Peak Picks Current Titles Book List
New titles from the Peak Picks collection that are currently in rotation. Stop by any branch to see what's available today!
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I Hope This Finds You Well
Adult Fiction. “Sue debuts with a delightfully quirky office comedy about a 33-year-old administrative assistant’s interpersonal battles in a Canadian supermarket chain’s regional office. Jolene’s days consist of eight hours of mind-numbing work, followed by drinking to forget… At the office, she adds cathartic notes in white font at the bottom of emails... When Jolene forgets to white out a nasty note… she’s forced to complete an antiharassment course and have her emails monitored. The workplace hijinks produce steady laughs, and Sue adds depth through the backstory of Ellie, with whom Jolene found solace as a fellow misfit.†PW
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It's Not Hysteria
Adult Nonfiction. “Dr. Karen Tang is on a mission to transform how we engage with our bodies and our healthcare. It's Not Hysteria is a comprehensive guide to common conditions and potential treatment options…to equip readers to take control of their gynecologic health. Reproductive healthcare, from abortion to gender-affirming care, is under siege. The onus continues to fall on patients to find and advocate for the care they need. In the face of uncertainty and misinformation, It's Not Hysteria is destined to become a new classic that educates and empowers women and those assigned female at birth.†Pub description
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The Last Murder at the End of the World
Adult Fiction. “The world has ended in a black fog, killing everyone except for 200 souls, who now inhabit a remote island. The villagers… live a basic life and work hard but are happy, cheerful, and loving. Ruled over by three elders and Abi, a sort of goddess who lives in their heads, the villagers have never known any other life. But when Niema, one of the elders, is brutally murdered, the islanders are left stunned and bewildered. One villager, Emory, who’s always been rebellious, vows to find out who killed the much-loved Niema. An extraordinary, thought-provoking book…†Booklist
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The Light Eaters
Adult Nonfiction. “Schlanger, a staff reporter at the Atlantic, has followed multiple veins of study on plant life to reveal remarkable discoveries and some potentially revolutionary conjectures. She also weighs the skepticism of botanists and biologists who think the study of intelligence in plants is folly. However, this reticence pales when held against new studies of the ways in which plants communicate, defend themselves, and remember, as well as the considerations of how biological systems can replicate across the spectrum of species. You may never look at your houseplants or garden in quite the same way again.†Kirkus
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The Ministry of Time
Adult Fiction. “British Cambodian writer Bradley’s clever debut features time travel, romance, cloak-and-dagger plotting, and a critique of the British Empire. The unnamed narrator… is selected by the government to aid a newly formed agency to process time travelers from the past. Her assigned ‘expat’ is real-life polar explorer Lt. Graham Gore, who has arrived in the future sometime before his death during the ill-fated 1845 Franklin expedition… It’s a sly and ingenious vehicle for commentary on the disruptions and displacements of modern life.†PW
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Rebel Girl
Adult Nonfiction. “Before Hanna became a beloved musician and co-founder of the Riot grrrl movement, she was a child trying to survive domestic violence. Hanna left home for Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where …she met Tobi Vail and Kathi Wilcox, and they formed Bikini Kill. After leaving Bikini Kill, surviving Lyme disease, getting married to Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys, adopting a child, and founding the band Le Tigre, Hanna reflects on everything she has learned in her long career. Her political evolution is particularly gratifying, especially for readers who grew up with Hanna's self-admittedly imperfect activism.†Kirkus
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Ella
Adult Fiction. “Richards, a former background vocalist for Whitney Houston, debuts with an electrifying tale of Ella Fitzgerald in the years before she was discovered on ‘Amateur Night’ at the Apollo Theater in 1934. The story begins in 1932, when 15-year-old Ella and her family struggle to get by during the Great Depression. Richards’s research brings the sights and sounds of 1930s Harlem to vivid life, and she portrays Fitzgerald’s troubling teen years with care and sensitivity. Readers will be grateful for the chance to feel so deeply acquainted with ‘The First Lady of Song.’†PW
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The Backyard Bird Chronicles
Adult Nonfiction. “The lovely latest from novelist Tan brings together selections from ‘nine personal journals filled with sketches and handwritten notes of naive observations’ about birds spotted in her northern California backyard between 2017 and 2022. Tan's drawings, a highlight of the volume, trace the development of her artistry, with respectable if amateurish early colored pencil sketches giving way to impressively detailed and realistic depictions of the oak titmouse, chestnut backed chickadee, and great horned owl. Tan's enthusiasm and jaunty descriptions of her avian subjects enchant.†PW
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Briefly Perfectly Human
Adult Nonfiction. “Arthur recalls in her elegant debut memoir how she became a death doula, providing emotional support and guidance to those who are nearing death. Arthur poignantly recalls how her clients prepared for death, whether in quiet privacy or surrounded by music, art, and friends, ‘in full surrender, grateful for the gift to have been... human.’ Taken together, these stories portray death as simultaneously personal, universal, and unknowable, a complexity that Arthur acknowledges with consummate respect. PW
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The Familiar
Adult Fiction. “Servant Luzia Cotado hides her talent for milagritos (little miracles) in fear that their discovery would also uncover her Jewish roots and the Ladino spells she uses… bringing the Inquisition to her door. But when her magic is discovered, it attracts the attention of a patron who’s desperate for the favor of the king—and she’s quickly tossed into a contest of miracles that is at the center of the politics of a struggling Spain. As she begins lessons under the mysterious, dark force of nature Santángel, she realizes that survival is not enough for her; Luzia wants to show the world what she’s capable of.†Booklist
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