BOOKSHELF
September Books
FICTION
Amazing Grace Adams, by Fran Littlewood
Grace Adams gave birth, blinked, and now suddenly she is 45, perimenopausal and stalled — the unhappiest age you can be, according to the Guardian. And today she’s really losing it. Stuck in traffic, she finally has had enough. To the astonishment of everyone, Grace gets out of her car and simply walks away. She sets off across London, armed with a £200 cake, to win back her estranged teenage daughter on her 16th birthday. Because today is the day she’ll remind her daughter that no matter how far we fall, we can always get back up again. Because Grace Adams used to be amazing. Her husband thought so. Her daughter thought so. Even Grace thought so. But everyone seems to have forgotten. Grace is about to remind them . . . and, most importantly herself.
Bright Lights, Big Christmas, by Mary Kay Andrews
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Santa Suit comes a novella celebrating the magic of Christmas and second chances. Newly single and unemployed, Kerry Tolliver needs a second chance. When she moves back home to her family’s Christmas tree farm in North Carolina, she is guilt-tripped into helping her brother, Murphy, sell trees in New York City. She begrudgingly agrees, but she isn’t happy about sharing a trailer with her brother in the East Village for two months. Plus, it’s been years, since before her parents’ divorce, that she’s been to the city to sell Christmas trees. Then, Kerry meets Patrick, the annoying Mercedes owner who parked in her spot for the first two days. Patrick is recently divorced, father to a 6-year-old son, and lives in the neighborhood. Can Kerry’s first impressions about the recently divorced, single father and — dare she say, handsome — neighbor be wrong?
The Fall of Ruin and Wrath, by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Long ago, the world was destroyed by gods. Only nine cities were spared. Separated by vast wilderness teeming with monsters and unimaginable dangers, each city is now ruled by a guardian — royalty who feed on mortal pleasure. Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information. When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning — and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he’ll be her doom. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates, and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe.
The Vaster Wilds, by Lauren Groff
A servant girl escapes from a Colonial settlement in the wilderness, carrying nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of God that burns hot within her. What she finds will bend her belief of everything that her own civilization has taught her. At once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable, 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.
NONFICTION
The Six: The Untold Story of America’s First Women Astronauts, by Loren Grush
When NASA sent astronauts to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s the agency excluded women from the corps, arguing that only military test pilots — a group then made up exclusively of men — had the right stuff. It was an era in which women were steered away from jobs in science and deemed unqualified for space flight. Eventually, though, NASA recognized its mistake and opened the application process to a wider array of hopefuls, regardless of race or gender. From a candidate pool of 8,000, six elite women were selected in 1978 — Sally Ride, Judy Resnik, Anna Fisher, Kathy Sullivan, Shannon Lucid and Rhea Seddon. The Six shows these brilliant and courageous women enduring claustrophobic — and sometimes deeply sexist — media attention, undergoing rigorous survival training, and preparing for years to take multi-million-dollar payloads into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle. Together, they helped build the tools that made the space program run. One of the group, Judy Resnik, sacrificed her life when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at 46,000 feet. Everyone knows of Sally Ride’s history-making first space ride, but each of the six would make their mark.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
My First Lift-the-Flap Nursery Rhymes, art by Ingela P. Arrhenius
Just what does the Itsy Bitsy Spider do when the sun comes out? Find out this and much more in this retro-cool, lift-the-flap collection of classic nursery rhymes that also includes QR codes for sing-along recordings. The perfect gift for any new baby. (Ages birth-3.)
Who Works at Night?, by Peter Arrhenius
A number of community-helper books feature police officers, firefighters and garbage collectors. In Who Works at Night? some less-seen nighttime helpers get their day in the sun. Road construction workers, night drivers and doctors are just a few of the jobs featured in this fun lift-the-flap title that’s perfect for preschool classrooms. (Ages 3-6.)
The Lost Library, by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass
When 11-year-old Evan discovers a little free library that has mysteriously appeared in his town — the physical library burned to the ground years ago — he begins to investigate with no idea that two weathered books will completely upend his entire world. Narrated by a massive orange cat and an omnipresent ghost librarian, this is a story every book lover will devour. (Ages 8-12.)
Wicked Wild Poems of the Pine Tree State, by Diane Lang
From salamanders to seagulls and every tree, bush and animal in between, these poems celebrate the familiar wild living things we cherish from the Maine woods to the craggy windswept coastline. From pelicans to porcupines, blueberries to bears, dragonflies to deer, Maine holds gems of nature that are beautiful and rare. Turn a page and come inside — they’re waiting for you here! (Ages 7-18.) PS
Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.