2024 ONGOING: BOOKS WE LOVE!

The miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history. For fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. Based on dozens of hours of interviews...

Shadow is a man with a past and wants nothing more now than to live a quiet life with his wife. When his wife is killed in a terrible accident, Shadow flies home for the funeral. As a raging storm rocks the plane, the strange man in the seat next to Shadow introduces himself as Mr. Wednesday. He knows more about Shadow than is possible--and he warns Shadow an even bigger storm is coming. Just released from prison, Shadow encounters Mr. Wednesday,...

Having lived in a monastery since childhood, away from the violent upheavals of the outside world, Raz becomes one of a group of formerly cloistered scholars who are appointed by a fear-driven higher power to avert an impending catastrophe.

What separates your mind from that of an animal? Is it the ability to design tools; a sense of self; or the grasp of past and future? In recent decades these claims have eroded, or even been disproven outright, by a revolution in the study of animal cognition. Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence, offering a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really...

"From the Man Booker-shortlisted and Baileys Prize-winning author of How to be both: a breathtakingly inventive new novel--about aging, time, love, and stories themselves--that launches an extraordinary quartet of books called Seasonal. Readers love Ali Smith's novels for their peerless innovation and their joyful celebration of language and life. Her newest, Autumn, has all of these qualities in spades, and--good news for fans!--is the first installment...

"With detailed information and illustrations covering each phase of a tree's lifecycle, this indispensible guidebook explains how to identify trees by their bark alone. Chapters on the structure and ecology of tree bark, descriptions of the bark appearance, an easy-to-use identification key, and supplemental information on non-bark characteristics -- all enhanced by over 450 photographs, illustrations, and maps -- will show you how to distinguish...

Tucked away in a remote stream valley in Vermont, a dynasty of beavers has nearly completed the restoration of the meadows and ponds that adorned this stream in the days before the beavers of a continent were turned into top hats. Willow, Popple, and their progeny begin the night's work of dam repair, scent marking, tree felling until a soft call alerts them to the arrival of the strange honorary member of their clan, this book's author, Patti Smith....