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Staff Picks - Angela
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Angela Mann was raised and educated in England, worked in publishing companies on both sides of the Atlantic, and is now the youth events director for Kepler’s. She reads voraciously and eclectically, usually falling for whatever calls loudest from her bookshelf despite all other obligations, searching for things either funny, offbeat, apocalyptic, provocative, beautiful, or true.
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$28.00
ISBN: 9780399180989
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - July 10th, 2018
A loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, in a Russian setting.
Meet Miryem, a Jewish moneylender's daughter who takes over her family's failing business and is so successful people say she can turn silver into gold. And this brings her to the attention of the Staryk, the magical people in the forest. And what's a girl to do when she is tested and realizes she's fallen into a bargain with their king? Told in multiple voices, this has everything from fire demons and an otherworldly king who can bring an eternal winter. to discussions of family, power, and antisemitism. I loved this. --Angela
$26.99
ISBN: 9780062669605
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow - June 5th, 2018
We take our shadows for granted but what if they were what kept our memories intact? What if without a shadow you lost who you are?
In this dystopian future, without a reason people start to lose their shadows, then their memories, then themselves. We follow Max and Ory as Max loses her shadow and runs away - but Ory can't let go and goes in search of her.
This thoughtful look at the cost of our memories haunts me. --Angela
$26.99
ISBN: 9780062684134
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper - May 8th, 2018
Meet Maisie, a girl who can kill you or bring you back to life at her touch. She’s grown up alone with her scientist father on the edge of an enchanted forest that she is told not to enter. But when the housekeeper dies and her father disappears she goes on a quest to find him. Did I also mention the curse that has plagued the women in her family for centuries? It’s part Maisie’ story, part history of the women in her family who fled into the forest, and part discussion on the roles and desires of women. --Angela
$18.99
ISBN: 9781250170972
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) - March 6th, 2018
In a land where magic is gone, you can find remnants in the Diviners, who were destined to become magi. The Diviners are marginalized and oppressed. This story follows Zelie, a Reaper, as she travels with her brother and a runaway princess to perform a ritual that could save magic. Action-packed, multi-layered, and unputdownable. I could not love this more. --Angela
$26.00
ISBN: 9780316547611
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Little, Brown and Company - October 10th, 2017
It starts when teenage girls develop the power to deliver electric shocks - and can awaken this power in adult women. What would the world look like if men were afraid of women? Would the world become a utopia? Presented as history, written by a student in the future, this book is smart, insightful, fast paced, and unputdownable. This is hard to forget. --Angela
$26.00
ISBN: 9780374203108
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: MCD - September 5th, 2017
Software robotics developer Lois Clary moves to SF, works horribly long hours, and eats only a nutritive gel called slurry. She discovers a local spicy soup and sourdough restaurant that changes her life. It leads her to an underground world of secret markets, a Lois club, and a new vocation. It's quirky, charming, and so very Bay Area. And will leave you with a craving for a good loaf of bread! --Angela
$18.99
ISBN: 9780062498533
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Balzer + Bray - February 28th, 2017
Starr’s life is thrust into chaos when she watches her childhood friend get shot by a police officer. She is the only witness. What should she do now? It’s heartbreaking, it’s honest, and it’s important. This thoughtful, powerful read was the standout book of 2017. Everyone should read it. Everyone. --Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9780399178504
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - July 10th, 2018
Milo has lived 9995 lives and has only 5 more tries to reach perfection. But he’s in love with Death (aka Suzie) so things are a bit complicated. We get glimpses of Milo’s many lives, which are in turn touching and disturbing, heartbreaking, quirky, and hilarious. At its heart it’s a story of living your best life and finding your own path – and will appeal to fans of Christopher Moore and Kurt Vonnegut. --Angela
$15.99
ISBN: 9780316261258
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Mulholland Books - July 18th, 2017
Imagine an alternate America where the Civil War never happened and slavery still exists in 4 states. We meet a bounty hunter who works for his own freedom pursuing a case that just does not feel right. This book cuts close to the bone, Winters keeps us guessing to the last page, and I simply could not put it down. --Angela
$17.99
ISBN: 9781250034250
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Square Fish - October 1st, 2013
Mermaids, mystery, murder, ghosts, and an age-old curse – Monstrous Beauty encompasses all this and more. It all starts in 1872 when a mermaid (no, don’t think Ariel) falls in love and it ends with a series of murders. Each chapter alternates from past to present where we meet Hester and discover how she is linked to the past. Gorgeously written and rather creepy, this dark tragic romance is one of my current favorites.--Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9781101904244
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Broadway Books - May 2nd, 2017
Jason Dessen is a physicist. A man with a wife and son. A man who is happy. On the way back from a party he is abducted and his life derails. He wakes up in a different life but is determined to get home. The question is: can he? This mind-blowing book is equal parts brain twister, love story, thriller and sci fi. You should read it. Now. --Angela
$16.99
ISBN: 9781250055187
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Minotaur Books - December 29th, 2015
Why have Inspector Esa Khattack and Sgt Rachel Getty of the community policing division been asked to investigate Christopher Drayton's supposed accidental fall from the Bluffs? Turns out Drayton was living under an assumed name and might be linked to the Srebenica massacre of 1995. So was it murder? This disturbing and haunting mystery, chock full of historical detail, touches on themes of identity and loss and the cost of justice. And you will be thinking about this book long after you have raced through it. I know am. --Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9781101886717
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - January 24th, 2017
A young girl falls off her bike into a deep hole. She lands in a giant metal hand. No one knows what it is or how it got there. Fast forward to when this girl has become a physicist hired to learn more about this hand. Her team discover more metal body parts buried around the globe. But if they put them together, what are they building - friend or foe? It's unputdownable and will be THE book of the summer. --Angela
$15.99
ISBN: 9780765379955
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Books - April 11th, 2017
Laurence invented a 2 second time machine and an artificial intelligence in middle school, Patricia is a witch who can talk to birds.They meet up again as adults as the world is falling apart. Will they help destroy or save the world? This is funny, original, and hard to put down. -- Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9781594634482
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Books - September 13th, 2016
The story of a marriage first told by Lotto, a would be actor turned successful playwright, then by his enigmatic wife Mathilde. This was, for me, the best book of the year. --Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9780804170123
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - May 5th, 2015
Tsukuru Tazaki's four best friends all cut their ties with him in his second year of college without telling him why. He is utterly devastated. Many years later his girlfriend pushes him to find out what happened. This quest takes him back to his home town and as far afield as Finland. Full of emotional truths, this is at the same time simple, disturbing, mysterious, and deeply moving. --Angela
$16.95
ISBN: 9781101912362
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - August 9th, 2016
What is security worth to you? Stan and Charmaine run from their reality - no jobs, living in their car - to the town of Consilience and the Positron Project. Here you get a guaranteed job and a place to live for a price. A surreal look at a bleak possible future that asks whether a "perfect" lifestyle is possible and whether it's worth the freedoms you gave up for it? It's at times camp but always on point. I love everything she writes. --Angela
$15.99
ISBN: 9780062406118
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - October 11th, 2016
An intense, psychological thriller; in which Alex and his son Max find their next-door neighbor dead in his bathtub. The police first suspect suicide then murder and turn their investigation toward Millicent, Alex's wife. How well did she know the neighbor? What secrets does Max know about his parents? Intriguing and twisty, this is part "whodunnit" and a peek inside a family tearing itself apart. This is for anyone who enjoyed Girl on a Train. --Angela
$14.95
ISBN: 9781101872093
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - February 3rd, 2015
It begins with a discussion between friends of the merits of Jane Eyre versus Cathy Earnshaw and leads the author to take another look at all her literary heroines.
$15.95
ISBN: 9781101872741
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - May 3rd, 2016
The story of the Warsaw Ghetto as seen through the eyes of Aron, a child smuggler who ends up in the orphanage run by famous Dr Janusz Korczak.I grew up hearing stories of what happened to children in the Holocaust yet I will carry images from this dark, heartbreaking, deceptively simple book with me forever. An extraordinary feat. -- Angela
$15.99
ISBN: 9780765376466
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tor Books - January 19th, 2016
A wonderful mix of magic, mayham, adventure, and fantasy. Here are several very different versions of London and Kell is one of the few who can travel between the worlds. It's forbidden to bring anything between worlds but Kell is a collector and this "hobby" brings him a lot of trouble one day, forcing him to rely on Lila for help. But can they put it all to right? LOVED THIS! --Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9780804172448
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - June 2nd, 2015
It starts with an aging actor playing Lear dying on stage. A flu pandemic breaks out soon after, devastating civilization. And in the years following there is a traveling symphony whose motto is: survival is insufficient. At its heart is a nostalgia and yearning for the beauty of life today. You should read it.
$17.00
ISBN: 9780143127512
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Books - August 4th, 2015
A boy is found dead on the grounds of a private girls school. The investigators find nothing and the case goes cold until a student brings them a card that reads: I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM. This is a page turner that gets under the skin of girls schools, teen friendships (and how it can overrule all else), and first love. So good.
$15.95
ISBN: 9781101872871
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - April 28th, 2015
If Adam, a 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness with leukemia refuses the blood transfusion that would save his life, should Fiona Maye overrule his and his family’s decision in court and save his life? This heartbreaking novella questions how much we owe those around us and makes us face the consequences of those actions. This is McEwan in top form.
$16.99
ISBN: 9781476729091
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Simon & Schuster - June 3rd, 2014
Professor Tillman is brilliant but socially inept. When he decides it’s time for a wife he embarks on The Wife Project. Then he meets Rosie who is looking for her biological father - and the Father Project seems to take up far more of his time than it should. I read it in one sitting, giggling throughout. It’s unique, charming, and irresistible.
$15.99
ISBN: 9780062377197
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - September 1st, 2015
I’m a little obsessed with Sherlock Holmes right now (I blame you, Benedict Cumberbatch) and loved immersing myself in this new mystery in the world of Holmes without Holmes. Crammed with breathless chases, coded messages, murder, disguises and countless red herrings, Horowitz gets it just right. Loved it.
$15.95
ISBN: 9781616204518
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Algonquin Books - December 2nd, 2014
$16.00
ISBN: 9780345539809
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey - July 15th, 2014
$18.00
ISBN: 9780316176491
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Back Bay Books - January 7th, 2014
Ursula is born in 1910 and is fated to die and be reborn time and time again to the same family at the same time. Atkinson takes us over and over, from multiple perspectives, through both world wars. If you've ever looked back and wondered "what if" at the major junctures of your life, this is the book for you. I love this. - Angela
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062110848
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - December 31st, 2013
A mix of historical fiction and magical realism, combining both Jewish mysticism and Arab folklore, in turn of the century New York. The story of the chance meeting of Chava, a golem, and Ahmed, a jinni captured in human form - how they relate to each other and react to the outside world. It's multilayered and beautifully written, about creation and art, love and what it means to be human. - Angela
$15.99
ISBN: 9780062255662
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - June 3rd, 2014
There’s a funeral, a return to a childhood home, and the memories of three multigenerational women who befriended his 7-year-old self. They introduced him to the pond and to adventure. They released something evil they then had to fight. It’s a tale of magic and exploration, a coming of age story full of beauty and horror and truth.
$15.00
ISBN: 9780553418026
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Broadway Books - October 28th, 2014
A retelling of the Robinson Crusoe story in a dust storm on Mars. Mark Watney is one of the first people to walk on Mars and is then left for dead after a dust storm forces the Ares 3 mission to abort. I loved everything about this book as we follow Mark's struggles to survive and could not put it down.
$15.99
ISBN: 9780316334754
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbit - April 28th, 2015
Every morning Melanie waits to be collected for class. She's kept at gunpoint and strapped into a wheelchair. She is a very special girl and this is a sensational thriller with a BRILLIANT ending. Shocking and thrilling, a multifaceted character-driven Zombie novel that actually breaks new ground. Loved it! - Angela
$17.99
ISBN: 9780062368430
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Greenwillow Books - September 1st, 2015
Henkes's books make the world seem kinder, more hopeful. And Waiting is Henkes at his best. A perfect readaloud - relaxing, charming, reflective - about five toy animals who spend their day looking out a window, waiting. This is a book to treasure. --Angela
$11.99
ISBN: 9781595148049
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Razorbill - February 9th, 2016
Quick paced, set in an ancient Rome inspired world, this is a complex fantasy that is unputdownable. Told by two characters: Elias, trained to be an assassin at an elite military academy - their golden boy - and Laia, who volunteers to work at the academy and spy for the resistance after her brother is taken, willing to do whatever it takes to save him. --Angela
$12.99
ISBN: 9780553499148
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ember - April 25th, 2017
Illuminae is the story of Kady and Ezra as told through hacked documents - interviews, IMs, emails, military files, and blueprints. Their planet is attacked, they end up on different ships, there's a deadly virus, a rogue computer, and the enemy is following them hoping to destroy all witnesses. A white-knuckle thrill ride! --Angela
$10.99
ISBN: 9780553496673
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ember - March 7th, 2017
Maddie’s disease is rare – she’s literally allergic to the outside world. So she stays inside where she is safe, with her mom and her nurse, until a family moves next door and she spies Olly from her window. What follows is how much Maddie is willing to risk for a chance at everything. --Angela
$16.00
ISBN: 9780553418620
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Broadway Books - March 15th, 2016
I am utterly obsessed with this book. It's part thriller, part fantasy and totally unique. Dark, violent, and yet funny. About a group of orphaned children raised by a cult leader who may or may not be a god. When he goes missing the library is left unguarded and the competition for succession begins. And it is unforgettable. Really. --Angela
