The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson

Title: The Wreckage of My Presence 

Author: Casey Wilson 

Genre: Essays, Celebrity Memoir

If you don’t know who Casey Wilson is, this might not be the best introduction to her; on the other hand there might not be a better way to get to know this hysterical actress and writer. Her life is dramatic to say the least.

From growing up with a mother who was a “bed person” and a dad who was a “bath person” to her own confidence in herself and desire to make it on the stage, Casey’s storytelling meanders in the best way possible. Her stories of working her way up in show business come back, and her love of the Real Housewives franchise is amazingly deep and real.

If you know her from The Bride Wars or Happy Endings, you will delight in her storytelling. Those who know her from her Real Housewives Podcast will love the name drops. This book is best listened to, as her voice energizes each story, and makes it feel like meeting a new quirky friend.

The Wreckage of My Presence is the perfect book to listen to when you need to laugh, and maybe feel a little bit too.

*Check out the book using Libby/ Wisconsin’s Digital Library. It is not available on Hoopla, however if you only have 20 minutes, you can download the summary of this book there. But then you would miss over 6 hours of amazing storytelling.

- Katie  

Check out The Wreckage of My Presence  by Casey Wilson @ the library!

Murder at Wedgefield Manor by Erica Ruth Neubauer

Title: Murder at Wedgefield Manor 

Author: Erica Ruth Neubauer

Genre: Mystery

The second novel featuring amateur sleuth Jane Wunderly (after Murder at the Mena House) finds her in the English countryside. To pass the time, she takes flying lessons, but soon enough she's entangled in another mystery: the death of a young veteran. Happily, Redvers, her romantic interest, returns to help solve the puzzle. This delightful story will transport you to a time between the two world wars, and you'll love its spirited heroine. Catch up on Jane's adventures before the third book in the series arrives this spring!

- Sarah 

Check out Murder at Wedgefield Manor by Erica Ruth Neubauer @ the library!

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Title: Carry On 

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Genre: YA, Romance, LGBTQ, Fantasy

The first book in Rainbow Rowell's Simon Snow series is based on a fictional Harry Potter fanfic from her earlier work, "Fangirl". In other words, a character in "Fangirl" writes Harry/Draco fanfics, and then Rowell herself decided she wasn't ready to let these new characters go, and proceeded to write an actual three-book magickal school series about Simon Snow, his romantic interest Baz (Basilton) Grimm-Pitch, and their friends Penelope Bunce and Agatha Wellbelove. 

The first book in the series takes on the mantle of the "Chosen One" and plays around with this trope in new and exciting ways. What's great about this series is it starts off with its characters in their final year of school, and takes readers well beyond scholastic stomping grounds across the American interstate (book two), and into London apartment living (book three). The emphasis is not on the school aspect at all, though it does provide an important backdrop and narrative context, and the lore is fun but arguably secondary to the emotional core of the stories, and the personal growth the characters undergo. With emotional themes foreground, the characters' personal struggles and difficulties are arguably more nuanced in many ways than traditional fantasy, and take on an entirely different tone, reading more like a slice-of-life novel. 

Rowell's intentional diversification of her characters feels like a much-needed salve for a much-beloved story structure. The world Rowell builds is far less insular than a series like Harry Potter, and reads more like queer YA magical realism with occasional nods to high fantasy conventions and just enough absurdist details to keep things interesting. A perfect and compulsively readable winter escape for this twenty-something that leaves me feeling like quite the fangirl, myself.

- Adam 

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The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle

Title: The Empathy Diaries 

Author: Sherry Turkle

Genre: Memoir

Sherry Turkle is a psychologist at MIT who studies how technology impacts relationships and society. Her recent books (Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other; and Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age) are explorations of the striking ways in which we humans are being changed by the devices we use every day. I was thrilled to discover her memoir, which starts by vividly describing her childhood in midcentury Brooklyn, but also goes on to show how she became an original thinker and fought to find space in academia for her new and challenging ideas.

- Carolyn 

Check out The Empathy Diaries by Sherry Turkle @ the library!