March 2018 Staff PicksLike this list

18 items

• Becoming Ms. Burton

  From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women

  Burton, Susan,

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  In early childhood Susan Burton suffered domestic and sexual assault that led to pregnancy at 14 and to crime and addiction. Then the death of one of her children put her into a downward spiral that saw her in and out of prisons, where she learned…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Directorate S

  the C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

  Coll, Steve,

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  This sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars is another masterly work of history by investigative journalist Steve Coll. The book takes its name from the Pakistani equivalent to the C.I.A.’s Special Activities Unit. "Directorate S," as…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Educated

  a Memoir

  Westover, Tara,

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  Tara Westover's memoir is like no other. Raised by survivalists in the Idaho mountains, Westover never attended school; instead she helped with her mother's natural healing business and salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her family came together…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Flight Attendant

  a Novel

  Bohjalian, Chris, 1962-

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  After a night of hard partying, a flight attendant wakes up in a luxury Dubai hotel in bed with a dead guy. Not just dead, but in a pool of blood with his throat slashed. She vaguely remembers drinking with a third person in the hotel suite the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Force of Nature

  Harper, Jane (Jane Elizabeth),

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  Aaron Falk, an investigator with the Australian federal police financial investigation unit, learns that one of his confidential informants, Alice Russell, went missing under mysterious circumstances on a 4-day corporate hiking and camping retreat. …Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Girls Burn Brighter

  Rao, Shobha,

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  Poornima and Savitha are fast friends as they reach marriageable age in grinding poverty in India. They are not the submissive, colorless girls society expects them to be, and they are soon separated and subjected to every form of abuse life can…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Gone World

  Sweterlitsch, Tom,

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  Shannon Moss is an NCIS federal agent assigned to investigate crimes committed by current or retired naval personnel who have been part of a top secret navy program called Deep Waters. Sailors who are part of Deep Waters travel through time or to…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Great Alone

  Hannah, Kristin,

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  Bestselling novelist Hannah (The Nightingale) is back with a dark page-turner about a family in crisis. Returned Vietnam POW Ernt Allbright suffers from PTSD; his wife Cora is sure her love can eventually fix him; and their 13-year-old Leni would…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Grist Mill Road

  a Novel

  Yates, Christopher J.,

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  Three neighborhood friends who were part of a harrowing crime reconnect decades later, making for an ominous situation in Yates's dark, tangled thriller. Friends Patrick and Matthew spend their time running free in the wilderness near their home…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Henry David Thoreau

  a Life

  Walls, Laura Dassow,

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  This excellent biography covers Thoreau the pioneer of environmentalism (author of Walden) as well as Thoreau the abolitionist who argued for civil disobedience, and author Laura Dassow Walls shows them to be the same man: not just an intelligent…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• High-risers

  Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing

  Austen, Ben,

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  Ben Austen explores the lives of a handful of residents from the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project, from the first families who viewed their sparkling new homes as paradise to the very last residents, who lived without some basic services and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The House of Broken Angels

  a Novel

  Urrea, Luis Alberto,

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  Big Angel is dying, but before he goes he wants to have one last hurrah for his birthday. Sadly, his mother dies before the big day. This sets the stage for the rest of this saga of the De La Cruz family. As the family gathers first for the burial…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Last Wild Men of Borneo

  a True Story of Death and Treasure / |cCarl Hoffman

  Hoffman, Carl, 1960-

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  Hoffman tells the story of two larger-than-life westerners, a Swiss environmentalist and an American art dealer, both of whom travel deep inside the South Pacific island of Borneo, but never meet. Both are driven by a desire to shrug off the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Music Shop

  a Novel

  Joyce, Rachel,

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  On a small street of run-down shops in a run-down suburb, there is a music shop crammed with vinyl records. Frank, the shop proprietor, believes that vinyl is the only true way to listen to music and shuns first cassettes, then later CDs. The shop…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• A Princess in Theory

  Cole, Alyssa,

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  Naledi Smith doesn't believe in fairy tales. After a childhood spent in foster care, and an adulthood spent working multiple jobs to put herself through grad school, she knows for sure that life is never easy or perfect for people like her. So when…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sunburn

  a Novel

  Lippman, Laura, 1959-

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  In her new novel, Laura Lippman serves up a classic noir novel with a feminist twist. Polly is the dangerous red-head with a dark past and Adam, the drifter who comes into her life with his own secrets. They fall in love over a steamy summer in a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• An Unkindness of Ghosts

  Solomon, Rivers,

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  We assume that the future of space travel would be enlightened and free of intolerance, as in Star Trek. But the last of humanity, hurtling through space on the HSS Matilda, faces the same politics and prejudice of the antebellum South. The Matilda…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Winter

  Smith, Ali, 1962-

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  Art’s pissed-off girlfriend has told him off high-jacked his Twitter account in an act of revenge. (Yeah, he kind of deserves it.) Headed home for Christmas to a mother expecting to meet her, he pays a young woman he meets to play the part, but he…Read moreRead more of this annotation