_Britt's Staff Picks


Showing 1 - 20 of 37  There are a total of 171 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The setting sun"
Star rating for The setting sun
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Set in the early postwar years, it probes the destructive effects of war and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Ozamu Dazai died, a suicide, in 1948. But the influence of his book has made "people of the setting sun" a permanent part of the Japanese language, and his heroine, Kazuko, a young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world.
Book cover for "Universal harvester"
Star rating for Universal harvester
Average Rating:
3.3 stars
Description:
"The second novel from the author of Wolf in White Van, inspired by his years living in a small town in Iowa"--
Book cover for "The deep"
Star rating for The deep
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
"Yetu holds the memories for her people--water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners--who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one--the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her....
Book cover for "The cretaceous past"
Star rating for The cretaceous past
Author:
Description:
When a Tyrannosaurus rex suffers pain from meat trapped between its enormous teeth, a nearby colony of ants risks entering the great creature's maw to make their own repast from the remains of the dinosaur's most recent meal. From this humble beginning, over the course of millennia, a symbiotic civilization achieves amazing advances, reaching dizzying heights in countless endeavors scientific and social, facing dangers and exploiting opportunities...
Book cover for "No longer human"
Star rating for No longer human
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being." Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his...
Book cover for "Under the broken sky"
Star rating for Under the broken sky
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
When Soviet troops invade Japanese-occupied Manchuria during the last days of World War II, twelve-year-old Natsu Kimura must care for her younger sister as they struggle to survive and return to Japan.
Book cover for "The United States of cryptids"
Star rating for The United States of cryptids
Author:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"A guide to cryptids of the United States and the local communities that celebrate them"--
Book cover for "Educated"
Star rating for Educated
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
"An unforgettable memoir about a young girl who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "Her body and other parties"
Star rating for Her body and other parties
Average Rating:
3 stars
Book cover for "Moon called"
Star rating for Moon called
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Book cover for "My lesbian experience with loneliness"
Star rating for My lesbian experience with loneliness
Author:
Series:
My solo exchange diary volume Prequel.
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
The heart-rending autobiographical manga that's taken the internet by storm! My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an honest and heartfelt look at one young woman's exploration of her sexuality, mental well-being, and growing up in our modern age. Told using expressive artwork that invokes both laughter and tears, this moving and highly entertaining single volume depicts not only the artist's burgeoning sexuality, but many other personal aspects...
Book cover for "Sea prayer"
Star rating for Sea prayer
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Composed in the form of a letter, from a father to his son, on the eve of their journey ... the father reflects on the dangerous sea-crossing that lies before them. It is also a vivid portrait of their life in Homs, Syria, before the war, and of that city's swift transformation from a home into a deadly war zone"-- Sea Prayer is composed in the form of a letter, from a father to his son, on the eve of their journey. Watching over his sleeping son,...

13. Finna

Book cover for "Finna"
Star rating for Finna
Author:
Series:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store -- but not that one -- slips through a portal to another dimension, it's up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company's bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture...
Book cover for "One last stop"
Star rating for One last stop
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Red, White & Royal Blue comes a new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks... "Dreamy, other worldly, smart, swoony, thoughtful, hilarious - all in all, exactly what you'd expect from Casey McQuiston!" - Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Proposal and Party for Two Cynical twenty-three-year old August doesn't believe in much. She doesn't believe in psychics, or...
Book cover for "The unbroken"
Star rating for The unbroken
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought. Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters:...
Book cover for "Old Possum's book of practical cats"
Star rating for Old Possum's book of practical cats
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
A collection of T. S. Eliot's poems which concern cats including Mr. Mistoffelees, and Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat.
Book cover for "Fallout"
Star rating for Fallout
Description:
"Blume reveals how a courageous reporter uncovered one of greatest and deadliest cover-ups of the 20th century--the true effects of the atom bomb--potentially saving millions of lives"--
Book cover for "Ejaculate responsibly"
Star rating for Ejaculate responsibly
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In a series of 28 brief arguments reframing the abortion issue, Gabrielle Blair deftly makes the case for moving the abortion debate away from controlling and legislating women's bodies and instead directs the focus on men's lack of accountability in preventing unwanted pregnancies.
Book cover for "A mind for numbers"
Star rating for A mind for numbers
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Book cover for "The priory of the orange tree"
Star rating for The priory of the orange tree
Series:
Roots of chaos volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens. The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly...