August 2019 Adult Top 10 Picks

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  1. A Better Man
    by Louise Penny Canada
    Minotaur Books
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional
    Hardback
    A Better Man
    by Louise Penny Canada
    Minotaur Books
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional
    Hardback

    “‘A Better Man,' with its mix of meteorological suspense, psychological insight and criminal pursuit, is arguably the best book yet in an outstanding, original oeuvre.” —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

    "Enchanting... one of his most ennobling missions." —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review


    Catastrophic spring flooding, blistering attacks in the media, and a mysterious disappearance greet Chief Inspector Armand Gamache as he returns to the Sûreté du Québec in the latest novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny.

    It’s Gamache’s first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Flood waters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.

    As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.

    Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel…, he resumes the search.

    As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.

    In the next novel in this “constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves” (New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.

    What would you do if your child’s killer walked free?

    View this title on BNC CataList
  2. The Turn of the Key
    by Ruth Ware
    Simon & Schuster
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    The Turn of the Key
    by Ruth Ware
    Simon & Schuster
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
    Paperback / softback
    From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway comes Ruth Ware’s highly anticipated fifth novel.

    When Rowan stumbles across an ad for a live-in nanny, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—with a staggeringly generous salary. And when she arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious “smart” house fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.

    What Rowan doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and Rowan in prison awaiting trial for murder.

    Writing to her lawyer from prison, Rowan struggles to explain the unravelling events that have led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time. It wasn’t just the children, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.

    It was everything.

    Rowan knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.

    Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, this is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  3. Translated from the Gibberish
    by Anosh Irani Canada
    Knopf Canada
    Aug 20, 2019
    FICTION / Literary
    Paperback / softback
    Translated from the Gibberish
    by Anosh Irani Canada
    Knopf Canada
    Aug 20, 2019
    FICTION / Literary
    Paperback / softback
    Here are seven superb, subtle, surprising stories that show, through a prism of unforgettable characters, what it means to live between two worlds: India and Canada.

    Anosh Irani, the masterful, bestselling author of The Parcel and The Song of Kahunsha, knows of what he writes: Twenty years ago, to the mystification of family and friends, Irani left India for Vancouver, Canada, a city and a country completely foreign to him. His plan was both grand and impractical: he would reinvent himself as a writer. Miraculously, he did just that, publishing critically acclaimed novels and plays set in his beloved hometown of Mumbai. But this uprooting did not come without a steep price--one that Irani for the first time directly explores in this book.

    In these stunning stories and one "half truth" (a semi-fictional meditation on the experience of being an immigrant) we meet a swimming instructor determined to reenact John Cheever's iconic short story "The Swimmer" in the pools of Mumbai; a famous Indian chef who breaks down on a New York talk show; a gangster's wife who believes a penguin at the Mumbai zoo is the reincarnation of her lost child; an illegal immigrant in Vancouver who plays a fateful game of cricket; and a kindly sweets-shop owner whose hope for a new life in Canada leads to a terrible choice. The book starts and ends with a gorgeous, emotionally raw "translation" to the page of the author's own life between worlds, blurring the line between fiction and fact. Translated from the Gibberish confirms Anosh Irani as a unique, inventive, vitally important voice in contemporary fiction.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  4. Albatross
    by Terry Fallis Canada
    McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 13, 2019
    FICTION / Coming of Age
    Paperback / softback
    Albatross
    by Terry Fallis Canada
    McClelland & Stewart
    Aug 13, 2019
    FICTION / Coming of Age
    Paperback / softback
    NATIONAL BESTSELLER

    From two-time Leacock Medal winner Terry Fallis comes a funny and smart new novel about destiny—and what it means to forge your own path.


    Adam Coryell is your average high-school student—well, except for that obsession with fountain pens—when his life changes forever. Based on a study by a quirky Swedish professor that claims that every human being, regardless of athletic inclination, has a body that is suited to excel in at least one sport, it turns out that Adam is good—very good, in fact—at golf. Even though he'd never even picked up a golf club. Almost instantly, and with his coach, hard-nosed Bobbie Davenport by his side, Adam and his new-found talent skyrocket to a prodigy-level stardom that includes tournament titles, sponsorship deals, throngs of fans following his every move, and fodder for tabloids. But here's the catch: Adam doesn't really like golf. And as the life he once knew slips away—including the love of his life, the dream of being a writer, and everyday normalcy—he can't help but wonder if all this success and fame is worth it . . . or if it's enough for him. Heartwarming and funny, sweeping and entertaining, Terry Fallis's new book takes readers on a journey of self-discovery.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  5. Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples
    by Neil Gaiman
    Dark Horse Books
    Aug 20, 2019
    COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Fantasy / General
    Hardback
    Neil Gaiman's Snow, Glass, Apples
    by Neil Gaiman
    Dark Horse Books
    Aug 20, 2019
    COMICS & GRAPHIC NOVELS / Fantasy / General
    Hardback
    Winner of the 2020 Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel!

    A chilling fantasy retelling of the Snow White fairy tale by New York Times bestselling creators Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran!

    A not-so-evil queen is terrified of her monstrous stepdaughter and determined to repel this creature and save her kingdom from a world where happy endings aren't so happily ever after.

    From the Hugo, Bram Stoker, Locus, World Fantasy, Nebula award-winning, and New York Times bestselling writer Neil Gaiman (American Gods) comes this graphic novel adaptation by Colleen Doran (Troll Bridge)!
    View this title on BNC CataList
  6. This Little Light
    by Lori Lansens Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 13, 2019
    FICTION / Coming of Age
    Paperback / softback
    This Little Light
    by Lori Lansens Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 13, 2019
    FICTION / Coming of Age
    Paperback / softback
    NATIONAL BESTSELLER

    This brilliant new novel is an urgent bulletin from an all-too-believable near future in which the religious right has come out on top. And where a smart young girl who questions the new order is suddenly a terrorist. By the bestselling author of The Girls and The Mountain Story.


    Taking place over 48 hours in the year 2024, this is the story of Rory Anne Miller, on the run with her best friend because they are accused of bombing their posh Californian high school during an American Virtue Ball. There's a bounty on their heads, and a social media storm of trolls flying around them, not to mention a posse of law enforcement, attack helicopters and drones trying to track them down. Rory's mom, a social activist and lawyer, has been arrested and implicated in her daughter's "crimes" whereas her dad (who betrayed his wife and daughter in a nasty divorce) is cooperating with the authorities. The story exists in a universe of gated communities, born-again Christians, Probationary Citizens (once known as "Dreamers"), re-criminalized abortion and birth control, teenage virginity oaths and something called the Red Market, which is either a Conservative bogey-man created to further polarize the "base" or a criminal network making money from selling unwanted babies to whomever wants them and fetal tissue to cosmetics and drug companies.

    Rory is cynical and scared, furious and scathing, betrayed and looking for something or someone to trust. What she has to say about the dads and bosses and politicians lining up to keep women in their place, and about the ways women collaborate in their own undermining, is fierce, and funny, and sad, and true.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  7. Girl at the Edge of Sky
    by Lilian Nattel Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Historical / 20th Century / World War II & Holocaust
    Paperback / softback
    Girl at the Edge of Sky
    by Lilian Nattel Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 27, 2019
    FICTION / Historical / 20th Century / World War II & Holocaust
    Paperback / softback
    NATIONAL BESTSELLER

    Girl at the Edge of Sky is a unique, thrilling, sometimes terrifying novel based on the life and death of Lily Litvyak, a female Soviet flying ace and fighter pilot shot down behind German lines in the Second World War. From the bestselling author of Web of Angels and The River Midnight.

    Lily Litvyak is no one's idea of a fighter pilot: a tiny, dimpled teenager with golden curls who lied about her age in order to fly. But in the crucible of the air war against the German invaders, she becomes that rare thing—a flying ace, glorified at home and around the world as the White Lily of Stalingrad. The real Lily disappeared in combat in August 1943, and the facts of her life are slim, but they have inspired Lilian Nattel's indelible portrait of a courageous young woman driven by family secrets to become an unlikely war hero. Even more powerfully, Nattel takes another big leap, asking the compelling question: what if Lily survived that last crash and became a prisoner of the Germans?

    Lily lives in a world of horrifying risk, where the life and death stakes are high in the air, but also on the ground. In the Soviet system, everyone is an informer, even your best friend. Lily lives in constant fear that she will be found out, arrested and executed as the daughter of an "enemy of the people." When she ends up a German prisoner, as a Soviet officer and a Jew, the need for deception becomes even more desperate.

    Girl at the Edge of Sky is a masterwork of the imagination, subtle and bold all at once, bringing us deep into the precarious life of a remarkable woman who lies to fight for the country that would disown her, and then lies to survive the enemy that would annihilate her.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  8. Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me
    by Anna Mehler Paperny Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 06, 2019
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
    Paperback / softback
    Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me
    by Anna Mehler Paperny Canada
    Random House Canada
    Aug 06, 2019
    BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Memoirs
    Paperback / softback
    NATIONAL BESTSELLER
    SHORTLISTED FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

    Award-winning journalist Anna Mehler Paperny's stunning memoir chronicles with courageous honesty and uncommon eloquence her experience of depression and her quest to explore what we know and don't know about this disease that afflicts almost a fifth of the population--providing an invaluable guide to a system struggling to find solutions. As fascinating as it is heartrending, as outrageously funny as it is serious, it is a must-read for anyone impacted by depression--and that's pretty much everybody.

    Depression is a havoc-wreaking illness that masquerades as personal failing and hijacks your life. After a major suicide attempt in her early twenties, Anna Mehler Paperny resolved to put her reporter's skills to use to get to know her enemy, setting off on a journey to understand her condition, the dizzying array of medical treatments on offer and a medical profession in search of answers. Charting the way depression wrecks so many, she maps competing schools of therapy, pharmacology, cutting-edge medicine, the pill-popping pitfalls of long-term treatment, the glaring unknowns and the institutional shortcomings that both patients and practitioners are up against. She interviews leading medical experts across Canada and the US, from psychiatrists to neurologists, brain-mapping pioneers to family practitioners, and others dabbling in strange hypotheses--and shares compassionate conversations with fellow sufferers.

    Hello I Want to Die Please Fix Me tracks Anna's quest for knowledge and her desire to get well. Impeccably reported, it is a profoundly compelling story about the human spirit and the myriad ways we treat (and fail to treat) the disease that accounts for more years swallowed up by disability than any other in the world.
    View this title on BNC CataList
  9. Witch Please
    by Sonia Lazo
    Chronicle Books
    Aug 06, 2019
    BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Witchcraft
    Hardback
    Witch Please
    by Sonia Lazo
    Chronicle Books
    Aug 06, 2019
    BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Witchcraft
    Hardback
    Witch, Please: Magical Musings on Life, Love, and Owning Your Power is an illustrated love letter to modern witches and all things occult.

    In this enchanting book, author and illustrator Sonia Lazo celebrates the power and diversity of contemporary witches.

    There's more than one way to be a witch—some witches harness the properties of herbs and crystals, and some craft their own spells and rituals for empowerment and success; some dress all in black, and some prefer a more colorful aesthetic.
    • Filled with charming illustrations
    • Offers advice and guidance to modern mystics all over the world
    • Inclusive, feminist, and body-positive

    Witch, Please is proof that anyone can tap into their inner magic—all you have to do is be true to yourself.

    • A perfect gift for fans of Sonia Lazo's unique illustration aesthetic, witches both practicing and aspiring, and smart and sassy women everywhere looking to tap into their mystical witchy powers
    • Great for those who loved Rad American Women A-Z: Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries who Shaped Our History...and Our Future! by Kate Schatz, Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power by Pam Grossman, The Wild Unknown Tarot Deck, and The Witch's Book of Self-Care: Magical Ways to Pamper, Soothe, and Care for Your Body and Spirit by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
    View this title on BNC CataList
  10. Fuel Your Day!
    by Madame Labriski Canada
    Appetite by Random House
    Aug 13, 2019
    COOKING / Health & Healing / General
    Paperback / softback
    Fuel Your Day!
    by Madame Labriski Canada
    Appetite by Random House
    Aug 13, 2019
    COOKING / Health & Healing / General
    Paperback / softback
    Looking for a pre- or post-workout energy boost? A healthy snack to combat your mid-afternoon slump? How about a healthy treat for your child's lunchbox, or a high-fiber breakfast on the go?

    In Fuel Your Day! enjoy over 100 healthy, energy-filled, and high-fiber treats with no added sugar or fat. Easy to make and seriously addictive, the secret is Madame Labriski's magical date puree. Discover for yourself the delicious, family-friendly snacks that have fueled thousands of people's days!
    View this title on BNC CataList

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