Helen Plum Library

"As David Brooks observes, "There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen--to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood." And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better,...

"It's a blazing summer when two men arrive in a small village in the West of Ireland. One of them is coming home. Both of them are coming to get rich. One of them is coming to die. Cal Hooper took early retirement from Chicago PD and moved to rural Ireland looking for peace. He's found it, more or less: he's built a relationship with a local woman, Lena, and he's gradually turning Trey Reddy from a half-feral teenager into a good kid going good places....

"A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels--the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop. In this brilliant volume, nothing is quite as it seems. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over...

"Secret walks and late-night phone calls. An undeniable chemistry. A tragedy that haunts them both. A powerful yet tender love story between two people who can't help but be pulled back to one another, time and again This is the story of Will and Rosie. The two are opposites in every way and yet they fall for each other as teenagers; nineties music, sideways glances, sunsets and bonfires and talking late into the night. It's palpable, inevitable:...

"Conflict is everywhere-in our homes, at work, in our social media feeds. But conflict isn't inherently bad... in fact, it's a normal and healthy part of human relationships. Mediation expert Gabrielle Hartley argues that we've forgotten that disagreement is normal and even necessary in our relationships; instead, we've normalized a zero-sum approach to interpersonal conflict and prioritized "winning" at all costs. The Secret to Getting Along (and...

"Sadie Montogmery has had good breaks and bad breaks in her life, but as a struggling artist, all she needs is one lucky break. Things seem to be going her way when she lands one of the coveted finalist spots in a portrait competition. It happens to coincide with a surgery she needs to have. Minor, they say. Less than a week in the hospital they say. Nothing about you will change, they say. Upon recovery, it begins to dawn on Sadie that she can see...

"Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway...but when Riley takes her mom's car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad's game shop. Riley can't waste her time working...so she convinces Nathan--a nerdy teen employee--to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she'll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous...Soon, Riley starts to...

"Isla Crown has secured the love of two powerful rulers and broken the curses that plagued the six realms for centuries, but few know the true origins of her powers. Now, in the wake of a crushing betrayal, Isla finds herself hungry for distraction, preferring to frequent Lightlark's seductive haunts instead of embracing her duties as the newly crowned leader of two separate realms. Worse, her fellow rulers haven't ceded victory quietly, and there...

"The light touch of a hairdresser's hands on one's scalp, the euphoric energy of a nightclub, huddling with strangers under a shelter in the rain, a spontaneous snowball fight in the street, a daily interaction with a homeless man--such mundane connections, when we closely inhabit the same space, and touch or are touched by others, were nearly lost to "social distancing." Will we ever again shake hands without a thought? In this deeply rewarding book,...

Teenage Lauren must confront her dark past when she gets pulled into a murder investigation involving her new fling and his brother