From the author of the nationwide best seller Dept. of Speculation—one of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year—a “darkly funny and urgent” (NPR) tour de force about a family, and a nation, in crisis. Part of Rhinebeck Climate Week programming. A librarian answers questions for a podcast called "Hell and High Water" that come in from all sides: left-wingers worried about climate change and right-wingers worried about the decline of western civilization. 

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. Sylvia has become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives: from left-wingers worried about climate change and right-wingers worried about the decline of western civilization.

If you'd like to join the book club, which votes on its monthly read based on suggestions from the group, email Starr Library's Program Director, Michelle, at mmontalbano@starrlibrary.org.