To find these selections and many other new titles, see the NMC library catalog.

New Non-Fiction

Anime Architecture: Imagined Worlds and Endless Megacities by Stefan Riekeles

This book presents the most breathtaking environments created by the most important and revered directors and illustrators of Japanese animated films. From futuristic cities of steel to romantic rural locales, the creators of anime have conjured memorable and painstakingly detailed worlds, the influences of which have been felt across cinema, literature, comic books and videogames for decades. A celebration and resource produced in direct collaboration with the original Japanese production studios, this volume offers privileged views into the earliest conception stages of iconic scenes, through to their development into finished films.

 

 

 

Borders of Care: Immigrants, Migrants, and the Fight for Health Care in the United States by Beatrix Hoffman

Undocumented immigrants are excluded from Medicare and Medicaid and banned from participating in the Affordable Care Act. Some states offer limited coverage for undocumented children and those who are pregnant, but mostly undocumented immigrants must rely on emergency rooms or clinics that don’t ask about citizenship status. Many receive no care at all. Yet immigrants haven’t always been ostracized from health care in the US–providers and activists have for over a century worked to make medical services available to immigrants and migrants, including, at times, the undocumented. By featuring the role played by immigrants and migrants themselves, and especially their part in movements to define health care as a human right, this book tells the complete story of immigrants and US health care, and the consequences are tremendous. By analyzing both the health and immigration systems and how they work (or fail to work) together, Beatrix Hoffman adds to our understanding of why these systems, and the policies that support them, have been resistant to reform.

 

Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr

From the telegraph and telephone in the 1800s to the internet and social media in our own day, the public has welcomed new communication systems. Whenever people gain more power to share information, the assumption goes, society prospers. Superbloom tells a startlingly different story. As communication becomes more mechanized and efficient, it breeds confusion more than understanding, strife more than harmony. Media technologies all too often bring out the worst in us. A celebrated commentator on the human consequences of technology, Nicholas Carr reorients the conversation around modern communication, challenging some of our most cherished beliefs about self-expression, free speech, and media democratization. He reveals how messaging apps strip nuance from conversation, how “digital crowding” erodes empathy and triggers aggression, how online political debates narrow our minds and distort our perceptions, and how advances in AI are further blurring the already hazy line between fantasy and reality.

 

Ghana to the World by Eric Adjepong

“Sankofa” is a Ghanaian Twi word that roughly translates to the idea that we must look back to move forward. In his moving debut cookbook, chef Eric Adjepong practices sankofa by showcasing the beauty and depth of West African food and its indelible impact on the foodways of the African diaspora through the lens of his own deeply personal story. Born in New York as the son of two Ghanaian immigrants, and traveling to and from Ghana since childhood, Eric’s experience of balancing the two parts of his Ghanaian-American identity is both powerful and universal. Through 100 soul-satisfying recipes plus narrative essays, we follow Eric’s culinary journey, beginning with traditional home-cooked meals from his mother, like a deeply flavorful jollof rice and a smoky, savory shrimp kontombre stew thick with leafy greens.

 

 

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

This book is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Robert Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada — imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days.

 

 

 

New Fiction

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets.

 

 

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles. Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile. Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats’ secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

 

 

The Names by Florence Knapp

The story of one family told three different ways, leading to three different fates-a dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life? In the wake of an enormous, history-making storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son’s birth. Her husband, Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to name the child after him. But when the registrar asks which name she wants to pick, Cora hesitates . . . What follows are three alternate and alternating versions of both Cora’s and her young son’s life, shaped by her brave last-minute choice of name. Spanning thirty-five years, the novel draws us in from the first page, as we follow three unforgettable journeys of one young man, but also his mother, grandmother, and sister. In richly layered prose, this novel explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing.

 

The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei

Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in working-class Singapore, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. As the girls grow closer, they must navigate the intensity of life in a brutally competitive place where the insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice. The sisters become inextricably bound as they spurn outside friendships, leisure, and any semblance of a social life in pursuit of academic perfection and passage to a better future. When a stinging betrayal violently estranges the sisters, Genevieve must weigh the value of ambition versus familial love, home versus the outside world, and allegiance to herself versus allegiance to the people who made her who she is.

 

 

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

Summaries and images adapted from publishers.