Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian
About the Title
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part- Time Indian (2007) Alexie, S. New York : Little Brown Call #: Fic ALE 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. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2007 review of Sherman Alexie's book. Click below to view Sherman Alexie answer questions about his writing as well as his approach to writing |
All Souls
About the Title
All Souls: A Family Story from Southie (1999) MacDonald, P. Boston, MA : Beacon Press Call #: 974.4 MAC A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemes and busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewn characters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing single mother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children. Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence, MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but moving honesty. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 1999 Boston Phoenix article interview with Patrick MacDonald about her book and the changing Boston area. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click to watch a CSpan interview with Patrick MacDonald about growing up in Southie. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Amulet of Samarkand
About the Title
The Amulet of Samarkand -The Bartimaeus Trilogy Book 1 (2003) Stroud, J. New York, NY Hyperion Call #: Fic Str Nathaniel is a magician's apprentice, taking his first lessons in the arts of magic. But when a devious hot-shot wizard named Simon Lovelace ruthlessly humiliates Nathaniel in front of his elders, Nathaniel decides to kick up his education a few notches and show Lovelace who's boss. With revenge on his mind, he summons the powerful djinni, Bartimaeus. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal Lovelace's greatest treasure, the Amulet of Samarkand, he finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, and rebellion. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2013 interview by Rick Riordin ( Author of the Percy Jackson Series) with the author. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click to listen to The Guardian BooksUnlimited podcast with the author speak about the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Click to view the author talk about libraries. |
Autobiography of a Face
About the Title
Autobiography of a Face (1994) Grealy, L. Boston, MA : Harper/Perennial Call #: 362.1. GRE At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect. "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison." Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on publishers website Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click to below to listen to a 1994 NPR's Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross and Grealy about her life. |
Beautiful Boy
About the Title
Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through his Son's Addiction (2008) Sheff, D. Boston , MA: Houghton Miflin Call #: 362.299 She From as early as grade school, the world seemed to be on Nic Sheff's string. Bright and athletic, he excelled in any setting and appeared destined for greatness. Yet as childhood exuberance faded into teenage angst, the precocious boy found himself going down a much different path. Seduced by the illicit world of drugs and alcohol, he quickly found himself caught in the clutches of addiction. Beautiful Boy is Nic's story, but from the perspective of his father, David. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2013 National Public Radio interview with David about Addiction: Prevention,Treatment and Staying Clean. Click to read this book review by The New York Times Click below to watch a 2010 story hour with David Sheff at Berkely University. |
Becoming
About the Title
Becoming (2018) Obama, M. New York, NY : Random House Call #: 973.93 Oba In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website about this title Click to read to a 2018 Washington Post review of her memoir. Click to listen to 2018 book review by NPR with Michelle Obama about her memoir. Click below to watch Michelle Obama talk with Oprah Winfrey about her memoir. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Brain on Fire
About the Title
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness (2013) Cahalan, S. New York NY Simon & Schuster. Call #: 616.83 Cah An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity. When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened? In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. “A fascinating look at the disease that . . . could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life” (People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2012 NPR book review of this title. Click to listen to 2013 NPR interview with the author. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch a 2013 interview with Susannah Cahalan about her experience. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Caleb's Crossing
About the Title
Caleb's Crossing (2011) Brooks, G. New York, NY: Pinguin Press Call #: Fic BRO Also available on EBook Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.A New York Times bestselling tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author Bethia Mayfield is a restless and curious young woman growing up in Martha's vineyard in the 1660s amid a small band of pioneering English Puritans. At age twelve, she meets Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a secret bond that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia's father is a Calvinist minister who seeks to convert the native Wampanoag, and Caleb becomes a prize in the contest between old ways and new, eventually becoming the first Native American graduate of Harvard College. Inspired by a true story and narrated by the irresistible Bethia, Caleb’s Crossing brilliantly captures the triumphs and turmoil of two brave, openhearted spirits who risk everything in a search for knowledge at a time of superstition and ignorance. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2011 interview in The Australian with Brooks about the book, the connection with Massachusetts, and the changes in her own residency. . Click to read book review from New York Times. Click below to watch Brooks reintroduce us to Martha's Vinyard and other locations in our state while explaining the background of her book. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Color of Water
About the Title
The Color of Water: A bLack Man's Tribute to His white Mother (1996) McBridde, J. New York, NY : Riverhead Books Call #: 974.10 MCB Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion—and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain. In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned. At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college—and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University. Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self- realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read an interview with James McBride about his life. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch James McBridge talk about his family and life. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Devil in the White City
About the Title
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (2003) Larson, ED. New York, NY : Vintage Books Call #: 364.15 LAR Erik Larson—author of #1 bestseller In the Garden of Beasts—intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read to a RandomHouse interview with Erik Larson about his book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Eric Larson talk about the background to the book. |
The Education of a Coach
About the Title
The Education of a Coach (2005) Halberstam, D. New York : Hyperion Call #: 796.332 Hal More than 6 years after his death David Halberstam remains one of this country's most respected journalists and revered authorities on American life and history in the years since WWII. A Pulitzer Prize-winner for his ground-breaking reporting on the Vietnam War, Halberstam wrote more than 20 books, almost all of them bestsellers. His work has stood the test of time and has become the standard by which all journalists measure themselves. Bill Belichick's thirty-one years in the NFL have been marked by amazing success--most recently with the New England Patriots. In this groundbreaking book, THE EDUCATION OF A COACH, David Halberstam explores the nuances of both the game and the man behind it. He uncovers what makes Bill Belichick tick both on and off the field. |
About the Author
Click to read a 2007 New York Time article about the legacy of Halberstam. Click to listen to a 2007 Fresh Air lookback (NPR Radio program with Terry Gross) interview with Halberstam from 1985,1993 and 1999. Click to read book review by The New York Times. Click below to watch other people describe Halberstam's writing. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Firekeeper's Daughter
About the Title
Firekeeper's Daughter (2021) Bouley, A. New York : Henry Holt and Co. Call #: Fic Bou Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims. Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2021 NPR Book Review about the title. Click to listen to a 2021 Fresh Air (NPR Radio program Start at 11:21) interview with Angeline Bouley. Click to read book review by The New York Times. Click below to watch Angeline Bouley interview with Publisher Weekly Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Foundation and Empire
About the Title
Foundation and Empire (1952) Asimov, I. New York, NY: Gnome Press Call #: Fic ASI The Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov are one of the great masterworks of science fiction. Unsurpassed for their unique blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, they chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women to preserve humanity’s light against an inexorable tide of darkness and violence. Led by its founding father, the great psychohistorian Hari Seldon, and taking advantage of its superior science and technology, the Foundation has survived the greed and barbarism of its neighboring warrior-planets. Yet now it must face the Empire—still the mightiest force in the Galaxy even in its death throes. When an ambitious general determined to restore the Empire’s glory turns the vast Imperial fleet toward the Foundation, the only hope for the small planet of scholars and scientists lies in the prophecies of Hari Seldon. But not even Hari Seldon could have predicted the birth of the extraordinary creature called The Mule—a mutant intelligence with a power greater than a dozen battle fleets . . . a power that can turn the strongest-willed human into an obedient slave. |
About the Author
Click to visit the "Asimov Online" website where you will find great information. Click to read this 1988 interview with Asimov. Click to read this book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Asimov talk with David Letterman in 1980. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Going After Cacciato
About the Title
Going After Cacciato (1978) O'Brien, T. New York, NY : Broadway Books Call #: Fic OBR "To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like calling Moby-Dick a novel about whales." So wrote The New York Times of Tim O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam. Winner of the 1979 National Book Award, Going After Cacciato captures the peculiar mixture of horror and hallucination that marked this strangest of wars. In a blend of reality and fantasy, this novel tells the story of a young soldier who one day lays down his rifle and sets off on a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing from and meeting the demands of battle, Going After Cacciato stands as much more than just a great war novel. Ultimately it's about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on BookReporter website Click to read a 1991 Wooster College interview with Tim O'Brien about his writing. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch a documentary with Tim O'Brien |
Golden Boy
About the Title
Golden Boy (2013) Sullivan, T. New York, NY : Pinguin Call #: Fic SUL Thirteen-year-old Habo has always been different—light eyes, yellow hair and white skin. Not the good brown skin his family has and not the white skin of tourists. Habo is strange and alone. His father, unable to accept Habo, abandons the family; his mother can scarcely look at him. His brothers are cruel and the other children never invite him to play. Only his sister Asu loves him well. But even Asu can't take the sting away when the family is forced from their small Tanzanian village, and Habo knows he is to blame. Seeking refuge in Mwanza, Habo and his family journey across the Serengeti. His aunt is glad to open her home until she sees Habo for the first time, and then she is only afraid. Suddenly, Habo has a new word for himself: Albino. But they hunt Albinos in Mwanza because Albino body parts are thought to bring good luck. And soon Habo is being hunted by a fearsome man with a machete. To survive, Habo must not only run, but find a way to love and accept himself. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a review of Golden Boy from Kirkus Reviw. Click link to watch Tara Sullivan discuss Golden Boy and facts about Albinos in Africa, the subject of her book- Golden Boy Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Heretic's Daughter
About the Title
The Heretic's Daughter (2008) Kent, K. New York, NY : Little Brown Call #: Fic KEN Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people accused of witchcraft. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived. Kathleen Kent is a tenth generation descendent of Martha Carrier. She paints a haunting portrait, not just of Puritan New England, but also of one family's deep and abiding love in the face of fear and persecution. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2009 BlogTalk Radio (Little Brown podcast program ) interview with Kathleen Kent about her book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch a 2012 school visit where Kathleen Kent talks about the background and subject of her book. |
Hillbilly Elegy
About the Title
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (2016) Vance, J D. New York NY Harper Call #: 305.56 Van Vance, a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, provides an account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a broader, probing look at the struggles of America's white working class. 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. 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 Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on Harper Collins website ( limited information) Click to read a 2016 New York Times book review of this title. Click to listen to 2016 Fresh Air interview with the author about his experiences in life.. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch a 2016 interview on Uncoomon Knowledge with J. D. Vance about his book. |
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
About the Title
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and sweet (2009) Ford, J. New York, NY: Ballantine Books Trade Call #: Fic FOR Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart. In the opening pages of Jamie Ford’s stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol. This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept. Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago. |
About the AuthorClick to visit the author's website
Click to listen to Scott Simon of NPR's Weekend Edition interview Simon about his life and work. Click to read book review by Kirkus Reviews. Click below to watch Ford talk about his life and background for writing this work. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Hunger
About the Title
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017) Gay, R. New York NY Harper Collins Call #: 306.46 Gay New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as 'wildly undisciplined, ' Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties--including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life--and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2017 The Atlantic book review of this title. Click to listen to 2017 Fresh Air interview with the author about Hunger. Click below to watch a 2018 interview on The Daily Show with Roxane Gay about her story. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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I am Malala
About the Title
I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Eduction and Was Shot by the Taliban (2013) Yousafzai, M. New York, NY Little Brown Call #: 371.82 "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on Biography in Context Click to listen to segments on NPR Radio program through the years that cover Malala's life and misson. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch the background of the Yousafzai family and get to know Malala before she was shot by the Taliban and click to watch Malala's speech accepting the Noble Peace Prize in 2014 |
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
About the Title
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) SKloot, R. New York, NY : Crown Publishers Call #: 616.02 KLO The New York Times bestseller. Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2013Talk of the Nation (NPR Radio program with Neal Conan) interview with Rebecca Skloot about her book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Rebecca Skloot talk about the background and subject of her book. |
The Invention of Wings
About the Title
The Invention of Wings (2014) Kidd, S. M.. New York, NY : Viking Press Call #: Fic KID From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now the newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2014 All Things Considered (NPR Radio program with Lynn Neary) interview with Sue Monk Kidd about her book. Click to read book review by The Boston Globe. Click below to watch Sue Monk Kidd speak with Oprah and answer questions her book. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Just Mercy
About the Title
Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption (2014) Stevenson, B. London Scribe Call #: 353.48 Ste Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2014 The New York Times book review of this title. Click to listen to 2014 Fresh Air interview with the author about his fight. Click below to watch a 2015 interview at Las Angeles Times Festival of Books with Bryan Stevenson about the background to writing his book. |
The Last of the Breed
About the Title
Last of the Breed (1986) L'Amour, L. New York, NY : Bantam Call #: Fic LAM Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L’Amour’s hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier—and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click below to watch Louis L'amore talk about his writing through historical books. |
Lily of the Nile
About the Title
Lily of the Nile (2014) Dray, S. New York, NY : Berkley Call #: Fic Dra Heiress of one empire and prisoner of another, it is up to the daughter of Cleopatra to save her brothers and reclaim what is rightfully hers ... To Isis worshippers, Princess Selene and her twin brother Helios embody the divine celestial pair who will bring about a Golden Age. But when Selene's parents are vanquished by Rome, her auspicious birth becomes a curse. Trapped in an empire that reviles her heritage and suspects her faith, the young messianic princess struggles for survival in a Roman court of intrigue. She can't hide the hieroglyphics that carve themselves into her hands, nor can she stop the emperor from using her powers for his own ends. But faced with a new and ruthless Caesar who is obsessed with having a Cleopatra of his very own, Selene is determined to resurrect her mother's dreams. Can she succeed where her mother failed' And what will it cost her in a political game where the only rule is win-or die'. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2012 interview with Stephanie Dray about her book. Click to read book review by Publisher Weekly. Click below to watch a 2011 author panel at Smith College. Stephanie Dray begins in minute 5. |
The Lost Boy
About the Title
The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family (1997) Pelzer, D. Deerfiled Beach, CA: Daly City- Biography Health Communication Call #: 361.76 PEL Also available as Audio Book Imagine a young boy who has never had a loving home. His only possesions are the old, torn clothes he carries in a paper bag. The only world he knows is one of isolation and fear. Although others had rescued this boy from his abusive alcoholic mother, his real hurt is just begining -- he has no place to call home. This is Dave Pelzer's long-awaited sequel to A Child Called "It". In The Lost Boy, he answers questions and reveals new adventures through the compelling story of his life as an adolescent. Now considered an F-Child (Foster Child), Dave is moved in and out of five different homes. He suffers shame and experiences resentment from those who feel that all foster kids are trouble and unworthy of being loved just because they are not part of a "real" family. Tears, laughter, devastation and hope create the journey of this little lost boy who searches desperately for just one thing -- the love of a family. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2005 interview at the National Book Award with Dave Pelzer about The Lost Boy. Click to read book reviews by teens like you on Teen Ink website for The Lost Boy Click below to watch interview with Pelzer about his own child abuse and his writing and clip of Pelzer talking with Larry King about his childhood. |
The Naked Sun
About the Title
The Naked Sun (1956) Asimov, I. New York, NY : Double Day Call #: Fic Asi A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants. To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations. The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection. Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on. Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities: Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence! |
About the Author
Click to visit the "Asimov Online" website where you will find great information. Click to read this 1988 interview with Asimov. Click below to watch Asimov talk with Bill Moyer about the science fiction that changed into science fact. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Pact
About the Title
The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfil a Dream (2002) Davis, S. New York, NY : Riverhead Books Call #: 610.92 DAV Chosen by Essence to be among the forty most influential African Americans, the three doctors grew up in the streets of Newark, facing city life’s temptations, pitfalls, even jail. But one day these three young men made a pact. They promised each other they would all become doctors, and stick it out together through the long, difficult journey to attaining that dream. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt are not only friends to this day—they are all doctors. This is a story about the power of friendship. Of joining forces and beating the odds. A story about changing your life, and the lives of those you love most...together. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to them discuss their pact that has been going on for many years. |
Peace Like a River
About the Title
Peace Like A River (2001) Enger, L. New York, NY Atlantic Monthly Press Call #: 813.45 Young Reuben Land has little doubt that miracles happen all around us, suspecting that his own father is touched by God. When his older brother flees a controversial murder charge, Reuben, along with his older sister and father, set off on a journey that will take them to the Badlands and through a landscape more extraordinary than they could have anticipated. Enger’s novel is at once a heroic quest and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on Biography in Context and learn about his life and work. Click to listen to a 2015 Minnesota Public Radio (NPR Radio program ) interview with Leif Enger about the importance of reading for pleasure. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch interview with Leif Enger about his book Peace Like a River. |
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
About the Title
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (2009) Howe, K. New York, NY : Voice Press Call #: Fic How Forced to set aside her Ph.D. research in order to help the settling of her late grandmother's abandoned home, Connie Goodwin discovers a hidden key among her grandmother's possessions that is linked to a darker chapter in Salem Witch Trial. A crime lost to time. A secret buried deep. One book unlocks an unimaginable truth. Salem, Massachusetts, 1681. Fear and suspicion lead a small town to unspeakable acts. Marblehead, Massachusetts, 1991. A young woman is about to discover that she is tied to Salem in ways she never imagined. "A sensational debut novel . . . carries on every page Howe's unique passion, wit, intelligence, and spirit." Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2011 WNYC (Radio program with Sarah Montague) interview with Katherine Howe about her book and Withcraft in Salem, MA. Click to read book review by The Washington Post. Click below to watch Katherine Howe describe her book and the background to writing it. |
Shanghai Girls
About the Title
Shanghai Girls (2009) See, L. New York, NY : Random House Call #: Fic SEE Also available as an eBook In 1937 Shanghai—the Paris of Asia—twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree—until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth. To repay his debts, he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from Los Angeles to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, from the Chinese countryside to the shores of America. Though inseparable best friends, the sisters also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. Along the way they make terrible sacrifices, face impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are—Shanghai girls. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2009 All Thing Considered (NPR Radio program with Michele Norris) interview with Lisa See about her book. Click to read book review by The New York Times. Click below to watch Lisa see introduce the background and subject of her book. |
Shuggie Bain
About the Title
Shuggie Bain (2020) Stuart, D. New York, NY : Grove Press Call #: Fic Bai Also available as an eBook Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good—her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits—all the family has to live on—on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes’s older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is “no right,” a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie. A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read to a 2020 Kirkus Review of the author's title. Click to listen to a 2020 NPR interview with the author about his title. Click below to watch the author discuss his title. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Throne of Jade
About the Title
Throne of Jade (2006) Novik, N. New York, NY: Balentine Books Call #: Fic NOV Also available as EBook When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo–an unhatched dragon’s egg–Capt. Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain’s Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle in daring combat against Bonaparte’s invading forces. Now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for Napoleon, has fallen into British hands–and an angry Chinese delegation vows to reclaim the remarkable beast. But Laurence refuses to cooperate. Facing the gallows for his defiance, Laurence has no choice but to accompany Temeraire back to the Far East–a long voyage fraught with peril, intrigue, and the untold terrors of the deep. Yet once the pair reaches the court of the Chinese emperor, even more shocking discoveries and darker dangers await. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Click to read a The Phoenix interview with Novik about writing her Temeraire Series. Click to read book review for Throne of Jade . Click below to watch Novik talk about her series of 9 books. |
Underground Railroad
About the Title
The Underground Railroad (2016) Whitehead, C. New York, NY Anchor Books Call#: 813.54 Whi 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. Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2016 New York Times review of this title. Click to listen to a 2016 Fresh Air interview by Terry Gross (An NPR program) with Colson Whitehead. Click below to watch interview with Whitehead about the Undeground Railroad. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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West with Giraffes
About the Title
West with Giraffes (2021) Rutledge, L. Lake Union Publishing Call#: 813.54 Rut An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…” Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes. Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read about the true story behind the book Click below to watch interview with Rutledge about West with Giraffes Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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