Staff Picks

We like to read, and we like to share what we read! This is a list of recent favorites. STAFF PICKS

The Magic of the Season When Sal Lizard's hair and beard turned white while he was still in his 20s, he decided to embrace the look. Being Santa Claus is Lizard's funny and touching account of his 20 years of playing Santa in malls and homes and hospitals. The book includes heart-warming stories of Christmas cheer as Lizard shares how being Santa Claus taught him what the holiday is really all about.

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The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of Poetry Magazine By Share, Don Editor Wiman, Christian 2012-09 - University of Chicago Press 9780226750705 Check Our Catalog …More

The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood By Montgomery, David R. 2012-08 - W. W. Norton & Company 9780393082395 Check Our Catalog How the mystery of the Bible's greatest story shaped geology: a MacArthur Fellow presents a surprising perspective on Noah's Flood. …More

Ordinary Magic By Rubino-Bradway, Caitlen 2012-05 - Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books 9781599907253 Check Our Catalog In a world where everyone possesses magical abilities, powerless 12-year-old Abby, an Ordinary, is sent to a special school to learn how to negotiate a magical world with her unmagical "disability"--and to avoid becoming a victim of kidnappers, carnivores, and goblins ready to prey upon the Ords. …More

To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement By Hunter-Gault, Charlayne 2012-01 - Flash Point 9781596436053 Check Our Catalog …More

Ant Farm: And Other Desperate Situations By Rich, Simon 2007-04 - Random House Trade 9781400065882 Check Our Catalog From the former president of "The Harvard Lampoon" comes this collection of brief, imaginative forays into the comic extremes of serious circumstances that explore the hilarious desperation that resides in ordinary life. …More

Free-Range Chickens By Rich, Simon 2009-05 - Random House Trade 9780812977110 Check Our Catalog After a riotous debut collection, Ant Farm, Simon Rich returns to mine more comedy from our hopelessly terrifying world. In the nostalgic opening chapter, Rich recalls his fear of the Tooth Fairy ("Is there a face fairy?") and his initial reaction to the "Got-your-nose" game ("Please just kill me. Better to die than to live the rest of my life as a monster"). He gets inside the heads of two firehouse Dalmatians who can't understand their masters' compulsion to drive off to horrible fires every day" "("What the hell is wrong with these people?"). And in the final chapter, he tackles one of life's biggest questions: Does God really have a plan for us? Yes, " "it turns out. Now if only He could remember what it was. . . . …More

Elliot Allagash By Rich, Simon 2011-06 - Random House Trade 9780812980394 Check Our Catalog Painfully shy and physically inept, Seymour Herson is the lowest student on the social totem pole at Glendale, a private school in Manhattan. But Seymour's solitary existence comes to a swift end when he meets the new transfer student, Elliot Allagash, evil heir to America's largest fortune. Bitter and bored with Glendale's pedestrian surroundings, Elliot decides to take up a challenging and expensive hobby: transforming Seymour into the most popular boy in the school. With Elliot as his diabolical strategist, investor, and unlikely best friend, Seymour scores a spot on the basketball team, becomes class president, and ruthlessly destroys his enemies. Yet despite the glow of newfound popularity, Seymour feels increasingly uneasy with Elliot's wily designs. For an Allagash victory is dishonorable at its best, and positively ruinous at its worst. …More

What in God's Name By Rich, Simon 2012-08 - Reagan Arthur Books 9780316133739 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Welcome to Heaven, Inc., where the founder and CEO has been phoning it in. When God decides to retire, he announces that he'll destroy Earth--unless two hardworking angels can answer one prayer before the scheduled Armageddon. …More

Son By Lowry, Lois 2012-10 - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) 9780547887203 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Told in three separate story lines, Lowry's "Son" combines elements from the first three novels in her Giver Quartet -- "The Giver" (1994 Newbery Medal winner), "Gathering Blue," and "Messenger" -- into a breathtaking, thought-provoking narrative that wrestles with ideas of human freedom. …More

The Marseille Caper By Mayle, Peter 2012-11 - Knopf Publishing Group 9780307594198 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Lovable rogue and sleuth extraordinaire Sam Levitt is back in another beguiling, as-only-Peter-Mayle-can-write-it romp through the South of France. …More

A Game of Thrones By Martin, George R. R. 1997-08 - Spectra Books 9780553573404 Check Our Catalog "A Game of Thrones is a contemporary masterpiece of fantasy. The cold is returning to Winterfell, where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime. A time of conflict has arisen in the Stark family, as they are pulled from the safety of their home into a whirlpool of tragedy, betrayal, assassination, plots and counterplots. Each decision and action carries with it the potential for conflict as several prominent families, comprised of lords, ladies, soldiers, sorcerers, assassins and bastards, are pulled together in the most deadly game of all--the game of thrones. …More