Staff Recommendations
Andrea Borchert
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Into the riverlands
by Vo, Nghi
June 5, 2023
Call Number:
Into the Riverlands is the third in the Singing Hills Cycle series of novellas. But you can read them in any order, and the characters in this installment are delightful. The Singing Hills series follows the journey of Chih, a wandering cleric of the Singing Hills Monastery and their companion, a talking Hoopoe with a perfect memory, called Almost Brilliant. The clerics of the Singing Hills Monastery and their Hoopoe companions travel collecting and recording stories. So on each of their... Read Full Review
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Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
by Kuang, R. F.
January 9, 2023
Call Number:
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is the story of a young man, who is named Robin Swift by the English guardian who refuses to let him use his birth name. Robin was taken from Canton and raised by his guardian, a cold and exacting Oxford Don, specifically for the purpose of obtaining an Oxford education in magic, and using that magic to ensure Britain's power over its colonies in an alternate 1830s England. This book has so many things that are enticing about a dark world, academia, books, and magic schools. It has... Read Full Review
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The memory theater
by Tidbeck, Karin, 1977-
July 18, 2022
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In The Memory Theater a girl and a boy, Dora and Thistle, escape from a palace during a perpetual, eternal summer evening party, where nobles murder and devour children as a regular part of the evening entertainment, somewhere between dessert and rounds of croquet on the lawn. Unfortunately for Dora and Thistle, one of the nobles, the monstrous and fabulously dressed Lady Augusta, follows them as they flee across worlds. The line between fairy tales and the horror genre is incredibly porous. But few stories that I have read straddle that line as well as the lyric and dreamlike... Read Full Review
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The future of another timeline
by Newitz, Annalee, 1969-
March 31, 2020
Call Number: SF
There are lots of time travel books out there, but The Future of Another Timeline is in a class of its own. It has punks! It has academics! It has academic, punk feminists who travel backwards and forwards in time, protecting our future and our past (hopefully while wearing combat boots). It has the strangeness of wandering around Orange County parking lots at midnight as a teenager, because what else are you going to do? Go home? Time travel stories tend towards either intensely personal stories or vast sweeping epics. But this novel weaves successfully into and out of those extremes.... Read Full Review
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Wild LA: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles
by Higgins, Lila M.
July 22, 2019
Call Number: 570.9794 H636
Sometimes LA seems like an endless stretch of strip malls and freeways. But LA is more than that! LA is part of the California Floristic Province, a biodiversity hotspot. In its wide range of habitats, from deserts to beaches, there are many wonderful, fascinating plants, animals, and fungi figuring out how to live side by side with us. The way flora and fauna survive this concrete jungle is a story, in and of itself. Or rather, it’s thousands of different stories. The way everything, from parakeets to western sycamore, lives in LA can be difficult to grasp. But the experts at the... Read Full Review
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Lands of lost borders : a journey on the Silk Road
by Harris, Kate, 1982-
March 26, 2019
Call Number: 958 H314
As a child Kate Harris would trace Marco Polo’s path along the Silk Road in books, and dream of exploring Mars. She loved the idea of being outside, in the wilderness, seeing things no one had ever seen. So she decided to become an astronaut to take a shot at exploring Mars. As an adult she realized two important things. The first one was that the science degree she was studying (as part of her quest to become an astronaut) involved less exploration and more time indoors, peering into microscopes. It wasn’t for her. The second thing she realized was that Marco Polo was not the explorer she... Read Full Review
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On a Sunbeam
by Walden, Tillie
January 28, 2019
Call Number: 740.9999 W162-2
On a Sunbeam is a tender and surreal graphic novel about growing up, first love, lost love, friendship, finding your family, and about enormous, flying, space fish. On a Sunbeam manages to be both a science fiction romp about a crew of misfits, and a boarding school drama about first love. Both parts of the story involve flying space fish, and the space fish are gorgeous. Everything about the book is gorgeous: the color palette, the line art, the Gothic architecture, and the riotous starscapes.Mia, the main character, is a young woman in transition from childhood to... Read Full Review
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The Philosopher's Flight
by Miller, Tom, 1980-
September 4, 2018
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Is there any magic power more wished for than flight? Robert “Boober” Weekes dreams of it. Not just of flying, but of being one of the bravest, best flyers in the world; a member of the Rescue and Evacuation Department of the U.S.Sigirly Corps. These flyers use magic sigils (inscribed or painted symbols that may have magical powers) to swoop into dangerous situations and save people. But no man has ever flown with Rescue and Evacuation. Even with a war going on, almost everyone is certain that neither Robert, nor any other man, will ever be strong enough for the job. Only the strongest... Read Full Review
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Quackery : a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything
by Kang, Lydia,
August 20, 2018
Call Number: 614.26 K163
The history of medicine is not pretty. However, if you are in the right mood and frame of mind, it can be pretty funny. Over the years people have tried some wild things to make themselves feel better, and Quackery: a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything grants us a closer look at some of those treatments and times, from ancient Greece through the age of disco. This whirlwind tour of medical history includes tapeworm diets, mercury treatments for syphilis, electric brushes for baldness, the starvation diet of ... Read Full Review
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Ritz & Escoffier : the hotelier, the chef, and the rise of the leisure class
by Barr, Luke,
June 25, 2018
Call Number: 647.94 R615Ba
There is something wonderfully gossipy about Ritz & Escoffier: the hotelier, the chef, and the rise of the leisure class. In tracing the rise of the luxurious Savoy Hotel, under the leadership of César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier, Luke Barr grants readers a glimpse into some of the biggest scandals of the Belle Époque, letting us get up close and personal with the celebrities involved. Barr also provides luscious descriptions of extravagant parties held at the hotel. These parties are filled with glitterati living the highlife. But they are also rife with... Read Full Review
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The Prince and the Dressmaker
by Wang, Jen
June 11, 2018
Call Number: 740.9999 W246
Frances is a young, talented, hardworking dressmaker. She wants to make wonderfully glamorous dresses. No one quite gets her art form and design, including her boss and the aristocrats he works for, and neither does the new department store opening up downtown. At best, they think they can make money off her work. At worst, they are offended and enraged by her work. She loses her job after giving a young woman exactly the dress she wanted. The young woman, Lady Sophia, looks amazing in her new ball gown, and she knows it. But this dress isn’t a typical ball gown: black with a... Read Full Review
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Broad Band: The Untold History of Women Who Made the Internet
by Evans, Claire Lisa,
April 30, 2018
Call Number: 510.7809 E924
Who made the Internet? Popular culture might have you picture a young, white, nerdy man as the architect and designer, the artist and innovator, behind the Internet. Maybe he’s arrogant and standoffish. Maybe he’s shy and brilliant. He probably wears glasses. There are people like him in the story of the Internet, but his story isn't the only one. There are lots of other people who contributed to creating this valuable resource--hundreds of stories behind the making of the Internet. Women also made the Internet, and their stories can help us understand their contributions. It is only if we... Read Full Review