Explore the Collection

New and coming soon to our shelves!

Image for "Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen"

Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen

Replete with beautiful images and evocative odes to the flavors of great Pakistani food, this cookbook demystifies favorites like kababs, curries, and samosas.

In this introduction to Pakistani cooking, the folks behind Zareen’s Michelin Guide-approved restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area share 95 recipes designed for American cooks.

Featuring the most beloved dishes from the popular California restaurants, the authors' favorite home-cooked comfort foods, and street fare from growing up in Karachi, you'll find:
 

  • An introduction to the Desi pantry, with substitutes, common methods, and equipment
  • Popular street food like Paratha Rolls, Bun Kabab, and Chaat.
  • Entrée staples like the famous Beef Nihari, Biryani, and specialties from Zareen's Memoni community like Memoni Crispy Fried Chicken
  • Vegetarian-friendly mainstays like Tarka Daal and Bhindi Masala
  • Handmade breads like Naan, Roti, and Laccha Paratha
  • Sweet treats like Kulfi and Burfi, and even Zareen’s riot-inducing Doodh Patti Chai
  • Menu planning section with special occasions including Eid and Diwali
  • Spotlights on inspiring women (including poet Rupi Kaur and food blogger Michelle Tam), with a portion of the proceeds going to select charities.


The authors' goals are threefold: first, to make authentic Pakistani food simple and accessible; second, to share their sheer foodie joy and vibrant Pakistani culture; and third, to inspire women (especially other immigrant women) to entrepreneurship and activism.

Perfect for foodies who want to get their travel fix through their taste buds, as well as those seeking the comfort of nostalgic recipes from their youth, Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen is a culinary adventure you can bring home.

image for the unworthy

The Unworthy

The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.

Image for "Dream Count"

Dream Count

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from The Washington Post, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Elle, Oprah Daily, Readers Digest, The Seattle Times, LitHub, The Chicago Review of Books, BET, and Radio Times

A publishing event ten years in the makinga searing, exquisite new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

Image for "A Gentleman's Gentleman"

A Gentleman's Gentleman

From the acclaimed author of Chef's Kiss, a groundbreaking trans Regency romance that's both delightfully witty and refreshingly iconoclastic.

A Gentleman’s Gentleman is a thoroughly charming confection of a romance. If you’re looking for a tender, gentle slow burn, this is the book for you.” —Cat Sebastian, author of We Could Be So Good

The notoriously eccentric Lord Christopher Eden is a “man of unusual make” and even more unusual habits: he prefers to live far from the prying eyes and ears of the ton, and would rather have the comfortable company of his childhood cook and his aged butler than the swarm of servants and hangers-on befitting a man of his station. But Christopher’s pleasant, if occasionally lonely life is upended when he receives word from his lawyers that, according to his late father’s will, he must find a wife by the end of the Season if he intends to keep his family’s fortune and the Eden estate. Christopher cannot imagine a worse fate: as he isn’t attracted to women, his chances of making a wife happy are slim. Furthermore, if his quest to marry has any hope of succeeding, he must move to London posthaste and acquire some more suitable staff.

Enter James Harding, Christopher’s new, distractingly handsome—if rigidly traditional—valet. After a rocky start, the two strike up a fragile friendship amid the throes of the London Season . . . a friendship that threatens to shatter under the looming shadow of Christopher’s impending nuptials—and the secrets both men are keeping. With its heady combination of dry wit, slow-burn romance, and a nuanced portrait of trans identity, A Gentleman’s Gentleman stands to transform the historical romance genre as we know it.


 

Image for "The Third Rule of Time Travel"

The Third Rule of Time Travel

Rule One: You can only travel to a point within your lifetime.

Rule Two: You can only travel for ninety seconds.

Rule Three: You can only observe.

The rules cannot be broken.



In this electrifying science fiction thriller from acclaimed author Philip Fracassi, a scientist has unlocked the mysteries of time travel. This is not the story you think you know. And the rules are only the beginning.



"Tense, fast-moving, surprsing, and above all else, entertaining." - Owen King, New York Times bestselling author



"A clever premise digs its heels into a sci-fi thriller that breaks into a fast gallop from the first page - exciting, haunting, compelling stuff." - Chuck Wendig, author of The Book of Accidents



Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She's built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time--to any point in the traveler's lifetime--and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it's not perfect: the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.



After Beth's husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella--their only daughter--and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.



Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.



As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.



"Part Crichton, part Bradbury, and all Fracassi, The Third Rule of Time Travel further demonstrates why Fracassi is one of the best writers working today, regardless of genre." - Tyler Jones, author of Midas

Find things to do

Check out what's happening this month.

Get your library card!

Front and back of the OPL library card

Learn More