Arcadia Public Library

"A deeply personal how-to book for aspiring writers, encouraging them to look inward and excavate their own memories in order to discover the authentic voices and compelling details that are waiting to be put on the page"--

"In 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platforms that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma. A simple pill, it had been discovered, could wipe out the memory of any traumatic event. At almost the same...

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life ever even existed? Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love. But then Stevie has a terrible fall. And when she comes to, she can remember nothing of the last two years--not California,...

"A searching, heartfelt exploration about what it means to process grief, by a bestselling author and journalist whose experience with two devastating losses inspired her to bring comfort and understanding to others. Since losing her mother to cancer in 2018 and her sister to alcoholism less than three years later, author and journalist Dina Gachman has dedicated herself to understanding what it means to grieve, healing after loss, and the ways we...

"In her parched, crumbling corner of a Cape Town public housing complex, Deidre van Deventer receives a call from the South African police department. Her family home, recently reclaimed by the government, has become the scene of a criminal investigation. The remains of several bodies have just been unearthed from their land, after decades underground. Detectives pepper her with questions: Was your brother a member of a pro-apartheid group in the...

"These compelling case histories meld science and storytelling to illuminate the complex relationship between the mind of someone with dementia and the mind of the person caring for them. After getting a master's degree in clinical psychology, Dasha Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer's disease. For a year, she endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time,...

Sal Cannon's relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it's revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. When she reads a short story by Martin Keller-- a much older author she met at a literary event years ago-- she discovers the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story's editor, and learns...

"In this brilliantly illuminating work exploring the realities and legacies of empire, Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in its imperial past. In prose that is at once both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how the past is everywhere in the United Kingdom, also drawing critical links to similarities in the United States and around the world. Empire--British or otherwise--informs...

"In a gripping and stunning coming-of-age novel, Julian R. Vaca reimagines a 1987 world where memories are as valuable as gold. In a reimagined 1987, mankind's ability to remember has deteriorated. To fight memory loss, men and women rely on artificial recall by storing memories on tapes and playing them back. Society's elite, dubbed recollectors, are able to retain "three-quarter memories" on their own-and they make the rules. Seventeen-year-old...

Having failed to prevent her vengeful cousin from breaching the Veil, demi-god Neve attempts to prevent more havoc and destruction in the mortal world while she also grapples with old memories, a new family member's emergence, and the delicate balance between past, present, and an uncertain future.