Staff Picks & Recommendations - Books, Movies, Music & Online Courses

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Picked by Colleen on Monday, September 18
"From debut author Stacy Willingham comes a masterfully done, lyrical thriller, certain to be the launch of an amazing career. A Flicker in the Dark is eerily compelling to the very last page. When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the...
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Picked by Colleen on Monday, September 18
Abdi Nor Iftin first fell in love with America from afar. As a child, he learned English by listening to American pop and watching action films starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. When U.S. marines landed in Mogadishu to take on the warlords, Abdi cheered the arrival of these Americans, who seemed as heroic as those of the movies. Sporting American clothes and dance moves, he became known around...
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Picked by Rachel on Monday, September 18
The inventive (Library Journal) national bestselling author of the Samaria novels returns with the first book in a stunning new fantasy saga.
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Picked by Rachel on Monday, September 18
"Arek has managed to fulfill the prophecy and save the Kingdom of Ere from its evil ruler, but the quest is not over because until they free the princess locked in one of the towers he has to assume the crown himself; only the princess proves to be very dead, and Arek is stuck as king; then he discovers that magic requires him to find a bride before his eighteenth birthday or wither away--but...
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Picked by Jen on Monday, September 18
"Follows four generations of the Montrose family, who have been living with a curse that leaves any person they fall in love with dead, stemming back to a Voodoo sorceress in 1950s New Orleans' French Quarter."-- Publisher
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Picked by Brianna on Monday, September 18
"Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general--also known as her tough-as-talons mother--has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat...
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Picked by Leslie on Tuesday, August 22
"When Gesine Bullock-Prado left her Hollywood life in 2004 and moved to Vermont, she fell in love with the Green Mountain State's flavors and six unique seasons. Spring, summer, fall, and winter all claim their place at this table, but a true Vermonter holds extra space for maple-forward mud season-that time of year before spring when thawing ice makes way for mucky roads-and stick season, a...
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Picked by Jules on Tuesday, August 22
"A hilarious memoir of middle age"--Publisher
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Picked by Jen on Tuesday, August 22
"Cameron Esposito is on her way to becoming a household name, thanks to her unique brand of comedy that doesn't shy away from the issues women (and many men) face today. From sexism and sexuality to white male privilege and self acceptance, Cameron uses humor to break down the barriers that keep us from speaking openly about these topics. Cameron offers funny and insightful essays about...
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Picked by Jen on Tuesday, August 22
"From the magical moments on set as Draco Malfoy to the challenges of growing up in the spotlight, get a backstage pass into Tom Felton's life on and off the big screen"- Publisher
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Picked by Gabby on Tuesday, August 22
Lucie Blackman--tall, blond, twenty-one years old--stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000, and disappeared forever. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, covered Lucie's disappearance and followed the massive search for her, the long investigation, and the even longer...
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Picked by Rachel on Tuesday, August 22
"A charming historical fantasy with a tender love story at its core, from the author of Unnatural Magic. Hard-drinking petty thief Dellaria Wells is down on her luck in the city of Leiscourt - again. Then she sees a want ad for a female bodyguard, and she fast-talks her way into the high-paying job. Along with a team of other women, she's meant to protect a rich young lady from mysterious...
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Picked by Mary Anne on Monday, May 15
"Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with--of all...
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Picked by Jen on Monday, May 15
In her highly anticipated memoir Tell Me Everything, Minka Kelly shares a story as powerful as it is page-turning. Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in these pages, Minka Kelly's life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who...
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Picked by Leslie on Monday, May 15
Nobel laureate Bob Dylan is known for his eclectic tastes as well as his deep, encyclopedic knowledge of popular music. He puts that expertise to the test in this widely entertaining romp through popular-music history. Even if readers aren't familiar with a song under discussion, they will still enjoy and appreciate his take on it. Starting with Bobby Bare’s “Detroit City” and ending with Dion...
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Picked by Colleen on Monday, May 15
Reading like a conversational history lecture in book form, Stanford professor emeritus White's (California Exposures, 2020) mostly captivating book chronicles the deception around the death of Jane Stanford, cofounder of Stanford University. More than 100 years after Stanford's death from strychnine poisoning, White seeks to uncover why the university, citing Stanford’s death as “natural causes...
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Picked by Jen on Monday, May 15
Beck sets up a camping trip for herself, twin sister Imogen, and their shared best friend, Tilda, having decided it’s time to address the Thing that has lived like a ghost among them for years. They set off into a remote part of the Grand Canyon, the sisters confident with years of trail experience, but Tilda not so much, upending the normal dynamic of their relationship, in which Tilda was the...
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Picked by Mary Anne on Monday, May 15
Finlay Donovan, a single mother, mystery writer, and erstwhile contract killer (it was an accident!), thinks that things might finally be looking up. Sure, she's got writer's block again and a novel due, but her nanny and partner-in-crime, Vero, has invested the money from their last, uh, excursion outside the law, and Finlay has both a hot cop and a young lawyer vying for her affections. Then...
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Picked by Jane on Wednesday, April 19
When Stephanie Plum arrives at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds office to find the doors locked and lights off on a Monday morning, she knows something is wrong. Office manager Connie Rosolli is never late and never is out.  Her worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He claims that Vinnie has something of his and he wants it back in return for Connie. Eventually, they discover...
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Picked by Jane on Wednesday, April 05
The story begins at a convent orphanage in Aubazine, France. Three sisters Antoinette, Gabrielle and Julia-Berthe have been taken in by the nuns after their young mother dies of consumption and their father abandons them. Their two brothers were sent to work on a farm. The nuns are very strict and critical of the girls and their stations in life, however they are well cared for and the nuns’...