Evening Book Group Recommendations for 2019
We
Will Pick 10 Titles
Mystery:
Winner of the
2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! From the internationally
bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era
London In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes
(age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the
docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses
and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had
been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their
aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house
to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom
upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at
the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his
lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence
against his brother. The court heard testimony about severe headaches, his
fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the
pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and
neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The
judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most
infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be
the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked
anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy. At a time of great tumult
and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties
about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and
evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail
and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its
aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the
past.
1920s India: Perveen
Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer, is investigating a suspicious will on
behalf of three Muslim widows living in full purdah when the case takes a turn
toward the murderous. The author of the Agatha and Macavity Award-winning Rei
Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric new historical mystery with a
captivating heroine. Inspired
in part by the woman who made history as India’s first female attorney, The
Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural
1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth. Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected
Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the
first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford,
Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes women’s legal rights
especially important to her. Mistry Law
has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill
owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork,
she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their
full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on? Perveen is suspicious,
especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X—meaning she
probably couldn’t even read the document. The Farid widows live in full
purdah—in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to
any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen
tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions
escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really
happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are
in further danger.
in further danger.
Nonfiction:
The Book of Joy:
Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and
Desmond Tutu p. 384 ISBN: 978-0399185045 An instant New York Times bestseller
Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet. In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering? They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy. This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye. We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet. In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering? They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy. This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye. We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.
NAMED A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 #1 New York Times and #1 Wall
Street Journal bestseller! A Best Book of 2017 from the Boston Globe
One of the 12 Best Books of the Year
from National Geographic Included
in Lithub's Ultimate Best Books of 2017 List A Favorite Science Book of 2017 from Science
News A five-hundred-year-old
legend. An ancient curse. A stunning medical mystery. And a pioneering journey
into the unknown heart of the world's densest jungle. Since the days of
conquistador Hernán Cortés, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense
wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the
Lost City of the Monkey God. Indigenous tribes speak of ancestors who fled
there to escape the Spanish invaders, and they warn that anyone who enters this
sacred city will fall ill and die. In 1940, swashbuckling journalist Theodore
Morde returned from the rainforest with hundreds of artifacts and an
electrifying story of having found the Lost City of the Monkey God-but then
committed suicide without revealing its location. Three quarters of a century
later, bestselling author Doug Preston joined a team of scientists on a
groundbreaking new quest. In 2012 he climbed aboard a rickety, single-engine
plane carrying the machine that would change everything: lidar, a highly
advanced, classified technology that could map the terrain under the densest
rainforest canopy. In an unexplored valley ringed by steep mountains, that
flight revealed the unmistakable image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing
evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.
Venturing into this raw, treacherous, but breathtakingly beautiful wilderness
to confirm the discovery, Preston and the team battled torrential rains,
quickmud, disease-carrying insects, jaguars, and deadly snakes. But it wasn't
until they returned that tragedy struck: Preston and others found they had
contracted in the ruins a horrifying, sometimes lethal-and incurable-disease.
Suspenseful and shocking, filled with colorful history, hair-raising adventure,
and dramatic twists of fortune, THE LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD is the
absolutely true, eyewitness account of one of the great discoveries of the
twenty-first century.
#1 New York
Times Bestseller | Named one of the Best Books of the Year
by The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The
Seattle Times • Esquire • Time - Winner of the Carnegie Medal for
Nonfiction | Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction | Winner of a
Books for a Better Life Award | Finalist for the Los Angeles Book Prize |
Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize | An American Library
Association Notable Book A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to
redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of
the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time Bryan Stevenson was a
young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice
dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly
condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our
criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a
young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t
commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination,
and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice
forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic,
gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he
has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true
justice.
2 Requests
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST - AMAZON EDITORS' PICK FOR THE BEST BOOK OF 2017
"Disturbing and riveting...It will sear your soul." —Dave
Eggers, New York Times Book Review Shelf Awareness’s Best Book of 2017
Named a best book of the year by Wall Street Journal, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment
Weekly, NPR's Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "On
Point", Vogue.com, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle
Times, Bloomberg, Library Journal, Paste, Book Browse
From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New
York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a
twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous
crimes in American history In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the
world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was
discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built
mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed
off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her
relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and
more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild
West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes
like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to
investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to
more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the
organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled
the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a
former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together
an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the
bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest
techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one
of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. In Killers
of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes
in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of
research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative
nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister
secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the
callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to
operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is
utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.
The New York Times bestseller
A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections,
about two eleven-year-olds in Sudan, a girl in 2008 and a boy in 1985. The
girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours’ walk from her home:
she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the
"lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on
foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring
every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer
lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect
with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.
A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal,
and Amazon Charts Bestseller!"the glowing
ghosts of the radium girls haunt us still."―NPR Books The
incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger. The
Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the
nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community.
From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the
otherwise dark years of the First World War. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil
amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical
covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious
fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the
luckiest alive ― until they begin to fall mysteriously ill. But the factories
that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the
gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal
poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves
embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and
in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to
come. Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium
Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the
"wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the
face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to
life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved
hundreds of thousands of lives...
Harvey. Maria. Irma.
Sandy. Katrina. We live in a time of unprecedented hurricanes and catastrophic
weather events, a time when it is increasingly clear that climate change is
neither imagined nor distant―and that rising seas are transforming the coastline
of the United States in irrevocable ways.In this highly original work of
lyrical reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places
where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and
from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans
in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving
firsthand accounts from those facing this choice―a Staten Islander who lost her
father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a
drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped
slaves hundreds of years ago―with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists,
and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already
displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept
at the margins.At once polyphonic and precise, Rising is a
shimmering meditation on vulnerability and on vulnerable communities, both
human and more than human, and on how to let go of the places we love.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present
moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our
history when hope overcame division and fear.
Our current climate of partisan fury is not new,
and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham
Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day.
Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including
Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the
courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early
suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa
Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings
lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in
American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth
of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and
the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women’s rights;
the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of
America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts
led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson’s crusade against Jim Crow.
Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the
contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope
over fear—a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always—or even often—been heroic, we
have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In
this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, “The good news is that we have
come through such darkness before”—as, time and again, Lincoln’s better angels
have found a way to prevail.
WINNER OF THE 2016
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION -NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
| WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER -NAMED A
FINALIST for the 2016 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION - NOMINATED for the 2016 NAACP IMAGE AWARD
FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK OF NONFICTION, and the 2017 HURSTON/WRIGHT
LEGACY AWARD IN NONFICTION -
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
by Boston Globe, Washington Post, Chicago
Review of Books, The Root, Buzzfeed, Bustle,
and Entropy THE MOST
AMBITIOUS BOOK OF 2016 -- The Washington Post - A KIRKUS BEST
HISTORY BOOK OF 2016, BEST BOOK OF 2016 TO EXPLAIN CURRENT POLITICS
& BEST HEARTRENDING NONFICTION BOOK of 2016 -Some Americans cling desperately to
the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the
first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is
alive and well in America--more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And
as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the
Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we
must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and
enshrined in American society. In this deeply researched and fast-moving
narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and
their staggering power over the course of American history. Stamped
from the Beginning uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals
to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and
segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister
Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd
Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist
Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and
pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in
America. Contrary to popular conceptions, racist ideas did not arise from
ignorance or hatred. Instead, they were devised and honed by some of the most
brilliant minds of each era. These intellectuals used their brilliance to
justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's
racial disparities in everything from wealth to health. And while racist ideas
are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In
shedding much-needed light on the murky history of racist ideas, Stamped
from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose them--and in
the process, gives us reason to hope.
"ENGROSSING AND RELENTLESS" --The Washington Post, "THIS
DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF RACIST IDEAS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING" --The
Root, "NOVELISTIC FLAIR" --The Stranger, "AMBITIOUS,
MAGISTERIAL" --Starred Kirkus Review, "MUST FOR SERIOUS
READERS" --Library Journal, "HEAVILY RESEARCHED YET
READABLE" –Booklist, "WORTH THE TIME OF ANYONE WHO WANTS TO
UNDERSTAND RACISM" --The Seattle Times, "EVER-RELEVANT CONTEXT
FOR THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MOMENT" --The Dallas Morning News,
"A COMPELLING, THOROUGHLY ENLIGTENING, UNSETTLING, AND NECESSARY
READ" –Vox, "GRACEFUL, ENGAGING PROSE" --Tampa Bay
Times
Memoir/Biography:
#1 New York Times
bestseller Now
a Major Motion Picture Starring Steve
Carell * Timothée Chalamet * Maura Tierney * and Amy Ryan “A brilliant,
harrowing, heartbreaking, fascinating story, full of beautiful moments and
hard-won wisdom. This book will save a lot of lives and heal a lot of hearts.”
— Anne Lamott “‘When one of us tells the
truth, he makes it easier for all of us to open our hearts to our own pain and
that of others.’ That’s ultimately what Beautiful Boy is
about: truth and healing.” — Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia
What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our
family? What did I do wrong? Those are the wrenching questions that haunted
David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative
steps toward recovery. Before Nic became addicted to crystal meth, he was a
charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by
his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied,
stole, and lived on the streets. David Sheff traces the first warning signs:
the denial, the three a.m. phone calls—is it Nic? the police? the hospital? His
preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself. But as a journalist, he
instinctively researched every treatment that might save his son. And he
refused to give up on Nic. “Filled with
compelling anecdotes and important insights . . . An eye-opening memoir.”
— Washington Post
#1 NEW
YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An unforgettable memoir about a young girl
who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a
PhD from Cambridge University. Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS
NewsHour and The New York Times. “A coming-of-age memoir reminiscent of The
Glass Castle.”—O: The Oprah Magazine. “Tara Westover is living proof
that some people are flat-out, boots-always-laced-up indomitable.”—USA
Today. “The extremity of Westover’s upbringing emerges gradually through
her telling, which only makes the telling more alluring and harrowing.”—The
New York Times Book Review. Tara Westover was seventeen the first
time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of
Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches
and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills” bag. In the summer she stewed herbs
for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in
her father’s junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara
never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from
explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated
from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received
an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent.
When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the
world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught
herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was
admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics,
philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events
like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge
transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and
to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far,
if there was still a way home. Educated is an account of the struggle
for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief
that comes from severing one’s closest ties. With the acute insight that
distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age
story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the
perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
2 Requests
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST
- ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The New York Times, Washington Post, The
San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, NPR, Publishers
Weekly, BookPage A revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from
acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. In this groundbreaking book, a unique
interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race,
mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as
almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history
that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed
photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal,
alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly
loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money
made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody
murder." In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she
crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning
drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own
life.
“A bold, new voice.” —People “A nuanced addition to the
#MeToo conversation.” —Vice
A young
survivor tells her searing, visceral story of sexual assault, justice, and
healing in this gutwrenching memoir.
The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen have been the victim of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. This is the true story of one of those girls. In 2014, Chessy Prout was a freshman at St. Paul’s School, a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire, when a senior boy sexually assaulted her as part of a ritualized game of conquest. Chessy bravely reported her assault to the police and testified against her attacker in court. Then, in the face of unexpected backlash from her once-trusted school community, she shed her anonymity to help other survivors find their voice. This memoir is more than an account of a horrific event. It takes a magnifying glass to the institutions that turn a blind eye to such behavior and a society that blames victims rather than perpetrators. Chessy’s story offers real, powerful solutions to upend rape culture as we know it today. Prepare to be inspired by this remarkable young woman and her story of survival, advocacy, and hope in the face of unspeakable trauma.
The numbers are staggering: nearly one in five girls ages fourteen to seventeen have been the victim of a sexual assault or attempted sexual assault. This is the true story of one of those girls. In 2014, Chessy Prout was a freshman at St. Paul’s School, a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire, when a senior boy sexually assaulted her as part of a ritualized game of conquest. Chessy bravely reported her assault to the police and testified against her attacker in court. Then, in the face of unexpected backlash from her once-trusted school community, she shed her anonymity to help other survivors find their voice. This memoir is more than an account of a horrific event. It takes a magnifying glass to the institutions that turn a blind eye to such behavior and a society that blames victims rather than perpetrators. Chessy’s story offers real, powerful solutions to upend rape culture as we know it today. Prepare to be inspired by this remarkable young woman and her story of survival, advocacy, and hope in the face of unspeakable trauma.
The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s three daughters—two
white and free, one black and enslaved—and the divergent paths they forged in a
newly independent America Thomas
Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles
Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. In Jefferson’s
Daughters, Catherine Kerrison, a scholar of early American and women’s
history, recounts the remarkable journey of these three women—and how their
struggle to define themselves reflects both the possibilities and the limitations
that resulted from the American Revolution. Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there.
Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with
their father during his diplomatic posting in Paris—a hothouse of intellectual
ferment whose celebrated salonnières are vividly brought to
life in Kerrison’s narrative. Once they returned home, however, the sisters
found their options limited by the laws and customs of early
America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped
slavery—apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself. Leaving Monticello
behind, she boarded a coach and set off for a decidedly uncertain future. For
this groundbreaking triple biography, Kerrison has uncovered never-before-published
documents written by the Jefferson sisters when they were in their teens, as
well as letters written by members of the Jefferson and Hemings families. She
has interviewed Hemings family descendants (and, with their cooperation, initiated
DNA testing) and searched for descendants of Harriet Hemings. The eventful lives of Thomas Jefferson’s daughters
provide a unique vantage point from which to examine the complicated patrimony
of the American Revolution itself. The richly interwoven story of these
three strong women and their fight to shape their own destinies sheds new light
on the ongoing movement toward human rights in America—and on the personal and
political legacy of one of our most controversial Founding Fathers.
“Beautifully written . . . To a nuanced study of Jefferson’s two white daughters, Martha and Maria, [Kerrison] innovatively adds a discussion of his only enslaved daughter, Harriet Hemings.”—The New York Times
“Beautifully written . . . To a nuanced study of Jefferson’s two white daughters, Martha and Maria, [Kerrison] innovatively adds a discussion of his only enslaved daughter, Harriet Hemings.”—The New York Times
Book Review
Classics:
From
the bestselling author of Rebecca, another classic set in beautiful and
mysterious Cornwall. Philip Ashley's older
cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in
Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that
the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy,
Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But
the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to
paranoia and fear. Now Rachel has
arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who
seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really be as cruel
as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell
in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing Ambrose's estate,
and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.
In this long-awaited sequel to the
“unforgettable” (Boston Herald)
bestseller Mrs. Mike, Benedict and Nancy Freedman paint a portrait of the World
War II era—as seen through the eyes of a young Cree woman on her own for the
very first time…When her dear friend O Be Joyful died in a flu epidemic, Mrs.
Mike Flanigan opened her home—and heart—to her orphaned child, Kathy Forquet.
Over the years, young Kathy delighted in the Flanigans’ love—and suffered the
pain of her schoolmates’ prejudice. But as the terrors of World War II drew
closer to home, Kathy decided to leave her familiar home and do her part by going
to a nursing school in Montreal. There her life fills with drama and excitement
as she meets two very different men—a Native American who helps her understand
her lost heritage, and a wounded Austrian soldier who shares fascinating
stories of his exotic, embattled homeland. And as she learns about herself and
the world beyond her hometown, she tries to find the elusive prize she has
sought for so long: the meaning of true joy… Richly detailed and emotionally
powerful, The Search for Joyfulis
the inspiring story of a young woman’s courageous search for fulfillment—and
the long-awaited new novel by the authors of the beloved Mrs. Mike, praised
by Library Journal as
“a book the reader will be unable to put down until the last page is read.”
Fiction:
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
p.432 ISBN: 9781250153968 A New York Times and USA
Today bestseller - Book of the Month Club 2016 Book of the Year - Second Place Goodreads Best Fiction of 2016
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and
the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab
backdrop of their lives. As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to
trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and
stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal,
eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the
constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind
her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing
his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's
thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold. By the time Wavy is a
teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal
world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a
well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the
scrutiny of the outside world. A powerful novel you won’t soon forget, Bryn
Greenwood's All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all
we know and believe about love.- 31 Books Bringing the Heat this Summer ―Bustle - Top Ten Hottest Reads of 2016 ―New York
Daily News Best Books of
2016 ―St. Louis Post Dispatch
Soon to be a major television event from Pascal
Pictures, starring Tom Holland. Based on the true
story of a forgotten hero, the USA Today and #1 Amazon Charts bestseller
Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s
incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.
Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian
teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are
numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino
joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for
Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him,
Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will
keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the
tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left
hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious
and powerful commanders. Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside
the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi
occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna
and for the life he dreams they will one day share. Fans of All the Light We
Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this
riveting saga of history, suspense, and love.
Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the
Governor General's Literary Award
Finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction "A powerfully expansive novel…Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor." ―New York Times Book Review “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations―those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.
Finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction "A powerfully expansive novel…Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor." ―New York Times Book Review “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations―those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.
READ THE BOOK CRITICS ARE RAVING ABOUT! “A brilliant debut.” —Graeme
Simsion, New York Times bestselling author of The
Rosie Project “A heartwarming and unforgettable page-turner.” —Booklist,
starred review “A powerful affirmation of the fragility and strength of
families.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “At once captivating and
heart-wrenching…. Ginny's is a unique and compelling voice…. Ginny Moon is
original, revealing and timely. And, with any luck, it will spark much-needed
conversations around foster care, adoption and autism. ” —The Toronto Star
Full of great big heart and unexpected humor, Ludwig's debut introduces the
lovable, wholly original Ginny Moon who discovers a new meaning of family on
her unconventional journey home. Ginny Moon is exceptional. Everyone knows it—her
friends at school, teammates on the basketball team, and especially her new
adoptive parents. They all love her, even if they don't quite understand her.
They want her to feel like she belongs. What
they don't know is that Ginny has no intention of belonging. She's found her
birth-mother on Facebook, and is determined to get back to her—even if it means
going back to a place that was extremely dangerous. Because Ginny left
something behind and she's desperate to get it back, to make things right.
But no one listens. No one understands. So Ginny
takes matters into her own hands… Benjamin
Ludwig's whip-smart, unforgettable novel is an illuminating look at one girl's
journey to find her way home and one of the freshest debuts in years.
2 recommendations
Set in Kenya in the 1950s against the fading backdrop of the British
Empire, a story of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love from the
author of The Fever Tree. After six years in England, Rachel has returned to
Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she’d
longed for is much changed. Her father’s new companion—a strange, intolerant
woman—has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows
more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming
over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting
the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites. As Rachel struggles to find her place in her home and her country, she
initiates a covert relationship, one that will demand from her a gross act of
betrayal. One man knows her secret, and he has made it clear how she can buy
his silence. But she knows something of her own, something she has never told
anyone. And her knowledge brings her power.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * A NEW YORK TIMES
BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF
2017 *A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017, Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER
* USA TODAY BESTSELLER, In
this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant
family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home
they never knew. "There could only be a few winners, and a lot
of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky
ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a
crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home
in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is
pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she
accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on
his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's
powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the
generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of
love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the
halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal
underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women,
devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive
against the indifferent arc of history.
Never
more relevant than now, this national bestseller will challenge all who believe
that “it can't happen here.”
“A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother
“A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother
From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, here is the universally
acclaimed novel—winner of the Booker Prize and the basis for an award-winning
film. This
is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect
butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens,
at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a
country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to
reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great
gentleman," Lord Darlington. But lurking in his memory are doubts about
the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver
doubts about the nature of his own life.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER “This is a novel about what it means to inhabit a land both
yours and stolen from you, to simultaneously contend with the weight of
belonging and unbelonging. There is an organic power to this book—a revelatory,
controlled chaos. Tommy Orange writes the way a storm makes landfall.” —Omar El
Akkad, author of American
War. Tommy
Orange’s “groundbreaking, extraordinary” (The New York Times) There
There is the “brilliant, propulsive” (People Magazine) story of
twelve unforgettable characters, Urban Indians living in Oakland, California,
who converge and collide on one fateful day. It’s “the year’s most galvanizing
debut novel” (Entertainment Weekly). As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland
Powwow—some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent—momentum builds
toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie
Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left
behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his
uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory.
Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has
taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform
in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a
spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and
heroism, and loss. There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an
America few of us have ever seen. It’s “masterful . . . white-hot .
. . devastating” (The Washington Post) at the same time as it is fierce,
funny, suspenseful, thoroughly modern, and impossible to put down. Here is a
voice we have never heard—a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the
page with urgency and force. Tommy Orange has written a stunning novel that
grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and
profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide. This
is the book that everyone is talking about right now, and it’s destined to be a
classic.
Three women, haunted by the past and the
secrets they hold. Set
at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played
host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three
widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and
ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times
Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding. Amid the ashes of Nazi
Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of
her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin
following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20,
1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise
she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives,
her fellow resistance widows. First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the
son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together,
they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin,
where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the
hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister’s
wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that
house the millions displaced by the war.
As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her
husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and
circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the
black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become
infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that
threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms
with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the
war—each with their own unique share of challenges. Written with the devastating emotional power
of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans,
Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh
perspective on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining
piercing social insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the
Castle is a dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that
explores what it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake
of unimaginable hardship.
For readers of
Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated
debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in
development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller
about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring
house. It isn’t paranoia if it’s
really happening . . . Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New
York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine
(maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying
on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a
father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing
out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to
crumble—and it’s shocking secrets are laid bare. What is real? What is
imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping
thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems. Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the
Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that
recalls the best of Hitchcock.
Not Enough Copies in New
Hampshire Library System:
'A fascinating book, by turns riveting and unsettling, and wonderfully
rich in period detail.' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunda In 1860, a 70 year old widow turned
landlady named Mary Emsley was found dead in her own home, killed by a blow to
the back of her head. What
followed was a murder case that gripped the nation, a veritable locked room
mystery which baffled even legendary Sherlock Holmes author, Arthur Conan
Doyle. With an abundance of suspects, from disgruntled step children
concerned about their inheritance and a spurned admirer repeatedly rejected by
the widow, to a trusted employee, former police officer and spy, the case led
to a public trial dominated by surprise revelations and shock witnesses, before
culminating with one of the final public executions at Newgate. This is the case Conan Doyle couldn’t solve and, after
confounding the best detectives for years, has finally be solved by author
Sinclair McKay. Discover 'whodunit' as the real murderer is revealed for the
first time exclusively in this captivating study of a murder case in the
nineteenth century, a story never told before.
In the
summer of 1957 the Ward family moved from Brooklyn, New York to Lee, New
Hampshire to escape gang violence. It was an era when racial tensions were high
and they were the first “colored family” in the area. Needless to say, over the
years they encountered many interesting experiences and created a storied life.
They also became respected members of the community, led by parents, Harold and
Virginia Ward, a couple with strong convictions and compassion. Harold, Michael
Cameron Ward’s 94-year-old father, was hospitalized in the beginning of May
2015 with only weeks to live. On the 20th he made a request of his son:
“Michael, I want you to write the stories of our existence. I want my great
grandchildren to know where they came from.” Then, as Michael sat beside his
father’s bed on the 4th floor at Exeter Hospital, his father recounted stories
of his life that had never been told before. If not captured, they would be
lost forever. On June 9th, 2015 Harold died, and Michael has been fulfilling
his father’s request ever since. The Sketches of Lee collection is not just the
tale of a family’s relocation in the summer of 1957 from Brooklyn, N.Y. to Lee,
N.H. Rather, it’s a chronicle of family life as the “Index of Integration” for
Lee and other New Hampshire towns. This first volume, “A Colored Man in
Exeter”, recounts some of Harold’s experiences in the Exeter, NH area from 1959
until 1975. During this time, he often worked with people who had never spoken
to or seen a "colored person" before. He became an ambassador for his
race in an era where people were known for their deeds and not their bluster.
Sometimes the challenge was overwhelming. But he and Virginia, were equally
relentless in disproving the existing stereotypes of the era. They succeeded.
Throughout their lives Harold and Virginia taught their children five basic
tenets: 1. We are equal and will not stand to be treated any other way. 2.
Racists are either ignorant or stupid. Ignorant people can be taught. Stupid
people can’t, so don’t waste your time on them. 3. Any commitment you make is
total; there is no excuse for not fulfilling one. 4. Do not spend time doing
what everybody else does. Do what’s right for you as well as you possibly can.
5. When you are in the right, you do not quit. No one ever successfully
countered those positions.
A New York
Times bestseller A New York Times Notable Book A Washington
Post Notable Book A Publishers
Weekly Book of the Year As seen on CBS This Morning, NPR's Fresh Air,
and People Magazine A New York Times Book
Review Editor's Choice A Publishers Weekly Best Book
of the Year A Library Journal Nonfiction Pick of
September The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's
journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom. "A
beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers."--Terry Gross, Fresh
Air "One of the most inspiring stories I've
come across in a long time."--Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review Ryan
Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived
in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug
dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age
of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was
placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with
little hope for the future. In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won
a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out
1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles
at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses. SING FOR YOUR LIFE
chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate
journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes readers on
Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable
characters--including the two teachers from his childhood who redirect his rage
into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing.
Bergner illuminates all that it takes--technically, creatively--to find and
foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds
unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.
A classic tale that has enchanted millions of
readers worldwide, Mrs. Mike brings
the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life—and masterfully evokes the tender,
touching moments that bring a man and a woman together forever. Recently arrived in
Calgary, Alberta after a long, hard journey from Boston, sixteen-year-old
Katherine Mary O’Fallon never imagined that she could lose her heart so easily—or
so completely. Standing over six feet tall, with “eyes so blue you could swim
in them,” Mike Flannigan is a well-respected sergeant in the Canadian Mounted
Police—and a man of great courage, kindness, and humor. Together, he and
his beloved Kathy manage to live a good, honest life in this harsh, unforgiving
land—and find strength in a love as beautiful and compelling as the
wilderness around them…
It’s 1945 and Miklós is looking for a
wife. The fact that he has six months left to live doesn’t discourage him — he
isn’t one to let small problems like that stand in the way, especially not
after he’s survived a concentration camp. Currently marooned in an all-male
sanatorium in Sweden, and desperate to get out, he acquires the names of the
117 Hungarian women also recovering in Sweden and writes each of them a letter
in his beautiful cursive hand. Luckily for him, Lili decides to write back.
Drawn from the real-life letters of Péter Gárdos’s parents, and reminiscent of the film Life Is Beautiful,Fever at Dawn is a vibrant, ribald, and unforgettable tale, showing the death-defying power of the human will to live and to love.
Drawn from the real-life letters of Péter Gárdos’s parents, and reminiscent of the film Life Is Beautiful,Fever at Dawn is a vibrant, ribald, and unforgettable tale, showing the death-defying power of the human will to live and to love.
Jane Gardam, author of the Old Filth
Trilogy, delivers another modern classic in The Flight of the Maidens.
With her characteristic wit, Gardam captures a moment in time for three young
women on the cusp of adulthood. With keen perception the novel charts the
course of this trio as they boldly face their uncertain futures. It is Yorkshire,
1946. The end of the war has changed the world again, and emboldened by this
new dawning Hetty Fallows, Una Vane, and Lisolette Klein seize the
opportunities with enthusiasm. Hetty, desperate to escape the grasp of her
critical mother, books a solo holiday to the Lake District under the pretext of
completing her Oxford summer coursework. Una, the daughter of a disconcertingly
cheery hairdresser, entertains a romantically inclined young man from the wrong
side of the tracks and the left-side of politics. Meanwhile, Lisolette Klein,
the mysterious Jewish refugee from Germany, leaves the Quaker family who had
rescued her, to test herself in London. Although strikingly different from one
another, these young women share the common goal of adventure and release from
their middle class surroundings through romance and education. Gardam
demonstrates her talent for creating fully realized characters in these
venturesome, intelligent young women whose stories are told with delight and
understanding. This reissue of The Flight of the Maidens will appeal to
a wide range of adult and young adult readers.
On
May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling in a
Viennese shop who sang an improvised version of the theme from his Piano
Concerto no. 17 in G major. Sensing a kindred spirit in the plucky young bird,
Mozart bought him and took him home to be a family pet. For three years, the
starling lived with Mozart, influencing his work and serving as his companion,
distraction, consolation, and muse. Two centuries later, starlings are reviled
by even the most compassionate conservationists. A nonnative, invasive species,
they invade sensitive habitats, outcompete local birds for nest sites and food,
and decimate crops. A seasoned birder and naturalist, Lyanda Lynn Haupt is well
versed in the difficult and often strained relationships these birds have with
other species and the environment. But after rescuing a baby starling of her
own, Haupt found herself enchanted by the same intelligence and playful spirit
that had so charmed her favorite composer. In Mozart's Starling, Haupt
explores the unlikely and remarkable bond between one of history's most
cherished composers and one of earth's most common birds. The intertwined
stories of Mozart's beloved pet and Haupt's own starling provide an unexpected
window into human-animal friendships, music, the secret world of starlings, and
the nature of creative inspiration. A blend of natural history, biography, and
memoir, Mozart's Starling is a tour de force that awakens a surprising
new awareness of our place in the world.
