Beach Hair by Ashley Woodfolk; illustrated by Nina Mata

At the beach, everyone has beach hair. There’s twisty and twirly hair, flossy and glossy hair, hair that’s barely there, and hair that’s everywhere. The best part about a beach day is the belonging and joy that everyone feels when they let their hair run as wild and free as the sea.

Life Ater Whale: the Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall by Lynn Brunelle

Life After Whale is a book about the rich ecosystem that springs up around the death of a whale in the deep sea.

A Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen

In this sweet sapphic romance about two foodies in love, Vivi meets Lan while studying abroad in Vietnam and they spend the semester unraveling their families' histories — and eating all the street food in Sài Gòn.

In Sài Gòn, Lan is always trying to be the perfect daughter, dependable and willing to care for her widowed mother and their bánh mì stall. Her secret passion, however, is A Bánh Mì for Two, the food blog she started with her father but has stopped updating since his passing. Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Vivi Huynh has never been to Việt Nam. Her parents rarely talk about the homeland that haunts them. So Vivi secretly goes to Vietnam for a study abroad program during her freshman year of college. She’s determined to figure out why her parents left and to try everything she’s seen on her favorite food blog, A Bánh Mì for Two. When Vivi and Lan meet in Sài Gòn, they strike a deal. Lan will show Vivi around the city, helping her piece together her mother’s story through crumbling photographs and old memories. Vivi will help Lan start writing again so she can enter a food blogging contest. And slowly, as they explore the city and their pasts, Vivi and Lan fall in love.

The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard

A charming novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and How to Stop Time, following a cat through his nine lives in Edinburgh, moving through the ever-changing city and meeting its inhabitants over centuries.

Early morning, 1902. At 7/7 Marchmont Crescent, Eilidh the charlady tips coal into a fire grate and sets it alight. Overhearing, Grimalkin the cat ambles over to curl up against the welcome heat and lick his favorite human's hand. But this is to be his last day on earth ... before he becomes the Ghost Cat.

Follow Grimalkin as he witnesses the changes of the next 120 years, prowling unseen among the inhabitants of an Edinburgh tenement while unearthing some startling revelations about the mystery of existence, the unstoppable march of time, and the true meaning of feline companionship.

Woman of Interest: A Memoir by Tracy O'Neill

O'Neill, who was adopted from South Korea when she was an infant, initially had no desire to learn about her birth parents. Growing up in New England with a boisterous Irish American family, her firecracker personality and unconventional philosophy of life saw her reach her mid-30s with a PhD, teaching at Vassar and having authored two novels: The Hopeful and Quotients. When COVID swept the world, she quarantined within her Brooklyn apartment and read news articles about older South Koreans left to die alone. This sparked an investigative journey to find O'Neill's birth parents and ensure they did not meet the same fate.

Told through a stream-of-conscious narrative style, her memoir includes obscure vocabulary choices and nonlinear tangents, which might confuse some readers. Others, however, will embrace her memoir, which resembles what experimental jazz would be like if it were a written narrative. Funny, shocking, and emotionally charged, the memoir takes readers on her journey of self-discovery and finding what family means.