Author: enelson

Nine Short Reads for the Busy Book Lover

  By

Meena Dave is a photojournalist and a nomad. She has no family, no permanent address, and no long-term attachments, preferring to observe the world at a distance through the lens of her camera. But Meena’s solitary life is turned upside down when she unexpectedly inherits an apartment in a Victorian brownstone in historic Back Bay, Boston. Now as everything unknown to Meena comes into focus, she must reconcile who she wants to be with who she really is.

Since the loss of her fiancé, Anna has been shipwrecked by grief—until a reminder goes off about a trip they were supposed to take together. Impulsively, Anna goes to sea in their sailboat, intending to complete the voyage alone. But after a treacherous night’s sail, she realizes she can’t do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it’s never too late to chart a new course.

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. As Cara confronts her darkest secrets and regrets, we see a woman buffeted by life but still full of fight.

Stephen Graham Jones returns with a contemporary horror story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose: We thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead. One last laugh for the summer as it winds down. One last prank just to scare a friend. Bringing a mannequin into a theater is just some harmless fun, right? Until it wakes up. Luckily, Sawyer has a plan. He’ll be a hero. He’ll kill as many people as he needs to so he can save the day. That’s the thing about heroes – sometimes you have to become a monster first.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core. A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.

A father and a son are seeing each other for the first time in years. The father has a story to share before it’s too late. He tells his son about a courageous little girl lying in a hospital bed a few miles away. As he talks about this plucky little girl, the father also reveals more about himself: his triumphs in business, his failures as a parent, his past regrets, his hopes for the future. Now, on a cold winter’s night, the father has been given an unexpected chance to do something remarkable that could change the destiny of a little girl he hardly knows.

When Warren has the opportunity to live with a female roommate, he instantly agrees. It could be an exciting change. Or maybe not. Especially when that roommate is the cold and seemingly calculating Bridgette. Tensions run high and tempers flare as the two can hardly stand to be in the same room together. But Warren has a theory about Bridgette: anyone who can hate with that much passion should also have the capability to love with that much passion. And he wants to be the one to test this theory.

Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin step kids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way.

Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and no qualms about a little murder. Ever since her darling father’s untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family’s spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg. Now in her late eighties, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father’s ancient armchair. When the local authorities are called to investigate a dead body found in Maud’s apartment, will Maud finally become a suspect?

New Holiday Titles to Keep Your Spirits Bright

  By

When Sadie and Max are selected as contestants on the famed reality singing show Starmaker, each thinks they’ve finally gotten their big Nashville break. But then they’re paired up for duet week and stun the world with their romantic onstage chemistry. With fans going wild for #Saxie the network demands that they remain a duo on and offstage, or exit the competition. Faking a relationship until their final performance in the Starmaker holiday special shouldn’t be too hard, except for one small problem–Sadie and Max can’t stand each other.

Peter Armstrong and Hank Colfax are best friends, but their lives couldn’t be more different. Peter, the local pastor who is dedicated to his community and, with the holiday season approaching, preparing for the Christmas service and live nativity. As a bartender, Hank serves a much different customer base at his family-owned tavern, including a handful of lonely regulars and the local biker gang. When Peter scoffs that Hank has it easy compared to him, the two decide to switch jobs until Christmas Eve. As the two begin to see each other in a new light–and each discovers a new love to cherish–their lives are forever changed.

Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his humorous investigating team return in Santa’s Little Yelpers, the next Yuletide mystery in David Rosenfelt’s bestselling series. ‘Tis the season in Paterson, New Jersey: Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara, are surrounded by holiday cheer. It’s even spread to the Tara Foundation. Myers, a newer employee at the Tara Foundation, did time for a crime he swears he didn’t commit. When Myers discovers a key witness against him lied on the stand, he goes to Andy to ask for representation in getting the conviction overturned.

Every year at Christmastime, Will and Ella Sullivan, and their father, Henry, come to a family agreement: Christmas is a holiday for other people. Until guests start arriving anyway. In pairs and sixes, in sevens and tens—they keep coming. And they stay. For twelve long, hard, topsy-turvy, very messy days. That’s when the Sullivans discover that those moments in life that defy hope, expectation, or even imagination, might be the best gifts of all.

Bring the merry festivities from the screen right to your own table with The Christmas Movie Cookbook. Do you ever yearn for roast turkey while watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? Or, for the more cynical, do you wish you could taste the roast beast from How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Well, top up your mug of eggnog and don your coziest ugly sweater: ‘tis the season to recreate the dishes from all of your favorite holiday movies with the help of The Christmas Movie Cookbook.

With a name like Astra Noel Snow, holiday spirit isn’t just a seasonal specialty–it’s a way of life. But after a stinging divorce, Astra’s yearly trip to the Milwaukee Christmas market takes on a whole new meaning. She’s ready to eat, drink, and be merry, especially with the handsome stranger who saves the best kringle for her at his family bakery. After a swoon-worthy series of dates, some Yuletide magic, and the unexpected glow of new love, Astra and Jack must decide whether this relationship can weather all seasons.

Michelle and Max are not planning on a happy holiday. Their marriage is in shambles and the D word has entered their vocabulary. But now their youngest daughter, Julia, wants everyone to come to her new house in Idaho for Christmas. Their other daughters, Audrey and Shyla, are driving up from California and hoping to meet a sexy rancher. The ones with the shortest drive are Grandma and Grandpa—also known as Hazel and Warren. Surprises lie in store for all three sets of intrepid travelers as they set out on three very different adventures.

When a young woman finds herself lost and at a crossroads, one last gift from her brother just might give her another chance at life and at love in this epic holiday romance. Cassie and Tom lost their parents at a young age and relied on each other to get through it. Especially Tom’s best friend, Sam, who always made sure Tom and Cassie were surrounded with love. But now, twenty years later, Cassie has lost Tom as well. Tom’s present sets Cassie on a heart-wrenching and beautiful journey that will change her life—if she lets it.

Until Camryn Neff can return to her “real” life in Chicago, she’s in Wishing Tree to care for her twin sisters. She’s not looking for forever love, not here. But handsome hotelier Jake Crane is a temptation she can’t resist, so she suggests they pair up for the season. No golden rings, no broken hearts. At his side, she sees her hometown through Christmas-colored eyes. The cheer is cheerier, the joy more joyful. She thought she had put her future on hold…but maybe her real life was here all along, waiting for her to come home.

New Audiobooks to Enjoy on the Libby App in November

  By

Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves.

Secrets, suspense, and a missing sister—who may not want to be found—are at the center of Brianna Cole’s latest enthralling multicultural drama. “That’s not my sister.” Overwhelmed by shock and relief, those are the only words Deven can muster when she is called to identify the body of a suicide victim. But as she stares at the lifeless stranger, she’s filled with questions: Who is this woman? Why was Deven listed as family? And most important, where is Kennedy? Her intuition tells her just one thing: this can’t be a total coincidence.

 Since The Karate Kid first crane-kicked its way into the pop culture stratosphere in June 1984, there hasn’t been a week Ralph Macchio hasn’t heard friendly shouts of “Wax on, wax off” or “Sweep the leg!” Now, with Macchio reprising his role as Daniel LaRusso in the #1 ranked Netflix show Cobra Kai, he is finally ready to look back at this classic movie and give the fans something they’ve long craved. The book is Ralph Macchio’s celebratory reflection on the legacy of The Karate Kid in film, pop culture, and his own life.

Signal Fires opens on a summer night in 1985. Three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car, and, in an instant, everything on Division Street changes. Each of their lives, and that of Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives on the scene, is shattered. For the Wilf family, the circumstances of that fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken. Signal Fires is a deeply felt novel that examines the ties that bind families together—and the secrets that can break them apart.

In this true-life tale, master storyteller Sean Dietrich–also known as the beloved columnist and creator of the blog and podcast “Sean of the South”–shares their hilarious, touching, and sometimes terrifying story of the long bike ride to conquer The Great Allegheny Passage and the C&O Canal Towpath trail. You Are My Sunshine is a laugh-out-loud funny true story of a loving relationship, a grand adventure, and a promise kept.

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice. It seems like any other day. You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live. From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

In Live Wire, her first book, Kelly shows what really makes her tick. As a professional, as a wife, as a daughter and as a mother, she brings a hard-earned wisdom and an eye for the absurdity of life to every minute of every day. It is her relatability in all of these roles that has earned her fans worldwide and millions of followers on social media. Whether recounting how she and Mark really met, the level of chauvinism she experienced on set, how Jersey Pride follows her wherever she goes, and many, many moments of utter mortification, Kelly always tells it like it is.

The co-hosts of the hit podcast Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know discern conspiracy fact from fiction in this sharp, humorous, compulsively readable and listenable book. In times of chaos and uncertainty, when trust is low and economic disparity is high, conspiracy theories find fertile ground. Many are wild, most are untrue, a few are hard to ignore, but all of them share one vital trait: there’s a seed of truth at their center. That seed carries the sordid, conspiracy-riddled history of our institutions and corporations woven into its DNA.

Jenny Newberg, Queen of Bad Decisions, is about to make another one. In a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, down-on-her-luck single mother Jenny is on a first-name basis with the debt collector at the bank, who is moving toward foreclosure. She is constantly apologizing to her precocious young daughter, Billie Starr, who is filling a book with her mother’s sorries, and it seems to Jenny that no apology will ever be enough.

New Fiction for November

  By

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, they both hope it will be a fresh start. Mad Honey A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

In 1705 Amsterdam, Thea Brandt is coming of age, trying to grapple with her family’s secrets and her own identity as a young Dutch-African woman. She’s drawn to the theater and an artistic life, but with her family in serious financial decline, pressure is on Thea to marry up in society. A feat of sweeping, magical storytelling, The House of Fortune is page turning novel about love and obsession, family and loyalty, and the fantastic power of secrets.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice.

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. John Grisham returns to Mississippi with the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law.

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they’ve arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic–leaving Isobel penniless and alone. When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other.  Hester is a vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter.

Billington, Texas, is a place where nothing changes. Well, almost nothing. For the first time in nearly four decades, Mary Alice Roth is not getting ready for the first day of school at Billington High. A few months into her retirement, Mary Alice does not know how to fill her days. At least there’s Ellie, who stops by each morning for coffee and whose reemergence in Mary Alice’s life is the one thing soothing the sting of retirement. The Old Place is a bighearted and moving debut about a wry retired schoolteacher whose decade-old secret threatens to come to light and send shockwaves through her small Texas town.

Chicago, 1923: Ten-year-old Dani Flanagan returns home to find police swarming the house, her parents dead. Michael Malone, the young patrolman assigned to the case, discovers there’s more to the situation—and to Dani Flanagan herself—than the authorities care to explore. Malone is told to shut his mouth, and Dani is sent away to live with her spinster aunts in Cleveland. The Unknown Beloved is the evocative story of two people whose paths collide against the backdrop of mystery, murder, and the Great Depression.

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Nelson DeMille returns with a blistering thriller featuring his most popular series character, former NYPD homicide detective John Corey, called out of retirement to investigate a string of grisly murders much too close to home. Corey is restless and looking for action, so when his former lover, Detective Beth Penrose, appears with a job offer, Corey has to once again make some decisions about his career—and about reuniting with Beth Penrose. The Maze features John Corey’s politically incorrect humor, matched by his brilliant and unorthodox investigative skills along with the surprising and shocking plot twists.

Nine Books to Commemorate Native American Heritage Month

  By

Beginning with the tribes’ devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, David Treuer shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is an essential, intimate history – and counter-narrative – of a resilient people in a transformative era.

This first complete account of the Lakota Indians traces their rich and often surprising history from the early sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. Pekka Hämäläinen explores the Lakotas’ roots as marginal hunter-gatherers and reveals how they reinvented themselves twice. The Lakotas are imprinted in American historical memory. Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull are iconic figures in the American imagination, but in this groundbreaking book they emerge as something different: the architects of Lakota America.

In December 1866, tensions were rising in Wyoming, between the Native American tribes who had lived on the land for generations and the settlers who would destroy their home. Crazy Horse and his fellow Lakota hunters had been watching for months as Colonel Carrington and his army set up camp on one of the most crucial swaths of hunting ground in hundreds of miles, and began to build forts. A story of protection and betrayal, Ridgeline grapples with essential questions about who owns land: those who are born on it, or those who would kill to claim it.

When Lissa Yellow Bird was released from prison in 2009, she found her home, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, transformed by the Bakken oil boom. Three years later, when Lissa learned that a young white oil worker, Kristopher ‘KC’ Clarke, had disappeared from his reservation worksite, she became particularly concerned. No one knew where Clarke had gone, and no one but his mother was actively looking for him. Unfolding like a gritty mystery, Yellow Bird traces Lissa’s steps as she obsessively hunts for clues to Clarke’s disappearance.

Good Friday on the Rez introduces readers to places and people that author, writer, and entrepreneur David Bunnell encounters during his one day, 280-mile road trip from his boyhood Nebraska hometown to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to visit his longtime friend, Vernell White Thunder, a full-blooded Oglala Lakota, descendant of a long line of prominent chiefs and medicine men. This captivating narrative is part memoir and part history. Bunnell shares treasured memories of his time living on and teaching at the reservation.

The Earth Is Weeping is a sweeping, definitive history of the battles and negotiations that destroyed the Indian way of life even as they paved the way for the emergence of the United States we know today. Dramatically relating bloody and tragic events as varied as Wounded Knee, the Nez Perce War, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. As the action moves, we encounter a pageant of fascinating characters and great native leaders such as Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Red Cloud and the warriors they led.

This is the story of a Native American woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial and gender prejudice, then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people―physically, emotionally, politically, and spiritually. Joe Starita’s A Warrior of the People is the moving biography of Susan La Flesche Picotte’s inspirational life and dedication to public health, and it will finally shine a light on her numerous accomplishments.

Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that’s hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances. Killers of the Flower moon is a true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

New Mysteries, Thrillers, and Fantasy Fiction to Read this Halloween

  By

Five octogenarian witches gather as an angry mob threatens to demolish Moonshyne Manor. All eyes turn to the witch in charge, Queenie, who confesses they’ve fallen far behind on their mortgage payments. Still, there’s hope, since the imminent return of Ruby–one of the sisterhood who’s been gone for thirty-three years–will surely be their salvation. Funny, tender and uplifting, the novel explores the formidable power that can be discovered in aging, found family and unlikely friendships.

A brand-new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Mystery’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by twelve remarkable bestselling and acclaimed authors. This collection of a dozen original short stories, all featuring Jane Marple, will introduce the character to a whole new generation. Each author reimagines Agatha Christie’s Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery.

When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom—covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her—she knows she’ll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it’s not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it’s only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she’s worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.

Emery Blackwood’s life changed forever the night her best friend was found dead and the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her. Years later, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence on the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and running the family’s business.  Spells for Forgetting is a deeply atmospheric story about ancestral magic, an unsolved murder, and a second chance at true love.

They’ve spent their lives as the deadliest assassins in a clandestine international organization, but now that they’re sixty years old, four women friends can’t just retire – it’s kill or be killed in this action-packed thriller. Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills.

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who’d happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

They call themselves the May Mothers–a group of new moms whose babies were born in the same month. Twice a week, they get together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for some much-needed adult time. When the women go out for drinks, they are looking for a fun break from their daily routine. But something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is taken from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter .Now he is missing. What follows is a heart-pounding race to find Midas, during which secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are destroyed.

 Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked-room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense.

Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have ever met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke – until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list. A frightening pattern is emerging, but what do these nine people have in common? Their professions range from oncology nurse to aspiring actor. FBI agent Jessica Winslow, who is on the list herself, is determined to find out.

Nine Cookbooks to Devour This Fall Season

  By

Melissa Clark brings her home cook’s expertise and no-fuss approach to the world of one-pot/pan cooking. With nearly all of the recipes being made in under one hour, the streamlined steps ensure you are in and out of the kitchen without dirtying a multitude of pans or spending more time than you need to on dinner. These are simple, delicious recipes for weekdays, busy evenings, and any time you need to get a delicious, inspiring meal on the table quickly–with as little clean-up as possible.

What’s better than serving your family food they rave about? Keeping it simple, of course! Sure, there are times when you want to spend all day noodling around in the kitchen, but most days we want more oomph with less effort. In The Simply Happy Cookbook, Steve Doocy and his wife, Kathy, provide more than a hundred recipes for their favorite dishes that are just as comforting to make as they are to eat–using fewer ingredients, simpler preparations, and less time in the kitchen.

Make every day Taco Tuesday! Tacos just might be the perfect food. They’re affordable, portable—and delicious! Explore every facet of this quintessential street food with this comprehensive taco recipe book, filled with traditional home-style dishes and expert guidance to help you capture the magic of Mexican tacos. Prepare authentic Mexican tacos from the comfort of your kitchen with this comprehensive taco cookbook.

In Spectacular Spreads, Maegan Brown shares more of her tips and tricks for effortless, stress-free, and foolproof entertaining that will impress your guests and feed a hungry crowd, all while allowing you to relax and enjoy the occasion. Visually exciting and deliciously enticing, the spreads are comprised of easy-to-find fresh and prepared foods and are arranged in beautiful, artful, and whimsical ways.

Fall in love with cooking again with classic family-friendly recipes made quick and easy! With her family-friendly cooking and lifestyle brand ranging from a hit Food Network show to an eponymous magazine to a bestselling line of food and home products to restaurants and shops in her bustling small town, Ree Drummond remains totally in tune with what today’s families want to eat—and comfort, speed, and ease are on the menu.

We may fondly remember the classics like tuna noodle casserole, lasagna, or macaroni and cheese from childhood, but this collection of recipes reveals the incredible versatility—as well as the simplicity, ease, and satisfaction—of a well-baked casserole. With healthy options, sweet options, and even vegetarian options, it’s a treasury for any home cook.

There’s something for everyone in these 125 easy, show-stopping recipes: fewer ingredients, foolproof meal-prepping, effortless entertaining, and everything in between, including vegan and vegetarian options! Especially for home cooks who are pressed for time or just starting out, Half Baked Harvest Super Simple is your go-to for hassle-free meals that never sacrifice taste.

Celebrated author and food blogger Shelly Westerhausen shares the secrets to creating casually chic spreads anyone can make and everyone will enjoy (and envy) in her bestselling Platters and Boards cookbook. This visual cornucopia of a cookbook is the guide to entertaining with effortless style. Organized by time of day, 40 contemporary arrangements are presented with gorgeous photography, easy-to-prepare recipes, suggested meat and drink pairings, and notes on preparation and presentation.

Sweet Paris is a dazzling cookbook featuring 59 seasonal dessert recipes with American and French influences, accompanied by exquisite photographs and tips on serving and hosting with French flair for any occasion, from a casual afternoon teatime to an intimate dinner party to a festive holiday gathering. Frank brings together the best elements of French style and American baking.

New Non-fiction Books to Read in October

  By

Javier’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. A memoir by an acclaimed poet, Solito not only provides an immediate and intimate account of a treacherous and near-impossible journey, but also the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments.

No one takes chili more seriously than Brian Baumgartner, aka Kevin Malone from The Office! Brian Baumgartner’s first cookbook is about his all-time favorite food both on- and off-screen — chili. With an introduction by Brian with a behind-the-scenes look at the infamous chili scene that made him a chili icon, the book shows his devoted passion for this classic comfort food and its rich history. Brian is a true chili master who is just as serious as his fictional counterpart about making the most perfect pot of chili!

As a seasoned medical technician and union leader, Anthony Almojera thought he understood the toll of the job on first responders. So when a strange new virus (COVID-19) began spreading in New York, Anthony thought that his life and training had prepared him for this new challenge. Following one paramedic into hell and back, Riding the Lightning tells the story of New York City’s darkest days through the eyes of one extraordinary medic and the New Yorkers he serves

Explore the evolution and influences of Stephen King’s body of work over his nearly 50-year career, and discover how the themes of his writing reflect the changing times and events within his life. Timed with Stephen King’s 75th birthday on September 21, 2022, Stephen King: A Complete Exploration of His Work, Life, and Influences features archival photos and documents from King’s personal collection alongside the stories behind how his novels, novellas, short stories, and adaptations came to be.

From the American Library Association comes a must-read challenge for book lovers and literary activists to explore! Formatted as an interactive recommended reading list from ALA, this one-year challenge tasks readers with a new read each week, all banned or challenged book from yesterday and today. These titles span categories, from fantasy and graphic novel to nonfiction and romance, but are all were challenged or banned at some point in history.

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD–a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her beautiful friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Dinners with Ruth is an extraordinary account of two women who paved the way for future generations by tearing down professional and legal barriers.

Madman in The Woods is a haunting account of the sixteen years when a young Jamie Gehring and her family lived closer than anyone to Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. They shared their Montana land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. A work of intricately braided research, journalism, and personal memories, this book is a chilling response to the question: Do you really know your neighbor?

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life. Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

New Fiction Books to Enjoy in October

  By

Here are the three things the Sullivan family knows to be true: the Chicago Cubs will always be the underdogs; historical progress is inevitable; and their grandfather, Bud, founder of JP Sullivan’s, will always make the best burgers in Oak Park. But when, over the course of three strange months, the Cubs win the World Series, Trump is elected president, and Bud drops dead, suddenly everyone in the family finds themselves doubting all they hold dear. Outrageously funny and wickedly astute, Marrying the Ketchups is a delicious confection by one of our most beloved authors.

Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours. A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.

If you could choose your family…you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons. Dimple Pennington knows of her half siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about. People Person is a vibrant and charming celebration of discovering family as an adult.

Just weeks after World War II ends, three women from different corners of the world arrive in Germany to run a displaced-persons camp. They long to help rebuild shattered lives—including their own. Charged with the care of more than two thousand camp residents, Martha, Delphine, and Kitty draw on each other’s strength to endure and to give hope when all seems lost. Among these strangers and survivors, they might find the love and closure they need to heal their hearts and leave their troubled pasts behind.

The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game. For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult—the dead teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn, and it seems that someone is determined to keep him from digging further.

Josephine Thomas has heard every conceivable theory about her mother’s disappearance. That she was kidnapped. Murdered. That she took on a new identity to start a new family. That she was a witch. This is the most worrying charge because in a world where witches are real, peculiar behavior raises suspicions and a woman–especially a Black woman–can find herself on trial for witchcraft. In this powerful and timely novel, Megan Giddings explores the limits women face–and the powers they have to transgress and transcend them.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits. It’s named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey’s new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island’s famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.

At home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore. On the Rooftop is a stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters’ ambitions for their own lives—set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San Francisco.

The latest installment in the highly acclaimed, internationally bestselling Strike series finds Cormoran and Robin ensnared in another winding, wicked case .When frantic, disheveled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn’t know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie’s true identity.

New Audiobooks to Enjoy on the Libby App

  By

Sage Winters always knew her sister was a little different even though they were identical twins. Six years after Rosemary’s death from pneumonia, Sage, now sixteen, still misses her deeply. Sage is stunned to discover that her stepfather has kept a shocking secret: Rosemary didn’t die. She was committed to Willowbrook and has lingered there until just a few days ago, when she went missing.  Fact, fiction, and urban legend blend in this haunting story about a young woman mistakenly imprisoned at Willowbrook, the real-life institution later shuttered for its horrendous abuses.

Natalie Walker is the reason her older brother and sister went to prison more than fifteen years ago. She fled California shortly after that fateful night and hasn’t spoken to anyone in her family since. Ten years later, Natalie receives a letter from a lawyer saying her estranged mother has died and left the family’s historic Santa Cruz house to her–sort of. To inherit it, Natalie and her siblings must claim it together. This is a novel about learning to love and forgive your family, even when they accidently put you behind bars.

All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover. That was Elliott’s belief and the reason why he started The Book Haters’ Book Club—a newsletter of reading recommendations for the self-proclaimed “nonreader.” As the co-owner of Over the Rainbow Bookstore, Elliott’s passion was recommending books to customers. Now, after his sudden death, his business partner, Irma, has agreed to sell Over the Rainbow. Filled with humor, family hijinks and actual reading recommendations, The Book Haters’ Book Club is the ideal feel-good read.

In a remote corner of France, Jewish refugee Ella Rosenthal has finally reached safety. It has been three years since she and her little sister, Hanni, left their parents to flee Nazi Germany, and they have been pursued and adrift in the chaos of war ever since. Now they shelter among one hundred other young refugees in a derelict castle overseen by the Swiss Red Cross. The Winter Orphans is a poignant and ultimately triumphant novel based on the incredible true story of children who braved the formidable danger of guarded, wintry mountain passes in France to escape the Nazis.

Lucy Rourke has two great loves in her life: the gorilla troop she cares for as a primatologist and the laundry list of reality TV shows she watches to escape the fact that her actual love life doesn’t exist. And like a reality contestant gunning for the final rose, Lucy’s laser-focused on one thing: getting promoted to head keeper. So when a wildlife docuseries hosted by hotshot TV personality Kai Bridges chooses her zoo as its summer filming location, she sees an opportunity to showcase her beloved gorillas to the world and land a starring role in her department.

In the aftermath of her husband’s logging accident, Elsa has more questions than answers about how to carry on while caring for their two small children in the unfinished house he was building for them in the woods of rural Wisconsin. To cope with the challenges of winter and the near-daily miscommunications from her in-laws, she forges her own relationship with the land, learning from and taking comfort in the trees her husband had so loved. If she wants to stay in their home, she must discover her own capabilities, and accept help from the people and places she least expects.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Moderna and Regio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf. Full of the drama and verve of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life, and offers an unforgettable portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.

Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed. It started with their ancestor Oanh who dared to leave her marriage for true love—so a Vietnamese witch cursed Oanh and her descendants so that they would never find love or happiness, and the Duong women would give birth only to daughters.​ A novel brimming with levity and candor, The Fortunes of Jaded Women is about mourning, meddling, celebrating, and healing together as a family. It shows how Vietnamese women emerge victorious, even if the world is against them.

Nathan Silverman grew up in Berlin in the 1920s, the son of a homemaker and a theoretical physicist. His idyllic childhood was soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community, and after his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival. An Affair of Spies is an action-packed tale of heroism and love in the face of unspeakable evil.