Books, Movies, CDs

Living the Beatles legend : the untold story of Mal Evans

Kenneth Womack

781.66092 /Beatles
History, Music

"Malcolm Evans, the Beatles' long-time roadie, personal assistant, and devoted friend, was an invaluable member of the band's inner circle. A towering figure in horn-rimmed glasses, Evans loomed large in the Beatles' story, contributing at times as a performer and sometime lyricist, while struggling mightily to protect his beloved "boys." He was there for the whole of the group's remarkable, unparalleled story: from the Shea Stadium triumph through the creation of the timeless cover art for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the famous Let It Be rooftop concert. Leaving a stable job as telecommunications engineer to serve as road manager for this fledgling band, Mal was the odd man out from the start--older, married with children, and without any music business experience. And yet he threw himself headlong into their world, traveling across the globe and making himself indispensable. In the years after the Beatles' disbandment, Big Mal continued in their employ as each embarked upon solo careers. By 1974, he was determined to make his name as a songwriter and record producer, setting off for a new life in Los Angeles, where he penned his memoirs. But in January 1976, on the verge of sharing his book with the world, Evans's story came to a tragic end during a domestic standoff with the LAPD. For Beatles devotes, Mal's life and untimely death have always been shrouded in mystery. For decades, his diaries, manuscripts, and vast collection of memorabilia was missing, seemingly lost forever...until now. Working with full access to Mal's unpublished archives and having conducted hundreds of new interviews, Beatles' scholar and author Kenneth Womack affords readers with a full telling of Mal's unknown story at the heart of the Beatles' legend. Lavishly illustrated with unseen photos and ephemera from Mal's archives, Living the Beatles' Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans is the missing puzzle piece in the Fab Four's incredible story."--Amazon.com

This was an absolute joy to read and I HIGHLY encourage any fan of the Beatles to add this to your TBR and follow through. It's a wonderful tribute that will leave you smiling. -Amanda

The girl who leapt through time book cover

All the light we cannot see : a novel

Anthony Doerr

FICTION Doerr Anthony
Historical Fiction

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work"--

I read this book when it first came out but picked it back up for a re-read since starting the Netflix adaptation. There have been many books written about World War Two, but this remains one of my favorite historical fiction pieces because of the exhilarating story Doerr crafts. He is highly adept at looking at the war through the lens of his characters; a French, blind woman, and a German man, yet carefully details them in a way where you see them for the richness of their humanity, not solely the countries they fight for. His layered characters: their drives, their consciences, base human instincts highlight the very worst and the very best of mankind that culminates in the reader's understanding in the futility and tragedy of war. Doerr's astute attention to detail, along with short chapters makes for a fantastic story- you will want to keep reading one more chapter, then another! -Victoria

I didn't know I needed this : the new rules for flirting, feeling, and finding yourself

Eli Rallo

306.73 /Rallo
Self Help

"From TikTok star Eli Rallo, an irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, and searingly honest take on modern dating and romance with tips, tricks, and survival-guide style rules. I Didn't Know I Needed This is the dose of confidence every girl needs to live their life on their own terms. Eli Rallo is a social media superstar, a Carrie Bradshaw for the TikTok age, a true romantic at heart, and the best friend every young woman wishes she had. As someone who prides herself in feeling fully and deeply, Eli is on the ride with you, kissing the frogs, sending (and deleting) the risky DMs, climbing down frat house gutters, making the friends you'll have for life, all while finding love and falling in love with yourself and learning that everything will be alright. In this earnest and vulnerable look at what it's really like to date as a young woman in the modern world of dating apps, rotating rosters, and social media snafus, Eli gives her rules for each stage of the game-tried and true tricks of the trade. I Didn't Know I Needed This follows the natural lifecycle of dating, starting with being single, flirting, and navigating the apps to going on dates, having sex, falling in love, and managing relationships, to finally dealing with heartbreak, finding closure, prioritizing your friends, and honoring your life. Discover the rules that have worked for her, and garnered her more than a half million TikTok followers. With touching stories of her own adventures and mishaps, Eli helps you navigate dating in a way that's frank, honest, funny, and relatable, giving the advice that you didn't even know you needed"--

What a fun book! I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone in their 20s-40s navigating the modern dating scene in any form. The author gives some really great advice that touches on the modern issues of social media and COVID and just how things are these days. I agreed with so much she wrote, and it took me a lot longer to gain that knowledge. It's like getting practical, useful advice from your cool older sister/cousin/aunt who wants the best for you. -Amanda

The narrow road between desires book cover

Ladies' lunch : and other stories book cover

The Christmas guest : a novella book cover

On a flake-flying day : watching winter's wonders book cover

Dolls of our lives : why we can't quit American Girl book cover

Accountable : the true story of a racist social media account and the teenagers whose lives it changed book cover

Theatrhythm : final bar line. book cover

The Square of Sevens

Laura Shepherd-Robinson

OverDrive Audiobook
Fiction, Mystery, Historical Fiction

This "intricately plotted, epic" (The Times, London) international bestseller—in the vein of the vivid novels of Sarah Waters and Sarah Perry—follows an orphaned fortune teller in 18th-century England as she searches for answers about her long-dead mother.Cornwall, 1730: A young girl known only as Red travels with her father making a living predicting fortunes using the ancient Cornish method of the Square of Sevens. Shortly before he dies, her father entrusts Red's care to a gentleman scholar, along with a document containing the secret of the Square of Sevens technique. Raised as a lady amidst the Georgian splendor of Bath, Red's fortune telling delights in high society. But she cannot ignore the questions that gnaw at her soul: who was her mother? How did she die? And who are the mysterious enemies her father was always terrified would find him? The pursuit of these mysteries takes her from Cornwall and Bath to London and Devon, from the rough ribaldry of the Bartholomew Fair to the grand houses of two of the most powerful families in England. And while Red's quest brings her the possibility of great reward, it also leads to grave danger. "Intricate, haunting, and magical by turns, Laura Shepherd-Robinson's tale is an absolute immersive read you won't soon forget" (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author).

An engrossing account of a young woman finding her way in 17th century England, from plying her trade of reading tarot on the streets and in fair booths, to seeking out the story of her family in the country homes of Bath and Devon. Red (aka Rachel) is at once an intelligent and curious waif, and a cunning teenager who balks at restraints and finds her own strength, as well as her weaknesses, as she grows up. This is a heroine one can root for at the same time they cringe at some of the choices she has to make, or chooses to make. Expertly read, as ever, by Imogen Wilde, who knows how to nail all the voices and dialects. Aimed at adults, but I think older teens would like this as well. -Candice

Paris like a local : by the people who call it home. book cover

Chain Gang All Stars: A Novel

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

OverDrive Audiobook
Diverse Characters, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Dystopian

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTELLER • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE “Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so…illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing.” —The Washington Post “This book will change you!...A masterpiece.” —Jenna Bush Hager, The Today Show’s #ReadWithJenna She felt their eyes, all those executioners… Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences. Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).

A very informative and gripping dystopian novel that will make you think about the U.S. prison system and how we consume modern-day professional sports. -Annie

The art of talking with children : the simple keys to nurturing kindness, creativity, and confidence in kids book cover

Extremely online : the untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet

Taylor Lorenz

302.231 /Lorenz
Technology, History

"For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy. Lorenz shows this phenomenon to be one of the most disruptive changes in modern capitalism. By tracing how the internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms' power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It's the real social history of the internet. Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations have resulted in a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century. Extremely Online is the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us." --Amazon.

This is the kind of book that will be invaluable and useful to future readers interested in the evolution of the internet as we know it. I lived through all of this, and was not fully aware of the players or the context, or even some of the apps that thrust people into the spotlight. It's a fun read now for sure, but I think it will fill a spot in the discourse we need as we develop and innovate more. -Amanda

The first cat in space and the Soup of Doom book cover

Tomfoolery! : Randolph Caldecott and the rambunctious coming-of-age of children's books book cover

Normal rules don't apply : stories book cover

Harvest days : giving thanks around the world book cover

Catside up, catside down : a book of prepositions book cover

Everybody Knows: A Novel

Jordan Harper

OverDrive Audiobook
Fiction, Mystery

In this "hardboiled mystery" (Maureen Corrigan) from an Edgar Award winning author, a fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast. Welcome to Mae Pruett's Los Angeles, where "Nobody talks. But everybody whispers." As a "black-bag" publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA's most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls "The Beast." They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast's lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. ... Recommended by New York Times Book Review • NPR/Fresh Air • Wall Street Journal • Washington Post • LA Times •CrimeReads• Alta Online • Lit Hub• Kirkus Reviews• Publishers Weekly• NBC/TODAY and many more! • An ABA January 2023 Indie Next List Pick • A NYTBR Editors' Choice Selection "The book everybody's been waiting for" —Michael Connelly "An absolute tour de force"—S. A. Cosby "The best mystery novel I've read in years" —James Patterson

This was so good! I came across this title on ICPL's 'Featured Collections' scroller on the website (which, by the way, is a great way to find titles you might not be aware of), and I was hooked from the beginning. The story is told in alternating chapters by Mae and Chris, and the first thing of note is that I found both narrators to be unique and excellent, with a nice range of emotion (even hard-on-the-outside Chris). You know when a narrator sounds just like the character you're imagining? This had that going on for me. The story itself is compelling and original, even while having well-known elements that are in the miasma surrounding Hollywood: the big players, the world of dirty secrets perpetrated by those who hold the power, the broken systems, the people who fall through the cracks, and the people who perpetuate all of this in various ways. I found all the characters to be nicely fleshed out, especially Mae and Chris of course, but the side characters are also given unique characteristics and situations that tell their stories. One final note: this is the second book I've read or listened to recently that has a female "cleaner" at the center of it, someone who helps cover up bad situations for powerful people in Hollywood (the other is the Devil's Playground), and it is making for some very interesting post-book thinking. -Candice

The season : a social history of the debutante book cover

The devil's playground : a novel

Craig Russell

FICTION Russell Craig
Fiction, Mystery

"A riveting 1920s Hollywood thriller about the making of the most terrifying silent film ever made, and a deadly search for the single copy rumored still to exist. This is the breakout from Craig Russell, author of The Devil Aspect. 1927: Mary Rourke-a Hollywood studio fixer-is called urgently to the palatial home of Norma Carlton, one of the most recognizable stars in American silent film. Norma has been working on the secret film everyone is openly talking about...a terrifying horror picture called The Devil's Playground that is rumored to have unleashed a curse on everyone involved in the production. Mary finds Norma's cold, dead body, and she wonders for just a moment if these dark rumors could be true. 1967: Paul Conway, a journalist and self-professed film aficionado, is on the trail of a tantalizing rumor. He has heard that a single copy of The Devil's Playground-a Holy Grail for film buffs-may exist. He knows his Hollywood history and he knows the film endured myriad tragedies and ended up lost to time. The Devil's Playground is Craig Russell's tour de force, a richly researched and constructed thriller that weaves through the Golden Age of Hollywood and reveals a blossoming industry built on secrets, invented identities, and a desperate pursuit of image. As Mary Rourke charges headlong through the egos, distractions, and traps that threaten to take her down with the doomed production, she discovers a truth far more sinister than she-or we-would imagine. This is Craig Russell's strongest novel to date, and one that will resonate with American readers"--

This book has it all--a solid crime for someone to solve, interesting characters (including more than one strong, intriguing female), old Hollywood glamour coupled with whip-smart dialogue, and a healthy dose of the kind of supernatural that is just a little too real for comfort or dismissal. Author Craig Russell manages all of this really well, and has a deft hand with vocabulary (this book presented me with one of the few times in recent memory where I had to resort to a dictionary). A perfect read for heading into the spooky season! -Candice

The vaster wilds

Lauren Groff

FICTION Groff Lauren
Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

"A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her. Lauren Groff's new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how--and if--we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves."

A lot of “pandemic novels” are coming out right now—at least narratives inspired by or written during the pandemic and everything that happened within that time. They provide a window into what authors were thinking about, working through, or grappling with during the height of the pandemic. Lauren Groff’s thinking was pretty bleak. Her thoughts turned to the “Starving Time” of Jamestown: crops failed, disease flourished, and those that survived ate everything. The narrative centers on a white servant girl, who is called many different names in her short life, and her decision to run away from the colonial settlement and strike out on her own in hopes of finding the French. She is hungry and afraid in the settlement and what is unknown to her beyond the palisade holds better chances for survival. The story follows her during those first few weeks with glimpses into how she found herself on this side of the Atlantic. This survival novel is engrossing, and it takes on quite a few subjects: colonization, land use, 17th century religion, and the oppressively hierarchical structure of English society. But also, what does it mean to be human when you are alone? What does real survival mean? Groff left me with more questions than answers, but good novelists do that. -Anne M

Yumi and the nightmare painter book cover

Tenderheart : a cookbook about vegetables and unbreakable family bonds book cover

Happiness for Beginners: A Novel

Katherine Center

OverDrive Audiobook
Adventure, Romance, Humor

As seen on Netflix—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bodyguard and Hello Stranger Helen Carpenter can't quite seem to bounce back. Newly divorced at thirty-two, her life has fallen apart beyond her ability to put it together again. So when her annoying younger brother, Duncan, convinces her to sign up for a hardcore wilderness survival course in the backwoods of Wyoming—she hopes it'll be exactly what she needs. Instead, it's a disaster. It's nothing like she wants, or expects, or anticipates. She doesn't anticipate the surprise summer blizzard, for example—or the blisters, or the rutting elk, or the mean pack of sorority girls. And she especially doesn't anticipate that her annoying brother's even-more-annoying best friend, Jake, will show up for the exact same course—and distract her, derail her, and . . . kiss her. But it turns out sometimes disaster can teach you exactly the things you need to learn. Like how to keep going, even when you think you can't. How being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes getting really, really lost is your only hope of getting found. Happiness for Beginners is Katherine Center at her most heart-warming, captivating best—a nourishing, page-turning, up-all-night read about how to get back up. It's a story that looks at how our struggles lead us to our strengths. How love is always worth it. And how the more good things we look for, the more we find.

I saw this trailer on Netflix (which knows me so well) and knew I had to read the book first. I prefer audiobooks for rom coms, and this one did not disappoint. I am a sucker for a transformational backpacking journey in fiction--not something I get to do in real life. The characters were humane and loveable, and the banter between the leads was light-hearted and witty. The title comes from the name of a textbook a fellow sojourner brings with her, a book for a positive psychology class she's taking. Happiness studies grew in popularity as the pandemic wore on, so it might sound old hat to you as you're reading this in 2023. The first edition of this novel came out in 2015 and is seeing a resurgence thanks to the film adaptation. Now I just have to find 2 hours to sit still for a movie night. Happy reading! -Melody

Our migrant souls : a meditation on race and the meanings and myths of "Latino"

Héctor Tobar

305.868 /Tobar
Nonfiction

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latino students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.

After a few paragraphs into this book, I was hooked by the author's writing style, historical knowledge and perspective, but perhaps most of all by his humility and humanity. Part professor and part reporter, Tobar is first a collector and reflector of stories, of histories, and this book is an ode to his Latino students and those trying to make sense of their ancestral roots; but will resonate with anyone who has left their motherland in search of a new life. Tobar contends that the very notion of the word "Latino" to describe such myriad life experiences that have intersected with geopolitical and socioeconomic clashes of civilizations (namely North vs. South America,) is ridiculous. I found myself looking up historical facts mentioned in the book, or googling landmarks to gain more insight. While I did not agree with everything the author laid out, overall I thought this was an excellent, moving and brave undertaking. I have no doubt it will bring solace to those who have made journeys across oceans, deserts, or walls due to war, country instability, or in search of something more. In the very least they know that while their stories may differ, they are not alone. -Victoria

I have some questions for you book cover

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