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New and Featured eAudiobooks September 2026 |
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Back for Blood: Never Whistle at Night Part II
by Book Author
They're baaaaaaaaaack! As any savvy horror fan knows: the monster never truly dies. The team that brought you the bestselling dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night has risen, hungry, from the grave to summon more dark delicacies for your delectation. In these twenty-one brand-new, groundbreaking, gruesome stories--authored by both established and newly unearthed Indigenous talent and illustrated by renowned Cheyenne and Arapaho painter Brent Learned--the contributors are fully embracing horror: both supernatural horrors and the everyday horror of living under colonialist rule. Featuring stories of unspeakable yet satisfying terror, from twisted psychological tales to gore-filled monster hunts, this new selection of sinister stories will sate your darkest appetites and leave you slavering for more. Never Whistle at Night, Part II: Back for Blood is a further celebration of Indigenous survival and the enduring tradition of transforming adversity into art.
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Trash!: A Garbageman's Story
by Simon Pare-Poupart
This fascinating no-bullshit account of twenty years in waste management paints a vivid portrait of the heroic labor, anarchic spirit, and violent conditions of the people who keep our cities clean. Par -Poupart's story is atypical: he started working as a garbageman to pay for school, and after earning graduate degrees and working in more respectable fields, he is still on a truck -- out of love for the physical rush, for his rough-and-tumble colleagues, and for an honesty and freedom that no other job has yet given him. Includes eight black and white photographs of the author on the job. His sociology background informs his inquiry into our collective wastefulness and individual failure to confront the trash we produce. Every abstract observation comes with hilarious and hair-raising stories from the collection route to his days off spent hunting down furniture and toys for family and friends, as a committed freegan. Trash explains and questions efforts to clean up a business with longstanding conventions of its own, a last bastion of well-paid employment for people who cannot fit in anywhere else. Aligned with great books about work from Zola to Orwell to Lucia Berlin, and in dialogue with societal critiques like How To Do Nothing, Trash will change how you think about your waste and the people who handle it.
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The Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning--And How to Help Them Thrive Again
by PhD Med Cooney Horvath, Jared
Educator and neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath reveals why digital tools in school consistently undermine learning--and what parents, teachers, and schools can do to push back with purpose. Our children are struggling. Schools, once alive with human connection, are now dominated by screens and digital tools. The result is unmistakable: declining performance, fractured attention, and the slow erosion of rigorous thought. For the first time in recent history, children are falling behind previous generations on many key measures of cognitive development. In The Digital Delusion, neuroscientist and educator Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath reveals how the widespread use of laptops, tablets, and classroom software is undermining how children learn and develop. Drawing on decades of research, he provides practical tools for families to reassess device use at home, equips educators with the means to restore attention-rich learning environments, and helps schools make smarter decisions about technology. He exposes and dismantles the central myths driving the EdTech movement and lays out a clear path for putting people--not programs--back at the center of education. This is not a call to reject technology. It's a call to reclaim real learning.
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The Heartbreakers
by Ali Novak
When Stella Samuel meets a gorgeous blue-eyed guy at Starbucks and shows him her camera, it's nothing more than a moment--one that takes her breath away, sure, but it's not like she'll ever see him again. This year she's postponing college to support her sister, Cara, as she fights cancer, and she doesn't have time for anything else. While Stella would rather not spend three hours in line to get autographs from some band called The Heartbreakers, her sister's a huge fan. It'll be totally worth it to surprise Cara on her birthday. But Stella gets a surprise of her own. That guy in Starbucks? Turns out he's Oliver Perry, lead singer of the Heartbreakers. And even though Stella hates his music (and tells him so), and it's weird that he's famous, they're falling for one another. Being with Oliver makes anything feel possible, even the dreams she'd put on hold. But how can Stella even think of following them when her sister could be dying?
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Sunlight Finds You
by Laura Moriarty
It's 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For seventeen-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident, even as he remains tender and caring. Leonard's sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives. When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood. It is a mature Nora who tells the story of her turbulent past. Wiser and more worldly, she commits to an honest but compassionate account, and to a future based on trusting, first and foremost, herself. Sunlight Finds You is, ultimately, a love story set in the past that has much to say about our present. Richly layered and propulsive, it's a book about extending forgiveness--for ourselves, and for others--and about refusing to settle for a life that is less than full.
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Stealing America: The Hidden Story of Indigenous Slavery in U.S. History
by Linford D. Fisher
Although the first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, European slavery in America began more than a century before. In a work distinguished not only by its original research but by its “passionate prose” (James F. Brooks), historian Linford Fisher demonstrates how the enslavement of Indigenous people began in the years just after 1492, ensnaring an estimated three to six million Natives throughout the Americas. Although largely erased from the public consciousness, Native enslavement continued for centuries to become a colossal phenomenon that affected nearly 600,000 Native Americans in North America alone, revealing the shocking truth that American colonizers enslaved Natives in roughly the same numbers as they imported enslaved Africans.
Nearly fifteen years in the making, this magisterial volume not only uncovers a five-century genocidal history but also illuminates the myriad ways Native Americans have fought for their sovereignty and maintained community. The most comprehensive work of its kind, Stealing America emerges as a saga of both persistent colonialism and Indigenous resilience, one that reframes American history at its core.
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Talking at Night
by Claire Daverley
Secret walks and late-night phone calls. An undeniable chemistry. A tragedy that haunts them both. A powerful yet tender love story between two people who can't help but be pulled back to one another, time and again This is the story of Will and Rosie. The two are opposites in every way and yet they fall for each other as teenagers; nineties music, sideways glances, sunsets and bonfires and talking late into the night. It's palpable, inevitable: they're on the precipice of starting something wonderful. Until one day, tragedy strikes, and any possibility of being together seems to shatter. And yet, time and again, Rosie and Will find their way back to each other. Though the years pass, they cannot quite let go of what might have been. Talking at Night tells a story of sudden connections, missed opportunities, the many loves we have over a lifetime--and the one that keeps us coming back, again and again, for more--
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Lost in the Summer of '69
by Eliza Knight
Summer, 1969. Eleanor Bell doesn't have anything to lose. According to her doctors, she might not remember how to sing or play guitar soon, so why not head west now? Why not join the music festivals sweeping the country and lose herself in the music again in a swan song of her own? Except Eleanor forgets, maybe on purpose, to tell anyone where she's going. When her daughter, Leanne, discovers her mother missing, she enlists the help of her own daughter, Nora, to help her find Eleanor. The last thing Nora wants to do before starting as one of Yale's first female undergrads is hit the road. But then Nora hears her grandmother on the radio - singing. Nora and Leanne hop in their Lincoln Continental for a cross-country road trip, always one step behind Eleanor, who has been dubbed the Dame of Rock n' Roll by none other than Johnny Carson. Full of nostalgia and awash with the warmth of summer, Lost in the Summer of '69 is an epic celebration of savoring the encore-no matter what the next act may bring.
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A Tender Age
by Chang-Rae Lee
A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family. Devastating in its emotional precision, A Tender Age captures a family and community in striking distance of the American dream, and a young person on the precipice of adult knowledge, looking at his own culpability and looking away--then thinking about it for the rest of his life.
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Stay Buried
by Jennifer McMahon
From the New York Times bestselling author of Children on the Hill comes a queer folk horror in which a woman must confront decades of secrecy and superstition to learn the truth about her mother's death. Some towns stay isolated for a reason. 1919: Frankie O'Massey has always been the black sheep of isolated Boone's Ferry, Vermont. Her uncle, Dr. Thomas Endicott, has been training her in the science of medicine, something the townspeople are wary of. When a mysterious illness strikes the town, and the community suspects supernatural forces, the two desperately search for a logical explanation. Patient zero seems to be the town's knackerman--a recluse who collects dead and dying farm animals to make use of their parts. 2016: Siblings Ashley and Malcolm lost their mother two years ago. When their grandmother dies, they inherit a property in Boone's Ferry--a place they've heard of but their grandmother has always refused to talk about--and embark on a trip to their ancestral home. The idyllic town is full of autumnal d cor, picturesque farmland, and small-town charm. But some of the townspeople aren't very welcoming--and they have some unsettling traditions, like leaving offerings to a vengeful spirit four times a year.
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Jefferson on Race
by Thomas Jefferson
Among America's Founding Fathers, none was more deeply, personally, or controversially entangled with race and slavery than Thomas Jefferson. The man whose Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal enslaved more than 600 people of African descent even as he acknowledged the injustice of slavery, saw himself as its opponent, and condemned it in his writings. How is this possible? In Jefferson on Race, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed gathers Jefferson's most revealing writings about African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, enabling readers as never before to directly explore his complex and contradictory thoughts, feelings, and decisions on these subjects--the most hotly debated aspect of his legacy. These selections come from Jefferson's public and private writings, letters, and plantation records, as well as accounts by contemporaries, including his son Madison Hemings and three other people formerly enslaved at Monticello. The book documents Jefferson's ideas about--and self-image in relation to--African Americans, slavery, and Native Americans, as well as his conduct, including interactions with individual Black and Native people. The writings show how Jefferson responded to living in a multiracial slave society while professing progressive ideals, and how his views on race and slavery were shaped by his experiences with enslaved Black people. Jefferson on Race is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Jefferson's conflicted attitudes--and the impact of race and slavery on American history.
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Shadow of the Hangman
by Edward Marston
In this first instalment of the Bow Street Rivals series a riot breaks out in Dartmoor prison, enabling some American inmates to escape. The twin detectives Peter and Paul Skillen catch wind of a projected assassination but the target is unknown. Trouble ensues when a woman from the Home Office vanishes; a mysterious lady turns up at the archery shooting gallery; and Paul's gambling addiction worsens ...
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A Summer of War
by Lynn Mason
Journalist Chris McKenna would do anything to cover the Vietnam War. If there's one thing she knows, it's that she was born to tell this story. Chris rolls into South Vietnam intent on sniffing out the overlooked stories of America's most unpopular war. Much to the dismay of the military establishment, she hops a Huey to a remote base in the Mekong Delta and hits the motherlode. A mission both tactically and strategically questionable. Inept junior officers more concerned about image than protecting the troops they lead. A platoon of grunts taking fire from all sides. A stoic soldier powerless against the woman keen on breaking through his defenses. John Rawlins rues the day he met Chris. The last thing he wants to be is a story, but Chris has glory in mind for the quiet, heroic soldier who simply wants to make it home alive. He figures she won't last long. Journalists never do. He couldn't be more wrong. Through jungle patrols and firefights, amidst the chaos and the comedy that is the war in Vietnam, Chris earns the respect and affection of a squad of men who have nothing to lose by telling it like it is. But as the pressure from her editor mounts, as journalistic competition descends on the Delta, as Chris reckons with the consequences of the choices that led her to Vietnam, she discovers how hard it is to separate the story she was born to tell from the story she was born to live.
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Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock
by Maud Woolf
Her purpose is to track down and eliminate her predecessors. Simple, right? In the glitz and glamour of Bubble City even a washed-up film star simply has too much to do, too many places to be. Thank heavens for clones. Lulabelle Rock has twelve, doing the tiresome celebrity rounds. But times have changed: you can have too much of a good thing. And time is up for the twelve Lulabelles. A thirteenth clone, an assassin is created. Killing yourselves should be easy. We're talking clones, not people; it's not murder. Not really. But love has a way of complicating things.
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Trusting Your Highly Sensitive Self
by Elizabeth Venart
People who identify as highly sensitive (HSPs) often struggle with intense emotions, stress intolerance, and sensory overwhelm. They may also feel that the world invalidates and rejects their sensitivity--leading to shame and self-doubt. This groundbreaking book offers skills based in internal family systems (IFS) therapy to help HSPs reconnect with their core selves, embrace their creativity and natural gifts, rebuild self-trust, and reclaim wholeness.
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For the Love of the Quest
by Alexandra Ammon Parthun
Lady Edith Darling is supposed to live a quiet life in her family's manor. She is not supposed to go unchaperoned on a quest to find Excalibur. But Edith won't let that stand in her way, especially not when she's on this mission to honor her beloved grandmother's dying wish. Determined to prove her grandmother right, Edith packs her satchel with Arthurian legends, pastries, and her grandmother's ashes and runs off to hire a mercenary. Thomasin Shaw leads the most feared gang in London. For years, she had the constabulary safely in her pocket, until a scandal involving the chief inspector's wife was brought to light. Now he's demanding an enormous sum of money--without which Thomasin will lose the protection of the police along with her criminal empire. But when the rich Lady Edith waltzes into her life seeking an escort for a treasure hunt, Thomasin sees a willing kidnapping victim and a massive ransom. As Edith's clues lead them to underground chambers booby-trapped with arrows, doors locked with arcane puzzles, and even Arthur's fabled round table, Thomasin finds herself swept up in the quest--and in Edith herself. Edith is also drawn to Thomasin, despite the ruthless mask she wears. But the chief inspector won't let Thomasin forget her crimes, and Edith's father is intent on bringing her home. Every legendary quest has an ending, but finding Excalibur might not be enough to make this a happy one.
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The Vase Chronicles
by Rebecca Yurkanin
A mysterious golden vase passes silently from one life to another, leaving behind hope, reckoning, and unanswered questions. When a teenage boy vanishes without a trace in the Arizona mountains, the vase appears near the site of his disappearance-setting off a chain of events that will connect strangers in ways none of them expect. Macey, the intuitive daughter of an archaeologist, is drawn to the vase while searching for clues about her own father, who disappeared years earlier. Jenna, a grieving nurse, discovers the vase washed ashore and finds comfort in its hidden message before gifting it to Ivy, a young girl facing a fatal heart condition. That same night, Ivy dreams of a wondrous world filled with gentle, magical beings-dreams that awaken hope where none should exist. As the vase continues its journey, it inspires love, exposes darkness, and forces reckoning. Becca begins seeing a mysterious man who challenges her sense of reality. Royce, who steals the vase, is confronted with the consequences of his choices. And Katie, longing for a child, receives guidance through vivid dreams that may change her future forever. Is the vase divine, alien, or a relic of a lost civilization? Its origins remain a mystery-but its power is undeniable. This clean, emotionally driven science-fiction novella explores grief, redemption, and the unseen forces that bind us together.
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How to Travel: An Ancient Guide for the Modern Tourist
by Herodotus
At long last, a travel guide to the ancient world for the modern tourist--written by the ancients themselves. How to Travel gathers classic texts from Greek and Roman writers to explore what today's readers can learn from ancient encounters with unfamiliar peoples, places, and customs. The Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 484-425 BCE) is one of the most famous travelers of antiquity. His Histories, which chronicle his and others' encounters with foreign peoples and places, have fascinated readers for millennia, and have much to teach about the secrets of good travel. In How to Travel, Herodotus and Tacitus take us on tours of Central Asia, Egypt, and Germania, while pilgrims like Pausanias and the Christian nun Egeria guide us through Greece and the Holy Land. Readers are whisked away to India to experience the ways of forest-dwelling sages and to the far reaches of Africa. And as if Earth weren't enough, the satirist Lucian takes us to the Moon. But this whirlwind tour of antiquity is more than a pleasure cruise. Seneca cautions travelers that, go as far as we may, we can never escape ourselves. Gratitude, Egeria says, is the traveler's proper response for the privilege. And Homer reminds us that, ultimately, there's no place like home. Featuring vivid new translations, an inviting introduction, and the original Greek and Latin texts on facing pages, How to Travel captures the thrill of exploration and discovery--and how new experiences, fresh vistas, and foreign cultures can change the traveler.
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The Widows' Guide to Foul Play
by Amanda Ashby
It's pantomime season in Little Shaw, and librarian Ginny Cole has been roped in to help. The local theatre has persuaded national treasure and famously difficult diva, Monica Larkwell, to star in their production of Mother Goose, and while the celebrity's return to the village after thirty years hasn't exactly gone smoothly, at least nobody's dead. Until, that is, Ginny discovers Monica's body in her dressing room, crushed beneath a fallen chandelier.Sure that this was no accident, Ginny gathers up the widows' detective club and takes on the role of amateur sleuth. But between navigating Monica's volatile entourage and unearthing secrets the actress spent decades trying to bury, this case is messier than anything Little Shaw has seen before. And then there's the CCTV footage: the culprit was caught on camera, disguised in a giant, purple, feathered goose costume...The widows have faced some strange cases, but a killer in a comedy bird suit? But there's nothing funny about murder, and if they don't solve this case soon, it might be curtains for them all.
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Plainfield Area Public Library
15025 S. Illinois St.
Plainfield, Illinois 60544
815.436.6639papl.info |
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