Research Guides: What's New at the Library: September 2025

Modfied photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

New Books

New titles may be shelved on the "New Books" display on the 1st floor. If you need help locating a book, please ask!

Fiction

The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown
Call Number: F Bro

A trio of seemingly everyday people are members of a secret society tasked with finding and protecting hidden magical objects--ordinary items with extraordinary properties.The world of unknowable objects--magical items that most people have no idea possess powers--has been quiet for decades, but the three current members of a secret society have remained watchful, meeting every six months in the basement of a bookshop in London. They are pledged to protect their archive of magical items hidden away, safe from the outside world--and the world safe from them. But when Frank Simpson, the longest-standing member of the Society of Unknowable Objects, hears of a new artifact coming to light in Hong Kong, he sends Magda Sparks--author by day and newest member--to investigate. Within hours of arriving in Hong Kong, Magda is facing death and danger, confronted by a professional killer who seems to know all about unknowable objects, specifically one that was stolen from him a decade before...
High Season by Katie Bishop
Call Number: F Bis

On a beautiful summer's night twenty years ago, troubled seventeen-year-old Tamara Drayton was found floating face-down in the pool of her family's idyllic mansion in the south of France, leaving her twin brother, golden-boy Blake, to pick up the pieces of their shattered family. Also left behind was their sister Nina who, at six years old, became the youngest person ever to testify in a French murder trial. Because she's the only one who saw what happened--who watched as her babysitter, Josie Jackson, pushed Tamara under the water, and held her there until she stopped breathing. Didn't she? Twenty years later, Nina's memories have faded, leaving her with no idea of what really transpired that night...
My Other Heart: a Read with Jenna Pick by Emma Nanami Strenner
Call Number: F Str

In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport. Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong. Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she's avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter. When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget.

Nonfiction

Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino
Call Number: D 767.25 .H6 G46 2025

No one recognized the flashes of bright light that filled the sky. The blast wave that followed seemed to strike with no sound at all. In that silence came the dawn of atomic death for two hundred thousand souls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Based on years of forensic archaeology combined with interviews of more than two hundred survivors and their families, this is an immediate account of ordinary human beings thrust into extraordinary events, during which our modern civilization entered a nuclear adolescence.
Positive Obsession by Susana M. Morris
Call Number: PS 3552 .U827 Z79 2025

A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.

Young Adult

A Spell to Wake the Dead by Nicole Lesperance
Call Number: YA F Les

Two teen girls must uncover the dark, occult secrets lurking in their Cape Cod town to solve a series of murders--and save themselves from the same fate--in this twisty, witchy thriller.
Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories by Cynthia Leitich Smith, et al.
Call Number: YA F Smi

Featuring the voices of both new and acclaimed Indigenous writers and edited by bestselling Muscogee author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of interconnected stories serves up laughter, love, Native pride, and the world's best frybread.
My Perfect Family by Khadijah VanBrakle
Call Number: YA F Van

Sixteen-year-old Leena has always wished for a big family... but when she discovers she has a Muslim grandfather and aunt she never knew, she learns that family comes with tangled histories she may not be able to heal.

Graphic Novels

This Place Kills Me by Mariko Tamaki; Nicole Goux (Illustrator)
Call Number: GraNov Tama This 2025

At Wilberton Academy, few students are more revered than the members of the elite Wilberton Theatrical Society--a.k.a. the WTS--and no one represents that exclusive club better than Elizabeth Woodward. Breathtakingly beautiful, beloved by all, and a talented thespian, it's no surprise she's starring as Juliet in the WTS's performance of Shakespeare's classic tragedy. But when she's found dead the morning after opening night, the whole school is thrown into chaos.

Database News

A.I. Research Assistants in ProQuest

You may have noticed the addition of "Research Assistants" in several ProQuest databases. According to ProQuest, "These new features harness AI’s powerful capabilities and applies them in a responsible, reliable manner as a research companion for students, allowing them to easily craft more effective and targeted searches, more effectively review, analyze, and interrogate documents, quickly evaluate the usefulness of each document for their research, and get guidance on next steps like choosing a research topic and unerstanding important concepts in the document." The librarians are learning how these new tools function righ along with everyone else. If you have questions, please let us know.

ProQuest Central Research Assistant

The research assistant opens when you open an article and attempts to provide key takeaways, related articles, and topics for further research.

Ebook Central Research Assistant

The assistant in Ebook Central is still in Beta testing. It will sometimes not show any information until you choose a chapter. It will then provide a key takeaway and concepts covered for that chapter.

Learn more about ProQuest Academic AI
There are blurbs and videos that outline the capabilities of their A.I. tools.

Flipster Magazines

"Flip" through new magazines online!

Flipster
View digitized versions and flip through the pages of select magazines. The current list includes: Atlantic Monthly, TIME Magazine, Newsweek Global, How It Works, Information Today, Wired, National Geographic, Entrepreneur, Consumer Reports, and Computers in Libraries.
iOS App
To download the free Flipster app, search the iTunes app store for Flipster - Digital Magazines. The Flipster App requires iOS 10.0+.
- iOS Device Guide [PDF]
Android App
To download the free Flipster app, search the Google Play store for Flipster - Digital Magazines.
- Android Device Guide [PDF]
Learn more at the Library's About Flipster page.