New titles from the Peak Picks collection that are currently in rotation. Stop by any branch to see what's available today!
Madness
Adult Nonfiction. “Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the last segregated asylums with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. As it grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America's evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. It is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.” Publishers Weekly
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Availability: Available
View MadnessRental Person Who Does Nothing
Adult Nonfiction. “Morimoto was constantly being told by his boss, ‘It makes no difference whether you're here or not,’ and that his presence contributed nothing to the company. Morimoto began to wonder whether a person who ‘does nothing’ could still have actual value and a place in the world. Perhaps he could turn ‘doing nothing’ into a service? With one tweet, Rental Person was born. He chronicles his extraordinary experiences…and reflects on how we consider relationships, jobs and family in our search for meaningful connection and purpose in life.’ Publisher description
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View Rental Person Who Does NothingThe Tusks of Extinction
Adult Fiction. “Moscow has resurrected the mammoth. But someone must teach them how to be mammoths, or they are doomed to die out again. Dr. Damira Khismatullina, an expert in elephant behavior, was brutally murdered trying to defend the world's last elephants from the brutal ivory trade. Now, her digitized consciousness has been downloaded into the mind of a mammoth. As the herd's new matriarch, can Damira help fend off poachers long enough for the species to take hold? Or will her own ghosts, and Moscow's real reason for bringing the mammoth back, doom them to a new extinction?” Publisher description
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Availability: Available
View The Tusks of ExtinctionThe Lost Tomb
Adult Nonfiction. “Preston's journalistic explorations have taken him from the haunted country of Italy to the jungles of Honduras. He was granted exclusive journalistic access to the largest tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, broke the story of an extraordinary mass grave of animals killed by the asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous period and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and explored what lay hidden in the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island. The Lost Tomb brings together an astonishing collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, bizarre crimes, and other tales of the past and present.” Pub description
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View The Lost TombAgain and Again
Adult Fiction. “Evison crafts a touching fantastical tale of a lonely elderly man’s past reincarnations. Eugene Miles, 105, lives in a California elder care facility, where he hopes to die for good, fearing he’ll lead yet another life of thwarted love if he’s born again. As Eugene, he’s decided to close himself off from others. One day, however, [he] meets a new nursing assistant named Angel… Every day afterward, he tells Angel about his past lives under the gaze of Wayne, the… mental health professional, who’s convinced Eugene’s stories are delusions.” PW
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View Again and AgainCheck & Mate
Teen Fiction. “Two talented chess players challenge each other on and off the board in Hazelwood’s YA debut. 18-year-old Mallory Greenleaf is no longer interested in chess, not since her hypercompetitive dad left—the game calls up painful memories. But she grudgingly agrees to play in a charity tournament as a favor to best friend Easton. After she unexpectedly beats current world champion Nolan Sawyer, she’s offered a fellowship… The more time she spends with Nolan, the more Mallory comes to like and respect him—and the more time she spends playing chess, the more she remembers how much she loved it.” Kirkus
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Availability: Available
View Check & MateA City on Mars
Adult Nonfiction. “’There is no urgent need to settle space’ argue Kelly and her cartoonist husband Zach in the wickedly irreverent follow-up to their 2017 collaboration, Soonish. They contend it will likely take centuries to overcome the logistical challenges—including the development of long-term waste management systems and laws to settle conflicts over sovereignty—posed by establishing a colony on Mars, the moon, or a free-floating space station. The cheeky tone is loads of fun, and Zach's humorous illustrations of, for instance, contraptions proposed to facilitate zero-gravity sex, entertain. It adds up to a boisterous takedown of techno-utopianism.” Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View A City on MarsClass
Adult Nonfiction. “Land (Maid) catalogs her experiences juggling housecleaning jobs, childcare, and graduate school while battling poverty in this frank and captivating memoir. Land viscerally conjures the relentless grind she faced to obtain governmental aid and increased child support to cover food, heat, car repairs, childcare, and student loans while fighting to keep her daughter happy and her unborn child healthy without sacrificing her own professional dreams. Eye-opening and heartrending, this will provide succor for readers who've faced similar hardships and essential education for anyone who hasn't.” Library Journal
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Availability: Available
View ClassDay
Adult Fiction. “The story begins in April 2019, with Isabel Walker, a magazine photo editor, falling out of love with her partner Dan Byrne, a former rock musician turned ‘househusband.’ A year later, Isabel and Dan’s 10-year-old daughter, Violet, already affected by her parents’ acrimony, is intensely anxious over the virus. Isabel’s beloved brother, Robbie, provides a stabilizing influence from afar via Instagram… Although Cunningham evokes the pandemic only indirectly, such as with references to Violet’s remote learning, its impact on everyone is palpably conveyed, especially in a poignant… final section set in April 2021.” Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View DayThe Future
“…a dazzling tour de force where a handful of friends plot a daring heist to save the world from the tech giants whose greed threatens life as we know it.” Pub description. “Having fled her father's cult in remote Oregon, Martha Einkorn now works for a power-hungry social media mogul whose companies design things like private weather and covert weaponry. Meanwhile, Lai Zhen, an internet survivalist in Singapore, finds instructions for escaping an assassin mysteriously popping up on her phone. Both women will soon be involved in saving the world.” Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
View The Future