’s been on scholarship at the prestigious Edgewater Academy—a school for the rich (and mostly white) upper class of New England. It’s why she works so hard to be perfect and above reproach, no matter what she must force beneath the surface. Even one slip can cost you everything.
And it does. One fight, one moment of lost control, leaves Adina blacklisted from her top choice Ivy League college and any other. Her only chance to regain the future she’s sacrificed everything for is the Finish, a high-stakes contest sponsored by Edgewater’s founding family in which twelve young, ambitious women with exceptional promise are selected to compete in three mysterious events: the Ride, the Raid, and the Royale. The winner will be granted entry into the fold of the Remington family, whose wealth and power can open any door.
But when she arrives at the Finish, Adina quickly gets the feeling that something isn’t quite right with both the Remingtons and her fellow competitors, and soon it becomes clear that this larger-than-life prize can only come at an even greater cost. Because the Finish’s stakes aren’t just make or break…they’re life and death.
Adina knows the deck is stacked against her—it always has been—so maybe the only way to survive their vicious games is for her to change the rules. -
Turtles All the Way Down
The critically acclaimed, instant #1 bestseller by John Green, author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our Stars
John Green, the award-winning, international bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed, returns with a story of shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
Aza Holmes never intended to pursue the disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts. -
Give Me a Sign
Jenny Han meets CODA in this big-hearted YA debut about first love and Deaf pride at a summer camp.
Lilah is stuck in the middle. At least, that’s what having a hearing loss seems like sometimes—when you don’t feel “deaf enough” to identify as Deaf or hearing enough to meet the world’s expectations. But this summer, Lilah is ready for a change.
When Lilah becomes a counselor at a summer camp for the deaf and blind, her plan is to brush up on her ASL. Once there, she also finds a community. There are cute British lifeguards who break hearts but not rules, a YouTuber who’s just a bit desperate for clout, the campers Lilah’s responsible for (and overwhelmed by)—and then there’s Isaac, the dreamy Deaf counselor who volunteers to help Lilah with her signing.
Romance was never on the agenda, and Lilah’s not positive Isaac likes her that way. But all signs seem to point to love. Unless she’s reading them wrong? One thing’s for sure: Lilah wanted change, and things here . . . they're certainly different than what she’s used to.
Adult Summer Reading
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The Devil and the Dark Water
"Compulsively readable."--New York Times Book Review
From Stuart Turton, author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, comes an extraordinary new locked-room murder mystery.
A murder on the high seas. A remarkable detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.
It's 1634, and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. Among the other guests is Sara Wessel, a noblewoman with a secret.
But no sooner is their ship out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A strange symbol appears on the sail. A dead leper stalks the decks. Livestock dies in the night.
And then the passengers hear a terrible voice, whispering to them in the darkness, promising three unholy miracles, followed by a slaughter. First an impossible pursuit. Second an impossible theft. And third an impossible murder.
Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?
With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent and Sara can solve a mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.
Shirley Jackson meets Sherlock Holmes in this chilling thriller of supernatural horror, occult suspicion, and paranormal mystery on the high seas.
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Battleborn
The extraordinary debut collection from the Guggenheim Award-winning author of the forthcoming Gold Fame Citrus
Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region's vast spaces, winning redemption despite - and often because of - the hardship and violence they endure. The arrival of a foreigner transforms the exchange of eroticism and emotion at a prostitution ranch. A prospecting hermit discovers the limits of his rugged individualism when he tries to rescue an abused teenager. Decades after she led her best friend into a degrading encounter in a Vegas hotel room, a woman feels the aftershock. Most bravely of all, Watkins takes on - and reinvents - her own troubled legacy in a story that emerges from the mayhem and destruction of Helter Skelter. Arcing from the sweeping and sublime to the minute and personal, from Gold Rush to ghost town to desert to brothel, the collection echoes not only in its title but also in its fierce, undefeated spirit the motto of her home state. -
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties.
Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady—ah, lady of a certain age—who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to.
Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing—a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn’t know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer.
What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police? -
Forget Me Never
Olivia Andrews is locally famous for her blog and podcast, "Forget Me Not: A Crime Victim's Storyboard," which is dedicated to telling the stories of victims of crime. Now, she has a stunning story to tell about a decades-old murder mystery involving a prominent citizen of Pecan Springs--someone who isn't the man everybody thinks he is. But she is killed by a hit-and-run driver while she's out jogging early one morning. Was it an accident--or something else? Her sister wants to know.
And Olivia's friend China Bayles also wants to know, urgently. Who is the prominent citizen Olivia was about to expose? How did he manage to get away with murder twenty years ago? Did he kill Olivia to keep her from revealing his secret? What is local lawyer Charlie Lipman trying to hide? And when there's another murder . . . well, it has to be a part of the same story, doesn't it? And so does the scrapbook a cousin has compiled to honor the memory of one of the victims and make sure she won't be forgotten. It might hold the answer--except that the one person whose face China wants to see has been scissored out of every photo.
Forget Me Never asks the compelling questions Who remembers? What do we choose to remember? Why do we forget? Like other novels in the China Bayles eries, Susan Wittig Albert's book is an engaging mix of mystery, murder, and herb lore, past sins and present secrets, and characters who are as real as your friends and neighbors. -
Mania
"A fantasy that hews uncomfortably close to today's reality, where facts and the truth are selectively recognized at increasingly subjective whims . . . . The specifics of Mania are the stuff of bleeding satire, but the novel's guiding concept cuts close to the bone with no anesthesia. Shriver isn't one to tip-toe around her subjects. She still knows how to poke the bear. In this case, the bear is us." -- Boston Globe
Set in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel about a lifelong friendship threatened by culture wars, from the New York Times bestselling author.
In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word ("stupid") and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.
A college English instructor, the constitutionally rebellious Pearson Converse rejected her restrictive Jehovah's Witness upbringing as a teenager, and so has an aversion to dogma of any kind. Made impotent in the university classroom, she's also enraged by the crushing of her exceptionally bright children's spirits in primary school. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend, a media commentator with whom she can speak frankly about her socially unacceptable contempt for the MP movement. Or at least she thinks she can . . . until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes.
With echoes of Philip Roth's The Human Stain, told in Lionel Shriver's inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.
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Binti: The Night Masquerade
The concluding part of the highly-acclaimed science fiction trilogy that began with Nnedi Okorafor's Hugo- and Nebula Award-winning BINTI.
Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.
Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her.
Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene--though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives--and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.
Don't miss this essential concluding volume in the Binti trilogy.
The Binti Series
Book 1: Binti
Book 2: Binti: Home
Book 3: Binti: The Night Masquerade -
Dear Life
A brilliant new collection of stories from one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of our time.
Alice Munro's peerless ability to give us the essence of a life in often brief but always spacious and timeless stories is once again everywhere apparent in this brilliant new collection. In story after story, she illumines the moment a life is forever altered by a chance encounter or an action not taken, or by a simple twist of fate that turns a person out of his or her accustomed path and into a new way of being or thinking. A poet, finding herself in alien territory at her first literary party, is rescued by a seasoned newspaper columnist, and is soon hurtling across the continent, young child in tow, toward a hoped-for but completely unplanned meeting. A young soldier, returning to his fiancée from the Second World War, steps off the train before his stop and onto the farm of another woman, beginning a life on the move. A wealthy young woman having an affair with the married lawyer hired by her father to handle his estate comes up with a surprising way to deal with the blackmailer who finds them out.While most of these stories take place in Munro's home territory--the small Canadian towns around Lake Huron--the characters sometimes venture to the cities, and the audiobook ends with four pieces set in the area where she grew up, and in the time of her own childhood: stories "autobiographical in feeling, though not, sometimes, entirely so in fact." A girl who can't sleep imagines night after wakeful night that she kills her beloved younger sister. A mother snatches up her child and runs for dear life when a crazy woman comes into her yard.
Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and real, paint a radiant, indelible portrait of how strange, perilous, and extraordinary ordinary life can be.
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The Kamogawa Food Detectives
The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.
What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?
Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by . . .
The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.
A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal. -
Search
From critically acclaimed, award-winning author Michelle Huneven, a sharp and funny novel of a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with recipes
Dana Potowski is a restaurant critic and food writer and a longtime member of a progressive Unitarian Universalist congregation in Southern California. Just as she’s finishing the book tour for her latest bestseller, Dana is asked to join the church search committee for a new minister. Under pressure to find her next book idea, she agrees, and resolves to secretly pen a memoir, with recipes, about the experience. That memoir, Search, follows the travails of the committee and their candidates—and becomes its own media sensation.
Dana had good material to work with: the committee is a wide-ranging mix of Unitarian Universalist congregants, and their candidates range from a baker and microbrew master/pastor to a reverend who identifies as both a witch and an environmental warrior. Ultimately, the committee faces a stark choice between two very different paths forward for the congregation. Although she may have been ambivalent about joining the committee, Dana finds that she cares deeply about the fate of this institution and she will fight the entire committee, if necessary, to win the day for her side.
This wry and wise tale will speak to anyone who has ever gone searching, and James Beard Award–winning author Michelle Huneven’s food writing and recipes add flavor to the delightful journey. -
James
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river's banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin...), Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "literary icon" (Oprah Daily), and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.