Special Collections

The Key To The Map

A squad of terrorists eagerly waits in a small Jerusalem home at midnight. Their mission is to plant a radioactive device under the Temple Mount and cause catastrophic damage to the Dome of the Rock, which will be blamed on the Israelis, igniting the final struggle for dominance and control over the Holy Land.

Across the sea in Rome, Jake Greene, a retired Homeland Security operations executive, and his daughter, Rebecca Gould, an anthropologist, stumble upon an antique map and a strange medallion. They are immediately thrust into a world of ancient secrets, modern warfare, and government conspiracy. As they begin to decipher the mysteries surrounding these objects, they meet and join forces with David Robinson, whose family is sworn to help someone who will one day appear to him holding the medallion. They are caught up in a thrilling search for the lost Ark of the Covenant. They must find a way to foil the terrorists, find the Ark, and conceal it from a world not yet ready for its discovery.

Date Added: 04/08/2020

Just One Drop

Jennifer Adams, best friend to Jacque Pierce and Sally Morgan, spicy, out spoken, a little crazy and human...or so she thought.

Jen has just found out that human DNA is not the only thing that resides in her veins, she happens to share that little pesky werewolf gene, although it isn't more than just a drop. Now that she and her friends are living in Romania with Fane's pack, she is also oh so conveniently stuck with the object of her affection, the fur ball Decebel. Drawn to each other by something they don't understand Jen finds herself frustrated by the lack of mating signs between her and said fur ball. Not only is she dealing with that not so un-frustrating problem, she now has been informed that because of that little drop of werewolf blood in her she is now required to attended a multi-pack gathering for un-mated wolves.

This type of gathering hasn't taken place in over a century but with a shortage of females among the werewolf population the males are getting worried they won't ever find their true mates. Meanwhile Decebel struggles with the emotions he is feeling towards Jen. He tries to keep his distance but there is just something about the mouthy blonde that keeps him coming back for more of her verbal abuse that he just can't seem to get enough of...go figure

Date Added: 05/28/2020

Justice

The fast-paced, action-packed sequel to LAWLESS. No more teachers. No more crooks! M Freeman thought she had finally found a place where she belonged: the Lawless School, where the children of master criminals trained to become master criminals themselves. She took her studies seriously, never suspecting she was a pawn in a dangerous game. Now she knows the truth: The forces of Lawless are after a weapon that threatens all life on earth. M and her crew are determined to stop them - but they can’t do it alone. And that means joining the Fulbright Academy. In their ancient cops-and-robbers conflict with the Lawless School, the Fulbrights are supposed to be the good guys. But the winding subterranean hallways of the academy hide many secrets. And all the clues lead to one inescapable conclusion: It’s time for M to take the law into her own hands.

Date Added: 07/15/2020

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was a clergyman's daughter, related to other clergy, born and brought up in a parsonage. Many of her attitudes, expressed in her novels, reflect this directly or indirectly. Her father's reasoned and practical approach to religion, along with the range of books available to her in his library, shaped the essentially moral outlook behind her entertaining, but devastating, criticism of individuals and of society. Her attitude to the gentry is subtly ambivalent. Accepted as a clergyman's daughter in local society, Jane Austen sometimes mirrors their prejudices, seen for instance in her characterisation of the haughty aristocrat Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice. At the same time, her own marginal position in gentry society gave her personal experience of the slights and snobberies inherent in the subtle class distinctions of the time. As the years went by, she became more and more sensitive about the position of women without money of their own, and wrote feelingly in Emma of the lowered status of a parson's daughter who has died. Jane Austen's life coincided with her country's war against Revolutionary France. It has often seemed surprising that she never mentions war explicitly in her novels, especially as two of her brothers were officers in the navy and another in the militia. Jane Austen: The Parson's Daughter shows how Jane Austen in fact drew on an extensive knowledge of wartime conditions not only in Pride and Prejudice with its militia regiment, and in Mansfield Park and Persuasion with their sailors, but also in Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey and even Emma - though the latter never moves outside the village of Highbury.

Date Added: 05/28/2020

I Talk Like a River

I wake up each morning with the sounds of words all around me. And I can't say them all . . . When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he'd like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Compassionate parents everywhere will instantly recognize a father's ability to reconnect a child with the world around him. Poet Jordan Scott writes movingly in this powerful and ultimately uplifting book, based on his own experience, and masterfully illustrated by Greenaway Medalist Sydney Smith. A book for any child who feels lost, lonely, or unable to fit in.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Inside My Outside

Upon meeting Sara Pyszka, most people think they know what it's like to be her, regardless of what they actually know about her. They see her wheelchair. They see the computer attached to her chair. They may or may not see the bands that hold her arms down, or the buttons on either side of her head rest. They see, and probably speak with, whichever personal assistant is accompanying her that day. They see her, yes, but this doesn't mean they know anything about her. Few people can accurately imagine what it's like to be completely nonverbal, to be unable to walk or use their hands. They don't actually know what it's like to rely on strangers to get them out of bed and ready for the day, to feed them, to bathe them. Inside My Outside: An Independent Mind in a Dependent Body provides an in-depth look into the life of a young woman with cerebral palsy who cannot walk or talk but who uses an electronic device for communication. This memoir covers three full days, from morning to night, in Sara Pyszka's life, providing glimpses of past relationships, friendships, schooling, and outrageous stories about the challenges of hiring, firing, and working with personal care assistants. Sara even takes it a step further by providing the occasional comparison between her life and what she imagines life would be like if she did not have a disability.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Innocent

Innocent is the shocking true story of little Molly and Kit, siblings, aged 3 years and 18 months, who are brought into care as an emergency after suffering non-accidental injuries. Aneta and Filip, the children’s parents, are distraught when their children are taken into care. Aneta maintains she is innocent of harming them, while Filip appears bewildered and out of his depth. It’s true the family has never come to the attention of the social services before and little Kit and Molly appear to have been well looked after, but Kit has a broken arm and bruises on his face. Could it be they were a result of a genuine accident as Aneta is claiming? Both children become sick with a mysterious illness while, experienced foster carer, Cathy, is looking after them. Very worried, she asks for more hospital tests to be done. They’ve already had a lot. When Cathy’s daughter, Lucy, becomes ill too she believes she has found the cause of Kit and Molly’s illness and the parents aren’t to blame. However, nothing could be further from the truth and what comes to light is far more sinister and shocking.

Date Added: 09/22/2020

The Inner Jefferson

Andrew Burstein's The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist at last demystifies the Jefferson of American legend and recovers the eighteenth-century man of sentiment Thomas Jefferson actually was. Burstein confronts widespread misunderstandings about Jefferson's romantic life and provides insight into the contradictions that still surround our third president. He shows Jefferson to have been a man of substance and character, yet possessed of a mean streak, alternately strong and frail, convivial and reclusive, ordinary and extraordinary. Burstein contends that the key to understanding Jefferson's consciousness lies in interpreting the passion expressed in intimate correspondence. Examining seven decades of letters and private accounts, Burstein shows us how Jefferson responded to what he read and how he used particular words and metaphors to express his hopes as well as anxieties and personal trials. The Jefferson revealed is not static; his mind develops over several decades. The Inner Jefferson removes our modern preconceptions and re-creates the mental and moral world of the eighteenth century. Burstein discovers how in the wake of the American Revolution this retiring Virginian could become to some a popular idol while appearing to others a cold and calculating subversive.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

In The Name Of Honor

Anthony McCarran, one of the army's most distinguished generals, was devastated by the loss of his longtime friend Jack Gallagher, who was killed in Vietnam. For years, the McCarran and Gallagher families have remained close, watching a new generation of soldiers face combat. Today, the general's son Lt. Brian McCarran is back from Iraq. Traumatized by the experience, there's only one person Brian wishes to confide in: Kate Gallagher. As the daughter of a fallen soldier, Kate understands the pain of war. But as the wife of Brian's commanding officer, the volatile and shell-shocked Capt. Joe D'Abruzzo, there's only so much Kate can do to offer comfort--and only so many secrets Brian can share... Tragedy strikes when Brian shoots and kills D'Abruzzo on their army post in Virginia after a bitter confrontation. Now, in a high-profile court-martial, Brian must face old demons and new enemies as he fights to prove his innocence with the help of Paul Terry, one of the army's most accomplished lawyers; Terry's co-counsel, who happens to be Brian's sister, Meghan; and Kate's unwavering support. But before the case is over, Brian will learn that families, like war, can break the sturdiest of souls--and hardest of hearts.

Date Added: 05/28/2020

In The Key Of Genius

Derek Paravicini is blind, can't tell his right hand from his left and needs round-the-clock care. But he has an extremely rare gift - he is a musical prodigy with perfect pitch whose piano-playing has thrilled audiences at venues from Ronnie Scott's to Las Vegas, the Barbican to Buckingham Palace.

Born prematurely, Derek remained in hospital for three months and technically 'died' several times before he was finally strong enough to go home. It was not long before his blindness became apparent and later it became clear that he had severe learning difficulties and autism.

Desperately trying to find something to engage and stimulate baby Derek, his nanny discovered a toy organ and put it down in front of him. Miraculously, Derek taught himself to play. Music proved to be an outlet for expressing himself and communicating with others - his way of dealing with a strange and confusing world.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Influential Mind

A cutting-edge, research-based inquiry into how we influence those around us, and how understanding the brain can help us change minds for the better.

In The Influential Mind, neuroscientist Tali Sharot takes us on a thrilling exploration of the nature of influence. We all have a duty to affect others—from the classroom to the boardroom to social media. But how skilled are we at this role, and can we become better? It turns out that many of our instincts—from relying on facts and figures to shape opinions, to insisting others are wrong or attempting to exert control—are ineffective, because they are incompatible with how people’s minds operate. Sharot shows us how to avoid these pitfalls, and how an attempt to change beliefs and actions is successful when it is well-matched with the core elements that govern the human brain.

Sharot reveals the critical role of emotion in influence, the weakness of data and the power of curiosity. Relying on the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology, the book provides fascinating insight into the complex power of influence, good and bad.

Date Added: 12/09/2020

Indian Horse

Saul Indian Horse is a child when his family retreats into the woods. Among the lakes and the cedars, they attempt to reconnect with half-forgotten traditions and hide from the authorities who have been kidnapping Ojibway youth. But when winter approaches, Saul loses everything: his brother, his parents, his beloved grandmother--and then his home itself. Alone in the world and placed in a horrific boarding school, Saul is surrounded by violence and cruelty. At the urging of a priest, he finds a tentative salvation in hockey. Rising at dawn to practice alone, Saul proves determined and undeniably gifted. His intuition and vision are unmatched. His speed is remarkable. Together they open doors for him: away from the school, into an all-Ojibway amateur circuit, and finally within grasp of a professional career. Yet as Saul's victories mount, so do the indignities and the taunts, the racism and the hatred--the harshness of a world that will never welcome him, tied inexorably to the sport he loves. Spare and compact yet undeniably rich, Indian Horse is at once a heartbreaking account of a dark chapter in our history and a moving coming-of-age story.

Date Added: 05/28/2020

Homeland Elegies

A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless lives and the gods of finance rule, where immigrants live in fear, and where the nation's unhealed wounds wreak havoc around the world. Akhtar attempts to make sense of it all through the lens of a story about one family, from a heartland town in America to palatial suites in Central Europe to guerrilla lookouts in the mountains of Afghanistan, and spares no one -- least of all himself -- in the process.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Hex Appeal

Fall under the intoxicating spell of their hex appeal... In the magical world that lies hidden beneath our own, witches and conjurers play deadly games. They know just the right spell to kill a man with one kiss—or raise him back again. And they're not afraid to exact sweet revenge on those who dare to cross them. But what if you're the unlucky soul who falls victim to a conjurer's curse? And if you had the power to cast a magic spell of your own, would you use it? In this bewitching collection, nine of today's hottest paranormal authors tell all-new, otherworldly tales. Spellbinding stories featuring bigfoot, albino vampires, professional wizards, resurrected boyfriends and even a sex droid from the twenty- third century named Silicon Lily. But as our conjurers are about to discover, it's all fun and games until someone gets hexed. And sometimes, even the best spun spells can lead to complete and utter mayhem.

Date Added: 10/29/2020

Hell's Foundations Quiver

Hell's Foundations Quiver: David Weber's New York Times-bestselling Safehold series begun with Off Armageddon Reef, By Schism Rent Asunder, By Heresies Distressed, A Mighty Fortress and Like a Mighty Army.

TURNING OF THE TIDE

Centuries ago, the human race fought its first great war against an alien race-and lost. A tiny population of human beings fled to distant Safehold. Centuries later, their descendants have forgotten their history; for them, life has been an eternal Middle Ages, ruled by the Church of God Awaiting, whose secret purpose is to prevent the re-emergence of industrial civilization.

But not all of Safehold's founders were on board with this plan. Those dissidents left behind their own secret legacies. One of those is Merlyn Athrawes, cybernetic avatar of one of Earth's long-dead defenders, now reawakened after a thousand years to restart human progress and reclaim our place in the universe. Merlyn has intervened in the small Safeholdian realm of Charis, seeding it with ideas and innovations and helping it to rise to challenge the hegemony of the Church.

It's been a long and bloody fight, but aided by a stream of inventions--breech-loading rifles, signal rockets, claymore mines, new approaches to manufacturing and supply-Charis and its few allies seem to have finally gained the upper hand. Now major realms have begun to consider switching sides.

To all these ends, Merlyn Athrawes has been everywhere, under multiple disguises and wielding hidden powers. The secret of who and what he is has been closely held. But a new player has arrived, one who knows many secrets-including Merlyn's own.

Date Added: 04/03/2020

Have Fun, Fight Back, And Keep The Party Going

A true entrepreneur always looks to the future, no matter what is bearing down--9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession, or the BP oil spill.

With wit, hard work, guts, and a few cold beers, Jeff O'Hara and his businesses battled, bounced back, and survived these disasters, and we are the beneficiaries of the lessons learned along the way. But O'Hara's lessons are no dry list of rules on entrepreneurism: This first-time author is a gifted storyteller with an edgy, one-of-a-kind sense of humor who informs and entertains with tales of the tragic, the triumphant, and the places and people only New Orleans can produce.

Accounts of O'Hara's life as he earned his place in the hospitality industry deliver colorful, honest insights into just what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur. It's clear he loves what he does and that his successes are a result of his love for his trade, his independent spirit, and, of course, a commitment to overcoming anything that gets in his way. O'Hara's wisdom will inspire entrepreneurs and anyone who appreciates a great story--from New Orleans natives to the rest of us who are fascinated by the life of this great city.

Date Added: 11/09/2020

Hacker

“My name is Nyah and I’m a hacker. I know things most people would never believe. Things that shouldn’t exist, but do.”

Date Added: 06/02/2020

The Gravity Of Us

Cal wants to be a journalist, and he's already well underway with almost half a million followers on his FlashFame app and an upcoming internship at Buzzfeed. But his plans are derailed when his pilot father is selected for a highly-publicized NASA mission to Mars. Within days, Cal and his parents leave Brooklyn for hot and humid Houston.

With the entire nation desperate for any new information about the astronauts, Cal finds himself thrust in the middle of a media circus. Suddenly his life is more like a reality TV show, with his constantly bickering parents struggling with their roles as the "perfect American family."

And then Cal meets Leon, whose mother is another astronaut on the mission, and he finds himself falling head over heels--and fast. They become an oasis for each other amid the craziness of this whole experience. As their relationship grows, so does the frenzy surrounding the Mars mission, and when secrets are revealed about ulterior motives of the program, Cal must find a way to get to the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Gracefully Gone

Gracefully Gone is the fusion of two journals: my father, Matthew L Coppola Sr.’s and mine. My father’s journal was written in 1982, two years after his diagnosis and remission with brain cancer. Mine was written in 1990-1991, roughly eight years later, as he began to die. In Gracefully Gone I chronicle my twenty-one year old pursuit of life and all the bitter and amusingly confusing angst that accompanies being twenty-one during the last six months of my father’s struggle towards death.

What I am hoping, what I am counting on, is that my life, my father’s life and our story, might be meaningful to strangers; or perhaps, if not meaningful, then at the very least, identifiable, relatable and at times, humorously understandable. Gracefully Gone is not about death, it is about the journey of a family, specifically, the journey of a young girl trying to find her way in the wake of growing up in the looming shadow of cancer.

Gracefully Gone is written as a prayer for all the families, all the children too young to understand and for all the victims of this all too often insurmountable war to know they are not alone. After all, the sad fact is in the world we live in today there are no strangers to cancer and there are certainly no strangers to struggle and loss.

Even though my mother and brother went through the same experience as I, we experienced it very differently. It was as if my father was the LOVEBOAT and we three were on our own separate lifeboats surrounding him, each of us handling our grief privately. Perhaps, if we’re really lucky, Gracefully Gone might allow someone a little peace and some comfort knowing that even though they are on their own lifeboats they are in an ocean full of them.

Date Added: 04/27/2020

The Good Place and Philosophy

The Good Place is a fantasy-comedy TV show about the afterlife. Eleanor dies and finds herself in the Good Place, which she understands must be mistake, since she has been anything but good. In the surprise twist ending to Season One, it is revealed that this is really the Bad Place, but the demon who planned it was frustrated, because the characters didn't torture each other mentally as planned, but managed to learn how to live together.

Date Added: 09/22/2020

Go Fetch

I think you need to stay out of my life, Viking. She tried to yank her hand out of his grasp, but he wasnt letting go. And I think you fail to realize that I now have the upper hand here. What? For drugging you? You expect me to believe for a second youd hurt me or turn me in to the cops? No. But who knows what I would do to him. Miki froze. Those big, beautiful brown eyes staring up at him. You. Wouldnt. Dare. You spit food at me. You set me up with the cops at the airport. And you drugged me. Do you really want to test the you wouldnt dare theory now? He could see the muscles of her jaw clenching and unclenching. She was so pissed off, which only made her smell so tasty. Leave him alone, Conall. He didnt do anything to you. He kicked her backpack out of the way. But what about you, Mik? Does he have you? Nobody has me. He stepped toward her until she backed herself up against the wall. Hed never worked so hard to be menacing before, but Miki kept bringing that out in him. And it didnt help that every time he did it, the smell of her lust punched him in the face. But I want you. So I gathered.

Date Added: 04/14/2020

Go Ahead in the Rain

How does one pay homage to A Tribe Called Quest? The seminal rap group brought jazz into the genre, resurrecting timeless rhythms to create masterpieces such as The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders. Seventeen years after their last album, they resurrected themselves with an intense, socially conscious record, We Got It from Here . . . Thank You 4 Your Service, which arrived when fans needed it most, in the aftermath of the 2016 election. Poet and essayist Hanif Abdurraqib digs into the group’s history and draws from his own experience to reflect on how its distinctive sound resonated among fans like himself. The result is as ambitious and genre-bending as the rap group itself.

Abdurraqib traces the Tribe's creative career, from their early days as part of the Afrocentric rap collective known as the Native Tongues, through their first three classic albums, to their eventual breakup and long hiatus. Their work is placed in the context of the broader rap landscape of the 1990s, one upended by sampling laws that forced a reinvention in production methods, the East Coast–West Coast rivalry that threatened to destroy the genre, and some record labels’ shift from focusing on groups to individual MCs. Throughout the narrative Abdurraqib connects the music and cultural history to their street-level impact. Whether he’s remembering The Source magazine cover announcing the Tribe’s 1998 breakup or writing personal letters to the group after bandmate Phife Dawg’s death, Abdurraqib seeks the deeper truths of A Tribe Called Quest; truths that—like the low end, the bass—are not simply heard in the head, but felt in the chest.

Date Added: 04/08/2020

Girl, Woman, Other

Bernardine Evaristo is the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and the first black woman to receive this highest literary honor in the English language.Girl, Woman, Other is a magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and looks back to the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean.

The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her Black lesbian identity; her old friend Shirley is a teacher, jaded after decades of work in London's funding-deprived schools; Carole, one of Shirley's former students, is a successful investment banker; Carole's mother Bummi works as a cleaner and worries about her daughter's lack of rootedness despite her obvious achievements. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class.

Sparklingly witty and filled with emotion, centering voices we often see othered, and written in an innovative fast-moving form that borrows technique from poetry,Girl, Woman, Other is a polyphonic and richly textured social novel that shows a side of Britain we rarely see, one that reminds us of all that connects us to our neighbors, even in times when we are encouraged to be split apart.

Date Added: 04/08/2020

Girl On Pointe

Chloe Lukasiak is a big believer that things happen for a reason. She knows that life would be easier without disappointments, bullying, and medical issues-but sometimes it takes challenges to inspire you to achieve big things. From her status as fan favorite on the hit reality television show Dance Moms through her life as a social media star with millions of fans, Chloe has found that self-acceptance and kindness are the key to getting over the rough spots in life and realizing your passions. This full-color, heavily designed book featuring never-before-seen photos, inspirational quotes, and Chloe's own doodles and poetry offers exclusive insight into Chloe's world as well as a message that will inspire all readers to be their very best selves.

Date Added: 07/15/2020

Girl Of Nightmares

Just you average boy-meets-girl, girl gets sucked into Hell story ... This is Kendare Blake's follow-up to the thrillingly creepy romance that was Anna Dressed in Blood.

Cas Lowood is no ordinary ghost hunter - he's in love with a dead girl.

Her name is Anna Korlov. Anna Dressed in Blood. The girl who sacrificed herself to save his life. Racked with guilt, Cas sets out to do what he does best - hunt a ghost. But this time his aim is not to kill. He must rescue Anna from the depths of Hell.

But Hell is also home to a creature Cas has battled before ...

Date Added: 09/22/2020