Books @ Noon March 2021 Picks

1) An American marriage: a novel

Author

Jones, Tayari

Series

Oprah's Book Club

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft...

2) American nations: a history of the eleven rival regional cultures of North America

Author

Woodard, Colin

Notes

Bonnie has been taking an OLLI course about this book which discusses the regional cultures of the US. Bonnie remarked at the prescience of the author's take on our country given what has happened here in the intervening time between it's publication and today.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

Click to view

An illuminating history of North America's eleven rival cultural regions that explodes the red state-blue state myth. North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones...

3) A bright ray of darkness

Author

Hawke, Ethan

Notes

Carolyn enjoyed the new Ethan Hawke novel.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, Large Print

Description

Click to view

"The first novel in nearly twenty years from the acclaimed actor/writer/director is a book about art and love, fame and heartbreak--a blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes A bracing meditation on fame and celebrity, and the redemptive, healing power of art; a portrait of the ravages of disappointment and divorce; a poignant consideration of the rites of fatherhood and manhood; a novel soaked...

4) Brown girl dreaming

Author

Woodson, Jacqueline

Formats:

Book, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

"Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and...

5) Maus: a survivor's tale

Author

Spiegelman, Art

Series

Maus volume 1

Notes

Claudia also is very much enjoying approaching this graphic novel classic for the first time. If you are considering reserving, the volume linked here contains both Vols. 1 and 2. Kristin also mentioned that readers might enjoy another newer classic of this form: Peresepolis. Both parts are linked next. In addition there is a new 3 part graphic novel series written by Rep. John Lewis that is a memoir of the civil rights movement set against the backdrop of President Obama's inauguration, which is also linked below.

Formats:

Book, Graphic Novel

6) The death of Vivek Oji

Author

Emezi, Akwaeke

Notes

As we moved into speed sharing, Wendy mentioned reading and enjoying this title and the author's other books were also mentioned and linked next.

Formats:

Book, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook

Description

Click to view

"A tender, potent, and compulsively readable novel of a Nigerian-Indian family and the deeply held secret that tests their traditions and bonds"--

7) first principles what americas founders learned fr

This entry no longer exists in the catalog

8) Freshwater

Author

Emezi, Akwaeke

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heart wrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities. Ada begins her life in...

9) If Beale Street could talk

Description

Click to view

A timeless love story set in early 1970s Harlem involving newly engaged nineteen-year-old Tish and her fiancé Fonny who have a beautiful future ahead. But their plans are derailed when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Now the pair and their families must fight for justice in the name of love and the promise of the American dream.

10) If Beale Street could talk: a novel

Author

Baldwin, James

Notes

Claudia kicked us off with a wide ranging discussion of If Beale Street Could Talk that referenced the recent Jacqueline Woodson author talk and the adaptation of the movie. Claudia also compared the "one true love" narrative in this book with If You Come Softly. Kristin mentioned that she had read this book in close succession with other love stories where the Black main characters were separated by prison. She mentioned Upstate (set in the 90s) and An American Marriage (set in present day). You will find information about all of these things in the next several links!

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

Click to view

From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime—"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless" (The New York Times Book Review)."One of the best books Baldwin has ever written—perhaps the best of all." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

In

...

11) If you come softly

Author

Woodson, Jacqueline

Formats:

Book - Paperback, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

After meeting at their private school in New York, fifteen-year-old Jeremiah, who is black and whose parents are separated, and Ellie, who is white and whose mother has twice abandoned her, fall in love and then try to cope with people's reactions.

12) John Adams

Author

McCullough, David G

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook

Description

Click to view

The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling biography of America's founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough.
In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American...

13) The liar's dictionary: a novel

Author

Williams, Eley

Notes

Kristin shared that the bookishness of this newer novel would appeal to attendees. Featuring two timelines and a failed dictionary publisher, there is a lot of humor in this one. The world Kristin was searching for that refers to non-words planted in dictionaries (typically to protect copyright) was mountweazel!

Formats:

Book, Book - Hardback, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook

Description

Click to view

"An exhilarating and laugh-out-loud debut novel from a prize-winning new talent which chronicles the misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world"--

14) The lost city of Z: a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon

Author

Grann, David

Notes

Carolyn loved this "Raiders of the Lost Arc"-like adventure featuring English gentleman and Amazonian exploration!

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called "The Lost City of Z."--Publisher description.

15) Magpie murders

Author

Horowitz, Anthony

Series

Magpie murders volume 1

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

Click to view

A "brilliant and strikingly original reimagining of the classic whodunit (a la Agatha Christie) with a contemporary mystery wrapped around it"-- After working with bestselling crime writer Alan Conway for years, editor Susan Ryeland is intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries in sleepy English villages. His traditional formula has proved hugely successful, so successful that Susan must continue to put up with his...

16) March, Book One

Author

Lewis, John

Series

March volume 1

Formats:

Book, eBook, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

Click to view

Congressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.Now, to share his remarkable story with

...

17) March: Book Three

Author

Lewis, John

Series

March volume 3

Formats:

eBook, eComic, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

Click to view

By Fall 1963, the Civil Rights Movement is an undeniable keystone of the national conversation, and as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is right in the thick of it. With the stakes continuing to rise, white supremacists intensify their opposition through government obstruction and civilian terrorist attacks, a supportive president is assassinated, and African-Americans across the South are still blatantly prohibited

...

18) March, Book Two

Author

Lewis, John

Series

March volume 2

Formats:

eBook, Graphic Novel, Kindle

Description

Click to view

After the success of the Nashville sit-in movement, John Lewis' commitment to change through nonviolence is stronger than ever — but as he and his fellow Freedom Riders board a bus into the vicious heart of the deep south, they will be tested like never before. Faced with beatings, police brutality, imprisonment, arson, and even murder, the movement's young activists place their lives on the line while internal conflicts threaten to tear

...

19) Me and white supremacy: combat racism, change the world, and become a good ancestor

Author

Saad, Layla F

Notes

Claudia shared that she had started reading this title as it was recommended by Jacqueline Woodson during her author talk.

Formats:

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

Description

Click to view

"When Layla Saad began an Instagram challenge called #meandwhitesupremacy, she never predicted it would become a cultural movement. She encouraged people to own up and share their racist behaviors, big and small. She was looking for truth, and she got it... Thousands of people participated in the challenge, and over 80,000 people downloaded the supporting work Me and White Supremacy. Updated and expanded from the original edition, Me and White Supremacy...

20) The meaning of Mariah Carey

Author

Carey, Mariah

Notes

Wendy read the recent Mariah Carey biography at Carolyn's recommendation. She was intrigued by the discussions of colorism within the text and has listened to some of Ms. Carey's music as a follow up to having read about it.

Description

Click to view

"Mariah Carey shares her life story"--