A Peek at Peak Picks – November & December

TWENTY new titles will be joining Peak Picks! A mix of recently released books, along with forthcoming releases, will be added through December.

FICTION.
In Afterlives, Nobel Prize-winner Abdulrazak Gurnah tells the story of an East African family fractured by German colonization in the late 1800s; in A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley, two prostitutes in Gold Rush California pursue the murderer behind the deaths of young women; considered a classic in Ireland, Claire Keegan’s novella Foster features a young girl who is sent away by her parents to live with a childless older couple in the countryside; in Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a female scientist in the ’60s finds her career in limbo after unexpectedly becoming the star of a TV cooking show; in Lily Brooks-Dalton’s The Light Pirate, a Florida family experience escalating environmental catastrophes over a generation; in Now is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson follows two teens whose stunt creates a panic of epic proportions; Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson finds a self-made woman, just released from prison, presiding over five nightclubs and six children in post-World War II London; Blair Braverman’s debut Small Game finds five contestants of a Survivor­-like reality show stranded in the middle of nowhere when disaster strikes; Onyi Nwabineli explores grief and recovery after a young woman’s husband unexpectedly commits suicide in her debut Someday, Maybe; and Erika T. Wurth debuts with the tale of an Urban Native woman who sees painful visions when she wears a bracelet that once belonged to her mother in White Horse.

NONFICTION.
Radiolab reporter Heather Radke traces the history and symbolism of the female posterior in Butts; Kate Beaton chronicles a brutal two years working in the oil sands of Alberta in the graphic memoir Ducks; attorney and advocate for Adnan Syed, Rabia Chaudry talks about her love/hate relationship with food and her extended Pakistani family in the heartwarming Fatty Fatty Boom Boom; a bestseller in South Korea (and recommended by K-pop’s BTS), author Baek Sehee documents her therapy sessions in an effort to overcome depression in I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki; Jennette McCurdy discusses her life as a child actor under the thumb of her domineering stage mother in I’m Glad My Mom Died; former First Lady Michelle Obama shares wisdom and strategies for staying hopeful during uncertain times in The Light We Carry; Olympic diver Tom Daley shares thirty fun and colorful knitting and crocheting projects in Made With Love; Marie Kondo helps you organize your space and achieve your ideal life in Marie Kondo’s Kurashi at Home; Bob Dylan offers insight into sixty popular songs by other artists in his first work since winning the Nobel Prize in 2016, The Philosophy of Modern Song; and Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence) and Tsoknyi Rinpoche draw on the spiritual and scientific to reveal Why We Meditate.

~posted by Frank B.