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Tracy Chevalier, author of The Glassmaker

It is 1486, and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass --- but she has the hands for it, the heart and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss --- from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists.

Week of June 16, 2025

Paperback releases for the week of June 16th include WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?, an unputdownable thriller from the “queen of the one-sit read,” Shari Lapena, that unravels the secrets of the seemingly peaceful town of Fairhill, Vermont; BETWEEN THE WORLD AND METa-Nehisi Coates' profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about America's racial history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son; NOW OR NEVER, the 31st Stephanie Plum mystery from Janet Evanovich, who has written a staggering 45 New York Times bestsellers over the last three decades; J. Courtney Sullivan's THE CLIFFS, an enthralling novel of family, secrets, ghosts and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine; and BEN & MEan unconventional biography in which Eric Weiner follows in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin, mining his life for inspiration and practical lessons for living a purposeful and virtuous life.