Library News

Rachel sitting at a windowsill, in black and white.
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Rachel's Story: The Library Cat of Cromaine

Learn about Cromaine's only feline staff member, Rachel, who prowled the stacks and inspired a community of readers from 1971 to 1984. Dive into Rachel's story and learn about her thirteen-year adventure at Cromaine!
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Creativebug logo over a collection of crafts
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Get Crafty this Spring with Creativebug!

Whether your favorite craft is painting, sculpting, sketching, origami, or even textile art like knitting, crocheting, needle felting, or sewing, the online resource Creativebug has something for you! Creativebug offers a tremendous variety of award-winning art & craft video classes, taught by recognized design experts and artists. Explore the many videos available on Creativebug to kickstart your creativity this spring!
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A graphic of an orange cookbook with a measuring cup and a wooden spoon.
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Recipe Club and Potluck: March 2026

Get recipes from this month's Recipe Club & Potluck program-- including pasta salad, homemade crackers, and lots of cookies-- and register for April's Recipe Club program taking place on Friday, April 10 @ 1:00 pm!
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New at Cromaine

Book cover for "How to Disagree Better"

How to Disagree Better

In this "brilliant" (Arthur Brooks) and "both timely and timeless" (Adam Grant) book, pioneering Harvard Kennedy School professor and behavioral scientist Julia Minson reveals the counterintuitive secret to a life of less drama and more impact.

We are in a disagreement crisis. The average person would rather go to the dentist than have a twenty-minute conversation with someone that they strongly disagree with. Yet disagreement is both inevitable and essential for everything from navigating decisions at home to running innovative and agile companies to governing democratic societies.

In How to Disagree Better, Minson brings to bear her decades of research into understanding the psychology of disagreement and its relevance to negotiations, conflict resolution, and decision-making, revealing the hidden skill that all the best mediators and negotiators share: displaying receptiveness to opposing views.

The science shows that receptive individuals don’t just fight less, they also get more done—they are better decision-makers, better peacemakers, and yes, better influencers than the rest of us. Through original research and case studies, How to Disagree Better will show you why traditional persuasion strategies don’t work as well as you think they do, how you can bridge division and reach better outcomes simply by utilizing receptiveness strategies, and that disagreeing better is a skill all of us can learn to apply at home, at work, and with our neighbors.

Book cover for "Another Kind of Freedom"

Another Kind of Freedom

In a world of endless distractions and quick fixes that leave us wanting, beloved Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, author of When Things Fall Apart, reveals why true freedom arises not in escape but in developing our natural capacity for presence, openness, and wholehearted acceptance.

What if the freedom you seek isn’t found by changing your circumstances but by embracing life exactly as it is? Pema Chödrön goes back to her very foundations in her latest and possibly most important book. With the spiritual classic The Myth of Freedom as the touchstone, Pema invites us to look beyond the “myth of freedom”—the idea that we can escape discomfort—and to work compassionately and wisely with what keeps us stuck.

Drawing from the seminal work from her beloved teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Pema explores how meditation, mindfulness, and radical self-acceptance can transform our struggles, neuroses, and pain into gateways to awakening. “These were the teachings,” Pema says, “that inspired me most in my early years of practicing Buddhism. They continue to inspire me now and have influenced all the teachings I’ve given over the years.”

With her characteristic humor, practical wisdom, and compassionate insight, she shows us how to make friends with our minds, work skillfully with emotions, and open our hearts to the richness of human experience. Inspiring and accessible, this book is an essential companion for anyone longing for genuine freedom, clarity, and connection in a world of uncertainty and change.

Book cover for "Where the Earth Meets the Sky"

Where the Earth Meets the Sky

Set in the coldest, most inaccessible landscape on the planet, this is the story of a female scientist navigating Antarctica’s extreme wilderness, revealing how nature can heal the human soul.

Where the Earth Meets the Sky is a chronicle of Louise’s time working in the most isolated place in the world. With just one other human being and two thousand penguins for company, this remote Antarctic laboratory allowed her not only to advance the study of seabirds, but also to discover important truths about grief, loss, and the capacity of the natural world to help us heal.

Antarctica is a land of extremes. The coldest, windiest, and most inaccessible part of our planet, science and exploration there have long captured the public imagination. But while its hurricane force winds, tooth-breaking cold, and resident penguins have long been iconic, the perspective of a practicing female scientist is all but absent from modern day Antarctic accounts. Where the Earth Meets the Sky fills that gap.

At their base in a remote two-person research camp, Louise and her campmate David Ainley—one of the greatest Antarctic scientists on the planet—live in a world defined by hostile weather, breathtaking beauty, a continuous parade of avian visitors, and an occasional human visitor from a nearby research station. There she explores the lingering grief that has followed the untimely death of her sister, and presents penguins as a window into how climate change and other environmental impacts are altering what has been one of the most untouched corners of the globe. 

While penguins and the awe-inspiring landscapes they inhabit provide the thread that runs through this story, a central theme is how the world’s most unforgiving environment has shaped the psyches of Antarctica’s human visitors, past and present. The story unfolds at the isolated scientific bases of Ross Island, where Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott launched their attempts at the South Pole. Dramatic stories of these and other early explorers are woven into the narrative, along with a cast of compelling modern-day characters who choose to spend long periods in extreme isolation.

As the globe lurches from one crisis to the next, Antarctica can be seen as a metaphorical place of sanctuary. Experiencing the Antarctic wildernesses has the potential to heal the human psyche and, perhaps, to give us the optimism to reimagine our relationship with the natural world.

Book cover for "No Matter What"

No Matter What

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Sometimes love sends you back to the drawing board.

After a traumatic accident threatens the foundations of their happy marriage, a couple tries to rebuild and find their way back to each other—and themselves—in this tender, slow-burn romance by the bestselling author of Ready or Not and Promise Me Sunshine.

“Cara Bastone is an absolute master of tender, emotional, soul-charged love stories.”—B.K. Borison, New York Times bestselling author of First-Time Caller

Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class.

Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in their previously unoccupied guest room. But it would all be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly, debilitatingly attractive and kind.

So kind, in fact, that Vin offers to let Roz draw him. What is she supposed to say? It’s probably better than her original plan of finding some random male model online, and she needs all the practice she can get. Plus, that’s sure to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse’s body while drawing him in the nude? But after the year they’ve spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again.

As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?

Book cover for Love and Other Monsters

Love & Other Monsters

In the stormy, scandalous summer of 1816, daring eighteen-year-old Claire Clairmont changed the course of literature forever. But then--unlike her stepsister Mary Shelley--she was forgotten, until now.

During the dangerous storms of The Year Without Summer, a group of famous young writers gathered at a mansion on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Brilliant Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, her fiery fiancé Percy Shelley, the famously promiscuous Lord Byron, and John Polidori, his sexually tormented personal physician. At the group's center was Claire Clairmont, Mary's impressionable, clever, and dangerously loyal stepsister.

Those months of desire, betrayal, and creative passion gave the world the works of Frankenstein, the modern vampire, and the mythic image of these Romantic literary giants. In this intense and propulsive story of love, lust, art and betrayal Claire tells her story, trying to solve the mystery of why she was all but erased from history.

Claire--herself a writer--is desperate to free herself from the uncomfortable role she plays in her sister's marriage in London. Fueled by Jane Austin's romantic novels, and believing love offers freedom, Claire begins an affair with celebrity Lord Byron and convinces Mary and Shelley to follow him to Switzerland.

With the threat of paparazzi lurking nearby, Claire's intimate connection to each member of the celebrity group grows more complex. Her journey of self-discovery leads her to document everyone's secrets in her journal, and when climate disaster causes food shortages, Claire learns to forage, determined to prove her worth in a world built by and created for men.

The real Claire Clairmont poured her love, life, and razor-sharp wit into her pages, yet her journal from 1816 is curiously missing and each member of the group had a reason to take it.

With searing relevance to our here and now--of celebrity worship, climate disaster, of complicated femininity, Love & Other Monsters is the untold origin story of Frankenstein, a feminist reckoning of sisters, survival, and the creation of monsters--both those on the page and those who walk among us.

Book cover for "Yesteryear"

Yesteryear

A GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A traditional American woman, a “tradwife” influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

"A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear…will have you cackling and gasping right to the final page."
—Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. 

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

Book cover for "Rites of the Starling"

Rites of the Starling

RITES OF THE STARLING is the epic, heart-pounding sequel to Devney Perry’s #1 New York Times bestselling SHIELD OF SPARROWS. A princess journeys across a cursed realm to find the truth about her family, only to discover her quest intertwines with the fate of a lost warrior. Love, danger, and magic collide in a captivating romantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros.

​Calandra’s five kingdoms are on the verge of destruction. The crux migration is coming. And in the wake of a devastating attack, I’ve been separated from the man who owns my heart.

​I’m lost. Terrified. Homesick. Hunted by monsters, driven to exhaustion, and kidnapped by a powerful priest, the only thing keeping me going is the little girl counting on me to keep her safe.

​It’s my turn to become the Guardian.

​Our lives change one fateful night. A night of death. A night of monsters. A night of truths. That night, I learn the real meaning of fear—and the depth of my own strength.

​Everyone wants me to be something I’m not—a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I embrace my crown? What if the secrets I uncover save our realm?

​What if my sacrifice means salvation for the man I love?

For too long, I’ve feared the monsters we make.

​It’s time to discover the monster within.​

Don't miss out on the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run in the U.S. and Canada only, a must-have for any book lover.

The Shield of Sparrows trilogy is an epic slow-burn romantasy best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Shield of Sparrows
Book #2 Rites of the Starling
Book #3 Coming Soon