Tara Isabella Burton

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Pennsylvania

The author of Social Creature and The World Cannot Give returns with a New York City fairy tale about two sisters that fall under the spell of an underworld cabaret troupe that might be a dangerous cult—but one that makes the capitalist world left in its wake feel like a sinister cult itself. Rose has come a long way. Raised—and often neglected—by a wayward mother in New York City’s chaotic bohemia, Rose has finally built the life she’s always wanted: a good job at a self-help startup, a clean apartment, an engagement to a stable if self-satisfied tech CEO who shares her faith in human potential, hard work, and the sacrifice of childish dreams. Rose’s sister Cecilia, on the other hand, never grew up. Irresponsible and impetuous, prone to jetting off to a European monastery one month and a falcon rescue the next, Cecilia has spent her life in pursuit of fairy-tale narratives of transcendence and true love—grand ideas Rose knows never work out in the real world. When Cecilia declares she’s come home to New York for good, following the ending of a whirlwind marriage, Rose hopes Cecilia might finally be ready to face adulthood: compromises and all. But then Cecilia gets involved with the Avalon: a cultish-sounding cabaret troupe—one that appears only at night, on a mysterious red boat that travels New York’s waterways—and soon vanishes: one of a growing number of suspicious disappearances among the city’s lost and loneliest souls. The only way Rose can find Cecilia is by tracking down the Avalon herself. But as Rose gets closer to solving the mystery of what happened to her sister, the Avalon works its magic on her, too. And the deeper she goes into the Avalon’s underworld, she more she begins to question everything she knows about her own life, and whether she’s willing to leave the real world behind.

Here in Avalon

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Jhumpa Lahiri

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Exploring the secrets and complexities lying at the heart of family life and relationships, a collection of eight stories includes the title work, about a young mother in a new city whose father tends her garden while hiding a secret love affair, as well as "Hema and Kaushik," "Only Goodness," and "A Choice of Accommodations," among others. Reprint.

Unaccustomed Earth

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Rebecca Roque

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Black Mirror meets A Good Girl's Guide to Murder when a teenage girl's relentless investigation into her best friend's death plunges her deep into a dangerous underground society where every secret has a price. Seventeen-year-old Cia lived in a house of secrets until she was five, when her father literally burned it all down. The price of his clandestine operation? Cia's entire family, and her leg. So, when her best friend Alice says she has a secret too, Cia wants nothing to do with it--even if it could shed light on her family's dark past. But Alice doesn't let go so easily, especially when her search for answers might help find Noah, the boy who broke her heart before going missing two months ago. But then the police find Alice's body floating in the quarry. Now Cia would give anything to know Alice's secrets. Because Alice would never have jumped, no matter what the cops think. Desperate to figure out what happened to her friend, Cia picks up the threads of Alice's investigation, plunging deep into a shadow world of augmented reality. As she untangles one web of lies after another, Cia finds herself pursued by an enemy that will pay any price to keep their secrets buried. But the girl who already lost everything isn't about to back down now. Her only chance to avenge Alice lies in exposing an underground society preying on those they think no one will miss--but danger lies closer to home than she imagined.

Till Human Voices Wake Us

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Ross Rayburn

Eve Adamson

The Practice of Introversion for a Calm, Joyful, Authentic Life

Lead Instructor of Yoga and Meditation for Peloton Ross Rayburn offers a new and accessible take on mindfulness and the art of meditation through the practice of introversion, which is a method of self-exploration for finding authenticity, joy, and calm in our hectic, extroverted world.​ Building off his popular Peloton meditation and yoga classes and his years of yoga teaching and spiritual study, Ross Rayburn offers a new way to look at meditation. Rather than an inaccessible, purely esoteric practice, meditation is, Ross argues, simply "turning in," which anyone can learn how to do through the practice of introversion. Because we spend most of our time "turned outward" in order to function in society, introversion offers both a respite and a source of insight. The act of introversion leads to a happier, calmer life and a truer sense of yourself and your path--something many crave in our chaotic and often polarized world. With the easy and enjoyable techniques in this book, and a surprisingly simple and straightforward way of thinking and seeing, you can begin introverting with more intention and with more structure and regularity, for even greater benefits. You'll learn how to handle life's difficlties with less anxiety and greater perspective, and you'll have the tools to remember who you really are, especially during those times it's easiest to forget. Imagine how much easier life would be, how much more relaxed you would feel, knowing that you are just you, even in your most challenging moments. Through these practical exercises, guided visualizations, opportunities for contemplation, breathing techniques, and more, you will discover that everything you need to be is already who you are. It's inside you. All you have to do is turn inward to find it.

Turning Inward

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Jessica Garrison

A Ruthless Killer, a Terrorized Community, and the Search for Justice in California's Central Valley

"Meticulously researched and tightly woven, The Devil's Harvest is an important story because it tells us that if [this] can happen in one place, then it can happen in any place. And that's damn scary."--Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Closers, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Night Fire A page-turning, suspenseful story of a drug cartel hit man who got away with murder after murder in California's Central Valley for three decades, The Devil's Harvest reveals how the criminal justice system fails our most vulnerable immigrant communities. On the surface, fifty-eight-year-old Jose Martinez didn't seem evil or even that remarkable- just a regular neighbor, good with cars and devoted to his family. But in between taking his children to Disneyland and visiting his mom, Martinez was also one of the most skilled professional killers police had ever seen. He tracked one victim to one of the wealthiest corners of America, a horse ranch in Santa Barbara, and shot him dead in the morning sunlight, setting off a decades-long manhunt. He shot another man, a farmworker, right in front of his young wife as they drove to work in the fields. The widow would wait decades for justice. Those were murders for hire. Others he killed for vengeance. How did Martinez manage to evade law enforcement for so long with little more than a slap on the wrist? Because he understood a dark truth about the criminal justice system: if you kill the "right people"-people who are poor, who aren't white, and who don't have anyone to speak up for them-you can get away with it. Melding the pacing and suspense of a true crime thriller with the rigor of top-notch investigative journalism, The Devil's Harvest follows award-winning reporter Jessica Garrison's relentless search for the truth as she traces the life of this assassin, the cops who were always a few steps behind him, and the families of his many victims. Drawing upon decades of case files, interrogation transcripts, on-the-ground reporting, and Martinez's chilling handwritten journals, The Devil's Harvest uses a gripping and often shocking narrative to dig into one of the most important moral questions haunting our politically divided nation today: Why do some deaths-and some lives-matter more than others?

The Devil's Harvest

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Marisa de los Santos

A Novel

Marisa de los Santos returns to the world of her beloved, bestselling novels Love Walked In and Belong to Me in an enthralling tale of sisterhood, sacrifice, and the enduring power of love. "Bring me the Northern Lights." Cornelia Brown is reeling from a terrifying act of violence when she gets word that her mother has been badly injured in an accident. Cornelia returns to Virginia, to the house she grew up in, and in the weeks that follow, she watches her mother Ellie struggle to recover, fluctuating between her usual crisp, can-do clarity and periods of delirium during which she seems haunted by a devastating loss from her past. In grief-stricken tones, Ellie begs Cornelia to bring her the Northern Lights, and despite her confusion at this mysterious plea, Cornelia vows to do so: "She was my mother and she wanted the Northern Lights; I was her daughter and would have given her anything, anything." With the help of her prickly sister, Ollie, Cornelia embarks on a mission to piece together the lost years of their mother's life: people, places, and events spanning Ellie's late teens through her mid-twenties. Cornelia and Ollie's quest takes them to unexpected places and into the worlds of strangers whose lives Ellie touched and irrevocably changed. As the sisters uncover truths about their mother's life--some beautiful, some ugly, some tragic--Cornelia herself begins to heal, to forgive herself, and to find her way back home. Alternating between two timelines--Cornelia's story in the present, and that of the young Eleanor Campbell in the 1960s--Watch Us Shine explores the complicated bonds between sisters, the impossible demands of motherhood, and the power of human love to save us again and again.

Watch Us Shine

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Eleanor Brown

The beloved New York Times bestseller from acclaimed author Eleanor Brown about three sisters who love each other, but just don't happen to like each other very much. Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can't solve) and TV is something other people watch. Their father—a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse—named them after the Bard's heroines. It's a lot to live up to. The sisters each have a hard time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the shy homebody eldest sister, the fast-living middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Only that none has found life to be what was expected; and now, faced with their parents' frailty and their own personal disappointments, not even a book can solve what ails them...

The Weird Sisters

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Hannah Rothschild

A modern English comedy of morals and manners, about a highborn family of outrageous characters, in a story that proves revenge can be sweet In the months leading up to the Brexit referendum, Ayesha, the beautiful, young secret daughter of the late Enyon Trelawney, has married the much older thuggish banker Tomlinson Sleet with whom she has a young daughter, Stella. Ayesha is busy restoring the once run-down Trelawney Castle in Cornwall, which Sleet has bought, to its former glory, as well as studying art at the Courtauld in London. The elderly Countess Clarissa—still ensconced on the property—the host of a camp television show, is about to head into a disastrous marriage. Lady Jane has separated from the hopeless Trelawney heir Kitto, who is crazier than ever, and found an enlightened woman to keep her company abroad. Sleet is becoming increasingly difficult, distracted by the seductive and ruthless bitcoin goddess Zamora, but Kitto’s sister Blaze and her husband, Joshua, will support Ayesha’s clever plan as she discovers shocking secrets, takes action, and brings the family together. Biting and satirical, but also poignant and moving, High Time is a delicious story of madness, mayhem, and mischief run amok.

High Time

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T. Colin Campbell

The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health

Based in part on a study that researched the relationship between diet and disease in 65 counties of rural China. Also draws on scientific research from around the world that documents the connection between diet and disease, especially "diseases of influence." Provides advice on how to eat derived from evidence presented earlier in the book and critiques the public health information system.

The China Study

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Eve Fairbanks

Brand new but see photos… not sure if cover is supposed to look like this but it seems like some black ink may have spread/smeared

An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning

Winner of the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction This “elegant” and “unfailingly empathetic” narrative (The New York Times) follows three ordinary South Africans living through the most extraordinary reckoning with race and power any modern country has ever faced. Dipuo, who grew up in apartheid-era Johannesburg’s largest Black township, conceived her only daughter, Malaika, on the mine dump that separated the Black city from the white one. Christo, one of the last white men drafted to police that boundary, would come to realize—one night on the same mine dump—that everything he had been taught to believe was collapsing to make way for something unprecedented. For Malaika and her peers would be born to a historic destiny: to grow up and live in a Black-led society. All three—Dipuo, Christo, Malaika—and so many other South Africans would make new lives while facing huge questions: How can we let go of our pasts? How can we, as individuals, pay historic debts? And what will people who care passionately about being good do when the meaning of right changes overnight? The Inheritors tells a story about the unexpected fates that lie ahead for other countries now facing their own reckonings over history, race, and power. Written at the intersection of politics and psychology and told through an unorthodox blend of “richly drawn” lives and “incisive observations” (The New York Review of Books), acclaimed journalist Eve Fairbanks brings a coming world “vividly into focus” (The Washington Post). “Resonant with the current American situation,” The Inheritors “draws out tangled emotions with such skill and sensitivity” (The New York Times) to arrive at subtle truths and new revelations about our responsibilities to the past—and to the future.

The Inheritors

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Lauren Groff

A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, TIME, THE SEATTLE TIMES, MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, SLATE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, KIRKUS, AND MANY MORE “Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers – with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout.” —The New York Times Book Review (cover review) From the award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception. Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation. Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

Fates and Furies

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Richard C. Morais

An American release of a well-received 2008 publication in India is a tribute to Indian and French flavors that follows the life journey of chef Hassan Haji, who progresses from his family's modest restaurant in Mumbai to master haute cuisine in an elegant Parisian restaurant. Reprint.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

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Claire Jimenez

Like new! Read once - aardvark book club edition. 

A powerful debut novel that's "hilarious, heartbreaking, and ass-kicking" (Jamie Ford), of a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long‑missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home.



A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle *  USA Today * Today.com * Ms. Magazine * Good Housekeeping * Bustle * The Week *  Goodreads * Bookriot * Pop Culturely * SheReads * Litreactor * Electric Lit * The Mary Sue * People Español * Zibby Mag 



The Ramirez women of Staten Island orbit around absence. When thirteen‑year‑old middle child Ruthy disappeared after track practice without a trace, it left the family scarred and scrambling. One night, twelve years later, oldest sister Jessica spots a woman on her TV screen in Catfight, a raunchy reality show. She rushes to tell her younger sister, Nina: This woman's hair is dyed red, and she calls herself Ruby, but the beauty mark under her left eye is instantly recognizable. Could it be Ruthy, after all this time?



The years since Ruthy's disappearance haven't been easy on the Ramirez family. It's 2008, and their mother, Dolores, still struggles with the loss, Jessica juggles a newborn baby with her hospital job, and Nina, after four successful years at college, has returned home to medical school rejections and is forced to work in the mall folding tiny bedazzled thongs at the lingerie store.



After seeing maybe‑Ruthy on their screen, Jessica and Nina hatch a plan to drive to where the show is filmed in search of their long‑lost sister. When Dolores catches wind of their scheme, she insists on joining, along with her pot-stirring holy roller best friend, Irene. What follows is a family road trip and reckoning that will force the Ramirez women to finally face the past and look toward a future--with or without Ruthy in it.



What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez is a vivid family portrait, in all its shattered reality, exploring the familial bonds between women and cycles of generational violence, colonialism, race, and silence, replete with snark, resentment, tenderness, and, of course, love.

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

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Kevin Wilson

Small pencil mark on inside back cover (see pic)

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A Most Anticipated Book of Fall from: Associated Press * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * BookPage * Book Riot * The Boston Globe * Entertainment Weekly * Esquire * Garden & Gun * LitHub * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Sunset Magazine * Time * Town & Country * The Millions * USA Today * Vogue * Vulture * The Week

An exuberant, bighearted novel about two teenage misfits who spectacularly collide one fateful summer, and the art they make that changes their lives forever

Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge--aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner--is determined to make it through yet another summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother's house and who is as awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them and start to panic. Satanists, kidnappers--the rumors won't stop, and soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town.

Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge gets a call that threatens to upend her carefully built life: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that?

A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson's trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not the Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It's also about the secrets that haunt us--and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.

Now Is Not the Time to Panic

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Barbara Kingsolver

Steven L. Hopp

Camille Kingsolver

A Year of Food Life

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

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Bryan Washington

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Vanity Fair, O, the Oprah Magazine, Esquire, Marie Claire, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Refinery29, Real Simple, Kirkus Reviews, Electric Literature, and Lit Hub

"A masterpiece." --NPR

"No other novel this year captures so gracefully the full palette of America." --The Washington Post

"Wryly funny, gently devastating." --Entertainment Weekly

A funny and profound story about family in all its strange forms, joyful and hard-won vulnerability, becoming who you're supposed to be, and the limits of love.
 
Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years--good years--but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.

But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.

Both men will change in ways that will either make them stronger together, or fracture everything they've ever known. And just maybe they'll all be okay in the end.

Memorial

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Lizzie Shane

A delightful holiday romance about a small-town single dad and an animal rescue owner as they try to find forever homes for a dozen lovable pups before Christmas. Ally Gilmore may have had a slightly unrealistic idea of what it would be like to move to idyllic Pine Hollow to run the local animal shelter. Small-town Vermont, adorable dogs, and the chance to be closer to her grandparents sounded like the perfect recipe for the fresh start she needs -- but she's barely settled in when she learns the shelter is losing its funding and she has only four weeks to find forever homes for all the dogs. When Ally tries to dispute the town council's decision, she finds her nemesis is a lot younger, a lot more handsome, and a lot more reasonable than she expected. Ben Hait knows he can come across as a bit of a Scrooge, but he's got too much on his plate to worry about cultivating a warm and cuddly reputation. He's barely keeping his head above water as the sole guardian of his ten-year-old niece, and he genuinely can't handle one more thing -- like the dog little Astrid keeps begging him to get. But he does feel guilty about Ally's situation and agrees to use his connections in the town to help her find homes for the shelter animals. What starts as an uneasy alliance evolves into a friendship as Ben and Ally navigate Pine Hollow's holiday events, bringing adorable pups with "adopt me" ribbons to the Christmas parade and tree-lighting ceremonies. And soon the town matchmakers are hard at work to convince the pair that their chemistry isn't just the magic of mistletoe but the love of a lifetime.

The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

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Helena Hunting

Experience the hilarity and heartache of first love and second chances in a sexy new romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of the Pucked series. Lilah isn't sure what hurt worse: the day Ethan left her to focus on his hockey career or the day he came back eight years later. He might think they can pick up just where they left off, but she's no longer that same girl and never wants to be again. Ethan wants his glory days back. And that includes having Lilah by his side. With her, he was magic. They were magic. All he has to do is make her see that. Just when Lilah might finally be ready to let Ethan in, though, she finds out their reunion might have nothing to do with love and everything to do with improving his game. But Ethan's already lost her once, and even if it costs him his career, he'll do anything to keep from losing her again. "Fabulously fun! Lilah and Ethan's second-chance romance charmed me from the first page to the swoon-worthy end." -Jill Shalvis, New York Times bestselling author

The Good Luck Charm

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Morgan Jerkins

Read once. A few markings on inside of cover (see photo)

A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots

Wandering in Strange Lands

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Curtis Sittenfeld

Never read, just small wrinkle on jacket on spine (photo) from trying to get it off of my crowded book cart

A comedy writer thinks she's sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions--a hilarious, observant, and deeply tender novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Eligible, Rodham, and Prep.

"Whatever [Sittenfeld] writes, we'll read it."--People

Sally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she's long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.

But when Sally's friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show--and in society at large--who've gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called the Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.

Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week's show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn't a romantic comedy--it's real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her . . . right?

With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Curtis Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

Romantic Comedy

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Erica Bauermeister

Bought used as a former library book. See photos

The Scent Keeper

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Nadia Owusu

A Memoir

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, a deeply felt memoir from Whiting Award–winner Nadia Owusu about the push and pull of belonging, the seismic emotional toll of family secrets, and the heart it takes to pull through. A Most-Anticipated Selection by * The New York Times * Entertainment Weekly * O, The Oprah Magazine * New York magazine * Vogue * Time * Elle * Minneapolis Star Tribune * Electric Literature * Goodreads * The Millions *Refinery29 * HelloGiggles * Young Nadia Owusu followed her father, a United Nations official, from Europe to Africa and back again. Just as she and her family settled into a new home, her father would tell them it was time to say their goodbyes. The instability wrought by Nadia’s nomadic childhood was deepened by family secrets and fractures, both lived and inherited. Her Armenian American mother, who abandoned Nadia when she was two, would periodically reappear, only to vanish again. Her father, a Ghanaian, the great hero of her life, died when she was thirteen. After his passing, Nadia’s stepmother weighed her down with a revelation that was either a bombshell secret or a lie, rife with shaming innuendo. With these and other ruptures, Nadia arrived in New York as a young woman feeling stateless, motherless, and uncertain about her future, yet eager to find her own identity. What followed, however, were periods of depression in which she struggled to hold herself and her siblings together. Aftershocks is the way she hauled herself from the wreckage of her life’s perpetual quaking, the means by which she has finally come to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one written into existence by her own hand. Heralding a dazzling new writer, Aftershocks joins the likes of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and does for race identity what Maggie Nelson does for gender identity in The Argonauts.

Aftershocks

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Willy Vlautin

"Willy Vlautin is not known for happy endings, but there's something here that defies the downward pull. In the end, Lynette is pure life force: fierce and canny and blazing through a city that no longer has space for her, and it's all Portland's loss."--Portland Monthly Magazine

Award-winning author Willy Vlautin explores the impact of trickle-down greed and opportunism of gentrification on ordinary lives in this scorching novel that captures the plight of a young woman pushed to the edge as she fights to secure a stable future for herself and her family.

Barely thirty, Lynette is exhausted. Saddled with bad credit and juggling multiple jobs, some illegally, she's been diligently working to buy the house she lives in with her mother and developmentally disabled brother Kenny. Portland's housing prices have nearly quadrupled in fifteen years, and the owner is giving them a good deal. Lynette knows it's their last best chance to own their own home--and obtain the security they've never had. While she has enough for the down payment, she needs her mother to cover the rest of the asking price. But a week before they're set to sign the loan papers, her mother gets cold feet and reneges on her promise, pushing Lynette to her limits to find the money they need.

Set over two days and two nights, The Night Always Comes follows Lynette's frantic search--an odyssey of hope and anguish that will bring her face to face with greedy rich men and ambitious hustlers, those benefiting and those left behind by a city in the throes of a transformative boom. As her desperation builds and her pleas for help go unanswered, Lynette makes a dangerous choice that sets her on a precarious, frenzied spiral. In trying to save her family's future, she is plunged into the darkness of her past, and forced to confront the reality of her life.

A heart wrenching portrait of a woman hungry for security and a home in a rapidly changing city, The Night Always Comes raises the difficult questions we are often too afraid to ask ourselves: What is the price of gentrification, and how far are we really prepared to go to achieve the American Dream? Is the American dream even attainable for those living at the edges? Or for too many of us, is it only a hollow promise?

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