A Peek at Peak Picks for August 2022

Nine new titles are joining Peak Picks in August!

Fiction features three highly anticipated new titles by bestselling authors: Taylor Jenkins Reid (Malibu Rising) returns with the story of a retired tennis pro who returns to the court after watching her records shattered by a rising new star in Carrie Soto Is Back; Mohsin Hamid (Exit West) channels Kafka in The Last White Man, an allegorical tale that finds Anders, a white man, confronting a new reality after he wakes up one day with dark skin; and Seattle born and raised Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet) chronicles The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, where former Washington poet laureate Dorothy Moy seeks to break intergenerational trauma that has been passed down through seven generations of Chinese women. With the final fiction pick, Navajo police photographer Rita

Gardening with Toddlers

We made a small garden space for my kiddo to play in to get him involved in the growing of things. It’s still mostly dirt play and mud making, which is a delight, but by planting that seed I hope his love for gardening grows as he gets older. Here are a few books in our collection that we’ve added to storytime at home to get him thinking and reading about the garden.

Dig In! by Cynthia L. Jenson-Elliott, illustrated by Mary Peterson
What kid doesn’t LOVE dirt?! This book is all about your child getting their hands dirty and what they will find as they play in the garden.

Green Green: a Community Gardening Story by Marie and Baldev Lamba, illustrated by Sonia Sanchez
Highlights the growth of community and reclaiming green spaces. Told through quick rhymes and colorful pictures.

New Nonfiction Roundup – April 2022

April marks the beginning of the busy spring publishing season, and this month’s crop of new books will not disappoint. Inspiring and approachable cookbooks, bold and nurturing self care titles, delightful pop culture histories and more will make your TBR pile taller than ever. And don’t forget to check out five spectacular additions to Peak Picks in April!

Notable and Noteworthy Authors.
Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, details the trials and tribulations of the Royal family since Princess Diana’s death in The Palace Papers. Saturday Night Live alum Molly Shannon reflects on her traumas and triumphs in the hilarious and heartbreaking Hello Molly! while self-proclaimed nerd Wil Wheaton revisits Hollywood, fandom and his famous blog posts in Still Just a Geek. Bestselling author and journalist Anna Quindlen guides readers to find themselves through the written word in Write For Your Life and the journals of Pulitzer Prize-winning Alice Walker shed light on her life and career as a Black woman in Gathering Blossoms Under Fire. Renowned primatologist Frans de Waal explores gender in humans and other animals in Different.

New Nonfiction Roundup – March 2022

This month in nonfiction features a bevy of fantastic cookbooks, page-turners that read like fiction, thoughtful (and funny) memoirs and a host of books to help us get through the day a bit more successfully. And don’t forget to check out this month’s Peak Picks in nonfiction.

What’s Cooking?
Chef (and recent transplant to Seattle) J. Kenji Lopez-Alt (Food Lab) returns with his second cookbook, The Wok. Dietician Nisha Melvani shares more than 100 plant-based recipes in Practically Vegan, and Steven Gundry (The Plant Paradox) shows readers how to eat more beneficial foods in Unlocking the Keto Code.

Memoirs, Celebrity and Otherwise.
In Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Bob Odenkirk charts his “inexplicable” career from seedy comedy clubs to starring roles in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul while director Sarah Polley tackles the vagaries of memory in Run Towards the Danger. Two books look back at coming of age in the 90s: “Everything Iconic” podcaster Danny Pellegrino revisits his youth as a Midwestern gay kid in How Do I Un-Remember This? while Liz Scheier reflects on her childhood with a mentally ill single parent in Never Simple. Beloved author Amy Bloom shares her struggles as her husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in In Love while New York Times columnist Frank Bruni considers hope amidst loss as he partially loses his eyesight in The Beauty of Dusk. Tony Award-winner and gay icon Harvey Fierstein reveals all in his hilarious memoir I Was Better Last Night, while revolutionary queer comic Hannah Gadsby looks at her childhood in Australia and its impact on her comedy in Ten Steps to Nanette. And Marie Yovanovitch, ambassador to Ukraine until she was famously fired by Donald Trump, provides valuable insight into her life and work in Lessons From the Edge.

Cookbooks and food writing from the past year

Explore dumpling styles from around the world, cook everyday meals rich with Afghan history, get a dose of inspiration from Chinese bakeries, add some Filipino dishes to the next few weeks (and probably forever), or learn how to cook Hawaiian dishes — we have confidence that you can do it all, with the right guide. Here are five cookbooks our staff loved from the past year. These are cooks you’ll want to follow on Instagram, too.

Let’s Make Dumplings by Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan: If the title alone didn’t lure you in, listen to this: It’s a comic book cookbook, two favorite things for many of us for sure, AND THEN THERE ARE DUMPLINGS! It’s a delight. The illustrations are charming as well as super helpful for folding styles. This duo also created Let’s Make Ramen (2019). Keep up with both of them on Instagram: @hughamano and @sarahbecan.