7 books about motherhood from our Literacy and Learning Collection

The Literacy and Learning Collection features a wide range of topics to help you navigate family life with infants through teens and beyond. Here are seven books that focus specifically on the experience of being a mom. (Descriptions from the publishers.)

The 30-minute money plan for moms : how to maximize your family budget in minimal time by Catey Hill – Catey Hill has created smart, simple strategies to help you maximize your money in minimal time. Drawing on extensive research on the actual cost of raising a child at each age, she’ll show you how to save in every area of your life, from lowering your grocery bill (without coupons!), to saving on education and childcare, to dealing with high-interest credit card debt, and more. And she’ll show you how to do all that in less than half an hour.

Being happy, raising happy : the empowered mom’s guide to helping her spirited child bloom by Maureen Lake – Being a mom is a lot of work. Being a mom of a spirited child can be exceptionally challenging. Moms who want to change their stress and anxiety levels and make a difference in the lives of their children and family need to take steps towards wellness. Being happy, raising happy is for loving and caring moms who somehow forgot about their own needs, desires, and the impact they want to make in the world and want to start their journey towards revitalizing the mind, body, and spirit.

The Better Mom : growing in grace between perfection and the mess by Ruth Schwenk – Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn’t change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us. In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, says there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don’t need to settle for surviving our kids’ childhood. We can grow through it.

Brave new mom : a survival guide for mindfully navigating postpartum motherhood by Jessie Everts – Brave New Mom brings a mindfulness-based approach to new parenthood that encourages self-exploration, self-compassion, self-care, and connection. It incorporates findings from research on postpartum mental health, practices for feeling your best after having a baby, and a warm and compassionate voice for new mothers everywhere. This book gives new moms permission to see, feel, and celebrate their amazing abilities and to gather the support they need.

Help, I’m failing as a mom : the survival guide to raising a child with a mood disorder by Tanya Trevett – Written for parents who want to learn how to live with their child’s mood disorder in a healthier way, author Tanya Trevett shares what she has learned in her fifteen-year journey. Among lessons learned: The secret to letting go of guilt so they can be a better (and happier) parent; Understanding the complexities of mood disorders and why it takes a village; Methods and activities for hope and healing; Rediscovering the joy, pride, and the unconditional love moms have for their children.

The Little Book of Support for New Moms – Doula Beccy Hands and midwife Alexis Stickland know what a challenge it can be to balance self-care with motherhood. In The Little Book of Support for New Moms, they bring together decades of experience to share invaluable tips and tricks to boost confidence and calm frazzled nerves-plus answers to all those questions new moms may be too embarrassed to ask. Tackle the fourth trimester with easy recipes to nourish your postpartum body and five-minute fixes to restore your sense of humor.

Mom Babble : the messy truth about motherhood by Mary Katherine Backstrom – In Mom Babble, Mary Katherine (MK) Backstrom offers up hope, humor, and spiritual inspiration to families in the trenches of parenthood. With laughter, crying, and eye-rolls MK’s, oh so, real essays about raising littles will delight all the not perfect, not always holy, not completely normal, messy, honest and wonderful moms that read them. MK’s conversational approach connects with readers like dear friends cozied up on a coffee date.

 

April’s Simply Held Nonfiction Picks

Changes are coming to Simply Held starting July 1, 2024, but before that happens we wanted to share our April nonfiction picks for our patrons that are already signed up! Starting July 1, there will only be four nonfiction picks for you to choose from: biographies, cookbooks, social justice, and true crime. Our nonfiction picks are chosen quarterly and are available in regular print only. If you would like to update your selections or are a new patron who wants to receive picks from any of those four categories, sign up for Simply Held through our website!

Below you will find information provided by the publishers and authors on the titles we have selected for April from the following categories: biography, body mind spirit, cookbook, poetry, social justice, strength through struggle, and true crime.

Biography pick

John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community by Raymond Arsenault

For six decades John Robert Lewis (1940–2020) was a towering figure in the U.S. struggle for civil rights. As an activist and progressive congressman, he was renowned for his unshakable integrity, indomitable courage, and determination to get into “good trouble.”

In this first book-length biography of Lewis, Raymond Arsenault traces Lewis’s upbringing in rural Alabama, his activism as a Freedom Rider and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, his championing of voting rights and anti-poverty initiatives, and his decades of service as the “conscience of Congress.”

Both in the streets and in Congress, Lewis promoted a philosophy of nonviolence to bring about change. He helped the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders plan the 1963 March on Washington, where he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. Lewis’s activism led to repeated arrests and beatings, most notably when he suffered a skull fracture in Selma, Alabama, during the 1965 police attack later known as Bloody Sunday. He was instrumental in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and in Congress he advocated for racial and economic justice, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, and national health care.

Arsenault recounts Lewis’s lifetime of work toward one overarching goal: realizing the “beloved community,” an ideal society based in equity and inclusion. Lewis never wavered in this pursuit, and even in death his influence endures, inspiring mobilization and resistance in the fight for social justice. – Yale University Press

________________________________

Body, Mind, Spirit pick

An apothecary of art: to soothe your soul by Ravenous Butterflies

Take a transformative journey to improve your mental wellbeing with this sumptuous collection of 80 paintings and uplifting quotes.

Ravenous Butterflies is the online brainchild of artist Lisa Azarmi and was designed to provide a safe sanctuary for emotional wellbeing. An Apothecary of Art is a soothing blend of 80 beautiful paintings and inspiring, comforting and uplifting quotes to lift the spirit, calm the mind and heal the soul.

The contents page is artfully divided into 24 emotional journeys that suggest routes in which to navigate the book to explore different feelings along the way, and to provide comfort and solace in difficult times. Within these pages you will find both the works of world-renowned masters and the paintings of lesser-known talents paired with uplifting thoughts from great poets, writers and thinkers. A biographical section on the featured artists will provide context on your new favourite finds.

This inspiring debut collection from Ravenous Butterflies features 80 exquisite works of art from the likes of Modigliani, Hasui Kawase, and Thomas Cooper Gotch with accompanying quotes from inspirational voices including Sappho, Pablo Neruda and Harriet Tubman. This illumination of the power of art as a source of wellbeing is modern yet timelessly beautiful – the perfect book to dip into to lift your spirits. – Batsford

________________________________

Cookbook pick

The Comfort Food Cookbook: Over 100 Delicious Recipes That Taste Like Home by the Coastal Kitchen

Over 100 tasty recipes that bring comfort to your kitchen.

Relive old family traditions with meals that bring warmth to the table. These nostalgic and cozy recipes are sure to become family favorites. Whether you’re looking for quick and easy family recipes, a way to placate picky kids, dishes for dinner parties, or just want a meal that tastes like home, these comfort classics will hit the mark and soothe the soul every time.

Inside you’ll find:

  • Over 100 hassle-free recipes for cozy breakfasts, satisfying snacks and appetizers, hearty dinners, and delectable desserts
  • Quick-fix dinners for weeknights and rich meals for Sunday dinners and potlucks
  • A variety of recipes ready in 30 minutes or less that are perfect for families and busy people

Serve food you can be sure you and your family will love. Indulge your cravings with Chicken Noodle Soup, Creamy Mac N’ Cheese, Meatloaf, Lasagna, Southern Fried Chicken, Chicken Enchiladas, Roasted Sausage with Peppers and Onions, Chicken Pot Pie, Borscht, Baked Pasta, Roasted Beef Brisket, Chicken and Dumplings, Mushroom Risotto, Pad Thai, and the best Grilled Cheese Sandwich you’ll ever have. Gather your family and friends around the table with wholesome dishes you’ll cherish with The Comfort Food Cookbook. – Cider Mill Press Book Publishers

________________________________

Poetry pick

You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves edited by Diana Whitney

Created and compiled just for young women, You Don’t Have to Be Everything is filled with works by a wide range of poets who are honest, unafraid, and skilled at addressing the complex feelings of coming-of-age, from loneliness to joy, longing to solace, attitude to humor. These unintimidating poems offer girls a message of self-acceptance and strength, giving them permission to let go of shame and perfectionism.

The cast of 68 poets is extraordinary: Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, who read at Joe Biden’s inauguration; bestselling authors like Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Acevedo, Sharon Olds, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Mary Oliver; Instagram-famous poets including Kate Baer, Melody Lee, and Andrea Gibson; poets who are LGBTQ, poets of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, poets who sing of human experience in ways that are free from conventional ideas of femininity. Illustrated in full color with work by three diverse artists, this book is an inspired gift for daughters and granddaughters—and anyone on the path to becoming themselves. – Workman Publishing Company

________________________________

Social Justice pick

Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class by Rob Kim Henderson

Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.

An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in. His greatest achievements—a military career, an undergraduate education from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge—feel like hollow measures of success. He argues that stability at home is more important than external accomplishments, and he illustrates the ways the most privileged among us benefit from a set of social standards that actively harm the most vulnerable. – Gallery Books

________________________________

Strength Through Struggle pick

A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost.

In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.

Nicole Chung couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she’d long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in – where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations – looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets.

When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. And then the unthinkable happens – less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID-19 descends upon the world.

Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another – and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society. – Ecco

________________________________

True Crime pick

Behold the monster: confronting America’s most prolific serial killer by Jillian Lauren

New York Times best-selling author Jillian Lauren’s personal, haunting account of confronting serial killer Samuel Little, and her determination to lift up the voices of his victims for the first time.

Jillian Lauren had no idea what she was getting into when she asked LAPD homicide detective Mitzi Roberts about the case she was most proud of. It was when she put Samuel Little, the now deceased serial killer, behind bars for killing three women in Los Angeles. In fact, Little had murdered approximately ninety women over six decades, but many were cold cases and Mitzi didn’t have enough evidence (or jurisdiction) to prove it.

After doing more digging, Lauren, the New York Times best-selling author of two memoirs and a novel, was obsessed. Following months of exchanging letters with Little, Lauren finally got a face-to-face meeting. In the hundreds of hours of interviews that followed, Little confessed to dozens of murders for the first time. Lauren knew this harrowing journey was taking its toll, both psychologically and legally—but still, she couldn’t stop.

Little gave Lauren a powerful and terrifying window into the psyche of a serial killer, and as she delved deeper, she realized she needed a way to survive these encounters. To balance out his darkness, she would illuminate the lives of the women he killed, making sure they would be remembered as more than mere props in the drama of his life. She excavated their lives—visiting their hometowns, talking to their families, investigating all they left behind.

Harrowing, insightful, and extraordinarily adept at giving Little’s victims a chance to have their stories heard for the first time–including those of the four who survived–this is a truly unforgettable read. – Jillian Lauren

________________________________

Join Simply Held to have any of the new nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you four times a year.

January’s Simply Held Nonfiction Picks

Have you joined Simply Held? If not, you’re missing out! Ten different nonfiction titles are chosen four times a year by our librarians and automatically placed on hold for you. Those selections come from the following categories: biography, body mind spirit, cookbook, explore your world, poetry, self-help, social justice, strength through struggle, theologies, and true crime. Join Simply Held to have any of the new nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you four times a year.

Biography pick

Flirting with Danger: the Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy by Janet Wallach

The true story of socialite Marguerite Harrison, who spied for U.S. military intelligence in Russia and Germany in the fraught period between the world wars

Born a privileged child of America’s Gilded Age, Marguerite Harrison rebelled against her mother’s ambitions, married the man she loved, was widowed at thirty-seven, and set off on a life of adventure. Hired as a society reporter, when America entered World War I she applied to Military Intelligence to work as a spy.

She arrived in Berlin immediately after the Armistice and befriended the enemy, dining with aristocrats and dancing with socialists. Late into the night she wrote prescient reports on the growing power of the German right. Sent to Moscow, she sneaked into Russia to observe the results of the Bolshevik Revolution. Although she carried press credentials she was caught and imprisoned as an American spy. Terrified when told her only way out was to spy for the Cheka, she became a double agent, aiming to convince the Russian rulers she was working for them while striving to stay loyal to her country.

In Germany and Russia, Harrison saw the future—a second war with Germany, a cold war with the Soviets—but her reports were ignored by many back home. Over a decade, Harrison’s mysterious adventures took her to Europe, Baghdad, and the Far East, as a socialite, secret agent, and documentary filmmaker. Janet Wallach captures Harrison’s daring and glamour in this stranger-than-fiction history of a woman drawn to the impossible. – Doubleday

________________________________

Body, Mind, Spirit pick

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sarah Wilson

The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast, you must first make it beautiful.

Sarah Wilson first came across this Chinese proverb in psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir An Unquiet Mind, and it became the key to understanding her own lifelong struggle with anxiety. Wilson, bestselling author, journalist, and entrepreneur has helped over 1.5 million people worldwide to live better, healthier lives through her I Quit Sugar books and program. And all along, she has been managing chronic anxiety.

In First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, Wilson directs her intense focus and fierce investigating skills onto her lifetime companion, looking at the triggers and treatments, the fashions and fads. She reads widely and interviews fellow sufferers, mental health experts, philosophers, and even the Dalai Lama, processing all she learns through the prism of her own experiences.

Wilson offers readers comfort, humor, companionship, and practical tips for living with the Beast:

  • Cultivate a “gratitude ritual.” You can’t be grateful and anxious at the same time.
  • Eat to curb anxiety. Real food is your best friend.
  • Just breathe. Embrace the healing power of meditation.
  • Make your bed. Every day. Simple outer order creates inner calm.
  • Study fellow fretters to know thyself. Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. all struggled with anxiety.
  • Actively practice missing out. Forget FOMO, curl up on the couch, and order takeout.

Practical and poetic, wise and funny, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is a small book with a big heart. It will encourage the myriad souls who dance with this condition to embrace it as a part of who they are, and to explore the possibilities it offers for a richer, fuller life. – Dey Street Books

________________________________

Cookbook pick

Midwestern Food: A Chef’s Guide to the Surprising History of a Great American Cuisine, with more than 100 tasty recipes by Paul Fehribach

An acclaimed chef offers a historically informed cookbook that will change how you think about Midwestern cuisine.

Celebrated chef Paul Fehribach has made his name serving up some of the most thoughtful and authentic regional southern cooking—not in the South, but in Chicago at Big Jones. But over the last several years, he has been looking to his Indiana roots in the kitchen, while digging deep into the archives to document and record the history and changing foodways of the Midwest.

Fehribach is as painstaking with his historical research as he is with his culinary execution. In Midwestern Food, he focuses not only on the past and present of Midwestern foodways but on the diverse cultural migrations from the Ohio River Valley north- and westward that have informed them. Drawing on a range of little-explored sources, he traces the influence of several heritages, especially German, and debunks many culinary myths along the way.

The book is also full of Fehribach’s delicious recipes informed by history and family alike, such as his grandfather’s favorite watermelon rind pickles; sorghum-pecan sticky rolls; Detroit-style coney sauce; Duck and manoomin hotdish; pawpaw chiffon pie; strawberry pretzel gelatin salad (!); and he breaks the code to the most famous Midwestern pizza and BBQ styles you can easily reproduce at home. But it is more than just a cookbook, weaving together historical analysis and personal memoir with profiles of the chefs, purveyors, and farmers who make up the food networks of the region.

The result is a mouth-watering and surprising Midwestern feast from farm to plate. Flyover this! – University of Chicago Press

_______________________________

Explore Your World pick

Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature’s Toxins – from Spices to Vices by Noah Whiteman

A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes.

Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?

Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry, and neuroscience, Most Delicious Poison reveals:

  • The origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes, and even some animals
  • The mechanisms that animals evolved to overcome them
  • How a co-evolutionary arms race made its way into the human experience
  • And much more

This perpetual chemical war not only drove the diversification of life on Earth, but also is intimately tied to our own successes and failures. You will never look at a houseplant, mushroom, fruit, vegetable, or even the past five hundred years of human history the same way again. – Little Brown Spark

________________________________

Poetry pick

The Tiny Journalist: Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

Internationally beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye places her Palestinian American identity center stage in her latest full-length poetry collection for adults. The collection is inspired by the story of Janna Jihad Ayyad, the “Youngest Journalist in Palestine,” who at age 7 began capturing videos of anti-occupation protests using her mother’s smartphone. Nye draws upon her own family’s roots in a West Bank village near Janna’s hometown to offer empathy and insight to the young girl’s reporting. Long an advocate for peaceful communication across all boundaries, Nye’s poems in

The Tiny Journalist puts a human face on war and the violence that divides us from each other. – BOA Editions, Ltd.

________________________________

Self-Help pick

The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You by Margareta Magnusson

In her international bestseller The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning Margareta Magnusson introduced the world to the Swedish tradition of döstädning, or “death cleaning”—clearing out your unnecessary belongings so others don’t have to do it for you. Now, unburdened by (literal and emotional) baggage, Magnusson is able to focus on what makes each day worth living. In her new book she reveals her discoveries about aging—some difficult to accept, many rather wondrous. She reflects on her idyllic childhood on the west coast of Sweden, the fullness of her life with her husband and five children, and learning how to live alone. Throughout, she offers advice on how to age gracefully, such as: wear stripes, don’t resist new technology, let go of what doesn’t matter, and more.

As with death cleaning, it’s never too early to begin. The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly shows all readers how to prepare for and understand the process of growing older and the joys and sorrows it can bring. While Magnusson still recommends decluttering (your loved ones will thank you!), her ultimate message is that we should not live in fear of death but rather focus on appreciating beauty, connecting with our loved ones, and enjoying our time together.

Wise, funny, and eminently practical, The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly is a gentle and welcome reminder that, no matter your age, there are always fresh discoveries ahead, and pleasures both new and familiar to be encountered every day. – Scribner

This title is also available in large print, Libby eBook, and Libby eAudiobook.

________________________________

Social Justice pick

Humanizing Immigration: How to Transform Our Racist and Unjust System by Bill Ong Hing

First book to argue that immigrant and refugee rights are part of the fight for racial justice; offers a humanitarian approach to reform and abolition

Representing non-citizens caught up in what he calls the immigration and enforcement “meat grinder”, Bill Ong Hing witnessed their trauma, arriving at this conclusion: migrants should have the right to free movement across borders—and the right to live free of harassment over immigration status.

He cites examples of racial injustices endemic in immigration law and enforcement, from historic courtroom cases to the recent treatment of Haitian migrants. Hing includes histories of Mexican immigration, African migration and the Asian exclusion era, all of which reveal ICE abuse and a history of often forgotten racist immigration laws.

While ultimately arguing for the abolishment of ICE, Hing advocates for change now. With 50 years of law practice and litigation, Hing has represented non-citizens—from gang members to asylum seekers fleeing violence, and from individuals in ICE detention to families at the US southern border seeking refuge.

Hing maps out major reforms to the immigration system, making an urgent call for the adoption of a radical, racial justice lens. Readers will understand the root causes of migration and our country’s culpability in contributing to those causes. – Beacon Press

________________________________

Strength Through Struggle pick

Twice as Hard: The Stories of Black Women who Fought to Become Physicians, from the Civil War to the 21st Century by Jasmine Brown

Black women physicians’ stories have gone untold for far too long, leaving gaping holes in American medical history, in women’s history, and in black history. It’s time to set the record straight

No real account of black women physicians in the US exists, and what little mention is made of these women in existing histories is often insubstantial or altogether incorrect. In this work of extensive research, Jasmine Brown offers a rich new perspective, penning the long-erased stories of nine pioneering black women physicians beginning in 1860, when a black woman first entered medical school. Brown champions these black women physicians, including the stories of:

· Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who graduated from medical school only fourteen months after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and provided medical care for the newly freed slaves who had been neglected and exploited by the medical system.

· Dr. Edith Irby Jones, the first African American to attend a previously white-only medical school in the Jim Crow South, where she was not allowed to eat lunch with her classmates or use the women’s bathroom. Still, Dr. Irby Jones persisted and graduated from medical school, going on to directly inspire other black women to pursue medicine such as . . .

· Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who, after meeting Dr. Irby Jones, changed her career ambitions from becoming a Dillard’s salesclerk to becoming a doctor. In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Elders as the US surgeon general, making her the first African American and second woman to hold this position.

Brown tells the stories of these doctors from the perspective of a black woman in medicine. Her journey as a medical student already has parallels to those of black women who entered medicine generations before her. What she uncovers about these women’s struggles, their need to work twice as hard and be twice as good, and their ultimate success serves as instruction and inspiration for new generations considering a career in medicine or science. – Beacon Press

________________________________

Theologies pick

In Thought, Word, and Seed: Reckonings from a Midwest Farm by Tiffany Eberle Kriner with foreword by Thomas Gardner

In this brilliantly crafted essay collection, Tiffany Eberle Kriner weaves together literary criticism, nature writing, and memoir to explore what grows when we plant texts in the landscapes of our lives.

The first time Tiffany Eberle Kriner walked the parcel of land that would become Root and Sky Farm its primary crop seemed to be chaos. Industrial agriculture practices had depleted the fields, leaving them littered with the detritus of consumerism and rural poverty—plastic deck chairs, bags of diapers, endless empty cans of Monster Energy Drink. In this landscape, she meets Virgil and Charles W. Chesnutt, where her close readings of their works intersect with her efforts to create “a just and sustainable community farm.”

From her sixty acres in northern Illinois, Kriner reads James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, T. S. Eliot, William Langland, and others. She weaves reflections into the warp and woof of her life: coaxing growth from neglected land, embracing the frustrations and joys of family life, reckoning with racism in a small town. Along the way she cultivates an awareness of interdependence and mercy as they appear in the particulars of her rooted life.

Connecting culture, ecology, faith, and literature, In Thought, Word, and Seed invites readers to cultivate fruitful conversations between literature and the environments in which they live. – Eerdmans

________________________________

True Crime pick

Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.

Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected. McDiarmid interviews those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—and provides an intimate firsthand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to four thousand—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.

Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the victims and a testament to their families’ and communities’ unwavering determination to find it. – Atria Books

This title is also available in large print.

________________________________

Join Simply Held to have any of the new nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you four times a year.

July’s Simply Held Nonfiction Picks

Have you joined Simply Held? If not, you’re missing out! Ten different nonfiction titles are chosen four times a year by our librarians and automatically placed on hold for you. Those selections come from the following categories: biography, body mind spirit, cookbook, explore your world, poetry, self-help, social justice, strength through struggle, theologies, and true crime. Join Simply Held to have any of the new nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you four times a year.

Biography pick

Gentleman Bandit: The True Story of Black Bart, the old West’s most infamous stagecoach robber by John Boessenecker

Black Bart is widely regarded today as not only the most notorious stage robber of the Old West but also the best behaved. Over his lifetime, Black Bart held up at least twenty-nine stagecoaches in California and Oregon with mild, polite commands, stealing from Wells Fargo and the US mail but never robbing a passenger. Such behavior earned him the title of a true “gentleman bandit.”

His real name was Charles E. Boles, and in the public eye, Charles lived quietly as a boulevardier in San Francisco, the wealthiest and most exciting city in the American West. Boles was an educated man who traveled among respectable crowds. Because he did not drink, fight or consort with prostitutes, his true calling as America’s greatest stage robber was never suspected until his final capture in 1883. Sheriffs searched and struggled for years to find him, and newspaper editors had a field day reporting his exploits. Legends and rumors trailed his name until his mysterious death, and his ultimate fate remains one of the greatest mysteries of the Old West.

Now historian John Boessenecker sheds new light on Black Bart’s beginnings, reputation and exploits, bringing to life the glittering story of the mysterious stage robber who doubled as a rich, genteel socialite in the golden era of the Wild West.

This title is also available in large print.

________________________________

Body, Mind, Spirit pick

Dream Analysis Made Easy: Everything You Need to Know to Harness the Power of Your Dreams by Krystina Sypniewski

Your dreams offer vital insights into many aspects of life. This easy-to-use book goes a step further than traditional dream books. Within these pages are many examples to show you how to analyse and make sense of your own dreams. While offering some symbolic guidance the emphasis is always on the numinous meaning for the individual. The dreams you will work with include Recurring, Prophetic, Nightmare, Lucid and Direct Soul communication.

________________________________

Cookbook Pick

Grilling with Golic and Hays: Operation BBQ Relief cookbook by Mike Golic and Stan Hays / photography by Ken Goodman

Champion pitmaster and CEO and co-founder of Operation BBQ Relief Stan Hays joins forces with NFL veteran and former ESPN Radio host Mike Golic in this celebration of the connection of BBQ and sports.

Good for the stomach, better for the soul—quality comfort barbecue and side dishes that reflect the character and warmth of the national nonprofit Operation BBQ Relief. The 80+ recipes from your favorite sports stars, pitmasters, and chefs combine the worlds through the power of food.

Grilling with Golic and Hays: Operation BBQ Relief Cookbook aims to inspire hope and compassion through the stories of overcoming challenges that are present in both the athletic world and the work of Operation BBQ Relief. Armed with a caravan of cooks, mobile pits, kitchens, and volunteers, Operation BBQ Relief delivers support through hot meals in times of need, feeding first responders and communities affected by natural disasters, along with year-round efforts to fight hunger through various programs.

Each of the 80+ comforting recipes—from appetizers to ribs, and from seafood to desserts—will include a short biography of each sports star or chef contributor. Gorgeous photography throughout the book showcases recipes such as:

Smoked Jalapeño Pimento Cheese
Lobster Pasta Salad
Tequila BBQ Spare Ribs
Southwest Brisket Chili
Chipotle Smoked Chicken
Salmon Tacos with Cilantro Lime Slaw and Mango Salsa
Rum Cake
Chargrilled Pineapple Piña Colada

Barbecue and sports have connected people and families everywhere, from tailgates to sports watch parties. It is this connection that also drives the heart of Operation BBQ Relief and each community they serve with hope, friendship, and compassion.

_______________________________

Explore Your World pick

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew H. Knoll

How well do you know the ground beneath your feet?

Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above.

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet’s epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Features original illustrations depicting Earth history and nearly 50 figures (maps, tables, photographs, graphs).

________________________________

Poetry pick

Everything Comes Next: Collected & New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

This celebratory book collects in one volume award-winning and beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s most popular and accessible poems.

Featuring new, never-before-published poems; an introduction by bestselling poet and author Edward Hirsch, as well as a foreword and writing tips by the poet; and stunning artwork by bestselling artist Rafael López, Everything Comes Next is essential for poetry readers, classroom teachers, and library collections.

Everything Comes Next is a treasure chest of Naomi Shihab Nye’s most beloved poems, and features favorites such as “Famous” and “A Valentine for Ernest Mann,” as well as widely shared pieces such as “Kindness” and “Gate A-4.” The book is an introduction to the poet’s work for new readers, as well as a comprehensive edition for classroom and family sharing. Writing prompts and tips by the award-winning poet make this an outstanding choice for aspiring poets of all ages.

________________________________

Self-Help pick

Making Great Relationships: Simple Practices for Solving Conflicts, Building Connection, and Fostering Love by Rick Hanson, PhD

Relationships are usually the most important part of a person’s life. But they’re often stressful and frustrating, or simply awkward, distant, and lonely. We feel the weight of things unsaid, needs unmet, conflicts unresolved. It’s easy to feel stuck.

But actually, new research shows that you create your relationships every day with the things you do and say, which gives you the ability to start improving them now. You have the power to make all your relationships better just by making simple changes that start inside yourself.

New York Times bestselling author of Buddha’s Brain and Hardwiring Happiness, Rick Hanson, PhD, brings his trademark warmth and clarity to Making Great Relationships, a comprehensive guide to fostering healthy, effective, and fulfilling relationships of all kinds: at home and at work, with family and friends, and with people who are challenging. As a psychologist, couples and family counselor, husband, and father, Dr. Hanson has learned what makes relationships go badly and what you can do to make them go better.

Grounded in brain science and clinical psychology, and informed by contemplative wisdom, Making Great Relationships offers fifty fundamental skills, including:

• How to convince yourself that you truly deserve to be treated well
• How to communicate effectively in all kinds of settings
• How to stay centered so that conflict doesn’t rattle you so deeply
• How to see the good in others (even when they make it difficult)
• How to set and maintain healthy boundaries or resize relationships as needed
• How to express your needs so that they are more likely to be fulfilled

With these fifty simple yet powerful practices, you can handle conflicts, repair misunderstandings, get treated better, deepen a romantic partnership, be at peace with others, and give the love that you have in your heart. Making Great Relationships will teach you how to relate better than ever with all the people in your life.

________________________________

Social Justice pick

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Why? Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages?

In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.

Elegantly written and fiercely argued, this compassionate book gives us new ways of thinking about a morally urgent problem. It also helps us imagine solutions. Desmond builds a startlingly original and ambitious case for ending poverty. He calls on us all to become poverty abolitionists, engaged in a politics of collective belonging to usher in a new age of shared prosperity and, at last, true freedom.

This title is also available as a Libby eBook.

________________________________

Strength Through Struggle pick

Life on Delay: Making Peace with a Stutter by John Hendrickson

In the fall of 2019, John Hendrickson wrote a groundbreaking story for The Atlantic about Joe Biden’s decades-long journey with stuttering, as well as his own. The article went viral, reaching readers around the world and altering the course of Hendrickson’s life. Overnight, he was forced to publicly confront an element of himself that still caused him great pain.

He soon learned he wasn’t alone with his feelings: strangers who stutter began sending him their own personal stories, something that continues to this day. Now, in this reported memoir, Hendrickson takes us deep inside the mind and heart of a stutterer as he sets out to answer lingering questions about himself and his condition that he was often too afraid to ask.

In Life on Delay, Hendrickson writes candidly about bullying, substance abuse, depression, isolation, and other issues stutterers like him face daily. He explores the intricate family dynamics surrounding his own stutter and revisits key people from his past in unguarded interviews. Readers get an over-the-shoulder view of his childhood; his career as a journalist, which once seemed impossible; and his search for a romantic partner. Along the way, Hendrickson guides us through the evolution of speech therapy, the controversial quest for a “magic pill” to end stuttering, and the burgeoning self-help movement within the stuttering community. Beyond his own experiences, he shares portraits of fellow stutterers who have changed his life, and he writes about a pioneering doctor who is upending the field of speech therapy.

Life on Delay is an indelible account of perseverance, a soulful narrative about not giving up, and a glimpse into the process of making peace with our past and present selves.

________________________________

Theologies pick

Muddy People: A Muslim Coming-Of-Age by Sara El Sayed

A quick, clever, warm-hearted debut about growing up in an Egyptian-Muslim family.

Sara is growing up in a family with a lot of rules. Her mother tells her she’s not allowed to wear a bikini, her father tells her she’s not allowed to drink alcohol, and her grandmother tells her to never trust a man with her money.

After leaving Egypt when Sara was only six years old, her family slowly learns how to navigate the social dynamics of their new home. Sara feels out of place in her new school. Her father refuses to buy his coworkers a ginger beer, thinking it contains alcohol. Her mother refuses to wear a hijab, even if it would help them connect with other local Muslims. And Sara learns what it feels like to have a crush on a boy, that some classmates are better friends than others, and that her parents are loving, but flawed people who don’t always know what’s best for her, despite being her strongest defenders.

For readers of Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy and Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart, this heartwarming book about family and identity introduces a compelling new voice, with a coming-of-age story that will speak to everyone who’s ever struggled to figure out where they belong.

________________________________

True Crime pick

Ted Bundy and the Unsolved Murder Epidemic: the Dark Figure of Crime by Matt DeLisi

This book revisits the life and crimes of Ted Bundy. It seeks to reconcile the contradictions and controversies about his life that underscore the broader US unsolved murder problem, one that is estimated at between 250,000 to 350,000 open, unresolved, or cold cases. The incidence of crime is far greater than is captured by official statistics; most offenses are never detected, a concept known as the dark figure of crime which is explored here. Drawing on 25 years of practitioner, research, and consultant experiences with the most violent criminals, this book offers solutions toward clearing the current backlog of unsolved murders in the United States many of which were never reported and disproportionately perpetrated by offenders like Bundy. This compelling book speaks to students, academics and readers interested in true crime, serial murder, homicide and criminal justice.

________________________________

Join Simply Held to have any of the new nonfiction picks automatically put on hold for you four times a year.