Peak Picks Current Titles Book List
A complete list of current Peak Picks titles.
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The Convenience Store by the Sea
Adult Fiction. “In the seaside town of Mojiko, the eccentric Mr. Shiba manages a Tenderness store, where his magnetic personality and handsome figure are nothing compared to his love for his customers and employees. The story follows multiple Tenderness patrons as they navigate hardships, with the store bringing them closer together. Among them are employee Mitsuri, a mother who struggles with raising a difficult teenage boy and finds solace in publishing her popular online manga. There’s also customer Yoshirō, an aspiring manga artist who strives to leave his job as a tutor; and Azusa, a middle schooler who yearns to step out of her friend’s shadow and discovers joy in the sweet treats at Tenderness, fueling her desire to become a pastry chef. Mr. Shiba’s interventions in others’ lives has mixed results… but overall, the well-meaning proprietor seeds a sense of hope and purpose in those he encounters.” PW
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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A Marriage at Sea
Adult Nonfiction. “Elmhirst's narrative turns on two 1960s-era British dreamers who decided to pitch it all in and sail from grim, gray Britain around the globe to New Zealand, ‘discovering new lands on the other side of the world.’ The author discovered the story of Maurice Bailey, a printer by trade, who took a studious approach to the voyage, learning navigation and reading and rereading reference books. His wife, Maralyn, was eminently practical--certainly more so than Maurice, who insisted on having no radio transmitter aboard to ‘preserve their freedom from outside interference.’ That would prove a consequential decision when a whale collided with their boat and sank it….they floated, adrift and without a clue as to their location in the vast Pacific, for 117 days until finally being spotted, quite by chance, by a passing South Korean fishing boat. A nimbly told story that should serve as a caution--but oddly, too, as inspiration--to would-be escapists.’ Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Atmosphere
Adult Fiction. "Joan Goodwin has always been obsessed with space, which is why she became an astrophysics professor at Rice University. But then,...NASA announces that it's looking for female scientists to join the space program. Joan is accepted on her second try, and in 1980, she begins training...The story cuts back and forth between a disaster in 1984 and the story of Joan's journey through the space program. Reid keeps the tension high, making this perhaps her most propulsive novel yet as she balances the drama of Joan's personal life with the fast-paced action of a catastrophe in space. Even with the high-stakes action, the touching and surprising love story is the emotional heart of the book." Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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So Far Gone
Adult Fiction. "Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods...Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia? So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation." Publisher description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Emperor of Gladness
Adult Fiction. "Vuong follows up his first novel with a searching and beautiful story of a troubled young man. The reader first meets Hai on a bridge in East Gladness, Conn., where he's about to jump to his death. He's stopped by Grazina, an 82-year-old Lithuanian woman. She invites him to stay with her, and as her dementia worsens, he cares for her... Hai tells his mother he is attending medical school, but in fact, shortly before meeting Grazina, he was released from rehab for opioid addiction. Vuong's scenes are vivid, and the pitch-perfect dialogue cuts like a knife...This downbeat tale soars to astonishing heights." Kirkus
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Storybook Ending
Adult Fiction. "April, a smart and lonely tech worker, worries work from home has gotten out of hand: she's left an anonymous note in a book for Westley, the clerk at her Seattle neighborhood bookstore... But thanks to fate, Laura - a busy single mom who had given up on love - buys the book, finds the note, and thinks Westley has left it for her. Meanwhile ,Westley...is too distracted...to notice either of the two women. But as April and Laura's anonymous correspondence continues back and forth, their mundane routines are challenged, sparking a glimmer of hope. Is a happy ending in the cards for them?" Publisher description.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Audition
Adult Fiction. "Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young---young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day - partner, parent, creator, muse - and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best." Publisher description
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Book of Alchemy
Adult Nonfiction. "After being diagnosed with leukemia at 22, Jaouad was inspired by Michael Bierut, a design professor who'd asked his graduate students to perform 'one creative act for 100 days,' to start a daily journaling practice in hopes of finding meaning in her illness. With this as a model, she gathers prompts from 100 novelists, journalists, and artists who invite readers to begin their own journaling practice. The prompts are varied enough to appeal to devoted diarists and newbies alike, and Jaouad poignantly interweaves her own intimate meditations on creativity, pain, and art." Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Wild Dark Shore
Adult Fiction. "Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of a remote island near Antarctica, home to the Shearwater research base and the world's largest seed bank. Rising seas have been threatening the island, and readers meet the Salts as they are considering evacuating the island with their precious seeds. When a woman named Rowan washes up on shore, the Salts take her in and nurse her back to health. Rowan shares pieces of her past...but unraveling the island's mysteries brings them both closer to hidden truths. As lush as it is taut with tension, this novel is filled with both the joys and ravages of nature." Library Journal
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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