April 2025 Staff PicksLike this list

16 items

• Animal Instinct

  a Novel

  Shearn, Amy,

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  Rachel's conventional life has completely unraveled around her in a way she never could have imagined. Recently divorced and in her 40s, she decides to jump in at the deep end, using dating apps to explore her independence and sexuality for the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Audition

  Kitamura, Katie M.,

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  In the opening scenes of Kitamura's enigmatic novel, a prominent, middle-aged actress meets with a young man at a restaurant. There is a clandestine mood to the scene. The actress is tense, seemingly reluctant to be there. When she notices her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

  Jones, Stephen Graham, 1972-

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  A manuscript from 1912 uncovered by construction workers ends up in the hands of Professor Etsy Beaucarne, who thinks the history within it may finally earn her tenure. The manuscript is a diary written by her great-great-great grandfather, a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Cats of the World

  Shaw, Hannah René, 1987-

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  In this part-travelogue, part-glossy coffee table book, and all cat enthusiasts' delight, married couple - famed "Kitten Lady" Shaw and professional photographer Marttila - travel the world, featuring cities and other exotic locales where community…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• City of Night Birds

  a Novel

  Kim, Juhea,

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  Just as she demonstrated in her previous work, Beasts of a Little Land, which dealt with the history and people of Korea during the Japanese colonial period, Juhea Kim demonstrates a vivid skill with character and setting in her latest novel. Here…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Good Dirt

  a Novel

  Wilkerson, Charmaine,

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  Charmaine Wilkerson's latest multigenerational family saga delves into themes of heritage, grief, identity, and resilience. The narrative centers on the Freemans, an affluent Black family in Connecticut. Their cherished heirloom, a stoneware jar…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Harriet Tubman

  Live in Concert : a Novel

  Bob the Drag Queen,

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  In Rupaul's Drag Race winner Bob the Drag Queen's debut, historical figures walk among us and the recently returned Harriet Tubman believes the way to get her abolitionist message of liberation to the masses is to start a band, make an album, and go…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Instability of Truth

  Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-persuasion

  Lemov, Rebecca M. (Rebecca Maura),

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  What is brainwashing? Does it exist? What justice should be meted out to those who act under its influence? These are the questions Rebecca Lemov deals with in The Instability of Truth. She tackles the infamous cases (Patty Hearst, religious cults,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mothers and Sons

  a Novel

  Haslett, Adam,

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  Peter is a gay, forty-something immigration lawyer in New York City, struggling to keep up with an overwhelming caseload while neglecting his personal life to a fairly extreme degree, rarely talking to his sister and even more rarely interacting…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Raising Hare

  a Memoir

  Dalton, Chloe,

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  During the pandemic, Chloe Dalton moved from London to the English countryside. There she reluctantly rescued an abandoned leveret (a baby hare), only to learn that its chances of survival after human intervention were low. Determined to ensure its…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Shots You Take

  Reid, Rachel,

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  Reid, author of the hugely popular Game Changers series, is back with another emotionally complex story of two men figuring out how to love each other when the world keeps getting in the way. Riley Tuck once thought he and Adam Sheppard could have…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Stone Yard Devotional

  Wood, Charlotte, 1965-

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  An atheist woman seeks retreat from the world in a convent guesthouse and ends up living among nuns in this attentive, generous novel by Charlotte Wood. The narrator, a woman in her 60s, has left her marriage and profession in species conservation…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Twist

  a Novel

  McCann, Colum, 1965-

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  A divorced, middle-aged father and novelist in a creative dry spell takes a magazine assignment that changes his life, in the latest from celebrated novelist Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin, Apeirogon). Anthony Fennell journeys to South…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• When the Moon Hits Your Eye

  Scalzi, John, 1969-

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  This novel is a series of vignettes about how different people across America would react if the moon literally turned into cheese. We glimpse astronauts who were training to take America back to the moon, a small town preacher who tries to help his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wild Dark Shore

  McConaghy, Charlotte,

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  McConaghy has a knack for penning lyrical, suspenseful novels featuring natural world settings that center human grief and a changing world. In her third novel, set on a fictional island off the coast of Antarctica, Rowan, a victim of a shipwreck,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Y2K

  How the 2000s Became Everything : Essays on the Future That Never Was)

  Shade, Colette,

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  Shade's smart, funny essay collection weaves cultural analysis of the Y2K era with personal recollections from her tweens and teens. She defines Y2K as the period from 1997-2008, bookended by two financial crises, the dot com crash of 1997, and the…Read moreRead more of this annotation