April Staff Picks

Alli­son says:

“A wid­owed tree-lover and reluc­tant bureau­crat; a wid­owed nurse with a daugh­ter who is in her own lit­tle world; a heart­bro­ken librar­i­an whose world is falling apart; and a tree­house in the for­est that brings them all togeth­er. Cap­ti­vat­ing from begin­ning to end, Har­ry’s Trees fills one with child­like won­der, and also inspires a belief in the pow­er of coin­ci­dence and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing unex­pect­ed joy and for­give­ness in the wake of life’s dev­as­ta­tions. I loved this humor­ous mag­i­cal sto­ry of heart­break and heal­ing and heroes and villains.”

Dan says:

“The page count of this slim vol­ume belies its impact. The ethe­re­al prose sub­lime­ly cap­tures the com­pas­sion and strain felt by our pro­tag­o­nist, Lau­ra, a nurse on a pedi­atric inten­sive care unit. Glass, who works the same job when not writ­ing, is able to rely on her lived expe­ri­ence to tell the sto­ry of an exhaust­ed Lau­ra; the result is both raw and relat­able, Frey­tag’s Pyra­mid as a hos­pi­tal heart rate mon­i­tor. Any­one who serves oth­ers pro­fes­sion­al­ly – whether it’s life or death or just feels that way – will con­cur­rent­ly appre­ci­ate this book and be moved by it.”

Haley says:

“Babel fol­lows Robin, an orphaned boy from Chi­na, as he attends Oxford’s Roy­al Insti­tute of Trans­la­tion, also known as Babel. There he stud­ies sil­ver­work­ing, the art of using sil­ver bars to cap­ture the pow­er words lose when trans­lat­ed. The more he learns, the more he sees that Britain is hoard­ing this craft and using it as a tool for impe­r­i­al expan­sion. Can Robin serve Babel with­out betray­ing his home­land? Can he change the insti­tu­tion from the inside, or does rev­o­lu­tion require vio­lence? This book is per­fect for fans of dark acad­e­mia and his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, and it has the most inno­v­a­tive and thought­ful mag­ic sys­tem I have encoun­tered in a fan­ta­sy book.”

Adam says:

“This Scan­di­na­vian epic chron­i­cles the lives of two Sámi fam­i­lies over 100 years. Axels­son entrench­es you in the world of the indige­nous folk of north­ern Nor­way and Swe­den as they strug­gle to sur­vive against colo­nial­ism and cli­mate change. Win­ner of the August prize, Sweden’s most pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary award, this aston­ish­ing verse nov­el is a swift, engross­ing read; don’t be turned away by the poetry!”

Eeon says:

“When a fam­i­ly reunion turns into the matri­arch’s tran­si­tion from Earth, and the secrets of the family’s inher­i­tance can only be under­stood if you believe in mag­ic – it is only then that each fam­i­ly mem­ber can rise to their true selves. I enjoyed going on this mag­i­cal jour­ney, which at times felt much like fol­low­ing a trav­el­ing cir­cus fam­i­ly. It was not till the very end I learned what secrets make this fam­i­ly so mys­ti­fy­ing and mag­i­cal. Zorai­da writes in a way that cap­tures my soul and long­ing to be amongst the stars.”