Add a splash of vibrant colors to your TBR (To Be Red) list this month with our book challenge theme for this month! The theme for this month, “A Book with a Color in the Author’s Name” celebrates color at a rather colorless time of year, with the bare trees and ridiculously early nights. So, this month, we are featuring those authors who’d fit right into any Crayola crayon box. Our booklist features books from every color of the rainbow, with books in every hue, from white-knuckled thrillers to romances that will make you go pink. And as always, if you’re green with envy about our gray-t prizes, visit our webpage to add your name in for a chance to win! 

 

The Rediscovery of America: Native people and the unmaking of U.S. history – Ned Blackhawk 

A sweeping and overdue retelling of U.S. history that recognizes that Native Americans are essential to understanding the evolution of modern America. Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non-Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. Blackhawk’s retelling of U.S. history acknowledges the enduring power, agency, and survival of Indigenous peoples.

 

Once upon a time I lived on Mars – Kate Greene

An essay collection inspired by the author’s four-month stay inside NASA’s simulated Martian habitat explores such subjects as humanity’s drive to explore, a sibling’s disability, the lag time of interplanetary correspondence and the challenges of long-distance marriage.

 

Most Delicious Poison: The story of nature’s toxins – Noah Whiteman 

Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry and neuroscience, an evolutionary biologist reveals the origins of natural toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes and even some animals, discussing how and why they evolved and the biological basis for our attraction — and addiction — to them.

 

There There – Tommy Orange

Twelve Native Americans came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle’s memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew, Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions–intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. 

 

Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown 

 Rita Mae Brown tells the story of Molly Bolt, the adoptive daughter of a dirt-poor Southern couple who boldly forges her own path in America. With her startling beauty and crackling wit, Molly finds that women are drawn to her wherever she goes– and she refuses to apologize for loving them back.

 

The power of regret: how looking backward moves us forward – Daniel Pink 

Drawing on research in social psychology, neuroscience and biology, as well as true stories and practical takeaways, this book lays out a dynamic new way of thinking about regret to help us live richer, more engaged lives.

 

Lost Stars – Claudia Grey

The arrival of the Galactic Empire on their planet allows Thane and Ciena to bond over a love of flying, but once Thane witnesses the horrors of the Empire and joins the Rebellion, Ciena is forced to choose between her love and her allegiance.

 

The Very Nice Box – Laura Blackett

Ava Simon designs storage boxes for STÄDA, a slick Brooklyn-based furniture company. She’s hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It has been years since she’s let anyone in. When Ava’s new boss, Mat Putnam, offers Ava a ride home one afternoon, an unlikely relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up. Despite her instincts, she becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn.

 

The Anthropocene reviewed: essays on a human-centered planet – John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet, from the QWERTY keyboard and Staphylococcus aureus to the Taco Bell breakfast menu, on a five-star scale. 

 

Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains – Howard Bluestein 

Tornadoes are the most violent, magnificent, and utterly unpredictable storms on earth, reaching estimated wind speeds of 300 mph and leaving swaths of destruction in their wake. In Tornado Alley, Howard Bluestein draws on two decades of experience chasing and photographing tornadoes across the Plains to present a fascinating historical account of the study of tornadoes and the great thunderstorms that spawn them.