Peak Picks Current Titles Book List
A complete list of current Peak Picks titles.
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The Tortoise's Tale
NEW FOR NOVEMBER! Adult Fiction. “The Tortoise’s Tale claims to be the memoir of a 150-year-old tortoise as she experiences life in the 20th century and beyond. Magic, our narrator, goes by many names as she is passed from hand to hand, residing mostly on a private California estate. Sometimes surrounded by family and fellow animals, other times regarded merely as a decorative curiosity for tourists, Magic observes the world with measured compassion. Her most enduring connection is with Lucy, a young girl she meets early on and remains tethered to throughout their intertwined lives. This quiet but beautifully written debut will resonate particularly with animal lovers…” Booklist
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Uncool
NEW FOR NOVEMBER! Adult Nonfiction. “Growing up in 1960s Palm Springs with strict parents, Crowe found freedom in rock music, a passion that led--by age 16--to writing for Rolling Stone, where his youth, candor, and curiosity earned him the trust of artists including Joni Mitchell, Kris Kristofferson, and Rita Coolidge. (Crowe's backstage encounters with Led Zeppelin and his tour experiences with the Allman Brothers inspired his Oscar-winning screenplay for Almost Famous.) Readers who only know Crowe from his screen credits will savor the behind-the-scenes insights, but the book's real power lies in its portrait of a teenager chasing his heroes.” Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Who Knows You by Heart
NEW FOR NOVEMBER! Adult Fiction. “When Octavia, a young Black coder in New York City, pilots a chatbot that ends up leaking her coworkers’ personal secrets, she knows it’s time for a new job. An intriguing opportunity arises at a… tech firm, Eustachian Inc. It’s a bit of a soulless gig, but Octavia signs on, believing the lucrative salary and benefits will enable her to pay off her late mother’s debts. After she’s hired… Walcott Neville—one of Eustachian’s only other Black employees—ropes her into the Zion Initiative, a top-secret AI project… [B]ut before long, she learns that Eustachian’s plans for Zion are darker than she imagined…” Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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108 Asian Cookies
Adult Nonfiction. “Growing up as a Canadian-born Vietnamese Chinese American, Lieu sought comfort in the flavors of her youth like taro and black sesame. In 108 Asian Cookies, bakers will learn how to whip up desserts such as Spicy chai cookies, Taiwanese snowflake crisps, Mochi brownies and even instant ramen and pho cookies! At many Asian tables, ‘not too sweet’ is the highest compliment one can give−so whether these recipes are comfortingly familiar or new discoveries, 108 Asian Cookies will delight even the most discerning ‘not too sweet’ kitchens for years to come.” -- Publisher
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Bog Queen
Adult Fiction. “When a body is found in a bog in northwest England, Agnes, an American forensic anthropologist, is called to investigate. But this body is not like any she’s ever seen. Though its bones prove it was buried more than two thousand years ago, it is almost completely preserved. Flashing between… post-Brexit England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe at the dawn of the Roman era, Bog Queen brims with contemporary urgency and ancient wisdom as it connects across time two gifted, farsighted young women learning to harness their strange strengths in a landscape more mysterious and complex than either can imagine.” -- Publisher
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Enshittification
Adult Nonfiction. “This trenchant treatise from Doctorow explores how and why the internet has devolved into a wasteland of scams, ads, and surveillance. Platforms from Google to Apple to Facebook have deliberately worsened themselves, he argues−as their users ‘remain trapped in their rotting carcasses unable to escape’−by pursuing monopolistic goals including limited competition, regulatory capture, and diminished worker power, all of which has rendered these platforms not only too big to fail but ‘too big to care.’ The result is a razor-sharp yet subtly optimistic look at the soul-sucking state of the internet.” -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Hole in the Sky
Adult Fiction. “On the Great Plains of Oklahoma—in the heart of the Cherokee Nation—a strange atmospheric disturbance is noticed by Jim Hardgray, a… father trying to reconnect with his teenaged daughter, Tawny. At NASA’s headquarters in Houston, astrophysicist Dr. Mikayla Johnson observes an interaction… and concludes that something enormous and unidentified is heading directly for Earth. And in an undisclosed bunker deep in the earth, an American threat forecaster known only as The Man Downstairs intercepts a cryptic communication and sends an urgent message to the president and highest-ranking military brass: ‘First contact imminent’.” -- Publisher
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Intemperance
Adult Fiction. “In the jaunty latest from Jha, a twice-divorced feminist scholar decides to celebrate her 55th birthday by throwing herself a swayamvar, a traditional Indian ceremony in which a woman invites potential suitors to compete for her hand in marriage by performing various feats. The unnamed narrator’s novelist son is skeptical, as are social media users, who debate the feminist merits of her online invitation to the swayamvar. Jha interweaves mystical Hindu elements throughout, as with the narrator’s series of encounters with mysterious women who might be goddesses...” -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Joyride
Adult Nonfiction. “Orlean did not set out to be a public figure, but this joyful memoir of her journey to becoming a writer demonstrates how it was nearly inevitable. Orlean always wanted to be a writer, and her career path−from writing for small alternative weeklies in Portland and Boston to being a staff writer at the New Yorker, all while painstakingly producing books on the side−is represented here in an unstinting look at the challenges and risks of making it as a professional writer, alongside everyday tragedies and disappointments. Sure to delight aspiring writers.” -- Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Shadow Ticket
Adult Fiction. “Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, …the private investigation business shifting from labor-management relations to the more domestic kind. Hicks McTaggart, a one-time strikebreaker turned private eye, thinks he’s found job security until he gets sent out on what should be a routine case, locating and bringing back the heiress of a Wisconsin cheese fortune who’s taken a mind to go wandering. By the time Hicks catches up with her he will find himself also entangled with Nazis, Soviet agents, British counterspies, swing musicians, …and the troubles that come with each of them…” -- Publisher
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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