Kwame Onwuachi

Joshua David Stein

Originally purchased from The Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves, MO.

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

A Memoir

"Kwame Onwuachi's story shines a light on food and culture not just in American restaurants or African American communities but around the world." --Questlove

By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi had opened--and closed--one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had sold drugs in New York and been shipped off to rural Nigeria to "learn respect." He had launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars made from selling candy on the subway and starred on Top Chef.

Through it all, Onwuachi's love of food and cooking remained a constant, even when, as a young chef, he was forced to grapple with just how unwelcoming the food world can be for people of color. In this inspirational memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age; a powerful, heartfelt, and shockingly honest account of chasing your dreams--even when they don't turn out as you expected.

Notes from a Young Black Chef

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Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Originally purchased from White Mountain Cafe and Bookstore in Gorham, NH.

Includes an excerpt from Jefferson's sons.

The War That Saved My Life

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Sally Franson

Originally purchased from An Unlikely Story in Plainville, MA.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

"If you devoured Pippi Longstocking as a kid, you will not be able to turn away from Big in Sweden. Reading this hilarious, heartfelt book was even more fun than watching reality television. I absolutely loved it!" -- Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane A charming, wise, and laugh-out-loud funny novel following an American woman competing on a Swedish reality show in an attempt to discover her roots. Paulie Johansson has never put much stock in the idea of family: she has her long-term boyfriend Declan and beloved best friend Jemma, and that's more than enough for her. Yet one night on a lark, she lets Jemma convince her to audition for Sverige och Mig, a show on Swedish television where Swedish-Americans compete to win the ultimate prize: a reunion with their Swedish relatives. Much to her shock, her drunken submission video wins her a spot on the show, and against Declan's advice Paulie decides to go for it. Armed with her Polaroid camera, a beat-up copy of Pippi Longstocking, and an unquenchable sense of possibility, Paulie hops on a plane to Sweden and launches into the contest with seven other Americans, all under the watchful eye of a camera crew. At first, Paulie is certain that she and her competitors have nothing in common besides their passports and views their bloodthirsty ambitions with suspicion. Yet amid the increasingly absurd challenges--rowing from Denmark to Sweden in the freezing rain, battling through obstacle courses, competing in a pickled herring eating contest--Paulie finds herself rethinking her snap judgments about her fellow countrymen, while her growing attachment to her Swedish roots increases her resolve to win the competition herself. Grappling with long-held notions of family, friendship, and love--not to mention her feelings for the distractingly handsome Swedish cameraman who's been assigned to follow her around--Paulie starts to reconsider her past and rethink what she wants for the future. A fish-out-of-water tale filled with warmth, optimism, and wit, Big in Sweden is at its heart a love story: love for family, friends, country, and--most importantly--oneself.

Big in Sweden

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Gordon Corera

Originally purchased from A Likely Story bookstore in Sykesville MD.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin's Spies

"The urgent, explosive story of Russia's espionage efforts against the United States and the West over the past 15 years, culminating in their interference in the 2016 presidential election"--

Russians among Us

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Tom McCourt

Originally purchased from Back of Beyond Books, Moab, UT.

From Cowpokes to Bike Spokes

The town of Moab is a fascinating place with a fascinating historythere is no place like it. Author Tom McCourt gathers the reader 'round the campfire to spin the true tale of Moab from the town's humble, sometimes violent, beginnings to its rise as the nation's Mecca of outdoor recreation. Discover secrets like: ¢¢ The naming of Moab and what it may or may not mean (depending on who tells the story). ¢¢ Old legends retold, and don't be surprised if you encounter the Moki Scream and the Ghost Wolf while camping around Moab! ¢¢ How the Uranium Boom began, who was crowned Moab's Uranium Queen, and how the Uranium King figured out how to watch Leave it to Beaver at 10,000 feet. ¢¢ The magical properties of Moab's waterfrom binding a couple in matrimony to granting dancing skills and sparking history-making movements. Anyone who has fallen in love with this one-of-a-kind town will appreciate the historical gems collected in this easy-to-read, entertaining book.

The Moab Story

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Bruce Holsinger

Originally purchased from Fabled Bookshop in Waco, TX 

“Hypnotic.” – New York Times “Cinematic.” – USA Today "I gripped the covers of this book as though it might be blown from my hands. . .powerful." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post "A full-throttle page turner."– Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace An adrenaline-fueled story of lives upended and transformed by an unprecedented catastrophe To all appearances, the Larsen-Hall family has everything: healthy children, a stable marriage, a lucrative career for Brantley, and the means for Daphne to pursue her art full-time. Their deluxe new Miami life has just clicked into place when Luna—the world’s first category 6 hurricane—upends everything they have taken for granted. When the storm makes landfall, it triggers a descent of another sort. Their home destroyed, two of its members missing, and finances abruptly cut off, the family finds everything they assumed about their lives now up for grabs. Swept into a mass rush of evacuees from across the American South, they are transported hundreds of miles to a FEMA megashelter where their new community includes an insurance-agent-turned-drug dealer, a group of vulnerable children, and a dedicated relief worker trying to keep the peace. Will “normal” ever return? A suspenseful read plotted on a vast national tapestry, The Displacements thrillingly explores what happens when privilege is lost and resilience is tested in a swiftly changing world.

The Displacements

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Araminta Hall

Two young women vanish in a seaside town. At the cliff's edge, nobody is who they seem. Desperate to escape the ghosts of his failed marriage, Cole upends his life. He leaves London behind for a remote stretch of coast, relishing the respite from the noise, drama, and relentless careerism that curdled his relationship and mental health. Leonora has made the same move for similar reasons. She's living a short walk from Cole's seaside cottage, preparing for her latest art exhibition. Though Cole still can't figure out what went wrong with his marriage, and Leonora is having trouble acclimating to the hostile landscape, the pair forges a connection on the eroding bluff they call home. Then, two young women activists raising awareness about gendered violence disappear while passing through. Cole and Leonora find themselves in the middle of a police investigation and the resulting media firestorm when the world learns of what happened. And as the tension escalates alongside the search for the missing women, they quickly realize that they don't know each other that well after all. From the critically acclaimed author of Our Kind of Cruelty and Imperfect Women, comes an urgent psychological thriller about gender, power, and how both are captured in our contemporary media environment. Unexpected and twisty from its first page to its last, One of the Good Guys asks: If most men claim to be good, why are most women still afraid to walk home alone at night?

One of the Good Guys

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Wes Moore

Erica L. Green

Originally purchased from The Bookshelf in Thomasville, GA 

The Fiery Reckoning of an American City

“An illuminating portrait of Baltimore in the aftermath of the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray . . . Readers will be enthralled by this propulsive account.”—Publishers Weekly LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL From the New York Times bestselling author of The Other Wes Moore, a kaleidoscopic account of five days in the life of a city on the edge, told through eight characters on the front lines of the uprising that overtook Baltimore and riveted the world When Freddie Gray was arrested for possessing an “illegal knife” in April 2015, he was, by eyewitness accounts that video evidence later confirmed, treated “roughly” as police loaded him into a vehicle. By the end of his trip in the police van, Gray was in a coma from which he would never recover. In the wake of a long history of police abuse in Baltimore, this killing felt like the final straw—it led to a week of protests, then five days described alternately as a riot or an uprising that set the entire city on edge and caught the nation's attention. Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, bestselling author, decorated combat veteran, former White House fellow, and CEO of Robin Hood, one of the largest anti-poverty nonprofits in the nation. While attending Gray’s funeral, he saw every stratum of the city come together: grieving mothers, members of the city’s wealthy elite, activists, and the long-suffering citizens of Baltimore—all looking to comfort one another, but also looking for answers. He knew that when they left the church, these factions would spread out to their own corners, but that the answers they were all looking for could be found only in the city as a whole. Moore—along with journalist Erica Green—tells the story of the Baltimore uprising both through his own observations and through the eyes of other Baltimoreans: Partee, a conflicted black captain of the Baltimore Police Department; Jenny, a young white public defender who’s drawn into the violent center of the uprising herself; Tawanda, a young black woman who’d spent a lonely year protesting the killing of her own brother by police; and John Angelos, scion of the city’s most powerful family and executive vice president of the Baltimore Orioles, who had to make choices of conscience he’d never before confronted. Each shifting point of view contributes to an engrossing, cacophonous account of one of the most consequential moments in our recent history, which is also an essential cri de coeur about the deeper causes of the violence and the small seeds of hope planted in its aftermath.

Five Days

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Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Reeve Lindbergh

The book has gone through many hands, and includes an inscription in the front and some additional notes in the back (see photos). I purchased it, second-hand, from Old Fox Box in Annapolis MD. 

A woman's reflections on life, its stages, and its states, comparing them with the natural treasures of life in the sea

Gift from the Sea

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Peng Shepherd

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father's belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret--one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family's dark history. What is the purpose of a map? Nell Young's whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field, and Nell's personal hero. But she hasn't seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map. But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can't resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable, and also exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one--along with anyone who gets in the way. But why? To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret, and discover the true power that lies in maps... Perfect for fans of Joe Hill and V.E. Schwab, The Cartographers is an ode to art and science, history and magic--a spectacularly imaginative, modern story about an ancient craft and places still undiscovered.

The Cartographers

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Melanie Golding

Originally purchased from Fabled Bookshop in Waco TX.

Following her acclaimed debut Little Darlings, Melanie Golding's newest folkloric suspense is a spine-tingling twist on Celtic mythology.

One dark December night, in a small seaside town, a little girl is found abandoned. When her mother finally arrives, authorities release the pair, believing it to be an innocent case of a toddler running off.

Gregor, a seemingly single man, is found bludgeoned and left for dead in his apartment, but the discovery of children's toys raises more questions than answers.
 
Every night, Ruby gazes into Gregor's apartment, leading to the discovery of his secret family: his unusually silent daughter and his mentally unstable wife, Constance, who insists that she is descended from the mythological Selkies. She begs Ruby to aid in finding the sealskin that Gregor has hidden from her, making it impossible to return to her people.
 
DS Joanna Harper's investigation into Gregor's assault leads her to CCTV footage of the mother-daughter pair from town. Harper realizes she knows the woman almost as well as she knows herself: it's her estranged daughter, Ruby. No matter the depth of Ruby's involvement, she knows she will choose her daughter over her career.
 
Steeped in local legend and exploring the depths of what it means to be a mother, Melanie Golding's newest novel is "a lyrical and atmospheric folktale for the modern age." (Bustle, on Little Darlings)

The Hidden

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Caitlin Rother

Inside the Coronado Mansion Case

"The call came on the morning of July 13, 2011, from the historic Spreckels Mansion, a lavish beachfront property in Coronado, California, owned by pharmaceuticla tycoon Jonah Shacknai. When authorities arrived, they found the naked body of Jonah's girlfried, Rebecca Zahau, gagged, with her ankles tied and her wrists bound behind her. Jonah's brother, Adam, claimed to have found Rebecca hanging by a rope from the second-floor balcony. Rebecca's death came two days after Jonah's six-year-old son, Max, took a devastating fall while in Rebecca's care. Authorities deemed Rebecca's death a suicide resulting from her guilt. But who would stage either a suicide or a murder in such a bizarre, attention-seeking way?"--Provided by publisher.

Death on Ocean Boulevard

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Mary Beth Keane

This is a first edition hardcover. I originally purchased it from The Bookshelf in Thomasville, GA.

The triumphant New York Times Bestseller * The Tonight Show Summer Reads Pick * Named one of the best books of the year by People, Vogue, Parade, NPR, and Elle “This is one beautiful book. I was wowed by Keane’s writing and narrative skill—and by what she knows about trouble.” —Stephen King How much can a family forgive? Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie NYPD cops, are neighbors in the suburbs. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come. In Mary Beth Keane's extraordinary novel, a lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years. Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous and generous portrait of the daily intimacies of marriage and the power of forgiveness.

Ask Again, Yes

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This book was more literary than I was expecting, but it was quite suspenseful and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I originally purchaed this book at Book People in Austin TX.

A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 "'Saint X' is hypnotic. Schaitkin's characters...are so intelligent and distinctive it feels not just easy, but necessary, to follow them. I devoured [it] in a day." –Oyinkan Braithwaite, New York Times Book Review When you lose the person who is most essential to you, who do you become? Recommended by Entertainment Weekly, included in Good Morning America's 20 Books We're Excited for in 2020 & named as one of Vogue's Best Books to Read This Winter, Bustle's Most Anticipated Books of February 2020, and O Magazine's 14 of the Best Books to Read This February! Hailed as a “marvel of a book” and “brilliant and unflinching,” Alexis Schaitkin’s stunning debut, Saint X, is a haunting portrait of grief, obsession, and the bond between two sisters never truly given the chance to know one another. Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men–employees at the resort–are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives. Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister. It is a moment that sets Claire on an obsessive pursuit of the truth–not only to find out what happened the night of Alison’s death but also to answer the elusive question: Who exactly was her sister? At seven, Claire had been barely old enough to know her: a beautiful, changeable, provocative girl of eighteen at a turbulent moment of identity formation. As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will reveal the truth, an unlikely attachment develops between them, two people whose lives were forever marked by the same tragedy. For readers of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, Saint X is a flawlessly drawn and deeply moving story that culminates in an emotionally powerful ending.

Saint X

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The book itself is in pretty good shape but the text has been highlighted. 

Note that this version does NOT include updates related to Operation Varsity Blues, as the publisher's description states.

I used to work in college admissions for a wonderful, though not particularly prestigious, school. This book was FASCINATING! I'm very glad my school did not operate this way!

How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "A fire-breathing, righteous attack on the culture of superprivilege."--Michael Wolff, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Fire and Fury, in the New York Times Book Review
 
NOW WITH NEW REPORTING ON OPERATION VARSITY BLUES

In this explosive and prescient book, based on three years of investigative report­ing, Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Golden shatters the myth of an American meri­tocracy. Naming names, along with grades and test scores, Golden lays bare a corrupt system in which middle-class and working-class whites and Asian Ameri­cans are routinely passed over in favor of wealthy white students with lesser credentials--children of alumni, big donors, and celebrities. He reveals how a family donation got Jared Kushner into Harvard, and how colleges comply with Title IX by giving scholarships to rich women in "patrician sports" like horseback riding and crew.
 
With a riveting new chapter on Operation Varsity Blues, based on original re­porting, The Price of Admission is a must-read--not only for parents and students with a personal stake in college admissions but also for those disturbed by the growing divide between ordinary and privileged Americans.

Praise for The Price of Admission
 
"A disturbing exposé of the influence that wealth and power still exert on admission to the nation's most prestigious universities."--The Washington Post

"Deserves to become a classic."--The Economist
 

The Price of Admission

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The levels of corruption on display in this book were WILD. 😬 The book is very well done.


Peril and Power in the City of Angels

For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region's most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds.

On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California's shiniest stars--Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who'd long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn't be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.

But what he couldn't have foreseen was that this tip would lead to the unveiling of not one major scandal at USC but two, wrapped in a web of crimes and cover-ups. The rot rooted out by Pringle and his colleagues at The Times would creep closer to home than they could have imagined--spilling into their own newsroom.

Packed with details never before disclosed, Pringle goes behind the scenes to reveal how he and his fellow reporters triumphed over the city's debased institutions, in a narrative that reads like L.A. noir. This is L.A. at its darkest and investigative journalism at its brightest.

Bad City

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This book has some minor water damage.

I enjoyed this book so much.  I have never felt inclined to want to climb Everest, and after reading this, I know that my instincts are correct!


A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster

The author describes his spring 1996 trek to Mt. Everest, a disastrous expedition that claimed the lives of eight climbers, and explains why he survived

Into Thin Air

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This is an interesting look at places that seem to incubate genius.  A new take on place that I had not considered before!


A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley

"An intellectual odyssey, a traveler's diary, and a comic novel all rolled into one. Smart, original, and utterly delightful." --Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor and bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness

"A charming mix of history and wisdom cloaked as a rollicking travelogue." --Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs

Travel the world with Eric Weiner, the New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss, as he journeys from Athens to Silicon Valley--and throughout history, too--to show how creative genius flourishes in specific places at specific times.

In The Geography of Genius, acclaimed travel writer Weiner sets out to examine the connection between our surroundings and our most innovative ideas. He explores the history of places, like Vienna of 1900, Renaissance Florence, ancient Athens, Song Dynasty Hangzhou, and Silicon Valley, to show how certain urban settings are conducive to ingenuity. And, with his trademark insightful humor, he walks the same paths as the geniuses who flourished in these settings to see if the spirit of what inspired figures like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Leonardo remains. In these places, Weiner asks, "What was in the air, and can we bottle it?"

This link can be traced back through history: Darwin's theory of evolution gelled while he was riding in a carriage. Freud did his best thinking at this favorite coffee house. Beethoven, like many geniuses, preferred long walks in the woods.

Sharp and provocative, The Geography of Genius redefines the argument about how genius came to be. His reevaluation of the importance of culture in nurturing creativity is an informed romp through history that will surely jumpstart a national conversation.

The Geography of Genius

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"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain"--

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Kwame Onwuachi; Joshua David Stein