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Adult Services Staff Picks June 2026 |
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American Fantasy
by Emma Straub
Recommended by: Sarah R.
Annie, at a crossroads, agrees to a four day cruise featuring her sister's favorite boy band and thousands of middle-aged female fans. As she settles into the rhythms of cruise life driven by the collective passion of the fans for the band, Annie starts to feel the new possibilities life holds for her. A fun read full of smart observations about midlife, fandom, and nostalgia.
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Contrapposto
by Dave Eggers
Recommended by: Laura
Cricket Dib, born on the American prairie, has no particular prospects or ambitions until, in grade school, he realizes he can draw. He soon meets a girl, Olympia Argyros, one year older, who is captivating and brilliant and far more worldly. Recognizing his talent, she convinces him to deface, with profound vulgarity, a popular playground. Under her direction, he does it willingly, already in love, and thus begins a sixty-five-year entwining between Cricket and Olympia, encompassing friendship, working partnership and love affair.
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Eradication: A Fable
by Jonathan Miles
Recommended by: Sarah L.
A novel about a bereaved man alone on an island who's been tasked with killing its inhabitants.
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How to Read a Book
by Monica Wood
Recommended by: Rachel
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland, their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.
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Lady Tremaine
by Rachel Hochhauser
Recommended by: Joanna
Meet Lady Tremaine in this spellbinding reimagining of Cinderella, as told by its iconic evil stepmother, revealing a propulsive love story about the lengths a mother will go for her children.
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Leave Your Mess at Home
by Tolani Akinola
Recommended by: Anna Jayne
The Longe siblings are really botching their parents' American Dream. Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She's a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren't doing much better, trying to navigate love, marriage, sexuality, career, race, and parenthood. Sola's unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents' Thanksgiving table, a decade's worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.
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Ruby Falls
by Gin Phillips
Recommended by: Sarah V.
A tense, claustrophobic historical mystery set almost entirely underground at the onset of the Great Depression about the discovery of a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain, the unthinkable crime that happens in its caves, and a woman who’s never felt more alive.
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The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol. 1
by Beth Brower
Recommended by: Cathy
A witty historical fiction novel set in 1883 London, told through the journal entries of its protagonist, Emma M. Lion, as she navigates eccentric relatives, odd neighbors, and unexpected chaos in her new life at Lapis Lazuli House - for fans of Jane Austen.
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Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King
by Caroline Bicks
Recommended by: Brandee
After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maine's Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first person given full access to King's archives, a treasure trove of material about the legendary writer's creative process and life, most of it never seen before. Bicks focuses on five of King's early iconic books to reveal how he manipulates character, language, and story to cast his remarkable, creepy spells. Through close reading of early drafts, interviews with King, and freshly discovered biographical details, as well as her own personal history as a reader and scholar, Bicks shows King's mastery of storytelling and his enduring imprint on American culture.
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Palace Costume: Inside Hollywood's Best Kept Fashion Secret
by Mimi Haddon
Recommended by: Lori
Palace Costume is a behind-the-scenes glimpse into Palace Costume & Prop Co., an exclusive Los Angeles film-industry haven of dresses, gowns, garments, accessories, props, and jewelry featured in countless movies for more than fifty years. Los Angeles-based photographer Mimi Haddon has been artfully photographing the vintage gems at Palace Costume for many years. Over 300 of her stunning, stylized, and saturated images are featured in this visually comprehensive and delightful celebration of this one-of-a-kind archive.
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