Ages 18+.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #631
by muffy
Borrowing the title from one of Dostoyevsky's famous novel, Elif Batuman's debut novel The Idiot * * * is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, set in 1995, that "delightfully captures the hyperstimulation and absurdity of the first-year university experience." (Library Journal)
Selin Karada, daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard eager and open to new experiences. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, and is intrigued with email, newly available on campus. In Russian class, Selin is befriended by Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb and, almost by accident, begins exchanging email with Ivan, a senior from Hungary. With each email they exchange, her feelings for Ivan intensifies, even knowing that he has a serious girlfriend.
At the end of the school year, after spending 2 weeks in Paris with Svetlana, Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside to teach English, hoping to meet up with Ivan on weekends, where the unfamiliar language gives rise to a succession of seemingly random but mild misadventures with her various host families.
“Selin is delightful company. She’s smart enough to know the ways in which she is dumb, and her off-kilter relationship to the world around her is revelatory and, often, mordantly hilarious... Self-aware, cerebral, and delightful.” (Kirkus Reviews)
Author Elif Batuman, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and a Paris Review Terry Southern Prize for Humor. She is a graduate of Harvard College and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.
* * * = 3 starred reviews
Blog Post
Art of Atari
by potterbee
Art of Atari by Tim Lapetino Atari is one of the most recognized names in the world. Since its formation in 1972, the company pioneered hundreds of iconic titles including Asteroids, Centipede and Missle Command.
Can you judge a book by it's cover? How about a video game?
"When thinking about Atari's great artwork, I think it's easy to forget how the game packaging was often the first interaction someone would have with a game," says Lapetino. "Those boxes had to handle a lot of the sales and marketing duties that today would be done using advertising or social media. There was a crucial moment in a department store or TV shop where the box art would catch your eye — and in those few seconds — without a lot of in-depth reviews or the ubiquitous word of mouth we enjoy today. You made a decision based on the excitement and energy of that box."
New to our catalog, Art of Atari is the first official collection of such artwork. Sourced from museums and private collections worldwide, this book spans over 40 years of the company's unique illustrations used in packaging, advertisements, catalogs, and more.
An interview with Lapetino includes samples of what's between the cover at the following link, Inside the Art of Atari
A sampling of other books in our collection about the development and history of video games include:
Blog Post
Graphic Novel Biographies
by potterbee
Graphic novels are great vehicle to illustrate the story of a life. If you haven't explored the genre of graphic novels you might like to start with reading a biography or memoir from our collection. Patrons of the Westgate branch will find a dedicated biography section within the graphic novels, however, these items are shelved collectively within the graphic novel sections at each branch. For a general catalog search to peruse our collection, search by keyword using the terms "graphic novel biography". Also, be sure to check out the Public Lists for more suggestions! Listed below are selections ranging from youth to adult to get you started!
Primates by Jim Ottaviani Grades 7-Up This engaging graphic novel introduces readers to three unique women whose different personalities and lives intersected because of their love of primates. They would never have met without the guidance of Louis Leakey, an anthropologist who believed that women were better at studying animals in their native environment because they were more patient and perceptive than men.
The strongest man in the world by Nicolas Debon Grades 3-5 The story of turn-of-the-20th-century strongman Louis Cyr's life is told through his imagined voice as he shares the details with his young daughter. Children familiar with modern strongman competitions on ESPN will easily recognize the seeds of such outlandishly fascinating contests here, as burly fellows lift draft horses off the ground and bend iron poles into pretzels.
The Arab of the future by Riad Sattouf Grades 10-up Sattouf recreates his childhood in France, Libya, and Syria with a French mother and a Sunni father. The narrative is honest and wandering, with insights coming from the portrayal of his proud, temperamental father's views on politics and Arab life.
Andre the Giant by Box Brown Few professional wrestlers transcended their field like "The Eighth Wonder of the World," Andre Roussimoff (1946-93). Ignatz Award-winning artist Brown brings readers Roussimoff's story from the French farm of his boyhood through worldwide wrestling stardom and his fondly remembered movie role as the giant Fezzik in the 1987 classic The Princess Bride. Highly recommended for pro wrestling fans, pop culture historians, and readers who enjoy outsider biographies.
Woody Guthrie and the dust bowl ballads by Nick Hayes This graphic novel offers a hard look at the world that made Woody Guthrie (1912-67) the visionary he became. A powerful exploration of Guthrie's roots, providing a mesmerizing take on the socioeconomic situation of 1930s America and a prescient commentary on how the challenges of that time continue to shape our identity as a nation.
The Zen of Steve Jobs a "A Forbes and Jess3 production" This innovative graphic novel unveils a less publicized part of Jobs: his flirtation with Zen Buddhism and friendship with Kobun Chino Otogawa, and how Jobs' tinge of Zenitude affected Apple products. The story moves back and forward in time, from the 1970s to 2011, but centers on the period after Jobs's exile from Apple in 1985 when he took up intensive study with Kobun. Their time together was integral to the big leaps that Apple took later on with its product design and business strategy.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #630
by muffy
The Woman Next Door, the U.S. debut of Yewande Omotoso is "an intimate, frequently hilarious look at the lives of two extraordinary women set in post-apartheid South Africa." (Booklist)
Nicknamed each other "Hortensia the Horrible" and "Marion the Vulture", these prickly octogenarians have been next-door neighbors for over 2 decades in Cape Town's upscale Katterijn community. Seeing beyond the obvious (one is black and one is white), they have a lot in common. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Opinionated, widowed and living alone, they both take a keen interest in community affairs, often the source of their friction.
When an unexpected event impacts both of their well-being, Hortensia and Marion are forced to take tiny steps toward civility. With conversations over time, each reflecting upon choices made, dreams deferred, and lost chances at connection, these proud, feisty women must decide whether to expend waning energy on their feud or call a truce.
Born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria, Omotoso won the South African Literary Award in 2011 for her debut novel, Bom Boy. In 2013 she was a finalist for the inaugural, pan-African Etisalat Fiction Prize. She lives in Johannesburg, where she has her own architectural practice. Listen to the NPR podcast with the author.
"Like Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, which also depicts the wisdom found in aging, this novel will have universal appeal." (Library Journal)
Blog Post
Debut novel, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
by potterbee
Angie Thomas's debut novel, The Hate U Give, was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California (which the movie Fruitvale Station was based on). The title of the book comes from the late rapper Tupac Shakur's tattoo T.H.U.G. The Hate U Give is garnering both a significant amount of praise and buzz. It sparked a bidding war among 13 publishing houses, and a film version is already in the works with The Hunger Games actress Amandla Stenberg (who played Rue) signed on to star.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas’s searing debut about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty. From the publisher:
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
In a recent interview, Angie Thomas shared some books which inspired her writing. Check these out while you wait for your copy of The Hate U Give to be available!
This Side of Home by Renee Watson Twins Nikki and Maya Younger always agreed on most things, but as they head into their senior year they react differently to the gentrification of their Portland, Oregon, neighborhood and the new--white--family that moves in after their best friend and her mother are evicted.
Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor Winner of the Newbery Medal, set in Mississippi at the height of the Depression, this is the story of one family's struggle to maintain their integrity, pride, and independence in the face of racism and social injustice. And it is also Cassie's story--Cassie Logan, an independent girl who discovers over the course of an important year why having land of their own is so crucial to the Logan family, even as she learns to draw strength from her own sense of dignity and self-respect. This is book #4 in a series of stories based on Mildred D. Taylor's life.
How It Went Down by Kekla Magoon A 2015 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book. When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot to death, his community is thrown into an uproar because Tariq was black and the shooter, Jack Franklin, is white, and in the aftermath everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events agree.
All American Boys by Jason Reynolds A 2016 Coretta Scott King Author Honor book, and recipient of the Walter Dean Myers Award for Outstanding Children's Literature. Two teens--one black, one white--grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension. When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #629
by muffy
Beijing journalist Lijia Zhang's debut novel Lotus is inspired by her grandmother's deathbed revelation that she was sold into prostitution at an early age.
Set in contemporary Shenzhen, China’s “City of Sins”, Lotus is one of the "ji" (Chinese word for chicken, a derogatory name for prostitutes) working at the Moonflower Massage Parlor. Originally from a impoverished village in northern China, she allows her family to think she waitresses in an upscale restaurant, sending her earnings home to support her family and to send her younger brother to university.
Knowing the shelf life of someone in her situation is finite, Lotus casts her eye among her regulars - Funny Eye, Family Treasure, hoping for a more permanent arrangement. In the meantime, she befriends Hu Binbing, a quiet and reclusive photojournalist who is hoping his documentary project on the lives of the "ji" will bring him the deserved recognition. But once his photographs of Lotus are published in a national magazine, his standing in the Communist party as well as their relationship is threatened.
"'A Newborn Calf Isn't Afraid of Tigers' is a typical chapter title in Lotus... Readers will find the entire text rich in Chinese proverbs, as well as folk wisdom of a more prosaic variety. Characters employ sage sayings in spoken form, as a kind of parlor game, and the author scatters aphorisms liberally throughout the narrative, with an effect that is both charming and thought-provoking....Some first novels, especially those birthed in creative writing classes, go heavy on self-consciously poetic language ...The images Zhang gives us, in contrast, are uncomplicated, concise and touching" (NPR)
"Pretty Woman but without all the glitz" (Library Journal).
Blog Post
Exit West
by Lucy S
Exit West, Mohsin Hamid's new novel, is remarkably germane. The story of Nadia and Saeed, a young couple forced to flee a collapsing city, is on one level a love story, relaying the journey that a couple takes through their relationship, but more than that, it is the narrative of what it means to be a refugee, the toll taken by the severity of the act of leaving one’s country.
Realism in Exit West has a little give to it. Nadia and Saeed leave from an unnamed country in the midst of a civil war, their exit provided through an actual door. These doors of escape can appear anywhere and lead all over. The one though which Nadia and Saeed leave is in a dental office, “the blackness of a door that ha[d once led to a supply cabinet.” The means of flight here might bring to mind other recent books where real-life or historical events are viewed through a slightly skewed reality, such as Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad. And like any other channel of departure for a refugee, these doors/portals guarantee no safe exit. One is left to meet whatever is on the other side unknowingly. The use of these doors that can pop up anywhere accentuates the discordant experience that refugees must face, to forsake one world so suddenly and be born again in another “for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind.”
While some of Exit West exists in this semi-realistic sphere, much of it is all too real. Technology and social media play a significant role in keeping people connected. While their city is being destroyed around them, Nadia and Saeed perpetuate their relationship through texts and phone calls. The role of social media is so vital to human connection, both on a personal level and on a global level. Hamid reminds us of the clash of these worlds, the virtual versus the real. “But even now the city’s freewheeling virtual world stood in stark contrast to the day-to-day lives of most people, to those of young men, and especially of young women, and above all children who went to sleep unfed but could see on some small screen people in foreign lands preparing and consuming and even conducting food fights with feasts of such opulence that the very fact of their existence boggled the mind.” When mobile service vanishes, much human connection is severed.
The passage through doors “was both like dying and like being born,” and we understand, when Nadia and Saeed take this passage, how closely Hamid’s magical doors hew to a true refugee experience. Upon approaching her exit, Nadia is “struck by its darkness, its opacity, the way it did not reveal what was on the other side, and also did not reflect what was on this side, and so felt equally like a beginning and an end.”
Eventually, this young couple find themselves in a house of refugees, people from all over the world whose cultures and languages differ greatly but who are thrust together in a common experience. The friction of this situation creates a friction between Nadia and Saeed and highlights the strain that leaving behind the known for the unknown can take. “The only divisions that mattered now were between those who sought the right of passage and those who would deny them passage.”
Exit West gives a glimpse of what it is to be a refugee and what it is to refuse refugees, the shame that comes from being displaced and the struggle to maintain a feeling of humanity. The novel is only strengthened by the fact that Hamid never gives a name to the country from which Nadia and Saeed escape. He peppers his book with tales, some almost fairy-tale like in quality, of other travelers. On occasion points of departure are named, but not always. Combining this with the unusual form of deliverance for all these refugees underscores the universality of the refugee experience.
In an interview on Literary Hub, Hamid said, “I wanted this to be a novel about refugees that reminded us we’re all refugees. A little namelessness and bending of physics went a long way.”
Exit West is filled with strikingly eloquent passages on religion and prayer, parenthood, love, and of course, the jarring difficulty of becoming a displaced person. To read it is to be submersed in this beauty and brutality all at once.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #628, Pt. 2 "If you are here today...you are a survivor. But those of us who have made it through hell and are still standing? We bear a different name: warriors.” ~ Lori Goodwin
by muffy
Former book editor Jennifer Ryan's charming debut Chilbury Ladies' Choir takes us to a small village in Kent during the spring and summer of 1940.
With the men off to war, the vicar disbanded the church choir until the newly arrived Miss Prim(rose)Trent, a worldly, take-no-prisoner university music professor, challenged the women to form an all-female choir.
Over the course of six months, through letters and journals, we watch as these women continued to cope with the fall-out of war, scrimmage over village affairs, and struggle with matters of life and death, while the choir brought them together, sustained them in their darkest hour, and took them to great heights, far beyond their expectations.
Widowed Mrs. Tilling is resentful having to billet Colonel Mallard in her son David's room, only to find love when she least expects it; Edwina Paltry, a scheming midwife with a sinister plan and a shady past, is determined to cash in on other people's misfortunes, come hell or high water; 19-year-old Venetia Winthrop, wild and impulsive, is courting trouble by seducing a dashing artist who might very well be a spy; a 13-year-old accomplished First Soprano, Kitty Winthrop, plucky and fearless, finds solace in her music while navigating the grown-up world and her first heartbreak. Silvie, a young Czech refugee, taken in by the Winthrops, is anxious about the state of her homeland and the fate of her family.
For fans of Mary Ann Shaffer's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ; and Home Fires, a PBS period television series based on the book by Julie Summers. Television rights to Chilbury Ladies' Choir have been optioned by Carnival TV, the production company behind PBS' Downton Abbey.
Blog Post
Unbecoming, by Jenny Downham
by manz
In Unbecoming, by Jenny Downham., we meet three generations of red-headed women, all with their own secrets and stories.
Seventeen year old Katie lives with her uptight mother Caroline and her younger brother, until one day Caroline’s Mother Mary abruptly comes into their lives. Estranged for years, Caroline does not want her mother to come live with them, even though she is suffering from dementia and needs care. As she temporarily stays with the family while social services sorts things out, everyone’s world turn upside down in different ways. On top of caring for her brother, and now her grandmother, Katie struggles to please her mother and keep secret who she’s been kissing. Caroline tries desperately to keep the past in the past and shove Mary away, while Mary tries so hard to remember her past as she wakes up daily wondering who these people are that she’s living with.
Wonderfully crafted, the book mostly stays in present day, but shifts back to Mary’s young adult life. The truth begins to unfold a rich family history of strong women who are either trying to break the rules or trying hard to follow them and keep things quiet and uneventful. Mary will have none of it! She wishes for adventure. If only she could remember.
It is an absolutely touching YA novel and it was a pleasure to spend time with these characters finding their place within their family and in the world. I would love to have a picnic with Mary on the beach.
The Stonewall Book Award is given annually to English-language children’s and young adult books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience. This year there was one winner and three honors – one of which was Unbecoming.
Blog Post
New TV Shows @ AADL
by manz
The library often acquires additional TV shows and new seasons of them, be they popular, new, or classics. Here are some recent new-to-AADL series:
Animal Kingdom, Season 1
This bold family crime drama centers on teenage J Cody, who moves in with his freewheeling relatives in their Southern California beach town after his mother dies of an overdose. Quickly pulled into the family's life of excess, he soon discovers that it's all being funded by criminal activities. Joining the family comes with more danger and excitement than he might be ready to handle.
Insecure, Season 1
A painfully funny new comedy series which follows best friends Issa and Molly as they navigate the tricky professional and personal terrain of Los Angeles while facing the challenges of being two black women who defy all stereotypes. Insecure explores the black female experience in a subtle, witty, and authentic way, as Issa and Molly stumble their way toward pulling their lives together while trying their hardest to never settle for less.
You Me Her, Season 1
Centers around a three-way romantic relationship involving a suburban married couple.
Schitt$ Creek, Season 1 and 2
When filthy-rich video store magnate Johnny Rose, his soap star wife Moira and their two kids -- über-hipster son David and socialite daughter Alexis -- suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup and rebuild their empire from within the rural city limits of their only remaining asset, an armpit of a town they once bought as a joke. (With Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara)
Six, Season 1
Follows members of Navy SEAL Team Six, modern American warriors whose mission to eliminate a Taliban leader in Afghanistan goes awry when they uncover a U.S. citizen working with the terrorists. Inspired by real missions, the series authentically captures the inside world of America's elite special operations unit, what these SEALs do, their personal lives, combat, and the life-and-death decisions they make.
Fore more TV shows, be sure to check out AADL’s lists for HOT TV shows, as well as NEW TV shows.