Shelf Space: What's New at the Harvard Public Library, 6/28/24

Haru Spring 
by Joe Latham

Haru, a small bird who dreams of flying, and their best friend Yama, a talkative boar, are used to being in the shadows. But when Yama finds a strange artifact that causes sinister effects, the two are swept into an epic journey to destroy the artifact and save the world.

In The Valley, Haru and Yama both dream of leaving as they’re bullied at school, frustrated at home, and struggling to figure out who they are. One day, a powerful artifact connects itself to Yama, and they discover that they’ll have to journey to The Beacon in search of answers.

The Book That No One Wanted to Read
by Richard Ayoade

The life of a book isn’t easy, especially when people judge you by your cover. (Not every book can be adorned with sparkly unicorns!) And this narrator should know-—it’s the book itself, and it has a lot of opinions. It gets irritated when readers bend its pages back, and it finds authors quite annoying. But it does have a story to tell.

  Multitalented author Richard Ayoade and award-winning illustrator Tor Freeman bring to life a hilariously subversive take on the nature of books and reading, with a heartening theme of finding the courage to tell our own stories. Readers of all ages will be delighted by the myriad bookish references and laughs on every page.

A Tempest of Tea
by Hafsah Faizal

On the streets of White Roaring, Arthie Casimir is a criminal mastermind and collector of secrets. Her prestigious tearoom transforms into an illegal bloodhouse by dark, catering to vampires. But when her establishment is threatened, Arthie is forced to strike an unlikely deal with an alluring adversary to save it, and she can’t do the job alone. Calling on some of the city’s most skilled outcasts, Arthie hatches a plan to infiltrate the dark and glittering vampire society known as the Athereum. But not everyone in her ragtag crew is on her side, and as the truth behind the heist unfolds, Arthie finds herself in the midst of a conspiracy that will threaten the world as she knows it.

I Hope This Doesn’t Find You
by Ann Liang

Channeling her frustrations into email drafts (ones that she’d never send), seemingly perfect Sadie Wen finds her carefully crafted, conflict-free life turned upside down when an email is sent out accidentally, and the only person growing to appreciate the “real” Sadie is the boy she’s sworn to hate.

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Enlightenment
by Sarah Perry

Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have always lived in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, they are kindred spirits, torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. 

Two romantic relationships will tear apart their friendship; in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer said to haunt a nearby manor, and Grace flees Aldleigh entirely. Over twenty years, by coincidence and design, Thomas and Grace find their lives brought back into orbit as the mystery of the vanished astronomer unfolds into a tale of love and scientific pursuit. Thomas and Grace will ask themselves what it means to love and be loved, what is fixed and what is mutable, and how much of our fate is predestined and written in the stars.

The Comfort of Ghosts
by Jacqueline Winspear

In 1945 London, four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion, the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and discovers that a demobilized soldier, gravely ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, has taken shelter with the group.

Maisie’s quest to bring comfort to the youngsters and the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, who was killed while piloting an experimental fighter aircraft. As Maisie unravels the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past.