Books
Historic Mechanics' Institute looks like a library, feels like a library with so much to offer with its fine collection and provoking programming. This gem is not to be missed. - Peter Wiley, Chairman Emeritus, John Wiley and Sons
Mechanics' Institute Library has over 100,000 circulating materials in its collection and continues to grow. We serve the general reader with a wide, diverse, and eclectic collection covering a vast array of subjects and interests.
See a selection of our collection below and visit our Catalog to explore even more.
Staff Picks
Books, music, and movie recommendations from Mechanics' staff
Catch and kill : lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators
By Farrow, Ronan, 1987- author.
Elizabeth's pick
Add a zero : the step-by-step guide to financial freedom and getting to your first million
By Han, Rose.
Bobbie's pick
Rethinking rescue : Dog Lady and the story of America's forgotten people and pets
By Mithers, Carol Lynn, author.
Bobbie's pick
New Fiction
See more new fiction in our catalog
The Astral Library : a novel
By Quinn, Kate, author.
"Alexandria 'Alix' Watson has learned one lesson from her barren childhood in the foster-care system: unlike people, books will never let you down. Working three dead-end jobs to make ends meet and knowing college is a pipe dream, Alix takes nightly refuge in the high-vaulted reading room at the Boston Public Library, escaping into her favorite fantasy novels and dreaming of far-off lands. Until the day she stumbles through a hidden door and meets the Librarian: the ageless, acerbic guardian of a hidden library where the desperate and the lost escape to new lives--inside their favorite books. The Librarian takes a dazzled Alix under her wing, but before she can escape into the pages of her new life, a shadowy enemy emerges to threaten everyone the Astral Library has ever helped protect." -Dust jacket
Tokyo Express : a novel
By Matsumoto, Seichō, 1909-1992, author.
"In a rocky cove at Hakata Bay, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Standing on the cold beach, the police see nothing to investigate: The flush of the couple's cheeks and the empty juice bottle speak clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, senior detective Torigai Jutaro and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime." --
The school of night
By Knausgård, Karl Ove, 1968- author.
"London. 1985. A city rife with possibility and desire. One young man who wants it all. In a thrilling twist on Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Karl Ove Knausgaard masterfully spins a cautionary tale about the lengths that we will go to achieve success-and how far we are willing to fall"-- Provided by publisher.
Kin : a novel
By Jones, Tayari, author.
"An unforgettable novel about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy"-- Provided by publisher.
Vigil : a novel
By Saunders, George, 1958- author.
"Not for the first time, Jill 'Doll' Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion. She has performed this sacred duty 343 times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this one, she soon discovers, isn't like the others. The powerful K.J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold, epic life, and the world is better for it. Isn't it?"--
Assassin's apprentice
By Hobb, Robin, author.
"The kingdom of the Six Duchies is on the brink of civil war when news breaks that the crown prince has fathered a bastard son and is shamed into abdication. The child's name is Fitz, and he is despised. Raised in the castle stables, only the company of the king's fool, the ragged children of the lower city and his unusual affinity with animals provide Fitz with any comfort. To be useful to the crown, Fitz is trained as an assassin; and to use the traditional magic of the Farseer family. But his tutor, allied to another political faction, is determined to discredit, even kill him. Fitz must survive: for he may be destined to save the kingdom."--Back cover.
This is not about us : fiction
By Goodman, Allegra, author.
"Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubenstein family, it could go either way. When their beloved older sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into decades of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives-divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs and ballet recitals-their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible. With This is Not About Us, master storyteller Allegra Goodman--whose prior collection was heralded as "one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life" (The Boston Globe)--returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, This is Not About Us is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters. A big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations"--
Heated rivalry
By Reid, Rachel, author.
"Nothing interferes with pro hockey star Shane Hollander's game. Now that he's captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, he won't let anything jeopardize that--definitely not the sexy rival he loves to hate. Boston Bears captain Ilya Rozanov is everything Shane's not. The self-proclaimed king of the ice, he's as cocky as he is talented. No one can beat him--except Shane. Publicly, they're enemies. Privately, they can't stop touching each other. The smart thing to do? Walk away, once a few secret hookups turn into a struggle to keep their relationship out of the press. The truth could ruin them both. But for Shane and Ilya, secrecy is soon no longer an option..." --
Departure(s) : a novel
By Barnes, Julian, author.
"Shortly after our narrator, a writer named Julian, begins this compact book by discussing the workings of involuntary memory, he interrupts himself with a bulletin to the reader: "There will be a story--or a story within the story--but not just yet." Of course, whether Departure(s) is mostly fiction or not, there is a lot of its author in it, including Barnes's reckoning with the blood disorder he has been living with since he was diagnosed in 2020, his long preoccupation with dying and grief, and his mordant sense of the indignities and lost opportunities we're prey to in love. The story he promises to deliver is a love story, that of two friends he met at university in the 1960s, that time of touted but rarely experienced sexual freedom. Julian played matchmaker to Stephen (tall, gangling, uncertain) and Jean (tart and attractive); as the third wheel he was deeply invested in the success of their love and insulted when they broke up. Time is swift, and forty years later, he tries again, watching as their rekindled affair produces joys, betrayals, and disappointments of a different order. "Life and memory can be so . . . quixotic, don't you find?" Barnes uses both his novelistic memory and his (real?) personal diary entries to examine not just the quixotic relationship of Jean and Stephen but his writer's eye upon it, and how his efforts in their behalf add up in the end. Having promised them he'd never write about them, he breaks the promise to fulfill one, amply, to his readers, in this delightful and poignant novelist's game that only Julian Barnes knows how to play"--
Immaculate conception : a novel
By Huang, Ling Ling, 1989- author.
"From the author of Natural Beauty: Set in the fiercely competitive art world, a novel about an obsessive friendship upended by a cutting-edge technology purported to enhance empathy and connection Enka meets Mathilde in art school. Mathilde is a dizzyingly talented yet tortured artist whose star is on the rise-and Enka, struggling to make art that feels original, is immediately drawn to her. The two strike up a close friendship that soon turns codependent. But when Mathilde's fame reaches new heights, Enka becomes desperate to keep her best friend close-no matter the cost. Enka quickly falls in love with and marries a billionaire whose family's company is funding a cutting-edge technology purported to enhance empathy, and which could allow someone else to inhabit Mathilde's mind and absorb the trauma from her brain. Soon, the boundaries between Mathilde and Enka begin to blur even further, setting in motion a haunting series of events that forever change their lives. Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, IMMACULATE CONCEPTION deftly navigates big questions of art, technology, authorship, and what makes us human. Ling Ling Huang offers us a portrait of close friendship-achingly tender and twisted-that captures the tenuous line between love and possession, and that will haunt you long after you turn the final page"--
The rest of our lives : a novel
By Markovits, Benjamin, author.
"When Tom Layward's wife had an affair twelve years ago, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest child left the nest. Now, while driving his college-bound daughter to Pittsburgh, he remembers his promise to himself. He is also on the run from his own health issues and a forced leave from work. So, rather than returning to his wife in Westchester, Tom keeps driving west with the vague plan of visiting people from his past--an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son--en route, maybe, to California. He's moving toward a future he hasn't even envisioned yet while he considers his past and the choices he's made that have brought him to this particular present. Pitch-perfect, tender, and keenly observed, The Rest of Our Lives is a story about what to do when the rest of your life is only just the beginning of your story."--
Lost lambs : a novel
By Cash, Madeline, author.
"Lost Lambs follows a suburban family of five unspooling at the seams, navigating a disastrous open marriage, teenage rebellion, and an unexpected human trafficking/body-hacking crime conspiracy"-- Provided by publisher.
Call me Ishmaelle
By Guo, Xiaolu, 1973- author.
"1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Nearly twenty years later, as the American Civil War breaks out, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors amidst the bloody male violence of whaling and discovers a mysterious bond between herself and the white whale who claimed Seneca's leg. Built on the bones of Melville's classic, Call Me Ishmaelle is a dynamic new tale, imbued with a diverse, swashbuckling crew--from a Polynesian harpooner to a Taoist Monk-and a powerful exploration of human nature, gender, and the nature of home"-- Provided by publisher.
Murder in Constantinople
By Goldin, A. E., author.
A gripping, immersive historical murder mystery in which a wayward boy from London's East End is pulled into the hunt for a serial killer on the eve of the Crimean War London, 1854. Twenty-one-year-old Ben Canaan attracts
The viper
By Meltzer, Brad author aut http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n96091726
New Non-fiction
A world appears : a journey into consciousness
By Pollan, Michael author
"When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: that it feels like something to be us. Yet the fact we have subjective experience of the world remains one of nature's greatest mysteries. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts, and a sense of self? What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, considering we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of the sea? In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives-scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic-to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life. When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy grey matter could generate a subjective point of view-assuming that the brain is the source of our felt reality. Pollan takes us to the cutting edge of the field, where scientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness. He introduces us to "plant neurobiologists" searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants; scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of our slippery stream of consciousness. In Pollan's dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than our everyday reality. Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own minds, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with our deepest selves"-- Provided by publisher.
Heartland masala : an Indian cookbook from an American kitchen
By Mukharji, Jyoti, author.
"Spicy flavors zing through Heartland Masala, a delightful cookbook by mother-son team Jyoti and Auyon Mukharji. Recreating traditional Indian dishes in American kitchens, the book combines culinary history and commentary with a wealth of regional recipes. Spices are central to its work, which includes ample advice on tempering them inhot oil or ghee and on how to make spice mixtures. A descriptive addendum on the usage and storage of numerous spices, from amchoor to turmeric, is also included."--Provided by publisher.
Language as liberation : reflections on the American canon
By Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019, author.
"Toni Morrison's lectures on the American canon, illuminating the relationship between race, the arts, and life beyond the page. From Herman Melville's Moby Dick to Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin to the works of Faulkner and Hemmingway, Morrison interrogates major works of American literature as only she can. With an introduction from Morrison's colleague, Claudia Brodsky, Language as Liberation is a revelatory book that once again displays Morrison's intellectual and literary greatness"-- Provided by publisher.
The mattering instinct : how our deepest longing drives us and divides us
By Goldstein, Rebecca, 1950- author.
"Offering a new framework for understanding what can go tragically wrong in our lives and in society and how progress in each can be enhanced, best-selling author and MacArthur Fellow Rebecca Newberger Goldstein returns with a book about the primal, biological drive in every living thing that, in our species alone, is transformed into one of the most persistent forces in human motivation and a force essential to human flourishing: the longing to matter. Mattering, Goldstein posits, is lodged deep in the core of humanity - it is our most profound longing, and our most opaque. It is the source of endless frustration, division, and tribalism (if this matters, how can this matter too; if we matter, how can you matter too?). And yet, this desire to matter can also save us. In a world where many of us are experiencing what Goldstein calls a crisis of mattering, perhaps we are finally poised to accept that this insatiable longing that drives humans to such different ends may also be the key to truly understanding each other. Goldstein first described "the mattering map"-a central idea in this book-in her 1983 novel, The Mind-Body Problem, and she has written many articles and given many talks on the subject for years. No surprise, then, that talk of 'mattering' has started to crop up in the mainstream conversation, especially in positive psychology and business circles. But Goldstein's decades-long obsession with the idea means that no one else can write the book Goldstein is writing: The Mattering Instinct is a major intellectual contribution, decades in the making, unfolded for a wide audience by a superb writer and storyteller"--
Fear and fury : the Reagan eighties, the Bernie Goetz shootings, and the rebirth of white rage
By Thompson, Heather Ann, 1963- author.
On December 22, 1984, in a graffiti-covered New York City subway car, passengers looked on in horror as a white loner named Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teens, Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur, at point-blank range. He then disappeared into a dark tunnel. After an intense manhunt, and his eventual surrender in New Hampshire, the man the tabloid media had dubbed the "Death Wish Vigilante" would become a celebrity and a hero to countless ordinary Americans who had been frustrated with the economic fallout of the Reagan 80s. Overnight, Goetz's young victims would become villains. Out of this dramatic moment would emerge an angry nation, in which Rupert Murdoch's New York Post and later Fox News Network stoked the fear and the fury of a stunning number of Americans. Drawing from never-before-seen archival materials, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson narrates the Bernie Goetz Subway shootings and their decades-long reverberations, while deftly recovering the lives of the boys whom too many decided didn't matter. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and a searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.
Artificial intelligence : a guide for thinking humans ; with a new preface
By Mitchell, Melanie (Computer scientist), author.
Named One of the Five Best Books on AI by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. No technological development in recent history has generated as much excitement and terror--both utopian visions and apocalyptic nightmares--as artificial intelligence. Since generative AI and large language models exploded into our everyday lives in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, AI has been the topic on everyone's mind. And the award-winning author and leading computer scientist Melanie Mitchell's acclaimed Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans has been a touchstone for the debates. With a new preface situating the book in the context of AI's rapid progress, Artificial Intelligence offers an essential account of AI's turbulent history and an accessible explanation of the different kinds of AI: how they work, how they fail, and how they compare to human intelligence and understanding. Along the way, Mitchell introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. Raising big questions about the nature of intelligence itself, she consults with fellow experts and explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted and captivating accounts of the most interesting and provocative work in the field. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today's AI and its impact on the future for us all.
How to write one song
By Tweedy, Jeff, 1967- author.
There are few creative acts more mysterious and magical than writing a song. Tweedy believes that the difference between one song and many songs isn't a cute semantic trick-- it's an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. The idea of becoming a songwriter can seem daunting, but approached as a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit. Here he brings readers into the intimate process of writing one song: lyrics, music, and putting it all together. Doing so allows you to access the deep sense of wonder that remains at the heart of this fulfilling, artistic act. -- adapted from jacket
Two women living together
By Kim, Hana, 1976- author.
"When most of their peers were moving in with romantic partners and having children, Kim Hana and Hwang Sunwoo chose independence--savoring solitude, quiet mornings, and the unmitigated freedom of living alone. But in their forties, something shifted, and they were met with a new, unexpected loneliness. Refusing to settle for the outdated choice between marriage or isolation, Hana and Sunwoo made a radical decision: to buy a home and live together--not as lovers, not as roommates, but as chosen family. Now a bustling household of two women and four cats, Hana and Sunwoo still value solitude, but can do so while sharing a life and its meaning with someone else. Together they navigate the challenges and comforts of cohabiting in midlife, the growing pains of interdependence and the unexpected rewards of compromise when you've grown set in your ways. From sick days to career wins to aging parents and beach-side retirement plans, they are redefining domestic bliss on their own terms, where love, partnership, and home are defined not by tradition, but by choice"--
Young man in a hurry : a memoir of discovery
By Newsom, Gavin, 1967- author.
From California Governor Gavin Newsom, an intimate and reflective memoir laying bare the defining moments of his liminal childhood splintered by his parents' divorce that shaped Newsom's visionary and relentless commitment to the state and nation.
One Aladdin two lamps
By Winterson, Jeanette, 1959- author.
""One of the most daring and inventive writers of our time" (Elle) weaves together memoir, manifesto, and a feminist reimagining of One Thousand and One Nights in this impassioned exploration of the power of reading. I can change the story because I am the story. A woman is filibustering for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of Shahrazad in One Thousand and One Nights to reveal new questions and answers we are still think
Hated by all the right people : Tucker Carlson and the unraveling of the conservative mind
By Zengerle, Jason, author.
Injustice : how politics and fear vanquished America's Justice Department
By Leonnig, Carol, author.
Enshittification : why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it
By Doctorow, Cory, author.
Economica : a global history of women, wealth, and power
By Bateman, Victoria N. (Victoria Naomi), 1979- author.
Unmasking AI : my mission to protect what is human in a world of machines
By Buolamwini, Joy, author.
Enshittification : why everything suddenly got worse and what to do about it
By Doctorow, Cory, author.