April 2022 Staff PicksLike this list

17 items

• The Book of Cold Cases

  St. James, Simone,

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  Shea Collins barely escaped abduction as a child, and it led to a lifetime fascination with crime and a refusal to ever ride in a car again. Shea copes by writing in her blog, and when she crosses paths with Beth Greer, the notorious Lady Killer,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Book of Form and Emptiness

  Ozeki, Ruth, 1956-

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  Ozeki's warm, soulful novel follows 14-year-old Benny and his mom, Annabelle, as they navigate an increasingly angry, chaotic world. Benny and Annabelle are both reeling from the recent loss of Benny's father, Kenji, to a freak accident. Benny's…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Christie Affair

  Gramont, Nina de,

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  Nan O'Dea is a woman on a mission: to seduce Archie Christie and get him to marry her. Of course, this means separating him from his wife, author Agatha Christie, who is somewhat known as a writer, but hasn't yet become a household name. This is the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Disorientation

  Chou, Elaine Hsieh,

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  Eighth year Ph.D. candidate Ingrid Yang is begrudgingly writing her dissertation on the late famous Chinese American poet Xiao-Wen Chou when she discovers something alarming about his past. An academic scandal begins to emerge as Ingrid and her best…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Emergency

  a Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER /

  Fisher, Thomas, (Board-certified emergency medicine physician)

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  Hospital emergency rooms are often treated as the stuff of medical drama in pop culture, but reality is another matter. In his sobering new book, Thomas Fisher draws on a remarkable career to express the deep frustration with the American health…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• In Love

  a Memoir of Love and Loss

  Bloom, Amy, 1953-

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  In this short memoir by acclaimed novelist Bloom, she details a tragic yet beautiful love story. When her husband Brian was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he ultimately decided to pursue assisted suicide. Bloom resisted but ultimately acceded to his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Kaiju Preservation Society

  Scalzi, John, 1969-

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  Laid off from a soulless job, Jamie works delivering food in New York City when an old acquaintance suggests going to work for an "animal rights organization" called KPS. Little does Jamie realize that the "animals" involved are all of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Lemon

  Kwŏn, Yŏ-sŏn, 1965-

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  The body of 18-year-old Kim Hae-on is discovered in a park. No motive for this "High School Beauty Murder," as it becomes known, can be identified. The primary suspects are Shin Jeongjun, a wealthy classmate who gave Hae-on a ride in his car that…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

  Fu, Kim,

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  Familiar emotions and life experiences are magnified by strange, often unsettling personifications in Kim Fu's debut story collection. Themes like aging, grief, sleep, death, intimacy, and our relationships with eating and consuming, to name a few,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Lore Olympus. Volume One

  Smythe, Rachel (Comics artist),

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  Harvey Award-winning Lore Olympus, which originated as a webcomic, has made its print debut (collecting episodes 1-25). Written and illustrated by Rachel Smythe, Lore Olympus follows the growing relationship between Persephone (Greek goddess of…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mickey7

  Ashton, Edward (Science fiction writer),

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  Mickey Barnes is an expendable. His job is to do all the things that are too deadly for people or robots to perform. His mind and body have been copied, and he is recreated every time he dies. The narrator is the seventh version of Mickey. One day,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Red Carpet

  Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy

  Schwartzel, Erich,

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  This fascinating work of business journalism explores China's relationship to the Hollywood entertainment industry, but its findings have clear parallels to many other business sectors (tech, manufacturing, etc.), making this a recommended read not…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Scoundrel

  How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free

  Weinman, Sarah,

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  Weinman (The Real Lolita) once again sheds new light on crimes of the past in her absorbing latest. The subject of the book is Edgar Smith, who was convicted of killing 15-year-old Victoria Zielinski and sentenced to death. Sixty years later in…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Sundial

  Ward, Catriona,

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  Rob has a seemingly normal life as an English teacher with a husband and two daughters. When her teenage daughter Callie starts exhibiting disturbing behavior, like making artwork out of roadkill and trying to poison her sister, Rob decides it's…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Swimmers

  Otsuka, Julie, 1962-

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  Otsuka's lyrical latest is a meditation on aging, memory, and the fleeting moments that make up a life. The opening section is voiced by the collective we, a group of regulars who swim at an underground pool in a suburb of Southern California. The…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• We Don't Know Ourselves

  a Personal History of Modern Ireland /

  O'Toole, Fintan, 1958-

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  Beginning at the pivotal year 1958, his birth year, Irish Times columnist O'Toole's brilliant, comprehensive, and illuminating memoir lays bare the many circumstances surrounding Ireland's frenetic and frequently troubled lurch into modern, Western…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Young Mungo

  a Novel

  Stuart, Douglas, 1976-

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  In 1980s Scotland, teenage Mungo (named after the patron saint of Glasgow) lives with his selfish, alcoholic mother, his caring but distracted older sister Jodie, and his older brother Hamish, a leader of a local Protestant gang who is pushing Mungo…Read moreRead more of this annotation