2017 Book Recommendations
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Americanah by A New York Times BestsellerA Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionOne of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the YearFrom the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.ISBN: 9781594139550Publication Date: 2016-01-20 -
Aye, and Gomorrah by A father must come to terms with his son's death in the war. In Venice an architecture student commits a crime of passion. A white southern airport loader tries to do a favor for a black northern child. The ordinary stuff of ordinary fiction--but with a difference! These tales take place twenty-five, fifty, a hundred-fifty years from now, when men and women have been given gills to labor under the sea. Huge repair stations patrol the cables carrying power to the ends of the earth. Telepathic and precocious children so passionately yearn to visit distant galaxies that they'll kill to go. Brilliantly crafted, beautifully written, these are Samuel Delany's award-winning stories, like no others before or since.ISBN: 9780375706714Publication Date: 2003-04-08 -
Blonde by One ofAmerica's most acclaimed novelists boldly re-imagines one ofAmerica's most enduring icons in Blonde--the National Book Award-nominated bestseller by Joyce Carol Oates. The legend of Marilyn Monroe--aka Norma Jeane Baker--comes provocatively alive in this powerful tale of Hollywoodmyth and heartbreaking reality. Marilyn Monroe lives--reborn to tell her untold history; her story of a star created to shine brightest in theHollywood firmament before her fall to earth. Blonde is a dazzling fictional portrait of the intricate inner life of the idolized and desired movie star as only the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates could paint it.ISBN: 9780061774355Publication Date: 2009-09-15 -
A Book of American Martyrs by "Oates' American saga captivates because it exists within an actual drama playing out across the country...Martyrs is a graceful and excruciating story of two families who do not live very far apart, but exist in different realities. " --USA Today, 4-star review "Successful because [Oates] refuses to satirize or dehumanize anyone, even murderous foes of abortion...With its wrath and violence, A Book of American Martyrs offers this teaspoon of warmth in these troubled times: that it is possible to be wrong without surrendering your humanity." --Los Angeles Times "The most relevant book of Oates's half-century-long career, a powerful reminder that fiction can be as timely as this morning's tweets but infinitely more illuminating." --Washington Post A powerfully resonant and provocative novel from American master and New York Times bestselling author Joyce Carol Oates In this striking, enormously affecting novel, Joyce Carol Oates tells the story of two very different and yet intimately linked American families. Luther Dunphy is an ardent Evangelical who envisions himself as acting out God's will when he assassinates an abortion provider in his small Ohio town while Augustus Voorhees, the idealistic but self-regarding doctor who is killed, leaves behind a wife and children scarred and embittered by grief. In her moving, insightful portrait, Joyce Carol Oates fully inhabits the perspectives of two interwoven families whose destinies are defined by their warring convictions and squarely-but with great empathy-confronts an intractable, abiding rift in American society. A Book of American Martyrs is a stunning, timely depiction of an issue hotly debated on a national stage but which makes itself felt most lastingly in communities torn apart by violence and hatred.ISBN: 9780062643049Publication Date: 2017-02-07 -
Burma Chronicles by THE POPULAR TRAVELOGUE NOW IN PAPERBACK From the author ofPyongyang: A Journey in North Korea andShenzhen: A Travelogue from China comesBurma Chronicles, an informative look at a country that uses concealment and isolation as social control. It is drawn with Guy Delisle's minimal line, interspersed with wordless vignettes and moments of his distinctive slapstick humor.ISBN: 9781770460256Publication Date: 2010-12-07 -
Citizen by * Finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry * * Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry * Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism * Winner of the NAACP Image Award * Winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize * Winner of the PEN Open Book Award * ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker,Boston Globe,The Atlantic,BuzzFeed, NPR.Los Angeles Times, Publishers Weekly,Slate,Time Out New York,Vulture,Refinery 29, and many more . . . A provocative meditation on race, Claudia Rankine's long-awaited follow up to her groundbreaking bookDon't Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric. Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry,Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.Call Number: PS3568 A572 C58 2014 c. 2ISBN: 9781555976903Publication Date: 2014-10-07 -
Deceit and Other Possibilities by In this powerful debut collection, Vanessa Hua gives voice to immigrant families navigating a new America. Tied to their ancestral and adopted homelands in ways unimaginable in generations past, these memorable characters straddle both worlds but belong to none. These stories shine a light on immigrant families navigating a new America, straddling cultures and continents, veering between dream and disappointment. From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal, to an obedient daughter turned Stanford pretender, from a Chinatown elder summoned to his village, to a Korean-American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in the collection illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change. In "What We Have is What We Need," winner of The Atlantic student fiction prize, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together. With insight and wit, she writes about what wounds us and what we must survive. Deceit and Other Possibilities marks the emergence of a remarkable new writer. Vanessa Hua is an award-winning journalist and writer, and a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. For nearly two decades, she has been writing about Asia and the diaspora, filing stories from China, Burma, Panama, South Korea, Abu Dhabi, and Ecuador. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, ZYZZYVA, Guernica, and elsewhere.ISBN: 9780997199628Publication Date: 2016-09-30 -
Essentialism by NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * More than one million copies sold! Essentialism isn't about getting more done in less time. It's about getting only the right things done. "A timely, essential read for anyone who feels overcommitted, overloaded, or overworked."--Adam Grant Have you ever: * found yourself stretched too thin? * simultaneously felt overworked and underutilized? * felt busy but not productive? * felt like your time is constantly being hijacked by other people's agendas? If you answered yes to any of these, the way out is the Way of the Essentialist. Essentialism is more than a time-management strategy or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward the things that really matter. By forcing us to apply more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy--instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us. Essentialism is not one more thing--it's a whole new way of doing everything. It's about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives. Essentialism is a movement whose time has come.ISBN: 9780804137386Publication Date: 2014-04-15 -
Evicted by NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a new standard for reporting on poverty" (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review). In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as "wrenching and revelatory" (The Nation), "vivid and unsettling" (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama * The New York Times Book Review * The Boston Globe * The Washington Post * NPR * Entertainment Weekly * The New Yorker * Bloomberg * Esquire * BuzzFeed * Fortune * San Francisco Chronicle * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Politico * The Week * Chicago Public Library * BookPage * Kirkus Reviews * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * Booklist * Shelf Awareness WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction * The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction * The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism * The PEN/New England Award * The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE "Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books."--Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth "Gripping and moving--tragic, too."--Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones "Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty."--San Francisco ChronicleISBN: 9780553447453Publication Date: 2017-02-28 -
The Eyre Affair by Meet Thursday Next, literary detective without equal, fear or boyfriend Jasper Fforde's beloved New York Times bestselling novel introduces literary detective Thursday Next and her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England--from the author of The Constant Rabbit Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it's a bibliophile's dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career. Fforde's ingenious fantasy--enhanced by a Web site that re-creates the world of the novel--unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.Call Number: PR6106.F67 E97 2003ISBN: 0142001805Publication Date: 2003-02-25 -
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholarAngela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine. Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that "Freedom is a constant struggle." Angela Y. Davis is a political activist, scholar, author, and speaker. She is an outspoken advocate for the oppressed and exploited, writing on Black liberation, prison abolition, the intersections of race, gender, and class, and international solidarity with Palestine. She is the author of several books, includingWomen, Race, and Class andAre Prisons Obsolete? She is the subject of the acclaimed documentaryFree Angela andAll Political Prisoners and is Distinguished Professor Emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz. One of America's most provocative public intellectuals,Dr. Cornel West has been a champion for racial justice since childhood. His writing, speaking, and teaching weave together the traditions of the black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz.The New York Times has praised his "ferocious moral vision." His many books includeRace Matters,Democracy Matters, and his autobiography,Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. Frank Barat is a human rights activist and author. He was the coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and is now the president of the Palestine Legal Action Network. His books includeGaza in Crisis andCorporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation.ISBN: 9781608465644Publication Date: 2016-02-09 -
Holy Land by Since its publication in 1996, Holy Land has become an American classic. In "quick, translucent prose" (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) that is at once lyrical and unsentimental, D. J. Waldie recounts growing up in Lakewood, California, a prototypical post-World War II suburb. Laid out in 316 sections as carefully measured as a grid of tract houses, Holy Land is by turns touching, eerie, funny, and encyclopedic in its handling of what was gained and lost when thousands of blue-collar families were thrown together in the suburbs of the 1950s. An intensely realized and wholly original memoir about the way in which a place can shape a life, Holy Land is ultimately about the resonance of choices--how wide a street should be, what to name a park--and the hopes that are realized in the habits of everyday life.ISBN: 9780393327281Publication Date: 2005-04-17 -
The House by the Lake by A Finalist for the Costa Biography Award Longlisted for the Orwell Prize Named a Best Book of the Year by The Times (London) * New Statesman (London) *Daily Express (London) *Commonwealmagazine In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding traveled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a small house by a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. It had been her "soul place," she said--a holiday home for her and her family, but also a refuge--until the 1930s, when the Nazis' rise to power forced them to leave. The trip was his grandmother's chance to remember her childhood sanctuary as it was. But the house had changed, and when Harding returned once again nearly twenty years later, it was about to be demolished. It now belonged to the government, and as Harding began to inquire about whether the house could be saved, he unearthed secrets that had lain hidden for decades. Slowly he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived there: a wealthy landowner, a prosperous Jewish family, a renowned composer, a widow and her children, a Stasi informant. All had made the house their home, and all but one had been forced out. The house had weathered storms, fires and abandonment, witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, and had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation. Breathtaking in scope and intimate in its detail,The House by the Lake is a groundbreaking and revelatory new history of Germany, told over a tumultuous century through the story of a small wooden house.ISBN: 9781250065063Publication Date: 2016-07-05 -
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl by From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music. Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as "America's best rock band" by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock. HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era's flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later. With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one's true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.ISBN: 9780399184765Publication Date: 2016-10-25 -
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out by This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses, who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks," first births, and first deaths, and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in the profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages of their careers: One nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more "important" procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. An efficient young emergency room nurse finds his life and career irrevocably changed by a car accident. A nurse practitioner wonders whether she has violated professional boundaries in her care for a homeless man with AIDS, and a home care case manager isthe sole attendee at a funeral for one of her patients. What connects these stories is the passion and strength of the writers, who struggle against burnout and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength.ISBN: 9781937163129Publication Date: 2013-04-09 -
Jerusalem by "[Jerusalem] is a small miracle: concise, even-handed, highly particular." --The Guardian Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City is the acclaimed graphic memoirist Guy Delisle's strongest work yet, a thoughtful and moving travelogue about life in contemporary Jerusalem. Delisle expertly lays the groundwork for a cultural road map of the Holy City, utilizing the classic "stranger in a strange land" point of view that made his other books required reading for understanding what daily life is like in cities few are able to travel to.Jerusalem explores the complexities of a city that represents so much to so many. It eloquently examines the impact of conflict on the lives of people on both sides of the wall while drolly recounting the quotidian: checkpoints, traffic jams, and holidays. When observing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations that call Jerusalem home, Delisle's drawn line is both sensitive and fair, assuming nothing and drawing everything. A sixteen-page appendix to the paperback edition lets the reader behind the curtain, revealing intimate process sketches from Delisle's time in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a masterfully hewn travelogue; topping Best of 2012 lists fromThe Guardian,Paste, and theMontreal Gazette, it was the graphic novel of the year.ISBN: 9781770461765Publication Date: 2015-08-18 -
The Kite Runner by The #1 New York Times bestselling debut novel that introduced Khaled Hosseini to millions of readers the world over. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history, The Kite Runner transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction. A powerful story of friendship, it is also about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons--their love, their sacrifices, their lies. Since its publication in 2003 Kite Runner has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic of contemporary literature, touching millions of readers, and launching the career of one of America's most treasured writers.ISBN: 9781594631931Publication Date: 2013-03-05 -
Kristin Lavransdatter, I: the Wreath by 'I don't think I could ever love a man so dearly that I would go against my parents' will for his sake.' Set in fourteenth-century Norway, The Wreath begins the life story of Kristin Lavransdatter. Starting with Kristin's childhood and continuing through her romance with Erlend Nikulausson, a dangerously charming and impetuous man, Sigrid Undset re-creates the historical backdrop in vivid detail, immersing readers in the day-to-day life, Social conventions, and political undercurrents of the period. But the story she tells is a modern one, brought to life with clarity and lyrical beauty in this remarkable translation by Tiina Nunnally. Defying her parents and stubbornly pursuing her own happiness, Kristin emerges as a woman who loves with power and passion. 'A masterpiece . . . writing in a prose as vigorous, articulate and naturalistic as the novel it re-creates, Tiina Nunnally brilliantly captures a world both remote and strangely familiar.' -PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize citationCall Number: PT8950.U5 K93 1946 v.1-3ISBN: 9780141180410Publication Date: 1997-12-01 -
l'll Never Write My Memoirs by Legendary influential performer Grace Jones offers a revealing account of her spectacular career and turbulent life, charting the development of a persona that has made her one of the world's most recognizable artists. As a singer, model, and actress--a deluxe triple threat--Grace has consistently been an extreme, challenging presence in the entertainment world since her emergence as an international model in the 1970s. Celebrated for her audacious talent and trailblazing style, Grace became one of the most unforgettable, free-spirited characters to emerge from the historic Studio 54, recording glittering disco classics such as "I Need a Man" and "La Vie en Rose." Her provocative shows in underground New York nightclubs saw her hailed as a disco queen, gay icon, and gender defying iconoclast. In 1980, the always ambitious Grace escaped a crowded disco scene to pursue more experimental interests. Her music also broke free, blending house, reggae, and electronica into a timeless hybrid that led to classic hits such as "Pull Up to the Bumper" and "Slave to the Rhythm." In the memoir she once promised never to write, Grace offers an intimate insight into her evolving style, personal philosophies, and varied career--including her roles in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and the James Bond movie A View to a Kill. Featuring sixteen pages of stunning full-color photographs, many from her own personal archive, I'll Never Write My Memoirs follows this ageless creative nomad as she rejects her strict religious upbringing in Jamaica; conquers New York, Paris, and the 1980s; answers to no-one; and lives to fight again and again.ISBN: 9781476765075Publication Date: 2015-09-29 -
Letters for Olson by Letters addressed to Charles Olson, author of The Maximus PoemsISBN: 9781941550861Publication Date: 2016-09-01 -
Level Up by From Gene Luen Yang, the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and author ofAmerican Born Chinese, comes amagical realist coming-of-age tale, by turns whimsical and deadly serious. Nothing is what it seems when life collides with video games. Dennis Ouyang has always struggled in the shadow of his parents' expectations: Stay focused in high school, do well in college, go to medical school, and become a gastroenterologist. But between his father's death, his academic burnout, and his deep (and distracting) love of video games, Dennis can't endure. He's kicked out of college. And that's when things get . . . weird. Four adorable--but bossy--angels, straight out of a sappy greeting card, appear and take charge of Dennis's life. He's back on track to become a gastroenterologist. But is he living the life he wants? Partnered with the deceptively simple, cute art of Thien Pham, Gene Yang has returned to the subject he revolutionized withAmerican Born Chinese. Whimsical and serious by turns,Level Upis a new look at the tale that Yang has made his own: coming of age as an Asian American. Gene Luen Yang is the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, and is the author ofAmerican Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints, The Shadow Hero, andSecret Coders. ANew York TimesNotable Children's Book (Young Adult) for 2011 A YALSA Popular Paperback for Young Adults A YALSA Great Graphic Novel for Teens An Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Title A New York Times Notable Children's Book "Deliciously imaginative . . . uproariously funny . . . A book so good, it's hard not to fall back on reviewers' clichés." --The New York Times "A manifesto for everyone who's ever wrestled with the expectations of their family, their friends, and their society (and who hasn't?), and it's ultimately both humane and inspiring." --Boing Boing "A piquant, multilayered coming-of-age fable for the wired generation." --Kirkus ReviewsISBN: 9781250108111Publication Date: 2016-07-19 -
Little Century by "Anna Keesey's debut novel hums with raw energy: its youthful heroine's, the small town around which the ranches lie, and the new century that's just unfolding....Exhilarating."--The Boston Globe In the tradition of such Western classics asMy ÁntoniaandThere Will Be Blood, Anna Keesey'sLittle Centuryis a resonant and moving debut novel by a writer of confident gifts. Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless town of Century, Oregon, she's met by her distant cousin--a cattle rancher named Ferris Pickett. There, she begins a new life as a homesteader, in the hope that her land will one day join Pick's impressive spread. But Century is in the midst of an escalating and violent war over water and rangeland. As incidents between the sheep and cattle ranchers turn to bloodshed, Esther's sympathies are divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, sworn enemy of the cattlemen. Torn between her growing passion for Ben and her love of the austere land, she begins to realize that she can't be loyal to both.ISBN: 9781250033369Publication Date: 2013-07-02 -
Mating by The narrator of this splendidly expansive novel of high intellect and grand passion is an American anthropologist at loose ends in the South African republic of Botswana. She has a noble and exacting mind, a good waist, and a busted thesis project. She also has a yen for Nelson Denoon, a charismatic intellectual who is rumored to have founded a secretive and unorthodox utopian society in a remote corner of the Kalahari--one in which he is virtually the only man. What ensues is both a quest and an exuberant comedy of manners, a book that explores the deepest canyons of eros even as it asks large questions about the good society, the geopolitics of poverty, and the baffling mystery of what men and women really want.ISBN: 9780679737094Publication Date: 1992-09-01 -
Obata's Yosemite by Chiura Obata, a gifted Japanese-born artist from California, made his first trip to Yosemite in 1927. The trip left a lasting impression in a remarkable collection of sketches, postcards, and letters. This volume includes 80 full-color reproductions of Obata's pencil sketches, watercolor paintings, and day-by-day narratives woven through his correspondences. Named one of the "Best Fifty books of 1993? by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the book is a unique and beautiful presentation of personal artistic experience.Call Number: N6537.O22 A4 1993ISBN: 9780939666676Publication Date: 1993-09-01 -
Oryx and Crake by From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey-with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake-through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.Call Number: PR9199.3.A8 O79 2003ISBN: 9780385721677Publication Date: 2004-03-30 -
Our Souls at Night by A Best Book of the Year The Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Denver Post In the familiar setting of Holt, Colorado, home to all of Kent Haruf's inimitable fiction, Addie Moore pays an unexpected visit to a neighbor, Louis Waters. Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away, her son even farther, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in empty houses, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. But maybe that could change? As Addie and Louis come to know each other better--their pleasures and their difficulties--a beautiful story of second chances unfolds, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.ISBN: 9781101911921Publication Date: 2016-06-28 -
Perdido Street Station by Call Number: PR6063.A438 W65 2009ISBN: 9780345459404Publication Date: 2003-07-29 -
Pitseolak by This is an illustrated oral biography created from recorded interviews by Dorothy Harley Eber in 1970. In these interviews, and through her drawings and prints, Pitseolak makes what Inuit call the old way come alive, reflecting on life on the land, its pleasure and trials. Her story later became an NFB animated documentary. This second edition, appearing more than 30 years after the first, contains additional drawings and prints by Pitseolak Ashoona and a new introduction by Eber that provides more information about the artist and the circumstances under which her groundbreaking oral biography came about. Pitseolak Ashoona, who died in 1983, was known for lively prints and drawings showing the things we did long ago before there were many white men and for imaginative renderings of spirits and monsters. She began creating prints in the late 1950s after James Houston started printmaking experiments at Cape Dorset, creating several thousand images of traditional Inuit life. Pitseolak Ashoona was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974 and was also a member of the Order of Canada.Call Number: E99.E7 P53ISBN: 9780773525726Publication Date: 2003-10-28 -
Pyongyang by Voted "Best of" by CBC Radio One's "Talking Books," the American Library Association and Time.com.More timely than ever, Guy Delisle's acclaimed Pyongyang is a glimpse into one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today: North Korea. Pyongyang is a graphical record of the time cartoonist Guy Delisle spent working as an animator in Pyongyang, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city."The memoir is topical, coming at a time when interest in the goings-on behind the last remaining panel of the Iron Curtain is high. [...] The episodes are smart, sharply observed and funny, without downplaying the untold horrors (death camps, starvation) that lurk around every corner." (Globe and Mail)"Tinged with black humour, ...[Pyongyang] offers a perspective no straight-up print journalism could." (National Post)ISBN: 9781897299210Publication Date: 2007-05-01 -
The Quartet by The prizewinning author of Founding Brothers and American Sphinx now gives us the unexpected story--brilliantly told--of why the thirteen colonies, having just fought off the imposition of a distant centralized governing power, would decide to subordinate themselves anew. After the triumph of the American Revolution there was no guarantee that the colonies would relinquish their independence and accept the creation of a federal government with power over their individual autonomy. The Quartet is the story of this second American founding and of the men responsible--some familiar, such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, and some less so, such as Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris. Through their efforts, they diagnosed the systemic dysfunctions created by the Articles of Confederation, conspired to force a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, orchestrated the debate in the state ratifying conventions, and, finally, drafted the Bill of Rights, which assured state compliance with the new constitutional settlement.ISBN: 9780804172486Publication Date: 2016-05-03 -
The Romanovs by The Romanovs were the most successful dynasty of modern times, ruling a sixth of the world's surface for three centuries. How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world's greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln, Queen Victoria and Lenin. To rule Russia was both imperial-sacred mission and poisoned chalice: six of the last twelve tsars were murdered. Peter the Great tortured his own son to death while making Russia an empire, and dominated his court with a dining club notable for compulsory drunkenness, naked dwarfs and fancy dress. Catherine the Great overthrew her own husband (who was murdered soon afterward), enjoyed affairs with a series of young male favorites, conquered Ukraine and fascinated Europe. Paul I was strangled by courtiers backed by his own son, Alexander I, who in turn faced Napoleon's invasion and the burning of Moscow, then went on to take Paris. Alexander II liberated the serfs, survived five assassination attempts and wrote perhaps the most explicit love letters ever composed by a ruler. The Romanovs climaxes with a fresh, unforgettable portrayal of Nicholas II and Alexandra, the rise and murder of Rasputin, war and revolution--and the harrowing massacre of the entire family. Dazzlingly entertaining and beautifully written from start to finish, The Romanovs brings these monarchs--male and female, great and flawed, their families and courts--blazingly to life. Drawing on new archival research, Montefiore delivers an enthralling epic of triumph and tragedy, love and murder, encompassing the seminal years 1812, 1914 and 1917, that is both a universal study of power and a portrait of empire that helps define Russia today.Call Number: DK37.8.R6 S43 2016ISBN: 9780307266521Publication Date: 2016-05-03 -
The Skin of Meaning by In The Skin of Meaning, Aaron Shurin has collected thirty years' worth of his provocative essays. Fueled by gender and queer studies and combined with radical traditions in poetry, Shurin's essays combine a highly personal and lyrical vision with a trenchant social analysis of poetry's possibilities. Whether he's examining innovations in poetic form, analyzing the gestures of drag queens, or dissecting the language of AIDS, Shurin's writing is evocative, his investigations rigorous, and his point of view unabashed. Shurin's poetic practice braids together many strands in contemporary, innovative writing, from the San Francisco Renaissance to Language Poetry and New Narrative Writing. His mentor-ships with Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov; his studies at New College of California, where he was the first graduate of the epochal Poetics Program; and his years of teaching writing provide a rich background for these essays. San Francisco provides the color and context for formulations of "prosody now," propositions of textual collage, and theories of radical narrativity, while the heart of the book searches through the dire years of the AIDS epidemic to uncover poetic meaning, and "make the heroes heroes." Book jacket.ISBN: 9780472052967Publication Date: 2016-02-17 -
The Stories of Breece d'J Pancake by Breece D'J Pancake cut short a remarkably promising career when he took his own life in 1979 at the age of twenty-six. In 1983 the posthumous publication of this book - a collection of stories that depict, with astonishing power and grace, the world of Pancake's native rural West Virginia - electrified the literary world with a force that still resounds across two decades. One is tempted to compare his debut to Hemingway's' - Joyce Carol Oates 'An exceptional voice' - Margaret Atwood 'The best, most sincere writer I've ever read' - Kurt Vonnegut'Call Number: PS3566 A559 A6 2002ISBN: 9780316715973Publication Date: 2002-07-01 -
Stories of Your Life and Others by From the author of Exhalation, an award-winning short story collection that blends "absorbing storytelling with meditations on the universe, being, time and space ... raises questions about the nature of reality and what it is to be human" (The New York Times). Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change--the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens--with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today's most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic. Includes "Story of Your Life"--the basis for the major motion picture ArrivalCall Number: PS3603.H53 A6 2016ISBN: 9781101972120Publication Date: 2016-06-14 -
Sugar in the Blood by In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart's earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story--from the seventeenth century through the present--as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas. As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade--"white gold," as it was known--had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family's experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family--its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin--she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.ISBN: 9780307474544Publication Date: 2013-10-08 -
The Sympathizer by Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction "[A] remarkable debut novel"--Philip Caputo,New York Times Book Review (cover review) The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards,The Sympathizer is one of the most acclaimed books of the twenty-first century. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabokov,The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a "man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who comes to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping spy novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.ISBN: 9780802124944Publication Date: 2016-04-12 -
Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice by For twenty years, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice has been the definitive sourcebook of theoretical foundations, pedagogical and design frameworks, and curricular models for social justice teaching practice. Thoroughly revised and updated, this third edition continues in the tradition of its predecessors to cover the most relevant issues and controversies in social justice education in a practical, hands-on format. Filled with ready-to-apply activities and discussion questions, this book provides teachers and facilitators with an accessible pedagogical approach to issues of oppression in classrooms. The revised edition also focuses on providing students the tools needed to apply their learning about these issues. Features new to this edition include: A new bridging chapter focusing on the core concepts that need to be included in all SJE practice and illustrating ways of "getting started" teaching foundational core concepts and processes. A new chapter addressing the possibilities for adapting social justice education to online and blended courses. Expanded overview sections that highlight the historical contexts and legacies of oppression, opportunities for action and change, and the intersections among forms of oppression. Added coverage of key topics for teaching social justice issues, such as establishing a positive classroom climate, institutional and social manifestations of oppression, the global implications of contemporary SJE work, and action steps for addressing injustice. New and revised material for each of the core chapters in the book complemented by fully-developed online teaching designs, including over 150 downloadables, activities, and handouts on the book's Companion Website (www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/_author/teachingfordiversity). A classic for teachers across disciplines, Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice presents a thoughtful, well-constructed, and inclusive foundation for engaging students in the complex and often daunting problems of discrimination and inequality in American society.ISBN: 9781138023345Publication Date: 2016-02-01 -
The Triumph of Seeds by As seen on PBS's American Spring LIVE, the award-winning author of Buzz and Feathers presents a natural and human history of seeds, the marvels of the plant kingdom. "The genius of Hanson's fascinating, inspiring, and entertaining book stems from the fact that it is not about how all kinds of things grow from seeds; it is about the seeds themselves." -- Mark Kurlansky, New York Times Book Review We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life: supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and pepper drove the Age of Discovery, coffee beans fueled the Enlightenment and cottonseed sparked the Industrial Revolution. Seeds are fundamental objects of beauty, evolutionary wonders, and simple fascinations. Yet, despite their importance, seeds are often seen as commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. This is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A fascinating scientific adventure, it is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow.ISBN: 9780465055999Publication Date: 2015-03-24 -
Two-Way Mirror by The poem is perhaps the highest verbal form of communication. It illuminates and it conceals. It is as precise and as vague as a mirror."--David Meltzer Two-Way Mirror is a classic book of poetics. Written in short remarks, autobiographical anecdotes, and inspirational quotations drawn from philosophical, ethnographic, and literary sources,Two-Way Mirror is both a nondidactic guide to the art Meltzer has devoted his life to, and a literary pleasure in itself. With its various writing prompts,Two-Way Mirror has proven to be both inspirational and practical, a teaching tool and a guide to creativity that makes the perfect gift for poets at any stage of development. Attractively bound and printed in a deluxe gift edition, and featuring Meltzer's collection of found artwork collaged from thrift-store grammar books, this new and expanded edition retains the charm of the original while updating it for the present day.Building upon the version he self-published in 1977, Meltzer has written additional material that considers the effect of technological developments since the book's publication, as well as an afterword in which he reflects on the history of the volume, its inception, and its usefulness. Praise forTwo-Way Mirror ReadingTwo-Way Mirror, I feel continually surprised, excited, alive. This book makes me want to make poems, and readers, beware: if you are not already a poet, this book could very well turn you into one."--Matthew Zapruder "I know of no better amalgam of poetry & poetics & no better introduction to the ways in which poetry can emerge for us & lead us beyond ourselves & toward our own fulfillments. Meltzer's grace of mind & the life of poetry that surrounds it make the case complete."--Jerome Rothenberg "A great book of learning from a lifetime's thoughts of the poem. Ramble, scribble, tickle, lightbulb! Timely and highly worthwhile."--Clark Coolidge "Invaluable for anyone who reads or writes poetry, or has a restless desire of any kind, this wondrous, zany compendium gives us 'a biography of poetry' that directly enters our veins, bypassing all the crud and restoring our sense of the art, and David Meltzer is a champion of the impossible to have compiled it ... a gift of delight and wisdom--keep it in your bag by day and by your bed at night."--Mary RuefleISBN: 9780872866508Publication Date: 2015-04-21 -
The Warmth of Other Suns by NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic. MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times * USA Today * O: The Oprah Magazine * Amazon * Publishers Weekly * Salon * Newsday * The Daily Beast NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker * The Washington Post * The Economist * Boston Globe * San Francisco Chronicle * Chicago Tribune * Entertainment Weekly * Philadelphia Inquirer * The Guardian * The Seattle Times * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * The Christian Science Monitor ISBN: 9780679763888Publication Date: 2011-10-04 -
We Got the Neutron Bomb by Taking us back to late '70s and early '80s Hollywood--pre-crack, pre-AIDS, pre-Reagan--We Got the Neutron Bomb re-creates word for word the rage, intensity, and anarchic glory of the Los Angeles punk scene, straight from the mouths of the scenesters, zinesters, groupies, filmmakers, and musicians who were there. "California was wide-open sex--no condoms, no birth control, no morality, no guilt." --Kim Fowley "The Runaways were rebels, all of us were. And a lot of people looked up to us. It helped a lot of kids who had very mediocre, uneventful, unhappy lives. It gave them something to hold on to." --Cherie Currie "The objective was to create something for our own personal satisfaction, because everything in our youthful and limited opinion sucked, and we knew better." --John Doe "The Masque was like Heaven and Hell all rolled into one. It was a bomb shelter, a basement. It was so amazing, such a dive ... but it was our dive." --Hellin Killer "At least fifty punks were living at the Canterbury. You'd walk into the courtyard and there'd be a dozen different punk songs all playing at the same time. It was an incredible environment." --Belinda Carlisle Assembled from exhaustive interviews, We Got the Neutron Bomb tells the authentically gritty stories of bands like the Runaways, the Germs, X, the Screamers, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks--their rise, their fall, and their undeniable influence on the rock 'n' roll of today.ISBN: 9780609807743Publication Date: 2001-11-13
