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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And Then He Sang A Lullaby
Adult Fiction. “Track star August left Enugu City, Nigeria, for one of the country's universities far from his domineering sisters and thoughts of the mother he never knew, and he's doing pretty well, making friends and enjoying his studies. But he feels relentlessly pulled toward the openly gay Segun, who works at a local cybercafe and won't get involved unless August can commit wholeheartedly. Then Nigeria's notorious antigay laws are passed. [This is] the inaugural title in Roxane Gay's new imprint.” Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and A Dangerous Obsession
Adult Nonfiction. “For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly eight years−in museums and cathedrals all over Europe −Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.” Pub description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Banyan Moon: A Novel
Adult Fiction. “When Ann Tran gets the call that her fiercely beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. In the years since she’s last seen Minh, Ann has built a seemingly perfect life— but it all crumbles with one positive pregnancy test. With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Huơng. Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, [this] is a… story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.” Pub description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Better Living Through Birding: Notes From A Black Man in the Natural World
Adult Nonfiction. “While in [Central Park] one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in a birdwatching ritual…when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper's viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation. In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today.” Pub description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Between Two Moons: A Novel
Adult Fiction. “A Muslim family living in Brooklyn works to reconnect through the month of Ramadan. Amira and her twin sister, Lina, are graduating from high school in Bay Ridge at the same time their older brother, Sami, is returning home after six years in prison. Reunited for the first time as young adults, the siblings struggle to relate even as they all have secrets. Gawad’s excellent debut novel illuminates one family’s story through the holy month of fasting against the backdrop of NYPD surveillance of a Muslim neighborhood and larger fears of detainment and deportation.” Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel
Adult Fiction. “In 15th-century China, Tan Yunxian loses her mother at a young age, and her father quickly remarries, sending Yunxian to live with her grandparents. There she finds her passion, learning the art of medicine from her grandmother. She also befriends a midwife’s daughter, Meiling, a tie complicated by their vastly different social strata. When Yunxian marries into the wealthy and traditional Yang family, her life constricts, and she fights loneliness... Based on the writings of an historical Ming dynasty female physician, See’s accomplished novel immerses readers in a fascinating life lived within a fascinating culture.” Booklist
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion
Adult Nonfiction. “In the late 80s and early 90s, Turner and his friends − Seattle skate punks, hardcore kids, and assorted misfits − formed bands in each other's basements and accidentally created a sound that spread far beyond their once-sleepy city. Mud Ride offers an inside look at the tight-knit grunge scene, the musical influences and experiments that shaped the grunge sound, and the story of Green River and Mudhoney, which went from underground flophouse shows to selling out stadiums with Nirvana and Pearl Jam.” Pub description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Pageboy: A Memoir
Adult Nonfiction. “It was two months before the world premiere of Juno, and Elliot Page was in his first ever queer bar. Here he was on the precipice of discovering himself as a queer person, as a trans person. Getting closer to his desires, his dreams, himself, without the repression he'd carried for so long. Full of behind the scenes details and intimate interrogations on sex, love, trauma, and Hollywood …this beautifully written, winding journey of what it means to untangle ourselves from the expectations of others is an ode to stepping into who we truly are with defiance, strength, and joy.” Pub description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Talk
Teen Nonfiction. “Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bell delivers an unflinching debut graphic memoir that balances gravity, vulnerability, and humor in relaying his life as a Black man and parent. After Bell's white mother prohibited him from playing outside with a water gun, she attempted ‘the talk,’ a conversation between Black parents and their children about living while Black. Bell recounts how his father's inability to give the talk’ still haunts him and takes on greater significance when Bell's own son asks about George Floyd. This emotionally striking work is sure to leave a lasting mark.” Pub description
Format: Graphic Novel
Availability: Available
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Chain-gang All-stars
Adult Fiction. “Adjei-Brenyah sets his breathtaking and pulse-pounding debut novel in a dystopian alternate U.S. where people incarcerated in an expansive private prison system have the option to fight for their freedom in gladiator-style death matches. Through this brutal, fight-scene-studded story, the author delivers insightful critiques of the prison-industrial complex, capitalism, and the ways in which Hollywood and celebrity culture exploit Black talent. Both the political allegory and the edge-of-your-seat action work beautifully.” Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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