Looking for something new to read? Check out our New and Noteworthy and Overdrive collections for some good reads to enjoy!
Exhausted: An A-Z for the Weary by Anna Katharina Schaffner. Burnout is said to be the defining feeling of the post-pandemic world – but why are we all so exhausted? Some of us struggle with perfectionism, while others are simply overwhelmed by the demands of modern life. But whatever you’re feeling, you are not alone – and this liberating, enlightening guide to exhaustion in all its forms will help you find the energy to beat burnout and weariness. From confronting our inner critics to how our desire to be productive stops us from being free, Anna Katherina Schaffner, cultural historian and burnout coach, brings together science, medicine, literature and philosophy to explore the causes and history of exhaustion and burnout, revealing new ways to combat stress and negativity. To learn more, you can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books or this BBC.com interview.
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. Come take a load off at Viv’s cafe, the first & only coffee shop in Thune. Grand opening!
Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen. However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve. A hot cup of fantasy, slice-of-life with a dollop of romantic froth. This book is narrated by the author, an audiobook narrator by trade. You can read reviews at Flour & Fiction and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present by Fareed Zakaria. Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, war, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk–the early decades of the twenty-first century may be the most revolutionary period in modern history. But it is not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What are these revolutions, and how can they help us to understand our fraught world? In this major work, Fareed Zakaria masterfully investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. Three such periods hold profound lessons for today. First, in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, a fascinating series of transformations made that tiny land the richest in the world–and created politics as we know it today. Next, the French Revolution, an explosive era that devoured its ideological children and left a bloody legacy that haunts us today. Finally, the mother of all revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted Great Britain and the US to global dominance and created the modern world. You can learn more with this NYT review and this Foreign Policy review.
Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford. Nothing could be more out of character, but after fifty-nine years of marriage, as her husband Bernard’s health declines, and her friends’ lives become focused on their grandchildren–which Jenny never had–Jenny decides she wants a little something for herself. So she secretly applies to be a contestant on the prime-time TV show Britain Bakes. Whisked into an unfamiliar world of cameras and timed challenges, Jenny delights in a new-found independence. But that independence, and the stress of the competition, starts to unearth memories buried decades ago. Chocolate teacakes remind her of a furtive errand involving a wedding ring; sugared doughnuts call up a stranger’s kind act; a simple cottage loaf brings back the moment her life changed forever. With her baking star rising, Jenny struggles to keep a lid on that first secret–a long-concealed deceit that threatens to shatter the very foundations of her marriage. It’s the only time in six decades that she’s kept something from Bernard. By putting herself in the limelight, has Jenny created a recipe for disaster? You can read an NYT review or watch this PBS Books Readers Club conversation with the author.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah. Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family. Narrated by Julia Whelan.