Helen Hoang

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Iowa

From the author of The Bride Test comes a romance novel hailed as one of The Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2018 and one of Amazon's Top 100 Books of 2018!

"This is such a fun read and it's also quite original and sexy and sensitive."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author

"Hoang's writing bursts from the page."--Buzzfeed

A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

The Kiss Quotient

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Alexandra Monir

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Includes excerpts from Wonder Woman warbringer, Batman nightwalker, Catwoman soulstealer, and Superman dawnbreaker.

Black Canary: Breaking Silence

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Ali Hazelwood

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Includes an excerpt from Love on the brain.

The Love Hypothesis

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Virginia Woolf

An English family's complex lives are followed and picked up again after a ten year hiatus in order to explore the effects of time

To the Lighthouse

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

Richard Pevear

Larissa Volokhonsky

Absolutely nothing wrong with it—just lost my hyper fixation and realized a 700+ page book might be hard for me personally!!

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Originally completed in 1872, this novel offers a politically prophetic study of a nation in turmoil and the anti-czarist liberal reformers who threaten the soul of the Russian nation

Demons

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Sally Rooney

A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE - COMING TO HULU IN 2020 - SALLY ROONEY NAMED TO THE 2019 TIME 100 NEXT LIST "A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships" (People) from the author of Conversations with Friends, "a master of the literary page-turner" (J. Courtney Sullivan). NAMED ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY'S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE - NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly - People - The New York Public Library - Slate - Harvard Crimson AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Dwight Garner, The New York Times - The New York TImes Book Review - O: The Oprah Magazine - Time - NPR - The Washington Post - Vogue - Esquire - Glamour - Elle - Marie Claire - Vox - The Paris Review - Good Housekeeping - Town & Country - Kirkus Reviews - BookPage - BookRiot "Absolutely engrossing and surprisingly heartbreaking with more depth, subtlety, and insight than any one novel deserves."--Stephanie Danler Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation--awkward but electrifying--something life changing begins. A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can't. Praise for Normal People "[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting."--The Washington Post "Arguably the buzziest novel of the season, Sally Rooney's elegant sophomore effort . . . is a worthy successor to Conversations with Friends. Here, again, she unflinchingly explores class dynamics and young love with wit and nuance."--The Wall Street Journal "[Rooney] has been hailed as the first great millennial novelist for her stories of love and late capitalism. . . . [She writes] some of the best dialogue I've read."--The New Yorker

Normal People

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The Other Side of Laurie Baker

Chloe Hooper

A Mind on Fire

The true story of one of the most devastating wildfires in Australian history and the search for the man who started it. On the scorching February day in 2009, a man lit two fires in the Australian state of Victoria, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. What came to be known as the Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people and injured hundreds more, making them among the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in Australian history. As communities reeling from unspeakable loss demanded answers, detectives scrambled to piece together what really happened. They soon began to suspect the fires had been deliverately set by an arsonist. The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the puzzle of his mind. But this book is also the story of fire in the Anthropocene. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species, and now, as climate change normalizes devastating wildfires worldwide, we must contend with the forces of inequality, and desperate yearning for power, that can lead to such destruction. Written with Chloe Hooper’s trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in the age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.

The Arsonist

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Matthew Desmond

Poverty and Profit in the American City

Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this masterful book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem.

Evicted

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David Cunning

Used at the University of Iowa for GenEd The Meaning of Life class

Philosophy

Essential Writings

The Seventeenth-Century philosopher, scientist, poet, playwright, and novelist Margaret Cavendish went to battle with the great thinkers of her time, and arguably got the better of them in many cases. She took a creative and systematic stand on the major questions of philosophy of mind,epistemology, metaphysics, and political philosophy. She argued that human beings and all other members of the created universe are purely material creatures, and she held that there are many other ways in which creatures are alike as well: for example, human beings, non-human animals, spiders,cells, and all other beings exhibit skill, wisdom, and activity, and so the universe of matter is not the largely dead and unimpressive region that most of her contemporaries thought it to be. Creatures instead are sophisticated and display a wide spectrum of intelligent activity, ranging from thehighly conscious mentality that Descartes posited to be part and parcel of human thought, to embodied forms of cognition that is more common in non-human creatures but that guide a significant portion of human behavior as well. Cavendish then used her fictional work to further illustrate her viewsand arguments, and also to craft alternative fictional worlds in which the climate for women was very different than on Seventeenth-Century earth - a climate in which women could be taken seriously in the role of philosopher, writer, scientist, military general, and other roles.This is the first volume to provide a cross-section of Cavendish's writings, views and arguments, along with introductory material. It excerpts the key portions of all her texts including annotated notes highlighting the interconnections between them. Including a general introduction by Cunning,the book will allow students to work toward a systematic picture of Cavendish's metaphysics, epistemology, and political philosophy (and including some of her non-philosophical work as well) and to see her in dialogue with philosophers who are part of the traditional canon.

Margaret Cavendish

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Critical Encounters 

Foucault and Heidegger

Henry D. Thoreau

Jonathan Levin

After being imprisoned for refusing to pay Concord's poll tax, Thoreau recounted his experience in an 1848 lecture "The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation to Government." The speech, hardly noticed in Thoreau's lifetime, was later published as "Civil Disobedience." Today it is widely considered one of the most important essays concerning the incumbent duties of American citizens.

Walden and Civil Disobedience

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Lawrence Goldstone

An evocative chronicle of the battle that led to America's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling shares insights into the abuses of the "separate but equal" system and how such courageous activists as Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois helped end legal segregation.

Separate No More: the Long Road to Brown V. Board of Education (Scholastic Focus)

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Lewis Black

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Lewis Black has all the answers, or at least his answers. He survived Hebrew school and a bar mitzvah; was a 60s university student who saw the parallels between religious rapture and drug-induced visions; explored the self-actualisation movement of the 70s and turned a cynical eye toward politicians who don the cloak of religious rectitude to cover up their own hypocrisy. What he learned about the inconsistencies and peculiarities of religion infuriated Black and here they get all his comic attention.

Me of Little Faith

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Gloria G. Harris

Hannah S. Cohen

Pioneers to the Present

Throughout California's history, remarkable women have been at the core of change and innovation. In this unparalleled collection, Gloria Harris and Hannah Cohen relate the stories of forty women whose struggles and achievements have paved the way for generations. These women were strong and determined, overcoming prejudice, skepticism and injustice. Visionary architect Julia Morgan designed Hearst Castle; Dolores Huerta co-founded United Farm Workers; Donaldina Cameron, the angry angel of Chinatown, rescued brothel workers; and silent film actress Mary Pickford helped form United Artists Pictures. From fearless pioneers and determined reformers to professionals from every walk of life, Harris and Cohen chronicle the triumphs and disappointments of diverse women who dared to take risks and break down barriers.

Women Trailblazers of California

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John Green

THE INSTANT #1 BESTSELLER IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK! FEATURED ON 60 MINUTES and FRESH AIR "So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung." - The New York Times Named a best book of the year by: The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many more! JOHN GREEN, the acclaimed author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, 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.

Turtles All the Way Down

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Erin Brockovich

I read this! Very good. Moves along nicely 

Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do about It

From the environmental activist, consumer advocate, and renowned crusader comes a riveting book that is "part memoir, part non-fiction report, and part call-to-action—a plea to readers to engage with the water crisis in America because no one else is going to do the work for you" (InStyle Magazine). Clean water is as basic to life on planet Earth as hydrogen or oxygen. In her long-awaited book—her first to reckon with the condition of water on our planet—Erin Brockovich shows us what’s at stake. She writes powerfully of the fraudulent science disguising our national water crisis: Cancer clusters are not being reported. People in Detroit and the state of New Jersey don’t have clean water. The drinking water for more than six million Americans contains unsafe levels of industrial chemicals linked to cancer and other health issues. The saga of PG&E continues to this day. Yet communities and people around the country are fighting to make an impact, and Brockovich tells us their stories. In Poughkeepsie, New York, a water operator responded to his customers’ concerns and changed his system to create some of the safest water in the country. Local moms in Hannibal, Missouri, became the first citizens in the nation to file an ordinance prohibiting the use of ammonia in their public drinking water. Like them, we can each protect our right to clean water by fighting for better enforcement of laws, new legislation, and stronger regulations.

Superman's Not Coming

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Morgan Rogers

A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife. With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls' trip to Vegas to celebrate. She's a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn't know...until she does exactly that. This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father's plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn't feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father's expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows. In New York, she's able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she's been running from all along--the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

Honey Girl

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Alison Cochrun

The author of the "swoon-worthy debut" (Harper's Bazaar) The Charm Offensive returns with a festive romantic comedy about a woman who fakes an engagement with her landlord...only to fall for his sister.

One year ago, recent Portland transplant Ellie Oliver had her dream job in animation and a Christmas Eve meet-cute with a woman at a bookstore that led her to fall in love over the course of a single night. But after a betrayal the next morning and the loss of her job soon after, she finds herself adrift, alone, and desperate for money.

Finding work at a local coffee shop, she's just getting through the days--until Andrew, the shop's landlord, proposes a shocking, drunken plan: a marriage of convenience that will give him his recent inheritance and alleviate Ellie's financial woes and isolation. They make a plan to spend the holidays together at his family cabin to keep up the ruse. But when Andrew introduces his new fiancée to his sister, Ellie is shocked to discover it's Jack--the mysterious woman she fell for over the course of one magical Christmas Eve the year before. Now, Ellie must choose between the safety of a fake relationship and the risk of something real.

Perfect for fans of Written in the Stars and One Day in December, Kiss Her Once for Me is the queer holiday rom-com that you'll want to cozy up with next to the fire.

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