First Finds! New Book Spotlight

It's the first of the month, and with that I want to introduce a new feature on the blog: First Finds! We will scour the collection for the new and interesting books to highlight and add to your must read lists. Here we go!

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Genre: Domestic Fiction

From the author of The Burgess Boys and Olive Kitteridge, My Name is Lucy Barton is "set in the mid-1980s, LucyBarton, hospitalized for nine weeks, is surprised when her estranged mother shows up at her bedside. Her mother talks of local gossip, but underneath the banalities, Lucy senses the love that cannot be expressed. This is the story that Lucy must write about, the one story that has shaped her entire life. A beautiful lyrical story of a mother and daughter and the love they share." - NoveList 

We have the technology : how biohackers, foodies, physicians, and scientists are transforming human perception, one sense at a time by Kara Platoni

Genre: Science Writing - Senses and Sensation

It isn't science fiction! Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction! We Have the Technology, "introduces readers to researchers who are changing the way they experience the world, whether creating scents that stimulate the memories of Alzheimer's patients, constructing virtual limbs that approximate a sense of touch or building augmented-reality labs that prepare soldiers for the battlefield." - NoveList

Orphan X by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz

Genre: Spy Stories

Hurwitz's new novel kicks off a new action-packed series. "Evan Smoak, the Nowhere Man a protector of the truly desperate and deserving, finds himself a target of someone with similar training and knowledge of his Orphan X (a super-secret government project) identity." A movie is already in the works. - NoveList

Find me unafraid : love, loss, and hope in an African slum by Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner

Genre: Autobiographies and Memoirs

"Find Me Unafraid is a dual autobiography told by the authors in alternating chapters. Co-author Kennedy Odede founded a youth program in a giant slum in his native Kenya; American Jessica Posner worked with Odede's program as a college student, then joined him there permanently. Relating their love story (which led to marriage), their work offering hope to Kenyan children through education and other services, and their plans for the future, the couple offer inspiration to anyone seeking systemic economic changes to end extreme poverty." -- Description by Katherine Bradley Johnson for NoveList

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian

Genre: Mystery Fiction

Be prepared for suspense and flawed characters in this new book from the genre-jumping author of Skeletons at the Feast and The Light in the Ruins. In The Guest Room, "the bachelor party her husband is hosting goes wrong, Kristin finds her life spiraling into a nightmare of accusations and betrayal while a girl hired to provide entertainment at the party flees for her life from gangsters." - NoveList