Sensational: The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters"

Sensational: The Hidden History of America's "Girl Stunt Reporters"
By Kim Todd
Harper, 2021. 400 pages. Nonfiction

In the waning years of the nineteenth century, women journalists across the United States risked reputation and their own safety to expose the hazardous conditions under which many Americans lived and worked. In various disguises, they stole into sewing factories to report on child labor, fainted in the streets to test public hospital treatment, posed as lobbyists to reveal corrupt politicians. Inventive writers whose in-depth narratives made headlines for weeks at a stretch, these “girl stunt reporters” changed laws, helped launch a labor movement, championed women’s rights, and redefined journalism for the modern age.

This was a fascinating look at an infrequently acknowledged chapter in American history.  This title will have particular appeal for readers interested in women's issues: many of the problems examined by stunt reporters will be easily recognizable to any woman living today.  And yet, we have much to thank them for, as they exposed harsh working conditions, blatant sexism, wage-gaps, and more in ways so impactful that laws were created to help protect workers and the general populace.  There is still  ground to cover in these areas, but these women helped get these movements off the ground.  The reader for this book is particularly well-chosen, as her voice evokes newsreels of the early 20th century.

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Trailblazer: A Pioneering Journalist's Fight to Make the Media Look More Like America 

By Dorothy Butler Gilliam

Center Street, 2019. 368 pages. Biography

The barrier-breaking civil-rights journalist presents a comprehensive view of racial relations and the media in the U.S. that draws on her personal and professional experiences to celebrate the behind-the-scenes victories that have shaped decades of struggle.

 

 

 

Mary McGrory: The First Queen of Journalism 

By John Norris

Viking, 2015. 352 pages. Biography

Before there was Maureen Dowd or Gail Collins or Molly Ivins, there was Mary McGrory. She was a trailblazing columnist who achieved national syndication and reported from the front lines of American politics for five decades. From her first assignment reporting on the Army–McCarthy hearings to her Pulitzer-winning coverage of Watergate and controversial observations of President Bush after September 11, McGrory humanized the players on the great national stage while establishing herself as a uniquely influential voice.

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Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

By Amanda Montell

Harper Wave, 2021. 309 pages. Nonfiction

What makes "cults" so intriguing and frightening? What makes them powerful? The reason why so many of us binge Manson documentaries and fall down rabbit holes researching suburban moms gone QAnon is because we're looking for a satisfying explanation for what causes people to join--and more importantly, stay in--extreme groups. We secretly want to know: could it happen to me? Amanda Montell's argument is that, on some level, it already has...

Cultish is engaging, bringing together riveting narratives, personal anecdotes, and social science. The author argues that cultish language is already in our everyday world, anything from social media influencers to religion to fitness programs. This book will make you think, and keep on thinking.

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Leadership is Language

By David Marquet

Portfolio/Penguin, 2020. 336 pages. Nonfiction

Too many leaders fall in love with the sound of their own voice, and wind up dictating plans and digging in their heels when problems begin to emerge. Even when you want to be a more collaborative leader, you can undermine your own efforts by defaulting to command-and-control language we've inherited from the industrial era. It's time to ditch the industrial age playbook of leadership. In Leadership is Language, you'll learn how choosing your words can dramatically improve decision-making and execution on your team. 

The Storm is Upon Us

By Mike Rothschild

Melville House, 2021. 301 pages. Nonfiction

A journalist who specializes in conspiracy theories draws on interviews with QAnon converts and victims, as well as psychologists, sociologists, and academics to explain the origin and growth of the movement, its embrace by right-wing media and politicians, and why it is important to understand it rather than mock it.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

By Amanda Montell

Harper Wave, 2019. 291 pages. Nonfiction

Amanda Montell, reporter and feminist linguist, deconstructs language--from insults, cursing, gossip, and catcalling to grammar and pronunciation patterns--to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women and other marginalized genders from power. Montell effortlessly moves between history, science, and popular culture to explore these questions--and how we can use the answers to affect real social change. 

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In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers

In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers: the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years after the 9/11 attacks
By Don Brown
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. 121 pages. Young Adult Graphic Nonfiction

This graphic novel chronicles the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City through moving individual stories that bear witness to history and the ways it shapes the future.

This is a beautiful, haunting, and reflective work that reminds us all about the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. This is minimal text on each page, with the illustrations carrying the brunt of the emotional weight. It was easy to become immersed in the story and reflect on my own feelings about the fallen towers, while also gaining new knowledge and perspective on today’s world. This is a quick, but highly emotional, read and reminds each of us about the strength of uniting under a common goal.

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Hope and Other Punch Lines
By Julie Buxbaum
Delacorte Press, 2019. 306 pages. Young Adult Fiction

The tragic 9/11 event in NYC that changed the world, altered the life of Abbi Hope Goldstein as well as that of Noah Stern. They did not know each other back then, but they know each other now, and while Abbi is trying to move forward with her life, Noah still has unanswered questions that he believes Abbi can help answer.

With Their Eyes: September 11th, the View from a High School at Ground Zero
Edited by Annie Thoms
Harper, 2021. 256 pages. Young Adult Nonfiction

Tuesday, September 11, started off like any other day at Stuyvesant High School, located only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. The semester was just beginning, and the students, faculty, and staff were ready to start a new year. But within a few hours on that Tuesday morning, they would share an experience that would transform their lives--and the lives of all Americans.

This powerful play, written by students of Stuyvesant High School based on their interviews with the school community, remembers those who were lost and those who were forced to witness this tragedy. Here, in their own words, are the firsthand stories of a day we will never forget. This 20th anniversary edition includes an updated introduction and a new foreword.

The Red Bandanna
By Welles Crowther and Tom Rinaldi
Viking, 2017. 167 pages. Young Adult Biography

Welles Crowther didn't see himself as a hero. He was just an ordinary kid who played sports, volunteered for the fire department in his town, and eventually headed off to college and then to Wall Street to start a career. Throughout it all, he always kept a red bandanna in his pocket, a gift from his father when he was little. On September 11, 2001, Welles was at his job on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center when the Twin Towers were attacked. What he did next would alter the course of many lives. That day, the legend of the Man in the Red Bandanna was born. ESPN reporter Tom Rinaldi brings Welles's compassion to life in this young readers' adaptation of his book.

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The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear

Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
by Kate Moore
Sourcebooks, 2021. 540 pages. Biography 

1860: As the clash between the states rolls slowly to a boil, Elizabeth Packard, housewife and mother of six, is facing her own battle. The enemy sits across the table and sleeps in the next room. Her husband of twenty-one years is plotting against her because he feels increasingly threatened—by Elizabeth's intellect, independence, and unwillingness to stifle her own thoughts. So Theophilus makes a plan to put his wife back in her place. One summer morning, he has her committed to an insane asylum. 

This is a fascinating portrait of an amazing woman. Few books illustrate the hardships women have faced throughout history and how powerless they often were to change their situations. Elizabeth’s attempts to stand up for herself were used against her as proof of her instability. Because, obviously, any woman who disagrees with her husband must be insane. What I found most inspiring about her story is that when she finally won her own battles for freedom and independence, she dedicated herself to establishing laws that would help others avoid what she suffered. An important look at an overlooked piece of history. 

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Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
by Robert Kolker
Doubleday, 2020. 377 pages. Nonfiction 

Tells the heartrending story of a mid-century American family with 12 children, 6 of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease. 

 

 

 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Crown Publishers, 2010. 369 pages. Biography 

Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization and gene mapping. 

 

 

No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America
by Ron Powers
Hachette, 2017. 360 pages. Science 

The journalist and co-author of True Compass offers a fast-paced, carefully researched narrative of the social history of mental illness, focusing specifically on schizophrenia, the taboos that compromise mental health care and the way the disease has devastated his own family. 

 

 

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Caste

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
Random House, 2020. 476 pages. Nonfiction

Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people--including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others--she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day.

Part memoir and part thesis, Caste breaks down barriers between historic and current events, bringing the weight and societal toll of segregation and class systems to the forefront of each page. The intense imagery and frank storytelling is a force of its own to make crystal-clear connections between horrors across countries, people, and time, illustrating how these structures manifest most clearly with violence and terror toward American Blacks. Isabel Wilkerson builds a masterful accounting, creating a critical shift of understanding in all the ways American society and justice work in a prescriptive fashion to create and protect the American Caste.

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The Color of Law: a Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
by Richard Rothstein
Liveright Publishing, 2017. 342 pages. Nonfiction

Richard Rothstein explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation--that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation--the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments--that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Spiegel & Grau, 2015. 152 pages. Nonfiction

African American Coates shares with his son--and reader--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder.

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Broken: (In the Best Possible Way)

Broken: (In the Best Possible Way)

By Jenny Lawson

Henry Holt & Company, 2021. 285 pgs. Biography/Memoir

The award-winning humorist and author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened shares candid reflections on such topics as her experimental treatment for depression, her escape from three bears and her business ideas for Shark Tank.

If you like Broken: (In the Best Possible Way), you might also like: 

The Hilarious World of Depression

By John Moe

St. Martin's Press, 2020. 285 pgs. Nonfiction

The host of the podcast The Hilarious World of Depression offers a moving portrait of what it means to be depressed.

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

By Allie Brosh

Simon & Schuster, 2013. 369 pgs. Biography/Memoir

In a four-color, illustrated collection of stories and essays, Allie Brosh's debut chronicles the many "learning experiences" Brosh has endured as a result of her own character flaws, and the horrible experiences that other people have had to endure because she was such a terrible child. Possibly the worst child. For example, one time she ate an entire cake just to spite her mother.

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety

By Daniel Smith

Simon & Schuster. 2012. 212 pgs. Biography/Memoir

The author of Muses, Madmen, and Prophets shares affirming, personal insights into the experiences of anxiety in today's world, evocatively describing its painful coherence and absurdities while sharing the stories of sufferers to illustrate anxiety's intellectual history and influence.

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The Path of the Witch: Rituals & Practices for Discovering Which Witch You Are

The Path of the Witch: Rituals & Practices for Discovering Which Witch You Are 

by Lidia Pradas 

Fair Winds Press, 2021. 176 pages. 

Interested in becoming a witch, but you don’t know what kind of witch you want to be? This book is a beginner’s guide to exploring the different magical paths available to modern witches. Maybe you are a green witch and like to work with herbs, or a sea witch concerned with the ebb and flow of the tides. Or maybe you are, my favorite, a kitchen witch that uses food and cooking to give meaning to and influence the world around you. For the magically curious, this simple illustrated guide is a great starting point for exploring which path best matches your lifestyle. 

If you like this book, you may also like:

Waking the Witch: Reflection on Women, Magic, and Power

by Pam Grossman 

Gallery Books, 2019. 288 pages.

An exploration of the world's fascination with witches from podcast host and practicing witch Pam Grossman (The Witch Wave), who delves deeply into why witches have intrigued us for centuries and why they're more relevant now than ever. This book was previously reviewed here.

HausMagick: Transform Your Home with Witchcraft 

by Erica Felman HarperOne, 2019. 254 pages.

This is a beautifully illustrated guide from the HausWitch store and brand founder explains how to create a beautiful, healing living space using earth magic, meditation, herbalism, self-awareness, tarot, astrology, feminist spirituality, and interior decoration.

The Rose Code

The Rose Code

by Kate Quinn

William Morrow, 2021, 624 pages. Historical Fiction

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Osla puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Mab works the legendary codebreaking machines and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Beth's shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and she becomes one of the Park's few female cryptanalysts.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, the three women are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum.

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In Farleigh Field

by Rhys Bowen

Lake Union Publishing, 2017, 378 pages. Mystery

World War II comes to Farleigh Place, the ancestral home of Lord Westerham and his five daughters, when a soldier with a failed parachute falls to his death on the estate. After his uniform and possessions raise suspicions, MI5 operative and family friend Ben Cresswell is covertly tasked with determining if the man is a German spy. The assignment also offers Ben the chance to be near Lord Westerham's middle daughter, Pamela, whom he furtively loves. But Pamela has her own secret: she has taken a job at Bletchley Park, the British code-breaking facility. As Ben follows a trail of spies and traitors, which may include another member of Pamela's family, he discovers that some within the realm have an appalling, history-altering agenda. Can he, with Pamela's help, stop them before England falls?

The Lost Girls of Paris

by Pam Jenoff

Park Row Books, 2019, 377 pages. Historical Fiction

Manhattan, 1946. While passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs--each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station. Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn into stories of friendship, valor and betrayal.

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II

by Liza Mundy

Hachette Books, 2017, 416 pages. History

Recruited by the U.S. Army and Navy from small towns and elite colleges, more than ten thousand women served as codebreakers during World War II. While their brothers and boyfriends took up arms, these women moved to Washington and learned the meticulous work of code-breaking. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. A strict vow of secrecy nearly erased their efforts from history; now, through dazzling research and interviews with surviving code girls, bestselling author Liza Mundy brings to life this riveting and vital story of American courage, service, and scientific accomplishment.

MB

Juliet Respira Profundo

Juliet Respira Profundo
Por Gabby Rivera
Vintage Español, 2020. 380 páginas. Ficción Juvenil

Juliet Milagros Palante es una adolescente lesbiana puertorriqueña, nacida en el Bronx. Aún está 'en el clóset', aunque no tanto como ella cree. Una noche antes de viajar a Portland, Oregón, donde ha logrado conseguir un trabajo de verano con su escritora feminista favorita, Juliet le confiesa la verdad a su familia. Pero como su anuncio oficial no sale de la manera que esperaba, queda convencida de que su madre no le volverá a hablar. Sin embargo, Juliet tiene un plan. Bueno, más o menos. Su trabajo con la legendaria autora Harlowe Brisbane--la autoridad suprema del feminismo, de la anatomía de las mujeres, y de temas 'gay'--seguramente le ayudará a descifrar cómo funciona esto de ser lesbiana y puertorriqueña. Pero Harlowe es blanca. Y no viene del Bronx. Y definitivamente no tiene todas las respuestas ... En un verano rebosante de fiestas queer, rematado por una aventurilla romántica con una bibliotecaria motociclista y mezclado con intensas exploraciones de raza e identidad, Juliet aprende lo que significa salir del clóset y encajar en el mundo, en su familia y dentro de sí misma.

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Rojo, Blanco y Sangre Azul

Por Casey McQuiston

RBA Libros, 2019. 493 páginas. Romántico

Alex Clarademont-Díaz, el hijo milenial de la presidenta de los Estados Unidos, es un tesoro para el marketing de la Casa Blanca: atractivo, carismático e inteligente. Lo que nadie sabe es que no soporta al príncipe Henry, el hijo de la reina de Inglaterra. Así que, cuando la prensa sensacionalista se hace con una fotografía que refleja un altercado entre Alex y Henry, las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido se enfrían. Ambos países trazan un plan para paliar los daños. Lo que empieza como una falsa amistad, publicada en Instagram, se va transformando en algo más profundo de lo que Alex y Henry podrían haber imaginado.

Caminando Hacia la Felicidad

Por Adric Ceneri

Magesoul Publishing, 2020. 334 páginas. Poesía

Este libro es una colección de poesía junto con arte gráfica para proporcionar una imagen vívida de estas palabras llenas de emoción. Un increíble libro de poesía narrativa, que comparte la historia de la experiencia y vida del autor a lo largo del tiempo en siete fases. Empieza con la oscuridad de su niñez a los deseos de la adolescencia. Luchó contra la ignorancia de su propia familia y el mundo en que nació. No era fácil ser aceptado más nunca rindió. Siguió adelante y en la poesía encontró las razones y la motivación para luchar por sus creencias. El crecer no era fácil más sin embargo quiso creer en el amor, quiso creer que el universo tenía algo mejor para él y empezó a caminar hacia la felicidad. Fracasando en sus intentos de encontrar el amor se amargó hasta que conoció a alguien que le dio la esperanza. Pensó que era un sueño, de repente se dio cuenta que era real y que el amor estaba tocando a su puerta. Un latido del corazón lo encontró y lo invitó a dejar amar otra vez.

MEB

Etiquetas: Español, Ficción, Ficción Juvenil, Romántico, Poesía, LGBTQIA, Biografía, Jóven Adulto

Our Towns

 Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey Into the Heart of America

by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows

Pantheon Books 2018: 413 pages. Nonfiction.

For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-prop airplane, visiting small cities and meeting civic leaders, factory workers, recent immigrants, and young entrepreneurs, seeking to take the pulse and discern the outlook of an America that is unreported and unobserved by the national media. Attending town meetings, breakfasts at local coffee shops, and events at local libraries, they have listened to the challenges and problems that define American lives today. Our Towns is the story of their journey--an account of their visits to twenty-one cities and towns: the individuals they met, the stories they heard, and their portrait of the many different faces of the American future

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Travels With Charley

by John Steinbeck

Penguin Books: 1986. c1962. 277 pages. Nonfiction

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

The Best Coast

by Chandler O'Leary

Sasquatch Books: 2019. 207 pages. Nonfiction

What better place for a road trip than the West Coast (the best coast, by any measure)? From San Diego, California, all the way up to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, you'll find off-the-beaten-path adventures up and down the coast. This charming illustrated guide features both the coastal route via historic Highways 101 and 1 (the PCH) and an inland route up Highway 99, showcasing the natural beauty along the shore while also connecting the traveler to major cities and other attractions. Includes side trips to destinations such as Catalina Island, Joshua Tree National Park, Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks, wine country, Crater Lake National Park, the Columbia River Gorge, Mount Rainier National Park, the San Juan Islands, and Vancouver, BC. Also includes in-depth city guides to San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle. Chock-full of unusual facts, hidden history, roadside attractions, and Americana, this offbeat road trip through California, Oregon, and Washington tells a story of the diversity and depth that created the West Coast we know and love today, showcasing both the ever-changing present and vestiges of the past for those who slow down to look. Perfect for fans of Atlas Obscura, Rebecca Solnit, and Julia Rothman.

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Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists

Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists : A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights
by Mikki Kendall
Ten Speed Press, 2019. 208 pages. Nonfiction

August 26, 2020, marked the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted some American women the right to vote. And while suffrage has been a critical win for women's liberation around the world, the struggle for women's rights has been ongoing for thousands of years, across many cultures, and encompassing an enormous variety of issues. Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists is a fun, fascinating, full-color graphic novel-style primer of that important history, tracing its roots from antiquity to show how 21st-century feminism developed. Along the way, you'll meet a wide range of important historical figures and learn about many political movements, including suffrage, abolition, labor, LGBT liberation, the waves of feminism, and more.

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Finish the Fight
by Veronica Chambers
Versify Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 132 pages. Nonfiction

Who was at the forefront of women's right to vote? We know a few famous names, like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but what about so many others from diverse backgrounds--black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, and more--who helped lead the fight for suffrage? Gorgeous portraits accompany biographies of such fierce but forgotten women as Yankton Dakota Sioux writer and advocate Zitkála-Sá, Mary Eliza Church Terrell, who cofounded the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who, at just sixteen years old, helped lead the biggest parade in history to promote the cause of suffrage.

She Represents
by Caitlin Donohue
Zest Books, 2020. 214 pages. Nonfiction

In a complicated political era when the United States feels divided, this book celebrates feminism and female contributions to politics, activism, and communities. Each of the forty-four women profiled in this illustrated book has demonstrated her capabilities and strengths in political and community leadership and activism, both in the United States and around the world. Featuring women from across the political spectrum, rounded out by beautiful color portraits, history, key political processes, terminology, and thought-provoking quotes, this book will inspire and encourage women everywhere to enact change in their own communities.

Alice Paul and the Fight for Women's Rights: From the Vote to the Equal Rights Amendment
by Deborah Kops
Calkins Creek, 2017. 220 pages. Nonfiction

After women won the vote in 1920, Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would make all the laws that discriminated against women unconstitutional. Passage of the ERA became the rallying cry of a new movement of young women in the 1960s and '70s. Paul saw another chance to advance women's rights when the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 began moving through Congress. Kops introduces readers to this relatively unknown leader of the women's movement, and the changing times in which she lived.

MW

The Inheritance Games

The Inheritance Games
By Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Little, Brown, and Company, 2020. 376 pages. Young Adult Mystery 

Avery Grambs has a plan for a better future: survive high school, win a scholarship, and get out. But her fortunes change in an instant when billionaire Tobias Hawthorne dies and leaves Avery virtually his entire fortune. The catch? Avery has no idea why -- or even who Tobias Hawthorne is. To receive her inheritance, Avery must move into sprawling, secret passage-filled Hawthorne House, where every room bears the old man's touch -- and his love of puzzles, riddles, and codes. Caught in a world of wealth and privilege, with danger around every turn, Avery will have to play the game herself just to survive. 

If you liked The Inheritance Games, you might also like: 

Truly, Devious
By Maureen Johnson
Katherine Tegen Books, 2018. 420 pages. Young Adult Mystery 

Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.”

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
By Holly Jackson
Delacorte Press, 2020. 390 pages. Young Adult Mystery 

The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it. Almost everyone. Having grown up in the small town that was consumed by the crime, Pippa Fitz-Adeleke chooses the case as the topic for her final project. But when Pip starts uncovering secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden, what starts out as a project begins to become Pip's dangerous reality... 

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Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation

Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation 

by Candace Owens 

Threshold Editions. 2020. 300 pages. Nonfiction. 

It's time for a black exit. Political activist and social media star Candace Owens explains all the reasons how the Democratic Party policies hurt, rather than help, the African American community, and why she and many others are turning right. Well-researched and intelligently argued, Blackout lays bare the myth that all black people should vote Democrat – and shows why turning to the right will leave them happier, more successful, and more self-sufficient. 

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Why We’re Polarized 

by Ezra Klein 

Avid Reader Press. 2020. 312 Pages. Nonfiction 

America's political system isn't broken: it's working exactly as designed. In this book, journalist Ezra Klein reveals how that system is polarizing us-- and how we are polarizing it-- with disastrous results. In examining the structural and psychological forces behind America's descent into division and dysfunction, he shows that everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics. Now our racial, religious, geographic, ideological, and cultural identities have attained a weight that is breaking much in our politics and tearing at the bonds that hold this country together.

Slave Stealers: True Accounts of Slave Rescues Then and Now 

by Timothy Ballard 

Shadow Mountain. 2018. 254 pages. Nonfiction

Although they have lived centuries apart, two stories come together about fighting the evils of slavery and sex trafficking. Told in alternating chapters are the stories of Harriet Jacobs, a brave African-American Woman born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813, and Timothy Ballard, a former special agent for the Department of Homeland Security and now the founder of the modern "underground railroad", an organization called Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R). Ballard tells the story of how Harriett never lost faith or courage to win her freedom and how her example has provided the blueprint he needed to start O.U.R and save the slaves in the modern world. 

ME

Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
Ballantine Books, 2021. 476 pages. Science Fiction

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission--and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him.

If you liked Project Hail Mary, then you might also like:

How to Astronaut
by Terry Virts
Workman Publishing, 2020. 310 pages. Science Nonfiction

Former NASA astronaut Terry Virts offers an insider's guide to astronauting with a behind-the-scenes look at the training, the basic rules, lessons, and procedures of space travel, including how to deal with a dead body in space, what it's like to film an IMAX movie in orbit, what exactly to do when nature calls, and much more.

Goldilocks
by Laura Lam
Orbit, 2020. 340 pages. Science Fiction

A gripping science fiction thriller where five women task themselves with ensuring the survival of the human race. Despite increasing restrictions on the freedoms of women on Earth, Valerie Black is spearheading the first all-female mission to a planet in the Goldilocks Zone, where conditions are just right for human habitation.

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Any Way The Wind Blows

Any Way the Wind Blows (Simon Snow #3)

by Rainbow Rowell

Wednesday Books, 2021. 579 pages. Fiction.

 New York Times bestselling author Rainbow Rowell's epic fantasy, the Simon Snow trilogy, concludes with Any Way the Wind Blows. In Carry On, Simon Snow and his friends realized that everything they thought they understood about the world might be wrong. And in Wayward Son, they wondered whether everything they understood about themselves might be wrong. 

In Any Way the Wind Blows, Simon and Baz and Penelope and Agatha have to decide how to move forward. For Simon, that means deciding whether he still wants to be part of the World of Mages — and if he doesn't, what does that mean for his relationship with Baz? Meanwhile Baz is bouncing between two family crises and not finding any time to talk to anyone about his newfound vampire knowledge. Penelope would love to help, but she's smuggled an American Normal into London, and now she isn't sure what to do with him. And Agatha? Well, Agatha Wellbelove has had enough. 

Any Way the Wind Blows takes the gang back to England, back to Watford, and back to their families for their longest and most emotionally wrenching adventure yet. This book is a finale. It tells secrets and answers questions and lays ghosts to rest. Carry On was conceived as a book about Chosen One stories; Any Way the Wind Blows is an ending about endings. About catharsis and closure, and how we choose to move on from the traumas and triumphs that try to define us. Make sure to have a box of tissues near. 

If you liked Any Way the Wind Blows, you might also like:

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings #1)

by Mackenzie Lee

Katherine Tegen Books, 2017. 513 pages. Fiction.

Henry "Monty" Montague was bred to be a gentleman. His passions for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men, have earned the disapproval of his father. His quest for pleasures and vices have led to one last hedonistic hurrah as Monty, his best friend and crush Percy, and Monty's sister Felicity begin a Grand Tour of Europe. When a reckless decision turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt, it calls into question everything Monty knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

Heartstopper Vol. 1

by Alice Oseman

Graphix, 2020. 263 pages. Graphic Novels.

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. Shy and softhearted Charlie Spring sits next to rugby player Nick Nelson in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn't think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer and take on the ups and downs of high school, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works.

AG