The Friends of the Hudson Area Library announce the purchase of eighteen new titles from local authors and artists, including works of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, mysteries, cooking and more. Included in this new collection are books from notable are authors, such as award-winning John Ashbery, Lydia Davis, Rebecca Wolff, Madhur Jaffrey, and Verlyn Klinkenborg, among others. The Friends of the Hudson Area Library is an advocacy and support group dedicated to increasing public awareness, literacy and services of the Library.

The new collection of books includes Freedom Hill: A Poem, a dramatic monologue in three sections, by L.S. Asekoff; Quick Question: New Poems by John Ashbery; Two American Scenes: Our Village/A Journey on the Colorado River, a book that describes two poets perspective on the American landscape, by Lydia Davis and Eliot Weinberger; Double Happiness, a collection of short stories about love and relationships, by Mary-Beth Hughes; Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian, a cookbook that includes over 650 meatless recipes, by Madhur Jaffrey; Kahn and Selesnick: The Apollo Prophecies by Nicholas Kahn, Erez Lieberman and Richard Selesnick; More Scenes from the Rural Life, with excerpts from “The Rural Life” in the NY Times, by Verlyn Klinkenborg; and Haussmann or the Distinction, a Dickensian novel that takes place in Paris, by Paul LaFarge.

Also included in the collection is Haunted Catskills, ghost stories from the Hudson Valley, by Lisa LaMonica; Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked, a memoir written as a cautionary tale, by James Lasdun; Under the Sign, a new poetry collection, by Ann Lauterbach; The Last Word: A Spellman Novel by Lisa Lutz; Far from Algiers, a first book of poetry, by Djelloul Marbrook; The Watch, a modern play on Antigone by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya; The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing: Long Distance Motorcycling’s Endless Road, a memoir about long-distance motorcycling, by Melissa Holbrook Pierson; Corporeality, a collection of short stories, by Hollis Seamon; The King: Poems, a book about views on motherhood, by Rebecca Wolff; and The Never List, a debut thriller by Koethi Zan.

All titles are available at the Hudson Area Library or by request online at www.hudsonarealibrary.org. Each DVD can be borrowed for up to seven days, completely free of charge with a library card from any library in the Mid-Hudson Library System.