Staff Picks - May 2021RSS

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker

By Stacy A. Cordery
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

A detailed portrait of Teddy Roosevelt's daughter relates such facts as her tempestuous teen years and flouting of social conventions in order to promote women's rights, her infidelity-tested marriage to Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth, and her sharp criticism of FDR's New Deal programs.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing

By Allison Winn Scotch
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Cleo McDougal is a born politician. From congresswoman to senator, the magnetic, ambitious single mother now has her eye on the White House—always looking forward, never back. Until an estranged childhood friend shreds her in an op-ed hit piece gone viral. With seven words—'Cleo McDougal is not a good person'—the presidential hopeful has gone from in control to damage control, and not just in Washington but in life.

Staff Picks - May 2021   Title Swap: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Edition - April 14, 2020   
Curse of Chalion

By Lois McMaster Bujold
Series Chalion Series
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

Seeking a position in the royal household, Cazaril is offered the post of secretary to the Royesse Iselle, the sister to the heir to Chalion's throne, but his new assignment brings him face to face with old enemies. 1st book in the Chalion series.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Don't Look For Me

By Wendy Walker
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

The daughter of a woman who allegedly went missing by choice visits the small town where her mother was last seen to investigate unsettling witness accounts.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Hench

By Natalie Zina Walschots
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Temping for people on the wrong side of the law, Anna becomes unfairly unemployed before using her talents for manipulating data to expose how the heroes of her world do more harm than good.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Henna Artist

By Alka Joshi
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

A talented henna artist for wealthy confidantes finds her efforts to control her own destiny in 1950s Jaipur threatened by the abusive husband she fled as a teenage girl.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
In Case of Emergency

By E. G. Scott
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

Managing a painful career setback with the help of an online support group and a secret boyfriend who goes mysteriously missing, a neuroscientist is declared a person of interest when she is asked to identify the body of a stranger.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness

By David Gessner
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian

An environmental clarion call is told through a New York Times best-selling author’s wilderness road trip inspired by America’s greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt.

Staff Picks - May 2021   Title Swap: Best Books of 2020 Edition - December 8, 2020, Title Swap - March 16, 2021   
Leave the World Behind

By Rumaan Alam
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director

Sheltering in a New York beach house with a couple that has taken refuge during a massive blackout, a family struggles for information about the power failure while wondering if the cut–off property is actually safe.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Less Dead

By Denise Mina
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference

Navigating burnout, an unfaithful ex and a relative's recent death, Margo reaches out to her birth family before discovering that her biological mother was murdered years earlier by a killer who begins sending her threatening letters.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Love Sold Separately

By Ellen Meister
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

Dana Barry has nothing against rules. She just knows they’re meant to be bent. So it’s no wonder the single, twentysomething, aspiring actress loses her day job. Now her life is a mess… until she hears the Shopping Channel is auditioning. Relying on her knack for knowing what makes people tick, she lands a gig on air. But before she can say office politics, Dana is caught in the biggest drama of her life. The star host - a diva who terrorized the entire staff - is found dead. Dana knows the prime suspect is innocent.

Staff Picks - May 2021   Title Swap: Best Books of 2020 Edition - December 8, 2020   
More Than a Woman

By Caitlin Moran
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director

The author of How to Be a Woman presents a humorous confessional memoir that reflects on the lighter side of the patriarchy while exploring topics ranging from middle age, parenting, and marriage to feminism and existential crises.

Staff Picks - September 2016, Staff Picks - May 2021   
Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

By Naoki Higashida
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

A journey into the mind of a remarkable thirteen-year-old Japanese boy with severe autism shares firsthand insights into a variety of experiences associated with the disorder, from behavioral traits and misconceptions to perceptions about the world.

Staff Picks - May 2021   Title Swap: Best Books of 2020 Edition - December 8, 2020, Title Swap - July 20, 2021   
Switch

By Beth O'Leary
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Ready for an adventure in the months after her husband of 60 years departs, a woman from a picture–postcard Yorkshire village offers to swap places with her burned–out adult granddaughter to pursue romance in bustling London.

Staff Picks - May 2021, Staff Picks - January 2023   Title Swap: The Best Books of Summer 2020 Edition - September 8, 2020   
Takeaway Men

By Meryl Ain
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

Twin sisters Bronka and JoJo Lubinski are brought to America from Germany by their Polish refugee parents after World War II—but in “idyllic” America, political, cultural, and family turmoil awaits them. As the girls grow older, they eventually begin to ask questions of and demand the truth from their parents.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
Tiffany Blues

By M. J. Rose
Recommended By Isabel Zinman, Readers' Services Librarian

Jenny Bell, a candidate at Louis Comfort Tiffany's Jazz Age artists' colony, navigates her attraction to her host's grandson and competes for a gallery spot before an unknown rival exposes her traumatic past.

Staff Picks - May 2021   Title Swap: Best Books of 2020 Edition - December 8, 2020   
True Story

By Kate Reed Petty
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist

Haunted by the roles they played in covering up the sexual assault and attempted suicide of a student 15 years earlier, reclusive ghostwriter Alice and her former schoolmate, Nick, explore memories from different viewpoints that eventually reveal what really happened.

Staff Picks - May 2021   20 & 30-Something Title Swap - July 18, 2016   
Weekenders

By Mary Kay Andrews
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

Served with papers that her much-loved island home on idyllic Belle Isle is being foreclosed and that her husband has abandoned her, Riley turns for help to her friends, who she discovers are harboring their own secrets.

Staff Picks - May 2021   
White Ivy

By Susie Yang
Recommended By Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

Years after she is sent away from Boston to China for shoplifting, a conflicted Chinese-American woman reconnects with her golden-boy childhood crush before a ghost from the past threatens her ambitions.