New Castle County Staff Picks - May 2023

The New Castle County Readers' Advisory Committee puts together a monthly list of eighteen book recommendations - nine fiction and nine non fiction. Enjoy finding a book you didn't even know you wanted to read!

Updated May 16, 2023
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The fortunes of jaded women : a novel
Huynh, Carolyn
Paper Book
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK A WASHINGTON POST BEST FEEL-GOOD BOOK OF THE YEAR For fans of Amy Tan, KJ Dell'Antonia, and Kevin Kwan, this "sharp, smart, and gloriously extra" (Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of The Last Story of Mina Lee)...
The night ship : a novel
Kidd, Jess
Paper Book
Based on a true story, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same...
Age of vice
Kapoor, Deepti
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK Named a Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, Oprah Daily and NPR! "Dazzling...Finally free from the book's grip, now all I want to do is get others hooked."--...
The society of shame
Roper, Jane
Paper Book
"If you liked Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, read The Society of Shame by Jane Roper." --The Washington Post In this timely and witty combination of So You've Been Publicly Shamed and Where'd You Go, Bernadette? a viral photo of a politician...
River sing me home
Shearer, Eleanor
Paper Book
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother's gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children and piece her family back together is a "celebration of motherhood and female resilience" (The Observer). ...
Knowing what we know : the transmission of knowledge, from ancient wisdom to modern magic
Winchester, Simon
Paper Book
"A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished...
Saturday night at the Lakeside Supper Club
Stradal, J. Ryan
Paper Book
"Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly." --People From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families...
The people's hospital : hope and peril in American medicine
Nuila, Ricardo
Paper Book
"Nuila's storytelling gifts place him alongside colleagues like Atul Gawande." --Los Angeles Times This "compelling mixture of health care policy and gripping stories from the frontlines of medicine" (The Guardian) explores the question: where does an uninsured...
The dirty tricks department : Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the masterminds of World War II secret warfare
Lisle, John
Paper Book
John Lisle reveals the untold story of the OSS Research and Development Branch--The Dirty Tricks Department--and its role in World War II. In the summer of 1942, Stanley Lovell, a renowned industrial chemist, received a mysterious order to report to an unfamiliar...
All the knowledge in the world : the extraordinary history of the encyclopedia
Garfield, Simon
Paper Book
From the "deliriously clever" (Boston Globe) Simon Garfield, New York Times bestselling author of Just My Type, comes the wild and fascinating story of the encyclopedia, from Ancient Greece to the present day. New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "A brilliant book...
All the living and the dead : from embalmers to executioners, an exploration of the people who have made death their life's work
Campbell, Hayley
Paper Book
A deeply compelling exploration of the death industry and the people--morticians, detectives, crime scene cleaners, embalmers, executioners--who work in it and what led them there. We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet...
Black ball : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the generation that saved the soul of the NBA
Runstedtler, Theresa
Paper Book
A vital narrative history of 1970s pro basketball, and the Black players who shaped the NBA Against a backdrop of ongoing resistance to racial desegregation and strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation's imagined descent...
Saving time : discovering a life beyond the clock
Odell, Jenny (Multimedia artist)
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The visionary author of How to Do Nothing returns to challenge the notion that 'time is money.' . . . Expect to feel changed by this radical way of seeing."--Esquire "One of the most important books I've read in my life."--Ed...

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