LibGuides: Library Displays: 2017

Best Books @yourLibrary 2017

  Don’t know what to read going into Christmas break? Grab one of the
  bestselling books of 2017 from the library! All books in this display were pulled
  from a variety of lists of bestselling books in 2017, including lists from
  Publisher Weekly, Goodreads Choice Awards, New York Times Best Seller,
  Amazon Best Seller, and more.

This display was created by Connie Basquez. Dates: December 1 to January 30, 2018.

Night Thoughts by Wallace Shawn
Call Number: PS3569.H387 A6 2017
ISBN: 9781608468126
Publication Date: 2017-06-20
Although he is guided and inspired by the people he respects, and despite the insufficiency of his knowledge and experience - an insufficiency shared by most (or all) other humans, Wallace Shawn can't see any real alternative to trying to figure out his own answers to the most essential questions about the world he lives in. Having recently passed the age of seventy, before which he found it difficult to piece together more than a few fragments of understanding, Shawn would like to pass on anything he's learned before death or dementia close down the brief window available to him, but he may not be ready yet.
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Call Number: PR9199.3.J54 N49 2016
ISBN: 9780062573896
Publication Date: 2016-01-01
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act "civilized." Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember--strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become--in the eyes of the law--a kidnapper himself.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Call Number: PS3607.Y37 H66 2016
ISBN: 9781101947135
Publication Date: 2016-06-07
Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Call Number: PS3612.E346 P33 2017
ISBN: 9781455563937
Publication Date: 2017-02-07
A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of A Fine Balance and Cutting for Stone. Profoundly moving and gracefully told, PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life. So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja's family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep roots as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India by Sujatha Gidla
Call Number: DS422.C3 G54 2017
ISBN: 9780865478114
Publication Date: 2017-07-18
A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2017 A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017 "Ants Among Elephants is an arresting, affecting and ultimately enlightening memoir. It is quite possibly the most striking work of non-fiction set in India since Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, and heralds the arrival of a formidable new writer." --The Economist The stunning true story of an untouchable family who become teachers, and one, a poet and revolutionary Like one in six people in India, Sujatha Gidla was born an untouchable. While most untouchables are illiterate, her family was educated by Canadian missionaries in the 1930s, making it possible for Gidla to attend elite schools and move to America at the age of twenty-six. It was only then that she saw how extraordinary--and yet how typical--her family history truly was. Her mother, Manjula, and uncles Satyam and Carey were born in the last days of British colonial rule. They grew up in a world marked by poverty and injustice, but also full of possibility. In the slums where they lived, everyone had a political side, and rallies, agitations, and arrests were commonplace. The Independence movement promised freedom. Yet for untouchables and other poor and working people, little changed. Satyam, the eldest, switched allegiance to the Communist Party. Gidla recounts his incredible transformation from student and labor organizer to famous poet and founder of a left-wing guerrilla movement. And Gidla charts her mother's battles with caste and women's oppression. Page by page, Gidla takes us into a complicated, close-knit family as they desperately strive for a decent life and a more just society. A moving portrait of love, hardship, and struggle, Ants Among Elephants is also that rare thing: a personal history of modern India told from the bottom up.
The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston
Call Number: F1509.M9 P74 2017
ISBN: 9781455540006
Publication Date: 2017-01-03
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 Hern_n Cort_s, 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.
Far from the Tree by Robin Benway
Call Number: PZ5 823 B4793f2
ISBN: 9780062330628
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
National Book Award Winner! Perfect for fans of NBC's "This Is Us," Robin Benway's beautiful interweaving story of three very different teenagers connected by blood explores the meaning of family in all its forms--how to find it, how to keep it, and how to love it. Being the middle child has its ups and downs. But for Grace, an only child who was adopted at birth, discovering that she is a middle child is a different ride altogether. After putting her own baby up for adoption, she goes looking for her biological family, including-- Maya, her loudmouthed younger bio sister, who has a lot to say about their newfound family ties. Having grown up the snarky brunette in a house full of chipper redheads, she's quick to search for traces of herself among these not-quite-strangers. And when her adopted family's long-buried problems begin to explode to the surface, Maya can't help but wonder where exactly it is that she belongs. And Joaquin, their stoic older bio brother, who has no interest in bonding over their shared biological mother. After seventeen years in the foster care system, he's learned that there are no heroes, and secrets and fears are best kept close to the vest, where they can't hurt anyone but him. Don't miss this moving novel that addresses such important topics as adoption, teen pregnancy, and foster care.
Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi; Aaron Bady (Introduction by)
Call Number: PR9402.9.M35 K56 2017
ISBN: 9781945492013
Publication Date: 2017-05-16
First published in Kenya in 2014 to critical and popular acclaim,Kintu is a modern classic, a multilayered narrative that reimagines the history of Uganda through the cursed bloodline of the Kintu clan. Divided into six sections, the novel begins in 1750, when Kintu Kidda sets out for the capital to pledge allegiance to the new leader of the Buganda Kingdom. Along the way, he unleashes a curse that will plague his family for generations. In an ambitious tale of a clan and a nation, Makumbi weaves together the stories of Kintu's descendants as they seek to break from the burden of their shared past and reconcile the inheritance of tradition and the modern world that is their future.
American Street by Ibi Zoboi
Call Number: PZ5 823 Z83284a6
ISBN: 9780062473042
Publication Date: 2017-02-14
In this stunning debut novel, Pushcart-nominated author Ibi Zoboi draws on her own experience as a young Haitian immigrant, infusing this lyrical exploration of America with magical realism and vodou culture. On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie--a good life. But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola's mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit's west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own. Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?
Noumenon by Marina J. Lostetter
Call Number: PS3612.O7745 N68 2017
ISBN: 9780062497840
Publication Date: 2017-08-01
In 2088, humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth's solar system. But one uncertainty remains: Where do we go? Astrophysicist Reggie Straifer has an idea. He's discovered an anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics, and proposes the creation of a deep-space mission to find out whether the star is a weird natural phenomenon, or something manufactured. The journey will take eons. In order to maintain the genetic talent of the original crew, humankind's greatest ambition--to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy-- is undertaken by clones. But a clone is not a perfect copy, and each new generation has its own quirks, desires, and neuroses. As the centuries fly by, the society living aboard the nine ships (designated Convoy Seven) changes and evolves, but their mission remains the same: to reach Reggie's mysterious star and explore its origins--and implications. A mosaic novel of discovery, Noumenon--in a series of vignettes--examines the dedication, adventure, growth, and fear of having your entire world consist of nine ships in the vacuum of space. The men and women, and even the AI, must learn to work and live together in harmony, as their original DNA is continuously replicated and they are born again and again into a thousand new lives. With the stars their home and the unknown their destination, they are on a voyage of many lifetimes--an odyssey to understand what lies beyond the limits of human knowledge and imagination.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Call Number: PZ5 823 T2438s8
ISBN: 9780316341684
Publication Date: 2017-03-28
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around--and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance to lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries--including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo's dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? and if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real? In this sweeping and breathtaking new novel by National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor, author of the New York Times bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy, the shadow of the past is as real as the ghosts who haunt the citadel of murdered gods. Fall into a mythical world of dread and wonder, moths and nightmares, love and carnage. Welcome to Weep.
Wishtree by Katherine Applegate
Call Number: PZ5 823 A6486w4
ISBN: 9781250043221
Publication Date: 2017-09-26
The New York Times-bestselling story of kindness, friendship, and hope. Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"--people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this "wishtree" watches over the neighborhood. You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever. Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, Wishtree is Newbery Medalist and New York Times-bestselling author Katherine Applegate at her very best--writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view. This book has Common Core connections.
The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan
Call Number: PZ5 823 R58562s55
ISBN: 9781423160939
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Magnus Chase, a once-homeless teen, is a resident of the Hotel Valhalla and one of Odin's chosen warriors. As the son of Frey, the god of summer, fertility, and health, Magnus isn't naturally inclined to fighting. But he has strong and steadfast friends, including Hearthstone the elf, Blitzen the dwarf, and Samirah the Valkyrie, and together they have achieved brave deeds, such as defeating Fenris Wolf and battling giants for Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. Now Magnus faces his most dangerous trial yet. His cousin, Annabeth, recruits her boyfriend, Percy Jackson, to give Magnus some pointers, but will his training be enough? Loki is free from his chains. He's readying Naglfar, the Ship of the Dead, complete with a host of giants and zombies, to sail against the Asgardian gods and begin the final battle of Ragnarok. It's up to Magnus and his friends to stop him, but to do so they will have to sail across the oceans of Midgard, Jotunheim, and Niflheim in a desperate race to reach Naglfar before it's ready to sail. Along the way, they will face angry sea gods, hostile giants, and an evil fire-breathing dragon. Magnus's biggest challenge will be facing his own inner demons. Does he have what it takes to outwit the wily trickster god?
It All Comes down to This by Karen English
Call Number: PZ5 823 E585i7
ISBN: 9780544839571
Publication Date: 2017-07-11
It's 1965, Los Angeles. All twelve-year-old Sophie wants to do is write her book, star in the community play, and hang out with her friend Jennifer. But she's the new black kid in a nearly all-white neighborhood; her beloved sister, Lily, is going away to college soon; and her parents' marriage is rocky. There's also her family's new, disapproving housekeeper to deal with. When riots erupt in nearby Watts and a friend is unfairly arrested, Sophie learns that life--and her own place in it--is even more complicated than she'd once thought. Leavened with gentle humor, this story is perfect for fans of Rita Williams-Garcia.
The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America by Frances FitzGerald
Call Number: BR1642.U5 F565 2017
ISBN: 9781439131336
Publication Date: 2017-04-04
The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart dramatically, first North versus South, and then at the end of the century, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham, the revivalist preacher, attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation of leaders protested the Christian right's close ties with the Republican Party and proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform. Evangelicals have in many ways defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Frances FitGerald's narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history, piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population, but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still, with the decline of religious faith generally, FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive.
October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville
Call Number: DK265 .M475 2017
ISBN: 9781784782771
Publication Date: 2017-05-09
In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world's first workers' state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Mi#65533;ville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilisation that still resonates loudly today.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
Call Number: E99.O8 G675 2017
ISBN: 9780385534246
Publication Date: 2017-04-18
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.
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong - and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini
Call Number: HQ1180 .S25 2017
ISBN: 9780807071700
Publication Date: 2017-05-30
What science has gotten so shamefully wrong about women, and the fight, by both female and male scientists, to rewrite what we thought we knew For hundreds of years it was common sense: women were the inferior sex. Their bodies were weaker, their minds feebler, their role subservient. No less a scientist than Charles Darwin asserted that women were at a lower stage of evolution, and for decades, scientists--most of them male, of course--claimed to find evidence to support this. Whether looking at intelligence or emotion, cognition or behavior, science has continued to tell us that men and women are fundamentally different. Biologists claim that women are better suited to raising families or are, more gently, uniquely empathetic. Men, on the other hand, continue to be described as excelling at tasks that require logic, spatial reasoning, and motor skills. But a huge wave of research is now revealing an alternative version of what we thought we knew. The new woman revealed by this scientific data is as strong, strategic, and smart as anyone else. In Inferior, acclaimed science writer Angela Saini weaves together a fascinating--and sorely necessary--new science of women. As Saini takes readers on a journey to uncover science's failure to understand women, she finds that we're still living with the legacy of an establishment that's just beginning to recover from centuries of entrenched exclusion and prejudice. Sexist assumptions are stubbornly persistent: even in recent years, researchers have insisted that women are choosy and monogamous while men are naturally promiscuous, or that the way men's and women's brains are wired confirms long-discredited gender stereotypes. As Saini reveals, however, groundbreaking research is finally rediscovering women's bodies and minds. Inferior investigates the gender wars in biology, psychology, and anthropology, and delves into cutting-edge scientific studies to uncover a fascinating new portrait of women's brains, bodies, and role in human evolution.
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
Call Number: HV6465.M7 T97 2017
ISBN: 9781476714844
Publication Date: 2017-01-31
In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional. Only weeks later, Rosa Parks thought about young Emmett as she refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Black students who called themselves "the Emmett Till generation" launched sit-in campaigns that turned the struggle for civil rights into a mass movement. Till's lynching became the most notorious hate crime in American history. But what actually happened to Emmett Till--not the icon of injustice, but the flesh-and-blood boy? Part detective story, part political history, The Blood of Emmett Till "unfolds like a movie" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), drawing on a wealth of new evidence, including a shocking admission of Till's innocence from the woman in whose name he was killed. "Jolting and powerful" (The Washington Post), the book "provides fresh insight into the way race has informed and deformed our democratic institutions" (Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Carry Me Home) and "calls us to the cause of justice today" (Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the North Carolina NAACP).
Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman
Call Number: HV9950 .F655 2017
ISBN: 9780374189976
Publication Date: 2017-04-18
In recent years, America's criminal justice system has become the subject of an increasingly urgent debate. Critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. As James Forman, Jr., points out, however, the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation's urban centers. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand why. Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness--and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas--from the men and women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice system in this country.
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
Call Number: QA27.5 .L44 2016b
ISBN: 9780062363602
Publication Date: 2016-12-06
The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten Dunst, and Kevin Costner. Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South's segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America's aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam's call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens. Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future.
The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat / by Stephan J. Guyenet
Call Number: RC552.C65 G89 2017
ISBN: 9781250081193
Publication Date: 2017-02-07
From an obesity and neuroscience researcher with a knack for engaging, humorous storytelling,The Hungry Brain uses cutting-edge science to answer the questions: why do we overeat, and what can we do about it? No one wants to overeat. And certainly no one wants to overeat for years, become overweight, and end up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease--yet two thirds of Americans do precisely that. Even though we know better, we often eat too much. Why does our behavior betray our own intentions to be lean and healthy? The problem, argues obesity and neuroscience researcher Stephan J. Guyenet, is not necessarily a lack of willpower or an incorrect understanding of what to eat. Rather, our appetites and food choices are led astray by ancient, instinctive brain circuits that play by the rules of a survival game that no longer exists. And these circuits don't care about how you look in a bathing suit next summer. To make the case,The Hungry Brain takes readers on an eye-opening journey through cutting-edge neuroscience that has never before been available to a general audience. The Hungry Brain delivers profound insights into why the brain undermines our weight goals and transforms these insights into practical guidelines for eating well and staying slim. Along the way, it explores how the human brain works, revealing how this mysterious organ makes us who we are.
American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse
Call Number: HV6638.5.U6 H47 2017
ISBN: 9781631490514
Publication Date: 2017-07-11
The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn't stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate--there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning.The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie's confession unspooled, it got deeper and weirder. He wasn't lighting fires alone; his crimes were galvanized by a surprising love story. Over a year of investigating, Hesse uncovered the motives of Charlie and his accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick, a woman of steel-like strength and an inscrutable past. Theirs was a love built on impossibly tight budgets and simple pleasures. They were each other's inspiration and escape...until they weren't.Though it's hard to believe today, one hundred years ago Accomack was the richest rural county in the nation. Slowly it's been drained of its industry--agriculture--as well as its wealth and population. In an already remote region, limited employment options offer little in the way of opportunity. A mesmerizing and crucial panorama with nationwide implications, American Fire asks what happens when a community gets left behind. Hesse brings to life the Eastern Shore and its inhabitants, battling a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. The result evokes the soul of rural America--a land half gutted before the fires even began.
Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws That Affect Us Today by Cynthia Levinson; Sanford Levinson
Call Number: PZ5 342.73 L6657f2
ISBN: 9781561459452
Publication Date: 2017-09-01
Many of the political issues we struggle with today have their roots in the US Constitution. Husband-and-wife team Cynthia and Sanford Levinson take readers back to the creation of this historic document and discuss how contemporary problems were first introduced--then they offer possible solutions. Think Electoral College, gerrymandering, even the Senate. Many of us take these features in our system for granted. But they came about through haggling in an overheated room in 1787, and we're still experiencing the ramifications. Each chapter in this timely and thoughtful exploration of the Constitution's creation begins with a story--all but one of them true--that connects directly back to a section of the document that forms the basis of our society and government From the award-winning team, Cynthia Levinson, children's book author, and Sanford Levinson, constitutional law scholar, Fault Lines in the Constitution will encourage exploration and discussion from young and old readers alike.
Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman
Call Number: PZ5 759.94 H46687v4
ISBN: 9780805093391
Publication Date: 2017-04-18
From the author of National Book Award finalist Charles and Emma comes an incredible story of brotherly love. The deep and enduring friendship between Vincent and Theo Van Gogh shaped both brothers' lives. Confidant, champion, sympathizer, friend--Theo supported Vincent as he struggled to find his path in life. They shared everything, swapping stories of lovers and friends, successes and disappointments, dreams and ambitions. Meticulously researched, drawing on the 658 letters Vincent wrote to Theo during his lifetime, Deborah Heiligman weaves a tale of two lives intertwined and the extraordinary love of the Van Gogh brothers.
Real Friends by Shannon Hale; LeUyen Pham (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 741.5 H16452r4
ISBN: 9781626724167
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
Newbery Honor author Shannon Hale and New York Times bestselling illustrator LeUyen Pham join forces in this graphic memoir about how hard it is to find your real friends--and why it's worth the journey. When best friends are not forever . . . Shannon and Adrienne have been best friends ever since they were little. But one day, Adrienne starts hanging out with Jen, the most popular girl in class and the leader of a circle of friends called The Group. Everyone in The Group wants to be Jen's #1, and some girls would do anything to stay on top . . . even if it means bullying others. Now every day is like a roller coaster for Shannon. Will she and Adrienne stay friends? Can she stand up for herself? And is she in The Group--or out?
Starcrossed by Elizabeth C. Bunce
Call Number: PZ5 823 B94234s8
ISBN: 9780545136051
Publication Date: 2010-10-01
Sixteen-year-old Digger thrives as a spy and sneak-thief among the feuding religious factions of Llyvraneth, dodging the Green men who have banned all magic from the city. But when a routine job goes horribly wrong and her partner and lover tegan is killed, she has to get out of the land, fast, and hides herself in a merry group of nobles to do so. Accepted as a lady's maid to shy young Merista Nemair, Digger finds new peace and friendship at the Nemair stronghold--as well as plenty of jewels for the taking. But after the devious Remy Daul catches her in the act of thievery, he blackmails her into becoming his personal spy in the castle, and Digger soon realizes her noble hosts aren't as apolitical as she thought... that indeed, she may be at the heart of a magical rebellion. Brilliantly combining the richness of fantasy with the twists and turns of the besy spy stories, StarCrossed proves Elizabeth C. Bunce is a writer who's here to stay.
Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan; Meilo So (Illustrator); Helen Wang (Translator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 C23569b7
ISBN: 9780763688165
Publication Date: 2017-03-14
Sunflower is an only child, and when her father is sent to the rural Cadre School, she has to go with him. Her father is an established artist from the city and finds his new life of physical labor and endless meetings exhausting. Sunflower is lonely and longs to play with the local children in the village across the river. When her father tragically drowns, Sunflower is taken in by the poorest family in the village, a family with a son named Bronze. Until Sunflower joins his family, Bronze was an only child, too, and hasn't spoken a word since he was traumatized by a terrible fire. Bronze and Sunflower become inseparable, understanding each other as only the closest friends can. Translated from Mandarin, the story meanders gracefully through the challenges that face the family, creating a timeless story of the trials of poverty and the power of love and loyalty to overcome hardship.
The Lotterys Plus One by Emma Donoghue; Caroline Hadilaksono (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 D68752l4
ISBN: 9780545925815
Publication Date: 2017-03-28
Sumac Lottery is nine years old and the self-proclaimed "good girl" of her (VERY) large, (EXTREMELY) unruly family. And what a family the Lotterys are: four parents, children both adopted and biological, and a menagerie of pets, all living and learning together in a sprawling house called Camelottery. Then one day, the news breaks that one of their grandfathers is suffering from dementia and will be coming to live with them. And not just any grandfather; the long dormant "Grumps," who fell out with his son so long ago that he hasn't been part of any of their lives. Suddenly, everything changes. Sumac has to give up her room to make the newcomer feel at home. She tries to be nice, but prickly Grumps's clearly disapproves of how the Lotterys live: whole grains, strange vegetables, rescue pets, a multicultural household... He's worse than just tough to get along with -- Grumps has got to go! But can Sumac help him find a home where he belongs?
Refugee by Alan Gratz
Call Number: PZ5 823 G77393r4
ISBN: 9780545880831
Publication Date: 2017-07-25
JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world . . . ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America . . . MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe . . . All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end. This action-packed novel tackles topics both timely and timeless: courage, survival, and the quest for home.
Amina's Voice by Hena Khan; Abigail Dela Cruz (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 K4536a6
ISBN: 9781481492065
Publication Date: 2017-03-14
A Pakistani-American Muslim girl struggles to stay true to her family's vibrant culture while simultaneously blending in at school after tragedy strikes her community in this sweet and moving middle grade novel from the award-winning author of It's Ramadan, Curious George and Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns. Amina has never been comfortable in the spotlight. She is happy just hanging out with her best friend, Soojin. Except now that she's in middle school everything feels different. Soojin is suddenly hanging out with Emily, one of the "cool" girls in the class, and even talking about changing her name to something more "American." Does Amina need to start changing too? Or hiding who she is to fit in? While Amina grapples with these questions, she is devastated when her local mosque is vandalized. Amina's Voice brings to life the joys and challenges of a young Pakistani American and highlights the many ways in which one girl's voice can help bring a diverse community together to love and support each other.
Warcross by Marie Lu
Call Number: PZ5 823 L92653w2
ISBN: 9780399547966
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn't just a game--it's a way of life. The obsession started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down Warcross players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty-hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. To make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships--only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation. Convinced she's going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game's creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year's tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika's whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she's only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.
Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull
Call Number: PZ5 823 M95837d7
ISBN: 9781629722566
Publication Date: 2017-03-07
In the long-awaited sequel to Fablehaven, the dragons who have been kept at the dragon sanctuaries no longer consider them safe havens, but prisons and they want their freedom. The dragons are no longer our allies.... In the hidden dragon sanctuary of Wyrmroost, Celebrant the Just, King of the Dragons, plots his revenge. He has long seen the sanctuaries as prisons, and he wants nothing more than to overthrow his captors and return the world to the Age of Dragons, when he and his kind ruled and reigned without borders. The time has come to break free and reclaim his power. No one person is capable of stopping Celebrant and his dragon horde. It will take the ancient order of Dragonwatch to gather again if there is any chance of saving the world from destruction. In ancient times, Dragonwatch was a group of wizards, enchantresses, dragon slayers, and others who originally confined the majority of dragons into sanctuaries. But nearly all of the original Dragonwatch members are gone, and so the wizard Agad reaches out to Grandpa Sorenson for help. As Kendra and Seth confront this new danger, they must draw upon all their skills, talents, and knowledge as only they have the ability to function together as a powerful dragon tamer. Together they must battle against forces with superior supernatural powers and breathtaking magical abilities. How will the epic dragon showdown end? Will dragons overthrow humans and change the world as we know it?
The Dark Prophecy by Rick Riordan
Call Number: PZ5 823 R58562d2
ISBN: 9781484746424
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
Zeus has punished his son Apollo--god of the sun, music, archery, poetry, and more--by casting him down to earth in the form of a gawky, acne-covered sixteen-year-old mortal named Lester. The only way Apollo can reclaim his rightful place on Mount Olympus is by restoring several Oracles that have gone dark. What is affecting the Oracles, and how can Apollo/Lester do anything about them without his powers? After experiencing a series of dangerous--and frankly, humiliating--trials at Camp Half-Blood, Lester must now leave the relative safety of the demigod training ground and embark on a hair-raising journey across North America. Somewhere in the American Midwest, he and his companions must find the most dangerous Oracle from ancient times: a haunted cave that may hold answers for Apollo in his quest to become a god again--if it doesn't kill him or drive him insane first. Standing in Apollo's way is the second member of the evil Triumvirate, a Roman emperor whose love of bloodshed and spectacle makes even Nero look tame. To survive the encounter, Apollo will need the help of son of Hephaestus Leo Valdez, the now-mortal sorceress Calypso, the bronze dragon Festus, and other unexpected allies--some familiar, some new--from the world of demigods. Come along for what promises to be a harrowing, hilarious, and haiku-filled ride. . . .
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Call Number: PZ5 823 T45435h3
ISBN: 9780062498533
Publication Date: 2017-02-28
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. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Clayton Byrd Goes Underground by Rita Williams-Garcia; Frank Morrison (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 W7267c5
ISBN: 9780062215918
Publication Date: 2017-05-09
From beloved Newbery Honor winner and three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner Rita Williams-Garcia comes a powerful and heartfelt novel about loss, family, and love that will appeal to fans of Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander. Clayton feels most alive when he's with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band of Bluesmen--he can't wait to join them, just as soon as he has a blues song of his own. But then the unthinkable happens. Cool Papa Byrd dies, and Clayton's mother forbids Clayton from playing the blues. And Clayton knows that's no way to live. Armed with his grandfather's brown porkpie hat and his harmonica, he runs away from home in search of the Bluesmen, hoping he can join them on the road. But on the journey that takes him through the New York City subways and to Washington Square Park, Clayton learns some things that surprise him.

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg; Adam Grant
Call Number: BF575.G7 S256 2017
ISBN: 9781524732684
Publication Date: 2017-04-24
After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in 'the void,'" she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe." Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build. Option B combines Sheryl's personal insights with Adam's eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart--and her journal--to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl's loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy. Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. "I want Dave," she cried. Her friend replied, "Option A is not available," and then promised to help her make the most of Option B. We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel
Call Number: CT9991.K65 F56 2017
ISBN: 9781101875681
Publication Date: 2017-03-07
Many people dream of escaping modern life, but most will never act on it. This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. A New York Times bestseller In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.
What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
Call Number: E887.C55 A3 2017
ISBN: 9781501175565
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
For the first time, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. Now free from the constraints of running, Hillary takes you inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. This is her most personal memoir yet. In these pages, she describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. With humor and candor, she tells readers what it took to get back on her feet--the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. She speaks about the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics. She lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future. The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign and its aftermath--both a deeply intimate account and a cautionary tale for the nation.
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore
Call Number: HD6067.2.U6 M66 2017
ISBN: 9781492649359
Publication Date: 2017-04-18
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 Girlsfully 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...
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
Call Number: HD8073.V37 A3 2016
ISBN: 9780062300546
Publication Date: 2016-06-28
Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis—that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country.
Draft No. 4 by John McPhee
Call Number: PN149 .M43 2017
ISBN: 9780374142742
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
The long-awaited guide to writing long-form nonfiction by the legendary author and teacher Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer's craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. In one essay, he considers the delicate art of getting sources to tell you what they might not otherwise reveal. In another, he discusses how to use flashback to place a bear encounter in a travel narrative, while observing that "readers are not supposed to notice the structure. It is meant to be about as visible as someone's bones." The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising--and revising, and revising. Draft No. 4 is enriched by multiple diagrams and by personal anecdotes and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee describes his enduring relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and recalls his early years at Time magazine. Throughout, Draft No. 4 is enlivened by his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world.
Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Call Number: PZ5 293 G1413n6
ISBN: 9780393609097
Publication Date: 2017-02-07
Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales.In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon: Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning; Thor, Odin's son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods; and Loki--son of a giant--blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Once, when Thor's hammer is stolen, Thor must disguise himself as a woman--difficult with his beard and huge appetite--to steal it back. More poignant is the tale in which the blood of Kvasir--the most sagacious of gods--is turned into a mead that infuses drinkers with poetry. The work culminates in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and rebirth of a new time and people.Through Gaiman's deft and witty prose emerge these gods with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again.
Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Call Number: QA76.9.D343 S68515 2017
ISBN: 9780062390851
Publication Date: 2017-05-09
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world--provided we ask the right questions. By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information--unprecedented in history--can tell us a great deal about who we are--the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable. Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn't vote for Barack Obama because he's black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who's more self-conscious about sex, men or women? Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential--revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our health--both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
Animals Strike Curious Poses by Elena Passarello
Call Number: PS3616.A856 A6 2017
ISBN: 9781941411391
Publication Date: 2017-02-28
Beginning with Yuka, a 39,000 year old mummified woolly mammoth recently found in the Siberian permafrost, each of the 16 essays inAnimals Strike Curious Poses investigates a different famous animal named and immortalized by humans. Modeled loosely after a medieval bestiary, these witty, playful, whipsmart essays traverse history, myth, science, and more, bringing each beast vibrantly to life. Elena Passarellois an actor, a writer, and recipient of a 2015 Whiting Fellowship in nonfiction. Her first collection with Sarabande Books,Let Me Clear My Throat, won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Call Number: QB461 .T97 2017
ISBN: 9780393609394
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis
Call Number: QP360.5 .L49 2017
ISBN: 9780393254594
Publication Date: 2016-12-06
Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred, systematically, when forced to make judgments in uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis's own work possible. Kahneman and Tversky are more responsible than anybody for the powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms. The Undoing Project is about a compelling collaboration between two men who have the dimensions of great literary figures. They became heroes in the university and on the battlefield--both had important careers in the Israeli military--and their research was deeply linked to their extraordinary life experiences. Amos Tversky was a brilliant, self-confident warrior and extrovert, the center of rapt attention in any room; Kahneman, a fugitive from the Nazis in his childhood, was an introvert whose questing self-doubt was the seedbed of his ideas. They became one of the greatest partnerships in the history of science, working together so closely that they couldn't remember whose brain originated which ideas, or who should claim credit. They flipped a coin to decide the lead authorship on the first paper they wrote, and simply alternated thereafter. This story about the workings of the human mind is explored through the personalities of two fascinating individuals so fundamentally different from each other that they seem unlikely friends or colleagues. In the process they may well have changed, for good, mankind's view of its own mind.
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
Call Number: E185.61 .R8185 2017
ISBN: 9781631492853
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America's cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation--that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes clear that it was de jure segregation--the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments--that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.Through extraordinary revelations and extensive research that Ta-Nehisi Coates has lauded as "brilliant" (The Atlantic), Rothstein comes to chronicle nothing less than an untold story that begins in the 1920s, showing how this process of de jure segregation began with explicit racial zoning, as millions of African Americans moved in a great historical migration from the south to the north.As Jane Jacobs established in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, it was the deeply flawed urban planning of the 1950s that created many of the impoverished neighborhoods we know. Now, Rothstein expands our understanding of this history, showing how government policies led to the creation of officially segregated public housing and the demolition of previously integrated neighborhoods. While urban areas rapidly deteriorated, the great American suburbanization of the post-World War II years was spurred on by federal subsidies for builders on the condition that no homes be sold to African Americans. Finally, Rothstein shows how police and prosecutors brutally upheld these standards by supporting violent resistance to black families in white neighborhoods.The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibited future discrimination but did nothing to reverse residential patterns that had become deeply embedded. Yet recent outbursts of violence in cities like Baltimore, Ferguson, and Minneapolis show us precisely how the legacy of these earlier eras contributes to persistent racial unrest.
The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost by Peter Manseau
Call Number: BF1027.M86 M36 2017
ISBN: 9780544745971
Publication Date: 2017-10-10
In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer," William Mumler took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of a lost loved one alongside the living subject. Mumler was a sensation: The affluent and influential came calling, including Mary Todd Lincoln, who arrived at his studio in disguise amidst rumors of s#65533;ances in the White House. Peter Manseau brilliantly captures a nation wracked with grief and hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and for contact with their dead husbands and sons. It took a circus-like trial of Mumler on fraud charges, starring P. T. Barnum for the prosecution, to expose a fault line of doubt and manipulation. And even then, the judge sided with the defense--nobody ever solved the mystery of his spirit photography. This forgotten puzzle offers a vivid snapshot of America at a crossroads in its history, a nation in thrall to new technology while clinging desperately to belief.
Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Call Number: N6923.L33 I827 2017
ISBN: 9781501139154
Publication Date: 2017-10-17
Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and technology. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history's most creative genius. His creativity, like that of other great innovators, came from having wide-ranging passions. He peeled flesh off the faces of cadavers, drew the muscles that move the lips, and then painted history's most memorable smile. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. Isaacson also describes how Leonardo's lifelong enthusiasm for staging theatrical productions informed his paintings and inventions. Leonardo's delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance of instilling, both in ourselves and our children, not just received knowledge but a willingness to question it--to be imaginative and, like talented misfits and rebels in any era, to think different.
Theft by Finding by David Sedaris
Call Number: PS3569.E314 A6 2017
ISBN: 9780316154727
Publication Date: 2017-05-30
For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences. Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Theft by Finding, the first of two volumes, is the story of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet. Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can't fully disguise, Theft By Finding proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It's a potent reminder that when you're as perceptive and curious as Sedaris, there's no such thing as a boring day.
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
Call Number: PS3551.L35774 Z46 2017
ISBN: 9780316270755
Publication Date: 2017-06-13
Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie's bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most. She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth. She selflessly cared for strangers, but was often incapable of showering her children with the affection that they so desperately craved. She wanted a better life for her son, but it was only by leaving her behind that he could hope to achieve it. It's these contradictions that made Lillian Alexie a beautiful, mercurial, abusive, intelligent, complicated, and very human woman. When she passed away, the incongruities that defined his mother shook Sherman and his remembrance of her. Grappling with the haunting ghosts of the past in the wake of loss, he responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is a stunning memoir filled with raw, angry, funny, profane, tender memories of a childhood few can imagine, much less survive.
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
ISBN: 9780735211209
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged. Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from--a place to which she vowed she'd never return.
4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster
Call Number: PS3551.U77 A615 2017
ISBN: 9781627794466
Publication Date: 2017-01-31
Paul Auster's greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel--a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself. Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson's pleasures and ache from each Ferguson's pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson's life rushes on. As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.
Moonglow by Michael Chabon
Call Number: PS3553.H15 M96 2016
ISBN: 9780062225559
Publication Date: 2016-11-22
In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother’s home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon’s grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as “my grandfather.” It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact—and the creative power—of keeping secrets and telling lies. It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator’s grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France. It is also a tour de force of speculative autobiography in which Chabon devises and reveals a secret history of his own imagination. From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, from a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York’s Wallkill prison, from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the “American Century,” the novel revisits an entire era through a single life and collapses a lifetime into a single week. A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most moving and inventive.
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Call Number: PS3558.A42169 E95 2017
ISBN: 9780735212176
Publication Date: 2017-03-07
In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.
The Risen by Ron Rash
Call Number: PS3568.A698 R57 2016
ISBN: 9780062436313
Publication Date: 2016-09-06
While swimming in a secluded creek on a hot Sunday in 1969, sixteen-year-old Eugene and his older brother, Bill, meet the entrancing Ligeia. A sexy, free-spirited redhead from Daytona Beach banished to their small North Carolina town, Ligeia entrances the brothers, especially Eugene, who is drawn to her raw sensuality and rebellious attitude. Eugene begins to move farther and farther away from his brother, the cautious and dutiful Bill, and when Ligeia vanishes as suddenly as she appeared, the growing rift between the two brothers becomes immutable. Decades later, the once close brothers now lead completely different lives. Bill is a gifted and successful surgeon, and a paragon of the community, while Eugene, the town reprobate, is a failed writer and determined alcoholic. When a shocking reminder of the past unexpectedly surfaces, Eugene is plunged back into that fateful summer, and the girl he cannot forget. The deeper Eugene delves into his memories, the closer he comes to finding the truth. But can Eugene's recollections be trusted? And will the truth set him free and offer salvation . . . or destroy his damaged life and everyone he loves?
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Call Number: PS3569.E3334 T43 2017
ISBN: 9781501154829
Publication Date: 2017-03-21
Li-yan and her family align their lives around the seasons and the farming of tea. There is ritual and routine, and it has been ever thus for generations. Then one day a jeep appears at the village gate—the first automobile any of them have seen—and a stranger arrives. In this remote Yunnan village, the stranger finds the rare tea he has been seeking and a reticent Akha people. In her biggest seller, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, See introduced the Yao people to her readers. Here she shares the customs of another Chinese ethnic minority, the Akha, whose world will soon change. Li-yan, one of the few educated girls on her mountain, translates for the stranger and is among the first to reject the rules that have shaped her existence. When she has a baby outside of wedlock, rather than stand by tradition, she wraps her daughter in a blanket, with a tea cake hidden in her swaddling, and abandons her in the nearest city. After mother and daughter have gone their separate ways, Li-yan slowly emerges from the security and insularity of her village to encounter modern life while Haley grows up a privileged and well-loved California girl. Despite Haley’s happy home life, she wonders about her origins; and Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. They both search for and find answers in the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for generations.
Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Call Number: PS3569.T736 A6 2017
ISBN: 9780812989403
Publication Date: 2017-04-25
Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life. The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother's happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author's celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Call Number: PS3573.H4768 U53 2016
ISBN: 9780385542364
Publication Date: 2016-08-02
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood--where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned--Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Dark at the Crossing by Elliot Ackerman
Call Number: PS3601.C5456 D37 2017
ISBN: 9781101947371
Publication Date: 2017-01-24
Haris Abadi is a man in search of a cause. An Arab American with a conflicted past, he is now in Turkey, attempting to cross into Syria and join the fight against Bashar al-Assad's regime. But he is robbed before he can make it, and is taken in by Amir, a charismatic Syrian refugee and former revolutionary, and Amir's wife, Daphne, a sophisticated beauty haunted by grief. As it becomes clear that Daphne is also desperate to return to Syria, Haris's choices become ever more wrenching: Whose side is he really on? Is he a true radical or simply an idealist? And will he be able to bring meaning to a life of increasing frustration and helplessness? Told with compassion and a deft hand, Dark at the Crossing is an exploration of loss, of second chances, and of why we choose to believe--a trenchantly observed novel of raw urgency and power.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
Call Number: PS3601.R42 B43 2017
ISBN: 9781101885932
Publication Date: 2017-01-10
Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurse's fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil. Then Vasya's widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasya's stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village. But Vasya's stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the village's defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed--to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurse's most frightening tales.
Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare
Call Number: PS3603.L354 D3 Bk.2
ISBN: 9781442468405
Publication Date: 2017-05-23
Sunny Los Angeles can be a dark place indeed in Cassandra Clare's Lord of Shadows, the sequel to the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling Lady Midnight. Lord of Shadows is a Shadowhunters novel. Emma Carstairs has finally avenged her parents. She thought she'd be at peace. But she is anything but calm. Torn between her desire for her parabatai Julian and her desire to protect him from the brutal consequences of parabatai relationships, she has begun dating his brother, Mark. But Mark has spent the past five years trapped in Faerie; can he ever truly be a Shadowhunter again? And the faerie courts are not silent. The Unseelie King is tired of the Cold Peace, and will no longer concede to the Shadowhunters' demands. Caught between the demands of faerie and the laws of the Clave, Emma, Julian, and Mark must find a way to come together to defend everything they hold dear--before it's too late.
American War by Omar El Akkad
Call Number: PS3605.L12 A78 2017
ISBN: 9780451493583
Publication Date: 2017-04-04
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.
Darktown by Thomas Mullen
Call Number: PS3613.U447 D37 2016
ISBN: 9781501133862
Publication Date: 2016-09-13
Responding to orders from on high, the Atlanta Police Department is forced to hire its first black officers, including war veterans Lucius Boggs and Tommy Smith. The newly minted policemen are met with deep hostility by their white peers; they aren't allowed to arrest white suspects, drive squad cars, or set foot in the police headquarters. When a black woman who was last seen in a car driven by a white man turns up dead, Boggs and Smith suspect white cops are behind it. Their investigation sets them up against a brutal cop, Dunlow, who has long run the neighborhood as his own, and his partner, Rakestraw, a young progressive who may or may not be willing to make allies across color lines. Among shady moonshiners, duplicitous madams, crooked lawmen, and the constant restrictions of Jim Crow, Boggs and Smith will risk their new jobs, and their lives, while navigating a dangerous world--a world on the cusp of great change. Set in the postwar, pre-civil rights South, and evoking the socially resonant and morally complex crime novels of Dennis Lehane and Walter Mosley, Darktown is a vivid, smart, intricately plotted crime saga that explores the timely issues of race, law enforcement, and the uneven scales of justice.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Call Number: PS3614.G83 L58 2017
ISBN: 9780735224292
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Call Number: PR6069.M59 S95 2016
ISBN: 9781594203985
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
Two brown girls dream of being dancers--but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live. But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey--the same twists, the same shakes--and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time.
A Column of Fire by Ken Follett
Call Number: PR6056.O45 C65 2017
ISBN: 9780525954972
Publication Date: 2017-09-12
Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth. When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country's first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva. Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents. The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else--no matter what the cost.
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
Call Number: PS3553.H277 I45 2017
ISBN: 9780345476043
Publication Date: 2017-03-07
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin's parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning. Meanwhile, one of Dustin's patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there's more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries--and putting his own family in harm's way.
Camino Island by John Grisham
Call Number: PS3557.R5355 C36 2017
ISBN: 9780385543026
Publication Date: 2017-06-06
Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable's circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there's trouble in paradise as only John Grisham can deliver it.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Call Number: PS3569.A7897 L56 2017
ISBN: 9780812995343
Publication Date: 2017-02-14
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 says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
Call Number: PZ5 823 G79699t8
ISBN: 9780525555360
Publication Date: 2017-10-10
Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there's a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett's son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts. In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza's story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig
Call Number: PS3612.U324 G56 2017
ISBN: 9780778330165
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
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...
Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin
Call Number: PS3557.O315 G75 2017
ISBN: 9781632867049
Publication Date: 2017-06-06
The haunting tale of a desolate cottage, and the hair-thin junction between this life and the next, from bestselling National Book Award finalist Gail Godwin. After his mother's death, eleven-year-old Marcus is sent to live on a small South Carolina island with his great aunt, a reclusive painter with a haunted past. Aunt Charlotte, otherwise a woman of few words, points out a ruined cottage, telling Marcus she had visited it regularly after she'd moved there thirty years ago because it matched the ruin of her own life. Eventually she was inspired to take up painting so she could capture its utter desolation. The islanders call it "Grief Cottage," because a boy and his parents disappeared from it during a hurricane fifty years before. Their bodies were never found and the cottage has stood empty ever since. During his lonely hours while Aunt Charlotte is in her studio painting and keeping her demons at bay, Marcus visits the cottage daily, building up his courage by coming ever closer, even after the ghost of the boy who died seems to reveal himself. Full of curiosity and open to the unfamiliar and uncanny given the recent upending of his life, he courts the ghost boy, never certain whether the ghost is friendly or follows some sinister agenda. Grief Cottage is the best sort of ghost story, but it is far more than that--an investigation of grief, remorse, and the memories that haunt us. The power and beauty of this artful novel wash over the reader like the waves on a South Carolina beach.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
Call Number: PT9877.12.A32 B5513 2017
ISBN: 9781501160769
Publication Date: 2017-04-25
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected. Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent
Call Number: PS3620.A536 M9 2017
ISBN: 9780735211179
Publication Date: 2017-08-29
Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero--and in the process, becomes ours as well.
Origin by Dan Brown
Call Number: PS3552.R685434 O74 2017
ISBN: 9780385514231
Publication Date: 2017-10-03
Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the ultramodern Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend a major announcement--the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever." The evening's host is Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old billionaire and futurist whose dazzling high-tech inventions and audacious predictions have made him a renowned global figure. Kirsch, who was one of Langdon's first students at Harvard two decades earlier, is about to reveal an astonishing breakthrough . . . one that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence. As the event begins, Langdon and several hundred guests find themselves captivated by an utterly original presentation, which Langdon realizes will be far more controversial than he ever imagined. But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos, and Kirsch's precious discovery teeters on the brink of being lost forever. Reeling and facing an imminent threat, Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape Bilbao. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch to stage the provocative event. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch's secret. Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace itself . . . and who will stop at nothing to silence Edmond Kirsch. On a trail marked by modern art and enigmatic symbols, Langdon and Vidal uncover clues that ultimately bring them face-to-face with Kirsch's shocking discovery . . . and the breathtaking truth that has long eluded us. Origin is stunningly inventive--Dan Brown's most brilliant and entertaining novel to date.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Call Number: PS3623.A7323 S56 2017
ISBN: 9781501126062
Publication Date: 2017-09-05
In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power--and limitations--of family bonds. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won't acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager. His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister's lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children's father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she's high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances. When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an unforgettable family story.
Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory
Call Number: PS3607.R48836 S68 2017
ISBN: 9781524731823
Publication Date: 2017-06-27
Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it's not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed, but her mind--Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, have three gifted children, and become the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing astounding feats across the country. Irene is a human lie detector. Frankie can move objects with his mind. And Buddy, the youngest, can see the future. Then one night tragedy leaves the family shattered. Decades later, the Telemachuses are not so amazing. Irene is a single mom whose ear for truth makes it hard to hold down a job, much less hold together a relationship. Frankie's in serious debt to his dad's old mob associates. Buddy has completely withdrawn into himself and inexplicably begun digging a hole in the backyard. To make matters worse, the CIA has come knocking, looking to see if there's any magic left in the Telemachus clan. And there is: Irene's son Matty has just had his first out-of-body experience. But he hasn't told anyone, even though his newfound talent might just be what his family needs to save themselves--if it doesn't tear them apart in the process.
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
Call Number: PR6111.U68 W48 2017
ISBN: 9780451493699
Publication Date: 2017-03-14
Two twenty-something New Yorkers. Seth is awkward and shy. Carter is the glamorous heir to one of America's great fortunes. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Seth is desperate to reach for the future. Carter is slipping back into the past. When Seth accidentally records an unknown singer in a park, Carter sends it out over the Internet, claiming it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw. When an old collector contacts them to say that their fake record and their fake bluesman are actually real, the two young white men, accompanied by Carter's troubled sister Leonie, spiral down into the heart of the nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge, and exploitation.
La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Call Number: PZ5 823 P9826b6
ISBN: 9780375815300
Publication Date: 2017-10-19
Malcolm Polstead is the kind of boy who notices everything but is not much noticed himself. And so perhaps it was inevitable that he would become a spy.... Malcolm's parents run an inn called the Trout, on the banks of the river Thames, and all of Oxford passes through its doors. Malcolm and his daemon, Asta, routinely overhear news and gossip, and the occasional scandal, but during a winter of unceasing rain, Malcolm catches wind of something new: intrigue. He finds a secret message inquiring about a dangerous substance called Dust--and the spy it was intended for finds him. When she asks Malcolm to keep his eyes open, he sees suspicious characters everywhere: the explorer Lord Asriel, clearly on the run; enforcement agents from the Magisterium; a gyptian named Coram with warnings just for Malcolm; and a beautiful woman with an evil monkey for a daemon. All are asking about the same thing: a girl--just a baby--named Lyra. Lyra is the kind of person who draws people in like magnets. And Malcolm will brave any danger, and make shocking sacrifices, to bring her safely through the storm.
The Rooster Bar by John Grisham
Call Number: PS3557.R5355 R66 2017
ISBN: 9780385541176
Publication Date: 2017-10-24
Mark, Todd, and Zola came to law school to change the world, to make it a better place. But now, as third-year students, these close friends realize they have been duped. They all borrowed heavily to attend a third-tier, for-profit law school so mediocre that its graduates rarely pass the bar exam, let alone get good jobs. And when they learn that their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also happens to own a bank specializing in student loans, the three know they have been caught up in The Great Law School Scam. But maybe there's a way out. Maybe there's a way to escape their crushing debt, expose the bank and the scam, and make a few bucks in the process. But to do so, they would first have to quit school. And leaving law school a few short months before graduation would be completely crazy, right? Well, yes and no . . . Pull up a stool, grab a cold one, and get ready to spend some time at The Rooster Bar.
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King; Owen King
Call Number: PS3561.I483 S56 2017
ISBN: 9781501163401
Publication Date: 2017-09-26
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare. One woman, the mysterious "Eve Black," is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain? Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanting to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world. Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a women's prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously dramatic father-son collaboration that feels particularly urgent and relevant today.

Cannibalism by Bill Schutt
ISBN: 9781616206550
Publication Date: 2017-02-14
For centuries scientists have written off cannibalism as a bizarre phenomenon with little biological significance. Its presence in nature was dismissed as a desperate response to starvation or other life-threatening circumstances, and few spent time studying it. A taboo subject in our culture, the behavior was portrayed mostly through horror movies or tabloids sensationalizing the crimes of real-life flesh-eaters. But the true nature of cannibalism--the role it plays in evolution as well as human history--is even more intriguing (and more normal) than the misconceptions we've come to accept as fact. In Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History,zoologist Bill Schutt sets the record straight, debunking common myths and investigating our new understanding of cannibalism's role in biology, anthropology, and history in the most fascinating account yet written on this complex topic. Schutt takes readers from Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, where he wades through ponds full of tadpoles devouring their siblings, to the Sierra Nevadas, where he joins researchers who are shedding new light on what happened to the Donner Party--the most infamous episode of cannibalism in American history. He even meets with an expert on the preparation and consumption of human placenta (and, yes, it goes well with Chianti). Bringing together the latest cutting-edge science, Schutt answers questions such as why some amphibians consume their mother's skin; why certain insects bite the heads off their partners after sex; why, up until the end of the twentieth century, Europeans regularly ate human body parts as medical curatives; and how cannibalism might be linked to the extinction of the Neanderthals. He takes us into the future as well, investigating whether, as climate change causes famine, disease, and overcrowding, we may see more outbreaks of cannibalism in many more species--including our own. Cannibalism places a perfectly natural occurrence into a vital new context and invites us to explore why it both enthralls and repels us.
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace
ISBN: 0195116356
Publication Date: 2017-10-02
In this utterly immersive volume, Mike Wallace captures the swings of prosperity and downturn, from the 1898 skyscraper-driven boom to the Bankers' Panic of 1907, the labor upheaval, and violent repression during and after the First World War. Here is New York on a whole new scale, moving fromnational to global prominence - an urban dynamo driven by restless ambition, boundless energy, immigrant dreams, and Wall Street greed.Within the first two decades of the twentieth century, a newly consolidated New York grew exponentially. The city exploded into the air, with skyscrapers jostling for prominence, and dove deep into the bedrock where massive underground networks of subways, water pipes, and electrical conduitssprawled beneath the city to serve a surging population of New Yorkers from all walks of life. New York was transformed in these two decades as the world's second-largest city and now its financial capital, thriving and sustained by the city's seemingly unlimited potential. Wallace's new book matches its predecessor in pure page-turning appeal and takes America's greatest city to new heights. (From Amazon)
Henry David Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls
ISBN: 9780226344690
Publication Date: 2017-07-07
Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, Laura Dassow Walls presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him. (From Amazon)
In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
ISBN: 9780819577139
Publication Date: 2016-01-17
Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae's latest collection is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. Historical persona poems and a prose memoir at the center of the book address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. In the book's three sequences, McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, he confronts the myth that freedom can be based upon the power to dominate others, and, in poems about the mixed-race child adopted by Jefferson Davis in the last year of the Civil War, he interrogates the infrequently examined connections between racism and love.
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
ISBN: 9781616207137
Publication Date: 2017-05-02
One morning, Deming Guo's mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon--and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. But far from all he's ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents' desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind. Told from the perspective of both Daniel--as he grows into a directionless young man--and Polly, Ko's novel gives us one of fiction's most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another. Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. It's a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past. Lisa Ko's fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2016, Apogee Journal, Narrative, Copper Nickel, the Asian Pacific American Journal, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Writers OMI at Ledig House, the Jerome Foundation, and Blue Mountain Center, among others. She was born in New York City, where she now lives. Visit her at lisa-ko.com.
The Meaning of Belief by Tim Crane
ISBN: 0674088832
Publication Date: 2017-10-30
Contemporary debate about religion seems to be going nowhere. Atheists persist with their arguments, many plausible and some unanswerable, but these make no impact on religious believers. Defenders of religion find atheists equally unwilling to cede ground. The Meaning of Belief offers a way out of this stalemate. An atheist himself, Tim Crane writes that there is a fundamental flaw with most atheists' basic approach: religion is not what they think it is. Atheists tend to treat religion as a kind of primitive cosmology, as the sort of explanation of the universe that science offers. They conclude that religious believers are irrational, superstitious, and bigoted. But this view of religion is almost entirely inaccurate. Crane offers an alternative account based on two ideas. The first is the idea of a religious impulse: the sense people have of something transcending the world of ordinary experience, even if it cannot be explicitly articulated. The second is the idea of identification: the fact that religion involves belonging to a specific social group and participating in practices that reinforce the bonds of belonging. Once these ideas are properly understood, the inadequacy of atheists' conventional conception of religion emerges. The Meaning of Belief does not assess the truth or falsehood of religion. Rather, it looks at the meaning of religious belief and offers a way of understanding it that both makes sense of current debate and also suggests what more intellectually responsible and practically effective attitudes atheists might take to the phenomenon of religion. (From Amazon)
Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions by Valeria Luiselli
ISBN: 9781566894968
Publication Date: 2017-03-28
Structured around the forty questions Luiselli translates and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends (an expansion of her 2016 Freeman’s essay of the same name) humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—both here and back home. (From Amazon)

National Popcorn Poppin' Month

Not only is October the month that Halloween falls in, but it is also
  National Popcorn Poppin' Month! Celebrate both by eating some
  popcorn while watching a movie or two from the SAC/SGA
DVD Collection, located in the Reserve Reading Room on the 1st
  floor of Ablah Library.

More information about the DVD collection can be found
here: http://libraries.wichita.edu/movies

"For more than 30 years, October has been celebrated as National Popcorn Poppin’ Month; however, it became "official" in 1999, when then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman proclaimed October as National Popcorn Poppin’ Month.

While every day is a great day for celebrating popcorn, we chose the month of October because of the popcorn harvest which takes place each fall in the Midwest. Each year when the new crop is harvested, it reminds us popcorn will always be the naturally fun snack for the entire family. Popcorn Poppin' Month is the perfect time to celebrate popcorn." - Popcorn.org

This display was created by Kelsey Unruh and Madison Zimmerman. Dates: October 3, 2017 to December 1, 2017.

Bram Stoker's Dracula
Call Number: PN1995.9.D64 B73 1997
ISBN: 9780800177171
The tortured journey of the devastatingly seductive Transylvanian Prince as he moves from Eastern Europe to 19th century London in search of his reincarnated long-lost love.
Dracula: The Legacy Collection
Call Number: PN1995.9.D64 D73 2004
ISBN: 078328814X
Dracula: The vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the young and virtuous Mina. -- Dracula's daughter: A hypnotic woman steals the body of Count Dracula and bloodless corpses start appearing in London again. -- Son of Dracula: Carpathian Count Alucard is invited to the United States by a young and morbid heiress. -- House of Dracula: Dracula arrives at Dr. Edelman's office asking for a cure to his vampirism.
Frankenstein
Call Number: PN1995.9.F8 F735 2006
ISBN: 9781417021444
Dr. Frankenstein dares to tamper with life and death by creating a human monster in his laboratory but his dreams of perfection are thwarted when the monster becomes an uncontrollable beast.
Nosferatu
Call Number: PN1995.9.V3 N67 2000
The first film version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Count Orlock (Nosferatu, the vampire), leaves his castle in the Carpathians and travels by ship to Bremen, bringing coffins filled with dirt and plague rats.
The Others
Call Number: PN1997.2 .O77 2002
ISBN: 9780788832093
Grace, a devoutly religious mother, has moved with her family to a mansion on the English coast, awaiting her husband's return from the war. Her two children both suffer from a rare photosensitivity disease that renders them extremely vulnerable to sunlight, prompting the rule of having only one door open in the house at a time. When one of the children claims to see ghosts, Grace at first believes her newly-arrived family of eccentric servants to be responsible, but as events become stranger, she begins to wonder if something supernatural is indeed going on.
The Woman in Black
Call Number: PN1997.2 .W66 2012
A young lawyer is ordered to travel to a remote village and sort out a recently deceased client's papers. While he works alone in the client's isolated house, he discovers the vengeful ghost of a scorned woman who is terrorizing the locals. This leads him on a desperate race against time when he discovers her true intent.

Little Shop of Horrors
Call Number: PN1995.9.M86 L58 2000
ISBN: 0790750023
In this musical, business booms at Mushnik's Flower Shop when an exotic potted plant called Audrey II arrives. People are rushing in to see it--and disappearing.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Call Number: PN1995.9.S554 S9 2008
ISBN: 9781415738924
Reinventing himself as Sweeney Todd, a man unjustly sent to prison returns to exact revenge on those who ruined his life, especially the evil Judge Turpin who sent the man to prison. Not only does he seek revenge for the cruel punishment he suffered in prison, but also for what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to his home town, he reopens his barber shop, where Mr. Todd becomes the Demon of Fleet Street. Mrs. Lovett is Sweeney's amorous accomplice who creates diabolical meat pies out of the remains of Mr. Todd's victims.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Call Number: PN1995.9.F36 R59 2002
A mixture of fantastical rock opera and horror movie spoof. A couple of ordinary kids have car trouble one dark and rainy night and knock on the door of a looming gothic mansion. They are stunned to learn that they have stumbled into an ongoing convention of kinky characters, hosted by Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a mad scientist from the planet Transsexual.
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Call Number: PN1997.5 .N5 2000
ISBN: 9780788822377
The story of Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king, who decides to bring the magic of Christmas back to Halloween Town.

Prom Night
Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 P766 2008
ISBN: 9781435924420
Donna's senior prom was supposed to be the best night of her life. A night full of magic, beauty, and love. Surrounded by her best friends, she thought that she would be safe from the horrors of her past. But when the night turns from magic to murder, there is only one man who could be responsible, the man she thought was gone forever. Now, Donna and her friends must find a way to escape the sadistic rampage of an obsessed killer, and try to survive the night of their prom.
Psycho
Call Number: PN1995.9.S87 P78 1999
ISBN: 9780783225845
Norman Bates is a troubled son who believes "a boy's best friend is his mother." Marion Crane is an ill-fated traveler who checks into the eerie Bates Motel wanting only a hot shower and a warm bed. Her journey ends sooner than she planned in the shocking scene that has haunted generations of movie-watchers. The tension and horror mount when a private detective and Marian's sister search for her, and the identity of the mysterious Psycho.
American Psycho
Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 A44 2005
A young, handsome man with a Harvard education and success on Wall Street has terrible urges that take him in pursuit of women, greed, and murder.
Halloween
Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 H3556 1999
On Halloween night years ago, little Michael Meyers brutally slaughtered his sister in cold blood. But for the last fifteen years, town residents have rested easy, knowing that he was safely locked away in a mental hospital ... until tonight. Tonight, Michael returns to the same quiet neighborhood to relive his grisly murder again ... and again ... and again. Tonight is Halloween!

Creepshow
Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 C744 1999
ISBN: 9780790744292
"Five shocking yarns, each a virtuoso exercise in the ghouls-and-gags style of classic '50s horror comics."--Container.
"Two macabre masters - writer Stephen King and director George A. Romero - conjure up five shocking hards, each a virtuoso exercise in the ghouls-and-gags style of classic '50s horror comics. A murdered man emerges from the grave for Father's Day cake. A meteor's ooze makes everything ... grow. A professor selects his wife as a snack for a crated creature. A scheming husband plants two lovers up to their necks in terror. A malevolent millionaire with an insect phobia becomes the prey of a cockroach army. Add the spirited performances of a fine cast (Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Leslie Nielsen, Ted Dansen, E.G. Marshall and King himself) and the ghoulish makeup wizardry of Tom Savini. Let the Creepshow begin!"--Container.
The Green Mile
Call Number: PN1995.9.P68 G7446 2007
ISBN: 9781419855139
A death row inmate in a Southern prison possesses the unusual gift of healing. A guard discovers the inmate's miraculous power and begins to question the man's guilt.
The Shawshank Redemption
Call Number: PN1995.9.P68 S53974365 2007
ISBN: 9781419855252
City banker Andy Dufresne arrives at Shawshank Prison in 1947, convicted of two brutal murders, doing a double life sentence. Within the confines of the prison, Andy forms an unlikely friendship with the prison "fixer" Red. He also becomes popular with the Warden and the prison's guards, as Andy is able to use his banking experience to help the corrupt officials amass personal fortunes. But for an inmate, all that counts inside prison is its own society--who is strong, who is not--and the measured passage of time, during which Andy finds that survival comes down to a simple choice: get busy living or get busy dying. Optional English subtitles available in SWANK video player settings.
The Mist
Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 M578 2008
ISBN: 9781594450204
When Dave Drayton notices a strange mist on the lake, he does not think much of it. Later, when his son, Billy, his neighbor Brent Norton, and he travel to the grocery store, strange things begin to happen. On their way to the market, they see the army, the local firefighters, and the police heading toward the mist. When he sees this, Brent mentions something about "Project Arrowhead," a secret military plan that no one knows about. When an elderly man runs into the market with a bloody nose, declaring that something is in the mist, the store immediately becomes besieged by otherworldly creatures which the shoppers and employees must battle.

American Horror Story: Season 1
Call Number: PN1992.77 .A447 2012
The Harmons' fresh start in a new home deviously twists to reveal discoveries of love, sex and murderous revenge.
American Horror Story: Season 2
Call Number: PN1992.77 .A448 2013
Step inside a madhouse of horror and experience the chilling new incarnation of TV's most daringly provocative series. The sins of the past haunt the present at the notorious Briarcliff home for the criminally insane, ruled with an iron fist by Sister Jude. Forbidden desire and terrifying evil lurk around every corner, from alien abduction to demonic possession to a skin-wearing psychopath known as 'Bloody Face.'
Dexter: Season 1
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D49847 2007 DISC 1
ISBN: 9781415728482
**THIS IS JUST DISC ONE. We also have Discs 2, 3, and 4.**

Dexter Morgan is a Miami police forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer of criminals who he believes have escaped justice.
Dexter: Season 2
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D4985 2008
ISBN: 9781415742006
Dexter is back, struggling between his love for killing and his job in the homicide department.
Dexter: Season 3
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D4986 2009
ISBN: 9781415749524
Dexter is back with a new take on taking life. He is ready to put the past behind him, until a high-profile case puts him in the sights of powerful Assistant DA Miguel Prado, and the pressure might be too great for even Dexter to hack.
Dexter: Season 4
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D4987 2010
ISBN: 9781415755037
America's favorite serial killer has gone from freewheeling bachelor to responsible husband and doting dad. Maintaining an average-guy facade while satisfying his need to kill has never been easy. But now, with wife and kids in tow, Dexter's got more to lose than ever, as he gets drawn into a deadly game with a killer every bit as dangerous and conflicted as he is.
Dexter: Season 5
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D4988 2011
In season five, Dexter goes from happily married husband to guilt-ridden single dad. How will it affect his ability to maintain an average-guy facade while satisfying his need to kill?
Dexter: Season 6
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D4989 2012
Back with a vengeance for a sixth season of startling suspense and unexpected twists. It's been a year since last season's shocking and heartbreaking conclusion, and mild mannered criminologist-cum-grisly serial killer Dexter Morgan has come to terms with who he is. But his existence is shattered when he crosses paths with an enemy unlike any he's faced before. A delusional religious zealot with unflinching convictions, this new adversary soon draws Dexter into a dangerous game.
Dexter: Season 7
Call Number: PN1992.77 .D499 2013
Dexter is forced to confront his greatest fear, as Debra witnesses his insatiable, ritualistic slaying of a killer. Deb knows the secret of his Dark Passenger, his undeniable thirst for blood, and the Code that their father Harry instilled in him as a young boy. But as Deb tries to reconcile the unfathomable idea that her beloved, mild-mannered brother is Miami's most notorious serial killer, Dexter is still pulled by his impulses to seek out the guilty and exact his brand of vigilante justice.
The Walking Dead: Season 1
Call Number: PN1992.77 .W35 2011
Waking up in an empty hospital after weeks in a coma, County Sheriff Rick Grimes finds himself alone. The world he knows is gone, ravaged by a zombie epidemic. He sets out on a search to find what has happened to his family.
The Walking Dead: Season 2
Call Number: PN1992.77 .W355 2012
**THIS IS JUST THE 1ST DISC. We also have discs 2, 3, and 4.**

A drama where personal struggles are magnified against a backdrop of crises. The series explores how the living are changed by the realization that those who survive can be far more dangerous than the walking dead.
The Walking Dead: Season 3
Call Number: PN1992.77 .W356 2013
Police officer Rick Grimes leads a group of survivors in a world overrun by zombies. The series explores how the living are changed by the realization that those who survive can be far more dangerous than the walking dead.
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Call Number: PN1997.2 .X55 2008
**This movie is a continuation of the TV show**

A group of women are mysteriously abducted. The best team for the job is ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully, who have no desire to revisit their dark past. Still, the truth of these horrific crimes is out there somewhere.

Zombieland
Call Number: PN1995.9.Z63 A66 2010
ISBN: 9781435992900
In a world that has become overrun with zombies, two men must figure out how to survive. Wimpy Columbus is afraid of his own shadow, while Tallahassee is the biggest, baddest, gun-toting zombie-slayer who ever lived. When they meet two sisters, Wichita and Little Rock, the four strike out for an amusement park that is said to be zombie-free. This mismatched group will have to rely on each other to survive, which could be worse than surrendering to the zombies.
Paranorman
Call Number: PN1997.2 .P37 2012
From the makers of Coraline comes the story of Norman, a boy who must use his special powers to save his town from a centuries-old curse. In addition to spooky zombies, he'll also have to take on unpredictable ghosts, wily witches, and, worst of all, clueless grown-ups. But this young ghoul whisperer will soon find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.
World War Z
Call Number: PN1997.2 .W6753 2013
ISBN: 9781415773789
Former United Nations investigator Gerry Lane travels the globe in an effort to eliminate the zombie pandemic that is endangering the existence of humanity.
Resident Evil
Call Number: PN1997 .R485 2004
ISBN: 9781404938274
A virus has escaped and infected a secret lab and the scientists turned into zombies. A special-operations force is sent to battle the virus before it infects the planet.

Kansas Notable Books

  "The Kansas Notable Books List is the annual recognition of 15 outstanding
   titles either written by Kansans or about a Kansas related topic. The Kansas
   Notable Book List highlights our lively contemporary writing community and
   encourages readers to enjoy some of the best writing of the authors among
   us.

A committee of academics, librarians, and authors of previous Notable
   Books identifies quality titles from among those published the previous year,
   and the State Librarian makes the selection for the final List. A medal
   awards ceremony honors the books and their authors.

Kansas Notable Books is a project of the Kansas Center for the Book, a program of the State Library. Throughout the award year, the State Library promotes and encourages the promotion of all the titles on that year's list at literary events, and among librarians and booksellers" (2017 Kansas State Library).

For more information, visit https://kslib.info/1276/2017-Notable-Books

This display was created by Connie Baquez. Dates: September 8, 2017, to October 3, 2017.

A Nest of Hornets by Robert Krenzel
Call Number: PS3611.R46 N4 2016
ISBN: 9781539953593
Publication Date: 2016-12-06
Winter, 1777. After the American victories at Trenton and Princeton the British and their Hessian allies have withdrawn to a handful of overcrowded positions in Northeastern New Jersey. In order to feed their men and horses the British must venture into the Jersey countryside to seize supplies. But morale among the Continental troops and Jersey Militia is high, and they will challenge every British foray: one British officer will describe the experience of walking into an American ambush as being like stumbling into "a nest of hornets."Gideon Hawke and Ruth Munroe find themselves right in the middle of this fighting. Not only must they battle the British and Hessians, but it appears that someone in the American camp is feeding information to the British. Will they find the enemy spy before his efforts cost Gideon and his men their lives?
Hurt People by Cote Smith
Call Number: PS3619.M5735 H87 2016
ISBN: 9780374535889
Publication Date: 2016-03-01
It's the summer of 1988 in northeastern Kansas, an area home to four prisons that has been shaken by the recent escape of a convict. But for two young brothers in Leavenworth, the only thing that matters is the pool in their apartment complex. Their mother forbids the boys to swim alone, but she's always at work trying to make ends meet after splitting with their police-officer father. With no one home to supervise, the boys decide to break the rules. While blissfully practicing their cannonballs and dives, they meet Chris, a mysterious stranger who promises an escape from their broken-home blues. As the older brother and Chris grow closer, the wary younger brother desperately tries to keep his best friend from slipping away. Beautifully atmospheric and psychologically suspenseful, Cote Smith'sHurt People will hold you in its grip to the very last page, reminding us that when we're not paying attention, we often hurt the ones we claim to love the most.
The Last Wild Places of Kansas by George Frazier
Call Number: QH76.5.K2 F73 2016
ISBN: 9780700622191
Publication Date: 2016-05-03
Since the last wild bison found refuge on the back of a nickel, the public image of natural Kansas has progressed from Great American Desert to dust bowl to flyover country that has been landscaped, fenced, and farmed. But look a little harder, George Frazier suggests, and you can find the last places where tenacious stretches of prairie, forest, and wetland cheat death and incubate the DNA of lost, wild America. Documenting three years spent roaming the state in search of these hidden treasures, The Last Wild Places of Kansas is Frazier's idiosyncratic and eye-opening travelogue of nature's secret holdouts in the Sunflower State. These are places where extirpated mammalian species are making comebacks; where flying squirrels leap between centuries-old trees lit by the unearthly green glow of foxfire; where cold springs feed ancient watercress pools; where the ice moon paints the Smoky Hill with memories of the buffalo wolf and the lonesome rattle of false indigo; where the blue lid of the sky forms a vacuum seal over treeless pastel hills, orange in winter; where bluestem rises. Some are impossible to find on maps. Most are magnificently bereft of anything beneficial to 99.9 percent of modern America. True wildernesses they may not be, but at the correct angle of light, when the wind blows pollen carrying biological memories of the glaciers, these places are a crack between the worlds, portals to the lost buffalo wilderness. En route Frazier takes us from the unexpected wilds of the Kansas City suburbs to the Cimarron National Grassland in the far southwestern corner of the state. He visits ancient springs, shares a beer with prairie dog hunters, and fails in his mission to canoe the upper Marais des Cygnes--a trip that requires permission from every landowner on the route. Along the way we encounter a host of curious characters--ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, explorers, wildlife experts, and outdoor enthusiasts--all fellow travelers in a quest to know, preserve, and share the last wild places of Kansas.
Mike Torrez: A Baseball Biography by Jorge Iber
Call Number: GV865.T65 I44 2016
ISBN: 9780786496327
Publication Date: 2016-07-26
The history of baseball is filled with players whose careers were defined by one bad play. Mike Torrez is remembered as the pitcher who gave up the infamous three-run homer to Bucky "Bleeping" Dent in the 1978 playoffs tie-breaker between the Red Sox and Yankees. Yet Torrez's life added up to much more than his worst moment on the mound. Coming from a vibrant Mexican American community that settled in Topeka, Kansas, in the early 1900s, he made it to the Majors by his own talent and efforts, with the help of an athletic program for Mexican youth that spread through the Midwest, Texas and Mexico during the 20th century. He was in the middle of many transformative events of the 1970s--such as the rise of free agency--and was an ethnic role model in the years before the "Fernandomania" of 1981. This book covers Torrez's life and career as the winningest Mexican American pitcher in Major League history.
Fast-Food Sonnets by Dennis Etzel
Call Number: PS3555.T94 F3 2016
ISBN: 9780979584497
Publication Date: 2016-08-01
In this collection of well-crafted poems lays bare the truths known by those who've labored in the fast-food industry. Dennis deftly illustrates what tolls the turbo delivery of food exacts from young people--for whom it is often first employment. Those smiling faces, who query "May I help you," hold back the question "Will you help me?" Each poem leaves the reader more aware that the cost of fast-food does not include what has been paid in history.
Never Enough Flamingos by Janelle Diller
Call Number: PS3604.I455 N4 2016
ISBN: 9781936376216
Publication Date: 2016-10-21
It's the Depression and it's rural Kansas. For good measure, nature decides to throw in a Dust Bowl. It's not the life Cat Peters would have chosen, but the young Mennonite girl doesn't have much say in it. Driven to the edge of bankruptcy by the relentless winds of the Dust Bowl, Cat's family is desperate. Fortunately, wealthy Simon Yoder generously saves them with a loan. Everyone gets something more out of the arrangement than what they bargain for. Cat's father gains a start back from the edge and the shame that he can't provide for his family. Cat's older brother goes to work for Simon to pay off the family debts and learns lots of new ideas. And Simon gets the debt repaid and casts a sticky net over the Peters family. So in the end, everyone loses. Still the rains don't come. Without rain, there is no wheat. So Cat, too, goes to the Yoder's to clean and cook and do whatever the hired girls do. It turns out the hired girls at the Yoder house do a lot more than cook and clean, for Simon Yoder is a man who steals the souls of young girls. And now Cat has slipped into his hands.
Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
Call Number: DA566.9.C5 M54 2017
ISBN: 9780307948786
Publication Date: 2017-05-30
At the age of twenty-four, Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England. He arrived in South Africa in 1899, valet and crates of vintage wine in tow, to cover the brutal colonial war the British were fighting with Boer rebels and jumpstart his political career. But just two weeks later, Churchill was taken prisoner. Remarkably, he pulled off a daring escape--traversing hundreds of miles of enemy territory, alone, with nothing but a crumpled wad of cash, four slabs of chocolate, and his wits to guide him. Bestselling author Candice Millard spins an epic story of bravery, savagery, and chance encounters with a cast of historical characters--including Rudyard Kipling, Lord Kitchener, and Mohandas Gandhi--with whom Churchill would later share the world stage. But Hero of the Empire is more than an extraordinary adventure story, for the lessons Churchill took from the Boer War would profoundly affect twentieth century history.
Lost and Gone Forever by Alex Grecian
Call Number: PS3607.R4292 L67 2016
ISBN: 9780399176104
Publication Date: 2016-05-17
Many changes have happened to the Murder Squad. Rash actions have cost Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith his job, and in response he has set up his own private detective agency. Inspector Walter Day has been missing for a year, and no one knows where he is--though there is a strong suspicion that Saucy Jack has him. Hammersmith has made finding Day his primary case, and he has company--a pair of bounty hunters, a man and a woman. It is only gradually that he has come to realize that they are not what they seem . . .
The Memory of Lemon by Judith Fertig
Call Number: PS3606.E78 M46 2016
ISBN: 9780425277959
Publication Date: 2016-06-14
"A crisp tang of citrus that is at once poignant and familiar, sharpening the senses and opening the mind to possibilities once known and long forgotten . . . Claire oNeelyo Davis is no ordinary pastry chef. Her flavor combinations aren't just a product of a well-honed palate- she can otasteo people's emotions, sensing the ingredients that will touch her customers' souls. Her gift has never failed her-until she meets a free-spirited bride-to-be and her overbearing society mother. The two are unable to agree on a single wedding detail, and their bickering leaves Neely's intuition frustratingly silent-right when she needs it most. Between trying to navigate a divorce, explore a new relationship, and handle the reappearance of her long-absent father, Neely is struggling to make sense of her own conflicting emotions, much less those of her hard-to-please bride. But as she embarks on a flavorful quest to craft the perfect wedding celebration, she'll uncover a family history that sheds light on both the missing ingredients and her own problems-and illustrates how the sweet and sour in life often combine to make the most delicious memories . . ."
Ghost Sign: Poems from White Buffalo by Al Ortolani; Melissa Fite Johnson; Adam Jameson; J. T. Knoll
Call Number: PS595.K35 G4 2016
ISBN: 9780990864967
Publication Date: 2016-10-11
In the 1920s and 1930s, Pittsburg, KS was a major coal-mining town, attracting various ethnic groups from southeast Europe and beyond. The often belligerent and divisive spirit of the miners--and the unpredictable politics of Southeast Kansas--earned the region the nickname, "The Little Balkans." The four poets (Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, JT Knoll) appearing in this collection carry forward that same proud, independent spirit. They call themselves White Buffalo, after a now-defunct café in Pittsburg that offered writers, poets, artists, musicians, and friends a place of warmth and community, which in turn fostered an environment of challenge and diversity.Ghost Sign epitomizes honest work that is both lyrical and painful while simultaneously joyous and sad. It is rooted in folklore and mystery, and its place is informed by powerful imagery: sunlight on the crater of a strip pit, the shadow of an owl at Camp 50, junkyard mechanics, railroad men, and a grandfather at a piano plunking out Methodist hymns. With craft and passion, the Ghost Sign poets, who each know how to remember, resurrect those indomitable, lost places, folks, and ghosts from the forgotten past of Southeast Kansas.Published in partnership with Spartan Press.
Ioway Life: Reservation and Reform, 1837-1860 by Greg Olson
ISBN: 9780806152110
Publication Date: 2016-05-27
In 1837 the Ioways, an Indigenous people who had called most of present-day Iowa and Missouri home, were suddenly bound by the Treaty of 1836 with the U.S. federal government to restrict themselves to a two-hundred-square-mile parcel of land west of the Missouri River. Forcibly removed to the newly created Great Nemaha Agency, the Ioway men, women, and children, numbering nearly a thousand, were promised that through hard work and discipline they could enter mainstream American society. All that was required was that they give up everything that made them Ioway. In Ioway Life, Greg Olson provides the first detailed account of how the tribe met this challenge during the first two decades of the agency's existence. Within the Great Nemaha Agency's boundaries, the Ioways lived alongside the U.S. Indian agent, other government employees, and Presbyterian missionaries. These outside forces sought to manipulate every aspect of the Ioways' daily life, from their manner of dress and housing to the way they planted crops and expressed themselves spiritually. In the face of the white reformers' contradictory assumptions--that Indians could assimilate into the American mainstream, and that they lacked the mental and moral wherewithal to transform--the Ioways became adept at accepting necessary changes while refusing religious and cultural conversion. Nonetheless, as Olson's work reveals, agents and missionaries managed to plant seeds of colonialism that would make the Ioways susceptible to greater government influence later on--in particular, by reducing their self-sufficiency and undermining their traditional structure of leadership. Ioway Life offers a complex and nuanced picture of the Ioways' efforts to retain their tribal identity within the constrictive boundaries of the Great Nemaha Agency. Drawing on diaries, newspapers, and correspondence from the agency's files and Presbyterian archives, Olson offers a compelling case study in U.S. colonialism and Indigenous resistance.
Presenting Buffalo Bill: The Man Who Invented the Wild West by Candace Fleming
Call Number: PZ5 978.02 F59733p7
ISBN: 9781596437630
Publication Date: 2016-09-20
Everyone knows the name Buffalo Bill, but few these days know what he did or, in some cases, didn't do. Was he a Pony Express rider? Did he serve Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn? Did he scalp countless Native Americans, or did he defend their rights? This, the first significant biography of Buffalo Bill Cody for younger readers in many years, explains it all. With copious archival illustrations and a handsome design, Presenting Buffalo Bill makes the great showman come alive for new generations. Extensive back matter, bibliography, and source notes complete the package. This title has Common Core connections.
Green City: How One Community Survived A Tornado and Rebuilt for a Sustainable Future by Allan Drummond
Call Number: PZ6 D88953g6
ISBN: 9780374379995
Publication Date: 2016-03-15
In 2007, a tornado destroyed Greensburg, Kansas, and the residents were at a loss as to what to do next--they didn't want to rebuild if their small town would just be destroyed in another storm. So they decided they wouldn't just rebuild the same old thing; this time, they would build a town that could not only survive another storm, but one that was built in an environmentally sustainable way. Told from the point of view of a child whose family rebuilt after the storm, this companion toEnergy Island is the inspiring story of the difference one community can make--and it includes plenty of rebuilding scenes and details for construction lovers, too!
Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball by Scott Morrow Johnson; Judy Allen Morris (Foreword by)
ISBN: 9780803295391
Publication Date: 2016-11-01
Remembered in name but underappreciated in legacy, Forrest "Phog" Allen arguably influenced the game of basketball more than anyone else. In the first half of the twentieth century Allen took basketball from a gentlemanly, indoor recreation to the competitive game that would become a worldwide sport. Succeeding James Naismith as the University of Kansas's basketball coach in 1907, Allen led the Jayhawks for thirty-nine seasons and holds the record for most wins at that school, with 590. He also helped create the NCAA tournament and brought basketball to the Olympics. Allen changed the way the game is played, coached, marketed, and presented. Scott Morrow Johnson reveals Allen as a master recruiter, a transformative coach, and a visionary basketball mind. Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Wilt Chamberlain, and many others benefited from Allen's knowledge of and passion for the game. But Johnson also delves into Allen's occasionally tumultuous relationships with Naismith, the NCAA, and University of Kansas administrators. Phog: The Most Influential Man in Basketball chronicles this complex man's life, telling for the first time the full story of the man whose name is synonymous with Kansas basketball and with the game itself.
The Small-Town Midwest: Resilience and Hope in the Twenty-First Century by Julianne Couch
ISBN: 9781609384067
Publication Date: 2016-04-01

2017 Tenure and Promotion Awardees and PIR Honorees

Ablah Library has dedicated a book exhibit to the Wichita State University 2017
Tenure and Promotion Awardees.

This display was created by Cathy Moore-Jansen and Madison Zimmerman. Dates:
August 1, 2017 to September 8, 2017.

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner
Call Number: ML3830 .W46 1996
ISBN: 9781562240035
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Mark Foley, School of Music on the occasion of his successful professor incentive review, April 2017
The Essential Wooden by John Wooden; Steve Jamison
Call Number: HD57.7 .W663 2007
ISBN: 9780071484350
Publication Date: 2007-01-05
The Essential Wooden--more leadership lessons from the Wooden playbook The Essential Wooden is the ultimate collectionof Wooden's opinions and observationson achieving exceptional leadership in anyorganization, with 200 invaluable lessons forinspiring championship performance. Coach Wooden offers his hard-wonwisdom on building an organization thatperforms at its full potential under pressure,from preparing and training the team toinstilling personal drive and dedication. Hetakes his famous Pyramid of Success to thenext level, filling the entire book with hisstraight-shooting personality and keen insighton human nature. Wooden shares rarely seen preseason lettersto his players, revealing how he instilledproductive attitudes and winning ways. Healso includes previously unpublished analysesfrom former players and managers, includingBill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. From Wooden's earliest days as a leaderthrough his legendary UCLA dynasty, TheEssential Wooden distills a lifetime of learninginto the leadership playbook for the twenty-firstcentury.
Green Photo-Active Nanomaterials by Nurxat Nuraje (Editor, Contribution by); Juan Carlos Colmenares (Contribution by); Eylem Asmatulu (Contribution by); Hanying Bai (Contribution by); George Zhao (Contribution by); Davresh Hasanyan (Contribution by); Nasim Hyder (Contribution by); Ramazan Asmatulu (Editor, Contribution by); Guido Mul (Editor, Contribution by); James H. Clark (Editor-In-Chief); Hang Yu (Contribution by); Xiaoyang Xu (Contribution by); Nulazhi Yeerxiati (Contribution by); Jungki Ryu (Contribution by); Yujie Sun (Contribution by)
Call Number: QD716.P45 G74 2016
ISBN: 9781849739597
Publication Date: 2015-11-12
Providing up-to-date coverage of green nanomaterials and systems, this book provides comprehensive information on nanostructured materials, including their applications in energy and environmental sciences. The book focusses on photo-active nanostructured materials, from the basic understanding of solar energy activation to their sustainable preparation and applications in environmental remediation and fuel production from biomass and carbon dioxide. It also examines the health and environmental impacts of photo-catalyst nanomaterials. This book is an important reference for researchers and industrial chemists working in the fields of energy and environmental remediation.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Ramazan Asmatulu, Mechanical Engineering on the occasion of his Promotion to Professor, April 2017
Handbook of Driving Simulation for Engineering, Medicine, and Psychology by Donald L. Fisher; Matthew Rizzo (Editor); Jeffrey Caird (Editor); John D. Lee (Editor)
Call Number: TL152.7.D7 H36 2011
ISBN: 9781420061000
Publication Date: 2011-04-25
Effective use of driving simulators requires considerable technical and methodological skill along with considerable background knowledge. Acquiring the requisite knowledge and skills can be extraordinarily time consuming, yet there has been no single convenient and comprehensive source of information on the driving simulation research being conducted around the world. A how-to-do-it resource for researchers and professionals, Handbook of Driving Simulation for Engineering, Medicine, and Psychology brings together discussions of technical issues in driving simulation with broad areas in which driving simulation is now playing a role. The chapters explore technical considerations, methodological issues, special and impaired populations, evaluation of in-vehicle and nomadic devices, and infrastructure evaluations. It examines hardware and software selection, visual database and scenario development, independent subject variables and dependent vehicle, environmental, and psychological variables, statistical and biostatistical analysis, different types of drivers, existing and future key-in vehicle devises, and validation of research. A compilation of the research from more than 100 of the world's top thinkers and practitioners, the book covers basic and advanced technical topics and provides a comprehensive review of the issues related to driving simulation. It describes literally hundreds of different simulation scenarios, provides color photographs of those scenarios, and makes available select videos of the scenarios on an accompanying web site, all of which should prove essential for seasoned researchers and for individuals new to driving simulation.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Jibo He, Department of Psychology on the occasion of his Award of Tenure and Promotion, April 2017
Lessons of Loss: A Guide to Coping by Neimeyer, Robert A.
Call Number: RC455.4.L67 N44
Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Anthony DiLollo, Communication Sciences and Disorders on the occasion of his Promotion to Professor, April 2017
The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life by Anu Partanen
Call Number: HN540.A8 P37 2016
ISBN: 9780062316547
Publication Date: 2016-06-28
A Finnish journalist, now a naturalized American citizen, asks Americans to draw on elements of the Nordic way of life to nurture a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society for themselves and their children. Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life--from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare--was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first, she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension. To understand why life is so different in the U.S. and Finland, Partanen began to look closely at both. In The Nordic Theory of Everything, Partanen compares and contrasts life in the United States with life in the Nordic region, focusing on four key relationships--parents and children, men and women, employees and employers, and government and citizens. She debunks criticism that Nordic countries are socialist "nanny states," revealing instead that it is we Americans who are far more enmeshed in unhealthy dependencies than we realize. As Partanen explains step by step, the Nordic approach allows citizens to enjoy more individual freedom and independence than we do. Partanen wants to open Americans' eyes to how much better things can be--to show her beloved new country what it can learn from her homeland to reinvigorate and fulfill the promise of the American dream--to provide the opportunity to live a healthy, safe, economically secure, upwardly mobile life for everyone. Offering insights, advice, and solutions, The Nordic Theory of Everything makes a convincing argument that we can rebuild our society, rekindle our optimism, and restore true freedom to our relationships and lives.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Suzanne Hawley, Public Health Science on the occasion of her successful professor incentive review April 2017
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
Call Number: BF335 .D76 2012
ISBN: 9781400069286
Publication Date: 2012-02-28
A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every aspect of her life. She has quit smoking, run a marathon, and been promoted at work. The patterns inside her brain, neurologists discover, have fundamentally changed. Marketers at Procter & Gamble study videos of people making their beds. They are desperately trying to figure out how to sell a new product called Febreze, on track to be one of the biggest flops in company history. Suddenly, one of them detects a nearly imperceptible pattern--and with a slight shift in advertising, Febreze goes on to earn a billion dollars a year. An untested CEO takes over one of the largest companies in America. His first order of business is attacking a single pattern among his employees--how they approach worker safety--and soon the firm, Alcoa, becomes the top performer in the Dow Jones. What do all these people have in common? They achieved success by focusing on the patterns that shape every aspect of our lives. They succeeded by transforming habits. In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation. Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation's largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. Habits aren't destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives. Praise for The Power of Habit "Sharp, provocative, and useful."--Jim Collins "Few [books] become essential manuals for business and living. The Power of Habit is an exception. Charles Duhigg not only explains how habits are formed but how to kick bad ones and hang on to the good."--Financial Times "A flat-out great read."--David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity "You'll never look at yourself, your organization, or your world quite the same way."--Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind "Entertaining . . . enjoyable . . . fascinating . . . a serious look at the science of habit formation and change."--The New York Times Book Review
Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching by Ivan Galamian
Call Number: MT260 .G34 1999
ISBN: 9780962141638
Publication Date: 1999-06-01
Now back in print, this classic book of technique introduces the Galamian system of violin playing. The original edition has been preserved without changes. Galamian's philosophy, principles of teaching, and practice methods provide astonishing results with student after student, many of whom achieved world class status among the field of concert artists and orchestral concertmasters. Includes a postscript written by the late Professor Emeritus Elizabeth A.H. Green.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Catherine Consiglio, School of Music on the occasion of her Promotion to Professor, April 2017
Reliability Evaluation of Power Systems by Roy Billinton (Editor); Ronald N. Allan (Editor)
Call Number: TK1005 .B573 1984
ISBN: 0306414503
Publication Date: 1995-12-31
This book is a sequel to Reliability Evaluation of Engineering Systems: Concepts and Techniques, written by the same authors and published by Pitman Books in January 1983. As a sequel, this book is intended to be considered and read as the second of two volumes rather than as a text that stands on its own. For this reason, readers who are not familiar with basic reliability modeling and evaluation should either first read the companion volume or, at least, read the two volumes side by side. Those who are already familiar with the basic concepts and only require an extension of their knowledge into the power system problem area should be able to understand the present text with little or no reference to the earlier work. In order to assist readers, the present book refers frequently to the first volume at relevant points, citing it simply as Engineering Systems. Reliability Evaluation of Power Systems has evolved from our deep interest in education and our long-standing involvement in quantitative reliability evaluation and application of probability techniques to power system problems. It could not have been written, however, without the active involvement of many students in our respective research programs. There have been too many to mention individually but most are recorded within the references at the ends of chapters.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Visvakumar Aravinthan, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science on the occasion of his Award of Tenure and Promotion, April 2017
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Call Number: TL789.8.U5 W64 2004
ISBN: 9781579124588
Publication Date: 2005-05-01
First published in 1979 to extraordinary acclaim, Tom Wolfe’s landmark work became an instant bestseller, going on to sell more than 2.5 million copies. It is a true story that is as exciting as the best fiction—the tale of American heroes Yeager, Conrad, Grissom, and Glenn—men who were willing to put their lives on the line in pursuit of the final frontier. With stunning accuracy and captivating prose, Wolfe recounts the details of the lives of these men, their families, and of NASA’s Project Mercury program. The result is a vivid history that could only be enhanced by actual historic photographs. The Right Stuff Illustrated includes hundreds of photographs and reproductions of documents and memorabilia pertaining to the Project Mercury program, the current events surrounding the program, and the political climate that led up to the missions in the early 1960’s. It’s the perfect gift book for lovers of history and the space program, as well as the millions of fans of The Right Stuff.
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Call Number: HD9992.U52 K555 2016
ISBN: 9781501135910
Publication Date: 2016-04-26
In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Young, searching, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year, 1963. Today, Nike s annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight s Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is more than a logo. A symbol of grace and greatness, it s one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. Now, in a memoir that s surprising, humble, unfiltered, funny, and beautifully crafted, he tells his story at last. It all begins with a classic crossroads moment. Twenty-four years old, backpacking through Asia and Europe and Africa, wrestling with life s Great Questions, Knight decides the unconventional path is the only one for him. Rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, something new, dynamic, different. Knight details the many terrifying risks he encountered along the way, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors, the countless doubters and haters and hostile bankers as well as his many thrilling triumphs and narrow escapes. Above all, he recalls the foundational relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers. Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the redemptive, transformative power of sports, they created a brand, and a culture, that changed everything."
Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World by Linda Hirshman
Call Number: KF8744 .H57 2015
ISBN: 9780062238467
Publication Date: 2015-09-01
The relationship between Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Republican and Democrat, Christian and Jew, western ranchers daughter and Brook-lyn girl transcends party, religion, region, and culture. Strengthened by each other's presence, these groundbreaking judges, the first and second women to serve on the highest court in the land, have transformed the Constitution and America itself, making it a more equal place for all women. Linda Hirshman's dual biography includes revealing stories of how these trailblazers fought for recognition in a male-dominated profession, battles that would ultimately benefit every American woman. Hirshman also makes clear how these two justices have shaped the legal framework of modern feminism, setting precedent in cases dealing with employment discrimination, abortion, affirmative action, sexual harassment, and many other issues crucial to women's lives. Sisters in Law combines legal detail with warm personal anecdotes, bringing these very different women into focus as never before. Meticulously researched and compellingly told, it is an authoritative account of our changing law and culture, and a moving story of a remarkable friendship.

Wichita state University Libraries recognizes and honors Katie Deutsch, WSU 2016-2017 Senior Honor Award Recipient.
Socrates in the City by Eric Metaxas
Call Number: B317 .S635 2011
ISBN: 9780525952558
Publication Date: 2011-10-13
Following the extraordinary success of the New York Times bestseller Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas's latest book offers inspirational and intellectually rigorous thought about the great questions surrounding us all today. The Greek philosopher Socrates famously said that "the unexamined life is not worth living." Taking this as a starting point, Eric Metaxas founded a speaking series that encouraged busy and successful professionals to attend forums and think actively about the bigger questions in life. Thus Socrates in the City: Conversations on "Life, God, and Other Small Topics" was born. This book is for the seeker in all of us, the collector of wisdom, and the person who asks "What if?" Within this collection of original essays that were first given to standing-room-only crowds in New York City are serious thinkers taking on Life, God, Evil, Redemption, and other small topics. Luminaries such as Dr. Francis Collins, Sir John Polkinghorne, Charles Colson, N.T. Wright, Os Guinness, Peter Kreeft, and Jean Bethke Elshatin have written about extraordinary topics vital to both secular and Christian thinking, such as "Making Sense Out of Suffering," "How Good Confronts Evil," and "Belief in God in an Age of Science." No question is too big-in fact, the bigger, the harder, the more complex, the better. These essays are both thought-provoking and entertaining, because nowhere is it written that finding answers to life's biggest questions shouldn't be exciting and even, perhaps, fun.

Wichita State University Libraries Recognizes and honors Gina Brown, Department of Physican Assistant on the occasion of her Award of Tenure and Promotion, April 2017
Still I Rise by Maya Angelou
Call Number: PS3551.N464 A8 2001
ISBN: 9780375505966
Publication Date: 2001-08-07
In this inspiring poem, Maya Angelou celebrates the courage of the human spirit over the harshest of obstacles. An ode to the power that resides in us all to overcome the most difficult circumstances, this poem is truly an inspiration and affirmation of the faith that restores and nourishes the soul. Entwined with the vivid paintings of Diego Rivera, the renowned Mexican artist, Angelou's words paint a portrait of the amazing human spirit, its quiet dignity, and pools of strength and courage. An ideal gift for a friend, lover, or family member, this special edition will be treasured by all who receive it.

Wichita State University Libraries recognizes and honors Nolan Jones, WSU 2016-2017 Senior Honor Award Recipient.

Wonder Woman Day

Ablah Library has dedicated a book exhibit to D.C. Comic's Wonder Woman in
   correlation with Wonder Woman Day on June 3. D.C. Comics announced that
   the first ever Wonder Woman Day would be the same weekend as the world-
   wide release of the Wonder Woman movie. Wonder Woman has been around
   for 75 years, and continues to be an icon for many young and old. The
   display offered various books about Wonder Woman, along with other female
   superheros.

This display was created by Lizzie Walker. Dates: May 29, 2017 to July 28.

The Batgirl of Burnside by Cameron Stewart; Babs Tarr (Illustrator); Brenden Fletcher
Call Number: PZ5 741.5 S85047b2
ISBN: 9781401253325
Publication Date: 2015-06-16
Barbara Gordon's ready for a fresh start. She's packing her bags, crossing the bridge, and heading to Gotham's coolest neighborhood: Burnside. And when a freak fire burns up her costume and gear, Babs has the chance to become a whole new Batgirl! But she barely slips on her new DIY costume before Batgirl starts trending as Gotham's first viral vigilante -- and attracting a new wave of enemies who want her social-media spotlight for themselves.
DC Comics Bombshells by Marguerite Bennett; Chuck Dixon; Marguerite Sauvage (Illustrator)
Call Number: PN6728.B6243 B466 2016
ISBN: 9781401264482
Publication Date: 2016-07-19
Based on the hit DC Collectibles product line! As World War II rages across Europe, the Allied forces issue a call to arms for the greatest heroines the world has ever known! With an old villain arising from beyond the grave, Wonder Woman, Batwoman, Kara Starikov, Kortni Duginova and Mera must aid the Allied forces while at home, a brave group of Batgirls must defend the homeland! The incredibly popular DC Collectibles line is brought to life in these stories that reimagine the course of history!
DC Comics Covergirls by Louise Simonson
Call Number: NC1764.5.U6 S56 2007
ISBN: 9780789318695
Publication Date: 2009-01-06
From the trailblazing Wonder Woman of the 1940s to edgy, girl-power-driven comics series like Birds of Prey, DC Comics Covergirls takes a look at the female characters of DC Comics throughout the company's history, and features many of DC Comics' iconic comic book covers.
The Death-Defying Dr. Mirage by Robert de la Torre (Artist); Jen Van Meter; Travel Foreman (Cover Design by); Justin Jordan; Patrick Zircher (Artist)
Call Number: PN6728.D573 V36 2015
ISBN: 9781939346490
Publication Date: 2015-05-05
Death was just the beginning... Doctor Mirage talks to the dead...but the only spirit Shan Fong can't find is that of her late husband, Hwen. Instead, America's favorite semi-retired paranormal investigator ishaunted and raw, using her gift to solve homicides and bring peace to the recently bereaved. But when a big-time occultist with a classified military past hires her for a special job, Shan discovers a lead that might close the greatest mystery she's ever tackled - how to get Hwen back! Now, Doctor Mirage must enter the undiscovered country and cross all the realms of the underworld if she has any hope of rescuing the man she loves...or be forever lost beyond the earthly plane.
Faith Volume 1: Hollywood and Vine by Jody Houser; Francis Portela (Artist); Marguerite Sauvage (Artist); Jelena Kevic-Djurdjevic (Cover Design by)
Call Number: PN6728.F257 H68 2016
ISBN: 9781682151211
Publication Date: 2016-07-05
Orphaned at a young age, Faith Herbert - a psionically gifted "psiot" discovered by the Harbinger Foundation - has always aspired to greatness. But now this once ordinary teenager is taking control of her destiny and becoming the hard-hitting hero she's always known she can be - complete with a mild-mannered secret identity, unsuspecting colleagues, and a day job as a reporter that routinely throws into her harms way! Well, at least she thought it would... When she's not typing up listicles about cat videos, Faith makes a secret transformation to patrol the night as the City of Angels' own leading superhero - the sky-soaring Zephyr! But flying solo is going to be tougher than she ever thought when Zephyr uncovers a deep-rooted alien conspiracy. Two-bit burglars and car thieves are one thing, but when the world needs a hero to stave off an full-blown extraterrestrial invasion, will Faith find herself in over her head...or ready for her biggest challenge yet?
Flower Power! (DC Super Friends) by Courtney Carbone; Dan Schoening (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ6 C26464f5
ISBN: 9780385373968
Publication Date: 2014-01-07
Girl--and flower--power! Wonder Woman and Batgirl team up to stop Poison Ivy in their first-ever action-packed Little Golden Book. Girls and boys ages 2 to 5 will love this all-new Little Golden Book featuring the female superheroes of the DC Super Friends.
Ms. Marvel - No Normal by Marvel Comics (Text by); Adrian Alphona (Artist); G. Willow Wilson; Jacob Wyatt (Artist)
Call Number: PN6728.M766 W55 2014
ISBN: 9780785190219
Publication Date: 2014-10-28
Marvel Comics presents the all-new Ms. Marvel, the ground breaking heroine that has become an international sensation! Kamala Khan is an ordinary girl from Jersey City until she is suddenly empowered with extraordinary gifts. But who truly is the all-new Ms. Marvel? Find out as she takes the Marvel Universe by storm! As Kamala discovers the dangers of her newfound powers, she unlocks a secret behind them as well. Is Kamala ready to wield these immense new gifts?
The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
Call Number: PN6728.W6 L48 2014
ISBN: 9780385354042
Publication Date: 2014-10-28
A riveting work of historical detection revealing that the origin of one of the world's most iconic superheroes hides within it a fascinating family story--and a crucial history of twentieth-century feminism.
She Can Do It! by Marguerite Bennett; Laura Braga (Artist); Ming Doyle (Artist); Ant Lucia (Cover Design by); Marguerite Sauvage (Artist)
Call Number: PN6728.B6243 B46 2016
ISBN: 9781401261320
Publication Date: 2016-03-08
The incredibly popular DC Collectibles line is brought to life in these stories that reimagine the course of history! As Word War II rages across Europe, the Allied forces issue a call to arms for the greatest heroines the world has ever known: THE BOMBSHELLS! KATE KANE, the all-American Batwoman; DIANA OF THEMYSCIRA, warrior Princess of the Amazons; KARA STARIKOV and KORTNI DUGINOVNA, defenders of Mother Russia; and MERA, royal daughter of the legendary Atlantis! With aid from their allies at home and abroad, these mighty women will turn the tide of war and defend those inviolable rights of Truth, Justice and Freedom.
The Superhero Women by Stan Lee
Call Number: PN6725 .L45
ISBN: 9780671227661
Publication Date: 1977-11-15
A collection of stories featuring female superheroes as selected by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee. Includes stories featuring the characters Medusa, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Red Sonja, Ant-Man and the Wasp, the Black Widow, Ms. Marvel, Thor, the Cat, and Shanna the She-Devil.
Thor Volume 1 by Jason Aaron (Text by); Russell Dauterman (Illustrator)
Call Number: PN6728.T48 A33 2015
ISBN: 9780785192381
Publication Date: 2015-05-26
Mjolnir lies on the moon, unable to be lifted! Something dark has befallen the God of Thunder, leaving him unworthy for the first time ever! But when Frost Giants invade Earth, the hammer will be lifted - and a mysterious woman will be transformed into an all-new version of the mighty Thor! Who is this new Goddess of Thunder? Not even Odin knows...but she may be Earth's only hope against the Frost Giants! Plus: the Odinson clearly doesn't like that someone else is holding his hammer... it's Thor vs. Thor! Collecting: Thor 1-5
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1 by Marvel Comics Staff (Text by); Steve Ditko; Erica Henderson (Artist); Will Murray (Text by); Ryan North; Dan Slott (Text by)
Call Number: PZ5 741.5 N86779u6
ISBN: 9781302902247
Publication Date: 2016-11-15
Wolverine. Deadpool. Doctor Doom. Thanos. There's one hero who's beaten them all, and now she's got her own book! And to celebrate she's set her sights even higher - much higher. We're talking Galactus! But first Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl, is starting college, making new friends, eating nuts and kicking butts, not necessarily in that order!
Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka
Call Number: PN6728.W6 R83 2002
ISBN: 9781563898983
Publication Date: 2002-06-01
When Danielle Wellys invokes the ritual of Hiketeia, Wonder Woman takes her on as student and servant and, by the laws of the gods, must protect her even against Batman, who wishes to bring Danielle to justice for past crimes.
Wonder Woman by William Moulton Marston
Call Number: PN6728.W6 M3 1972
ISBN: 9780030053764
Publication Date: 1972-01-01
Selections from the series of comic books which the author produced under the pseud. Charles Moulton and which were originally published from 1941 to 1946.

Eco Poetry

In contrast to earlier forms of nature poetry that focus on the beauty of
   pastoral landscapes, ecopoetry assumes a position of ethical responsibility
   toward nature. This genre has developed over the latter half of the 20^th
   century and only began receiving critical attention in the 1990’s, yet in that
   time the art and scholarship of ecopoetry has burgeoned into a rich sub-
   discipline of its own.

This exhibit was created by Meghann Kuhlmann. Dates: April 10, 2017, to
May 16, 2017.

News of the Universe by Robert Bly
Call Number: PN6101 .N4
ISBN: 1619025922
Publication Date: 2015-09-15
Acclaimed poet and translator Robert Bly here assembles a unique cross-cultural anthology that illuminates the idea of a larger-than-human consciousness operating in the universe. The book’s 150 poems come from around the world and many eras: from the ecstatic Sufi poet Rumi to contemporary voices like Kenneth Rexroth, Denise Levertov, Charles Simic, and Mary Oliver. Brilliant introductory essays trace our shifting attitudes toward the natural world, from the "old position”of dominating or denigrating nature, to the growing sympathy expressed by the Romantics and American poets like Whitman and Dickinson. Bly’s translations of Neruda, Rilke, and others, along with superb examples of non-Western verse such as Eskimo and Zuni songs, complete this important, provocative anthology.
The West Side of Any Mountain by J. Scott Bryson
Call Number: PS310.N3 B79 2005
ISBN: 087745955X
Publication Date: 2005-12-01
In contrast to nature poets of the past who tended more toward the bucolic and pastoral, many contemporary nature poets are taking up radical environmental and ecological themes. In the last few years, interesting and evocative work that examines this poetry has begun to lay the foundation for studies in ecopoetics. Informed in general by current thinking in environmental theory and specifically by the work of cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, "The West Side of Any Mountain"participates in and furthers this scholarly attention by offering an overarching theoretical framework with which to approach the field. One area that contemporary theorists have found problematic is the dualistic civilization/wilderness binary that focuses on the divisions between culture and nature, thereby increasing the modern sense of alienation. Tuan s place-space framework offers a succinct vocabulary for describing the attitudes of ecological poets and other nature writers in a way that avoids setting up an adversarial relationship between place and space. Scott Bryson describes the Tuanian framework and employs it to offer fresh readings of the work of four major ecopoets: Wendell Berry, Joy Harjo, Mary Oliver, and W. S. Merwin. "The West Side of Any Mountain"will be of great interest to scholars and teachers working in the field of contemporary nature poetry. It is recommended for nature-writing courses as well as classes dealing with 20th-century poetry, contemporary literary criticism, and environmental theory."
Ecopoetry by J. Scott Bryson (Editor)
Call Number: PS310.N3 E26 2002
ISBN: 0874807018
Publication Date: 2002-01-04
The burgeoning field of ecocriticism is beginning to address the work of such ecopoets as Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, W. S. Merwin, and Wendell Berry, among others, whose poems increasingly deal with ecological and environmental issues. Ecopoetry: A Critical Introduction assembles previously unpublished contributions from many of the most important scholars in the field as they discuss the historical and crosscultural roots of ecopoetry, while expanding the boundaries to include such themes as genocide and extinction, the lesbian body, and post colonialism. This volume gathers these necessary voices in the emerging conversation regarding poetry's place in the environmental debate.
Imagining the Earth by John W. Elder
Call Number: PS310.N3 E43 1996
ISBN: 0820318477
Publication Date: 1996-11-01
A landmark work in the burgeoning field of literary ecology, Imagining the Earth explores the ways in which our attitudes toward nature are mirrored in and influenced by poetry. In the work of some of our most widely read poets, says John Elder, one can discern a resurgent vision of humanity in harmony with the rest of the natural order. To show us the power of poetry to identify, interpret, and celebrate a wide range of issues related to nature and our place in it, Elder uses numerous examples of works by Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, A. R. Ammons, Denise Levertov, and William Everson. Elder places these poets within a cultural tradition flowing from William Wordsworth through Alfred North Whitehead, T. S. Eliot, and Robinson Jeffers, and uses their poems to illuminate the relationships between culture and wilderness, imagination and landscape, and science and poetry. Elder's commentaries are interlinked with two remarkable essays in which he describes his ow
Can Poetry Save the Earth? by John Felstiner
Call Number: PS310.N3 F45 2009
ISBN: 9780300137507
Publication Date: 2009-04-07
Poems vivifying nature have gripped people for centuries. From Biblical times to the present day, poetry has continuously drawn us to the natural world. In this thought-provoking book, John Felstiner explores the rich legacy of poems that take nature as their subject, and he demonstrates their force and beauty. In our own time of environmental crises, he contends, poetry has a unique capacity to restore our attention to our environment in its imperiled state. And, as we take heed, we may well become better stewards of the earth. In forty brief and lucid chapters, Felstiner presents those voices that have most strongly spoken to and for the natural world. Poets—from the Romantics through Whitman and Dickinson to Elizabeth Bishop and Gary Snyder—have helped us envision such details as ocean winds eroding and rebuilding dunes in the same breath, wild deer freezing in our presence, and a person carving initials on a still-living stranded whale. Sixty color and black-and-white images, many seen for the first time, bear out visually the environmental imagination this book discovers—a poetic legacy more vital now than ever.
Greening the Lyre by David W. Gilcrest
Call Number: PS310.N3 G55 2002
ISBN: 0874179831
Publication Date: 2015-11-05
Greening the Lyre covers important and neglected ground--environmental language theory. David W. Gilcrest poses two overarching questions: To what extent does contemporary nature poetry represent a recapitulation of familiar poetics? And, to what extent does contemporary nature poetry engage a poetics that stakes out new territory? The author addresses these questions with important thinkers, especially Kenneth Burke, and considers such poets as Frost, Kunitz, Heaney, Ammons, Cardenal, and Rich. This book will be of great value to anyone in the environmental studies field.
Ecopoetics by Scott Knickerbocker
Call Number: r: PS310.N3 K65 2012
ISBN: 9781558499546
Publication Date: 2012-09-01
Back from the Far Field by Bernard W. Quetchenbach
Call Number: PS310.N3 Q48 2000
ISBN: 0813919533
Publication Date: 2000-05-29
Examining the implications of this dilemma, Bernard W. Quetchenbach locates the poets Robert Bly, Gary Snyder, and Wendell Berry within two traditions: the American nature-writing tradition, and the newer tradition of contemporary poetics. He compares the work of two other twentieth-century poets, Robinson Jeffers and Theodore Roethke, to illustrate how the "contemporary shift" toward a poetics focused on the poet's life has affected portrayals of nature and the "public voice" in poetry. Turning back to the work of Bly, Snyder, and Berry, Quetchenbach assesses their attempts to reinvent the public voice in the context of contemporary poetics and what effect these attempts have had on their work. He argues that these poets have learned from their postwar generation techniques for adapting a personalized poetics to environmental advocacy. In addition to modifying what critics have called the "poetics of immediacy," these poets have augmented their poetic output with prose and identified themselves with long-standing traditions of poetic, ethical, and spiritual authority. In doing so, Bly, Snyder, and Berry have attempted to solve not only a problem inherent in contemporary poetics but also the larger problem of the role of the poet in a society that does not recognize poetry. While it would be an overstatement to suggest that these three figures have found a place for the poet in American life, they have reached audiences that extend beyond traditional readers of poetry. At the end of the twentieth century, Quetchenbach concludes, poets have begun to identify, and direct their writing to, specific audiences defined less by aesthetic preferences and more by a shared interest in and dedication to the work's subject matter. Whether revealing a disturbing trend for poetry or an encouraging one for environmentalism and other political causes, it is one of many provocative conclusions Quetchenbach draws from his examination of postwar nature poetry.
This Compost by Jed Rasula
Call Number: PS310.N3 R37 2002
ISBN: 0820323667
Publication Date: 2002-09-30
Poetry, for Jed Rasula, bears traces of our entanglement with our surroundings, and these traces define a collective voice in modern poetry independent of the more specific influences and backgrounds of the poets themselves. In This Compost Rasula surveys both the convictions asserted by American poets and the poetics they develop in their craft, all with an eye toward an emerging ecological worldview. Rasula begins by examining poets associated with Black Mountain College in the 1950s--Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan--and their successors. But This Compost extends to include earlier poets like Robinson Jeffers, Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky, Kenneth Rexroth, and Muriel Rukeyser, as well as Clayton Eshleman, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, and other contemporary poets. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson also make appearances. Rasula draws this diverse group of poets together, uncovering how the past is a "compost" fertilizing the present. He looks at the heritage of ancient lore and the legacy of modern history and colonial violence as factors contributing to ecological imperatives in modern poetry. This Compost restores the dialogue between poetic language and the geophysical, biological realm of nature that so much postmodern discourse has sought to silence. It is a fully developed, carefully argued book that deals with an underrepresented element in modern American culture, where the natural world and those who write about it have been greatly neglected in contemporary literary history and theory.
Sustainable Poetry by Leonard M. Scigaj
Call Number: PS310.N3 S38 1999
ISBN: 0813121205
Publication Date: 1999-05-06
Focusing on the work of A.R. Ammons, Wendell Berry, W.S. Merwin, and Gary Snyder, author Leonard Scigaj shows that just as a sustainable society does not depreciate its resource base, so a sustainable poetry does not restrict interest to language. Over the past thirty years many poets have shown an increasing sensitivity to ecological thinking. But critics trained in poststructuralist language theory often fail to explore the substance of ecopoetry. Scigaj is the first to define ecopoetry as separate and distinct from nature or environmental poetry, marked by its concern with balancing the interests of human beings with the needs of nature. Just as science learned that the earth was not the center of the universe, ecopoetry insists on the recognition that humans are not at the center of the natural world.
Garbage by A. R. Ammons
Call Number: PS3501.M6 G37 1993
ISBN: 0393035425
Publication Date: 1993-08-01
"A. R. Ammons's poem with the unforgettable title is a defense of meaning-'this, ' the poet says, 'are awash in ideality.' "Garbage" is an epic of ideas: all life-not that of human beings alone, but every species-is shown to be part of an ultimate reality. Eternity is here and now. The argument ranges widely with a wealth of images taken from science, and the world around us, the writing by turns impassioned and witty. For power of the thought and language, the poem takes its place alongside Whitman's "Song of Myself"-an American classic."-Citation for the 1993 National Book Award for Poetry
Sphere by A. R. Ammons
Call Number: PS3501.M6 S6
ISBN: 0393043932
Publication Date: 1974-11-01
"There wasn't one page of his poem that didn't delight me."-Donald Davie, New York Review of Books
Private Fire by Matthew James Babcock
Call Number: PS3511.R237 Z59 2011
ISBN: 9780874135015
Publication Date: 2010-12-01
Winter Poems along the Rio Grande by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Call Number: PS3552.A254 W56 2004
ISBN: 081121575X
Publication Date: 2004-04-17
A romantic and a populist, Jimmy Santiago Baca celebrates nature and creativity: the power of "becoming more the river than myself" in Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande. These poems are an expansive meditation on Baca's spiritual life, punctuated always with his feetrepeatedly, rhythmicallyon the ground as he runs every morning along the river. Baca contemplates his old life, his new love, his family and friends, those living and those dead, injustices and victories, and Chicano culture. As Denise Levertov remarked, Baca "writes with unconcealed passion" and "manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythical and archetypal significance of life events."
The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982 by Wendell Berry
Call Number: PS3552.E75 A17 1985
ISBN: 0865471894
Publication Date: 1985-04-01
This poetry rooted in the landscapes of rural Kentucky nevertheless has universal appeal.
Arctic Heart by Gretel Ehrlich; David Buckland (Illustrator)
Call Number: PS3555.H72 A7 1992
ISBN: 0884963578
Publication Date: 1992-10-01
The Book of Medicines by Linda Hogan
Call Number: PS3558.O34726 B66 1993
ISBN: 1566890101
Publication Date: 1993-06-01
National Book Critic's Circle Award finalist, 1994. Colorado Book Award winner."...elemental and direct with a tremendous evocative force of imagery..."--Publisher's Weekly
Sands of the Well by Denise Levertov
Call Number: PS3562.E8876 S26 1996
ISBN: 0811213161
Publication Date: 1996-04-01
Sands of the Well addresses the natural world, music, memory, aging, and belief. Her long study of the nature of spiritual insight here finds an ever more active professed engagement. In Sands of the Well Levertov allows the reader to sense the complexity under her perfect clarity of surface, and her music and precision bear us along to a new awareness of the Primary Wonder.
Migration by W. S. Merwin
Call Number: PS3563.E75 M54 2005
ISBN: 1556592183
Publication Date: 2005-04-01
Winner of the National Book Award. A New York Times "100 Notable Books of the Year". "[I]t's hard to believe this rich selection represents the work of just one man."--Publishers Weekly "[In] any landscape, Merwin stands tall."--Philadelphia Inquirer "Complex, spiritual, and evocative, Merwin is a major poet, and this is a sublime measure of his achievements."--ALA Booklist "Migration: New and Selected Poems gathers Merwin's personal harvest of his fifty-year oeuvre into one magisterial volume."--The Wichita Eagle "The trajectory of Merwin's work is meteoric: its greatest flashes of beauty and insight are the product of traditional poetic impulses breaking up under the pressures of our atmosphere... he has written some of the most powerful poems in the language against our species murderous sense of self-importance."--Jacket "W. S. Merwin's legacy is unquestionably secure: his best and most fierce poems are moody, visionary compositions that dive into the unconscious and the seeds of existence with an inwardness and scrutiny unique in American poetry."--Poetry From Once in Spring A sentence continues after thirty years it wakes in the silence of the same room the words that come to it after the long comma existed all that time wandering in space as points of light travel unseen through ages of which they alone are the measure and arrive at last to tell of something that came to pass before they ever began or meant anything Poet and translator W.S. Merwin has received nearly every major literary accolade, including the Pulitzer Prize, Tanning Prize and Bollingen Prize. He has long been committed to artistic, political and environmental causes in both word and deed; when presented with the Pulitzer Prize, he donated the prize money to artists and the draft resistance. He currently lives in Hawaii, where he cultivates endangered palm trees.
Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems by Gary Snyder
Call Number: PS3569.N88 R5 2004
ISBN: 1593760159
Publication Date: 2003-12-01
Riprap: a cobble of stone laid on steep, slick rock to make a trail for horses in the mountains. Forty-five years ago, Snyder's first book of poems, "Riprap," was published by Origin Press in a beautiful paperbound edition stitched Japanese-style.
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
Call Number: PS3569.N88 T8
ISBN: 0811205452
Publication Date: 1974-01-01
These Pulitzer Prize-winning poems and essays by the author of No Nature range from the lucid, lyrical, and mystical to the political. All, however, share a common vision: a rediscovery of North America and the ways by which we might become true natives of the land for the first time.Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Bird-While by Keith Taylor
Call Number: PS3570.A9418 A6 2017
ISBN: 9780814342404
Publication Date: 2017-02-06
"A Bird-while. In a natural chronometer, a Bird-while may be admitted as one of the metres, since the space most of the wild birds will allow you to make your observations on them when they alight near you in the woods, is a pretty equal and familiar measure" (Ralph Waldo Emerson's Journal, 1838).The Bird-while is a collection of forty-nine poems that meditate on the nature-both human and non-human-that surrounds us daily. Taylor is in the company of naturalist poets such as Gary Snyder and Mary Oliver-poets who often drew from an Emersonian sensibility to create art that awakens the mind to its corresponding truths in the natural world. The book ranges from the longer poem to the eight line, unrhymed stanza similar to that of the Tang poet Han-Shan. And without section breaks to reinforce the passing of time, the collection creates greater fluidity of movement from one poem to the next, as if there is no beginning or end, only an eternal moment that is suspended on the page. Tom Pohrt's original illustrations are scattered throughout the text, adding a stunning visual element to the already vivid language. The book moves from tkhe author's travel accounts to the destruction of the natural world, even species extinction, to more hopeful poems of survival and the return of wildness. The natural rhythm is at times marred by the disturbances of the twenty-first century that come blaring into these meditations, as when a National Guard jet rumbles over the treeline upsetting a hummingbird, and yet, even the hummingbird is able to regain its balance and continue as before.
The True Book of Animal Homes by Allison Titus
Call Number: PS3620.I87 T78 2017
ISBN: 9780998053424
Publication Date: 2017-03-14
Allison Titus’s newest poetry collection, The True Book of Animal Homes, is obsessed with animal and human alike, and how each one of us makes our home in the stations we hold—from the wilds of southern brambles to a desk in an office cubicle. This book ponders the question: how much wildness are we allowed in this life, and how do we claim that wildness? The poems of The True Book of Animal Homes leap and scurry after the truth on all fours, devouring us with sharp language and brave new forms.

Banned Books

Challenging a book refers to an attempt to remove a book from being
circulated in public. Though a lot of these attempts are unsuccessful,
hundreds of books are banned every year in the US.

The reasons for challenging or banning books include, but aren’t limited to,
   the following reasons: the material is discriminatory, sexually explicit,
   promotes violence, religious, does not align with current societal norms
   etc. However, not all reasons for banning books are legitimate or “correct”.
   Throughout history, it can be observed that some governments ban books
   because they were “anti-establishment” or criticized the government etc.
   Some books may also have topics that may be considered socially “taboo”
   but need to be addressed nevertheless.

Some famous examples of banned books are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne etc. Ironically, books that are banned are often ones that gain popularity and get sought out more.

This display contains some very popular works of literature that are frequently challenged and may have been banned in certain places or for certain periods of time.

This display was created by Laurie Allen. Dates: January 2017 to March 2017.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Call Number: PZ5 823 C71334h8
ISBN: 9780439023481
Publication Date: 2008-10-01
A chilling tale of survival from the New York Times bestselling author. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the other districts in line by forcing them to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight-to-the-death on live TV. One boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and sixteen are selected by lottery to play. The winner brings riches and favor tohis or her district. But that is nothing compared to what the Capitol wins: one more year of fearful compliance with its rule. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her impoverished district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before - and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. Acclaimed writer Suzanne Collins, author of the New York Times bestselling Underland Chronicles, delivers equal parts suspense and philosophy, adventure and romance, in this stunning novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present.
Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin
Call Number: PZ5 306.76 K9655b4
ISBN: 9780763656119
Publication Date: 2014-02-11
A 2015 Stonewall Honor Book A groundbreaking work of LGBT literature takes an honest look at the life, love, and struggles of transgender teens. Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.
Habibi by Craig Thompson
Call Number: PN6727.T48 H33 2011
ISBN: 0375424148
Publication Date: 2011-09-20
From the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets ("A triumph for the genre."--Library Journal), a highly anticipated new graphic novel. nbsp; Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts,nbsp;harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them. We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth--and frailty--of their connection. nbsp; At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Call Number: PS3608.O525 K582 2004
ISBN: 1594480001
Publication Date: 2004-04-27
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons#151;their love, their sacrifices, their lies. A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic. nbsp;
Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan
Call Number: PZ5 823 L66684t9
ISBN: 9780307931900
Publication Date: 2013-08-27
"You have to read this." --Rainbow Rowell, bestselling author of Eleanor & Park In his follow-up to tthe New York Times bestselling author of Every Day, andDavid Levithan, coauthor of bestsellers Will Grayson, Will Grayson (with John Green) and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (with Rachel Cohn), crafts a novel that the Los Angeles Times calls "open, frank, and ultimately optimistic." Based on true events--and narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS--Two Boys Kissing follows Harry and Craig, two seventeen-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record. While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teens dealing with universal questions of love, identity, and belonging. Named to the National Book Award Longlist A Lambda Literary Award Winner A Stonewall Honor Book "An intriguing, complex narrative with an unusual point of view...[and] a quality of retrospection that is rare (and refreshing) in YA literature." --The Washington Post
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson; Peter Parnell; Henry Cole (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ6 R5234a6
ISBN: 0689878451
Publication Date: 2005-06-01
And Tango Makes Three is the bestselling, heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family. At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same. And with the help of a kindly zookeeper, Roy and Silo get the chance to welcome a baby penguin of their very own. Selected as an ALA Notable Children’s Book Nominee and a Lambda Literary Award Finalist, “this joyful story about the meaning of family is a must for any library” (School Library Journal, starred review).
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 B4 1987
ISBN: 0394535979
Publication Date: 1987-08-12
Toni Morrison--author of Song of Solomon and Tar Baby--is a writer of remarkable powers: her novels, brilliantly acclaimed for their passion, their dazzling language and their lyric and emotional force, combine the unassailable truths of experience and emotion with the vision of legend and imagination. It is the story--set in post-Civil War Ohio--of Sethe, an escaped slave who has risked death in order to wrench herself from a living death; who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad: a woman of "iron eyes and backbone to match." Sethe lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing intruder who calls herself Beloved. Sethe works at "beating back the past," but it is alive in all of them. It keeps Denver fearful of straying from the house. It fuels the sadness that has settled into Baby Suggs' "desolated center where the self that was no self made its home." And to Sethe, the past makes itself heard and felt incessantly: in memories that both haunt and soothe her...in the arrival of Paul D ("There was something blessed in his manner. Women saw him and wanted to weep"), one of her fellow slaves on the farm where she had once been kept...in the vivid and painfully cathartic stories she and Paul D tell each other of their years in captivity, of their glimpses of freedom...and, most powerfully, in the apparition of Beloved, whose eyes are expressionless at their deepest point, whose doomed childhood belongs to the hideous logic of slavery and who, as daughter, sister and seductress, has now come from the "place over there" to claim retribution for what she lost and for what was taken from her. Sethe's struggle to keep Beloved from gaining full possession of her present--and to throw off the long, dark legacy of her past--is at the center of this profoundly affecting and startling novel. But its intensity and resonance of feeling, and the boldness of its narrative, lift it beyond its particulars so that it speaks to our experience as an entire nation with a past of both abominable and ennobling circumstance. In Beloved, Toni Morrison has given us a great American novel. Toni Morrison was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in Literature for Beloved.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie; Ellen Forney (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 A3847a2
ISBN: 9780316013680
Publication Date: 2007-09-12
Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and four-color interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.
Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers by Dav Pilkey (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ5 823 P6394c2
ISBN: 0545175364
Publication Date: 2013-01-15
A world without UNDERPANTS?!!! When we last saw our heroes, George and Harold, they had been turned into evil zombie nerds doomed to roam a devastated, postapocalyptic planet for all eternity. But why, you might ask, didn't the amazing Captain Underpants save the boys from this frightening fate? Because Tippy Tinkletrousers and his time-traveling hijinks prevented George and Harold from creating Captain Underpants in the first place! Now, having changed the course of human history forever, they'll have to figure out a way to CHANGE IT BACK. Could this be the end for Captain Underpants?!!
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Afterword by)
Call Number: PS3563.O8749 B55 1993
ISBN: 0679433732
Publication Date: 1993-12-28
The Bluest Eye,published in 1970, is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove--a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others--who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Call Number: PS3562.E353 T6 1982a
ISBN: 0446310786
Publication Date: 1988-10-11
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.