Top Staff Picks - July 2022
Non-Fiction Picks
How to tell anxiety to sod off : 40 ways to get your life back by James Withey
An accessible, comforting and practical book for anyone experiencing anxiety, from the author of The Recovery Letters and How to Tell Depression to Piss Off. Despite more and more people opening up about their mental health, anxiety is still taboo. We're not supposed to be anxious; we're supposed to be resilient and able to 'get on with it'. We are expected to excel while juggling a hectic, pressurised schedule at home and at work, despite the lines between the two being more blurred than ever. This book dispels that taboo. It is for anyone who has experienced general anxiety disorder, trauma-related anxiety, clinical anxiety and those with 'low-level' anxieties. At once empathetic and entertaining, How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off offers 40 ways to get to a better place with anxiety. They are born out of the author's personal experience of managing his own anxiety and his many years of working as a counselor helping people with their mental health.
Difficult women: a history of feminism in 11 fights by Helen Lewis
Difficult Women tells the brief - and unfinished - history of modern feminism through eleven emblematic struggles for women's rights. As well as reappraising the fight for the right to vote, Helen Lewis explores lesser-known battles for the rights to abortion, divorce, and equal pay, and also the right to be heard, to be educated, and to love. Drawing on archival research and interviews with many of the key players, Lewis shines a light on these untold stories and shows that the bumpy road to equal rights has been built by difficult, imperfect women. Women don't only deserve equal rights if they are 'good', she argues, and the story of feminism deserves better than to be turned into a hunt for inspirational heroines. Difficult Women is a major new contribution to the feminist debate, a compelling narrative history, and a battle cry for difficult women (and men) everywhere.
Fiction Picks
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he's definitely dead. But even in death he's not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days. Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar... in Washington. Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather -- and the hot, grumpy local -- that she’s more than a pretty face. Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan -- and this town full of memories -- may have already caught her heart.
Young Adult Picks
Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother's journal - which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home--to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn't matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways. Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant--but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unravelled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?
Age guide: 14+
Aristotle and Dante dive into the waters of the world
Aristotle and Dante continue their journey to manhood in this achingly romantic, tender tale set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s America. In Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, two boys fell in love. Now they must learn what it means to stay in love-and to build their relationship in a world that doesn't seem to want them to exist. In their senior year at two different schools, the boys find ways to spend time together, like a camping road trip they take in the desert. Ari is haunted by his incarcerated older brother and by the images he sees on the nightly news of gay men dying from AIDS. Tragedy feels like his destiny, but can he forge his own path and create a life where he can not only survive, but thrive?
Age guide: 12+
Children’s Fiction Picks
The World’s Worst Pets by David Walliams
You'll never look at pets in the same way again! Marvel at Houdini, the magician's rabbit. Take a trip around the world with Zoom, the supersonic tortoise. Gasp at the chaos created by Griselda, a grizzly bear with a big secret. And RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! It's Furp, the monstrous goldfish! Good pets, bad pets, supervillain pets, pets as big as a house and pets that could eat you in one gulp - these are the most hilarious and horrendous animals around.
Age rating: 10+
Skandar and the unicorn thief by A.F. Steadman
Unicorns don't belong in fairy tales; they belong in nightmares. So begins Skandar and the Unicorn Thief. Soar into a world where unicorns are real - and they're deadly. They can only be tamed by the rider who hatches them. Thirteen-year-old Skandar Smith has only ever wanted to be a unicorn rider, and the time has finally come for him to take his Hatchery Exam, which will determine whether he is destined to hatch a unicorn egg. But when Skandar is stopped from taking the exam, and the mysterious and frightening Weaver steals the most powerful unicorn in the world, becoming a rider proves a lot more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. And what if Skandar was always destined to be the villain rather than the hero? Get ready for unlikely heroes, elemental magic, fierce sky battles, ancient secrets, nail-biting races and, of course, bloodthirsty unicorns.
Age rating: 9+
Children’s Non-fiction Picks
Look inside the human body in this incredible inventive board book with see-through acetate pages. What's going on inside the human body? How do we move, eat, think and breathe? Children will love looking inside the human body to discover the answers with this incredible interactive board book. With labelled acetate diagrams of the muscular, skeletal, respiratory, circulatory, digestive, excretory and nervous systems, this is a fantastic first look at human anatomy. From pumping blood to breathing air, The Body Book is an exciting way to explore all the amazing things our body can do.
Age rating: 6-9
How Spaceships Work by Clive Gifford
Blast off into the cosmos with the latest title in the popular "How Things Work" series which includes How Cities Work, How Airports Work, How Trains Work and How Ships Work - books that reveal the inner workings of familiar places and vehicles. Featuring fantastic illustrations by James Gulliver Hancock, this title explores the ultimate vehicles: spaceships - how they do what they do, what they're used for and their development through history. Spreads will look at how rockets blast off into space, how people were sent to the Moon and back, how space centres prepare spaceships and astronauts for amazing adventures across the cosmos. It will also look at all different types of spacecraft: space stations and satellites orbiting Earth, rovers trundling over the surface of Mars, and probes travelling at thousands of miles per second through the outer reaches of the Solar System on incredible journeys of discovery. Full-page gatefolds and flaps explore spaceships both big and small, inside and out. It's going to be out of this world!