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ID: 692309

Title: Paper Cage: A novel

Author: Tom Baragwanath

Narrator: Natalie Beran, Saskia Maarleveld

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7:32:21

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Genres: Mystery, Thriller & Horror, Detective Stories, Police Stories

Summary:

This prizewinning debut from New Zealand novelist Tom Baragwanath is both a nail-biting thrill-ride and a beautifully written, acutely observed portrait of a community.

How far would you go to keep your family safe?

Lorraine Henry is generally content to keep her head down and get on with her work as a records clerk at the Masterton police station. But when children start going missing in her small town, Lo can't help but pay attention. After all, she has Bradley, her young nephew, to worry about, and the cops don't seem to be putting much effort into finding the kids. And then the unthinkable happens: Bradley disappears. Distraught but determined, Lorraine vows to bring him home no matter what. And, together with a detective from Wellington, she embarks on a dangerous mission, one that will illuminate all the good and all the bad in Masterton.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 684416

Title: What Have We Here?: Portraits of a Life

Author: Billy Dee Williams

Narrator: Billy Dee Williams

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11:34:07

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Genres: Biography & Memoir

Summary:

A film legend recalls his remarkable life of nearly eight decades—a heralded actor who's played the roles he wanted, from Brian’s Song to Lando in the Star Wars universe—unchecked by the racism and typecasting so rife in the mostly all-white industry in which he triumphed.

Billy Dee Williams was born in Harlem in 1937 and grew up in a household of love and sophistication. As a young boy, he made his stage debut working with Lotte Lenya in an Ira Gershwin/Kurt Weill production where Williams ended up feeding Lenya her lines. He studied painting, first at the High School of Music and Art, with fellow student Diahann Carroll, and then at the National Academy of Fine Art, before setting out to pursue acting with Herbert Berghoff, Stella Adler, and Sidney Poitier.

His first film role was in The Last Angry Man, the great Paul Muni’s final film. It was Muni who gave Billy the advice that sent him soaring as an actor, “You can play any character you want to play no matter who you are, no matter the way you look or the color of your skin.” And Williams writes, “I wanted to be anyone I wanted to be.”

He writes of landing the role of a lifetime: co-starring alongside James Caan in Brian’s Song, the made-for-television movie that was watched by an audience of more than fifty million people. Williams says it was “the kind of interracial love story America needed.”

And when, as the first Black character in the Star Wars universe, he became a true pop culture icon, playing Lando Calrissian in George Lucas’s The Empire Strikes Back (“What I presented on the screen people didn’t expect to see”). It was a role he reprised in the final film of the original trilogy, The Return of the Jedi, and in the recent sequel The Rise of Skywalker.

A legendary actor, in his own words, on all that has sustained and carried him through a lifetime of dreams and adventure.

Cover Credits:

Cover photograph: Courtesy of Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC

Cover design by Jenny Carrow

COURTESY OF LUCASFILM LTD. LLC

STAR WARS: The Empire Strikes Back (c) & TM Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 692306

Title: Acts of Forgiveness: A Novel

Author: Maura Cheeks

Narrator: Jade Wheeler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8:20:37

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Literary Fiction, Contemporary Women

Summary:

“A vibrant and moving debut that takes to heart our deferred dreams and the value of remaining hopeful.”—Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Women

How much of their lineage is one family willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation’s first federal reparations program?

Every American waits with bated breath to see whether or not the country’s first female president will pass the Forgiveness Act. The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000 if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, and for ambitious single mother Willie Revel the bill could be a long-awaited form of redemption. A decade ago, Willie gave up her burgeoning journalism career to help run her father’s struggling construction company in Philadelphia and she has reluctantly put family first, without being able to forget who she might have become. Now she’s back living with her parents and her young daughter while trying to keep her family from going into bankruptcy. Could the Forgiveness Act uncover her forgotten roots while also helping save their beloved home and her father’s life’s work?

In order to qualify, she must first prove that the Revels are descended from slaves, but the rest of the family isn’t as eager to dig up the past. Her mother is adopted, her father doesn’t trust the government and believes working with a morally corrupt employer is the better way to save their business, and her daughter is just trying to make it through the fifth grade at her elite private school without attracting unwanted attention. It’s up to Willie to verify their ancestry and save her family—but as she delves into their history, Willie begins to learn just how complicated family and forgiveness can be.

With powerful insight and moving prose, Acts of Forgiveness asks how history shapes who we become and considers the weight of success when it is achieved despite incredible odds—and ultimately what leaving behind a legacy truly means.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 692319

Title: Ready or Not: A Novel

Author: Cara Bastone

Narrator: Alex Finke

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:50:40

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Genres: Romance, Rom-Com, Contemporary

Summary:

A surprise pregnancy leads to even more life-changing revelations in this “absolutely buoyant read” (Elle, The Best and Most Anticipated Romance Books of 2024, So Far).

“Bastone delivers on this truly heartwarming, funny, and real story. Come for the dog bar, stay for the special, slow-burn romcom.”—Abby Jimenez, New York Times bestselling author

Eve Hatch lives for surprises! Just kidding. She expects every tomorrow to be pretty much the same as today. She loves her cozy apartment in Brooklyn that’s close to her childhood best friend Willa, and far from her midwestern, traditional family who has never really understood her. While her job is only dream-adjacent, it’s comfortable and steady. She always knows what to expect from her life . . . until she finds herself expecting after an uncharacteristic one-night stand.

The unplanned pregnancy cracks open all the relationships in her life. Eve’s loyal friendship with Willa is feeling tense, right when she needs her the most. And it’s actually Willa’s steadfast older brother, Shep, who steps up to help Eve. He has always been friendly, but now he’s checking in, ordering her surprise lunches, listening to all her complaints, and is . . . suddenly kinda hot? Then, as if she needs one more complication, there’s the baby’s father, who is (technically) supportive but (majorly) conflicted.

Up until this point, Eve’s been content to coast through life. Now, though—maybe it’s the hormones, maybe it’s the way Shep’s shoulders look in a T-shirt—Eve starts to wonder if she has been secretly desiring more from every aspect of her life.

Over the course of nine months, as Eve struggles to figure out the next right step in her expanding reality, she begins to realize that family and love, in all forms, can sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 690205

Title: Dread Detention

Author: Jennifer Killick

Narrator: Jamie K. Brown

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5:43:05

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Listening Library (Audio)

Genres: Kids, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Mystery & Fantasy

Summary:

The Breakfast Club meets Stranger Things in this middle grade horror novel for fans of Goosebumps! Detention turns even scarier when a group of classmates discover dangers lurking in their school.

When classmates Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a Saturday, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.

What has dragged their teacher underground? Why do the creepy caretakers keep humming the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider? And what horrors lurk in the shadows, getting stronger and meaner every minute . . .? Cut off from help and in danger each time they touch the ground, the gang’s only hope is to work together. But it’s no coincidence that they're all there on detention. Someone has been watching and plotting and is out for revenge . . .

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 692327

Title: 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed

Author: Eric Klinenberg

Narrator: Dan John Miller, Eric Klinenberg

Format: Unabridged

Length: 15:23:33

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Random House (Audio)

Genres: Non-Fiction, Science & Technology, Medicine, Social Science

Summary:

A meticulously reported, character-driven, unforgettable investigation of a time when nothing was certain and everything was at stake, by the acclaimed sociologist and best-selling author Eric Klinenberg

“A gripping, deeply moving account of a signal year in modern history, told through the stories of seven ordinary people. Klinenberg’s narrative shows how the legacy of that year continues to shape us, our politics and our personal lives.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies • 'I can easily see this book being invaluable in the future.'—Stuart Miller, Los Angeles Times

2020 will go down alongside 1914, 1929, and 1968 as one of the most consequential years in history. This riveting and affecting book is the first attempt to capture the full human experience of that fateful time.

At the heart of 2020 are seven vivid profiles of ordinary New Yorkers—including an elementary school principal, a bar manager, a subway custodian, and a local political aide—whose experiences illuminate how Americans, and people across the globe, reckoned with 2020. Through these poignant stories, we revisit our own moments of hope and fear, the profound tragedies and losses in our communities, the mutual aid networks that brought us together, and the social movements that hinted at the possibilities of a better world.

Eric Klinenberg vividly captures these stories, casting them against the backdrop of a high-stakes presidential election, a surge of misinformation, rising distrust, and raging protests. We move from the epicenter in New York City to Washington and London, where political leaders made the crisis so much more lethal than it had to be. We bear witness to epidemiological battles in Wuhan and Beijing, along with the initiatives of scientists, citizens, and policy makers in Australia, Japan, and Taiwan, who worked together to save lives.

Klinenberg allows us to see 2020—and, ultimately, ourselves—with unprecedented clarity and empathy. His book not only helps us reckon with what we lived through, but also with the challenges we face before the next crisis arrives.

'A masterful piece of rigorous journalism, rigorous sociology, and incredible story-telling.'—Chris Hayes, MSNBC News

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 689493

Title: Dangerous Allies (The Forgotten Five, Book 4)

Author: Lisa McMann

Narrator: Jeremy Carlisle Parker

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8:37:00

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Listening Library (Audio)

Genres: Kids, Action & Adventure

Summary:

X-Men meets Spy Kids in the fourth installment of The Forgotten Five middle-grade fantasy/adventure series by the New York Times bestselling author of The Unwanteds.

Following an explosive showdown with President Fuerte and his supernatural henchmen, the forgotten five and their allies are feeling lost. Their trusted friend and mentor The Librarian has left the group and declared her loyalty to the corrupt president. Has the Librarian really abandoned them in their quest to take down Fuerte’s regime, or has she been kidnapped?

Then, without warning, Troy Cordoba—Tenner’s dad, who has been working for Fuerte for years—shows up at the five’s safe house wanting to join their cause but accidentally leading the presidential guards right to their doorstep. Troy insists that he has changed for the better, but Tenner isn’t sure he can be trusted.

Meanwhile, Magdalia Palacio’s election campaign is gaining steam. If she’s against the president, does that make her the five’s ally?

The kids will have to decide who to put their faith in—and fast—before the president uses his supernatural army to crush his opponent and cement his criminal rule over Estero once and for all.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 692273

Title: Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration

Author: Harold Holzer

Narrator: Mark Bramhall

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12:50:46

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Genres: History, Biography & Memoir, Non-Fiction, Law & Politics, North America, Social Science

Summary:

From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln’s grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War.

In the three decades before the Civil War, some ten million foreign-born people settled in the United States, forever altering the nation’s demographics, culture, and—perhaps most significantly—voting patterns. America’s newest residents fueled the national economy, but they also wrought enormous changes in the political landscape and exposed an ugly, at times violent, vein of nativist bigotry.

Abraham Lincoln’s rise ran parallel to this turmoil; even Lincoln himself did not always rise above it. Tensions over immigration would split and ultimately destroy Lincoln’s Whig Party years before the Civil War. Yet the war made clear just how important immigrants were, and how interwoven they had become in American society.

Harold Holzer, winner of the Lincoln Prize, charts Lincoln’s political career through the lens of immigration, from his role as a member of an increasingly nativist political party to his evolution into an immigration champion, a progression that would come at the same time as he refined his views on abolition and Black citizenship. As Holzer writes, “The Civil War could not have been won without Lincoln’s leadership; but it could not have been fought without the immigrant soldiers who served and, by the tens of thousands, died that the ‘nation might live.’” An utterly captivating and illuminating work, Brought Forth on This Continent assesses Lincoln's life and legacy in a wholly original way, unveiling remarkable similarities between the nineteenth century and the twenty-first.

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 689490

Title: Averil Offline

Author: Amy Noelle Parks

Narrator: Emily Marso

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4:27:51

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Listening Library (Audio)

Genres: Kids, General, Health & Family, Mystery & Fantasy

Summary:

A fun, fast-paced story about a girl determined to cut the cord with her helicopter parents.

Twelve-year-old coder Averil can't do anything without her parents knowing. That’s because her mom uses the Ruby Slippers surveillance app to check where she is, who she texts, and even what she eats for lunch. Averil wonders how she’s ever going to grow up if she’s not allowed to learn from mistakes. When she learns that Ruby Slippers is about to become even more invasive, she teams up with Max, a new kid at school dealing with overbearing parents of his own. Together they figure out an almost foolproof way to ditch their parents and run away to the college campus that’s home to the quirky Ruby Slippers creator. It’s an extreme challenge just getting to meet with him—but the two kids cleverly figure out a series of puzzles and get their meeting. What they find gives them pause—and gets them thinking about the value of honesty in a new light. After all, isn’t trust at the heart of their parents' need to know?

Contact: [email protected]

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ID: 692267

Title: This Disaster Loves You

Author: Richard Roper

Narrator: Christian Coulson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8:51:10

Language: English

Release date: 02-13-24

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Genres: Romance, Fiction & Literature, Contemporary Women, Family Life

Summary:

From the author of Something to Live For, a poignant and funny story about a man whose wife disappeared seven years ago and his journey to find her or find out what happened, interwoven with the story of their relationship, revealing how sometimes the biggest secrets are the ones we keep from ourselves.

Twenty years of love. Seven years of absence. One journey to find out what happened.

Brian’s wife, Lily, disappeared from his life without a trace six years, eleven months, one week, and two days ago, but Brian never lost hope. Since her disappearance their once beloved English pub—and Brian’s livelihood—has been crumbling piece by piece. As the anniversary of her absence approaches, Brian desperately needs a sign. One doom-scroll on his business’s reviews later, he finds it: an active TripAdvisor account for PinkMoonLily1972 that he knows in his heart is his Lily.

Interspliced with Brian’s journey to find Lily is the story of their love—how it started, and the twists and turns that brought them to this moment. As Brian jumps from one destination to the next to find Lily, and the truth behind their story comes into focus, Brian comes back to life with the help of Tess, a sarcastic, kind, and surprising traveling companion. But in order to move forward he’ll need to decide—stay in the past or take a chance on something unexpected.

Contact: [email protected]