Staff Picks

  • Staff Picks: The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl

    May 30, 2024Staff Picks: The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
    Ruth Reichl’s The Paris Novel is a delightful journey through the enchanting streets of Paris, tailor-made for food lovers and bookworms. The story revolves around the captivating Shakespeare and Company bookstore and a myriad of mouthwatering restaurants scattered across the city. Reichl’s writing is so vivid that you can practically taste the delicious food and ...
    Read more…
  • Aurora’s Anticipated New Non-Fiction: May

    May 23, 2024Aurora's Anticipated New Non-Fiction: May
    A Field Guide to the Patchy Anthropocene: The New Nature by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Jennifer Oeger, Alder Keleman Saxena and FeiFei Zhou Most likely you’ve noticed, but more than just the earth’s climate is changing. There is a tendency, in discussions about the epoch of human-induced environmental transmutation known as the Anthropocene, to emphasize the planetary: rising ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Picks: Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmella Ciuraru

    May 15, 2024Staff Picks: Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages by Carmella Ciuraru
    Lives of the Wives describes the lives of wives of five famous writers and how their husbands resented or stifled their artistic careers. Many of us know about Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (not included in this book) or Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal (included) but in this book contains chapters on couples whose marital ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Pick: The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara Robertson

    May 8, 2024Staff Pick: The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story by Cara Robertson
    In The Trial of Lizzie Borden: A True Story, Cara Robertson skillfully reconstructs the sensational murder trial with meticulous detail, drawing from court transcripts to humanize the events. She expertly weaves doubt into the narrative by exposing flaws in the police investigation and highlighting Lizzie Borden’s compromised state during questioning. Robertson’s accessible storytelling and balanced ...
    Read more…
  • Aurora’s Anticipated New Nonfiction: April

    April 25, 2024Aurora's Anticipated New Nonfiction: April
    Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End by Alua Arthur Although humans have been dying as long as we’ve been living on the earth, death continues to come as an unwelcome shock to most of us. There is, however, a growing contingent of mortals eager to shift the cultural stance ...
    Read more…
  • Poetry Staff Picks: Feminist Politics Meet Surrealism

    April 18, 2024Poetry Staff Picks: Feminist Politics Meet Surrealism
    As a sort of international sampler platter of contemporary women poets whose writings swerve into some of the stranger wilds where feminist politics meet surrealism, I submit:   All the Garbage of the World, Unite! by Kim Hyesoon The Dead Girls Speak in Unison by Danielle Pafunda Hackers by Aase Berg   Please note that none of the above are for the ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Picks Poetry Month: The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell

    April 3, 2024Staff Picks Poetry Month: The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell
    The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell was published in the early 1970s, a time of apocalyptic malaise and unmooring. He dedicated it to his two young children, Maud and Fergus, and the theme of death and rebirth is redolent throughout. This is arguably Kinnell’s best work, a poetic masterpiece, but one I read as ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Picks: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

    April 2, 2024Staff Picks: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare
    Kel is snatched from the orphanage at a very young age and taken to the palace.  He trains for years to be the Sword Catcher – someone who studies Prince Connor so intently he can substitute for him any time things get too dangerous, and who can defend him from a plethora of attacks. As ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Picks: Aurora’s Anticipated Non-Fiction: February and March

    March 28, 2024Staff Picks: Aurora's Anticipated Non-Fiction: February and March
    The Secret History of Bigfoot: Field Notes on a North American Monster by John O’Connor If you’re anything like me, the phrase “I Want to Believe” summons visions of flying saucers, extraterrestrial visitors, and the intrepid renegade government employees who tirelessly track them across the United States. If you have the good fortune of not being especially ...
    Read more…
  • Staff Picks: The Silo Series by Hugh Howey

    March 21, 2024Staff Picks: The Silo Series by Hugh Howey
    I am not a fan of post-apocalyptic sci-fi, nor do I read sci-fi often.  However, the Silo Saga was recommended to me and I am so glad I tried it! I don’t know how the TV series is compared to the books, but I always find the books better.  The series has great characters, a ...
    Read more…

News & Updates

  • April 17, 2026
    Gift Card Raffle

    Tickets for our Gift Card Raffle are now on sale! We’…