Search:

Junk raft : an ocean voyage and a rising tide of activism to fight plastic pollution / by Eriksen, Marcus,1967-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An exciting account of an activist scientist's unorthodox fight in the growing movement against plastic marine pollution and of his expedition across the Pacific on a home-made "junk raft" Over the past several years, the news media has brought the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"--the famous swirling gyre of plastic litter in the ocean--into the public consciousness. When Marcus Eriksen cofounded the 5 Gyres Institute with his wife, Anna, and set out to study marine pollution, they found that the reality is even more dire: instead of a stable mass of litter, they discovered that a "plastic smog" of microparticles permeates the world's oceans, defying simplistic clean-up efforts. What's more, these microplastics and their toxic chemistry have seeped into the food chain, threatening marine life and humans alike. Far from being a gloomy treatise on an environmental catastrophe, though, Junk Raft tells the exciting story of Eriksen's fight to raise awareness and solve the problem of plastic pollution, contributing to a fast-growing movement to stem the tide of trash. Eriksen writes of his voyage from Los Angeles to Hawaii aboard his homemade "junk raft," and along the way he recounts the successful efforts to fight corporate influence and demand that plastics producers take responsibility for a problem they've created. Eriksen provides concrete, actionable solutions and an empowering message: it's up to bold, brash, unapologetically activist "citizen scientists" to challenge the status quo for the sake of the planet"--
Subjects: Eriksen, Marcus, 1967-; Plastic marine debris; Microplastics; Marine pollution;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Crafting a better world : inspiration and DIY projects for craftivists / by Weymar, Diana,author.;
"From the climate crisis, to racism, to gun violence, to attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, the list of issues facing this country goes on and on, and it's only natural to feel anxious about the state of our union. Even if you vote, march, volunteer, and donate, feelings of hopelessness (and helplessness) still creep in. Crafting a Better World is a new kind of call to action: a guidebook for combatting fatigue and frustration with the handmade. Whether that's sewing a welcome blanket for new immigrants, or making a batch of 'vulva chocolates' to raise money at a bake sale for abortion access, this book will teach you how to transform your anxiety into action. Curated by Diana Weymar, the creator of the Tiny Pricks Project, who knows what it means to meld craft and activism. On Jan. 8, 2018, she stitched 'I am a very stable genius' (a Donald Trump quote) into a piece of her grandmother's abandoned needlework from the 1960s and posted it to Instagram. Since then, she's turned her embroidery practice into a material record of the trials facing this country and become a leading voice in the movement to save our democracy. Featuring essays, exclusive profiles of well-known creatives, and projects that readers can create by themselves or with their communities, this book is a means to stay engaged, make stuff, and hold ourselves together as we navigate this uncertain personal and political landscape."--
Subjects: Craftivism; Handicraft; Political art; Handicraft;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

All this could be different / by Mathews, Sarah Thankam,author.;
"From an exhilarating new voice comes a dazzling debut novel about an Indian-American immigrant building a life for herself in the Midwest-a brilliant and utterly absorbing story of love, friendship, and precarity in 21st century America Graduating into the trough of yet another American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. However mind-numbing the work, her entry-level consulting job is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the check for her growing circle of friends in Milwaukee, send money home to her parents in India, and dare to envision a stable future for herself. She even begins dating who she has long wanted-women-and soon develops a crush on Marina, a beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach. But then, as quicklyas it came together, Sneha's life begins to fall apart. Her job and apartment are both suddenly and maddeningly in jeopardy, and closely-guarded secrets and buried traumas resurface, sending her spiraling into shame and isolation. When a chance encounterwith Marina ignites an electric romance, it looks like salvation-if only they can overcome the lie that threatens to undo the trust they've built. A novel of working lives, friendships, and self-discovery in flux, All This Could Be Different is a wry, intimate, and redemptive exploration of the freedom and fragility of youth, and what it means to devote oneself to others in search of a better world"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Novels.; East Indian Americans; Immigrants; Lesbians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

A merry little meet cute : a novel / by Murphy, Julie,1985-author.; Simone, Sierra,author.;
Bee Hobbes (aka Bianca Von Honey) has a successful career as a plus-size adult film star. With a huge following and two supportive moms, Bee couldn't ask for more. But when Bee's favorite producer casts her to star in a Christmas movie he's making for the squeaky-clean Hope Channel, Bee's career is about to take a more family-friendly direction. Forced to keep her work as Bianca under wraps, Bee quickly learns this is a task a lot easier said than done. Though it all becomes worthwhile when she discovers her co-star is none other than childhood crush Nolan Shaw, an ex-boy band member in desperate need of career rehab. Nolan's promised his bulldog manager to keep it zipped up on set, and he will if it means he'll be able to provide a more stable living situation for his sister and mom. But things heat up quickly in Christmas Notch, Vermont, when Nolan recognizes his new co-star from her ClosedDoors account (oh yeah, he's a member). Now Bee and Nolan are sneaking off for quickies on set, keeping their new relationship a secret from the Hope Channel's execs. Things only get trickier when the reporter who torpedoed Nolan's singing career comes snooping around--and takes an instant interest in mysterious newcomer Bee.And if Bee and Nolan can't keep their off-camera romance behind the scenes, then this merry little meet cute might end up on the cutting room floor--
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Christmas fiction.; Novels.; Actors; Christmas films; Man-woman relationships; Motion picture actors and actresses; Motion pictures; Musicians; Overweight women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Sugar street : a novel / by Dee, Jonathan,author.;
"In Jonathan Dee's elegant and explosive new novel, Sugar Street, an unnamed male narrator has hit the road. Rid of any possible identifiers, his possessions amount to $168,548 in cash stashed in an envelope under his car seat. Vigilantly avoiding security cameras, he drives until he hits a city where his past is unlikely to track him down, and finds a room to rent from a less-than-stable landlady whose need for money outweighs her desire to ask questions. He seems to have escaped his former self. But can he? In a story that moves with swift dark humor and insight, Dee takes us through his narrator's attempt to disavow his former life of privilege and enter a blameless new existence. Having opted out of his material possessions and human connections, the pillars of his new self-simplicity, kindness, above all invisibility-grow shakier as he butts up against the daily lives of his neighbors in their politically divided working-class city. With the suspense of a thriller and the grace of our best literary fiction, Dee unspools the details of our unlikely hero's former life and his developing new one in a drumbeat roll up to a shocking final act. Dee has been compared by the Wall Street Journal to authors such as Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Egan for his expansive, contemporary, social novels; Sugar Street is a leaner, more personal, but still uncannily timely look at the volatile America of today. A risky, engrossing, and surprisingly visceral story about a white man trying to escape his own troubling footprint and start his life over"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Neighbors; Suburban life;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Love lives here : a story of thriving in a transgender family / by Jetté Knox, Amanda,author.;
"All Amanda Jetté Knox ever wanted was to enjoy a stable life. She never knew her biological father, and while her mother and stepfather were loving parents, the situation was sometimes chaotic. At school, she was bullied mercilessly, and at the age of fourteen, she entered a counselling program for alcohol addiction and was successful. While still a teenager, she met the love of her life. They were wed at 20, and the first of three children followed shortly. Jetté Knox finally had the stability she craved--or so it seemed. Their middle child struggled with depression and avoided school. The author was unprepared when the child she knew as her son came out as transgender at the age of eleven. Shocked, but knowing how important it was to support her daughter, Jetté Knox became an ardent advocate for trans rights. But the story wasn't over. For many years, the author had coped with her spouse's moodiness, but that chronic unhappiness was taking a toll on their marriage. A little over a year after their child came out, her partner also came out as transgender. Knowing better than most what would lie ahead, Jetté Knox searched for positive examples of marriages surviving transition. When she found no role models, she determined that her family would become one. The shift was challenging, but slowly the family members noticed that they were becoming happier and more united. Told with remarkable candour and humour, and full of insight into the challenges faced by trans people, Love Lives Here is a beautiful story of transition, frustration, support, acceptance, and, of course, love."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Jetté Knox, Amanda.; Jetté Knox, Amanda; Parents of transgender children; Human rights workers; Sexual minorities' families; Transgender people;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Glow in the f*cking dark : simple practices to heal your soul, from someone who learned the hard way / by Schuster, Tara,author.;
"For the past decade, Tara Schuster worked like hell to repair the emotional wounds inflicted during what she refers to as her neglected, "mess-wreck disaster" of a childhood. She brought radical self-care, healing rituals, and self-love into her life, and on most days, she was a grateful, happy, and stable adult. She even wrote a book about it! But then she lost her job, the one on which she had staked her entire adult identity. Cue an out-of-body-panic-attack-doom-spiral and deep depression that brought her harshest childhood traumas to the surface. Isolated at home during a global pandemic, she experienced piercing loneliness and a lack of purpose like she had never known. Finally, after a particularly dangerous dissociative episode while driving down the highway, she realized that enough was enough; she needed to slow down and pull over, to stop the relentless hustling that had gotten her this far, and to recover her innermost self. This book is a guide to healing your deepest soul wounds, getting off your "good enough" plateau, developing habits that will give you lasting courage and resolve, and creating the spectacular life that you actually want. Full of practical, free baby-steps we can take today, it's for people who are ready to liberate themselves from their emotional suffering, discover their purpose, and finally sit in the driver's seat of their experience. It's for anyone who is tired, hurting, and feeling like their essential brightness is gone. It's for people who are ready to glow in the f*cking dark"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Self-acceptance.; Self-actualization (Psychology);
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The unsettled / by Mathis, Ayana,author.;
"From the best-selling author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, a searing multi-generational novel -- set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama -- about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival. From the moment Ida Carson and her eleven-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at Philadelphia's Glenn Avenue Family shelter in 1985, Ida is already plotting a way out. She detests their roach infested bedroom and the shifty night security guard who is on constant watch, and she is determined to give her son the safe, stable childhood that she never had. Estranged from her own mother, Dutchess, whose intractability and implacable depression brought Ida to the outer reaches of neglect and hunger, she resolves to make a better life for her son. But when Toussaint's father reappears, Ida is swept off course by his charisma and by the intoxicating power of his vision for a radical new group devoted to redressing the imbalance of racial injustice. Meanwhile, in Bonaparte, Dutchess struggles to keep the tiny Alabama town in the hands of its remaining black residents -- families whose lives have been entangled and powerfully rooted in this untouched stretch of land for generations -- and away from steadily encroaching white developers. Sensing the danger simmering all around him-his well-intentioned but erratic mother; his intense but volatile father who has newly appeared in his life and is building a community that looks increasingly radicalized and violent -- Toussaint begins to dream of his grandmother, Dutchess, and of home. A brilliant, explosive, vitally important new work from one of our most fiercely talented storytellers."--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Mother and child; Race relations; Racism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Life in three dimensions : how curiosity, exploration, and experience make a fuller, better life / by Oishi, Shigehiro,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From one of our foremost psychologists, a trailblazing new book turns the idea of a good life on its head and urges us to embrace the transformative power of variety and experience. For many people, a good life is a stable life, a comfortable life that follows a well-trodden path. This is the case for Shigehiro Oishi's father, who has lived in a small mountain town in Japan for his entire life, putting his family's needs above his own, like his father and grandfather before him. But is a happy life, or even a meaningful life, also a good life? In Life in Three Dimensions, Shige Oishi enters into a debate that has animated psychology since 1984, when Ed Diener (Oishi's mentor) published a paper that launched happiness studies. A rival followed in 1989 with a model of a good life that focused on purpose and meaning instead. In recent years, Shige Oishi's award-winning work has proposed a third dimension to a good life: psychological richness, a new concept that prioritizes curiosity, exploration, and a variety of experiences that help us grow as people. Life in Three Dimensions explores the shortcomings of happiness and meaning as guides to a good life, pointing to complacency and regret as a "happiness trap" and narrowness and misplaced loyalty as the downside of a life of meaning. Psychological richness, Oishi proposes, balances the other two, offering insight and growth spurred by new experiences and changes in perspective. Psychological richness, Oishi writes, can come in the form of anything from a spur-of-the-moment lunch date to travel, immersion in the arts, a move, new relationships, and more dramatic life changes. Drawing on studies and examples from life and literature, Oishi shows how anyone can use the three core dimensions -- happiness, meaning, and psychological richness -- to build a fuller, more satisfying life"--
Subjects: Happiness.; Meaning (Psychology); Quality of life.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Something she's not telling us : a novel / by Bell, Darcey,author.;
Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can't be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time. At least, that's what Charlotte keeps telling herself. But as Rocco and Ruth's relationship becomes more serious, Ruth's apparent obsession with Daisy grows more obvious. Then Daisy is kidnapped, and Charlotte is convinced there's only one person who could have taken her. Ruth has never had much, but now she's finally on the verge of having everything she's ever dreamed of. A stable job at a start-up company, a rakish, handsome boyfriend with whom she falls more in love with every day--and a chance at the happy family she's always wanted, adorable niece included. The only obstacle standing in her way is her boyfriend's sister Charlotte, whose attitude swerves between politely cold and outright hostile. Rebuffing Ruth's every attempt to build a friendship with her and Daisy, Charlotte watches over her daughter with a desperate protectiveness that sends chills down Ruth's spine. Ruth knows that Charlotte has a deeply-buried secret, the only question is: what? A surprise outing with Daisy could be the key to finding out, and Ruth knows she must take the chance while she has it-for everyone's sake. As the two women follow each other down a chilling rabbit hole, unearthing winding paths of deceit, lies, and trauma, a family and a future will be completely--and irrevocably--shattered.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Domestic fiction.; Families; Family secrets; Kidnapping; Deception;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
unAPI