Books @ Noon August 2020 Picks

Author

Notes

Bonnie read a version of this look at a group of mountaineering women who climbed Annapurna that included a 20 year retrospective article. Based on the copyright date of this work, that part will not be included in our copy...but I'm sure our librarians can help you get your hands on one that does!

2) Apeirogon: a novel

Author

McCann, Colum

Notes

Kathy read this book after being inspired by seeing a discussion with the author on Book Passage (web link to their archive is linked next). She loved the unconventional narrative structure. Sandra chimed in to agree and also to mention that the audio is wonderful!

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook

Description

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"Bassam Aramin is Palestinian. Rami Elhanan is Israeli. They inhabit a world of intractable conflict that colors every aspect of their daily lives, from the roads they are allowed to take to the schools their daughters, Abir and Smadar, each attend. Theirs is a life in which children from both sides of the wall throw stones at one another. But their worlds shift irreparably when ten-year-old Abir is killed by a rubber bullet meant to quell unruly...

3) A burning

Author

Majumdar, Megha

Notes

Kristin read this one...and enjoyed the interwoven layers of the story and the dark underlying message about how people are sometimes willing to sell out others to achieve their dreams.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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"After a fiery attack on a train leaves 104 people dead, the fates of three people become inextricably entangled. Jivan, a bright, striving woman from the slums looking for a way out of poverty, is wrongly accused of planning the attack because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir, a slippery gym teacher from Jivan's former high school, has hitched his aspirations to a rising right wing party, and his own ascent becomes increasingly linked to...

4) Collected fictions

Author

Borges, Jorge Luis

Notes

As we moved into speed round, Claudia finally got the answer to a question that she's wanted to know. Which story from Borges is Bill's ultimate comfort read, because it never got captured in the minutes. Your chronicler believes that the relevant short story Bill mentioned is "The Story of Rosendo Juarez." While the table of contents isn't available in the catalog record, this volume purports to be comprehensive of all Borges short fiction and should include the relevant story!

5) The curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Author

Haddon, Mark

Notes

Bill read this book featuring a protagonist with autism...He was mostly interested in the math/logic bits...overall he thought it was a pretty good book.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

6) The fifth book of peace

Author

Kingston, Maxine Hong

Notes

Bonnie mentioned this title.

7) Girl, woman, other

Author

Evaristo, Bernardine

Notes

Carolyn is reading this one now. She may or may not let us know what she thinks when she is done, but she's hoping the pay off makes the process worth it!

Formats:

Audiobook CD, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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"Girl, Woman, Other is a celebration of the diversity of Black British experience. Moving, hopeful, and inventive, this extraordinary novel is a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain and the legacy of Britain's colonial history in Africa and the Caribbean. The twelve central characters of this multi-voiced novel lead vastly different lives: Amma is a newly acclaimed playwright whose work often explores her black lesbian identity; her...

8) The girls: a novel

Author

Cline, Emma

Notes

Wendy read this look at a fictionalized cult similar to that of Charles Manson's and the impact he had on the girls in his orbit...and enjoyed it.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their...

9) The glass hotel

Author

Mandel, Emily St. John

Formats:

Audiobook CD, Book - Hardback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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"From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it"--

10) Hidden Valley Road: inside the mind of an American family

Author

Kolker, Robert

Notes

Kathy said this non-fiction might need a trigger warning for all the abuse within the family but that it's definitely interesting.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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"Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a...

11) In the dream house: a memoir

Author

Machado, Carmen Maria

Notes

Kristin failed to note who shared this one, but is guessing it was Sandra. See you all next month! :)

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure:...

12) Lincoln in the bardo: a novel

Author

Saunders, George

Series

Thorndike Press large print basic

Notes

After Kristin expressed that she normally steers clear of first novels, Claudia invoked this ultimate example of a first novel...given that it came from an author with decades of short story writing under his belt! We know that some people didn't like it, but both Kristin and Claudia agreed that they both loved it.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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"February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. 'My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,' the president...

13) The memory keeper's daughter

Author

Edwards, Kim

Notes

...and Wendy mentioned this one.

Formats:

Book, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline,...

14) Riders of the purple sage

Author

Grey, Zane

Series

Thorndike Press large print Western

Notes

...and Bill mentioned this one...noting that it does have anti-Mormon themes.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, Book - Hardback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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In 1871 Utah, young Jane Withersteen is courted by Elder Tull, the leader of her polygamous Mormon church. When Jane refuses, the local Mormons persecute her. Meanwhile, Jane's friend, Bern Venters, is captured by Tull's posse and faces a harsh sentence. Jane defends him, causing even more friction with the Mormon populace. Enter Lassiter, a friend to Venters and an infamous gunslinger. His appearance causes Tull and his men to release Venters and...

15) Station eleven: a novel

Author

Mandel, Emily St. John

Series

Thorndike Press large print peer picks

Formats:

Book, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded...