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There have been so many great releases this summer, and the trend will continue into fall. Here are a few that I've enjoyed recently.
It's the summer of 2000, and AJ Graves and Noah Drew are stuck working together at the local video rental store. Noah is the youngest of a family of legendary actors; his aunt and uncle just happened to star in AJ's favorite show. AJ ends up joining Noah for acting lessons, and the two have immediate chemistry. Their attraction grows over the summer until Noah disappears suddenly. Over their early careers - Noah as an actor, AJ as a writer - their paths cross multiple times, and we see how their story progresses. Will Noah ever admit to AJ why he disappeared? And could a real relationship ever form if she knew the truth? "Into the Blue" by Emma Brodie (Fiction Brodie - new) is deceptive in its depth of emotion.
Lenny's world implodes when her mother dies suddenly. Her stepfather isn't sure how to raise her, so he helps her enroll via scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. Her new classmates are rich and entitled. Lenny doesn't fit in, so she is surprised to be invited to join the secretive Pascalianum Club. It just might be the key to fitting in and finding her place in the world, or the thing that tears her life apart. "Night Objects" by Eli Raphael (Mystery Fiction Raphael - new) is a wrenching and suspenseful coming-of-age story.
Children's author Eleanor Kingman is celebrating a milestone birthday with her three daughters and all her many hangers-on. But each of the women has a secret that threatens to derail the party as well as her life. Can the family come together to defeat the many skeletons in their collective closet? "Based on a True Story" by Sarah Vaughan (Fiction Vaughan - new) is an easy summer read.
Journalist and activist Ann Larson was looking for work during the pandemic and found a job working at a supermarket in Utah. She started as a cashier then quickly became a front-end manager. Larson shares the struggles she and her coworkers faced to make ends meet: low wages, long days, unending foot and back pain, abuse from customers, and more. She places her experience and the supermarket itself in larger historical and cultural context in "Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register" (305.569 Larson - new).
During his freshman year at Stanford University, Theo Baker stumbled across discrepancies in research published by Standford's president. Baker published his discoveries in the Stanford student newspaper and opened a giant investigation that would define his college career and ultimately result in the resignation of Stanford's president. "How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University" (378.101 Baker - new) is an astonishing crash course in money, influence, power, and ethics in scientific research and Silicon Valley.
Mark your calendars for Exploring the Superior Hiking Trail, presented by the Superior Hiking Trail Association, on Thursday, September 17, at 6:30 p.m. The Teen Summer Reading Movie and Pizza Party is Saturday, September 19, at 2 p.m. For more information on these programs or to request these books or other items, visit www.newulmlibrary.org or call 507-359-8331.
New Ulm Public Library is located at 17 North Broadway and is open Monday-Thursday from 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. We look forward to seeing you at the library.