A Peek at Peak Picks for May 2022

Here’s a sneak peek at the ten new books joining Peak Picks in May!

For fiction, Emily Henry will delight readers with the story of a cutthroat literary agent who tries not to fall for her rival in Book Lovers; Adrian McKinty’s tale of a Seattle family’s nightmarish trip to the Australian Outback will thrill readers in The Island; Shelby Van Pelt traces the connection between a widow and giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus in the charming Remarkably Bright Creatures; Emma Straub’s 40-year-old heroine wakes up on her 16^th birthday and sees her father in a whole new light in the captivating This Time Tomorrow; and National Book Award finalist Akwaeke Emezi tells the tale of a young woman whose second chance at love is complicated by the one person who’s off-limits in the seductive You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty.

In nonfiction, Seattle’s own Angela Garbes reflects on the state of caregiving and mothering as a means of social change in Essential Labor; misanthropic funnyman David Sedaris chronicles a world turned upside down by the pandemic along with the loss of his seemingly indestructible father in his first new essay collection in four years, Happy-go-Lucky; scientist Vaclav Smil investigates what science does, and does not, accomplish in the lucid primer on what’s possible in the 21^st century in How the World Really Works; cook, writer and pitmaster Rick Martínez transports readers to Mexico with 100 recipes (Mole Coloradito and Tacos de Capeados, anyone?) in Mi Cocina; and historian Candice Millard tells the story of the quest to discover the source of the Nile, and its complicated legacy of colonialism and exploitation, in the thrilling River of the Gods.

~posted by Frank