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Airdrie Public Library's monthly Book Page makes a comeback

This week, the Airdrie City View is introducing a slate of new monthly features, including the return of the Airdrie Public Library's Book Page.

This week, the Airdrie City View is introducing a slate of new monthly features, including the return of the Airdrie Public Library's Book Page. The Book Page will feature short synopses of a selection of books available through APL's collections, submitted by the library's staff. The synopses cover both fiction and non-fiction titles.

Adult Fiction

The Push

By Ashley Audrain

bit.ly/3yCvvFV

The Push is a tense, page-turning psychological drama about the making and breaking of a family and a woman whose experience of motherhood is nothing at all what she hoped for – and everything she feared.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting, supportive mother to her new baby Violet that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter; Violet rejects her mother, screams uncontrollably, and becomes a disturbing, disruptive presence at her preschool.

Or is it all in Blythe's head? Her husband, Fox, says she's imagining things. What he sees is an overwhelmed wife who can't cope with the day-to-day grind. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.

Then, their son Sam is born – and with him, Blythe has the natural, blissful connection she'd always imagined with her child.  Even Violet seems to love her little brother. But when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fallout forces Blythe to face the truth. Here, we see the making and breaking of a family in crystalline detail, and what it feels like when women are not believed.

The Push is a tour de force you will easily read in one sitting. It's an utterly immersive page-turner that will challenge everything you think you know about motherhood, about children, and about what happens behind the doors of even the most perfect-looking families.

Midnight Library

By Matt Haig

bit.ly/2SrBsVo

Between life and death, there is a library. When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change. The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently.

With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger. Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

The Four Winds

By Kristin Hannah

bit.ly/3oPh4d8

Texas in 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as their crops fail, the water dries up, and dust threatens to bury them all.

One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression – the Dust Bowl era – has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli – like so many of her neighbours – must make an agonizing choice: to fight for the land she loves, or travel west, to California, in search of a better life.

Adult Nonfiction

Eat Better, Feel Better:  My Recipes for Wellness and Healing, Inside and Out

By Giada De Laurentiis

bit.ly/34eeJ1Z

Giada De Laurentiis walks you through how to select food that can actually make you feel better and curate a personalized wellness routine to support a healthy mind and body. Find out how reconfiguring your diet to control inflammation can turn your life around and how to use complementary wellness tactics to optimize your well-being.

In this book, Giada devotes an entire chapter to her three-day reboot and offers more than two dozen dairy-free, sugar-free and gluten-free recipes to accompany the plan, as well as a 21-day menu outline that makes cooking for good health easy to implement at home.

Keep Sharp : Build a Better Brain at Any Age

By Sanjay Gupta, with Kristin Loberg

bit.ly/3fLoKZD

Throughout our lives, we look for ways to keep our mind sharp and effortlessly productive. Now, globetrotting neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta offers insights from top scientists all over the world, whose cutting-edge research can help you heighten and protect brain function and maintain cognitive health at any age.

Discover what we can learn from "super-brained" people who are in their 80s and 90s with no signs of slowing down, and whether there are truly any benefits to drugs, supplements, and vitamins.

Keep Sharp is the only owner's manual you'll need to keep your brain young and healthy, regardless of your age!

What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

By Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

bit.ly/3vxGr5y

Have you ever wondered 'Why did I do that?' or 'Why can't I just control my behaviour?' Others may judge our reactions and think, 'What's wrong with that person?' When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves, holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard.

It's time we started asking a different question. Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking 'What's wrong with you?' to 'What happened to you?' Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and this book provides scientific and emotional insights into the behavioural patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

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