New Releases: March Edition

Did one of the book covers on our homepage catch your eye? They are all new titles being released in March 2021, and all are well-reviewed and anticipated. You can either watch the video below or read the description of each, then click the linked title to request a copy or get your name on the wait list. And don't forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

Featured Fiction Titles for March

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
Talia is in a Columbian correctional facility for girls. She needs to get out and back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the U.S. are waiting. If she misses her flight, she might also miss reuniting with her family. How her family came to occupy two different countries and worlds comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia’s parents fall in love as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the U.S. on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, in America. We witness the decisions that lead to the family’s splintering - and how they’ve been living since. Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the reality of the undocumented in America, this is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family.

Raft of Stars by Andrew J. Graff
It’s the summer of 1994 in Claypot, Wisconsin, and the lives of ten-year-old Fischer “Fish” Branson and Dale “Bread” Breadwin are shaped by the two fathers they don’t talk about. One night, tired of seeing his friend bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, Fish takes action. A gunshot rings out and the two boys flee the scene, believing themselves murderers. They head for the woods, where they find their way onto a raft, but the natural terrors of Ironsforge gorge threaten to overwhelm them. Four adults track them into the forest, each on a journey of his or her own. Fish’s mother Miranda, a wise woman full of faith; his granddad, Teddy, who knows the woods like the back of his hand; Tiffany, a purple-haired gas station attendant and poet; and Sheriff Cal, who’s having doubts about a life in law enforcement. This story of loss, hope, and adventure runs like the river itself amid the landscape of the Upper Midwest.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara - an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities - watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

Featured Nonfiction Titles for March

The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren
Here is the story of New York's glamorous women-only hotel, and those who passed through its doors. World War I had liberated women from the home, setting them on the path to political enfranchisement and gainful employment. Arriving in New York to work, they did not want to stay in boarding houses; they wanted what men had - exclusive residential hotels that catered to their needs. The Barbizon would become the most famous residential hotel of all, with a residents list that reads like a who's who: Titanic survivor Molly Brown; actresses Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedron, Liza Minelli, Ali McGraw, Jaclyn Smith, and Phylicia Rashad; writers Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, Diane Johnson, Gael Greene, and Meg Wolitzer; and more. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, this book weaves a tale that has, until now, never been told. 

Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green
This is the gripping true story of the Last Call Killer and the gay community of New York City that he preyed upon. The Townhouse Bar, midtown, July 1992: The piano player seems to know every song ever written, the crowd belts out the lyrics to their favorites, and a man standing nearby is drinking a Scotch and water. He strikes the piano player as forgettable, bland and inconspicuous. Not what you'd think a serial killer looks like. But that's what he is, and he has his sights set on a gray haired man. He will not be his first victim, nor his last. The Last Call Killer preyed upon gay men in New York in the '80s and '90s and had all the hallmarks of the most notorious serial killers. Yet because of the sexuality of his victims, high murder rates, and the AIDS epidemic, his murders have almost been forgotten. This gripping narrative tells the story of the Last Call Killer and the decades-long chase to find him. 

Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson

Driven to understand how nature works and to turn discoveries into inventions, Doudna helped make the most important biological advance since the discovery of the structure of DNA. She and her collaborators turned ​a curiosity ​of nature into an invention that will transform the human race: a tool known as CRISPR that can edit DNA. The past half-century has been a digital age, based on the microchip, computer, and internet. Now we're entering a life-science revolution. Children who study digital coding will be joined by those who study genetic code. Should we use our new evolution-hacking powers to make us less susceptible to viruses? What about preventing depression? Should we allow parents to enhance the muscles or IQ of their kids? After helping to discover CRISPR, Doudna wrestled with these questions and, with her collaborator Charpentier, won the Nobel Prize in 2020.