Great Summer Reads

On a dark night, along a lonely stretch of coast, a small merchant ship sends two people ashore: their purpose is assassination. They have been hired by two of the most dangerous men alive to alter the balance of power in the world. The consequences of that act will affect the destinies of empires as well as lives both great and small.

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"Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home--she's built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava's world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn't been used in years, and her toddler's tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava's enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business--someone who'd never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences."-- Publisher's website.

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"From the New York Times's Global Economics Correspondent, a masterwork of reporting and explanatory journalism that exposes how billionaires' systematic plunder of the world has transformed 21st century life and dangerously destabilized democracy"-- Provided by publisher.

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When Swiv is expelled from school, Grandma takes on the role of teacher and gives her the task of writing to Swiv's absent father about life in the household during the last trimester of the pregnancy. In turn, Swiv gives Grandma an assignment: to write a letter to "Gord," her unborn grandchild (and Swiv's soon-to-be brother or sister). "You're a small thing," Grandma writes to Gord, "and you must learn to fight." As Swiv records her thoughts and observations, Fight Night unspools the pain, love, laughter, and above all, will to live a good life across three generations of women in a close-knit family.

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Join Mary Roach on an irresistible investigation into the unpredictable world where wildlife and humans meet. What's to be done about a jaywalking moose? A grizzly bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? As author Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Roach tags along with animal attack forensics investigators, human-elephant conflict specialists, bear managers, and "danger tree" faller-blasters. She travels from leopard-terrorized hamlets in the Indian Himalaya to St. Peter's Square in the early hours before the Pope arrives for Easter Mass, when vandal gulls swoop in to destroy the elaborate floral display. Along the way, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature's lawbreakers. Combining little- known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and mugging macaques, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.

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"As Ukraine is embroiled in an ongoing struggle with Russia to preserve its territorial integrity and political independence, celebrated historian Serhii Plokhy explains that today's crisis is a case of history repeating itself: the Ukrainian conflict is only the latest in a long history of turmoil over Ukraine's sovereignty. ... This revised edition contains new material that brings this definitive history up to the present, from the election of Volodymyr Zelensky to the role of Ukraine in Trump's impeachment. As Ukraine once again finds itself at the center of global attention, Plokhy brings its history to vivid life as he connects the nation's past with its present and future."-- Back cover.

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When Hana's mysterious aunt and her teenage cousin arrive from India for a surprise visit, they draw Hana into a long-buried family secret. A hate-motivated attack on their neighbourhood complicates the situation further, as does Hana's growing attraction for Aydin, the young owner of the rival halal restaurant - who might not be a complete stranger after all. As life on the Golden Crescent unravels, Hana must learn to use her voice, draw on the strength of her community and decide what her future should be.

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An expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show, Brown Sugar, Kiki Banjo has made it her mission to make sure the women of the Afro-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of "situationships," players, and heartbreak. But when Kiki kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she publicly denounced in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show and her reputation on the brink. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before and a player like Malakai, no matter how charming he is or how incredible their connection is, won't be the one to change that.

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Come home." Vera's mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories - she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family. Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren't alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera's childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn't the one leaving notes around the house in her father's handwriting... but who else could it possibly be? There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

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It begins quietly on a balmy Southern night as some locals gather at Bo Peep's, one of the town's favorite watering holes. Within an hour, however, a man will be murdered and his companion will be "disappeared." An unlikely detective, Morgana Musgrove, doyenne of Savannah society, is called upon to unravel the mystery of these crimes. Morgana is an imperious, demanding, and conniving woman, whose four grown children are weary of her schemes. But one by one she inveigles them into helping with her investigation, and soon the family uncovers some terrifying truths-truths that will rock Savannah's power structure to its core.

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The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we're still groping to understand. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture. Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.

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"Three women who seemingly have nothing in common find that they're involved with the same man in this smart new rom-com by Beth O'Leary, author of The Flatshare. Siobhan is a quick-tempered life coach with way too much on her plate. Jane is a soft-spoken volunteer for the local charity shop with zero sense of self-worth. Miranda is a tree surgeon used to being treated as just one of the guys on the job. These three women are strangers who have only one thing in common: They've all been stood up on the same day, the very worst day to be stood up-Valentine's Day. And, unbeknownst to them, they've all been stood up by the same man. Once they've each forgiven him for standing them up, they let him back into their lives and are in serious danger of falling in love with a man who seems to have not just one or two but three women on the go.... Is there more to him than meets the eye? And will they each untangle the truth before they all get their hearts broken?"-- Provided by publisher.

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Picking up where "The Diana Chronicles" left off, Tina Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey that shows the Queen's stoic resolve as she coped with the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and her partner for seven decades, Prince Philip. She explores Prince Charles's determination to make Camilla his queen, the tension between two princes on "different paths," the ascendance of the resolute Kate Middleton, the disturbing allegations surrounding Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein, and Harry and Meghan's stunning decision to "step back" as senior royals.

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Drawing from new research in social psychology, neuroscience, biology, and more, as well as from more than ten thousand people in thirty-five countries around the world who responded to his World Regret Survey-the largest of its kind ever conducted-Pink challenges the idea of regret being a drag on our self-esteem and outlook. In fact, understanding how regret actually works and using those insights to reframe our perspective of it will help us reclaim regret as an indispensable emotion that can help us make smarter decisions, perform better at work and school, and bring greater meaning to our lives.

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Patrick Radden Keefe brings together twelve enthralling stories of misbehaviour and skullduggery - exploring the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examining whether a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spending time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicling the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiling a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the "worst of the worst," among other bravura works of literary journalism.

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"The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from an island off Vancouver in 1912 to a dark colony of the moon three hundred years later, unfurlinga story of humanity across centuries and planets"-- Provided by publisher.

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Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes - even if that means becoming the monster herself.

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Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal - for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. This memoir charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections - yearning to belong in a time and place where expectation and assumptions around race, faith, language, and origin make such belonging extremely difficult, but it's also a story of the surprising and unexpected ways in which connection and acceptance can be found.

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Deep in the thickets of North America's most ancient woodland, timber poachers are felling some of the last remaining old-growth on our continent. Redwoods, cedar, and Douglas fir trees are all victims of poaching. Stealing timber is a lucrative crime. This book follows a group of poachers into the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest, tracking cases of timber poaching from crime to market. In her page-turning and compassionate account, Lyndsie Bourgon opens our eyes to why a person might choose to endanger the ancient, wild landscapes we have worked so hard to protect.

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"A dazzling literary thriller about a woman whose husband is kidnapped and held for ransom while they are visiting Portugal, leaving her no choice but to reach out to the one person she fears most."-- Provided by publisher.

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When eight-year-old Leah McLaren's parents get divorced, her mother's self-described parenting style of "benign neglect" is a hilarious party joke and Leah's stark reality. Cessie makes a disclosure that will alter everything: from the age of twelve to fifteen, she was in a clandestine relationship with her middle-aged, married riding instructor. The damage inflicted by the "Horseman," Cessie explains, is the reason for all her ill-conceived life choices. This is an intimate exploration of the ways intergenerational trauma is shared between women, and how acts of harm can be confused with acts of love. Hometown: Cobourg, ON.

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