The MGCC Library is excited to announce that several new books have been added to our Popular Reading section! These books will be on display at the front of the library throughout the month of April. We've listed just a few of these books below.
Also, be sure to check out the MGCC Library Guide! Our newest books are shown along the bottom of the page. Clicking on a title will take you to our catalog, where you can find out if the book is available for checkout.
Happy reading!
Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose by Martha Beck:
We live in an epidemic of anxiety. Most of us
assume that the key to overcoming it is to think our way out. And for a
while it works. But there is always something that sends us back into
the anxious spiral we’ve been trying to climb out of.
In Beyond Anxiety,
Dr. Martha Beck explains why anxiety is skyrocketing around you, and
likely within you. She also tells you how to not only reduce your
anxiety but use it to propel you into a life filled with peace, meaning,
and joy.
Using a combination of the latest neuroscience as well
as her background in sociology and coaching, Beck explains how our
brains tend to get stuck in an “anxiety spiral,” a feedback system that
can increase anxiety indefinitely. To climb out, we must engage
different parts of our nervous system—the parts involved in creativity.
Beck provides instructions for engaging the “creativity spiral,” in a
process that not only shuts down anxiety but leads to innovative problem
solving, a sense of meaning and purpose, and joyful, intimate
connection with others—and with the world.
The opposite of
anxiety, it turns out, is a wonderful new way of life—one that can calm
and inspire us as individuals and help us become a source of healing for
everything around us.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix:
They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls
who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St.
Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to
have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most
important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.
Fifteen-year-old
Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant,
terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood,
she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a
hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape
to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to
go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely
fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.
Everything the
girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re
allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they
know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an
occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for
the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it
creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be
paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson:
When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the
gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the
floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as
Ebby knew it shattered as well.
The crime was never solved—and
because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a
particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an
enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans
want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers,
but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any
explanation, that's exactly what they get.
So Ebby flees to
France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to
process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her
family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that
had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved
ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery
held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to
unlocking her own future.
In this sweeping, evocative novel,
Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that
examines how the past informs our present.
The Crash by Freida McFadden:
Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone,
and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror.
So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can
figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.
She never arrives at her destination.
Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle,
Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is
rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the
snow clears.
But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.
And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.
This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer:
For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to
Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted
parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone
when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had
something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for
half a century of love. Until now.
Jane is dying, and Abe is
recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts
they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative
lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined
young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their
son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has
avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view,
even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and
out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.
Star Wars: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed:
“In order to ensure the security and
continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganized into the first
Galactic Empire! For a safe and secure society!”
With one
speech and thunderous applause, Chancellor Palpatine brought the era of
the Republic crashing down. In its place rose the Galactic Empire.
Across the galaxy, people rejoiced and celebrated the end of war—and the
promises of tomorrow. But that tomorrow was a lie. Instead, the galaxy
became twisted by the cruelty and fear of the Emperor’s rule.
During
that terrifying first year of tyranny, Mon Mothma, Saw Gerrera, and
Bail Organa face the encroaching darkness. One day, they will be three
architects of the Rebel Alliance. But first, each must find purpose and
direction in a changing galaxy, while harboring their own secrets,
fears, and hopes for a future that may never come unless they act.
The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke:
Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle
for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code
while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly
popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day
life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers.
But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online
persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have
imagined.
As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did
Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of
relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an
inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.
Ruby and Jodi were
arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse.
On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside
their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.”
For the first
time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her
family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life
coaching program, “ConneXions.” No stone is left unturned as Shari
exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time
her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.
A Harvest of Hearts by Andrea Eames:
Before Foss Butcher was Snagged, she thought no
more of the magic-users than did anyone else in her tiny village.
Sometimes gorgeous women in impossible carriages rolled into town and
took bits of people’s hearts. Everyone knew hearts fueled their magic.
But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone
would want hers.
True enough, when the only sorcerer in the
kingdom stepped from his glossy carriage, he didn’t intend to hook Foss.
Sylvester’s riot of black curls and perfectly etched cheekbones caught
her eye a moment too long, that was all. Suddenly, Foss is cursed and
finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted
House, where her only friend is a talking cat and the walls themselves
have moods.
But as Foss learns the ways of magic, she realizes
she’s far from its only unwilling captive. Even Sylvester is hemmed in
by spells and threats. It’s said this sorcery protects king, country,
and order for thousands. If Foss wants to free herself—and, perhaps,
Sylvester—she’ll have to confront it all . . . and uncover the blight
nestled in the heart of the kingdom itself.
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor:
Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the
years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her
latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her
life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving,
judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.
In her hotel
room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she
decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama
about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything
changes.
What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and
infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's
life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.
Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones:
A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.
Note: All book images and descriptions from Goodreads.com.
