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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Dear Miss Metropolitan
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Fiction. “Ferrell’s innovative and harrowing debut novel draws on the Ariel Castro kidnappings in Cleveland for a story about the abduction and captivity of three young women in Queens, N.Y., and their subsequent escape in 2007. The three are chained in a decrepit house… for close to 10 years. When they are finally discovered and freed, the surrounding community members, including Mathilda Marron, a newspaper advice columnist known as “Miss Metropolitan” who has lived next door to the house the girls were held in for four decades, grapple with guilt over not discovering them sooner. Composed of an assemblage of fragments, photos, articles by Mathilda, and first-person narration from the victims, this effectively unpacks both individual and collective trauma. It’s blistering from page one.” – Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
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Falling
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Fiction. “A man takes a mother and her two children hostage in their home. He offers the woman’s husband an impossible choice: the lives of his family, or the lives of 149 innocent people. As if that weren’t an interesting enough way to start a novel, there’s this: the husband is an airline pilot, at cruising altitude en-route to New York City, and the choice he’s given is to crash his plane, killing everyone aboard, or save the lives of his passengers and watch his family die.. The husband’s response is to tell the man who holds the lives of his family in his hand that he won’t crash the plane, and he won’t let the man kill his family. With abundantly human characters, natural dialogue, and a plot that unleashes one surprise after another, this could be the novel that everyone is talking about this summer.” – Booklist
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Availability: On order
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Nadiya Bakes: Over 100 Must-try Recipes for Breads, Cakes, Biscuits, Pies, and More
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Nonfiction. “The host of the beloved Netflix series Time to Eat and Nadiya Bakes and winner of The Great British Baking Show returns to her true love, baking, with more than 100 delicious, Americanized recipes for sweet treats. In her newest cookbook, Nadiya shares more than 100 simple and achievable recipes for cakes, cookies, breads, tarts, and puddings that will become staples in your home. From Raspberry Amaretti Biscuits and Key Lime Cupcakes to Cheat's Sourdough and Spiced Squash Strudel, Nadiya has created an ultimate baking resource for just about every baked good that will entice beginner bakers and experienced pastry makers alike.” – Publisher description
Format: Book
Availability: On order
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Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Nonfiction. “An exploration of loneliness, the troubling ways we've studied it, and the subtle ways we strain to avoid it. Radtke's second graphic memoir feels almost custom-made for the social-distancing era: She explores our need for connection and touch (‘skin hunger’ is the psychological term) and the negative social and personal effects of isolation. But the book is a much broader and deeply affecting study of loneliness, uncovering the host of ways our craving for community manifests itself in ways that are sometimes quirky and sometimes terrifying. In clean, graceful renderings and a constricted color palette, Radtke expresses her own experiences with loneliness, as a child and in relationships, and gets people to open up about theirs. Superb. A rigorous, vulnerable book on a subject that is too often neglected.” – Kirkus Reviews
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Availability: On order
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She Who Became the Sun
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Fiction. “An imaginative retelling of the life of the founder of the Ming Dynasty. In Mongol-ruled China in 1345, the Zhu family lives in harsh and impoverished conditions. When the young eighth son Zhu Chongba is told his fate lies in greatness, no one knows what to think of it. Yet when bandits make orphans of him and his sister, it is the second Zhu daughter, fated with nothingness, who survives. With nothing to hold her back, she takes her brother's identity and becomes a novice monk, hoping to survive her fate. As the years pass, the daughter now known as Zhu Chongba realizes that she may also be able to take her brother's fate of greatness. Parker-Chan's debut is forceful, immersive, and unforgettable. This inspired queer retelling of Chinese history is an exciting read.” – Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: On order
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The Startup Wife
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Fiction. “Meet Asha Ray. Brilliant coder and possessor of a Pi tattoo, Asha is poised to revolutionize artificial intelligence when she is reunited with her high school crush, Cyrus Jones.\n[He] inspires Asha to write a new algorithm. Before she knows it, she’s abandoned her PhD program, they’ve exchanged vows, and gone to work at an exclusive tech incubator called Utopia. The platform creates a sensation, with millions of users seeking personalized rituals every day. Will Cyrus and Asha’s marriage survive the pressures of sudden fame, or will she become overshadowed by the man everyone is calling the new messiah? Come for the radical startup culture and modern partnership, stay for the wickedly funny feminist look at startup culture and modern partnership.” – Publisher description \n
Format: Book
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This Is your Mind on Plants
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Nonfiction. “The disastrous war on drugs began under Nixon to control two classes of perceived enemies: anti-war protestors and Black citizens. That cynical effort…drives home the point that ‘societies condone the mind-changing drugs that help uphold society's rule and ban the ones that are seen to undermine it.’ One such drug is opium, for which Pollan daringly offers a recipe for home gardeners to make a tea laced with the stuff, producing ‘a radical and by no means unpleasant sense of passivity.’ You can't overthrow a government when so chilled out, and the real crisis is the manufacture of synthetic opioids, which the author roundly condemns. Caffeine is legal, but it has stronger effects than opium, as the author learned when he tried to quit. A lucid look at the hows, whys, and occasional demerits of altering one's mind." – Kirkus Reviews
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Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood
NEW FOR JULY! Adult Nonfiction. “Quintessential Hollywood bad guy Trejo delivers a powerful and expertly crafted memoir that is tougher, more frightening, and more memorable than any of his films. Trejo struggled with heroin addiction in his early 20s and was in and out of prison throughout the '60s. His account of life in San Quentin and Folsom prisons, where ‘hopelessness is carved in men's faces,’ is unsparing in its depiction of violence. Trejo avoided the pitfalls of inmate life by becoming an excellent boxer and finding AA, and he eventually found work in films thanks to his ‘hard-looking’ style. Even in recounting his rise to fame with films such as Machete, Trejo never veers from the story of how his hard work paid off by allowing him to support his family, overcome the ‘environment of toxic masculinity that I was raised in,’ and ‘spread the message of recovery.’ – Publishers Weekly
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The Chosen and the Beautiful
NEW FOR JUNE! Adult Fiction. "Vo’s extraordinary full-length debut draws readers into a fantastical reimagining of the world of The Great Gatsby. In Vo’s version, magic is as regular as Jay Gatsby’s soirees, prohibition bans covered demon blood as well as alcohol, and star golfer Jordan Baker can turn cut paper into enchantments. Jordan and Daisy Fay became friends when they were children. …Jordan navigates New York City’s social scene as an accepted outsider, kept at arm’s length for her Vietnamese heritage. The plot unravels tantalizingly slowly, and Vo’s immersive prose never ceases to captivate." – Publishers Weekly
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House of Sticks: A Memoir
NEW FOR JUNE! Adult Nonfiction. "’We arrive in the blizzard of 1993, coming from rice paddies, mango trees, and the sun to February in the Empire State,’ writes Tran in the opening passage, recounting how she came to the U.S. with her parents and three siblings. Progressing from their rough times during the ‘sweatshop days,’ the family moved on to own a nail salon, and the children dedicated themselves to their education while also working to support the family in their spare time. As the only daughter, Tran describes her troubled relationships … as well as the trauma of her father's PTSD. A brutally honest, ultimately hopeful narrative of family, immigration, and resilience." – Kirkus Reviews
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