February Staff Picks

Heather says:

“This mem­oir was writ­ten by for­mer Nir­vana drum­mer and Foo Fight­ers founder Dave Grohl. From the death of Nirvana’s lead singer, Kurt Cobain, to the rise of the Foo Fight­ers, Dav­e’s love of music and sense of humor have car­ried him through the highs and lows of the 1980s punk scene, the 1990s grunge explo­sion, and into the present day. I high­ly sug­gest the audio­book ver­sion to real­ly hear the sto­ry in Dav­e’s own voice.”

David says:

“A baby is born to a sin­gle moth­er in Philadel­phia at the same moment that Voy­ager 1 is launched into space. As a child, Adi­na real­izes that she has knowl­edge of a dis­tant plan­et, and, once the fax machine is invent­ed, she begins send­ing trans­mis­sions to her extrater­res­tri­al rel­a­tives about the humans she inter­acts with every day. Berti­no’s writ­ing is nev­er sen­ti­men­tal, and it shines in Adina’s dis­patch­es about the human expe­ri­ence. Through Adi­na, Berti­no shows that the act of belong­ing can be a life­long quest. This book will make you see the world a lit­tle dif­fer­ent­ly, and it may even make you feel a lit­tle less isolated.”

Sara says:

“Clover’s a ded­i­cat­ed death doula who rarely tries find­ing work-life bal­ance, remain­ing focused on prepar­ing clients for the end of life. I like how she remains true to her­self, always nor­mal­iz­ing death and dying, but to most she comes across as odd. Hav­ing more expo­sure to death than fam­i­ly and social­iz­ing, her inter­ac­tions with the liv­ing are some­times cringey. Intro­vert­ed read­ers will feel her pain as she tries and strug­gles with expelling the ener­gy required to fos­ter new rela­tion­ships. Her inner cir­cle is small, yet her strong devo­tion and attach­ment to those few will tug at your heart­strings as she moves beyond past regrets.”

Jen­nifer says:

“The phys­i­cal edi­tion of this book is great, but the audio­book is out­stand­ing! With its sound effects, snip­pets of songs, and Bono’s charm­ing Irish lilt, this is a cap­ti­vat­ing lis­ten. I believe even non-fans will enjoy hear­ing Bono describe his ear­ly years, the peo­ple and expe­ri­ences that shaped him, and his less­er known sec­ond job as an activist. Per­haps most impres­sive is that he tells his sto­ry with­out ridi­cul­ing anoth­er soul, though he’s sure­ly met at least a few peo­ple who deserved it. This was worth every sec­ond of the 20+ hours I spent lis­ten­ing to it.”

Sarah says:

“This is the sto­ry of a messy, com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­ly. A young man named Jen­ry who was raised by a sin­gle moth­er is search­ing for infor­ma­tion about his deceased father when he learns from his pater­nal grand­fa­ther that he actu­al­ly has two moth­ers. The hid­den sto­ry of Jen­ry’s life is then revealed to him by dif­fer­ent mem­bers of his fam­i­ly, forc­ing him to grap­ple with the con­se­quences of their long-held secrets. I real­ly enjoy sto­ries told through mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, and the ups and downs of Jen­ry’s jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery felt so realistic.”