Special Collections

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

Quantum

A USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Amazon Charts bestseller.

International bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers pulse-pounding thrills in the first book in a series featuring a brilliant and unusual new heroine, cutting-edge cybertechnology, and stakes that are astronomically high.

On the eve of a top secret space mission, Captain Calli Chase detects a tripped alarm in the tunnels deep below a NASA research center. A NASA pilot, quantum physicist, and cybercrime investigator, Calli knows that a looming blizzard and government shutdown could provide the perfect cover for sabotage, with deadly consequences.

As it turns out, the danger is worse than she thought. A spatter of dried blood, a missing security badge, a suspicious suicide--a series of disturbing clues point to Calli's twin sister, Carme, who's been MIA for days.

Desperate to halt the countdown to disaster and to clear her sister's name, Captain Chase digs deep into her vast cyber security knowledge and her painful past, probing for answers to her twin's erratic conduct. As time is running out, she realizes that failure means catastrophe--not just for the space program but for the safety of the whole nation.

Brilliantly crafted, gripping, and smart, Patricia Cornwell's cliffhanger ending will keep readers wondering what's next for Captain Calli Chase.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Under A Firefly Moon

Blue Hollow Falls may be a small Blue Ridge Mountain town, but it's big on love--and second chances . . .

When former barrel racer Cheyenne McCafferty left the circuit, she left her past behind too. Now, as part owner of Lavender Blue farm, she's content rescuing and rehabbing horses, and growing a new business. She's only got one regret: letting go of Wyatt Reed. When he professed his love, she was too young and foolish to know her heart. After that he disappeared. But when his beloved horse turns up on the auction block, Chey makes a bid and wins more than she bargained for . . .

Chey believed she was ready to face Wyatt again, to explain herself. But seeing the man he's become, she's unsure. Gone is the quiet, gentle boy she knew. In his place is a rugged, confident adventurer who's seen the world. Yet the longer Wyatt sticks around, the clearer it is that the feelings of their youth aren't so easily dismissed now that they're adults. In fact, the timing may be just right to make the dreams they've shared under a firefly moon come true . . .

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Cult, A Love Story

Think you could never join a cult? So did I.

Cults thrive on secrecy, isolation, deception, and manipulation as they coerce even worldly and intelligent people into their cruel grip. In this award-winning memoir, Alexandra Amor shines a light on cults so that others might learn from her heartbreaking experience. Amor gracefully and sensitively explains how ordinary and intelligent people get seduced into joining cults, why they stay despite the emotional and psychological abuse, and what the long process of recovery looks like once someone leaves a cult.

Amor's transparency about her decade-long involvement with a Vancouver, Canada cult makes this powerful and gripping book an excellent resource for those wanting to know more about how the mind control of a high demand spiritual or religious group works.

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

The Other Bennet Sister

A NPR CONCIERGE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Jane fans rejoice! . . . Exceptional storytelling and a true delight." —Helen Simonson, author of the New York Times bestselling novels Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and The Summer Before the War Mary, the bookish ugly duckling of Pride and Prejudice’s five Bennet sisters, emerges from the shadows and transforms into a desired woman with choices of her own. What if Mary Bennet’s life took a different path from that laid out for her in Pride and Prejudice? What if the frustrated intellectual of the Bennet family, the marginalized middle daughter, the plain girl who takes refuge in her books, eventually found the fulfillment enjoyed by her prettier, more confident sisters? This is the plot of Janice Hadlow's The Other Bennet Sister, a debut novel with exactly the affection and authority to satisfy Jane Austen fans. Ultimately, Mary’s journey is like that taken by every Austen heroine. She learns that she can only expect joy when she has accepted who she really is. She must throw off the false expectations and wrong ideas that have combined to obscure her true nature and prevented her from what makes her happy. Only when she undergoes this evolution does she have a chance at finding fulfillment; only then does she have the clarity to recognize her partner when he presents himself—and only at that moment is she genuinely worthy of love. Mary’s destiny diverges from that of her sisters. It does not involve broad acres or landed gentry. But it does include a man; and, as in all Austen novels, Mary must decide whether he is the truly the one for her. In The Other Bennet Sister, Mary is a fully rounded character—complex, conflicted, and often uncertain; but also vulnerable, supremely sympathetic, and ultimately the protagonist of an uncommonly satisfying debut novel.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Spirit Of Eastern Christendom, 600-1700

The line that separated Eastern Christendom from Western on the medieval map is similar to the "iron curtain" of recent times. Linguistic barriers, political divisions, and liturgical differences combined to isolate the two cultures from each other. Except for such episodes as the schism between East and West or the Crusades, the development of non-Western Christendom has been largely ignored by church historians. In The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, Jaroslav Pelikan explains the divisions between Eastern and Western Christendom, and identifies and describes the development of the distinctive forms taken by Christian doctrine in its Greek, Syriac, and early Slavic expression. "It is a pleasure to salute this masterpiece of exposition. . . . The book flows like a great river, slipping easily past landscapes of the utmost diversity—the great Christological controversies of the seventh century, the debate on icons in the eighth and ninth, attitudes to Jews, to Muslims, to the dualistic heresies of the high Middle Ages, to the post-Reformation churches of Western Europe. . . . His book succeeds in being a study of the Eastern Christian religion as a whole."—Peter Brown and Sabine MacCormack, New York Review of Books "The second volume of Professor Pelikan's monumental work on The Christian Tradition is the most comprehensive historical treatment of Eastern Christian thought from 600 to 1700, written in recent years. . . . Pelikan's reinterpretation is a major scholarly and ecumenical event."—John Meyendorff "Displays the same mastery of ancient and modern theological literature, the same penetrating analytical clarity and balanced presentation of conflicting contentions, that made its predecessor such an intellectual treat."—Virgina Quarterly Review

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Drugged

"Morphine," writes Richard J. Miller, "is the most significant chemical substance mankind has ever encountered." So ancient that remains of poppies have been found in Neolithic tombs, it is the most effective drug ever discovered for treating pain. "Whatever advances are made in medicine," Miller adds, "nothing could really be more important than that." And yet, when it comes to mind-altering substances, morphine is only a cc or two in a vast river that flows through human civilization, ranging LSD to a morning cup of tea. In DRUGGED, Miller takes readers on an eye-opening tour of psychotropic drugs, describing the various kinds, how they were discovered and developed, and how they have played multiple roles in virtually every culture. The vast scope of chemicals that cross the blood-brain barrier boggle the very brain they reach: cannabis and cocaine, antipsychotics and antidepressants, alcohol, amphetamines, and Ecstasy-and much more. Literate and wide-ranging, Miller weaves together science and history, telling the story of the undercover theft of 20,000 tea plants from China by a British spy, for example, the European discovery of coffee and chocolate, and how James Wolfgang von Goethe, the famous man of letters, first isolated the alkaloid we now know as caffeine. Miller explains what scientists know-and don't-about the impact of each drug on the brain, down to the details of neurotransmitters and their receptors. He clarifies the differences between morphine and heroin, mescaline and LSD, and other similar substances. Drugged brims with surprises, revealing the fact that antidepressant drugs evolved from the rocket fuel that shot V2 rockets into London during World War II, highlighting the role of hallucinogens in the history of religion, and asking whether Prozac can help depressed cats. Entertaining and authoritative, Drugged is a truly fascinating book.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Shouting In The Dark

John Bramblitt makes his living as a visual artist. His works have been sold in over twenty different countries, and he's received three Presidential Service awards for the art workshops he teaches. He's painted portraits of skateboarder Tony Hawk and blues legend Pops Carter. He's given talks about his art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and there has even been a documentary made about him. And . . . he's blind. When Bramblitt was declared legally blind ten years ago due to complications with epilepsy, his hopes of becoming a creative writing teacher were shattered and he sunk into a deep depression. He felt disconnected from family and friends, alienated and alone. But then something amazing happened--he discovered painting. He learned to distinguish between different colored paints by feeling their textures with his fingers. He taught himself how to paint using raised lines to help him find his way around the canvas, and through something called haptic visualization, which enables him to "see" his subjects through touch. He now paints amazingly lifelike portraits of people he's never seen--including his wife and son. Shouting in the Dark is the story of Bramblitt's life, his journey navigating through this new territory of blindness, and how he ultimately rekindles his joy, passion, and relationships through art.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

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

Noor

Sorayya Khan's debut novel is a powerful and poignant story of memory, family, tragedy, and forgiveness. Set in modern-day Islambad, Pakistan, the book depicts an extraordinary child who enables her mother, Sajida, and her grandfather, Ali, to confront the pasts they have chosen to suppress. Through Noor's artwork, her family members are transported through their haunted memories of the 1970 cyclone that claimed the lives of a million people and the violent atrocities of the 1971 conflict between East and West Pakistan that eventually created the independent country of Bangladesh. As Noor's drawings bring to life sights, sounds, smells, and sensations from the past, her family is forced to admit of the betrayals and disillusionments that they thought had been buried with time. Moving, heartbreaking, and unsettling by turns, Noor is a novel about the horrors of war, the power of forgiveness, and, most important, the strength of the human spirit.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Civically Engaged Classroom

Are your students ready to become the engaged and informed citizens our democracy needs right now? Your classroom can be a place for them to experience what it means to live in community with others, to balance their own interests with those of the group, to challenge themselves to overcome differences, and to ask the questions that help them understand the crux of an issue. Powerful reading and writing is fundamentally linked to civic education. The Civically Engaged Classroom is packed with practical guidance designed to support teachers in giving students the skills, knowledge, and tools to be active participants in society. Each chapter describes classroom structures, curricular possibilities, and specific lessons for teaching crucial civic virtues, including: acknowledging identity, bias, and privilege building background knowledge close and critical reading and ethical research skills composing nuanced stances in writing building coalitions and engaging in activism. The work of engaging young people isn't about giving students a voice: they already have their own voices. The work is about teaching them to use those voices with power. - If you are an educator and are interested in joining a community of practice dedicated to preparing the citizens this world needs right now, then the Coalition of Civically Engaged Educators is for you! Visit https: //www.civically-engaged.org to learn more.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

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

Tomorrow's Tomorrow

Tomorrow's Tomorrowis a pioneering sociological study of black girls growing up in the city. The author, in a substantial new introduction, considers what has changed and what has remained constant for them since the book was first published in 1971. Joyce A. Ladner spent four years interviewing, observing, and socializing with more than a hundred girls living in the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. She was challenged by preconceived academic ideas and labels and by her own past as a black child in rural Mississippi. Rejecting the white middle-class perspective of "deviant" behavior, she examined the expectations and aspirations of these representative black girls and their feelings about parents and boyfriends, marriage, pregnancy, and child-rearing. Ladner asked what life was like in the urban black community for the "average" girl, how she defined her roles and behaviors, and where she found her role models. She was interested in any significant disparity between aspirations and the resources to achieve them. To what extent did the black teenager share the world of her white peers? If the questions were searching, the conclusions were provocative. According to Ladner, "The total misrepresentation of the Black community and the various myths which surround it can be seen in microcosm in the Black female adolescent."

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Bathroom

The Bathroom: A Social History of Cleanliness and the Body is the first scholarly treatment of the American bathroom--as a space in the house, through nearly two centuries. After a brief nod to precedents set by other countries and to elements of the bathroom that may be placed in different parts of the house, this book traces the development of the bathroom in the American house since the Civil War, when the bathroom began to take shape.

The bathroom is considered in light of many socially relevant themes, such as cleanliness, sanitation, technology, and consumerism. Taken as a whole, the book bridges the gap between the public and private infrastructure of the bathroom and reveals the ways in which the space transforms its occupants into consumers. Its language is jargon-free, making it ideal for students, general readers, and researchers.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Where the Forest Meets the Stars

In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.

After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.

The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child's home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay--just until she learns more about Ursa's past.

Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren't Jo and Gabe checking the missing children's website anymore?

Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain

Set during the French and American wars, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is a true story about an orphan, Quang Van Nguyen, who is adopted by a sixty-four year old monk, Thau, who carries great responsibility for his people as a barefoot doctor. Thau manages, against all odds to raise his son to follow in his footsteps and in doing so, saves his son, as well as a part of Vietnam's esoteric knowledge from the Vietnam holocaust.

Thau is wanted by the French regime, and occasionally must flee into the jungle, where he is perfectly at home living among the animals. Thau is not the average monk; he practices an ancient lineage of Chinese medicine and uses magic to protect animals and help people.

As wise and resourceful as Thau is, he meets his match in his mischievous son. Quang is more interested in learning Cambodian sorcery and martial arts than in developing his skills and wisdom according to his father's plan.

Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is an odyssey of a single-father folk hero and his foundling son in a land ravaged by the atrocities of war. It is a classic story, complete with humor, tragedy, and insight from a country where ghosts and magic are real.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Broadchurch

In the sleepy British seaside town of Broadchurch, Detective Ellie Miller has just returned from vacation, only to learn that she's been passed over for a promotion at work in favor of outsider Alec Hardy. He, escaping the spectacular failure of his last case, is having trouble finding his way into this tight-knit community wary of new faces. But professional rivalry aside, both detectives are about to receive some terrible news: 11-year-old Danny Latimer has been found murdered on the beach.

For Ellie it's a personal blow; Danny was her older son's best friend. She can't believe anyone in Broadchurch would ever have harmed him. But Alec considers everyone, even Danny's parents, suspect in his death. It's a living nightmare for everyone involved...even before the press arrive and start stirring up the secrets every town member keeps hidden behind closed doors.

An intimate portrait of a town and the ordinary grievances that have slowly simmered for years before boiling over in an unthinkable crime, this remarkable adaptation of the hit television show Broadchurch tells the story of a shattered family, a reeling town, and the two imperfect detectives trying to bring them answers.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Twist

The Twist : The Story of the Song That Changed the World

Date Added: 03/22/2021

You Don't Own Me

1963 tail fins were in, sock hops were hot, and a fairytale white knight was president. That summer, sixteen year-old singer Lesley Gore released her debut single, "It's My Party," propelling her to Number One on the charts. For the next several years, the crowned Princess of Pop dominated the radio with a string of hits including "Judy's Turn to Cry," "She's A Fool," "Sunshine, Lollipops & Rainbows," and the rousing anthem for independence, "You Don't Own Me," making her the most successful and influential solo female artist of the 60s. But beneath the bubblegum facade was a girl squirming against social and professional pressures to simply be herself and to forge a future where she could write and perform music beyond the trappings of teenage angst and love triangles. Assembled over five years of research and interviews, this is the first and long overdue biography of Lesley Gore, one of pop music's pioneering Mothers, which chronicles her meteoric rise to fame, her devastating fall from popularity and struggle for relevance in the 1970s, and her reemergence as a powerful songwriter, political activist, and camp icon. The biography includes behind-the-scenes stories about the making of her hit records, debunks or clarifies popular myths about her career, and places her remarkable life and times within a historical context to reveal how her music was both impacted by, and contributed to, each decade of her astounding fifty-year career.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

The Rhythm Section

She has nothing to lose and only revenge to live for She thought her life was over... Stephanie Patrick's life is destroyed by the crash of flight NE027: her family was on board and there were no survivors. Devastated, she falls into a world of drugs and prostitution - until the day she discovers that the crash wasn't an accident, but an act of terrorism. Filled with rage, and with nothing left to lose, she joins a covert intelligence organization. But throughout her training and operations she remains focused on one goal above all: revenge.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Deadly Spin

That's how Wendell Potter introduced himself to a Senate committee in June 2009. He proceed to explain how insurance companies make promises they have no intention of keeping, how they flout regulations designed to protect consumers, and how they make it nearly impossible to understand information that the public needs. Potter quit his high-paid job as head of public relations at a major insurance corporation because he could no longer abide the routine practices of the insurance industry, policies that amounted to a death sentence for thousands of Americans every year.

In Deadly Spin, Potter takes readers behind the scenes of the insurance industry to show how a huge chunk of our absurd healthcare expenditures actually bankrolls a propaganda campaign and lobbying effort focused on protecting one thing: profits. With the unique vantage of both a whistleblower and a high-powered former insider, Potter moves beyond the healthcare crisis to show how public relations works, and how it has come to play a massive, often insidious role in our political process-and our lives.

This important and timely book tells Potter's remarkable personal story, but its larger goal is to explain how people like Potter, before his change of heart, can get the public to think and act in ways that benefit big corporations-and the Wall Street money managers who own them.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Can't Steal My Joy

We are all broken.

It's a unified human experience.

And we all need a hope that doesn't disappoint, a love that anchors us, joy that survives in unthinkable conditions, and a perspective shift that goes beyond our circumstances.

Some days we feel the perfection of sunshine and a light breeze. Other days hold wet, gray skies with drowning grief. In the wake, comes promise of new growth. Still other days a cold winter frost catches us by surprise, halting our journey toward fruitful blooms. We step back, reeling at the damage from this frost. We question the system and environment we grow in.

We can exist in this garden dictated by the changing weather patterns. Or, we can see a different kind of brave living-that which exists beyond our fragile stems and dainty leaves, living instead deep in our roots.

This book is for those sitting in the deep-down dark, traveling with grief as a constant companion, and anyone whose life path has taken an unexpected turn.

Bekah shares the heart break of a fatal diagnosis for not just one, but both her children. As she journeyed through dark valleys of death, it was there she experienced Jesus in a whole new way-in deeply broken places. Her journey holding pain in one hand and joy in the other is vulnerably scribbled out on these pages as she tore open the wounds in her soul to share how Christ created beauty and goodness in it all. It was in this journey, she learned to see wholeness in cracks, courage in the broken-hearted, and bravery in the act of letting go.

May you discover the Life-Giver of joy, see your beautiful bloom, and know that hope is always worth holding on to, because redemption is coming--and in fact--is already happening here and now.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Mean Deviation

Revered former Metal Maniacs editor Jeff Wagner analyzes the heady side of metal in this exhaustive narrative history of a relentlessly ambitious musical subculture. Beginning with the hugely influential mid-1970s efforts of Rush and King Crimson, Wagner unfurls a huge tapestry of sounds and styles, including Queensryche, Fates Warning, and Dream Theater; extreme prog pioneers Voivod and Celtic Frost; Norway’s post-black metal avant garde acts Ulver and Arcturus; and the 1990s global movement that spawned Ayreon, Pain of Salvation, and others.

Fighting a tide of tradition and conservatism, progressive metal has proven to be one of the most viable, malleable forms in all of modern music; here its preeminent scholar tells the tale.

Date Added: 03/22/2021

Telling Yourself the Truth

Most of What Happens in Your Life Happens Because of the Way You Think.

Wrong thinking produces wrong emotions, wrong reactions, wrong behavior--and unhappiness! Learning to deal with your thoughts is the first step on the road to healthy thinking.

How to handle one's thoughts properly is what this book is all about! It explains the life-changing method the authors call Misbelief Therapy, and it can work for you.

Based on the Bible, this book has helped thousands of people for many years, and it can help you!

Telling Yourself the Truth can show you how to identify your own misbeliefs and replace them with the truth.

Date Added: 03/22/2021