Author: nstewart

New Nonfiction Reads from the Libby App

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Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapes- try, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan, and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America.

During one week in January 2021, a motley crew of retail traders on Reddit’s r/wallstreetbets forum had seemingly done the impossible—they had brought some of the richest players on Wall Street to their knees. Their weapon was GameStop, a failing retailer whose shares briefly became the most-traded security on the planet. This is the riveting story of how the meme stock squeeze unfolded, and of the real winners of the GameStop rally.

Behind every triumph, every expression of his gifts, Acho has had to ignore what everyone around him called “logic”: the astronomical odds against making it, the risks of continuing to dream bigger or differently. Instead of playing it safe, at every turn Acho has thrown conventional wisdom—logic—out the window. Now, in this revelatory book, he’s empowering us all to do the same and become change-makers ourselves. 

Public awareness of mental illness has been transformed in recent years, but our understanding of how to define it has yet to catch up. A narrative has taken hold that a mental health crisis has been building among young people. Psychologist Lucy Foulkes argues that the crisis is one of ignorance as much as illness. Have we raised a ‘snowflake’ generation? The real question in need of answering is: how should we distinguish between ‘normal’ suffering and actual illness?

Lewis R. Gordon, one of the leading scholars of Black existentialism and anti-Blackness, takes the reader on a journey through the historical development of racialized Blackness, the problems this kind of consciousness produces, and the many creative responses from Black and non-Black communities in contemporary struggles for dignity and freedom.  

We are in the midst of a global reckoning on race, and corporations are on high alert. But conventional approaches have fallen short, leaving nagging questions about next steps. Why do diversity trainings fail? What’s so wrong with a company’s “colorblind” workplace culture? In Inclusion Revolution, Daisy Auger-Domínguez provides frank answers to why popular efforts fail and presents the definitive roadmap for revolution.

Nicolas Cage is many things, but love him, or laugh at him, there’s no denying two things: you’ve seen one of his many films, and you certainly know his name. But who is he, really, and why has his career endured for over forty years, with more than a hundred films, and birthed a million memes?
Age of Cage is a smart, beguiling book about the films of Nicolas Cage, as well as a sharp-eyed examination of the changes that have taken place in Hollywood over the course of his career.

What is the role of literature in an era when one political party wages continual war on writers and the press? Drawing on her experiences as a woman and voracious reader living in the Islamic Republic of Iran, her life as an immigrant in the United States, and her role as literature professor in both countries, Nafisi crafts an argument for why, in a genuine democracy, we must engage with the enemy, and how literature can be a vehicle for doing so.

Selected for Navy flight training in 1972, Mariner and her five fellow graduates from the inaugural group of female Naval Aviators racked up an impressive roster of achievements, and firsts. Leading by example, they challenged deep skepticism within the fleet and blazed a trail for female aviators wanting to serve their country equally with their male counterparts. This is the story of their struggles and triumphs as they earned their Wings of Gold.

Elementary, My Dear Watson: Mysteries Hidden in the Stacks

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Bonnie Wheeler reluctantly agrees to meet with her husband’s ex-wife after the woman cautions her against an unknown danger, but when Bonnie arrives, she finds Joan has been murdered and learns to her horror that she is not only the main suspect, but that the dead woman’s warning was true.

A minor road accident lands county prosecutor Katie DeMaio in Westlake Hospital, and, that night, from her window, she thinks she saw a man load a woman’s body into the trunk of a car…or was it just a sleeping pill-induced nightmare?

U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner Chuck Aule begin to fear for their own lives and sanity when their investigation on Shutter Island into how a patient escaped the Ashcliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane yields more questions than answers.

When a skeleton is unearthed in the Martellos’ garden, Jane Martello is shocked to learn it’s that of her childhood friend, Natalie, who went missing twenty-five years ago. Encouraged by a therapist to recover lost memories, Jane hopes to find out what really took place when she was a child – and what happened to Natalie. But in learning the truth about hers and Natalie’s past, is Jane putting her own future at terrible risk?

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant, but then Lo witnesses a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for–and so, the ship sails on despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he finds himself investigating a case chillingly similar to his unsolved mystery.

Matthew Tierney unexpectedly discovers his wife’s strangled body on the living room floor, and after long minutes of numbing shock, he phones the police — and quickly learns that his less-than-perfect marriage has made him the perfect suspect. To get away from it all, he travels to the lovely seaside resort where his wife often vacationed. But Matthew did not travel alone. His companion was murder number two — and all the evidence again points toward Matthew Tierney.

The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

Detective Reuben ‘Diego’ Montoya returns to New Orleans to find a serial killer that’s turning the Big Easy into his personal playground. The victums are killed in pairs and have no connection, no apparent motive and no real clues. Thanks to years working with the dark side of society, his youthful swagger is gone, replaced by a determined, take-no prisoners stride. He’ll need every bit of it as somebody is playing a sick game, and Montoya intends to beat him at it.

You have Bewitched Me, Body and Soul: Love Stories Lost in the Stacks

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France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.

Ari and Russell decide to team up to solve their bosses’ relationship issues. Between secret gifts and double dates, they start nudging their bosses back together. But their well-meaning meddling backfires when the real chemistry builds between Ari and Russell. Working closely with Russell means allowing him to get to know parts of herself that Ari keeps hidden from everyone. Will he be able to embrace her dark clouds as well as her clear skies?

When Juniper’s husband, John, vanishes, surviving in a ghost town requires trusting the kindness of a few remaining souls. Juniper pens letters to her husband but fears she is waiting on a ghost. Present day, Johnny Sutherland throws himself into restoring an abandoned farmhouse and he uncovers Juniper’s letters. He is moved by the handwritten accounts that bear his name, as a love story from the past touches his own world.

Interior designer, Dani Porter, buys the vacant lot next to her ex-fiancé’s house…the house they were supposed to live in before he cheated on her with their Realtor. Dani plans to a) mess with his view and b) prove that she is not someone to be stepped on. That plan quickly becomes complicated when Dani is forced to team up with Wyatt Montego, the handsome, haughty architect at her firm. The closer she gets to her goal, the more she wonders if revenge could mean losing something infinitely sweeter.

Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, and her girlfriends think she needs to get over her ex already.  But Yinka believes that true love will find her when the time is right. Still, when her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences Operation Find-A-Date for Rachel’s Wedding. Aided by a spreadsheet and her best friend, Yinka is determined to succeed. Will Yinka find herself a huzband?

Owen Callahan, an aspiring writer, moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. He takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college, in exchange for which he is permitted to take a writing course. Here he meets Alma Hazdic, a writer in residence. They begin a secret relationship, and as they grow closer, Alma—who comes from a liberal family of Bosnian immigrants—struggles to understand Owen’s fraught relationship with family.

Reeling in the aftermath of her husband’s infidelity, Violet Covington uses her usually tame advice column as an outlet for her pain, becoming a viral sensation. Firefighter Dez recognizes her suffering, as he too has been through great loss, and he’s more than happy to become her distraction. Both expect their relationship to be a temporary fling, but Dez’s chivalrous gestures and enduring patience captivate Violet. But she must get a grip on her grief before she loses her career, and her first chance at true happiness.

Nova Huston’s job is to help terminally ill people make peace with their impending death. When as the indie-favorite singer-songwriter, Mason Shaylor, shows up at her door, Nova doesn’t recognize him. Helping him is Nova’s biggest challenge yet. She knows she should keep clients at arm’s length. But she and Mason have more in common than anyone could guess, and meeting him might turn out to be the best, and hardest, thing that’s ever happened to them both.

Bee’s given up on finding love, but that’s fine. There’s always Tinder. Nick’s marriage is on the rocks, but that’s fine. There’s always gin. So when one of Nick’s emails intended for a client, accidentally pings into Bee’s inbox, they decide to keep the conversation going. After all, they never have to meet. But the more they get to know each other, the more Bee and Nick realize they want to. With a universe between them, Bee and Nick will discover how far they’ll go to beat impossible odds.

Take a Whisk with these Egg-cellent Libby App Cookbooks

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Delivering recipes straight from his own collection, Snoop’s cookbook features OG staples like Baked Mac & Cheese and Fried Bologna Sandwiches. Snoop’s giving a taste of the high life with remixes on upper echelon fare such as Lobster Thermidor and Filet Mignon. The Doggfather’s got you covered – complete with epic stories and behind-the-scenes photos.

-Library Copy Available

Many of our favorite movies come with a side of iconic food moments: the elaborate timpano from Big Night, Charlie Chaplin’s dancing dinner rolls in The Gold Rush, or the orgasmic deli fare from When Harry Met Sally. In this cookbook, author Andrew Rea (of the hit YouTube channel “Binging with Babish”) recreates these iconic food scenes and many more.

-Library Copy Available

This ultimate one-stop shopping guide finally offers starving college students a welcome relief from microwave mash-ups, fast food fiascos, and cardboard crust pizza delivery. Instead they can whip up late-for-class breakfasts, backpack-friendly lunches, and as-hearty-as-mom-made dinners. And since all the ingredients come from Trader Joe’s, they’re both inexpensive and scrumptious.

Rather than focusing specifically on one style of barbecue in his book, Raichlen documented years of travels along what he considered the great “barbecue belts” in the world, which he categorized as North America/Caribbean, South America, Central Asia/Middle East, Mediterranean Europe, the western regions of Africa from Morocco to South Africa, and the eastern Pacific Rim from Korea to Indonesia.

-Library Copy Available

For fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead, Max Brooks, and all things zombies, the clever creators of Fifty Shades of Chicken hack a new parody cookbook filled with snacks for every occasion, tips for cooking under duress, and a love story that will send ripples down your spine—all accompanied by food photography that will ignite your palate. The zombies have their snack plan—do you have yours?

Professional chef and founder of OutlanderKitchen.com Theresa Carle-Sanders offers up this extraordinary cuisine for your table. Featuring more than one hundred recipes, “Outlander Kitchen” retells Claire and Jamie’s incredible story through the flavors of the Scottish Highlands, the French Revolution, and beyond.

-Library Copy Available

Good Enough is a cookbook, but it’s as much about the healing process of cooking as it is about delicious recipes. It’s about acknowledging the fears and anxieties many of us have when we get in the kitchen, then learning to let them go in the sensory experience of working with food. It’s about slowing down, honoring the beautiful act of feeding yourself and your loved ones, and releasing the worries about whether what you’ve made is good enough. It is.

Chef Hugh Amano and comics artist Sarah Becan invite you to explore the big little world of Asian dumplings! Ideal for both newbies and seasoned cooks, this comic book cookbook takes a fun approach to a classic treat that is imbued with history across countless regions. From wontons to potstickers, Amano’s expert guidance paired with Becan’s colorful artwork prove that intricate folding styles and flavorful fillings are achievable at home.

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Pemmican, sauerkraut and salmi of quail, Bohemian kolaches and Danish meat roll, dishes familiar and foods exotic–you’ll find them in this cook’s tour of the state from Lewis and Clark to the Age of Elegance, for in its cuisine as in its weather Nebraska is a land of variety and extremes. Interspersed with the recipes are descriptions of food preparation which tell us much about how our forebears lived–industriously, ingeniously, and sometimes very well.

-Library Copy Available

Start Your New Adventure with these Libby App Fiction Reads

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Every song tells a story. She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past. Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny.  It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her. And destroy her. From America’s most beloved superstar and its greatest storyteller—a thriller about a young singer/songwriter on the rise and on the run, and determined to do whatever it takes to survive. 

A seductive literary mystery and mutigenerational story inspired by true events, this novel imaginatively brings into focus the period of promise and tragedy that marked the writing of Sylvia Plath’s modern classic The Bell Jar. Lee Kravetz uses a prismatic narrative formed from three distinct fictional perspectives to bring Plath to life—that of her psychiatrist, a rival poet, and years later, a curator of antiquities.

In the twelve unforgettable tales, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman. These tales wrestle with themes of death and technological consequence, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.

Best friends Cate, Lauren, Olivia and Max are overworked and underpaid assistants to some of the most powerful people in the entertainment industries. The women know they have to pay their dues in order to climb the ladders to their dream jobs. But as the toxic office environments reach a breaking point, the women secretly start an anonymous blog detailing their experiences, which snowballs into hundreds of others coming forward with stories of their own.

Tess Abbott, an American Army nurse, has fled the hardships of the Great Depression at home for the glamour and adventure of Manila. But everything changes when the Japanese Imperial Army invades. Tess and her band of nurses serve on the front lines until they are captured as prisoners of war and held in Manila’s Santo Tomas Internment Camp. Tess faces terror, and deprivation, leading her into a web of danger as she tries to save lives and win her freedom.

Elena Godwin has saved for a dream holiday in Mexico. Life has felt a bit less exciting lately, and she’s hoping the trip will add some sizzle. But on a gorgeous summer evening an earthquake strikes—shattering their vacation. Years later, Elena still can’t forget the face of the man who may have saved her life that night. When they’re unexpectedly thrown back together again, Elena starts to question whether she should have lived her life differently in the years afterwards. What if it’s not too late?

Augusta Podos takes a dream job at Harlowe House, the historic home of a wealthy New England family. When Augusta stumbles across an oblique reference to a daughter of the Harlowes who has nearly been expunged from the historical record, the mystery is too intriguing to ignore. But as she digs deeper, something sinister unfurls from its sleep. If Augusta can’t resist its allure, everything she knows and loves—including her very life—could be lost forever.

Love and marriage. Children and family. Death and grief. Life touches everyone the same. But living under lockdown, it changes us alone. In these ten beautifully moving short stories written mostly over the last year, Roddy Doyle paints a collective portrait of our strange times. Told with Doyle’s signature warmth, and wit, these stories cut to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness, and the shifting of history underneath our feet.

Alice Vega has made a career of finding the missing, but she’s never had a case like that of Zeb Williams, missing for thirty years. He disappeared into legend, replete with Elvis-like sightings and a cult following. Vega discovers an anxious community living under siege by a local hate group called the Liberty Boys. As she starts digging into the mystery around Zeb’s disappearance, the reach of the Liberty Boys grows more disturbing. Everyone has something to hide, but no one can cut to the truth like Alice Vega.

Spring Forward with these New Nonfiction Reads

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These are the stories that defy conventional logic. The proverbial vanished without a trace incidences, which happen a lot more (and a lot closer to your backyard) than anyone thinks. The stories that should give you pause every time you venture outdoors. Through Jacob Gray’s disappearance in Olympic National Park, and his father Randy Gray who left his life to search for him, we will learn about what happens when someone goes missing.

This Way to the Universe is a celebration of the astounding, ongoing scientific investigations that have revealed the nature of reality at its smallest, at its largest, and at the scale of our daily lives. The enigmas that Professor Michael Dine discusses are like landmarks on a fantastic journey to the edge of the universe. Comprehensible to anyone, with almost no equations, there is no better author to take you on this amazing odyssey.

The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page. This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet.

In a world full of fear and uncertainty about our health, it can be difficult to know where to turn for actionable advice you can trust. Today, leading scientists and doctors in the field of regenerative medicine are developing diagnostic tools and safe and effective therapies that can free you from fear. Tony Robbins brings you the latest research, and amazing advancements in precision medicine that you can apply today to help extend the length and quality of your life.

Our most respected scientific literature is bursting with evidence that elevated uric acid levels lie at the root of many pervasive health conditions. David Perlmutter exposes the deadly truth about uric acid and teaches strategies to manage its levels, including simple dietary edits, identifying common pharmaceuticals that threaten to increase uric acid, and lifestyle interventions, like restorative sleep and exercise.

Dr. Davis says that 1 out of 3 people have SIBO, which causes a long list of health issues and illnesses; he sees it as a silent epidemic created by the absence of microbial species that our ancestors had. Reprogramming the microbiome based on his research and techniques not only gets to the root of many diseases but also improves brain health, and promotes weight loss. This book provides not just the science and case studies but also the recipes and solutions.

There’s something for everyone in these easy, show-stopping recipes: fewer ingredients, effortless entertaining, and everything in between, including vegan and vegetarian options! We all want to make and serve our loved ones beautiful food–but we shouldn’t have to work so hard to do it. With Half Baked Harvest Super Simple, Tieghan Gerard has solved that problem with her comfort-food-forward recipes that taste even better than they look.

Author Gayla Partridge draws upon her knowledge of phrenology, anatomy, floral design, and Ouija to create deeply imaginative embroidery art. Through extraordinary, stylized photography and detailed close-ups of her designs, readers learn about Partridge’s sources of inspiration, technique, and modern twists on an age-old craft.

When a drug-addled Hunter Biden abandoned his waterlogged computer at a Mac repair shop in the spring of 2019, days before his father announced his candidacy for the United States presidency, it became the ticking time bomb in the shadows of Joe Biden’s campaign. This in-depth book tells the story of how the dirty secrets contained in Hunter’s laptop almost derailed his father’s presidential campaign and ignited one of the greatest media coverups in American history.

New Libby App Fiction Reads by Women about Women

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One summer night, an emboldened fourteen-year-old Clare and her best friend, Abby, ventured into the haunting Octagon House hidden deep in the woods. Clare came out, but a piece of Abby never did. Twenty years later, an adult Clare receives word that Abby has attempted suicide at the Octagon House and now lies in a coma. With little to lose and still grieving after a personal tragedy, Clare returns to her roots to uncover the darkness responsible for Abby’s accident.

When Josephine N. Leary moves to Edenton, North Carolina from the plantation where she was born, she is free, and ready to follow her dreams. But as the demands of life pull Josephine’s attention away, it becomes difficult for her to pursue her aspirations. She finds herself immersed in her marriage, being a mother, and a dutiful daughter. Still, she manages to teach herself to be a businesswoman, but it becomes more and more difficult for her to focus on building her legacy from the ground up.

Hannah Swensen gets asked for her help in baking pastries at the local inn for a flashy fishing competition with big prizes and even bigger names. But the fun stops when she spots a runaway boat and, on board, the lifeless body of the event’s renowned celebrity spokesperson, Sonny Bowman. With goodies to bake and a mess of challenges mixed into her personal life, it’s either sink or swim as Hannah joins forces with her sister, Andrea, to catch a clever culprit.

Emma Caan is a forger, an artist who specializes in nineteenth-century paintings. But she isn’t a criminal; her copies are commissioned by museums and ultra-wealthy collectors protecting their investments. When oligarch art collector Leonard Sobetsky unexpectedly appears with an invitation, Emma sees a way out. But every invitation incurs an obligation, and Emma isn’t prepared for what’s to come.

Jessica Russo knows nothing about her mother’s family or her Cuban culture. Every time she’s asked about it, her mother has shut down. But when Jessica has the chance to come to Miami and meet her estranged family, she can’t help but say yes. Her grandmother is successful, intelligent, and nothing like what she expected. As Jessica’s stay turns from days to weeks, she is determined to find a way to heal her fractured family.

Jess needs a fresh start. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no. Only when she shows up, he’s not there. And the longer Ben stays missing, the more questions she has. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question. Ben’s neighbors start to look suspicious and Jess feels like everyone knows something they’re not telling.

The last time Natalie Collins spoke to her sister, Kit, she was convinced that there was more out there for her. And then she found Wisewood, a resort where guests commit to a six-month stay and are prohibited from contact with the outside world, and Kit voluntarily joins. Six months later, Natalie receives an email from Wisewood threatening to reveal a secret. She travels there, hoping to get her sister and come clean. But she’ll soon learn that Wisewood won’t let either of them go without a fight.

Claudia is used to keeping secrets from her family, such as that she prefers girls—and that she’s just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she’s landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit.

In 1920 Galway, amid the Irish War of Independence, Annabeth De Lacy, the daughter of a British landlord becomes an apprentice jeweler to the descendent of the creator of the famed Claddagh ring. As the two learn to work together and see each other in a new light, they start to uncover the true meaning of love, loyalty, and friendship.

New Libby App Nonfiction Reads

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Lisa Steele, fifth-generation chicken keeper and founder of the popular blog Fresh Eggs Daily, knows a thing or two about eggs. And she’s ready to show you just how easy and delicious it can be to make eggs a staple of every meal. Lisa shares her go-to recipes for everything from breakfast staples, like eggs Benedict and a classic French trifold “omelette,” to breads, sandwiches, beverages, snacks, soups, salads, pasta, cakes, pies, and condiments. 

‘Millionaire’ had just entered the American lexicon and Cassie Chadwick was becoming a media sensation. Combining the sexuality and helplessness her gender implied, Chadwick conned at least 2 million dollars, equivalent to about 60 million today, simply by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter and heir of steel titan, Andrew Carnegie. Using newspaper articles, Hazelgrove tells the story of one of the greatest cons in American history.

For the past twelve years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has ranked Iceland number one on its list of countries closing the gap in equality between men and women. What is it about Iceland that makes many women’s experience there so positive? Why has their society made such meaningful progress in this ongoing battle? And how can we learn from what Icelanders have already discovered about how increased fairness benefits everyone?

Studies prove that companies with more diversity in their ranks are more innovative, expand their markets, and perform better financially. However, most companies have yet to develop and implement effective diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives. In All Are Welcome, Cynthia Owyoung explains what DEIB is and why it matters, and she delivers the information and insights you need to make DEIB a key element of your company culture.

As the nation recovered from a cataclysmic war, two titans of design profoundly influenced how Americans came to interact with the built and natural world around them through their work in architecture and landscape design. In chronicling their lives and work in the context of the nation’s post-war renewal, Hugh Howard reveals how these two men created all-American idioms in architecture and landscape that influence how we enjoy our public spaces.

Journalists began to call the Korean War “the Forgotten War” even before it ended. Without a doubt, the most neglected story of this already neglected war is that of African Americans who served just two years after Harry S. Truman ordered the desegregation of the military. Twice Forgotten draws on oral histories of Black Korean War veterans to recover the story of their contributions to the fight, and how veterans’ service fits into the long history of the Black freedom struggle.

Maureen O’Connell traces how the larger Catholic population became white and why, despite the tenets of their faith, so many white Catholics have lukewarm commitments to racial justice. Undoing the Knots weaves together narrative history, theology, and critical race theory to begin undoing these knots: to move away from doing good and giving back and toward dismantling the white Catholic identity and the economic and social structures it has erected and maintained.

Exercise is our modern obsession, and we have the fancy workout gear and fads from HIIT to spin classes to hot yoga to prove it. Exercise was an ancient obsession, too, but as a chapter in human history, it’s been largely overlooked. In Sweat, Bill Hayes runs, jogs, swims, spins, walks, bikes, boxes, lifts, sweats, and downward-dogs his way through the origins of different forms of exercise, chronicling how they have evolved over time, dissecting the dynamics of human movement.

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: Almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, and the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan.

Strong Female Lead Reads for February

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In horror movies, the final girl is the one who’s left standing when the credits roll. Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre twenty-two years ago. And she’s not alone. For more than a decade she’s been meeting with five other final girls in a support group. That is until one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette’s worst fears are realized. But the thing about these final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife . . . they will never, ever give up.

London, 1915. As German bombs rain down on the East End of London, fifteen-year-old Florrie is forced to grow up fast. Florrie turns to her older sister Edith for comfort, but the war has changed Edith. When Florrie follows her sister through the dark one night, she is shocked by what she discovers. Years later, Kate is sorting through her dead aunt Florrie’s house, which she shared with her sister Edith. Determined to put her family’s ghosts to rest, Kate must unearth the secret past of her two aunts.

Meroe Island is a desolate spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a mysterious history and even rumors of murder. Six twentysomethings are about to embark on a free-spirited journey, but it soon becomes clear that the group is even more cut off from civilization than they initially thought. When one person turns up dead, the remaining friends wonder what dark currents lie beneath this impenetrable paradise―and who else will be swept under its secluded chaos.

A dramatic, uplifting story of a young Polish Christian girl captured by the Nazis during WWII. Through hardships and trials her faith helps her to endure and conquer evil, with unexpected twists and turns in her journey to get back home. Alexa sets a great example for us all to follow today, to choose love over hate.

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen. After a search that yields more questions than answers, the case goes cold. Now, eleven years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find.

Only two can keep a secret if one of them is dead. David and Adele seem like the ideal pair. He’s a successful psychiatrist, she is his picture-perfect wife who adores him. But why is he so controlling? And why is she keeping things hidden? The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong.

In the world of magick, Talamh, Breen Siobhan Kelly is not the ordinary young schoolteacher she was. Here she is learning to embrace the powers of her true identity. Keegan, the leader of the Fey, has trained Breen as a warrior, and his yearning for her has grown. As dark forces plot to destroy Talamh, there will be losses and sorrows, betrayal and bloodshed. But through it, Breenwill take the next step on the journey to becoming all that she was born to be.

This book is the launching point for you to build your wealth, cement your financial independence, and secure the net worth you need to create the life you want. This is a money-in-the-bank masterclass from one of the top voices in the women’s personal finance community. From automating your savings; to easy, no-stress ways of investing; renowned money expert Nicole Lapin is ready to start you on your journey toward your ultimate destination: being filthy friggin’ rich.

Genevieve is a senior nurse at the Salpetriere Asylum. After the childhood death of her sister, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie, the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret: she sees spirits. Eugenie is determined to escape from the asylum and for that she will need Genevieve’s help. 

New Dark and Thrilling Fiction Reads for February

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Carolina Garcia-Ramirez is a rising star in national politics, taking on the establishment with her progressive agenda. Tough, outspoken, and driven, the young congresswoman has ignited a new conversation in Boston about race, poverty, health care, and the environment. Now facing her second campaign, she finds herself not only fighting a tight primary with an old guard challenger but also contending with death threats from hundreds of suspects.

Lillian was the most sought after model in New York City. But when work dries up, and she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion, she jumps at the chance. The longer she works as a private secretary to Helen Frick, the more she gets pulled into a tangled web of drama. Nearly fifty years later, Veronica Weber chances upon a hidden messages within the walls of the Frick residence that could reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder. 

Helen has a handsome husband, gorgeous Victorian home, and baby on the way, but her life begins to change when she attends her first prenatal class and meets Rachel. Rachel smokes, drinks, and has little interest in parenthood. Still, Helen is drawn to her. But when Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy Helen’s life, it becomes clear that there are secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.

Manhattan defense lawyer Lindsay Kelly, is devastated when she discovers her best friend, Hope, has vanished without a trace. With nowhere else to turn, Lindsay calls NYPD homicide detective Ellie Hatcher. In pursuit of answers, two women search for the truth beneath long-buried secrets. And when their searches converge, what they find will upend everything they’ve ever known.

Quinn Quicksilver was born a mystery. Raised in an orphanage, Quinn had a happy if unexceptional life. Until the day of “strange magnetism.” It compelled him to drive out to the middle of nowhere and find a coin worth a lot of money. And it practically saved his life when two government agents showed in pursuit of him. Now Quinn is on the run from those agents and who knows what else. The only way to stay alive is to keep moving.

Olivia LeClair’s speed dates are not going well. There was the date from hell who tried to murder her, and now Harlan Rancourt sits down at her table and asks her to help locate the legendary Vortex lab. He is convinced that her unique psychic talent is the key to defuse the ticking time bomb that is Vortex. Olivia and Harlan must work together to survive and unlock the Bluestone Project’s most dangerous secrets before more innocent people die.

Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She’s not used to taking anyone under her wing, but when she decides to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive, only to find one body. Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a detective with a complicated story of her own. The women round up a list of suspects, all the while grappling with their own understanding of loss and love.

When Kayla Carter’s husband dies in an accident while building their dream house, she knows she has to stay strong for their daughter. But their home in Shadow Ridge Estates will always hold tragic memories. When she is confronted by an older woman telling her not to move in, she almost agrees. It’s clear this woman has some kind of connection to the area. Kayla’s neighbor, Ellie Hockley, is more welcoming, but it’s clear she, too, has secrets. Ellie is on a quest to right the wrongs of the past, and the house at the end of the street just might hold the key.

Frankie Elkin learns of a young man who has gone missing in a national forest. Law enforcement has abandoned the search, but a crew of people led by the young man’s father are still looking. Sensing a father’s desperation, Frankie agrees to help–but soon sees that a missing person isn’t all that’s wrong here. And when more people start to vanish, Frankie realizes she’s up against something very dark–and she’s running out of time.