Representation in Literature
The topic of representation and diversity in literature has been around for years. Recently, we are seeing an insurgence of representation of minority and underrepresented groups in literature. Writers have been including characters of diverse backgrounds in their works, including characters from ethnic minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, religious minorities, and those with disabilities, among others. Readers want to see themselves represented in books and therefore be included in the society and culture in which they live. Minorities go through many experiences and hardships in life, and to see that reflected in some way on the page can lead to harmony, unity, and acceptance of oneself, no matter your gender, race, sexuality, or appearance. To celebrate unique books that represent diverse characters and worlds from unique voices, the library has gathered some books in our collection you may be interested in. Check them out below:
Note: Some of these books are memoirs and nonfiction, and others are fiction. Due to the sensitive topic of representation, we have included content warnings for some of these books. Please view the content warnings carefully before proceeding to read these books.
“A chorus of extraordinary voices tells one of history’s great epics: The four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619—a year before the Mayflower dropped anchor off Cape Cod, when the White Lion disgorged ‘some 20 and odd Negroes’ onto the shores of Virginia—to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume ‘community’ history of African Americans.
The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a brief period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present” (Primo).
CW: Death, War, Child Abuse, Racism
Transcendent Kingdom: A Novel by Yaa Gyasi
“Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.
Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief—a novel about faith, science, religion, and love” (Overdrive).
CW: Drug Abuse, Overdose, Parental Abandonment, Depression, Racism
Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
“Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight. Now change-averse Simon has to find a way to step out of his comfort zone before he’s pushed out without alienating his friends, compromising himself, or fumbling a shot at happiness with the most confusing, adorable guy he’s never met. Incredibly funny and poignant, this twenty-first-century coming-of-age, coming out story, wrapped in a geek romance, is a knockout of a debut novel by Becky Albertalli” (Axis360).
The Kiss Quotient: A Novel by Helen Hoang
“Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with as well as way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn’t help that she has Asperger’s and that French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. She decides that she needs lots of practice—with a professional—which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese-Swedish stunner can’t afford to turn down Stella’s offer, and he agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position . . . Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses but also to crave all of the other things he’s making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense” (Overdrive).
We Hunt The Flame by Hafsah Faizal
“In a world inspired by ancient Arabia, seventeen-year-old huntress Zafira must disguise herself as a man to seek a lost artifact that could return magic to her cursed world.
Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the king. Both are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya—but neither wants to be. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the king on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter” (Primo).
The One Thing by Marci Lyn Curtis
“Rebelling in rage over losing her sight and her fair-weather friends, Maggie is astonished when she regains the ability to see a single person, a precocious 10-year-old boy who helps Maggie to reclaim her dreams” (Axis360).
CW: Blindness
A Time To Dance by Padma Venkatraman
“Padma Venkatraman’s inspiring story of a young girl’s struggle to regain her passion and find a new peace is told lyrically through verse that captures the beauty and mystery of India and the ancient bharatanatyam dance form. This is a stunning novel about spiritual awakening, the power of art, and above all, the courage and resilience of the human spirit.
Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance, so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who’s grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her” (Primo).
CW: Lifechanging Injury
Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
“In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band—and meeting the man who would become her husband—her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her” (Overdrive).
CW: Death, Trauma, Grief, Addiction
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )National Book Award Winners
The National Book Awards event has been in operation since 1950, bringing the literary community together to honor and commemorate the best fiction, nonfiction, and poetry works of every year. Recognizing literary excellence, the National Book Awards event consists of a panel of judges who select a winner from a list of finalists for each category of literature, with the categories having been changed several times over the years. Winners are announced in November of each year and attend the awards ceremony to accept their award. The winners for 2021 will be announced on November 17. The library has decided that while we wait for this year’s winners, we will gather books in our collection that won the previous years’ National Book Awards for your reading entertainment. From adult and young adult fiction to non-fiction, there is a story to explore for everyone here.
If you wish to know more about the National Book Awards event and their mission, check out the National Book Foundation website.
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
“Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.
Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet” (Overdrive).
The Yellow House: A Memoir by Sarah M Broom
“In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant—the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child.
A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house’s entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina.
The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and defy erasure. Located in the gap between the ‘Big Easy’ of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows. It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power” (Overdrive).
The Poet X: A Novel by Elizabeth Acevedo
“Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours her frustration onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class.
With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she knows that she could never get around Mami’s rules to attend, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems. Because in spite of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent” (Primo).
The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
“A tiny, fastidiously dressed man emerged from Black Philadelphia around the turn of the century to mentor a generation of young artists and call them the New Negro—the creative African Americans whose art, literature, music, and drama would inspire Black people to greatness.
In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar and earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. Locke also received a cosmopolitan, aesthetic education through his travels in continental Europe, where he came to appreciate the beauty of art and experienced a freedom unknown to him in the United States.
And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America and his promotion of the literary and artistic work of African Americans as the quintessential creations of American modernism. In the process he looked to Africa to find the proud and beautiful roots of the race. Shifting the discussion of race from politics and economics to the arts, he helped establish the idea that Black urban communities could be crucibles of creativity.
Stewart explores both Locke’s professional and private life, including his relationships with his mother, his friends, and his white patrons, as well as his lifelong search for love as a gay man. Stewart’s thought-provoking biography recreates the worlds of this illustrious, enigmatic man who, in promoting the cultural heritage of Black people, became—in the process—a New Negro himself” (Primo).
The Friend: A Novel by Sigrid Nunez
“When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.
While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog’s care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them” (Primo).
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by Les Payne & Tamara Payne
“In tracing Malcolm X’s life from his Nebraska birth in 1925 to his Harlem assassination in 1965, Les Payne provides searing vignettes culled from Malcolm’s Depression-era youth, describing the influence of his Garveyite parents: his father, Earl, a circuit-riding preacher who was run over by a street car in Lansing, Michigan, in 1929, and his mother, Louise, who continued to instill black pride in her children after Earl’s death. Filling each chapter with resonant drama, Payne follows Malcolm’s exploits as a petty criminal in Boston and Harlem in the 1930s and early 1940s to his religious awakening and conversion to the Nation of Islam in a Massachusetts penitentiary.
With a biographer’s unwavering determination, Payne corrects the historical record and delivers extraordinary revelations—from the unmasking of the mysterious NOI founder ‘Fard Muhammad,’ who preceded Elijah Muhammad; to a hair-rising scene, conveyed in cinematic detail, of Malcolm and Minister Jeremiah X Shabazz’s 1961 clandestine meeting with the KKK; to a minute-by-minute account of Malcolm X’s murder at the Audubon Ballroom.
Introduced by Payne’s daughter and primary researcher, Tamara Payne, who, following her father’s death, heroically completed the biography, The Dead Are Arising is a penetrating and riveting work that affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle” (Overdrive).
Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
“Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high. Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man. When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise” (Primo).
The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia by Masha Gessen
“Hailed for her ‘fearless indictment of the most powerful man in Russia’ (The Wall Street Journal), award-winning journalist Masha Gessen is unparalleled in her understanding of the events and forces that have wracked her native country in recent times.
In The Future is History, she follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today’s terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time” (Primo).
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Horror 2021
2020 was an interesting year for Horror. The movies The Lighthouse, Bird Box, and A Quiet Place seemed to define COVID-19 lockdown for many people. Part of the reason why is because all three deal with isolation from society, difficult emotions, and a hidden menace. Many of us could relate to similar feelings of unpredictability and fear during the pandemic. The Lighthouse has been described as a masterpiece of Gothic Horror where the characters are trapped in a padded cell with the walls of madness closing in. A Quiet Place is another movie which became so loved by fans that it spawned a sequel. And we currently have the book which the popular Netflix movie Bird Box is based on. Since October is the perfect time to dive into horror movies and books, we came up with some amazing books and movies in our collection that everyone can enjoy during this time of the year. From a classic Stephen King book to a chilling movie like A Quiet Place, the library has put together a list of horror stories for your entertainment. Check some of them out below:
The Lighthouse
directed by Robert Eggers
“From Robert Eggers, the visionary filmmaker behind modern horror masterpiece The Witch, comes this hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s” (Primo).
Dread Nation
by Justina Ireland
“Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever. In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations. But that’s not a life Jane wants.
Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems” (Primo).
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James
“First published in 1904, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary contains eight tales of supernatural horror by genre master M.R. James. Highly regarded as a masterwork of horror, this collection is a must-have for fans of the frightful” (Overdrive).
The Outsider: A Novel
by King, Stephen
“An eleven-year-old boy’s violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.
As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can” (Overdrive).
A Quiet Place
directed by John Krasinski
“A powerful and evil force threatens to attack a family whenever they make a noise, causing them to plunge into lives of silence. Any move they make, they live with the terrifying threat of being ambushed at any moment. With their existence on the line, they will need to develop a plan to escape their perilous circumstances. The question is whether or not time has already run out on their aspirations to lead normal lives” (Primo).
The Family Plot
by Cherie Priest
“Dahlia Dutton’s father is thrilled when the aged and esteemed Augusta Winthrow appears in his office and makes a deal for his company, Music City Salvage, to take over and liquidate her massive family estate in Chattanooga. He gives the job to Dahlia, who gathers a crew and a couple of trucks and heads for the estate—an ancient house, a barn, a carriage house, and a small, overgrown cemetery that Augusta Winthrow left out of the paperwork. She left out a lot of things.
Although in unusually great shape, the empty house is harboring something angry and lost, and this is its last chance to raise hell before the house is gone forever. After all, there’s still room in the strange little family plot” (Primo).
Smoke Bitten
by Patricia Briggs
“Shapeshifting mechanic Mercy Thompson will face a threat unlike any other . . . ‘I am Mercedes Athena Thompson Hauptman. My only superpowers are that I turn into a thirty-five-pound coyote and I can fix Volkswagens. But I have friends in odd places and a pack of werewolves at my back. It looks like I’m going to need them.
Centuries ago, the fae dwelt in Underhill—until she locked her doors against them. They left behind their great castles and troves of magical artifacts. They abandoned their prisoners and their pets. Without the fae to mind them, those creatures who remained behind roamed freely through Underhill, wreaking havoc. Only the deadliest survived. Now one of those prisoners has escaped. It can look like anyone, any creature it chooses. But if it bites you, it controls you. It lives for chaos and destruction. It can make you do anything—even kill the person you love the most. It is here, in the Tri-Cities, in my territory. It won’t—can’t—remain. Not if I have anything to say about it'” (Primo).
Bird Box: A Novel
by Josh Malerman
“Something is out there . . .
Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.
Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remain, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now, that the boy and girl are four, it is time to go. But the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?
Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?” (Overdrive).
-posted by Kevin Purtell
Latinx Heritage Month 2021
Every year from September 15 to October 15, known as the Latinx Heritage Month, the US recognizes the contributions and achievements Latinx Americans have made to culture and society, and the ways in which they have and are continuing to inspire others to achieve success. President Lyndon Johnson started the Latinx Heritage Week in 1968, and in 1988 President Ronald Reagan expanded it to a month. The Latinx Heritage Month was enacted into law on August 17, 1988. This month encourages us to celebrate the history and culture of US Latinx and Hispanic communities and to reflect on the meaning of hope and unity behind this observation. If you want to read about real life experiences of Latinx Americans or gripping fictional stories about people belonging to the Latinx community, check out some of the books we have in our collection below:
A Cup of Water under My Bed: A Memoir by Daisy Hernández
“It’s 1980. Ronald Reagan has been elected president, John Lennon has been shot, and a little girl in New Jersey has been hauled off to English classes. Her teachers and parents and tias are expecting her to become white—like the Italians. This is the opening to A Cup of Water Under My Bed, the memoir of one Colombian-Cuban daughter’s rebellions and negotiations with the women who raised her and the world that wanted to fit her into a cubbyhole.
From language acquisition to coming out as bisexual to arriving as a reporting intern at the New York Times as the paper is rocked by its biggest plagiarism scandal, Daisy Hernandez chronicles what the women in her community taught her about race, sex, money, and love. This is a memoir about the private nexus of sexuality, immigration, race and class issues, but it is ultimately a daughter’s cuento of how to take the lessons from home and shape them into a new, queer life” (Primo).
Once upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA by Julia Alvarez
“The quinceanera, the fifteenth birthday celebration for a Latina girl, is quickly becoming an American event. This legendary party is a sight to behold: lavish ball gowns, extravagant catered meals, DJs, limousines, and multi-tiered cakes. The must-haves for a ‘quince’ are becoming as numerous and costly as a prom or wedding. And yet, this elaborate ritual also hearkens back to traditions from native countries and communities, offering young Latinas a chance to connect with their heritage.
Writer Alvarez explores this celebration that brings a Latina girl into womanhood, attending the quince of a young woman in Queens, and weaving in interviews with other quince girls, her own memories of coming of age as an immigrant, and the history of the custom itself. The result is an enlightening, accessible, and entertaining portrait of contemporary Latino culture” (Primo).
The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera
“Margot Sanchez is paying off her debts by working in her family’s South Bronx grocery store, but she must make the right choices about her friends, her family, and Moises, the good looking but outspoken boy from the neighborhood” (Primo).
“For generations, women of color have had to push against powerful forces of sexism, racism, and classism in this country, and too often, they have felt that they had to face these challenges alone. Through her writing, her activism, and through founding Latina Rebels, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez fought to create community to help women fight together.
Now her new book For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts offers wisdom and a liberating path forward for all fellow Brown girls. Her new book addresses a range of issues: How can Brown girls survive, and thrive, in spaces that were never meant for us? How do we feel pride when we’re forced to code-switch? How can we deal with our own imposter syndrome? How do we free ourselves from internalized racism, when it comes to colorism within our communities? And what does it mean to decolonize our worldview? Chapter by chapter, Mojica Rodríguez not only defines these terms, she crafts powerful new ways to address these challenges. She defies ‘universal’ white narratives by telling her own stories. She gives readers access to the knowledge that changed her life and powered her activism.
Too often Brown girls have had to strive and climb and force themselves into predominantly white spaces that were never built for them. Here Mojica Rodríguez crafts a love letter and a manifesto to Brown girls, guiding them toward women who have innovated a sense of pride and sisterhood when the dominant community has failed them. In the end, this timely and urgent book energizes a movement with essential tools to help women speak up and make change. May it spark a fire within you” (Primo).
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
“Writer Karla Cornejo Villavicencio was on DACA when she decided to write about being undocumented for the first time using her own name. It was right after the election of 2016, the day she realized the story she’d tried to steer clear of was the only one she wanted to tell. So she wrote her immigration lawyer’s phone number on her hand in Sharpie and embarked on a trip across the country to tell the stories of her fellow undocumented immigrants—and to find the hidden key to her own.
Looking beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMers, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented—and the mysteries of her own life. She finds the singular, effervescent characters across the nation often reduced in the media to political pawns or nameless laborers. The stories she tells are not deferential or naively inspirational but show the love, magic, heartbreak, insanity, and vulgarity that infuse the day-to-day lives of her subjects” (Overdrive).
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
“The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous—Sandra Cisneros’ masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers” (Overdrive).
-posted by Kevin Purtell
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Fiction Thrillers
Some readers enjoy light-hearted, easy stories that amuse them, make them laugh, or bring happy thoughts to mind. But others enjoy books that make them feel nervously excited, that gets their heart pumping and fists clenching. The anticipation of getting to the end of the book and finding out the answers is essential to them for a satisfying reading experience. This genre of fiction is known as thriller. The thriller genre often encompasses plot-driven stories that are dark, compelling, and highly fast-paced. Readers find the urge to keep turning the pages until they’ve reached the end, each page bringing on a sense of both excitement and apprehension. In this genre, readers can often find insight into who they are, reflect on their values, and hopefully gain a new perspective on life and human nature. Check out some of the fiction thrillers the library has put together from their collection below:
“You’ve lost your daughter. She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found. Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble. You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home. She runs. And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on” (Axis 360).
“Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron’s senior trip to Italy was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. And then the accident happened. Waking up in a hospital room, her leg in a cast, stitches in her face, and a big blank canvas where the last six weeks should be, Jill comes to discover she was involved in a fatal accident in her travels abroad. She was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident . . . wasn’t an accident. Wondering not just what happened but what she did, Jill tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life” (Axis 360).
“For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive. Everyone tells him it’s time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure.
A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible: that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive. Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn’t. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope. But already Beck is being hunted down. He’s headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret and someone intends to stop him before he gets there” (Axis 360).
The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
“Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn’t feel bad about it. Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other people. Not with Jack, the star athlete who wants to really know her but still feels guilty over the role he played the night Anna’s body was discovered. And not with Peekay, the preacher’s kid with a defiant streak who befriends Alex while they volunteer at an animal shelter. Not anyone. As their senior year unfolds, Alex’s darker nature breaks out, setting these three teens on a collision course that will change their lives forever” (Axis 360).
“When popular radio personality West McCray receives a desperate phone call from a stranger imploring him to find nineteen-year-old runaway Sadie Hunter, he’s not convinced there’s a story there; girls go missing all the time. But when it’s revealed that Sadie fled home after the brutal murder of her little sister, Mattie, West travels to the small town of Cold Creek, Colorado, to uncover what happened.
Sadie has no idea that her journey to avenge her sister will soon become the subject of a blockbuster podcast. Armed with a switchblade, Sadie follows meager clues hoping they’ll lead to the man who took Mattie’s life, because she’s determined to make him pay with his own.
But as West traces her path to the darkest, most dangerous corners of big cities and small towns, a deeply unsettling mystery begins to unfold—one that’s bigger than them both. Can he find Sadie before it’s too late? Alternating between Sadie’s unflinching voice as she hunts the killer and the podcast transcripts tracking the clues she’s left behind, Sadie is a breathless thriller about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love and the high price we pay when we can’t” (Axis 360).
“‘Are you happy with your life?’ Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, ‘Welcome back, my friend.’ In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe” (Axis 360).
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
“Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him . . . ” (Axis 360).
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Pride Month 2021
Happy Pride Month! Pride Month is celebrated every June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots that occurred on June 28th, 1969. On that day, the police raided Stonewall Inn, a gay club, in New York City, and were immediately met with retaliation from the patrons, staff, and neighborhood people, who held riots in the street outside. In 1970, the first pride march was held in New York City. Pride Month is a way for all of us to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, including artists and authors. For this event, the library has gathered books in our collection, both fiction and non-fiction, from brilliant authors who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. Read memoirs by writers who share their unique experiences, including the Stonewall uprising or check out touching fictional stories featuring strong LGBTQ+ characters.
The Stonewall Reader edited by New York Public Library, forward by Edmund White
“For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, this is an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White. June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States.
Drawing from the New York Public Library’s archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after” (Primo).
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
“Acclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most personal and ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco’s Chinatown during the 1950s. ‘That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other.’ And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: ‘Have you ever heard of such a thing?’ Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club.
America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day” (Axis360).
Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan
“Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a ‘sun child’ from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity.
As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender.
Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life” (Overdrive).
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
“Set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart” (Primo).
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt
“When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys, they thought their lives were complete. But by the time Jonas and Wyatt were toddlers, confusion over Wyatt’s insistence that he was female began to tear the family apart. In the years that followed, the Maines came to question their long-held views on gender and identity, to accept Wyatt’s transition to Nicole, and to undergo a wrenching transformation of their own, the effects of which would reverberate through their entire community” (Primo).
History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera
“When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course. To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson.
But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart. If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life” (Axis360).
“With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know, until she does exactly that. This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree.
Staggering under the weight of her parent’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows. In New York, she’s able to ignore all the constant questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along: the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood” (Axis360).
Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde
“In a title that combines autobiography and fiction, activist, writer, and librarian Lorde describes her life as a daughter of immigrants and as a lesbian in 1950’s Harlem. She expresses the loneliness of being an outsider and the discovery of a talent for writing that shaped her life” (Primo).
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Books by Muslim Authors
Each year Muslims all around the world spend the lunar month of Ramadan fasting from dawn to dusk. This year the holy month started April 13th and will end with the celebration of Eid after the new moon is sighted. For all Muslims, Ramadan is the month of praying, giving, and self reflection. In honor of the upcoming holiday Eid, the library has decided to share a few books we have in our collection written by Muslim authors. Whether you want to read stories featuring complex Muslim characters, learn about their lifestyle and religion, or explore less known books written by brilliant Muslim authors, check out some of the books we have below.
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
“A Place for Us is a deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity, and belonging. As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. There is Hadia: their headstrong, eldest daughter, whose marriage is a match of love and not tradition. Huda, the middle child, determined to follow in her sister’s footsteps. And lastly, their estranged son, Amar, who returns to the family fold for the first time in three years to take his place as brother of the bride.
What secrets and betrayals have caused this close-knit family to fracture? Can Amar find his way back to the people who know and love him best? A Place for Us takes us back to the beginning of this family’s life: from the bonds that bring them together, to the differences that pull them apart. All the joy and struggle of family life is here, from Rafiq and Layla’s own arrival in America from India, to the years in which their children each in their own way tread between two cultures, seeking to find their place in the world, as well as a path home” (Primo).
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
“Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss, and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them—in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul—they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman’s love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival” (Primo).
The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf
“A music loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut. Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.
A trip to the movies after school turns into a nightmare when the city erupts into violent race riots between the Chinese and the Malay. When gangsters come into the theater and hold movie-goers hostage, Mel, a Malay, is saved by a Chinese woman, but has to leave her best friend behind to die. On their journey through town, Mel sees for herself the devastation caused by the riots. In her village, a neighbor tells her that her mother, a nurse, was called in to help with the many bodies piling up at the hospital. Mel must survive on her own, with the help of a few kind strangers, until she finds her mother. But the djinn in her mind threatens her ability to cope” (Axis360).
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
“A stunning new novel that tells the story of Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker. Hassan has a secret — he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls? As Fatima and Hassan traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate” (Overdrive).
A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi
“After their home in Syria is bombed, Tareq, his father, and his younger sister seek refuge, first with extended family in Raqqa, a stronghold for the militant group, Daesh, and then abroad. Tareq lives with his big and loving family…until the bombs strike. The city is in ruins, and in the wake of destruction, he’s threatened by Daesh fighters and witnesses a public beheading. Tareq’s family knows that to continue to stay alive, they must leave. As they travel as refugees from Syria to Turkey to Greece, facing danger at every turn, Tareq must find the resilience and courage to complete his harrowing journey” (Primo).
A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi
“It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Shirin is never surprised by how horrible people can be. She’s tired of the rude stares, the degrading comments, even the physical violence she endures as a result of her race, her religion, and the hijab she wears every day. So she’s built up protective walls and refuses to let anyone close enough to hurt her. Instead, she drowns her frustrations in music and spends her afternoons break-dancing with her brother. But then she meets Ocean James. He’s the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin. It terrifies her; they seem to come from two irreconcilable worlds and Shirin has had her guard up for so long that she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to let it down” (Axis360).
“A marvel: something you find amazing. Even ordinary-amazing. Like potatoes, because they make French fries happen. Like the perfect fries Adam and his mom used to make together. An oddity: whatever gives you pause. Like the fact that there are hateful people in the world. Like Zayneb’s teacher, who won’t stop reminding the class how bad Muslims are. But Zayneb, the only Muslim in class, isn’t bad. She’s angry. When she gets suspended for confronting her teacher, and he begins investigating her activist friends, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha, Qatar, for an early start to spring break. Fueled by the guilt of getting her friends in trouble, she resolves to try out a newer and nicer version of herself in a place where no one knows her. Then her path crosses with Adam’s.
Since he got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in November, Adam’s stopped going to classes, intent, instead, on perfecting the making of things. Intent on keeping the memory of his mom alive for his little sister. Adam’s also intent on keeping his diagnosis a secret from his grieving father. Alone, Adam and Zayneb are playing roles for others, keeping their real thoughts locked away in their journals. Until a marvel and an oddity occurs. Marvel: Adam and Zayneb meeting. Oddity: Adam and Zayneb meeting” (Axis360).
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )African American Authors 2021
We were challenged by a Librarian friend to blog about African American authors who are not well known. Every February libraries have displays celebrating African American authors, but they are always the same authors, such as James Baldwin or Langston Hughes. In this blog post, we put together several books written by outstanding modern African American authors of whom you may not have heard. If you want to immerse yourself in stories about family, love, and tragedy that will make you feel a rollercoaster of emotions, check out some of the ones we have in our e-book collection listed below.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
“At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this ‘intricate and extraordinary’ Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. This is the way the world ends . . . for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy” (Axis 360).
“An alien race calls on one woman to revive mankind after Earth’s apocalypse in this science fiction classic. Lilith Iyapo has just lost her husband and son when atomic fire consumes Earth: the last stage of the planet’s final war. Hundreds of years later Lilith awakes, deep in the hold of a massive alien spacecraft piloted by the Oankali who arrived just in time to save humanity from extinction. They have kept Lilith and other survivors asleep for centuries, as they learned whatever they could about Earth.
Now it is time for Lilith to lead them back to her home world, but life among the Oankali on the newly resettled planet will be nothing like it was before. The Oankali survive by genetically merging with primitive civilizations, whether their new hosts like it or not. For the first time since the nuclear holocaust, Earth will be inhabited. Grass will grow, animals will run, and people will learn to survive the planet’s untamed wilderness. But their children will not be human. Not exactly” (Axis 360).
When the Thrill is Gone by Walter Mosley
“Leonid McGill can’t say no to the beautiful woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash and a story. She’s married to a rich art collector. Now she fears for her life. Leonid knows better than to believe her, but he can’t afford to turn her away, even if he knows this woman’s tale will bring him straight to death’s door” (Axis 360).
“Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs. Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy.
The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti’s stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach. If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University itself—but first she has to make it there alive” (Axis 360).
“A young half Native American known as the Kid has hitchhiked from Mexico to the midwestern city Bellona, only something is wrong there . . .
In Bellona, the shattered city, a nameless cataclysm has left reality unhinged. Into this desperate metropolis steps the Kid, his fist wrapped in razor-sharp knives, to write, to love, to wound. A labyrinth of a novel, it raises questions about race, sexuality, identity, and art, but gives no easy answers, in a city that reshapes itself with each step you take” (Axos 360).
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
“In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .45 from his pocket, and in front of everybody shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. The reasons for this desperate burst of violence and the consequences that spring from it lie at the heart of Deacon King Kong.
McBride brings to vivid life the people affected by the shooting: the victim, the African-American and Latinx residents who witnessed it, the white neighbors, the local cops assigned to investigate, the members of the Five Ends Baptist Church where Sportcoat was deacon, the neighborhood’s Italian mobsters, and Sportcoat himself. As the story deepens, it becomes clear that the lives of the characters—caught in the tumultuous swirl of 1960s New York—overlap in unexpected ways. When the truth does emerge, McBride shows us that not all secrets are meant to be hidden, that the best way to grow is to face change without fear, and that the seeds of love lie in hope and compassion” (Axis 360).
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
“Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.
Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control” (Axis 360).
-posted by Kevin Purtell
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Thanksgiving 2020
It is that time of the year again. Although Thanksgiving will be slightly different this year, there are plenty of things to be grateful for. This year’s Thanksgiving can still be memorable. Family gatherings can be held through Zoom, shared joys can be reminisced through the phone, and you can always spend your weekend watching a movie, trying out new desserts, or curled up reading a good book. If you are on the hunt to read a memorable story during this year’s Thanksgiving weekend, check out some of the ones we have in our collection below.
Raspberry Danish Murder by Joanne Fluke
“Thanksgiving has a way of thawing the frostiest hearts in Lake Eden. But that won’t be happening for newlywed Hannah Swensen Barton—not after her husband suddenly disappears . . . Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving-themed treats while endless holiday orders pour into The Cookie Jar. Hannah even introduces a raspberry Danish pastry to the menu, and P.K., her husband’s assistant at KCOW-TV, will be one of the first to sample it.
But instead of taking a bite, P.K., who is driving Ross’s car and using his desk at work, is murdered. Was someone plotting against P.K. all along or did Ross dodge a deadly dose of sweet revenge? Hannah will have to quickly sift through a cornucopia of clues and suspects to stop a killer from bringing another murder to the table” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Cupcakes, Cookies & Pie, Oh My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson
“The New York Times bestselling authors of Hello, Cupcake! and What’s New, Cupcake? are back, applying their oversized imaginations not just to cupcakes but to cookies, pies, cakes, and other treats, with projects that are more hilarious, more spectacular, more awe-inspiring—and simpler than ever. No sweet treat is safe from their ingenuity: refrigerator cookies, pound cakes, pie dough, cheesecakes, bar cookies, and Jell-O are all transformed into amazing and playful desserts.
There’s something for everybody in this book, and every single item you need can be found in the neighborhood supermarket or convenience store. This enhanced e-book, with five stop-motion videos demonstrating recipes from the book and links that allow you to easily find exactly what you’re looking for, is one of the best ways to experience this phenomenon. Playing with your food has never been so exciting—or so easy” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
The Rest of Us Just Live here by Patrick Ness
“What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Recipe for Disaster by Stacey Ballis
“Stacey Ballis cooks up a delicious broth of a novel about a woman whose perfect life falls apart in spectacular fashion—leaving her with a house to restore, an antique cookbook (but no cooking talent), and one very unhappy schnauzer. To an outside observer, Anneke Stroudt is a mess; her shirts are stained, her fingernails stubby, her language colorful. But, despite her flaws, Annek’s life is close to perfect. She has a beautiful historic house to restore and a loving fiancé who cooks like a dream. Until Anneke’s charmed existence falls apart when she loses both her job and her future husband in one terrible day.
In need of a new start, she packs up her disgruntled schnauzer and moves into her half-finished home, where she throws her pent-up frustration and what little savings she has into finishing the renovation. But at the first step into the house’s overhaul, Anneke is sidetracked when she discovers a mysterious leather-bound book, long hidden away, filled with tempting recipes and steamy secrets from Gemma Ditmore-Smythe, the cook for the house’s original owners. Slowly, with the help of some delicious food and Emma’s life lessons, Anneke begins to realize that, just like a flawless recipe, she’s been waiting for the right ingredients to cook up a perfect life all along” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Let it Snow by John Green, Lauren Myracle, and Maureen Johnson
“An ill-timed storm on Christmas Eve buries the residents of Gracetown under multiple feet of snow and causes quite a bit of chaos. One brave soul ventures out into the storm from her stranded train, setting off a chain of events that will change quite a few lives.
Over the next three days one girl takes a risky shortcut with an adorable stranger, three friends set out to win a race to the Waffle House (and the hash brown spoils), and the fate of a teacup pig falls into the hands of a lovesick barista. A trio of today’s bestselling authors, John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle, brings all the magic of the holidays to life in three hilarious and charming interconnected tales of love, romance, and kisses that will steal your breath away” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
“In this bestselling true story, one Honduran boy goes in search of his mother, who left to find work in the United States ten years ago when he was just seven years old. This is the true and heartbreaking story of sixteen-year-old Enrique, who sets off on a journey alone to find his mother, who he has not seen for eleven years, not since she left her starving family and illegally entered the United States, hoping to make enough money to send home to Honduras.
With little more in his pocket than a slip of paper bearing his mother’s phone number, Enrique embarks on a treacherous odyssey, traveling by clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. Even when confronted by bandits, thugs, and corrupt cops, he is determined to complete his journey, often buoyed by the kindness of strangers or simply by luck finding water or food. In the face of this hostile world, Enrique’s love for his mother and his desire to be reunited with her will endure and triumph. Enrique’s journey tells the larger story of undocumented Latin American migrants in the United States. His is an inspiring and timeless tale about the meaning of family and fortitude that brings to light the daily struggles of migrants, legal and otherwise, and the complicated choices they face” (Descriptive content provided by Syndetics).
-posted by Huma Abdulaziz
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )
What's On My Nightstand? 