Hanna Pylväinen

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

California

A Novel

Longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction An epic love story in the vein of Cold Mountain and The Great Circle, about a young reindeer herder and a minister’s daughter in the nineteenth century Arctic Circle In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders—of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides—as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea. Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.

The End of Drum-Time

351aca8c-4775-4872-822f-ba456ade4ae8-0

Lucy Connelly

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Totally Addictive Cozy Mystery Irish Fiction

Irish scones, shamrock shortbread, a local literary festival... and a rather dead author? Join Mercy McCarthy on her next case! Mercy and Lizzie McCarthy are settling in to the charming seaside village of Shamrock Cove on the west coast of Ireland. Lizzie throws herself into organizing a book festival and mystery writer Mercy even agrees to come out of her bookish hidey-hole to do get involved. But then the star author for the event is found dead. James Brandt was killed by a falling bookshelf in his own cottage... The local detective is not convinced by Mercy's suspicion of murder but when someone else turns up dead, the police cannot ignore it. There's just one problem: Mercy and Lizzie's beloved dog Mr. Poe sniffs out the second body in the storeroom of their own bookstore. And now all of the gossips seem determined to pin the murder on Mercy! Convinced the police are focusing on a red herring in this real-life case, Mercy needs to act fast to clear her name. A meddling mayor, a cheerful chef and a bashful botanist make her suspect list, but it's not until Mercy discovers a tatty old photograph in the local library archive that she is onto the killer's trail. With the police keen to shut her out of the murder investigation, can Mercy play this case by the book, or will she be the next to fall off the shelf...? A totally gripping and twisty cozy crime novel, perfect for readers who love Agatha Christie, Carlene O'Connor or Faith Martin! This incredibly fast-paced and fun murder mystery will whisk you off to Ireland and won't let you go until the final page! What readers are saying about Lucy Connelly: "Y'all, THIS WAS FREAKING AMAZING. I don't think I was even 5% in and I was going to my group messages and telling my bookish friends that they NEEDED to be reading this... And that reveal... HOLY FREAKING COW. I don't think my heart has beat that fast in ages.;-)... Now, go find this and read it. Yes, right now. Go on. I'll be waiting here when you are done and need to talk about it... SO. WELL. DONE." Goodreads reviewer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "I loved everything about this mystery! I was turning pages deep into the night when I should have been sleeping I just couldn't put it down! 5*****" Goodreads reviewer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Wonderful... I gobbled up this book. I loved every minute of it." Goodreads reviewer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Delightful... thrilling... keeps you hooked... I found myself glued to the book, eager to see how it unfolded." The Book Decoder, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent!!!... One of the best mystery novels I read in 2024... Definitely looking forward for the next book!!" Goodreads reviewer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Fun, fast read to the very last page!" NetGalley reviewer "If someone asked me to define "cozy mystery" then I would describe this book... This Ireland town is magical... The setting swooped me up and dropped me right into the middle of the story... This book makes me imagine a gray day with light rain, a stoked fire, a blanket, a cup of coffee (!!), and curling up to read." Goodreads reviewer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Death by the Book

358041d4-780a-4462-a6be-2d618d801509-0

Jaron Lanier

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

'A blisteringly good, urgent, essential read' ZADIE SMITH

Jaron Lanier, the world-famous Silicon Valley scientist-pioneer and 'high-tech genius' (Sunday Times) who first alerted us to the dangers of social media, explains why its toxic effects are at the heart of its design, and explains in ten simple arguments why liberating yourself from its hold will transform your life and the world for the better.

Social media is making us sadder, angrier, less empathetic, more fearful, more isolated and more tribal. In recent months it has become horribly clear that social media is not bringing us together - it is tearing us apart. In Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now Jaron Lanier draws on his insider's expertise to explain precisely how social media works - by deploying constant surveillance and subconscious manipulation of its users - and why its cruel and dangerous effects are at the heart of its current business model and design. As well as offering ten simple arguments for liberating yourself from its addictive hold, his witty and urgent manifesto outlines a vision for an alternative that provides all the benefits of social media without the harm.

So, if you want a happier life, a more just and peaceful world, or merely the chance to think for yourself without being monitored and influenced by the richest corporations in history, then the best thing you can do, for now, is delete your social media accounts - right now. You will almost certainly become a calmer and possibly a nicer person in the process.

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

a148ad56-6fd2-426d-8fcc-3acfc9a8fca4-1

Patrick deWitt

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

"Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed. Behind Bob Comet's plain facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure, of true love found and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in vocation, and the ultimate acceptance of a life lived to the side of the masses. The Librarianist is a wide-ranging and ambitious homage to the life lived through and for literature. With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, deWitt celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity"--

The Librarianist

e2a8807e-38cb-499a-8328-8cb3a7dc0392-1

Akwaeke Emezi

From National Book Award finalist Akwaeke Emezi comes a companion novel to the critically acclaimed PET that explores both the importance and cost of social revolution--and how youth lead the way. After a childhood in foster care, Bitter is thrilled to have been chosen to attend Eucalyptus, a special school where she can focus on her painting surrounded by other creative teens. But outside this haven, the streets are filled with protests against the deep injustices that grip the city of Lucille. Bitter's instinct is to stay safe within the walls of Eucalyptus . . . but her friends aren't willing to settle for a world that's so far away from what they deserve. Pulled between old friendships, her artistic passion, and a new romance, Bitter isn't sure where she belongs--in the studio or in the streets. And if she does find a way to help the revolution while being true to who she is, she must also ask: at what cost? This timely and riveting novel--a companion to the National Book Award finalist Pet--explores the power of youth, protest, and art.

Bitter

9c49864f-cce6-4071-bc8b-459f28010107-1

Tae Keller

In her first novel since winning the Newbery Medal for When You Trap a Tiger, Tae Keller offers a gripping and emotional story about friendship, bullying, and the possiblity that there's more in the universe than just us.

Sometimes middle school can make you feel like you're totally alone in the universe...but what if we aren't alone at all?

Thanks to her best friend, Reagan, Mallory Moss knows the rules of middle school. The most important one? You have to fit in to survive. But then Jennifer Chan moves in across the street, and that rule doesn't seem to apply. Jennifer doesn't care about the laws of middle school, or the laws of the universe. She believes in aliens--and she thinks she can find them.

Then Jennifer goes missing. Using clues from Jennifer's journals, Mallory goes searching. But the closer she gets, the more Mallory has to confront why Jennifer might have run . . . and face the truth within herself.

Tae Keller lights up the sky with this insightful story about shifting friendships, right and wrong, and the power we all hold to influence and change one another. No one is ever truly alone.

Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

40975eca-b227-4b96-8aae-35297f28e652-1

R. M. Romero

"A must-read for lost souls everywhere." --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

With spellbinding verse prose, R.M. Romero channels the spirit of myth into a brilliantly original tale, inspired by her experiences restoring Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe.

Magic will burn you up.

Sent to stay with her aunt in Prague and witness the humble life of an artist, Ilana Lopez--a biracial Jewish girl--finds herself torn between her dream of becoming a violinist and her immigrant parents' desire for her to pursue a more stable career.
 
When she discovers a forgotten Jewish cemetery behind her aunt's cottage, she meets the ghost of a kindhearted boy named Benjamin, who died over a century ago. As Ilana restores Benjamin's grave, he introduces her to the enchanted side of Prague, where ghosts walk the streets and their kisses have warmth.
 
But Benjamin isn't the only one interested in Ilana. Rudolph Wassermann, a man with no shadow, has become fascinated with her and the music she plays. He offers to share his magic, so Ilana can be with Benjamin and pursue her passion for violin. But after Ilana discovers the truth about Wassermann and how Benjamin became bound to the city, she resolves to save the boy she loves, even if it means losing him--forever.

A love letter to Latin American and Jewish diasporas, based on the author's experiences working to maintain Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe. The Ghosts of Rose Hill is a tender and empowering read that you will devour in one sitting. Steeped in history and the experiences of immigrant families, especially Jewish families, each carefully-chosen word of this magical verse novel casts a spell. A Summer 2022 Indie Next Pick!

The Ghosts of Rose Hill

b1807e84-f575-4754-acd5-56a935cd5a53-1

Susan Straight

"A California epic following several native, diverse Californians grasping for air in a world that continues to marginalize them"--

Mecca

2323c723-0aa2-4b62-ab52-875386de9a33-1

Latoya Watkins

Named A Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by *Good Morning America.com* *Essence* *Esquire* *Bustle* and *The Millions*

From a stunning new voice comes a powerful debut novel, Perish, about a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intergenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.

Bear it or perish yourself. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateteful night in her cousin's outhouse that change the trajectory of her life.

Spanning decades, Perish tracks the choices Helen Jean--the matriarch of the Turner family--makes and the way those choices have rippled across generations, from her children to her grandchildren and beyond.

Told in alternating chapters, Perish follows four members of the Turner family: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean's thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, a mother of two who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem, Texas, and all of its trauma behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can't seem to stay pregnant, as they're called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother.

This family's "reunion" unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves  important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.

Set in vividly drawn Texas and tackling themes like trauma, legacy, faith, home, class, race, and more, this beautiful yet heart heart-wrenching novel will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained, or irrevocably broken.

Perish

c827d63b-296d-443b-973b-6fec35e777e6-1

David Bowles

Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Award-winning authors David Bowles and Guadalupe García McCall join forces to craft a sweeping fantasy romance about falling in love despite all odds.

In modern-day Mexico, Sitlali is all alone after the death of her beloved abuela. Targeted by a dangerous gang member, she flees to the United States to find her father. The night before her journey, she finds an ancient conch shell on the beach and takes it with her as a memento of home.

In 1521, Calizto is trapped in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which is besieged by Spanish invaders. He has fought valiantly, but hope for his people is running out. Desperate to escape, he takes up his mother's sacred conch and sounds a plea to the gods.

The conch holds magic neither Sitlali nor Calizto understand, magic that allows them to communicate across centuries--and find comfort in each other as they fight to survive. With each conversation, they fall deeper in love, and as the moon waxes, they become more present to each other. But as danger threatens at every turn, will they ever find a way to truly be together?

Secret of the Moon Conch

6e36d87e-9223-44a9-abdc-2256d9ad9121-1

Picnic at the End of the World 

Omer Aziz

A Memoir

Brown Boy is an uncompromising interrogation of identity, family, religion, race, and class, told through Omer Aziz's incisive and luminous prose.

In a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto, miles away from wealthy white downtown, Omer Aziz struggles to find his place as a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy. He fears the violence and despair of the world around him, and sees a dangerous path ahead, succumbing to aimlessness, apathy, and rage.

In his senior year of high school, Omer quickly begins to realize that education can open up the wider world. But as he falls in love with books, and makes his way to Queen's University in Ontario, Sciences Po in Paris, Cambridge University in England, and finally Yale Law School, he continually confronts his own feelings of doubt and insecurity at being an outsider, a brown-skinned boy in an elite white world. He is searching for community and identity, asking questions of himself and those he encounters, and soon finds himself in difficult situations--whether in the suburbs of Paris or at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet the more books Omer reads and the more he moves through elite worlds, his feelings of shame and powerlessness only grow stronger, and clear answers recede further away.

Weaving together his powerful personal narrative with the books and friendships that move him, Aziz wrestles with the contradiction of feeling like an Other and his desire to belong to a Western world that never quite accepts him. He poses the questions he couldn't have asked in his youth: Was assimilation ever really an option? Could one transcend the perils of race and class? And could we--the collective West--ever honestly confront the darker secrets that, as Aziz discovers, still linger from the past?

In Brown Boy, Omer Aziz has written a book that eloquently describes the complex process of creating an identity that fuses where he's from, what people see in him, and who he knows himself to be.

Brown Boy

5838dbd1-8ea8-4ee1-8757-c694f9315ea9-1

Charles C. Mann

New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Describes how recent archaeological research has transformed long-held myths about the Americas, revealing far older and more advanced cultures with a greater population than were previously thought to have existed.

1491 (Second Edition)

efdb3662-49df-4c7e-8ead-12a2a7800313-1

Elif Shafak

A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.

The Island of Missing Trees

6fd03908-ede2-43a2-a3aa-180900253e53-1

A stunning YA fantasy inspired by ancient Mesoamerica, this gripping debut introduces us to a lineage of seers defiantly resisting the shifting patriarchal state that would see them destroyed—perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi and Sabaa Tahir. Indir is a Dreamer, descended from a long line of seers; able to see beyond reality, she carries the rare gift of Dreaming truth. But when the beloved king dies, his son has no respect for this time-honored tradition. King Alcan wants an opportunity to bring the Dreamers to a permanent end—an opportunity Indir will give him if he discovers the two secrets she is struggling to keep. As violent change shakes Indir’s world to its core, she is forced to make an impossible choice: fight for her home or fight to survive. Saya is a seer, but not a Dreamer—she has never been formally trained. Her mother exploits her daughter’s gift, passing it off as her own as they travel from village to village, never staying in one place too long. Almost as if they’re running from something. Almost as if they’re being hunted. When Saya loses the necklace she’s worn since birth, she discovers that seeing isn’t her only gift—and begins to suspect that everything she knows about her life has been a carefully-constructed lie. As she comes to distrust the only family she’s ever known, Saya will do what she’s never done before, go where she’s never been, and risk it all in the search of answers. With a detailed, supernaturally-charged setting and topical themes of patriarchal power and female strength, The Lost Dreamer brings an ancient world to life, mirroring the challenges of our modern one.

The Lost Dreamer

07514e20-f769-45db-ae2f-42851bc6e73e-1

A striking debut novel about racism on elite college campuses. Fans of Dear White People will embrace this activist-centered contemporary novel about a college freshman grappling with the challenges of attending an elite university with a disturbing racist history, which may not be as distant as it seems.

Savannah Howard sacrificed her high school social life to make sure she got into a top college. Her sights were set on an HBCU, but when she is accepted to the ivy-covered walls of Wooddale University on a full ride, how can she say no?

Wooddale is far from the perfectly manicured community it sells on its brochures, though. Savannah has barely unpacked before she comes face to face with microagressions stemming from racism and elitism. Then Clive Wilmington's statue is vandalized with blackface. The prime suspect? Lucas Cunningham, Wooddale's most popular student and son of a local prominent family. Soon Savannah is unearthing secrets of Wooddale's racist history. But what's the price for standing up for what is right? And will telling the truth about Wooddale's past cost Savannah her own future?

A stunning, challenging, and timely debut about racism and privilege on college campuses.

dawn miller

@readordie

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Hanna Pylväinen

The End of Drum-Time

Lucy Connelly

Death by the Book

Jaron Lanier

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Patrick deWitt

The Librarianist

Akwaeke Emezi

Bitter

Tae Keller

Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

R. M. Romero

The Ghosts of Rose Hill

Susan Straight

Mecca

Latoya Watkins

Perish

David Bowles; Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Secret of the Moon Conch

Mario Rojas

Picnic at the End of the World

Omer Aziz

Brown Boy

Charles C. Mann

1491 (Second Edition)

Elif Shafak

The Island of Missing Trees

Lizz Huerta

The Lost Dreamer

Kristen R. Lee

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

Get The App

Browse by categories

Hanna Pylväinen

The End of Drum-Time

Lucy Connelly

Death by the Book

Jaron Lanier

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

Patrick deWitt

The Librarianist

Akwaeke Emezi

Bitter

Tae Keller

Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone

R. M. Romero

The Ghosts of Rose Hill

Susan Straight

Mecca

Latoya Watkins

Perish

David Bowles; Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Secret of the Moon Conch

Mario Rojas

Picnic at the End of the World

Omer Aziz

Brown Boy

Charles C. Mann

1491 (Second Edition)

Elif Shafak

The Island of Missing Trees

Lizz Huerta

The Lost Dreamer

Kristen R. Lee

Required Reading for the Disenfranchised Freshman

Get The App