Bookshop Santa Cruz staff recommendation:

Karen Piper’s fascinating memoir is a surreal and starkly honest look at growing up on the secretive China Lake military base in the Mojave Desert, where Piper’s parents designed missiles for the U.S. Navy. With wit and humor, she explores the dichotomies of being raised in a strict but loving Baptist household by parents whose day jobs were to create some of America's most fearsome weapons of war. This memoir is perfect for fans of Tara Westover’s Educated. - Stuart

As a bookseller and English major, Nabokov’s Lolita has always been on the edge of my awareness, either through excerpts in class or pop culture references, and I’m happy to stick with just a passing knowledge of the text. I’m more familiar with the variety of true crime reading; despite that, the abduction of Sally Horner was completely unknown to me. It did, however, seem to influence Nabokov and his writing of Lolita (in more ways than some like to admit). The Real Lolita takes on that comparison between the factual and fictional events, but more than that, it gives a voice and identity to Sally Horner, an 11-year-old girl who is kidnapped and held by a Frank La Salle. Incredibly well-written, it strikes a solid balance between historical and case facts and respect for those involved. The Real Lolita is not an easy read, but it is definitely well worth it. - Rachel

Israeli historian Yuval Harari previously examined the past and future of humans in Sapiens and Homo Deus.  He now turns his attention to the immediate present, a time when the world is faced with constant destabilizing change that is increasingly hard to comprehend.  Harari delivers again with the excellent writing, thought provoking insights, unique observations, and big questions that are his trademark in his most personal book to date. - Trey

This is a timely, beautifully written novel that reads like a fragmented memoir. Kimia Sadr fled Iran for France at age 10. She now sits in a fertility clinic recounting her family's history starting with her great grandfather, a feudal lord, and leading on to her dissident parents who protested the Shah's monarchy and then found themselves hated by the Islamists who deposed him. - Trey