2018 Book Recommendations
Blackbird House by
With “incantatory prose” that “sweeps over the reader like a dream,” (Philadelphia Inquirer), Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future, with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred years. In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a man destined to betray her; Lysander Wynn, attacked by a halibut as big as a horse, certain that his life is ruined until a boarder wearing red boots arrives to change everything; Maya Cooper, who does not understand the true meaning of the love between her mother and father until it is nearly too late. From the time of the British occupation of Massachusetts to our own modern world, family after family’s lives are inexorably changed, not only by the people they love but by the lives they lead inside Blackbird House. These interconnected narratives are as intelligent as they are haunting, as luminous as they are unusual. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms us and how it is the one lasting element in our lives. The past both dissipates and remains contained inside the rooms of Blackbird House, where there are terrible secrets, inspired beauty, and, above all else, a spirit of coming home. From the writer Time has said tells "truths powerful enough to break a reader’s heart” comes a glorious travelogue through time and fate, through loss and love and survival. Welcome to Blackbird House.
ISBN: 9780345455932Publication Date: 2005-03-29
A Map of Home by
From America to the Middle East and back again-- the sparkling story of one girl's childhood, by an exciting new voice in literary fiction In this fresh, funny, and fearless debut novel, Randa Jarrar chronicles the coming-of-age of Nidali, one of the most unique and irrepressible narrators in contemporary fiction. Born in 1970s Boston to an Egyptian-Greek mother and a Palestinian father, the rebellious Nidali--whose name is a feminization of the word "struggle"--soon moves to a very different life in Kuwait. There the family leads a mildly eccentric middle-class existence until the Iraqi invasion drives them first to Egypt and then to Texas. This critically acclaimed debut novel is set to capture the hearts of everyone who has ever wondered what their own map of home might look like. Read Randa Jarrar's posts on the Penguin Blog.
Call Number: PS 3610 .A77 M37 2008ISBN: 9780143116264Publication Date: 2009-08-25
The Ghost Detectives' Guide to Haunted San Francisco by
Revealing a side of the famed city that tourists rarely experience, this handbook uncovers a hidden realm of ghosts, apparitions, and paranormal phenomena in San Francisco. The guide delves into the haunted hotspots that unsuspectedly lie in the city's most famous landmarks and neighborhoods, including Alcatraz, Chinatown, and the Presidio, while directions to each hair-raising location are provided, encouraging adventurous sightseers to seek out their own ghostly encounters. With the history of each frightening locale, the probable life stories of their resident spirits, and actual transcripts of their conversations with a psychic, this supernatural study delivers a realistic feel for encountering the uncanny.
Call Number: BF1472.U6 A94 2011ISBN: 9781610350075Publication Date: 2011-04-01
Ghostland by
One of NPR's Great Reads of 2016 "A lively assemblage and smart analysis of dozens of haunting stories... absorbing...[and] intellectually intriguing."--The New York Times Book Review An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places--and deep into the dark side of our history. Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living--how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made--and why those changes are made--Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.
Call Number: BF1472.U6 D53 2016ISBN: 9781101980200Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Nanjing by
2016 REUBEN AWARD WINNER - BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL! After the bombs fell and shook the walls of Nanjing, the Imperial Japanese Army entered and seized the Chinese capital. Through the dust of the demolished buildings, screams echo off the rubble. Two abandoned Chinese soldiers are trapped and desperately outnumbered inside the walled city. What they'll encounter will haunt them. But in the face of horror, they'll learn that resistance and bravery cannot be destroyed by the enemy. Ethan Young (Tails) delves into World War II's forgotten tragedy, the devastating Japanese invasion of Nanjing, and tells a heart-wrenching tale of war, loss, and defiance. Beautifully illustrated in black and white. "In Nanjing, cartoonist Ethan Young tells an intimate story against an epic landscape. Bold, heart-breaking, and gorgeously rendered." --Eisner and Printz Award-winner Gene Luen Yang (Boxers & Saints, American Born Chinese) "Young's decision not to glorify violence or titillate the reader in any way avoids a common pitfall and heightens the drama. This is stunning, stirring historical fiction by a creator at the height of his craft." (Starred review) --Publishers Weekly "Young's is just one chapter in an overwhelmingly grievous episode of the 20th century. The specifics might be fictional amidst a historical backdrop, but in creating names, depicting individual faces both living and dead, Young conjures a haunting microcosm amidst a horrifying event of epic proportions." --Smithsonian APAC Bookdragon "A rugged black and white style ... a little Kubert, a little Tardi." --The Beat "Nanjing: The Burning City deserves a spot alongside not only historical comics, but wartime prose and non-fiction as well. It's not often that an author can so skillfully evoke powerful emotion while telling a complex and long-forgotten story and this book is an excellent, necessary addition to the genre." --The A.V. Club "Haunting and powerful, Nanjing is a moving tribute to an event which needs to be remembered, as much as we'd like to forget it." --Eisner and Harvey Award-winning author Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference, Tune) "Young's expressive, thoughtful line work takes full advantage of comics' power. Nanjing reads effortlessly while begging the eyes to savor each page. A triumph at the very soul of the medium, a perfect marriage of Toth and Tatsumi." --Eisner Award-winning writer/artist Nate Powell (March, Swallow Me Whole)
Call Number: DS777.5316.N36 Y68 2015ISBN: 9781616557522Publication Date: 2015-09-01
We Gon' Be Alright by
"THE SMARTEST BOOK OF THE YEAR" (THE WASHINGTON POST) In these provocative, powerful essays acclaimed writer/journalist Jeff Chang (Can't Stop Won't Stop, Who We Be) takes an incisive and wide-ranging look at the recent tragedies and widespread protests that have shaken the country. Through deep reporting with key activists and thinkers, passionately personal writing, and distinguished cultural criticism,We Gon' Be Alright links #BlackLivesMatter to #OscarsSoWhite, Ferguson to Washington D.C., the Great Migration to resurgent nativism. Chang explores the rise and fall of the idea of "diversity," the roots of student protest, changing ideas about Asian Americanness, and the impact of a century of racial separation in housing. He argues that resegregation is the unexamined condition of our time, the undoing of which is key to moving the nation forward to racial justice and cultural equity.
Call Number: E184.A1 C4424 2016ISBN: 9780312429485Publication Date: 2016-09-13
Assata by
On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder. This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. The result is a signal contribution to the literature about growing up Black in America that has already taken its place alongside The Autobiography of Malcolm X and the works of Maya Angelou. Two years after her conviction, Assata Shakur escaped from prison. She was given political asylum by Cuba, where she now resides.
Call Number: E185.97.S53 A3 2014ISBN: 9781556520747Publication Date: 1999-11-01
Never Caught by
Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction "A fascinating and moving account of a courageous and resourceful woman. Beautifully written and utilizing previously untapped sources it sheds new light both on the father of our country and on the intersections of slavery and freedom." --Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Fiery Trial and Gateway to Freedom A startling and eye-opening look into America's First Family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington's runaway slave who risked everything to escape the nation's capital and reach freedom. When George Washington was elected president, he reluctantly left his beloved Mount Vernon to serve in Philadelphia, the temporary seat of the nation's capital. In setting up his household he took Tobias Lear, his celebrated secretary and eight slaves, including Ona Judge, about whom little has been written. As he grew accustomed to Northern ways, there was one change he couldn't get his arms around: Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire. Though Ona Judge lived a life of relative comfort, the few pleasantries she was afforded were nothing compared to freedom, a glimpse of which she encountered first-hand in Philadelphia. So, when the opportunity presented itself, Judge left everything she knew to escape to New England. Yet freedom would not come without its costs. At just twenty-two-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property. With impeccable research, historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar weaves a powerful tale and offers fascinating new scholarship on how one young woman risked it all to gain freedom from the famous founding father.
Call Number: E444 .D86 2017ISBN: 9781501126390Publication Date: 2017-02-07
Little Fires Everywhere by
The runaway New York Times bestseller! Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Goodreads, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more! "I read Little Fires Everywhere in a single, breathless sitting." -Jodi Picoult "To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears." - Reese Witherspoon "I am loving Little Fires Everywhere. Maybe my favorite novel I've read this year."--John Green "Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel." - Paula Hawkins From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster. Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more.
ISBN: 9780735224292Publication Date: 2017-09-12
Trans Allyship Workbook by
Revised, updated and expanded for 2017 - the new Trans Allyship Workbook is everything you've been wanting to read about trans allyship A workbook to help you build your understanding of trans communities and develop concrete skills for supporting trans people in your life, with over 100 pages of explanation, activities, illustrations and reflections including - New sections on intersectionality, singular they, and philosophies of allyship Tips and "best practices" for the special allyship situations of parents, teachers, healthcare providers and therapists Tons of new color illustrations New activities - it really is a "workbook" - to help you deepen and practice your allyship skills Extensive glossary to get updated on recent evolutions in trans terminology Resource lists to help you take the next steps in your learning, whether for personal or professional development
Call Number: HQ77.9 .S545 2017ISBN: 9780990636915Publication Date: 2017-10-01
Blood and Earth by
"Blood and Earth is a gripping account of the deadly link between slavery and environmental destruction. Kevin Bales is a social scientist, human rights activist, and journalist and he's also one of the world's leading experts on modern slavery. In his work he began to notice the connection between environmental decline and slavery: the two almost always went hand-in-hand, whether in the hellish gold mines of Ghana or the miraculously beautiful mangrove forests of Bangladesh. But why? He set off to find the answer on a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cell phones in our pockets. He found solutions that redeemed both the lives of the slaves in the world's most threatened places and the environments they live in. This is a clear-eyed, inspiring, and profoundly hopeful book that brings us dramatic stories from the world's environmental and human rights hotspots and offers solutions to our most pressing crises."
Call Number: HT867 .B347 2016ISBN: 9780812995763Publication Date: 2016-01-19
On Tyranny by
#1 New York Times Bestseller The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
Call Number: JC495 .S55 2017ISBN: 9780804190114Publication Date: 2017-02-28
Little Book of Restorative Justice for Colleges and Universities by
Here's a call to colleges and universities to consider implementing restorative practices on their campuses, ensuring fair treatment of students and staff while minimizing institutional liability, protecting the campus community, and boosting morale. From an associate dean of student affairs who has put these models to work on his campus. Restorative justice is a collaborative decision-making process that includes victims, offenders, and others who are seeking to hold offenders accountable by having them (a) accept and acknowledge responsibility for their offenses, (b) to the best of their ability, repair the harm they caused to victims and communities, and (c) work to reduce the risk of re-offense by building positive social ties to the community. David Karp writes in his introduction, "As a student affairs administrator, I have become deeply committed to the concept and practice of restorative justice. I have experienced how it can work given the very real pressures among campus conduct administrators to manage high case loads, ensure fair treatment, minimize institutional liability, protect the campus community, boost morale in a division with high turnover, and help students learn from their mistakes without creating insurmountable obstacles to their future successes."
Call Number: LB 2344ISBN: 9781680991284Publication Date: 2015-09-01
Rue Wilson Monday by
Here are Anselm Hollo's notes on rue Wilson Monday: "When I was invited to spend five months in France, in an old hotel long frequented by artists and writers, I decided to write something that would NOT be your typical 'sabbatical poem'--that familiar rumination, by the U.S. American academic (temporary) expatriate, 'on' the Mona Lisa, Baudelaire's grave, or 'how different all this is from back home in Missoula Montana!' "I believe that rue Wilson Monday turned out to be something possibly more interesting: a hybrid of day book, informal sonnet sequence, and extended, 'laminated' essay-poem, with an aesthetic (dare I say lyricism?) perhaps better understood by our younger generation of poets than by their predecessors, those mid-twentieth-century traveloguists. Works I found particularly inspiring in my endeavor were Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets and Edward Dorn's Abhorrences--books that will make me chuckle and weep to the end of my days. "The book received its title from French poet Guillaume Apollinaire's 1913 poem 'Lundi rue Christine' (Monday rue Christine), a Cubist work composed almost entirely out of verbatim speech from various conversations in a cafe.M "In rue Wilson Monday, similar conversations take place in and around my head during that stay (August 1998/January 1999) at the Hotel Chevillon, an artists' and writers' retreat in the small town of Grez-sur-Loing. Back in 1876, Robert Louis Stevenson came to visit his cousin Robert at this hotel, whose present street address is 114 rue Wilson, "La Rue Grande" (Main Street) back then. "To invite the reader to participate in my often elliptical conversations with these folks, I have provided footnotes, and these too are an integral part of the poem and the conversation."
Call Number: PR6015.O415 C26 1999ISBN: 9781888809220Publication Date: 2000-12-31
What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by
Coming this October: Killing Commendatore, the much-anticipated new novel from Haruki Murakami An intimate look at writing, running, and the incredible way they intersect, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is an illuminating glimpse into the solitary passions of one of our greatest artists. While training for the New York City Marathon, Haruki Murakami decided to keep a journal of his progress. The result is a memoir about his intertwined obsessions with running and writing, full of vivid recollections and insights, including the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, here is a rich and revelatory work that elevates the human need for motion to an art form.
Call Number: PL856. U673 Z465 2009ISBN: 9780307389831Publication Date: 2009-08-11
No Land's Man by
"It always bothered me that Aasif was more than merely funny-he's also a great actor. Now I've learned he's an amazing storyteller as well, and I am furious . . . but also grateful. Aasif's movement between cultures and genres is what makes him and his story singularly funny, poignant, and essential." - John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require "My father moved our family to the United States because of a word. It was a word whose meaning fascinated him. It was a singularly American word, a fat word, a word that could only be spoken with decadent pride. That word was . . . Brunch! 'The beauty of America,' he would say, 'is they have so much food, that between breakfast and lunch they have to stop and eat again.'" --from "International House of Patel" If you're an Indo-Muslim-British-American actor who has spent more time in bars than mosques over the past few decades, turns out it's a little tough to explain who you are or where you are from. In No Land's Man Aasif Mandvi explores this and other conundrums through stories about his family, ambition, desire, and culture that range from dealing with his brunch-obsessed father, to being a high-school-age Michael Jackson impersonator, to joining a Bible study group in order to seduce a nice Christian girl, to improbably becoming America's favorite Muslim/Indian/Arab/Brown/Doctor correspondent on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. This is a book filled with passion, discovery, and humor. Mandvi hilariously and poignantly describes a journey that will resonate with anyone who has had to navigate his or her way in the murky space between lands. Or anyone who really loves brunch.
Call Number: PN2287.M2695 A3 2014ISBN: 9781452107912Publication Date: 2014-11-04
Jane Eyre by
Introduction by Joyce Carol Oates * Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Initially published under the pseudonym Currer Bell in 1847, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyreerupted onto the English literary scene, immediately winning the devotion of many of the world's most renowned writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, who declared it a work "of great genius." Widely regarded as a revolutionary novel, Brontë's masterpiece introduced the world to a radical new type of heroine, one whose defiant virtue and moral courage departed sharply from the more acquiescent and malleable female characters of the day. Passionate, dramatic, and surprisingly modern, Jane Eyre endures as one of the world's most beloved novels.
Call Number: PN2287.M2695 A3 2014ISBN: 9780553211405Publication Date: 1983-09-01
MaddAddam by
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale In this final volume of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of the population. Toby is part of a small band of survivors, along with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth. As Toby explains their origins to the curious Crakers, her tales cohere into a luminous oral history that sets down humanity's past--and points toward its future. Blending action, humor, romance, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Atwood--a moving and dramatic conclusion to her epic work of speculative fiction. A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Book A Best Book of the Year: The Guardian, NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, The Globe and Mail A GoodReads Reader's Choice
Call Number: PR9199.3.A8 M34 2013ISBN: 9780307455482Publication Date: 2014-08-12
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
The Year of the Flood by
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale Set in the visionary future of Atwood's acclaimed Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood is at once a moving tale of lasting friendship and a landmark work of speculative fiction. In this second book of the MaddAddam trilogy, the long-feared waterless flood has occurred, altering Earth as we know it and obliterating most human life. Among the survivors are Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, who is barricaded inside a luxurious spa. Amid shadowy, corrupt ruling powers and new, gene-spliced life forms, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away.
Call Number: PR9199.3.A8 Y43 2009ISBN: 9780307455475Publication Date: 2010-07-27
Station Eleven by
A National Book Award Finalist A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band's existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.
Call Number: PR9199.4.S727 S73 2014ISBN: 9780804172448Publication Date: 2015-06-02
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick The American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century. From the moment she entered the world, Francie needed to be made of stern stuff, for the often harsh life of Williamsburg demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family's erratic and eccentric behavior--such as her father Johnny's taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy's habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce--no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans' life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans' daily experiences are tenderly threaded with family connectedness and raw with honesty. Betty Smith has, in the pages of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life-from "junk day" on Saturdays, when the children of Francie's neighborhood traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Betty Smith has artfully caught this sense of exciting life in a novel of childhood, replete with incredibly rich moments of universal experiences--a truly remarkable achievement for any writer.
Call Number: PS3537.M32 T78ISBN: 9780061120077Publication Date: 2006-05-30
My Dreams Out in the Street by
Rita Jackson is a young woman on the skids, spending her time in shelters and on the dot-com-drunk streets of late 1990s San Francisco. She's a young woman haunted by the murder of her mother when she was thirteen, and a young bride haunted by the disappearance of her husband, Jimmy, who split after a nasty argument more than a year earlier. Together Jimmy and Rita were slipping into drugs and hard times. Rita is filled with feelings of guilt and failure, and the hope that she will one day and Jimmy. She doesn't know that he is still in the city, still in love with her, waiting tables in an expensive restaurant while trying to get a foothold in the straight life.When Rita witnesses the aftermath of a murder, her own life is endangered. She becomes involved with Gary Shepard, a married criminal investigator drawn to the dark side of this young woman. What unfolds is a story of three flawed people struggling with themselves as much as with their circumstances, as each of them is pulled more deeply and dangerously into the consequences of their decisions. When a drunken night leads Jimmy to jeopardize his second and last chance, it seems unlikely that these sweet, damaged people will ever come to anything, let alone find and -- miracle of miracles -- save one another.But fate, in Addonizio's hands, works in strange and beautiful geometries. And redemption, she tells us, is never impossible.
Call Number: PS3551.D3997 M92 2007ISBN: 9780743297738Publication Date: 2010-10-01
I Hotel by
2010 National Book Award Finalist 2010-2011 Asian/Pacific American Library Association (APALA) Book Award Winner in Adult Fiction 2010 California Book Award Winner Dazzling and ambitious, this hip, multi-voiced fusion of prose, playwriting, graphic art, and philosophy spins an epic tale of America's struggle for civil rights as it played out in San Francisco's Chinatown. Divided into ten novellas, one for each year,I Hotel begins in 1968, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, students took to the streets, the Vietnam War raged, and cities burned. As Karen Yamashita's motley cast of students, laborers, artists, revolutionaries, and provocateurs make their way through the history of the day, they become caught in a riptide of politics and passion, clashing ideologies and personal turmoil. And by the time the survivors unite to save the International Hotel--epicenter of the Yellow Power Movement--their stories have come to define the very heart of the American experience.
Call Number: PS3554.A93766 I92 2010ISBN: 9781566892391Publication Date: 2010-06-01
We're on: a June Jordan Reader by
"June Jordan was not the blacksmith's daughter. June Jordan was the blacksmith. . . . She never waited around, not for anyone's permission, to write or act or be. . . . For this book to have its birth now, in the lopsided moment when we need it most, is no chance occurrence. This great woman blacksmith is still sweetly hammering us on." --Nikky Finney Poet, activist, and essayist June Jordan is a prolific, significant American writer who pushed the limits of political vision and moral witness, traversing a career of over forty years. With poetry, prose, letters, and more, this reader is a key resource for understanding the scope, complexity, and novelty of this pioneering Black American writer. From "Poem about Police Violence": Tell me something what you think would happen if everytime they kill a black boy then we kill a cop everytime they kill a black man then we kill a cop you think the accident rate would lower subsequently? . . . I lose consciousness of ugly bestial rabid and repetitive affront as when they tell me 18 cops in order to subdue one man 18 strangled him to death in the ensuing scuffle (don't you idolize the diction of the powerful: subdue and scuffle my oh my) and that the murder that the killing of Arthur Miller on a Brooklyn street was just a "justifiable accident" again (again) People been having accidents all over the globe so long like that I reckon that the only suitable insurance is a gun
Call Number: PS3560.O73 A6 2017ISBN: 9781938584350Publication Date: 2017-09-19
Apocryphal Lorca by
Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) had enormous impact on the generation of American poets who came of age during the cold war, from Robert Duncan and Allen Ginsberg to Robert Creeley and Jerome Rothenberg. In large numbers, these poets have not only translated his works, but written imitations, parodies, and pastiches—along with essays and critical reviews. Jonathan Mayhew’s Apocryphal Lorca is an exploration of the afterlife of this legendary Spanish writer in the poetic culture of the United States. The book examines how Lorca in English translation has become a specifically American poet, adapted to American cultural and ideological desiderata—one that bears little resemblance to the original corpus, or even to Lorca’s Spanish legacy. As Mayhew assesses Lorca’s considerable influence on the American literary scene of the latter half of the twentieth century, he uncovers fundamental truths about contemporary poetry, the uses and abuses of translation, and Lorca himself.
Call Number: PS3560.O73 A6 2017ISBN: 9780226512037Publication Date: 2009-04-07
In Other Words by
National Best Seller On a post-college visit to Florence, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri fell in love with the Italian language. Twenty years later, seeking total immersion, she and her family relocated to Rome, where she began to read and write solely in her adopted tongue. A startling act of self-reflection, In Other Words is Lahiri's meditation on the process of learning to express herself in another language--and the stunning journey of a writer seeking a new voice.
Call Number: PS3562.A316 Z46 2016ISBN: 9781101911464Publication Date: 2017-02-07
Cat's Cradle by
"A free-wheeling vehicle . . . an unforgettable ride!"--The New York Times Cat's Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. A book that left an indelible mark on an entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of the twentieth century's most important works--and Vonnegut at his very best. "[Vonnegut is] an unimitative and inimitable social satirist."--Harper's Magazine "Our finest black-humorist . . . We laugh in self-defense."--Atlantic Monthly
Call Number: PS3572.O5 C3 1963ISBN: 9780385333481Publication Date: 1998-09-08
All the Light We Cannot See by
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book, National Book Award finalist, more than two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the stunningly beautiful instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" (Los Angeles Times).
Call Number: PS3604.O34 A77 2014ISBN: 9781501173219Publication Date: 2017-04-04
The Association of Small Bombs by
National Book Award Finalist Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize One of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year One of Granta's Best Young American Novelists A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Voices Award Named a Best Book of the Year by: Buzzfeed, Esquire, New York magazine, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The AV Club, The Fader, Redbook, Electric Literature, Book Riot, Bustle, Good magazine, PureWow, and PopSugar "Wonderful. . . . Smart, devastating, unpredictable. . . . I suggest you go out and buy this one. Post haste." --Fiona Maazel, The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant." --Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal "[Mahajan's] eagerness to go at the bomb from every angle suggests a voracious approach to fiction-making." --The New Yorker For readers of Mohsin Hamid, Dave Eggers, Arundhati Roy, and Teju Cole, The Association of Small Bombs is an expansive and deeply humane novel that is at once groundbreaking in its empathy, dazzling in its acuity, and ambitious in scope When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family's television set at a repair shop with their friend Mansoor Ahmed one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb--one of the many "small" bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world--detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb. After a brief stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where his life becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist whose own allegiances and beliefs are more malleable than Mansoor could imagine. Woven among the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland. Karan Mahajan writes brilliantly about the effects of terrorism on victims and perpetrators, proving himself to be one of the most provocative and dynamic novelists of his generation.
Call Number: PS3613.A34925 A87 2016ISBN: 9780143109273Publication Date: 2016-10-18
Circe by
#1 New York Times Bestseller " A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story, Circe manages to be both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right." --- Alexandra Alter, New York Times In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.
Call Number: PS3613.I5445 (GPOP)ISBN: 9780316556347Publication Date: 2018-04-10
The Sympathizer by
The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, compared by critics to the works of Graham Greene, Denis Johnson, and George Orwell,The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity, politics, and America, wrought in electric prose. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain, is a man of divided loyalties, a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent in America after the end of the Vietnam War. A powerful story of love and friendship, and a gripping espionage novel,The Sympathizer examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.
Call Number: PS3614.G97 S96 2015ISBN: 9780802124944Publication Date: 2016-04-12
Carry You by
Winner of the Autumn House Fiction Contest, selected by Amina Gautier (2017) "Carry You is an intense read, a linked collection of finely intertwined stories expertly dealing with the intricate nature of blame, complicity, duty, and war. These stories are masterful without being heavy-handed. Each story in this collection is a satisfaction." - Amina Gautier
Call Number: PS3619.I559 A6 2018ISBN: 9781938769290Publication Date: 2018-03-01
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by
The New York Times Bestseller A Winner of the Alex Award, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything--instead, they "check out" large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele's behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends. But when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore's secrets extend far beyond its walls. Rendered with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.
Call Number: PS3619.L6278 M77 2013ISBN: 9781250037756Publication Date: 2013-09-24
A Little Life by
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The New York Times * The Washington Post * The Wall Street Journal * NPR * Vanity Fair * Vogue * Minneapolis Star Tribune * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * The Guardian * O, The Oprah Magazine * Slate * Newsday * Buzzfeed * The Economist * Newsweek * People * Kansas City Star * Shelf Awareness * Time Out New York * Huffington Post * Book Riot * Refinery29 * Bookpage * Publishers Weekly * Kirkus WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A Little Life follows four college classmates--broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition--as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara's stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
Call Number: PS3625.A674 L58 2015ISBN: 9780804172707Publication Date: 2016-01-26
