Staff Picks
Seaweed: Foraging, Collecting, Pressing by Julia Bird
Adult non-fiction 579.8177
Picked by Jenny
A gorgeous guide to foraging, pressing and using seaweeds for a wealth of home creative projects. Both aspirational and inspirational, this guide to bringing the outdoors inside is quite unlike anything on the market and will inspire all readers to begin their beach foraging journey. A beautifully packaged, comprehensive visual guide to seaweed by design company Molesworth & Bird. Seaweed will inspire readers to look beyond the tangled piles of seaweed washed up at high tide, to discover its exceptional beauty and appreciate its many uses. The book celebrates the unique appeal of the plants and showcases the myriad ways to bring their beauty indoors, with the authors providing step-by-step activities so you can create your own prints at home. Whether pressing a deep khaki green peacock's tail seaweed or creating a stunning cyanotype with eelgrass, the possibilities are endless with this seashore bounty. The book is packed with glorious photography of the UK coastlines where the seaweeds can be foraged, alongside stylish interiors, and scenes of beach cook-outs and wild swimming spots. It also includes a library of pressed seaweeds presented in colour categories, with notes for identification and use. There is expert guidance on collecting seaweeds, and it will show how foraged seaweeds can be used at home for cooking, dyeing and printing fabrics, and as part of your skincare routine. It explores the fascinating history of seaweed collecting and investigates its potential as a healthy food source and sustainable material, whether foraged or farmed.
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Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch
Adult Fiction E-audiobook
Picked by Rhys
The second in the Rivers of London series of urban fantasy/police procedurals featuring Peter Grant.'When I was a kid, it was my job to change my dad's records while he lounged around and drank tea. This is why I know my Argo from my Tempo and why, when Dr Walid called me down to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing as 'Body and Soul'. Not literally playing, you understand, but something violently supernatural had happened to the victim on or around his death, something strong enough to leave its imprint on his corpse as if it were a wax cylinder recording. The former owner of the body was one Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, who dropped dead of a heart attack half an hour after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first.'
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The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
Adult fiction
Picked by Amanda
Maine, 1789: When a man is found entombed in the frozen Kennebec River, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As the local midwife and healer, Martha is good at keeping secrets. Her diary is a record of every birth, death and debacle that unfolds in the town of Hallowell. In that diary she has also documented the details of an alleged rape committed by one of the town's most esteemed gentlemen, the same man who has now been found dead in the ice. While certain townspeople are eager to put both matters to rest, Martha suspects that the two crimes are linked, and that there is more to both cases than meets the eye. Over the course of one long, hard winter, whispers and prejudices mount, and Martha's diary lands at the centre of the scandal, threatening to tear both her family and her community apart.
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Gaslight by Femi Kayode
Adult fiction
Picked by Marj
Bishop Jeremiah Dawodu, pastor of a Nigerian megachurch, has been arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Folasade, the 'First Lady' of the church. The arrest was public, humiliating and sensational, sending shockwaves through Lagos, but throughout it all, Bishop Dawodu maintains his innocence. Philip Taiwo, an acclaimed investigative psychologist, is asked by his sister, a member of the church's congregation, to clear the pastor's name. With no actual body, it looks to be a simple case and despite Philip's dislike of organised religion, he agrees to take it on as a favour to his sister. Then the First Lady's body is found in a nearby lake just as Philip's beloved family come under attack from someone warning him off the case, and he realises that nothing to do with this investigation will be straightforward. Was it murder or suicide? Is someone framing the Bishop or the First Lady?
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The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden by Kate Saunders
Adult fiction
Picked by Andrea
In the spring of 1853, private detective Laetitia Rodd receives a delicate request from a retired actor, whose days on the stage were ended by a theatre fire ten years before. His great friend, and the man he rescued from the fire, Thomas Transome, has decided to leave his wife, who now needs assistance in securing a worthy settlement. Though Mrs Rodd is reluctant to get involved with the scandalous world of the theatre, she cannot turn away the woman in need. She agrees to take the case.
But what starts out as a simple matter of negotiation becomes complicated when a body is discovered in the burnt husk of the old theatre. Soon Mrs Rodd finds herself embroiled in family politics, rivalries that put the Capulets and Montagues to shame, and betrayals on a Shakespearean scale.
Mrs Rodd will need all her investigative powers, not to mention her famous discretion, to solve the case before tragedy strikes once more.
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The Lost Hero by Rick Riodan
Teen Fiction
Picked by Paige
Old enemies awaken as Camp Half-Blood's new arrivals prepare for war. When Jason, Piper and Leo crash land at Camp Half-Blood, they have no idea what to expect. Apparently, this is the only safe place for children of the Greek Gods, despite the monsters roaming the woods and demigods practising archery with flaming arrows and explosives. But rumours of a terrible curse and a missing hero are flying around camp. It seems Jason, Piper and Leo are the chosen ones to embark on a terrifying new quest, which they must complete by the winter solstice in just four days' time.
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