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12 Rules for Life
Peterson, Jordan

NON FICTION - SELF-HELP What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson's answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world's wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith and human nature, while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.

(15 copies)  Reserve

21 Lessons for the 21st Century
Harari, Yuval Noah

NON-FICTION - WORLD POLITICS 21 Lessons For the 21st Century provides a kind of instruction manual for the present day to help readers find their way around the 21st century, to understand it, and to focus on the really important questions of life. Once again, Harari presents this in the distinctive, informal, and entertaining style that already characterized his previous books. The topics Harari examines in this way include major challenges such as international terrorism, fake news, and migration, as well as turning to more personal, individual concerns, such as our time for leisure or how much pressure and stress we can take. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century answers the overarching question: What is happening in the world today, what is the deeper meaning of these events, and how can we individually steer our way through them?

(15 copies)  Reserve

419
Will Ferguson

THRILLER - REVENGE Will Ferguson takes readers deep into the labyrinth of lies that is “419,” the world’s most insidious Internet scam. When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down—and corner—her father’s killer. It is a dangerous game she’s playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine. Woven into Laura’s journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit. And running through it, a dying father’s final words: “You, I love.”

(15 copies)  Reserve

Tia Williams

ROMANCE FICTION - FLORISTS Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmer. One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked

(10 copies)  Reserve

P. Djeli Clark

FANTASY FICTION - CAIRO (EGYPT) The author returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe we first saw in his novella A dead djinn in Cairo, for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha'arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she's certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world forty years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage. Alongside her Ministry colleagues and a familiar person from her past, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city-- or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems.

(15 copies)  Reserve

Arkady Martine

SCIENCE FICTION - EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEINGS Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court. Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret, one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life, or rescue it from annihilation.

(10 copies)  Reserve

Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek

NON FICTION - SOCIALISM Does it ever feel like you have no free time? You come home after work and instead of finding a space of rest and relaxation, you’re confronted by a pile of new tasks to complete – cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, and so on. In this ground-breaking book, Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek lay out how unpaid work in our homes has come to take up an ever-increasing portion of our lives – how the vacuum of free time has been taken up by vacuuming. Examining the history of the home over the past century – from running water to white goods to smart homes – they show how repeated efforts to reduce the burden of this work have faced a variety of barriers, challenges, and reversals. Charting the trajectory of our domestic spaces over the past century, Hester and Srnicek consider new possibilities for the future, uncovering the abandoned ideas of anti-housework visionaries and sketching out a path towards real free time for all, where everyone is at liberty to pursue their passions, or do nothing at all. It will require rethinking our living arrangements, our expectations and our cities.

(6 copies)  Reserve

Kate Quinn

HISTORICAL FICTION - WORLD WAR (1914-1918) It's 1947 and American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a fervent belief that her beloved French cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive somewhere. So when Charlie's family banishes her to Europe to have her "little problem" take care of, Charlie breaks free and heads to London determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister. In 1915, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance to serve when she's recruited to work as a spy for the English. Sent into enemy-occupied France during The Great War, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents, right under the enemy's nose. Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launching them both on a mission to find the truth ... no matter where it leads

(12 copies)  Reserve

Adrian Tchaikovsky

SCIENCE FICTION - INTERPLANETARY VOYAGES They travelled into the unknown and left themselves behind. On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It's the greatest discovery in humanity's spacefaring history -- yet who were its builders and where did they go? Professor Arton Daghdev had always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln's extrasolar labour camp. There, he's condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies. Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp's oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free.

(15 copies)  Reserve

CS Richardson

HISTORICAL FICTION - ARTISTS A beautifully transporting novel capturing the romantic sweep of the twentieth century-- from Toronto in the '20s and '30s through the killing fields of World War II, to 1960s Rome and Florence. Born in 1916, Henry, thin-as-sticks and nearsighted, is an obsessive doodler who shamelessly copies illustrations from his Boys Own magazines. Left in the care of a nurturing, no-nonsense, Shakespeare-quoting, cardsharp grandmother, Henry receives as a gift a pristine set of Faber-Castell colouring pencils (and a pocket knife for the sharpening). He immediately commits each colour to memory-- cadmium yellow; light ultramarine; burst ochre; deep scarlet red-- and a passion for colour, art, and stories and techniques of the great artists is lit. It will sustain him, and obsess him, on his life's journey through the joys and sorrows of the twentieth century: from a boyhood spent dreaming of adventure, to the hothouse world of artistic academia, a first love cut short by tragedy, the brutality and lingering wounds of World War II, and, in the final chapters of life, the grace of unexpected love. Projected against an efflorescent backdrop of iconic art masterpieces-- from the richly hued oils of the European masters to the technicolour splendour of The Wizard of Oz-- All the Colour in the World is Henry's story: part miscellany, part memory palace, exquisitely precise with the emotional sweep of a great modern romance.

(15 copies)  Reserve