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If you are looking for the next big spring reads to share with your patrons, below you will find a few of our favorites.

Remember LibraryReads nominations for April titles are due by March 1st.

Shipstead’s Astonish Me Will Astonish Readers

Astonish MeAstonish Me: A Novel
By Maggie Shipstead

From the author of the widely acclaimed debut novel Seating Arrangements, winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction: a gorgeously written, fiercely compelling glimpse into the demanding world of professional ballet.

Astonish Me is the irresistible story of Joan, a young American dancer who helps a Soviet ballet star, the great Arslan Rusakov, defect in 1975. A flash of fame and a passionate love affair follow.
After her relationship with Arslan sours, Joan quits ballet, marries, and settles in California. But as the years pass, Joan comes to understand that ballet isn’t finished with her yet, for there is no mistaking that her son Harry is a prodigy. Through Harry, Joan is pulled back into a world she thought she’d left behind-back into dangerous secrets, and back, inevitably, to Arslan.

“Readers who reveled in Shipstead’s sardonic comedy-of-manners debut will rejoice in the emotionally nuanced tale of barre-crossed lovers and the majestic, mysterious world of professional dance. A supple, daring, and vivid portrait of desire and betrayal.”
Booklist (starred review)

Click to Request an eGalley.

More April Reads …

Under MagnoliaUnder Magnolia: A Southern Memoir
By Frances Mayes

The author of three beloved books about her life in Italy, including Under the Tuscan Sun and Every Day in Tuscany, Frances Mayes now delivers a lyrical and evocative memoir about coming of age in the Deep South. Revisiting the turning points that defined her early years in Fitzgerald, Georgia, Mayes—with her signature style and grace—explores the power of landscape, the idea of home, and the lasting force of a chaotic and loving family.

“Mayes describes the birth of her extraordinary sensibility, the deep-pooled clarity of her writing, her giddy love of nature, and her sharp and satirical eye for those who brought her up to honorable womanhood in the tortured South of her girlhood. Her prose style is seamless to me and she writes in a royal style.”
—Pat Conroy, author of The Death of Santini

Click to Request an eGalley.

The Word ExchangeThe Word Exchange: A Novel
By Alena Graedon

In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.

“Imaginative, layered, and highly original … [an] engagingly creepy story of technology gone wrong and a clever meditation on the enduring mysteries of language and love.”
Karen Thompson Walker, author of The Age of Miracles

Click to Request an eGalley.

Sous ChefSous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line
By Michael Gibney

For fans of Heat and Kitchen Confidential comes an intense and unflinching look at a twenty-four-hour cycle in the life of a sous chef.
Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider’s perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers.
“Sumptuously entertaining fare…[Gibney] breathes life into the mix of outsized personalities inhabiting the confined, hot, noisy space of the kitchen.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
For fans of Heat and Kitchen Confidential comes an intense and unflinching look at a twenty-four-hour cycle in the life of a sous chef.
Told in second-person narrative, Sous Chef is an immersive, adrenaline-fueled run that offers a fly-on-the-wall perspective on the food service industry, allowing readers to briefly inhabit the hidden world behind the kitchen doors, in real time. This exhilarating account provides regular diners and food enthusiasts alike a detailed insider’s perspective, while offering fledgling professional cooks an honest picture of what the future holds, ultimately giving voice to the hard work and dedication around which chefs have built their careers.
“Sumptuously entertaining fare…[Gibney] breathes life into the mix of outsized personalities inhabiting the confined, hot, noisy space of the kitchen.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Thunderstruck & Other StoriesThunderstruck & Other Stories
By Elizabeth McCracken

A brilliant new collection of short fiction from the National Book Award finalist and beloved author of The Giant’s House.

At the center of these extraordinary stories is often a jagged space left by loss: a neighborhood is haunted by a child’s ghost, a library staff grapples with the mystery of a patron’s death, a corner store manager obsesses over a missing woman, a son absconds forever with his parents’ savings. But equally present are passion, charm, humor and joy: McCracken’s inimitable prose captures all that is exquisite, strange and heartbreaking about our world in a way that has won her rare acclaim.

“McCracken paints [her characters] with such rich detail that it feels as if we must know them, after all-so immersed in their lives do we become in just a few pages.”
Booklist

Click to Request an eGalley.

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April Staff Favorites

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