FICTION
April May June July by Alison B. Hart
April, May, June, and July Barber don’t have much in common anymore. An upcoming family wedding will place the four siblings in the same room for the first time in years. But shortly before, when April spots their father, their reunion becomes entirely more complicated. While the siblings’ search for the truth about their father forces them back into each other’s lives, it also intensifies their private dramas. Confronting the past together, April, May, June, and July will find not only answers about their father, but new romance, hope, and understanding as they learn to embrace the beauty of their shared history.
Real Americans by Rachel Khong
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when 22-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn’t be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, 15-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.
The Seaside Sisters by Pamala M. Kelley
Brooklyn-based Hannah is a bestselling author struggling to write her second book after personal losses. Her older sister, Sara, still lives in Chatham, Cape Cod, where they grew up, and is married with four children. Sara dreams of reviving her love affair with literature, but instead, she is stuck with too many family responsibilities and a fizzling marriage. When Hannah gets the chance to retreat to her aunt’s oceanfront house in Chatham for the summer, it seems like just the thing to get her creative juices flowing. And she’ll be able to spend more time with Sara. The pair will spend the summer making friends, rekindling romance and opening themselves up to the magic of books and the beach.
A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter
Carter is a young mother on a quest to find the true meaning of her heritage. Allie is trying to make up for the lost years with her firstborn and to protect Carter from the hurt she herself suffered from her own mother. Lucie wants the granddaughter she’s never met to help her get to her ancestors in the afterlife. And Geneviève is determined to conquer her demons with the help of the sister she lost but has never been without. Meanwhile, Mamé knows that all their stories began with her; she must find a way to cut herself from the last threads that keep her tethered to the living. And a young bison wants to understand why he keeps being moved and whether he should make a break for it and run for his life.
NONFICTION
Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities by Brenda Salter McNeil
In Empowered to Repair, Brenda Salter McNeil looks to the biblical story of Nehemiah for answers. There, she finds an action-based model for repairing and rebuilding our communities and transforming broken systems. McNeil goes beyond theories, offering practical tools Christians need for organizing, empowering, and activating people to join in God’s work of equality, reparations, and justice. She provides strategies to drive systemic changes that go beyond superficial diversity and teaches the skills needed to engage in this important work long-term, such as organizing people, leveraging resources, and avoiding burnout through rest, prayer, and self-care.
Outposts of Democracy: A History of the Embassy by G.R. Berridge
This compelling history traces the evolution of the embassy, from its ancient origins to its enduring presence in the modern world. The book explores the embassy’s emergence on the cusp of the Italian Renaissance, its pinnacle during the 19th century, and its navigation through the challenges of 20th-century conference diplomacy. G. R. Berridge investigates how this European institution adapted its staffing, architecture, and communication methods to changing international landscapes, including the tumultuous wars of religion and encounters in the Far East. He also describes the expansion of the embassy’s responsibilities, such as providing diplomatic cover for intelligence operations.
Housewife: Why Women Still Do It All and What to Do Instead by Lisa Selin Davis
Lisa Selin Davis, known for her smart, viral, feminist, cultural takes, argues that the “breadwinner vs. homemaker” divide is a myth. She charts examples from prehistoric female hunters to working class housewives in the 1930s, from First Ladies to 21st century stay-at-home moms, on a search for answers to the problems of what is referred to as women’s work and motherhood. Davis discovers that women have been sold a lie about what families should be. Housewife unveils a truth: interdependence, rather than independence, is the American way. The book is a clarion call for all women — married or single, mothers or childless — and for men, too, to push for liberation.
Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick
Barons is the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences for everyone else. Take Mike McCloskey, Chairman of Fair Oaks Farms. In a few short decades, he went from managing a modest dairy herd to running the Disneyland of agriculture, where schoolchildren ride trams through mechanized warehouses filled with tens of thousands of cows that never see the light of day. What was the key to his success? Hard work and exceptional business savvy? Maybe. But more than anything else, Mike benefitted from deregulation of the American food industry, a phenomenon that has consolidated wealth in the hands of select tycoons, and along the way, hollowed out the nation’s rural towns and local businesses.
CHILDREN’S
Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win by Rachel Ignotofsky
This illustrated book tells the stories of 50 distinguished female athletes, dating from the 1800s to today. In addition to featuring these athletes, the book also includes information on muscle anatomy, the history of female participation in sports, influential women’s teams, and more. Loaded with facts and beautiful illustrations, Women in Sports is a great book to pick up.
Ages 10 and up
LIBRARY OPEN
Lima Public Library is open to the public six days a week. Hours for the Main Library in Lima are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Our Cairo, Elida and Spencerville branch libraries are open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Our Lafayette branch is open from 12 noon to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday.
