While substantive in content, these lean toward the lighter side of things. You could even enjoy these books at the beach.
128 GOO
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times / Jane Goodall
The Book of Hope is a deeply personal conversation with one of the most beloved figures in the world today. While discussing the experiences that shaped her discoveries and beliefs, Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope, from living through World War II to her years in Gombe to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. And for the first time, she shares her profound revelations about her next, and perhaps final, adventure.
Also available as an audiobook on Libby.
303.4833 ODE
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy/ Jenny Odell
“A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention—and our personal information—that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we’ve been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world.” This will encourage you to slow down. Available as an ebook on Libby and an audiobook on hoopla.
331.4092 COU
Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career / Kristi Coulter
A candid, intensely funny memoir of ambition, gender, and a grueling decade inside Amazon.com.
Also available as an ebook on Libby.
615.7883 POL
How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence/ Michael Pollan
A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, how to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world.
Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby.
616.8918 OHL | Adult New Shelf
Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age / Norman Ohler
Revealing the close relationship and hidden connections between the Nazis and the early days of drugs in America, Ohler shares how this secret history held back therapeutic research of psychedelic drugs for decades and eventually became part of the foundation of America’s War on Drugs.
910.9164 GRA
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder / David Grann
A mesmerizing story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court-martial that reveals a shocking truth. On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell.
Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby.
930.1 PRE
The Lost Tomb and Other Real-life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder / Douglas J. Preston
The Lost Tomb brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present. Also available as an ebook and audiobook on Libby.
998.9 RUS
The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth / Elizabeth Rush
The author chronicles her 2019 expedition with an international group of marine biologists, oceanographers, and geologists aboard a research vessel heading toward the calving edge of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier.
BIO IRBY
Quietly Hostile: Essays / Samantha Irby
The success of Irby’s career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. Finally, she has made it. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had.
Also available as an ebook on Libby.
BIO WATTS
Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again / Reggie Watts
Growing up as the only biracial kid in Great Falls, Montana, comedian, musician, and band leader Reggie Watts takes readers through his story, hitting on the culture shock he experienced after moving from Europe to Montana—a place he needed to leave, but is ultimately drawn back to.
