Staff Reading Picks

Erin and her friends from college, now in their mid-twenties, are shaken by the death of Silas, one of their own. They are plunged into a waking nightmare when they take a pill Silas learned of that allows them to see-and interact with-ghosts.

When her estranged father is found dead with a seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, cartographer Nell Young soon discovers the map is extremely valuable--and that a mysterious collector will stop at nothing to destroy it and anyone who gets in the way.

This memoir from a Chinese woman who arrived in New York City at age seven examines how her family lived in poverty out of fear of being discovered as undocumented immigrants and how she was able to find success.

"A thoughtful and illuminating bicycle journey along the Underground Railroad by a climate scientist seeking to engage with American history. The traces of the Underground Railroad hide in plain sight: a great church in Philadelphia; a humble old house backing up to the New Jersey Turnpike; an industrial outbuilding in Ohio. Over the course of four years, David Goodrich rode his bicycle 3,000 miles east of the Mississippi to travel the routes of the Underground Railroad and delve into the history and stories in the places where they happened."--Provided by publisher.

Sensing something is wrong with his owner, a domesticated crow abandons the only life he ever knew to discover that humans are turning into zombies, and must use knowledge gleaned from his television viewing to free other domesticated animals from their housebound prisons before it's too late.

Presents the stories of strong women who have made a difference in the world, including civil rights activist Dorothy Height, swimmer Diana Nyad, historian Mary Beard, and writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

As a young girl, Puri realized that the gulf between her immigrant parents' experiences and her own as American-born were nearly impossible to bridge, save for two elements: medicine and faith. She followed her mother into medicine, but began to question medicine's power. Were patients' lives being saved, or merely prolonged? At that time palliative care was a new field, translating the border between medical intervention and quality of life care. Here Puri reveals a nuanced and optimistic portrait of medicine and hospitalization.

A whirlwind tour of new ideas and findings about animal emotions, based on de Waal's studies of the social and emotional lives of chimpanzees, bonobos, and other primates. De Waal discusses facial expressions, animal sentience and consciousness, Mama's life and death, the emotional side of human politics, and the illusion of free will. He distinguishes between emotions and feelings, all the while emphasizing the continuity between our species and other species.

A boy with a bird in his chest navigates all the perils of adolescence while learning to accept and celebrate his queerness. Arriving during the yearly floods in Morning, Montana, Owen is born with a mysterious heart ailment. His mother, Janice, takes him home, expecting the worst. Instead, she awakens one morning to see a baby bird settled “inside the rib cage, next to his heart and lungs.” So begins Owen’s life as a boy with a secret, a boy who is kept inside by his mother, a boy with only the bird, Gail, for company.

Amy and Brian's world was changed forever with his diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's. Forced to confront the daily frustrations and realities of the disease and its impact on their lives and marriage, Brian resolved not to let it dictate his life and instead asked himself: What makes life meaningful, and how do I want to live the rest of mine? His decision led them to learn about Dignitas and to fly to Zürich for a peaceful ending of Brian's life.