Looking for the helpers…

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
Fred Rogers

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Last Thursday, a number of people in our community suffered when a surge in gas pressure caused fires to break out in homes and buildings across North Andover, Andover, and Lawrence.  Some of our friends, family, and fellow Massachusetts residents lost their homes, their possessions, and many, many more were displaced out of fear that further fires would break out.  It was a truly frightening event that will have repercussions for a very long time.

But you can help.  A number of resources have been established to help the people of North Andover, Lawrence, and Andover who have been affected by these fires.  Here are some of them to which you are welcome to contribute if at all possible:

  • The Red Cross said anyone interested in helping people could make donations by visiting their Massachusetts website, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

 

  • The Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services Team is at work, as well.  Anyone interested in donating to help with the relief can CLICK HERE or send a check to:
    The Salvation Army
    Attn: Massachusetts EDS
    25 Shawmut Rd
    Canton, Mass. 02021
    All donations made to this fund will stay in Massachusetts.

 

  • TD Bank and The United Way have established the Greater Lawrence Relief Fund to help families meet their basic needs and recover from the displacement from their homes and businesses caused by gas explosions.  Click here to to donate to the Greater Lawrence Relief Fund.

 

  • The Lawrence Emergency Fund, established by the Essex County Community Foundation provides assistance during emergency events such as fires, natural disasters or hazardous events. Funding is provided to appropriate agencies or churches that directly support the individuals and families impacted by these emergencies.  Click here to donate to the Lawrence Emergency Fund.

 

  • The MSPCA Nevins Farm in Methuen, where many pets are being taken care of, is also asking for drop-off donations, including: paper towels, dry and canned cat food, canned dog food and cat litter.  Donations can be brought to:
    MSPCA at Nevins Farm at 400 Broadway in Methuen.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people are suffering the effects of Hurricane Florence, which made landfall in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina over the weekend. The extent of the destruction of this storm is not yet known, but it is safe to say that the clean-up, restoration, and healing process is going to be a long, drawn out process that will require the help and support of millions of us.  We will be bringing you updates on how you can help the victims of Hurricane Florence later this week, once a fully-coordinated relief program has been established.

As always, if you are not in a position to donate at this time, don’t worry.  There are always ways to help those in need, and we will be sure to keep you updated about how you can help.

Five Book Friday!

Via BuzzFeed

And, as promised, we all bring you the 2018 National Book Award Longlist for Fiction!  The announcement was made about an hour ago, and we are pleased as punch to bring the results to you!  As with yesterday’s list, clicking on the author’s name will bring you to their National Book Award author’s page.  Clicking on the title will bring you to the library page where you can check on the book’s availability and request it.

Fiction

 

And now, on to the books on our shelves!

The Duke With a Dragon Tattoo: Yes, it’s another Duke-As-Hero historic romance, but Kerrigan Byrne’s stories never follow precedent or trope, so we’re convinced that this story is going to be both delightful and unique!  He is known only as The Rook. A man with no name, no past, no memories. He awakens in a mass grave, a magnificent dragon tattoo on his muscled forearm the sole clue to his mysterious origins. His only hope for survival—and salvation—lies in the deep, fiery eyes of the beautiful stranger who finds him. Who nurses him back to health. And who calms the restless demons in his soul.  Lorelai will never forget the night she rescued the broken dark angel in the woods, a devilishly handsome man who haunts her dreams to this day. Crippled as a child, she devoted herself to healing the poor tortured man. And when he left, he took a piece of her heart with him. Now, after all these years, The Rook has returned. Like a phantom, he sweeps back into her life and avenges those who wronged her. But can she trust a man who’s been branded a rebel, a thief, and a killer? And can she trust herself to resist him when he takes her in his arms?  Byrne’s books are always a topic of conversation around here, and Library Journal loved this new addition, describing it as “A hero so lost he fears he’ll never be found and a heroine who won’t give up on him reclaim their love in a bold, lyrical tale that brings the darker side of the Victorian Age into sharp relief; another winner in a stellar series.”

The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves: Eric R. Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his foundational research into memory storage in the brain, and his book thus draws on a lifetime of pathbreaking research and the work of many other leading neuroscientists to take us on an unusual tour of the brain.  e confronts one of the most difficult questions we face: How does our mind, our individual sense of self, emerge from the physical matter of the brain? The brain’s 86 billion neurons communicate with one another through very precise connections. But sometimes those connections are disrupted. The brain processes that give rise to our mind can become disordered, resulting in diseases such as autism, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder. While these disruptions bring great suffering, they can also reveal the mysteries of how the brain produces our most fundamental experiences and capabilities—the very nature of what it means to be human. Studies of autism illuminate the neurological foundations of our social instincts; research into depression offers important insights on emotions and the integrity of the self; and paradigm-shifting work on addiction has led to a new understanding of the relationship between pleasure and willpower.  While this book is about the brain as an organ, it’s also about the brain’s role in making us who and what we are, considering the power and role of memory, emotions, and creativity.  It’s a work that is both wonderfully readable and deeply intelligent.  Publisher’s Weekly agrees, calling it “Highly accessible . . . Kandel’s deep compassion for people is also evident, as when he discusses how understanding the biological basis for mental disorders might take them out of the realm of legal culpability. The result of his work is an easily comprehended, meticulous synthesis of current research into the biological grounding of the human mind.”

Field of Bones: Fan-favorite J.A. Jance has returned with another installment of her stellar series featuring Sheriff Joanna Brady.  As we open, Sheriff Brady.  This time Sheriff Joanna Brady may expect to see her maternity leave through to completion, but the world has other plans when a serial homicide case surfaces in her beloved Cochise County. Rather than staying home with her newborn and losing herself in the cold cases to be found in her father’s long unread diaries, Joanna instead finds herself overseeing a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions.  Filled with the kind of characterization and small-town details that make this series such a winner, this eighteenth installment of Jance’s series is being praised by series fans, with Publisher’s Weekly noting “Jance ratchets up the tension …This long-running series shows no signs of losing steam.”

She Would Be King: Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through the eyes and lives of three fascinating characters, whose bonds and whose magic will transform the world around them.   Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him. When the three meet in the settlement of Monrovia, their gifts help them salvage the tense relationship between the African American settlers and the indigenous tribes, and build a nation around themselves.  This is a powerfully emotive work that gives a voice and meaning to an area of the world seldom explored in fiction.  It’s being lauded by crtics and readers alike, as well, with Kirkus Reviews hailing it as “An ambitious, genre-hopping, continent-spanning novel. . . . Moore is a brisk and skilled storyteller who weaves her protagonists’ disparate stories together with aplomb yet is also able to render her sprawling cast of characters in ways that feel psychologically compelling. In addition, the novel’s various settings―Virginia, Jamaica, and West Africa―are depicted so lushly that readers will find themselves enchanted.”

A River of StarsAnother sensational debut novel here, this one from journalist Vanessa Hua.  Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the owner, Boss Yeung. Now she’s carrying his baby. Already married with three daughters, Boss Yeung is overjoyed because the doctors have confirmed that he will finally have the son he has always wanted. To ensure that his child has every advantage, Boss Yeung has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. U.S. citizenship will open doors for their little prince.  As Scarlett awaits the baby’s arrival, she chokes down bitter medicinal stews and spars with her imperious housemates. The only one who fits in even less is Daisy, a spirited teenager and fellow unwed mother who is being kept apart from her American boyfriend. Then a new sonogram of Scarlett’s baby reveals the unexpected. Panicked, she escapes by hijacking a van—only to discover that she has a stowaway: Daisy, who intends to track down the father of her child. The two flee to San Francisco’s bustling Chinatown, where Scarlett will join countless immigrants desperately trying to seize their piece of the American dream. What Scarlett doesn’t know is that her baby’s father is not far behind her. An unpredictable adventure, a tale of friendship, empathy, and wit, this is  also a closely-observed story about Chinese immigrant’s experiences in the US that is as eye-opening as it is entertaining.  The USA Today agrees, describing the book in their review:  “Vanessa Hua’s story spins with wild fervor, with charming protagonists fiercely motivated by maternal and survival instincts. A River of Stars is a migrant narrative tenderly constructed around Scarlett’s quest to carve a life for her daughter and herself at the risk of deportation.”

 

Until next week, beloved patrons–Happy Reading!

The 2018 National Book Award Longlist!

Ever the fans of the dramatic, the National Book Awards are drip-feeding us their nominations for the best books of the year.  The nominations for Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature have all been announced, and we’re looking forward to bringing you the announcement of the Fiction long list tomorrow, after the announcement is made around 10:00am EST.

Via BuzzFeed

The nominations this year reflect the surge of new talent and diverse voices that we have been fortunate enough to enjoy in our reading this year.  Among the poetry long list, only one author has previously won (Terrance Hayes; Pulitzer-Prize winner Rae Armantrout was nominated in 2009).

This year also marks the first award for translated literature, a sign that the award itself is hearing the multitude of voices telling stories around us.  Not only are the authors themselves telling stories from a range of different locations and in a number of different languages, but seven of the titles were also put out by independent presses, highlighting how publishing itself is changing around us, as well.  It’s a heady time to be a reader, beloved patrons, and we are 100% on board for all the fun!

So here, without further ado, are the current National Book Award long lists.  We look forward to adding to this list in the coming days, and seeing how the awards program progresses to the final announcement of the National Book Awards on November 14!

A note: If you click the link in the authors’ names, you will be taken to the National Book Award website for that writer.  If you are looking to locate the books in our library catalog, please click on the book’s title where a link is available.

 

Poetry:

http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2018.html#.W5qlR5NKiu4

 

Translated Literature:

http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2018.html#.W5qlR5NKiu4

Young People’s Literature

http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2018.html#.W5qlR5NKiu4

Congratulations to all the long-listed authors and their sensational books!

From the Archives: Some words about the National Book Award

In anticipation of the 2018 National Book Award Longlist being announced on September 12, we are happy to bring you our post on the history of the National Book Award!  We hope you enjoy!

 

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Just in case the excitement of the Man Booker Award wasn’t enough, I am delighted to tell you that the Bookish Award Season is in full swing, a fact which was emphasized by the announcement of the National Book Award nominees yesterday morning.

While most certainly a prestigious award, and indubitably beneficial to the authors who receive it, the National Book Award as an institution is a bit of an odd duck, in that is seems more concerned with its own identity, rather than the books it celebrates…

Eleanor Roosevelt, handing out the National Book Awards in 1950
Eleanor Roosevelt, handing out the National Book Awards in 1950

The National Book Award was instituted in 1936 by the American Booksellers Association, and open to any book published in that year, worldwide.  The award was suspended, however,  at the outbreak of the Second World War.  When it was re-instituted in 1950 by the ABA, the American Book Publishers Council, and the Book Manufacturers Institute, awards were limited to “works by Americans published here”, perhaps reflecting the rise of the United States on the global stage.  Categories were divided, re-united, re-named, and changed continuously up until 1980, when they were dismissed altogether in favor of the “American Book Award”.

The “American Book Award” was intended to run exactly like the Academy Awards, with a big fancy televised party, big-name stars, and some twenty-seven awards being handed out.  The whole enterprise cost so much money and was generally so confusing that it only lasted until 1987, before the awards’ organizers were forced to revamp their idea, and return to a handful of awards given out much more quietly.  Said the Chairman of the Awards at this time, “Book people are really not actors”.  Truer words have never been spoken.

nba_inviteToday, the National Book Awards hands out awards in four categories: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature, which overall, seems much saner.  In an attempt to revamp the awards’ prestige and notoriety, the NBA Foundation hired image consultants in 2012, and while the after-party for the awards is now, apparently The Place To Be, the award itself still seems to be undergoing a very long-term identity crisis.

Under the 1950 rules (which include the line about only  “Americans published here” can receive the award), only American publishers can nominate the books (it was only in the past two years that the publishers didn’t get to select the judges, as well).  Consequently, unlike most awards, which include a wide-ranging panel of experts and readers (the Booker Prize always has one librarian on it’s panel, I’m just going to point that out), there are some who have claimed that the NBA is the most insular literary award of the year.  The foundation claims that it is upholding the standards of American literature.

I can’t help but wonder if instead of asking “who gets to judge American literature”, maybe we should be asking “what, exactly, is American literature?”

And rather than worrying about trying to make the awards flashier, or grander, or handed out by higher-paid celebrities, how about we appreciate the books, the remarkable people who created them, and how much they have to say about who we are, as Americans, as a society, and as people in a world of people:

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FICTION:

Karen E. Bender, Refund
Angela Flournoy, The Turner House
Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
Adam Johnson, Fortune Smiles
Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life (Also a Man Booker Prize short-listed book!)

NON-FICTION:

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Sally Mann, Hold Still
Sy Montgomery, The Soul of an Octopus
Carla Power, If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran
Tracy K. Smith, Ordinary Light

POETRY:

Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
Terrance Hayes, How to Be Drawn
Robin Coste Lewis, Voyage of the Sable Venus
Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things
Patrick Phillips, Elegy for a Broken Machine

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE:

Ali Benjamin, The Thing About Jellyfish
Laura Ruby, Bone Gap (Library approved!)
Steve Sheinkin, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War
Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep
Noelle Stevenson, Nimona

Six Book Saturday!

Oh, beloved patrons, it has been a week of travel and technology woes, so we apologize sincerely for the lack of blog posts this week.  We are looking forward to making it up to you, starting today, with a survey of some of the lovely new titles that have sprung onto our shelves this week and are just giddy with anticipation to make your acquaintance.

And just a reminder, our fall hours have officially started, which means we at the Main Branch are open on Sundays from 1-5pm.  So come by and say hi!

 

A Princess in Theory: This is a “new to us” book, but Alyssa Cole’s work is getting such rave reviews that we had to feature this book as soon as we could! Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn’t have time for fairy tales…or patience for the constant e-mails claiming she’s betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she’s learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly e-mail won’t convince her otherwise.  Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. When Naledi mistakes the prince for a pauper, Thabiso can’t resist the chance to experience life—and love—without the burden of his crown.  The chemistry between them is instant and irresistible, and flirty friendship quickly evolves into passionate nights. But when the truth is revealed, can a princess in theory become a princess ever after? Cole’s romances consistently earn top ratings and reviews for her mix of emotional honesty, sizzle, and richly diverse characters–in fact, The New York Times Review of Books called it “the best new romance I’ve read in a while.”

The Lies that Bind: Rethinking Identity: Kwame Anthony Appiah does tremendous work breaking down big, scary concepts into consumable pieces that help us understand the world more clearly and in its beautiful complexities.  This book, which considers how our notions of identity clash with the reality, is just such an example.  Who do you think you are? That’s a question bound up in another: What do you think you are? Gender. Religion. Race. Nationality. Class. Culture. Such affiliations give contours to our sense of self, and shape our polarized world. Yet the collective identities they spawn are riddled with contradictions, and cratered with falsehoods.  These “mistaken identities,” Appiah explains, can fuel some of our worst atrocities―from chattel slavery to genocide. And yet, he argues that social identities aren’t something we can simply do away with. They can usher in moral progress and bring significance to our lives by connecting the small scale of our daily existence with larger movements, causes, and concerns.  Full of historic examples, clear thinking, and engaging prose, this is a book that is attracting attention from readers, scholars, and critics, with the Washington Post calling it “Excellent… Appiah hopes to inspire a rethinking of our restrictive and therefore divisive notions of who we are. But if that seems an impossible task, should the massive obstacles stop us from trying?… if the solution to the fracturing of our world remains elusive, this book at least helps us think clearly about the problem.”

Becoming BelleIn 1887, Isabel Bilton is the eldest of three daughters of a middle-class military family, growing up in a small garrison town. By 1891 she is the Countess of Clancarty, dubbed “the peasant countess” by the press, and a member of the Irish aristocracy.  Nuala O’Connor’s book is about the four years in between, during which Isabel moved to London on her own, changed her name to Belle,  and became the star of a dancing double act she performed with her sister.  She reigned over The Empire Theatre and The Corinthian Club, entertaining the cream of London society before she met and married her husband William.  O’Connor is a novelist by profession, and her insight into character gives this book its drive and presents  Isabel Bilton’s story in all its rich detail.  Library Journal seems to agree; it gave this book a starred review and said “O’Connor offers a stunning historical reimagining. Her eye for details, including Victorian dress, food, and technology, enhance her mastery of character and inner dialog.”

The Spy of Venice: Fans of Shakespeare, historical thrillers, and travel will all be fawning over the first book in this new series, featuring none other than William Shakespeare in title role.  Having fled Stratford after a disastrous love affair, young Shakespeare Will falls in with a band of players – but greater men have their eye on this talented young wordsmith.  England’s very survival hangs in the balance, and Will finds himself dispatched to Venice on a crucial embassy.  Dazzled by the city’s masques – and its beauties – Will little realises the peril in which he finds himself. Catholic assassins would stop at nothing to end his mission on the point of their sharpened knives, and lurking in the shadows is a killer as clever as he is cruel.  Benet Brandreth is an authority on Shakespeare, and brings all his love and erudition to this series opener.  Publisher’s Weekly agreed, noting, “Brandreth, the rhetoric coach to the Royal Shakespeare Company, plausibly and imaginatively fills a gap in the historical record of the Bard’s life.”

Ask a North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World’s Most Secretive Nation: The weekly column Ask A North Korean, published by NK News, invites readers from around the world to pose questions to North Korean defectors.  This book has been adapted from that long-running column, these fascinating interviews provide authentic firsthand testimonies about life in North Korea and what is really happening inside its borders.  Through the life stories, experiences, and memories of those who lived in North Korea, this book sheds critical light on all aspects of North Korean politics and society and shows that, even in the world’s most authoritarian regime, life goes on in ways that are very different from what outsiders may think.  The Boston Globe recommended this book, noting that “Daniel Tudor—a former Economist journalist and current Korean beer entrepreneur— wants people to understand the true lives of everyday North Koreans. Using translated essays written by defectors, the book covers topics from politics to pornography.”

Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front (and Back): Mara Altman’s volatile and apprehensive relationship with her body has led her to wonder about a lot of stuff over the years. Like, who decided that women shouldn’t have body hair? And how sweaty is too sweaty? Also, why is breast cleavage sexy but camel toe revolting? Isn’t it all just cleavage? These questions and others like them have led to the comforting and sometimes smelly revelations that constitute this essay collection about what it’s like to operate the bags of meat we call our bodies.  With a combination of personal anecdotes and fascinating research, this sensational collection holds up a magnifying glass to our beliefs, practices, biases, and body parts and shows us the naked truth: that there is greatness in our grossness.   Kirkus Reviews agrees, calling it in their review “An endearingly outrageous attempt to demystify the female body while shedding light on the causes of female corporeal insecurities. A simultaneously funny and informative memoir about the wonder of the human body.”

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!

Condé, Thúy, Gaiman, and Murakami Shortlisted for the New Nobel

As we reported here previously, there will be no 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature.  A number of wide-ranging allegations going back some twenty years were brought against Jean-Claude Arnault, a photographer who is married to Nobel academy member Katarina Frostenson, which the Academy failed to handle, and refused to address after the story broke, resulting in a large number of panel members refusing to take part in the award.  Additionally, suspicions of financial conflicts of interest and the alleged leaking of the names of seven Nobel literature laureates in advance further tarnished the reputation of the Academy and its award.

Via The Financial Express

We mourn for those who have suffered as the result of predatory behavior, and the refusal of those with the power to effect change to step up.  In a different way, we also grieve for the loss of a 2018 Nobel Prize Winner, mostly because it allows us a moment to reflect on a life time of literary output and contributions to our worldwide reading society.  However, all hope is not lost, in part because Librarians Are Awesome.

As reported by The New York Times, Swedish journalist Alexandra Pascalidou, enraged by the unfolding sex scandal, decided to take matters into her own hands.  So she started her own award.  Ms. Pascalidou, with the help of over 100 prominent Swedish cultural figures, including actors, novelists and a rapper, founded the New Academy Prize in Literature.  The prize will award one million kronor, or around $112,000 to the winning author, and a banquet will be held in their honor, just as is held by the Nobel Prize itself.  As stated in the award’s opener, “In a time when human values are increasingly being called into question, literature becomes an even more important counterforce to stop the culture of silence and oppression.”

Online voting for the award, which selected three of the four shortlisted authors, closed on August 14.  The final shortlisted author will be chosen by Sweden’s librarians.  The rules of awards enforce a gender quota on the shortlist stage, stipulating that it comprises two men and two women.   On August 30, the shortlist was announced.  We present it below with the short bio offered on the award’s website.  Click on the author’s name to get links to the NOBLE catalog and see their work:

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Maryse Condé
Born 1937 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, Maryse Condé is considered one of the Caribbean’s most outstanding authors. She has written some twenty novels and received several prestigious awards. She has been an Emeritus Professor at Columbia University, New York, but now lives in Guadeloupe and France. In her work, she has described how colonialism has changed the world and how those affected take back their heritage.


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Haruki Murakami
Born 1949 in Kyoto, Haruki Murakami has lived in the US and currently resides in Tokyo. He is one of our most celebrated authors and translators. His work fuses pop culture with a fierce magic realism. He has received several prestigious international awards and is also mentioned as a Nobel Prize-candidate.


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Kim Thúy
Born 1968 in Saigon, Vietnam, Kim Thúy left her country as a boat refugee when she was ten years old and grew up in Canada. She is known for her short and elegant stories about being a refugee and an immigrant. Her stories paint the colors of Vietnam and the scents and flavors too, as well as the perils of exile and search for identity.


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Neil Gaiman
Born 1960 in Portchester, England, Neil Gaiman currently lives in Wisconsin, USA. He is a screen writer, author and editor who started his career as a journalist. His graphic novel Sandman was a huge success only outranked by Superman and Batman in sold copies. He has received several international awards and is a true superstar in the fantasy community. 

The only real drawback to this story is the way the media has covered the announcement of the short list.  Gaiman and Murakami were mentioned in headlines across the United States and Europe.  Twitter erupted with the news of two beloved male authors being nominated.  But the female nominees were only listed in secondary and tertiary paragraphs (to be fair, both men called out reporting, as did a sizable online readership).  Considering the reason that the award was developed in the first place–as a result of sexual abuse and the sidelining of (largely women) victims’ pain–and by whom–a determined and pioneering woman, it’s really disappointing that the spotlight wasn’t big enough to encompass all four writers equally.

But we are.

…Because librarians are awesome.

Six Book Saturday!

With our apologies, beloved patrons, for missing our typical Friday round-up of all the sensational books that are awaiting you on our shelves, we present you a special weekend bonus edition of the Free-For-All, with six new titles for your consideration!

Just a reminder, the Library will be closed until Tuesday, September 4 in honor of the Labor Day holiday.  We hope yours is a safe and a relaxing weekend, and we look forward to seeing you at 9am on Tuesday!

 

SeveranceIt’s not everyday you hear a book described as a “wryly funny, apocalyptic satire”, but that’s precisely the way in which Ling Ma’s debut novel is being described.  Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty, and is currently content just to carry on.  So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.  Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?  This is a novel as funny and insightful as it is unsettling and imaginative, and it getting write-ups in ‘best of’ and ‘most anticipated’ lists across the country, as well as earning a starred review from Booklist, who noted, “Embracing the genre but somehow transcending it, Ma creates a truly engrossing and believable anti-utopian world. Ma’s extraordinary debut marks a notable creative jump by playing on the apocalyptic fears many people share today.”

HeartbreakerAnother wonderfully skillful coming-of-age novel that blends sci-fi and reality seamlessly, Claudia Dey’s work is getting some pretty terrific reviews.  It’s 1985. Pony Darlene Fontaine has lived all her fifteen years in “the territory,” a settlement founded decades ago by a charismatic cult leader. Pony’s family lives in the bungalow at the farthest edge of town, where the territory borders the rest of the wider world. It’s a world none of the townspeople have ever been, except for Billie Jean Fontaine, Pony’s mother. When Billie Jean arrived in the territory seventeen years prior—falling from the open door of a stolen car—the residents took her in and made her one of their own. She was the first outsider they had ever laid eyes on. Pony adores and idolizes her mother, but like everyone else in the territory she is mystified by her. Billie Jean refuses to describe the world she came from.  One night, Billie Jean grabs her truck keys, bolts barefoot into the cold October darkness—and vanishes. Billie Jean was the first person to be welcomed into the territory. Now, with a frantic search under way for her missing mother, Pony fears: Will she be the first person to leave it too?  Told through a series of alternating voices, including the boy on whom Pony has a secret crush and the family dog, Dey’s novel earned a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, who praised how “Dey strips away the trappings of modernity to show what humans truly are at base, while eschewing the usual cult narrative. The result is a whole-cloth, word-for-word triumph of imagination.”

John Woman: Walter Mosley has created some truly iconic characters over the course of his career, and John Woman is a fitting protagonist to join their pantheon.  At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father’s job at a silent film theater in New York’s East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself―as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman’s teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.  There is a lot with which to grapple in this book, from issues of sexuality and power to intimacy and evil, making for a thought-provoking, heady exploration.  As Kirkus Reviews notes, Mosley “raises the stakes with this tightly wound combination of psychological suspense and philosophic inquiry…Here he weaves elements of both the erotic and the speculative into a taut, riveting, and artfully edgy saga…Somehow, it makes sense that when Walter Mosley puts forth a novel of ideas, it arrives with the unexpected force of a left hook and the metallic gleam of a new firearm.”

The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life: Science journalist David Quammen explores science’s tangled relationship with evolution and microbiology in this engaging and educating work.  In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field (the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level) is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection (in itself a form of HGT). Quammen chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them, and emphasizing how their research pertains directly to our everyday lives and longterm health.  The Boston Globe loved Quammen’s new work, declaring “Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure. . . . The Tangled Tree is much more than a report on some cool new scientific facts. It is, rather, a source of wonder.”

The Life Lucy Knew: Karma Brown ‘s fiction is written with that same vital, engaging spark that she brought to her award-winning journalism career, and considering the praise this new novel is receiving, it’s sure to be a hit among fans and new readers alike.  After hitting her head, Lucy Sparks awakens in the hospital to a shocking revelation: the man she’s known and loved for years—the man she recently married—is not actually her husband. In fact, they haven’t even spoken since their breakup four years earlier. The happily-ever-after she remembers in vivid detail—right down to the dress she wore to their wedding—is only one example of what her doctors call a false memory: recollections Lucy’s mind made up to fill in the blanks from the coma. Her psychologist explains the condition as honest lying, because while Lucy’s memories are false, they still feel incredibly real. Now she has no idea which memories she can trust—a devastating experience not only for Lucy, but also for her family, friends and especially her devoted boyfriend, Matt, whom Lucy remembers merely as a work colleague.  Unmoored and unsure, Lucy is forced to grapple with her memories and her identity in order to come to terms with who she really is.  Kirkus Reviews enjoyed this book a good deal, noting “Brown makes Lucy’s struggle vivid and stark—she has a lovely life, but, thanks to her injury, she doesn’t feel like it’s hers…A fizzy love story with a serious streak, good for readers who like their conundrums to go down as easily as one of the cocktails the characters enjoy.”

The Last Englishmen: Love, War, and the End of Empire: Deborah Baker turns her eye to the end of the British Empire, a story huge in scope, made understandable by the intimate love story at its heart.  John Auden was a pioneering geologist of the Himalaya. Michael Spender was the first to draw a detailed map of the North Face of Mount Everest. While their younger brothers―W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender―achieved literary fame, they vied to be included on an expedition that would deliver Everest’s summit to an Englishman, a quest that had become a metaphor for Britain’s struggle to maintain power over India. To this rivalry was added another: in the summer of 1938 both men fell in love with a painter named Nancy Sharp. Her choice would determine where each man’s wartime loyalties would lie.  The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers.  Full of a love of language, place, and character, Baker’s history earned a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, who noted, “Seemingly covering disparate topics, Baker beautifully connects them all with an incisive, clear writing style and sharp descriptions of the terrain.”

 

Until next week, beloved patrons–happy reading!