Welcome to this month's Staff Picks page, where our librarians share some of the great books they've read recently. Discover hidden gems, popular titles, and diverse recommendations that will captivate your imagination and enrich your reading experience. Happy exploring!
Fiction
Dina Demille runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town ... but her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn thinks for itself, and is a lodging for otherworldly visitors. The only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can't leave the grounds because she's responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Now something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night. To keep her neighbors and guests safe, Dina has to juggle dealing with annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor, Sean Evans -- an alpha-strain werewolf -- and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland.
Pizza Girl by Jean Frazier Kyoung
Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial about it all. She's grieving the death of her father (who she has more in common with than she'd like to admit), avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future. Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighborhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickled covered pizzas for her son's happiness. As one woman looks toward motherhood and the other towards middle age, the relationship between the two begins to blur in strange, complicated, and ultimately heartbreaking ways. Bold, tender, propulsive, and unexpected in countless ways, Jean Kyoung Frazier's Pizza Girl is a moving and funny portrait of a flawed, unforgettable young woman as she tries to find her place in the world.
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.
The Other Side of Beautiful by Kim Lock
Meet Mercy Blain, whose house has just burnt down. Unfortunately for Mercy, this goes beyond the disaster it would be for most people: she hasn't been outside that house for two years now. Flung out into the world she's been studiously ignoring, Mercy goes to the only place she can. Her not-quite-ex-husband Eugene's house. But it turns out she can't stay there, either. And so begins Mercy's unwilling journey. After the chance purchase of a cult classic campervan (read tiny, old and smelly), with the company of her sausage dog, Wasabi, and a mysterious box of cremated remains, Mercy heads north from Adelaide to Darwin. On the road, through badly timed breakdowns, gregarious troupes of grey nomads and run-ins with a rogue adversary, Mercy's carefully constructed walls start crumbling. But what was Mercy hiding from in her house? And why is Eugene desperate to have her back in the city? They say you can't run forever...
The Hemsworth Effect by James Weir
Cashed-up celebs, desperate wannabes, cranky Karens and cringe-worthy hashtags - it's all here in this hilarious novel about the celebrification of Byron Bay and the power of letting go. It started with the Hemsworths. Now, Byron Bay local, Aimee Maguire, is about to lose everything because she can't afford to pay the rent. Her engagement is also on an official time-out since her fiancé doesn't know what he wants. The last thing she needs is a surprise visit from her micro-influencer niece looking to 'build her brand'. Her arrival sets off a chain of events that ends with Aimee tangled up with a group of influencers-turned-reality TV stars, exposing her to the absolute worst of humanity. But somewhere amid this mother of all messes there just might be a silver lining Aimee has been searching for. All she needs to do is embrace the one thing she's been fighting so hard against - change.
Non-fiction
In Dark Places: Confessions of Teina Pora and an Ex-Cop’s Fight for Justice by Michael Bennett
He confessed to a crime he didn't commit and spent 21 years in jail. How did it happen? Teina Pora, a 17-year-old car thief, was wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Susan Burdett, who had been beaten to death with the softball bat she kept next to her bed for her own protection Tim McKinnel, en ex-cop turned private investigator, discovered the long forgotten case 18 years later, saw an injustice had been done and set out to win Teina's freedom. This is the story not just of Tim's quest, but also of how an innocent man who was left rotting in a prison cell for two decades found the inner strength to rise above the dark places to which he had been condemned.
National Anthem by Mohamed Hassan
Mohamed Hassan is an award-winning journalist and poet based in Auckland. Public Enemy, his 2016 podcast series about the rise of Islamophobia post 9/11, won Gold at the 2017 New York Festival Radio Awards. Last year he reported extensively on the Christchurch mosque attacks, all while in deep shock as a member of New Zealand's small and connected Muslim community. Nationa Anthem is a menagerie of exiled memories. A meditation on the beauty and madness of migration, nationalism and the enduring search for home.
Renegades by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen
Two long-time friends share an intimate and urgent conversation about life, music and their enduring love of America, with all its challenges and contradictions, in this stunningly-produced expansion of their ground-breaking Higher Ground podcast, featuring more than 350 photographs, exclusive bonus content, and never-before-seen archival material. Renegades- Born in the USA is a candid, revealing, and entertaining dialogue between President Barack Obama and legendary musician Bruce Springsteen that explores everything from their origin stories and career-defining moments to the growing distance between the American Dream and the American reality. Filled with full-colour photographs and rare archival material, it is a compelling and beautifully illustrated portrait of two outsiders - one Black and one white - looking for a way to connect their unconventional searches for meaning, identity, and community with the American story itself.
After the Tamp by Abbas Nazari
The heart-rending story of a child 'Tampa' refugee who grew up to become a Fulbright scholar, highlighting the plight and potential of refugees everywhere. Escaping from Taliban persecution in Afghanistan, Abbas Nazari's parents fled the country in 2001 to find a safe place in which to bring up their children. Their six-month journey through Pakistan and Indonesia searching for asylum culminated in being crammed onto a small fishing boat with 426 other asylum seekers. When that boat started to sink in the Indian Ocean, they were mercifully rescued by a Norwegian cargo boat, the Tampa. The Tampa owners expected to deliver the refugees to Australia but were told they were not welcome there. This sparked an international incident between Australia, Norway and Indonesia over responsibility for these people, leaving them stranded on the boat and eventually being sent to Nauru Island. New Zealand offered to take 150 of them, including Abbas and his family. It's now 20 years since this happened and Abbas tells his story, from the Taliban's horrendous rule in Afghanistan to his family's desperate search for safety to how this became an international political hot issue to settling and growing up in far-off New Zealand. It's also the story of the other children and families who were resettled here.
Architecture at Home: Houses for New Zealanders to Live, Work and Play by Debra Millar
Showcasing a stunning selection of award-winning architect-designed houses from recent years, Architecture at Home explores a broad range of living environments in diverse locations. Permanent homes and occasional retreats, small houses on compact urban sites and larger ones in remote landscapes, new builds and extensive alterations are captured by New Zealand's leading architectural photographers and written about in a thought-provoking way. These innovative and expressive homes celebrate the role of good design in shaping the way we live, work and play at a time when our houses have been tested in unexpected ways.
Adult Graphic Novels
Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China by Guy Delisle
Shenzhen is entertainingly compact with Guy Delisle's observations of life in urban southern China, sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards. With a dry wit and a clean line, Delisle makes the most of his time spent in Asia overseeing outsourced production for a French animation company. He brings to life the quick pace of Shenzhen's crowded streets. By translating his fish-out-of-water experiences into accessible graphic novels, Delisle skillfully notes the differences between Western and Eastern cultures, while also conveying his compassion for the simple freedoms that escape his colleagues in the Communist state.
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth: A Graphic Novel by Isabel Greenberg
Chronicles the explorations of a young man as he paddles from his home in the North Pole to the South Pole. There, he meets his true love, but their romance is ill-fated. Early Earth's unusual and finicky polarity means the lovers can never touch.