Books
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.
New Non-fiction
See more new non-fiction in our catalog
Blockers: rebels in the deep state
By Lewis, Michael (Michael M.), author
An inside look at the early days of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the public servants it targeted and one of America's best storytellers.
An unexpected life : a memoir
By Steinem, Gloria, author.
Before she became a feminist leader, Gloria Steinem was a curious child: going on road trips with her itinerant father, caring for her mother, and devouring every book she could find. In An Unexpected Life, Steinem reflects on the unlikely experiences and pivotal moments--from a childhood rat bite that opened her eyes to the dangers of poverty to the 1970 Women's March honoring the right to vote--that shaped the visionary woman she would become. She shares her years living in India, learning from the nonviolent movement there, and her travels around the world advocating for women's rights. Along the way, she honors the people who influenced her most, including trailblazers, writers, and thinkers who expanded her understanding of power, community, justice, and solidarity. Moving between past and present, Steinem examines the progress and setbacks of six decades of activism. As she reflects on the movements she helped build and the victories won for women's and human rights, she also looks ahead, urging new generations to imagine bolder, more inclusive paths forward. Intimate, funny, and rich with hard-earned wisdom, An Unexpected Life offers inspiration as we continue the work of building a better future for all.
The vanishing family : love, fate, and the quest to end dementia
By Kolker, Robert, author.
None of us knows how our story will end, or what shape we will be in by the time the end comes. Here, however, is the story of a family filled with people who do know - or could know. Each family member has a 50-50 chance of inheriting a genetic mutation that causes frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a cruel disease that emerges in middle age. As more and more family members begin to show symptoms, The Vanishing Family offers an intimate exploration of the family's emotional journeys and relationships, and the difficult decisions they face as they confront their genetic fate. Through first-rate reporting and compassionate storytelling, Kolker brings to life the experiences of those in the family who are afflicted by FTD and those who are not. Interwoven with this devastating narrative is the relentless search for a cure--and a glimmer of hope that FTD research could also help us understand more common forms of dementia like Alzheimer's. The decision of whether to get tested for the genetic mutation looms over all members of the family, surfacing a haunting question: if you were going to lose yourself--in a year, or two, or ten--would you even want to know? The Vanishing Family is a powerful allegory for our anxieties about aging and the unknown, offering a roadmap through the unthinkable.
End times fascism : and the fight for the living world
By Klein, Naomi, 1970- author.
"As the planet burns and shared reality melts, a new iteration of the far right is on the march. How can we understand this dangerous development, and what resources can we draw on to resist it? In their scathing assessment of the contemporary scene, the celebrated activists and authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor explore how the religious fundamentalists, Silicon Valley technologists, and ethno-nationalists who make up this apocalyptic alliance share more than one might think: they are united in their belief that some kind of cleansing cataclysm is coming, whether through the manifestation of messianic prophecy, the rampages of a resource-and job-consuming artificial intelligence, or the purported existential threat of immigration and cultural replacement. Rather than avoiding this conflagration, they welcome it, convinced they will be among the saved on the other side. 'End times fascism' is the ideology of the actors who strive to make the world unlivable and then seek to protect themselves from the fallout. The new survivalists have accumulated power, but they are far from impregnable. As Klein and Taylor show in End Times Fascism via original reporting and analysis, the many internal conflicts and contradictions and the nihilistic inability to envision a shared future, even for ostensible allies, leave these survivalists vulnerable to a new kind of 'pro-life' politics rooted in reverence for our shared existence and regard for the earth we inhabit and must protect"--
Yokohama kaidashi kikou. 1
By Ashinano, Hitoshi, author, artist.
"In a future Japan, long after an environmental catastrophe, Alpha the android runs a small café in a seaside town. As she wonders if her absent owner will ever return, she stands witness to the twilight of humanity with coffee, a slice of watermelon, and the sound of her moon guitar. Alpha and her fellow residents enjoy the melancholy beauty of life, even as the end approaches"--
Plot twist : life, craft, and the messy first draft
By Coben, Harlan, 1962- author.
"#1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben offers a look behind the curtain at his own writing process in an inspiring, candid memoir filled with indispensable insights and techniques. With 100 million books in print world-wide and over twenty blockbuster television and film adaptations of his work, Harlan Coben has much to teach us about the creative process. Part deeply personal memoir, part masterclass in storytelling, Plot Twist is a refreshingly honest look at the life of a writer whose stories have thrilled us for decades. Plumbing memories from his suburban childhood and his early years trying to break into publishing, Coben tells his own story for the first time, revealing the real-world inspirations for some of his most beloved characters as well as the innovative plots that drive his propulsive novels. Filled with useful tips and techniques on the creative process, Coben does away with the traditional "categories" of writing -- characters, plot, setting, etc. -- and looks at the process holistically. Plot Twist is a masterclass on the act of being a writer, and everything that comes with it: the self doubt, the hubris, the contradictions, the passion and dedication. At the end of the day, his calculus is a simple one: "If it helps me produce pages, good. If it doesn't, bad." This book will help every aspiring writer produce pages. Honest, funny, insightful, and at times deeply moving, this is both a captivating memoir and an essential guide for anyone looking to master the art of storytelling from one of our most beloved authors." --
A fleet history of the San Francisco Muncipal Railway
By Bignardi, Paul, author.
"A fleet history of the San Francisco Muncipal Railway lists every transit vehicle that has been used in regular Muni service since the agency began operations in 1912. The format includes a listing of key data for each vehicle, such as size, passenger capacity, manufacturer, cost, years of service, a short summary of the service history of the vehicle, and a photo (if available). All four modes are covered: rail (streetcar and LRV), bus, trolley bus, and cable car"--Page 4 of cover
Ausländer : one family's story of escape and exile
By Moritz, Michael, author.
"A memoir of painful recollection and an insightful examination of contemporary America. In this poignant and unflinching memoir, Michael Moritz, one of his generation's best-known venture investors, puts himself and the history of his family under the microscope. Exploring their journey through documents inherited on the death of his mother takes him into a past of tragedy, inherited grief and the long shadows cast on Jewish life by World War II. By setting this journey against the convulsive context of Trump's America, its hatred, intolerance and ignorance, he creates a memoir that feels immediately relevant. That, as the narrator asserts, if it can happen somewhere, it can happen here. At turns both poetic and interrogative, Aus̃lnder is a memoir of painful recollection and an insightful examination of contemporary America"--Publisher's description.
The poems of Seamus Heaney
By Heaney, Seamus, 1939-2013, author.
"Seamus Heaney's voice is like no other--'by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding, curt and expansive' (Helen Vendler, 'The New Yorker'). Published in a single volume for the first time, his collected poems are a testament to that unforgettable voice, and to the breadth and beauty of the Nobel laureate's long and brilliant career. This much-anticipated, definitive edition of Heaney's poetry encompasses all the pieces published in his lifetime--twelve standalone volumes, from 'Death of a naturalist' (1966) to 'Human chain' (2010), as well as verse that appeared in pamphlets, journals, and magazines--along with the small number of poems that appeared after his death. Heaney's is a body of work of universal interest that resounds with the 'lyrical beauty and ethical depth' cited by the Nobel Committee; these poems 'exalt everyday miracles and the living past.' Critical introductions to each collection and notes that illuminate the history and development of the poems make this the essential volume for admirers of Heaney's work."--
Hyperpolitics : extreme politicization without political consequences
By Jäger, Anton, 1994- author.
"What happens when politics is everywhere, yet nothing seems to change? From the abandoned dance floors of Thatcher's London to the mass mobilizations of Black Lives Matter, Anton Jäger traces how pubƯlic life has become infused with protest, spectacle, and moral urgency--while the old infrastructure of parties, unions, and civic solidarity has been hollowed out. Hyperpolitics revisits the illusions of the "end of history" and dissects the strange energies that replaced them: viral outrage, endless culture wars, and the digital rush of causes that flare and vanish overnight. Jäger shows how the promises of post-Cold War liberalism gave way to a restless, unsteady public sphere where private pasƯsions overflow into politics but rarely build enduring power. Ranging from Guy Debord and Wolfgang Tillmans to Houellebecq's disenchanted fictions, Hyperpolitics makes sense of a world in which collective action remains fragmented and the social fabric thinner than ever. For anyone trying to grasp why our age feels so charged yet so inconƯsequential, this book offers a vital map through the new contradictions of our hyperpolitical moment"--Amazon.com.
Love machines : how artificial intelligence is transforming our relationships
By Muldoon, James, 1985- author
A captivating and uncanny journey to the frontier of human-computer interaction, exploring what happens to our relationships with each other as artificial intelligence enters our personal lives. Friends.
Days of miracle and wonder : Paul Simon and the trials and triumphs of Graceland
By Kahn, Ashley, author.
Data empire : the power of information to organize, control, and dominate
By Risam, Roopika, author.
The story of your life : how social media shapes the way we experience everything
By Jezer-Morton, Kathryn, author.
AI for good : how real people are using artificial intelligence to fix things that matter
By Tyrangiel, Josh, author.
Don't be evil : bad bosses, fake promises, and my escape from big tech
By Stapleton, Claire, author.
Empire of ink : the printers, rogues, and radicals who invented the American newspaper
By Wright, Alex, 1966- author.
Our wild familiars : how animals are adapting to cities and reshaping the natural world
By Werb, Dan, author.
Gerontocracy in America : how the old are hoarding power and wealth - and what to do about it
By Moyn, Samuel, author.
Rolling stone and the rise of hip capitalism : how a magazine born in the 1960s changed America
By Ponce de Leon, Charles L. (Charles Leonard), author.
Take me to your leader : perspectives on your first alien encounter
By Tyson, Neil deGrasse, author.
Self-help from the Middle Ages : what the seven deadly sins can teach us about living
By Jones, P. V. (Peter V.), author.
Hōjōki : a Buddhist reflection on solitude, imperfection and transcendence ; bilingual English and Japanese texts with free online audio recordings
By Kamo, Chōmei, 1153?-1216?, author.
City on the edge : Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco
By Weber, Jonathan, author.
The reverse centaur's guide to life after AI : how to think about artificial intelligence--before it's too late
By Doctorow, Cory, author
New Fiction
See more new fiction in our catalog
American hagwon
By Lee, Min Jin, author.
"Once comfortably middle class in Korea, John and Helen Koh and their three children--Bo, DH, and Mido--find their lives upended, first by a shocking betrayal by John's oldest friend, then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Desperately striving to regain their footing, they leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in Southern California--where new vistas of opportunity open up for the children as their parents, strangers in a strange land, must adjust to a new life in which their experiences and education mean little, and they set their sights on whatever it takes to provide for their children's futures. The Kohs, their friends, relatives, and even their foes move in and out of each other's lives as they navigate new courses across the years, always nursing the almost all-consuming faith that education will lead the next generation to success and security. In American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee has crafted an unforgettable panoramic novel where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repurcussions, where the bonds of family and of memory twist and fray but rarely break, and where willful self-sacrifice--for the benefit of loved ones and even strangers--is a kind of prayer"--
The rouse
By Miéville, China, author.
"Maur's life has been shaped by loss: an apparently ordinary tragedy. But in its aftermath arise deeper, stranger questions. ... Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur's obsessions-and is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces. So begins a book unlike any other: at once an encyclopaedic and multitudinous saga of a bloody century, and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets and secrets-and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery"--
Partita : a novel
By Kingsolver, Barbara, author.
"Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she's kept at bay for a lifetime. Shifting between past and present, Livia's decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the experiences of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life"--
Hollywood, ending
By Green, John, 1977- author.
"John Green makes his much-anticipated return to fiction with a behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story about finding someone to trust in an untrustworthy world. For rising talents Kai Laramie and Juniper Castillo, being cast in the buzzy biopic Andy Warhol Never Gets Old is the opportunity they've both been waiting for. They're on the verge of breaking out, and maybe even falling in love. Soon, the movie is blowing up, and so are their lives--in exciting, but also terrifying, ways. John Green artfully blends a behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story with an unflinching examination of the insatiable attention economy. Told through dual points of view, the novel brilliantly juxtaposes the on-screen study of Warhol's life at the dawn of celebrity culture with the intimate struggles of two young people figuring out who they are, both together and alone. Tender, heartbreaking, and shrewdly funny, this is a story as only Green can tell it. Hollywood, Ending is a deeply observed novel about the tension between a public and a private life, and the audacity to pursue the kind of love we all deserve"--
Our noble selves
By Atkinson, Kate, author.
When crime correspondent turned war reporter Harry Flynn returns to Britain from Singapore in 1945, he takes a quiet job with the Festival of Britain, a government-funded endeavor aimed at celebrating the nation’s creativity, grit, and ingenuity. There, he joins a team of misfits and eccentrics as they help to ready the Festival for launch. When a Frenchwoman goes missing, Flynn becomes the central suspect in her disappearance—and possible murder. He was the last person to see her alive, yet he has no memory of the evening they spent together. As evidence against him mounts, Flynn begins to wonder if he might actually be to blame. To make matters worse, he is surrounded by people who have their own secret agenda. There may be a carnival atmosphere in London as the country attempts to throw off the drab privations of war, yet beneath the frivolity there is also a worthy attempt to hold up a mirror to both its history and its future. --
Dead beat
By Bardugo, Leigh, author.
Alex Stern returns to Yale after escaping hell, where demons are entering the human world and threatening the university community. With help from her allies, she investigates Yale's secret societies, the Lethe Board, and a vampire while uncovering connections between the supernatural crisis and her own past.
The radiance : a novel
By Akhtar, Ayad.
When a hit-and-run shatters more than his body, a writer is caught between revelation and madness as an uncanny pull toward a brilliant campus colleague ensnares him in a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. What begins as a provocative portrait of academic and cultural warfare deepens into erotic entanglement, the exposure of a family secret, and the mystery surrounding the narrator's accident--both the violence and its aftermath. Moving between rural America and Europe, Islam and Christianity, the intimate and the metaphysical, The Radiance is of our American moment and beyond it--asking not only what has broken, but what radiance remains.
The pirate queen : a novel
By Lawhon, Ariel, author.
"Grace O'Malley was born to be at sea. Raised alongside her brother by their father, chief of the clan O'Malley, Grace learns early that her dreams of the open water are not compatible with the life she's expected to lead as the daughter of a noble family. And when her father marries her to the wrong man, a neighboring chief named Donhal, Grace's world shifts for the worse. Undaunted, Grace raises a family without abandoning her passion, aiding her hot-tempered husband in his campaigns against rival tribes. Eventually ousted from her husband's land in the wake of his death, Grace returns to her childhood home and begins her career as a pirate in earnest, claiming new territories and finding deeper love, only to see her livelihood threatened by English incursions into Ireland, and her family endangered in an attempt to check her power."--
Switzy : a novel
By Cline, Emma, author.
"A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting. A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable. This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades. His final destination is Zurich. David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend's house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life. As David's arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish"--
Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel
By Foley, Lucy (Novelist), author.
The brand-new Miss Marple mystery from Lucy Foley, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List and The Midnight Feast. High in the Swiss Alps, accessible only by a single, winding railway, stands the luxurious Grand Alpine Hotel. With glorious mountain views and exclusive access to powdery slopes, it draws guests from far and wide. The notorious actress. The high-flying politician. The society wife. The reckless friend. The shrewd doctor. But not everyone is here for a winter holiday. Beneath the champagne and furs, dark histories simmer; old grudges emerge like cracks in the ice. And someone is watching from the shadows. A polite, unassuming woman with an extraordinary mind: Miss Marple. When a body is found and a blizzard cuts off all escape, only Miss Marple can connect the clues before the killer strikes again. Because it isn't a question of who has a motive, but who's next.
Dungeon crawler Carl : a novel
By Dinniman, Matt, author.
"The apocalypse will be televised! A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that 'it' factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game - with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous
Disability Pride Month
Booker Prize 2026 Longlist
Booker Prize nominees for 2026 that are available now in the Library. More coming to the collection soon!
The disappearers
By James, Marlon, 1970- author.
On a day in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1988, eight men come together to begin rehearsals for a play. Though they are strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: They are gay in a country that wants nothing to do with them. One night the men are savagely attacked and one of them is killed. As the survivors heal, each man finds that he must confront the bigotry and homophobia that the attack laid bare. Some of the men try to ignore what the murder unearthed. Some embrace their rage. Others simply vanish into thin air. All of them are forever scarred by what happened. --
Helen of nowhere
By Goodman, Makenna, author.
"Taking place over the course of one day, Helen of Nowhere introduces an intimate cast: an unnamed man at the end of both his career and marriage, a young realtor showing him an idyllic house in the countryside, and Helen, the mystifying former owner whose spectral presence seems to imbue the house's every grain of wood. Through stories of the remarkable woman, the man is presented with an alternate way of life. But, as evening fades into black, the specifics of how to live it become more than what he bargained for. Philosophically adventurous, strange, and fascinating, Helen of Nowhere examines the structures that form our identity, staring the reader down to ask the haunting question: what is the cost of true happiness?"--
The renovation : a novel
By Orhan, Kenan, 1993- author.
"A woman discovers that her bathroom has been remodeled into a prison cell--where she is an unlikely inmate--in this surreal novel of exile, grief, memory, and migration"--
Switzy : a novel
By Cline, Emma, author.
"A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting. A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable. This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades. His final destination is Zurich. David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend's house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life. As David's arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish"--
Black bag
By Kennard, Luke, author.
"An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime--sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag--to aid a professor's psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong? In Luke Kennard's audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr. Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr. Blend's students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of Fall lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own--in particular, can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag?--and the actor's childhood friend forms a vision for monetizing this new situation . . . A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity, and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane"--Book jacket flap.
May we feed the king
By Perry, Rebecca, 1986- author.
She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur. He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. But it isn't long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead.
The things we never say : a novel
By Strout, Elizabeth, author.
"Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He goes about his days teaching American history to high schoolers, correcting their casual ignorance, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He spends his free time sailing the beautiful Massachusetts Bay, or with his adult son and his wife of more than three decades - and as Artie does these things, he plans the event that will forever change the world he inhabits. But when a startling accident awakens a new perspective in Artie, and he realizes that life has its own secret it's been keeping from him - along with a lot more to say on the weighty matters of fate and freedom in his home and his country - he charts another course full of grief, hilarity, and heart, to a place where the end marks the beginning. Elizabeth Strout, as we have come to expect, delivers a profound exploration of the human condition - one that brims with deep compassion for each and every one of her characters. With exquisite prose and gentle intimacy, Artie Dam takes one man's fears and loneliness and makes them universal. And in the same breath, captures the mysterious love that sustains and holds us through it all"-- Provided by publisher.
John of John
By Stuart, Douglas, 1976- author.
"Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the Isle of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. He returns to the windswept croft and the two pillars of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and lay preacher in the local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian whose steady warmth helped Cal weather the sudden departure of his mother. Cal privately wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair, strange clothes, and seeming unwillingness to be Saved. But Cal isn't the only one in the croft house who is keeping secrets. As lambing season turns to shearing season, the threads holding the community together become increasingly frayed, and nothing will remain as it was before. John of John is a singular novel about duty, passion, and the transformative power of the truth. It is a magnificent literary work that cements Douglas Stuart's reputation as one of our greatest novelists working today"-- Provided by publisher.
The palm house
By Riley, Gwendoline, 1979- author.
"Laura's long friendship with Edmund Putnam is tested when he resigns from Sequence magazine--one of the few places he has ever felt he belonged. Putnam repines. His sweet-natured father has recently died, which has not improved his mood. Meanwhile Laura's relentlessly "outward-facing" mother is still at large and toting a new boyfriend as if he were a marotte. Laura, too, needs a new job, and a place to live that doesn't have centipedes in the kitchen. Gwendoline Riley's seventh novel explores acceptance and affinity. Young people don't drink anymore but Laura and Putnam are no longer young. Over wine and crisps the pair reflect on what has brought them to where they are. There are memories of childhood package holidays, teenage friendships and obsessions, peculiar love affairs, bad parties. Life is fleeting. Sequence magazine means something, but what? Might Putnam plot a return?"-- Provided by publisher.
Staff Picks
Books, music, and movie recommendations from Mechanics' staff
Stop me if you've heard this one : a novel
By Arnett, Kristen, author.
Picked by Danica, Annual Fund and Marketing Manager
Days at the Morisaki bookshop : a novel
By Yagisawa, Satoshi, 1977- author.
Picked by Andy, Programs Director
The serviceberry : abundance and reciprocity in the natural world
By Kimmerer, Robin Wall, 1953- author.
Picked by Jessica, Librarian
Poor things : episodes from the early life of Archibald McCandless M. D. Scottish public health officer
By Gray, Alasdair, author, illustrator.
Picked by Danica, Annual Fund and Marketing Manager