Fact and Fiction Recommends Spring 2021

Posted on March 24, 2021

by Fact and Fiction

Located on the first floor of Main Library, the Fact and Fiction Department is here to help you find your next great read! Stocked with a large collection of books, magazines, historical periodicals, and government documents, we have something for everyone.

We hope you enjoy the reading recommendations featured in this blog post. If you would like additional recommendations, let us know – we are always happy to help!

Cover of Nala’s World: One Man, His Rescue Cat, and a Bike Ride Around the Globe

Nala’s World: One Man, His Rescue Cat, and a Bike Ride Around the Globe
By Dean Nicholson

A heartwarming, inspiring true story about a man who embarks on a bike trip around the world. The author, Dean Nicholson, decides to embark on a trek around the world to learn more about our troubled planet. Three months into his journey, Dean finds an abandoned kitten who he decides to adopt and name Nala. Together, Dean and Nala forge an unbreakable bond and discover the wonders of the world. The documentation of their amazing adventures began online. On Instagram @1bike1world has attracted more than 750k followers and their YouTube channel is quite popular as well. Nala’s World is an inspiring and extraordinary story that’s well worth checking out.

Cover of The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter

The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America with a Typewriter
By Brian Sonia-Wallace

Brian, once an amateur busker, embarks on a cross-country journey. At each stop, he sets up a typewriter on the street with a sign that reads “Poetry Store.” To his surprise, thousands of people from all over America, and all walks of life, took the time to share their stories. This thought-provoking collection of essays illustrates that people want to be heard. The fault lines which divide us fall away when we remember to look, in every stranger, for poetry.

Cover of The Midnight Library

The Midnight Library
By Matt Haig

Book on CD   |   eAudiobook   |   eBook   |   Playaway

A brilliant novel about the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of How to stop time. The story centers around a library that’s located beyond the edge of the universe. In this mysterious library, there’s an infinite number of books. Each book contains the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. What if you could simply visit the library to discover how your life might have been given different choices? Would the other lives be better? An engaging and thought-provoking read sure to spark great conversation.

Cover of The Overstory

The Overstory
By Richard Powers

eAudiobook   |   eBook

The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of―and paean to―the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers’ twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours―vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe.

Cover of Epic Bike Rides of the Americas: Explore the Americas' Most Thrilling Cycling Routes on Road, Gravel and Trails

Epic Bike Rides of the Americas: Explore the Americas' Most Thrilling Cycling Routes on Road, Gravel and Trails
By Lonely Planet

Lonely Planet’s Epic Bike Rides of the Americas will inspire a lifetime of cycling adventures. Included: stories of 50 amazing bike rides in North and South America, from Alaska to Patagonia, plus a further 150 route suggestions. From easy one-day trips and family-friendly rail trails to backcountry expeditions, gravel races, road routes, and mountain biking challenges, each ride shares one defining feature: being truly epic.

Cover of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
By James Nestor

eAudiobook   |   eBook

This is a fast, highly entertaining read. I was immediately drawn to it because I have always had a hard time breathing properly. The timing of publication could not be more perfect amid a pandemic where COVID-19 is transmitted from person to person via air (mostly) and breathed in, affecting one’s lungs. However, as I read further, I began questioning some of the science and resources in this book. (As any good librarian should.) Regardless, this made it an even more intriguing read because there is so little known about breath and I wanted to see what else the author could get wrong or what needs to be researched more in general within our society. Place a hold and see what you think.

Cover of A Short History of Seafaring

A Short History of Seafaring
By Brian Laverly

For more than 5,000 years, the sea has challenged, rewarded, and punished the brave sailors who set forth to explore it. The remarkable stories of those individuals–inspired by the lure of new lands, new trade, conquest, or uncharted waters—are all told here, whether they lived to tell the tales themselves or not. A Short History of Seafaring is a unique compendium of awe-inspiring tales of epic sea voyages that involve great feats of seamanship, navigation, endurance, and ingenuity.

Cover of Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders

Atlas Obscura, 2nd Edition: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders
By Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras and Ella Morton

hoopla

Atlas Obscura is a phenomenon of a travel book that shot to the top of bestseller lists when it was first published and changed the way we think about the world, expanding our sense of how strange and marvelous it really is.>span class=”scxw88791810″> This second edition takes readers to more than 100 new places, includes dozens of new photographs, and twelve city guides. In addition, there is a foldout map with a dream itinerary for the ultimate around-the-world road trip.

Every page gets to the very core of why humans want to travel in the first place: to be delighted and disoriented, uprooted from the familiar and amazed by the new., it is a book you can open anywhere and be transported. But proceed with caution: It’s almost impossible not to turn to the next entry, and the next, and the next.

Cover of The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World
By Peter Wohlleben

eAudiobook   |   eBook   |   Illustrated Edition

The Hidden Life of Trees is a fascinating insight into the underground world of trees. In this international bestseller, forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.

Cover of The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals―and Other Forgotten Skills

The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals―and Other Forgotten Skills
By Tristan Gooley

hoopla

When writer and navigator Tristan Gooley journeys outside, he sees a natural world filled with clues. The roots of a tree indicate the sun’s direction; the Big Dipper tells the time; a passing butterfly hints at the weather; a sand dune reveals prevailing wind; the scent of cinnamon suggests altitude; a budding flower points south. To help you understand nature as he does, Gooley shares more than 850 tips for forecasting, tracking and more, gathered from decades spent walking the landscape around his home and around the world. Whether you’re walking in the country or city, along a coastline or by night, this is the ultimate resource on what the land, sun, moon, stars, plants, animals and clouds can reveal.

Cover of I Love Birds!: 52 Ways to Wonder, Wander and Explore Birds with Kids

I Love Birds!: 52 Ways to Wonder, Wander and Explore Birds with Kids
By Jennifer Ward

Part journal, part field guide, I Love Birds! is chock-full of the activities, information and rich resources that will fuel discovery and inspire families, urban and rural, with everything bird. Through sensory, hands-on creative explorations that involve birding basics and the hows and whys of bird behavior, parents are invited share the joy of birds with children ages 4 to 8. The activities here will engage children’s imaginations as they observe birds in the wild, delve into their DIY and artistic side and enjoy the wonder of birds provided merely by engaging with them.

Did you like this blog post? Keep up to date with all of our posts by subscribing to the Library’s newsletters!

Keep your reading list updated with our book lists. Our staff love to read and they’ll give you the scoop on new tv-series inspired titles, hobbies, educational resources, pop culture, current events, and more!

Looking for more great titles? Get personalized recommendations from our librarians with this simple form.