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1065 Mercedes St.
Benbrook, TX 76126
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  • Audio Bingo Summer Tunes
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  • BFG Tiny Food Party: Tuesday, June 20 at 2 pm. Tweens are cordially invited to have a miniature meal. You might feel like a big friendly giant as you eat tiny pizza, mingle with friends, and watch The BFG. Ages 8-12.
  • Taste Test: Wednesday June 21, 2-3 pm. Is it good? Is it gross? Drop by the library to taste some snacks with your buds. Ages 12-17. Illustrations of snacks and a person drinking juice.
  • Growing Together. Summer Reading Club: Summer Reading Club (SRC) is a program in which each participating child reads 20 books over the course of the summer and receives a prize after every 5 books read. Ages 6-11. Registration opens Saturday, June 3.
  • Big Games: Tuesday, June 13, 2-3 pm. Checkers and jenga, but big! Ages 8-12. Illustration of two children playing with a giant jenga set.
  • Teen Scene: Wednesday, June 14, 2-3 pm. Join us for an afternoon of unscripted fun! We'll get to know the basics of improv by playing lots of silly games. Grades 6-12.
  • Check Your Shelf: Check Your Shelf is our teen summer reading program. It's a game of chance! Each day there's a chance to win a prize or receive a task (e.g. read a book, attend a program, make a recipe). Illustration of a teen reading a book on a rug.
  • Adulting 101: Self Defense: Saturday, June 24, 11 am - 1 pm. Join us for this interactive 2 hour session to learn self defense. Ages 16+. Registration required.
  • Growing Together. My First Summer Reading: My First Summer Reading (MFSR) is a program in which each participating child who reads 10 books and completes 6 tasks over the course of the summer receives a prize. Registration begins Saturday, June 3.
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Growing Together: illustration of smiling vegetables standing in a garden together

 

Growing Together: Summer Reading 2023
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New Reads

  • Image for "Commitment"

    Commitment

    A masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.

    When Diane Aziz drives her oldest son, Walter, from Los Angeles to college at UC Berkeley, it will be her last parental act before falling into a deep depression. A single mother who maintains a wishful belief that her children can attain all the things she hasn’t, she’s worked hard to secure their future in caste drive 1980s Los Angeles, gaining them illegal entry to an affluent public school. When she enters a state hospital, her closest friend tries to keep the children safe and their mother’s dreams for them alive.

    At Berkeley, Walter discovers a passion for architecture just as he realizes his life as a student may need to end for lack of funds. Back home in LA, his sister, Lina, who works in an ice-cream parlor while her wealthy classmates are preparing for Ivy league schools, wages a high stakes gamble to go there with them. And Donny, the little brother everybody loves, begins to hide in plain sight, coding, gaming, and drifting towards a life on the beach, where he falls into an escalating relationship with drugs.

    Moving from Berkeley and Los Angeles to New York and back again, this is a story about one family trying to navigate the crisis of their lives, a crisis many know first-hand in their own families or in those of their neighbors. A resonant novel about family and duty and the attendant struggles that come when a parent falls ill, Commitment honors the spirit of fragile, imperfect mothers and the under-chronicled significance of friends, in determining the lives of our children left on their own. With Commitment, Mona Simpson, one of the foremost chroniclers of the American family in our time, has written her most important and unforgettable novel.

  • Image for "The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi"

    The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

    "A thrilling, transportative adventure that is everything promised-Chakraborty's storytelling is fantasy at its best." -- R.F. Kuang, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and The Poppy War

    "An exhilarating, propulsive adventure, stitched from the threads of real history, Amina's adventures are the reason to read fantasy." -- Ava Reid, internationally bestselling author of Juniper & Thorn

    Shannon Chakraborty, the bestselling author of The City of Brass, spins a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman's determined quest to seize a final chance at glory--and write her own legend.

    Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean's most notorious pirates, she's survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands, and one actual demon to retire peacefully with her family to a life of piety, motherhood, and absolutely nothing that hints of the supernatural.

    But when she's tracked down by the obscenely wealthy mother of a former crewman, she's offered a job no bandit could refuse: retrieve her comrade's kidnapped daughter for a kingly sum. The chance to have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family's future forever? It seems like such an obvious choice that it must be God's will.

    Yet the deeper Amina dives, the more it becomes alarmingly clear there's more to this job, and the girl's disappearance, than she was led to believe. For there's always risk in wanting to become a legend, to seize one last chance at glory, to savor just a bit more power...and the price might be your very soul.

  • Image for "A Crown of Ivy and Glass"

    A Crown of Ivy and Glass

    "Full of high stakes and detailed fantasy worldbuilding with interesting mythology for readers." --Library Journal

    New York Times bestselling author of Furyborn, Claire Legrand, makes her stunning adult debut with A Crown of Ivy and Glass, a lush, sweeping, steamy fantasy romance series starter that's perfect for fans of Bridgerton and A Court of Thorns and Roses.

    Lady Gemma Ashbourne seemingly has it all. She's young, gorgeous, and rich. Her family was Anointed by the gods, blessed with incredible abilities. But underneath her glittering façade, Gemma is deeply sad. Years ago, her sister Mara was taken to the Middlemist to guard against treacherous magic. Her mother abandoned the family. Her father and eldest sister, Farrin--embroiled in a deadly blood feud with the mysterious Bask family--often forget Gemma exists.

    Worst of all, Gemma is the only Ashbourne to possess no magic. Instead, her body fights it like poison. Constantly ill, aching with loneliness, Gemma craves love and yearns to belong.

    Then she meets the devastatingly handsome Talan d'Astier. His family destroyed themselves, seduced by a demon, and Talan, the only survivor, is determined to redeem their honor. Intrigued and enchanted, Gemma proposes a bargain: She'll help Talan navigate high society if he helps her destroy the Basks. According to popular legend, a demon called The Man With the Three-Eyed Crown is behind the families' blood feud--slay the demon, end the feud.

    But attacks on the Middlemist are increasing. The plot against the Basks quickly spirals out of control. And something immense and terrifying is awakening in Gemma, drawing her inexorably toward Talan and an all-consuming passion that could destroy her--or show her the true strength of her power at last.

  • Image for "The Housemaid"

    The Housemaid

    Don't miss the New York Times and USA Today bestseller and addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist that's burning up Instagram and TikTok--Freida McFadden's The Housemaid is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, and Verity.



    "Welcome to the family," Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I'll soon learn that the Winchesters' secrets are far more dangerous than my own...



    Every day I clean the Winchesters' beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.



    I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew's handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it's hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina's life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.



    I only try on one of Nina's pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it's like. But she soon finds out... and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it's far too late.



    But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don't know who I really am.



    They don't know what I'm capable of...

  • Image for "Tracers in the Dark"

    Tracers in the Dark

    From the award-winning author of Sandworm comes the propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, exposing once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence.

    “A gripping, stranger-than-fiction tale of how a small team of geeks and federal agents cracked what was once thought to be untraceable cryptocurrency.” —Garrett M. Graff, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Plane in the Sky and Watergate


    Over the last decade, a single innovation has massively fueled digital black markets: cryptocurrency. Crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely—whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking—than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers, these black marketeers have sought to rob law enforcement of their chief method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money.

    But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn’t so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could uncover an entire world of wrongdoing.

    Tracers in the Dark is a story of crime and pursuit unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak, a Bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur, and a colorful ensemble of hardboiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, trafficking rings, and the biggest takedown of an online narcotics market in the history of the Internet.

    Utterly of our time, Tracers in the Dark is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world’s most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?

  • Image for "You Don't Know What War Is"

    You Don't Know What War Is

    An inspiring memoir of resilience by a young survivor of the war in Ukraine, as told through her diary entries--a harrowing and ultimately hopeful survival story.



    Yeva Skalietska's story begins on her twelfth birthday in Kharkiv, where she has been living with her grandmother since she was a baby. Ten days later, the only life she'd ever known was shattered. On February 24, 2022, her city was suddenly under attack as Russia launched its horrifying invasion of Ukraine. Yeva and her grandmother took shelter in a basement bunker, where she began writing this diary. She describes the bombings she endured while sheltering underground and her desperate journey west to escape the conflict raging around them. After many endless train rides and a prolonged stay in an overcrowded refugee center in Western Ukraine, Yeva and her beloved grandmother eventually find refuge in Ireland. There, she bravely begins to forge a new life, hoping she'll be able to return home one day.

    Hardcover with dust jacket; 128 pages; 7.5 in H x 5 in W.
     

  • Image for "Best of Vegan"

    Best of Vegan

    From the founder of the popular Instagram account @bestofvegan, and author of Vegan Reset comes a versatile plant-based cookbook featuring over 100 recipes, including some of the most popular fare from the Best of Vegan community, exclusive dishes created with renowned international vegan authors and chefs, and a variety of staples for every occasion.

    Kim-Julie Hansen grew up eating (and loving) meat, fish, dairy, and eggs. But after doing extensive research, and much to everyone's surprise, she went vegan overnight over a decade ago. After years of learning about and exploring her new lifestyle, she chose to share her knowledge and love of all things vegan online. The creator of the Best of Vegan Instagram and platform, Hansen has built a global community of enthusiastic vegan home cooks, chefs, and bloggers. Hansen believes that food is so much more than fuel, and that veganism is so much more than a diet. With this fabulous cookbook, she explains how veganism is linked to culture, family, memories, and identity, and shows off just how delicious and diverse today's vegan cuisine can be.

    Adopting a vegan lifestyle does not have to mean giving up beloved meals and flavors. In Best of Vegan, you'll discover a variety of delicious vegan dishes, including many easy, protein-forward, affordable, and allergy-friendly options. Here are favorites selected by the Best of Vegan community, including veganized comfort food, appetizers, and wholesome recipes, such as:

    • Avocado Pesto Pasta with Toasted Pine Nuts
    • Fried Tofu "Chick'n" Sandwich
    • Classic Vegan Mac'n Cheese
    • Vegan Baja Style "Fish" Tacos

    In addition to these fan favorites are dishes inspired by Best of Vegan's global community. Hansen collaborated with renowned vegan chefs, cookbook authors, friends and family members from around the world to showcase the incredibly diverse history and newest trends of traditional cultural fare in recipes such as:

    • Panamanian Tamal de Olla
    • Swedish Plant Balls with Cream Sauce
    • Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry
    • Congolese Moambé
    • Korean Tteokbokki
    • Welsh Rarebits

    With simplified yet satisfying vegan recipes, Hansen helps home chefs reconnect with the ingredients and their origins, and offers meal-prep instructions and helpful tips to make vegan cooking tasty, easy, and fun.

    A result of years of collaboration, trial and error, stories told, and meals shared, this creative and comprehensive cookbook and guide, illustrated with full-color photographs for every recipe, Best of Vegan is essential for home cooks of all levels, from novice to experienced hand, and will satisfy both longtime vegans and curious eaters wanting to add more plant-based food to their diets.

  • Image for "Alone with You in the Ether"

    Alone with You in the Ether

    From Olivie Blake, the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, comes a literary, intimate study of time, space, and the nature of love. Alone with You in the Ether explores what it means to be unwell, and how to face the fractures of yourself and still love as if you're not broken.

    CHICAGO, SOMETIME—
    Two people meet in the Art Institute by chance. Prior to their encounter, he is a doctoral student who manages his destructive thoughts with compulsive calculations about time travel; she is a bipolar counterfeit artist, undergoing court-ordered psychotherapy. By the end of the story, these things will still be true. But this is not a story about endings.

    For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.

    To Aldo, the world feels disturbingly chaotic. He gets through his days by erecting a wall of routine: a backbeat of rules and formulas that keep him going. Without them, the entire framework of his existence would collapse.

    For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability—until the two meet. Could six conversations with a stranger be the variable that shakes up the entire simulation?

  • Image for "The Lipstick Bureau"

    The Lipstick Bureau

    Inspired by a real-life female spy, a WWII-set novel about a woman challenging convention and boundaries to help win a war, no matter the cost.

    "A gripping, fascinating read." --Kelly Rimmer, New York Times bestselling author of The Warsaw Orphan

    1944, Rome. Newlywed Niki Novotná is recruited by a new American spy agency to establish a secret branch in Italy's capital. One of the OSS's few female operatives abroad and multilingual, she's tasked with crafting fake stories and distributing propaganda to lower the morale of enemy soldiers.

    Despite limited resources, Niki and a scrappy team of artists, forgers and others--now nicknamed The Lipstick Bureau--find success, forming a bond amid the cobblestoned streets and storied villas of the newly liberated city. But her work is also a way to escape devastating truths about the family she left behind in Czechoslovakia and a future with her controlling American husband.

    As the war drags on and the pressure intensifies, Niki begins to question the rules she's been instructed to follow, and a colleague unexpectedly captures her heart. But one step out of line, one mistake, could mean life or death...

  • Image for "Ms. Demeanor"

    Ms. Demeanor

    "Ms. Demeanor is a complete and utter delight. Of course it is. What Elinor Lipman novel isn't?"--Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls and Chances Are . . .

    "Who knew house arrest could be sexy and fun? Not me, at least not until I read Ms. Demeanor. Written with Elinor Lipman's signature wit and charm, this breezy, engrossing novel tells the story of two people who make the most of their shared confinement."--Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can't Win

    "When a neighbor's complaint about consensual al fresco sex turns into house arrest and a suspended legal license, Jane's recipe for survival involves cooking for another home-arrested tenant (could this be a match made in confinement?) while trying to figure out the whys and hows of her mysterious accuser. Filled with food, family, romance and intrigue, Lipman's novel cooks up a bounty of delights as sparkling as prosecco and as deeply satisfying and delicious as a five-star meal."--Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of With or Without You

    From one of America's most beloved contemporary novelists, a delicious and witty story about love under house arrest

    Jane Morgan is a valued member of her law firm--or was, until a prudish neighbor, binoculars poised, observes her having sex on the roof of her NYC apartment building. Police are summoned, and a punishing judge sentences her to six months of home confinement. With Jane now jobless and rootless, trapped at home, life looks bleak. Yes, her twin sister provides support and advice, but mostly of the unwelcome kind. When a doorman lets slip that Jane isn't the only resident wearing an ankle monitor, she strikes up a friendship with fellow white-collar felon Perry Salisbury. As she tries to adapt to life within her apartment walls, she discovers she hasn't heard the end of that tattletale neighbor--whose past isn't as decorous as her 9-1-1 snitching would suggest. Why are police knocking on Jane's door again? Can her house arrest have a silver lining? Can two wrongs make a right? In the hands of "an inspired alchemist who converts serious subject into humor" (New York Times Book Review)--yes, delightfully.

  • Image for "Exiles"

    Exiles

    INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    "I love Jane Harper's Australia-based mysteries." —Stephen King

    “Once again Harper proves that she is peerless in creating an avalanche of suspense with intimate, character-driven set pieces...Harper’s legions of fans will exult in reading Exiles.”
    —David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author

    FROM NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AND AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR JANE HARPER COMES EXILES, A CAPTIVATING MYSTERY ABOUT A MISSING MOTHER

    Federal Investigator Aaron Falk is on his way to a small town deep in Southern Australian wine country for the christening of an old friend's baby. But mystery follows him, even on vacation.

    This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of Kim Gillespie's disappearance. One year ago, at a busy town festival on a warm spring night, Kim safely tucked her sleeping baby into her stroller, then vanished into the crowd. No one has seen her since. When Kim's older daughter makes a plea for anyone with information about her missing mom to come forward, Falk and his old buddy Raco can't leave the case alone.

    As Falk soaks up life in the lush valley, he is welcomed into the tight-knit circle of Kim’s friends and loved ones. But the group may be more fractured than it seems. Between Falk’s closest friend, the missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge. What would make a mother abandon her child? What happened to Kim Gillespie?

  • Image for "The Book of Everlasting Things"

    The Book of Everlasting Things

    FOR FANS OF ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, A LUSH, SWEEPING LOVE STORY ABOUT A HINDU PERFUMER AND A MUSLIM CALLIGRAPHER, SET AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF PARTITION

    “Monumental...A far-reaching love story.” —NPR (A Best Book of the Year)

    “Mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
    “Exquisite.” —Library Journal (starred review)
    “Majestic.” —Booklist (starred review)


    On a January morning in 1938, Samir Vij first locks eyes with Firdaus Khan through the rows of perfume bottles in his family’s ittar shop in Lahore. Over the years that follow, the perfumer’s apprentice and calligrapher’s apprentice fall in love with their ancient crafts and with each other, dreaming of the life they will one day share. But as the struggle for Indian independence gathers force, their beloved city is ravaged by Partition. Suddenly, they find themselves on opposite sides: Samir, a Hindu, becomes Indian and Firdaus, a Muslim, becomes Pakistani, their love now forbidden. Severed from one another, Samir and Firdaus make a series of fateful decisions that will change the course of their lives forever. As their paths spiral away from each other, they must each decide how much of the past they are willing to let go, and what it will cost them.

    Lush, sensuous, and deeply romantic, The Book of Everlasting Things is the story of two lovers and two nations, split apart by forces beyond their control, yet bound by love and memory. Filled with exquisite descriptions of perfume and calligraphy, spanning continents and generations, Aanchal Malhotra’s debut novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

  • Image for "Aesthetica"

    Aesthetica

    In a debut novel as radiant as it is caustic, a former influencer confronts her past—and takes inventory of the damages that underpin the surface-glamour of social media.

    At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She too is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, returning her, she hopes, to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife.

    But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.

    Propulsive, dark, and moving, Aesthetica is a Veronica for the age of “Instagram face,” delivering a fresh, nuanced examination of feminism, #MeToo, and mother-daughter relationships, all while confronting our collective addiction to followers, filters, and faux realities.

  • Image for "Murder Grove"

    Murder Grove

    Death seems to follow her: two murders, three decades apart…

     

    In 1990, within the deceptively peaceful woods of her Sussex neighborhood, Mia witnesses the brutal murder of her mother and wakes up in a shallow grave. A man confesses to the murder and later dies in prison, but Mia never comes to terms with her mother’s death.

     

    After another brush with tragedy in 2021, Mia and her boyfriend Rich move from London to a small Spanish village where they can begin a new life. At first, Val Verde seems to be everything they could wish for. But when a body is found in the olive grove outside of town, they realize that their would-be safe haven harbors a terrible secret. Will they discover the deadly root of evil before it’s too late?

    Breathlessly paced with an atmospheric setting, Murder Grove is a twisty psychological thriller from the author of Five Strangers.

  • Image for "So Long, Chester Wheeler"

    So Long, Chester Wheeler

    Unlikely road trip companions form an unexpected bond in an uplifting novel about the past--lost and found--by the New York Times and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author.

    Lewis Madigan is young, gay, out of work, and getting antsy when he's roped into providing end-of-life care for his insufferable homophobic neighbor, Chester Wheeler. Lewis doesn't need the aggravation, just the money. The only requirements: run errands, be on call, and put up with a miserable old churl no one else in Buffalo can bear. After exchanging barbs, bickering, baiting, and pushing buttons, Chester hits Lewis with the big ask.

    Lewis can't say no to a dying wish: drive Chester to Arizona in his rust bucket of a Winnebago to see his ex-wife for the first time in thirty-two years--for the last time. One week, two thousand miles. To Lewis, it becomes an illuminating journey into the life and secrets of a vulnerable man he's finally beginning to understand. A neighbor, a stranger, and a surprising new friend whose closure on a conflicted past is also just beginning.

    So Long, Chester Wheeler is an uplifting novel about looking deeper into the heart and soul to form bonds with the last people we'd expect--only to discover that they're the ones who need it most.

  • Image for "Even Though I Knew the End"

    Even Though I Knew the End

    A New York Times Best Romance of 2022!

    C. L. Polk turns their considerable powers to a fantastical noir with Even Though I Knew the End.


    “Eerie, sharp and fiercely bittersweet.” —The New York Times

    A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above.

    An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist—the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves.

    To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await.

  • Image for "The Stories We Tell"

    The Stories We Tell

    AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

    Imagine if all the worn-out, untrue, painful chapters of our lives started to quiet, and the beautiful, unique pieces of who we are were to rise. Imagine if the stories we tell brought us back to our true selves, back to one another. Imagine if they spoke of how we loved and lost and tried our best. How we saw it all, even the parts that hurt.

    Joanna Gaines' new book, The Stories We Tell, invites us on an authentic and deeply vulnerable journey into her story--and helps shine a light on the beauty of our own--guiding us to release the weights that hold us back so we may live and share our story in truth.

    We've all dropped anchor in places that suited us for a time: a city, a perspective, a lie we mistook as truth. This book is an invitation to a kind of life where you know how to hold what you believe--about yourself and the quiet worlds behind the people you pass--with gracious and open hands. To see your story as greater than any past or future thing, but for all the beauty and joy and hope it holds today.

    It's an invitation to take stock of the chapters you've lived--the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly--glean what's gold, and carry only that forward. Let it slow your feet and steady your life-in-motion so you can see where you stand today from a new point of view. No longer through weary or uncertain eyes, but a lens brimming with hope.

    ----------

    "The only way to break free was to rewrite my story. Because something would happen every time my pen stopped: It was like my soul was coming back to my body. Like the deepest parts of me that got knocked around and drowned out by all the crap I let the world convince me about who I was came back to the surface. And what was left was only what was real and true. I was, finally, standing in the fullness of my story. I felt hopeful. I felt full. Our story may crack us open, but it also pieces us back together.

    We all have a story to tell. This happens to be mine--every chapter a window into who I am, the journey I'm on, and the season I'm in right now. Because this is my story, maybe you won't always relate, or maybe it will feel like you're looking in a mirror. Whatever we have in common and whatever differences lie between us, I only hope my story can help shine a light on the beauty of yours. That my own soul work will stir something of your own. And that by the time you get to the end of my story, you're also holding the beautiful beginnings of your own.

    A story only you can tell. And I hope that you will."
    -Joanna

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    Cinema Speculation

    Instant New York Times bestseller

    The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.

    In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans--and all movie lovers--could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT's and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever.

  • Image for "The Villa"

    The Villa

    "Hawkins weaves an engrossing tale about betrayal, sisterhood, and the power of telling your own story. Captivating!" ––People

    "Hawkins is the reigning queen of suspense." ––Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times bestselling author

    "The Villa teems with sexual tension, festering tempers, and questionable friendships." ––Sarah Penner, New York Times bestselling author

    The bestselling author of The Wife Upstairs returns with a brilliant new gothic suspense set at an Italian villa with a dark history.

    As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

    Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.

    As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

    Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

    Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle––the birthplace of Frankenstein––The Villa welcomes you into its deadly legacy.

  • Image for "Stella Maris"

    Stella Maris

     

    The best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Road returns with the second volume of The Passenger series: Stella Maris is an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence.
    1972, BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN: Alicia Western, twenty years old, with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag, admits herself to the hospital. A doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alicia has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she does not want to talk about her brother, Bobby. Instead, she contemplates the nature of madness, the human insistence on one common experience of the world; she recalls a childhood where, by the age of seven, her own grandmother feared for her; she surveys the intersection of physics and philosophy; and she introduces her cohorts, her chimeras, the hallucinations that only she can see. All the while, she grieves for Bobby, not quite dead, not quite hers. Told entirely through the transcripts of Alicia’s psychiatric sessions, Stella Maris is a searching, rigorous, intellectually challenging coda to The Passenger, a philosophical inquiry that questions our notions of God, truth, and existence.

     

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    The Vibrant Years

    "Bursting with humor, banter, and cringeworthy first dates, Sonali Dev's The Vibrant Years is a joyful and fun read, but it's also very much a timely tale about a group of underestimated women demanding respect and embracing their most authentic selves." --Mindy Kaling

    Living on their own terms means being there for one another.

    When sixty-five-year-old Bindu Desai inherits a million dollars, she's astounded--and horrified. The windfall threatens to expose a shameful mistake from her youth. Desperate to keep the secret, Bindu quickly spends it on something unexpected: a condo in a posh retirement community in Florida.

    The impulsive decision blindsides Bindu's daughter-in-law, Aly. At forty-seven, Aly still shares a home with Bindu even after her divorce from Bindu's son. But maybe this change is just the push Aly needs to fight for the segment she's been promised for years at the news station where she works.

    As Bindu and Aly navigate their new dynamic, Aly's daughter, Cullie, is faced with losing the business that made her a tech-world star. The only way to save it is to deliver a new idea to her investors--and of course they want the half-baked dating app she pitched them in a panic. Problem is, Cullie has never been on a real date. Naturally, enlisting her single mother and grandmother to help her with the research is the answer.

    From USA Today bestselling author Sonali Dev comes a heartfelt novel about three generations of hilarious, unconventional, ambitious women navigating bad dates, a spiteful HOA board, reemerging exes, and secrets that refuse to remain hidden. Join the Desai women on a shared journey of self-discovery as they dare to live their most vibrant lives.

  • Image for "Someone Had to Do It"

    Someone Had to Do It

    It's the perfect crime...until the accused fights back.

    Brandi Maxwell is living her dream as an intern at the prestigious Manhattan fashion house Simon Van Doren. Except "living the dream" looks more like scrubbing puke out of couture dresses worn by hard-partying runway models and putting up with constant microaggressions from her white colleagues. Still, she can't help but fangirl over Simon's it-girl influencer daughter, Taylor. Until one night at a glamorous Van Doren party, when Brandi overhears something she shouldn't have, shattering her life--and inextricably intertwining her fate with Taylor's.

    Taylor Van Doren has everything...and is this close to losing it all. Her horrible father--who, as far as she's concerned, is responsible for her mother's death--has threatened to donate her entire inheritance to a wildlife charity if she fails her next drug test. And to make matters worse, he's about to marry someone who's practically Taylor's own age, further jeopardizing her stake in her father's fortune. Taylor wants the money that's rightfully hers. Wouldn't it be terrible if something happened to Simon?

    All she needs is the perfect person to take the fall for it...

    Sharp, fresh and riveting, Someone Had to Do It is an adrenaline-filled page-turner about privilege that will protect itself at all costs and what happens when you contest that privilege--perfect for fans of Such a Fun Age and When No One Is Watching.

  • Image for "The Widowmaker"

    The Widowmaker

    A wealthy family shrouded in scandal; a detective tasked with solving an impossible cold case; and a woman with a dark past collide in Hannah Morrissey's stunning new Black Harbor mystery, The Widowmaker.

    Ever since business mogul Clive Reynolds disappeared twenty years ago, the name "Reynolds" has become synonymous with "murder" and "mystery." And now, lured by a cryptic note, down-on-her-luck photographer Morgan Mori returns home to Black Harbor and into the web of their family secrets and double lives. The same night she photographs the Reynolds holiday get-together, Morgan becomes witness to a homicide of a cop that triggers the discovery of a long-buried clue.

    This could finally be the thing to crack open the chilling cold case, and Investigator Ryan Hudson has a chance to prove himself as lead detective. If only he could stop letting his need to solve his partner's recent murder distract him. But as Morgan exposes her own dark demons, could her sordid history be the key to unlocking more than one mystery?

  • Image for "W. E. B. Griffin The Devil's Weapons"

    W. E. B. Griffin The Devil's Weapons

    Dick Canidy and the agents of the OSS scour war torn Poland looking for a rocket scientist who holds the secrets to the Nazis most dangerous weapon in this new entry in W.E.B. Griffin's New York Times bestselling Men at War series.

    April 1940. By terms of the Soviet Nazi Nonaggression pact, the two dictatorships divided the helpless nation of Poland. Now, the Russians are rounding up enemies of the state in their occupation zone, but one essential target slips away. Dr. Sebastian Kapsky had spent years working with Walter Riedel and Werner von Braun in the early days of rocket science, but as a man with a conscience he refused to continue when he saw the perversion of their work by the Nazis. That makes him the most knowledgeable person about German superweapons outside of Germany.

    The Germans want him. The Soviets are desperate to grab him, but Wild Bill Donovan knows there's only one man who can find him in the middle of a war zone and get him out—Dick Canidy.

  • Image for "The Wilderwomen"

    The Wilderwomen

    "Exquisitely drawn characters imbue Lang’s unconventional plot with verisimilitude and heart, inspiring readers to ponder whether the world is stranger and more beautiful than it appears. Effervescent, ethereal, and suffused with wonder." — Kirkus (starred review)

    "Lang’s melancholy, atmospheric writing sets the perfect tone as the Wilder sisters unravel the mystery. The result is a cozy supernatural outing perfect for an autumn night." —Publisher's Weekly


    Ohioana Book Award finalist Ruth Emmie Lang returns with a new cast of ordinary characters with extraordinary abilities in The Wilderwomen.

    Five years ago, Nora Wilder disappeared. The older of her two daughters, Zadie, should have seen it coming, because she can literally see things coming. But not even her psychic abilities were able to prevent their mother from vanishing one morning.

    Zadie’s estranged younger sister, Finn, can’t see into the future, but she has an uncannily good memory, so good that she remembers not only her own memories, but the echoes of memories other people have left behind. On the afternoon of her graduation party, Finn is seized by an “echo” more powerful than anything she’s experienced before: a woman singing a song she recognizes, a song about a bird...

    When Finn wakes up alone in an aviary with no idea of how she got there, she realizes who the memory belongs to: Nora.

    Now, it’s up to Finn to convince her sister that not only is their mom still out there, but that she wants to be found. Against Zadie’s better judgement, she and Finn hit the highway, using Finn’s echoes to retrace Nora’s footsteps and uncover the answer to the question that has been haunting them for years: Why did she leave?

    But the more time Finn spends in their mother’s past, the harder it is for her to return to the present, to return to herself. As Zadie feels her sister start to slip away, she will have to decide what lengths she is willing to go to find their mother, knowing that if she chooses wrong, she could lose them both for good.

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Upcoming Events

This event is in the "Adults" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Pages and Provisions - Registration

All Day
Subscription Service
Registration
This event is in the "Adults" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Pages and Provisions - Registration

All Day
Subscription Service
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Age Group: Adults
Program Type: Subscription Service
Registration Required
Seats Remaining: Unlimited
Event Details:
Pages and Provisions book boxes are back! Our summer-themed boxes will contain a variety of goodies and a book that has been handpicked just for you. We’ll have a limited number of boxes available by reservation for our resident and non-resident ...
This event is in the "Babies (0-2)" group.
This event is in the "Preschool (2-6)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Move & Shake Storytime

9:30am - 10:00am
Music, Storytime
This event is in the "Babies (0-2)" group.
This event is in the "Preschool (2-6)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Move & Shake Storytime

9:30am - 10:00am
Music, Storytime
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Room: Kathy Ledford Meeting Room
Age Group: Babies (0-2), Preschool (2-6)
Program Type: Music, Storytime

Move & Shake Storytime

Get ready to move and have fun with this storytime.  We have shakers, scarves, bells, and sticks. 

Disclaimer(s)

Accompanying Adults

This program is designed for children and accompanying adults. Please plan to attend and be engaged with your child for this program. Drop offs will not be permitted.

Photo Permission

Staff often take pictures during library programs. The library uses photos in its publicity, in social media, and on its website. If you do not want your photo used, please contact the library and the library will honor that request.

This event is in the "Babies (0-2)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Book Babies

10:30am - 11:00am
Storytime
This event is in the "Babies (0-2)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Book Babies

10:30am - 11:00am
Storytime
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Room: Kathy Ledford Meeting Room
Age Group: Babies (0-2)
Program Type: Storytime

Book Babies

Connect with your baby by singing songs, learning new finger-plays, and listening to stories at this fun program aimed at promoting early literacy. After the fun, we invite you to hang out with other caregivers while the babies play.

 

Disclaimer(s)

Accompanying Adults

This program is designed for children and accompanying adults. Please plan to attend and be engaged with your child for this program. Drop offs will not be permitted.

Photo Permission

Staff often take pictures during library programs. The library uses photos in its publicity, in social media, and on its website. If you do not want your photo used, please contact the library and the library will honor that request.

This event is in the "Tween (8-12)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Robotics

1:30pm - 3:30pm
Robotics
Closed
Registration
This event is in the "Tween (8-12)" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Robotics

1:30pm - 3:30pm
Robotics
Closed
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Room: Kathy Ledford Meeting Room
Age Group: Tween (8-12)
Program Type: Robotics
Registration Required
Seats Remaining: 0

Robotics

Have fun being a part of a team as you learn to build a robot and code it to complete missions autonomously.

Disclaimer(s)

Photo Permission

Staff often take pictures during library programs. The library uses photos in its publicity, in social media, and on its website. If you do not want your photo used, please contact the library and the library will honor that request.

This event is in the "Adults" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Yoga Class

6:00pm - 7:00pm
Health & Wellness
This event is in the "Adults" group.
Jun 12 2023 Mon

Yoga Class

6:00pm - 7:00pm
Health & Wellness
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Room: Kathy Ledford Meeting Room
Age Group: Adults
Program Type: Health & Wellness

Yoga

Yoga classes at the library are taught by a professional and are for yogis of all skill levels. The 45-minute classes are free and are a great way to improve oneself both physically and mentally. Those who have their own yoga mats are encouraged to bring them, but the library does have some mats available for those who may need them.

Yoga classes are held the second and fourth Monday of each month at 6 PM. There are occasional exceptions, and they will be noted on the library calendar.

Disclaimer(s)

Photo Permission

Staff often take pictures during library programs. The library uses photos in its publicity, in social media, and on its website. If you do not want your photo used, please contact the library and the library will honor that request.

This event is in the "Preschool (2-6)" group.
Jun 13 2023 Tue

Explore & Play

9:30am - 10:15am
Playgroups
This event is in the "Preschool (2-6)" group.
Jun 13 2023 Tue

Explore & Play

9:30am - 10:15am
Playgroups
Library Branch: Benbrook Public Library
Room: Kathy Ledford Meeting Room
Age Group: Preschool (2-6)
Program Type: Playgroups

Explore & Play

Start the morning with open-ended free play to spark your child's imagination! We provide a variety of toys -- trucks, rockets, blocks of all kinds, tactile toys, pretend foods, and more. This moment of unstructured play fosters creativity, encourages children to explore the world in their own way, and allows children to socialize with their peers. Explore & Play also offers an opportunity for the adults to engage in meaningful play with their children and form connections with other caregivers. 

The doors will open at exactly 9:30 and we will begin to pick up at 10:00.

 

Disclaimer(s)

Accompanying Adults

This program is designed for children and accompanying adults. Please plan to attend and be engaged with your child for this program. Drop offs will not be permitted.

Photo Permission

Staff often take pictures during library programs. The library uses photos in its publicity, in social media, and on its website. If you do not want your photo used, please contact the library and the library will honor that request.

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June 2023

 

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June Title Page Calendar
June 2023 PDF
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TSLAC Accreditation Badge

Benbrook Public Library

1065 Mercedes Street
Benbrook, Texas 76126
817-249-6632
reference@benbrooklibrary.org

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