New titles from the Peak Picks collection that are currently in rotation. Stop by any branch to see what's available today!
Memorial Days
Adult Nonfiction. "On Memorial Day, 2019, Tony Horwitz, Brooks' 60-year-old husband, collapsed on a street in Washington, D.C., and died. In the days and months that followed, Brooks found herself hiding behind a 'heavy and elaborate' facade, 'a fugitive from my own feelings.' Finally, in February 2023, she traveled to a remote island off the coast of her native Australia to allow herself to mourn. In alternating chapters, Brooks creates an absorbing memoir of shocking loss and protracted grief as she reflects on her marriage, her driven, Type A husband, and her future alone. A graceful and moving meditation on bereavement." Kirkus
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Gliff
Adult Fiction. "Smith delivers an ingenious speculative novel in which two children come to terms with the mysteries of their unnamed country... The narrator, a 16-year-old boy named Brice, accompanies his younger sister, Rose, to see off their mother after she's forced to leave for work in a far-off city. Upon returning to their house, the siblings find it encircled with a red line. As the story progresses, it becomes clear their mother is a whistleblower who has exposed the wrongdoings of a weed-killer conglomerate... [T]he lush narrative doubles as an anthem of resistance, in this case against tyranny and the destruction of the environment. The results are extraordinary." Publishers Weekly
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The Bones Beneath My Skin
Adult Fiction. "It is spring 1995, and Nate is a broken man. His parents are dead, his brother estranged, and his job... has been taken away from him. Hoping to collect himself and see what comes next, Nate heads to the mountains of Oregon, where his family summer cabin lies... Except, upon his arrival, Nate finds a man named Alex there, along with a 10-year-old girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Caught between his wounded past and an unexpected future, Nate joins Alex and Artemis in their frantic race for freedom. Artemis's name is actually the least unusual thing about her, and those hunting for Artemis want her back - no matter what." Library Journal
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Black Woods, Blue Sky
Adult Fiction. "Single mom Birdie occasionally drinks too much. When sober, she devotes herself to caring for her six-year-old daughter, Emaleen, a precocious girl who believes in witches. After Birdie falls for a mysterious and badly scarred man named Arthur, she and Emaleen move with him to his remote cabin. At first, life is bucolic... and Birdie is excited by Arthur's primitive lifestyle. But when Emaleen catches him walking the woods in a bear skin, things take a dangerous turn for mother and child. The novel is alive with a sense of the natural world of Alaska... and it's buoyed by gripping suspense and moments of tenderness." Publishers Weekly
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Aflame
Adult Nonfiction. "Novelist and essayist Iyer shares in this luminous account the lessons that more than 30 years of visiting a Benedectine monastery in California have taught him about silence. As a result of his visits, Iyer comes to see the ways in which the sacred shows up again and again in the mundane. The author brilliantly illuminates philosophical insights about the nature of the self, the world, and how silence serves as a conduit between the two, often in elegant, evocative prose: at the monastery, 'it's as if a lens cap has come off and once the self is gone, the world can come flooding in, in all its wild immediacy.' This is stunning." Publishers Weekly
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Beyond Anxiety
Adult Nonfiction. "In Beyond Anxiety, Dr. Martha Beck explains why anxiety is skyrocketing around you, and likely within you. Using a combination of the latest neuroscience as well as her background in sociology and coaching, Beck explains how our brains tend to get stuck in an 'anxiety spiral,' a feedback system that can increase anxiety indefinitely. Beck provides instructions for engaging the 'creativity spiral,' in a process that not only shuts down anxiety but leads to innovative problem solving, a sense of meaning and purpose, and joyful, intimate connection with others - and with the world.” Publisher description
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Black in Blues
Adult Nonfiction. "Perry offers an impressionistic cultural history of the African diaspora through its connections to the color blue. As enslaved Black people in the U.S. fought to affirm their humanity, the color blue was key: 'Blue porches, planted blue flowers, written blue scriptures, blue attire, trees festooned with blue bottles: these became the cultivated habits and rituals of people denied civil society and legal recognition.' Packed with cultural references to Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Miles Davis, and Picasso's African-inspired Blue Period, this is a fascinating and creative work of popular anthropology." Booklist
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Blob
Adult Fiction. "Two years after failing out of college, Vi works as a hotel receptionist and wallows over a breakup. She often copes with her emotional insecurity by drinking heavily, and during a night out at a drag show, she finds a blob in an alley and takes it home. She names the blob Bob and orders him to do chores around the house. Eventually, Bob grows into a human, one who resembles a handsome white movie star, Vi's ideal type. He accompanies her to a family dinner and agrees to let her parents think they're dating...The result is a top-notch tale of arrested development." Publishers Weekly
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The Harder I Fight the More I Love You
Adult Nonfiction. "In second grade, [Case’s] father told her that her mother had died of cancer; a short time later, her mother reappeared, and Case eventually learned that she was never even sick. Following their reunion, Case and her mother...eventually settled in Tacoma, where Case was legally emancipated from her parents at age 15. She discusses...linking up with Carl Newman to start the New Pornographers and launching her solo career in prose that's unfussy but often beautiful. Case delivers a riveting autobiography that will fascinate even those who've never heard her music." Publishers Weekly
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The Life of Herod the Great
Adult Fiction. "Hurston aficionados are in for a surprise, a historical novel inspired by Herod the Great. Though widely known as the evil king who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents at the time of Jesus' birth, Hurston explains... that Herod was actually a popular and extremely capable ruler. Having fictionalized the Exodus story in Moses, Man of the Mountain, Hurston planned her Herod novel as a sequel. Full of adventure, glamour, and historical figures, including Herod's close friends Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, this is a fascinating addition to the Hurston canon." Booklist
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