All the Light We cannot See
About the Title
All the Light We Cannot See (2014) Doerr, A. New York : Scribner Call #: Fic DOE From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2015 (NPR Radio program with Arun Rath) interview with Anthony Doerr about his book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Anthony Doerr talk about the background and subject of his book. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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A Long Way Gone
About the Title
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier (2007) Beah , I. New York, NY: Sarah Crichton Books Call #: 966.404 BEA Also available as Audio book This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them. What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived. In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty. "My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life. 'Why did you leave Sierra Leone?' 'Because there is a war.' 'You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?' 'Yes, all the time.' 'Cool.' I smile a little. 'You should tell us about it sometime.' 'Yes, sometime.'" |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website where you will learn more about his journey and continued work. Click to listen to NPR's 2014 Morning Edition interview with Beah about the future in Sierra Leone. Click to read this book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Beah talk about his typical teen life prior to the drastic change. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
About the Title
A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) Hosseini, K. New York, NY : Riverhead Books Call #: Fic Hos Khaled Hosseini returns with a beautiful, riveting, and haunting novel that confirms his place as one of the most important literary writers today. Propelled by the same superb instinct for storytelling that made The Kite Runner a beloved classic, A Thousand Splendid Suns is at once an incredible chronicle of thirty years of Afghan history and a deeply moving story of family, friendship, faith, and the salvation to be found in love. Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival. A stunning accomplishment, A Thousand Splendid Suns is a haunting, heartbreaking, compelling story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely friendship, and an indestructible love. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to listen to a 2007 Morning Edition (NPR Radio program with Rene Montagne) interview with Hosseini about his book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Hosseini talk about the background and subject of his book. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Behind the beautiful forevers
About the Title
Behind the Beautiful Forevers; Life, Death and Hope in Mumbai Undercity (2012) Boo, K. New York, NY: Random House Call #: 305.5 BOO The dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the twenty-first century's great, unequal cities. In this fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees fortune in the recyclable garbage of richer people. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a rural childhood, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to good times. But then, as the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the author's website where you can read her bio. Click to listen to Dave Davis' 2012 interview with Boo about her research. Click to read this Teen Ink book review by other teens like you Click below to watch Katherine Boo speak about the work she has done over 4 years in the slums of Mumbai |
Between Shades of Gray
About the Author
Between Shades of Gray (2011) Sepetys, R. New York, NY : Speak Call #: Fic SEP A Carnegie Medal Nominee Also available as an Ebook Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life--until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? A moving and haunting novel for readers of The Book Thief |
About the Title
Click to visit the author's website Click to read The Federation of Children's Book Group interview with Ruta Sepetys about her work. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch Ruta Sepetys talk about the background and subject of her book. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Black Powder War
About the Title
Black Powder War (2006) Novik, N. New York, NY: Balentine Books Call #: Fic NOV Also available as EBook “Naomi Novik has done for the Napoleonic Wars what Anne McCaffrey did for science fiction: constructed an alternate reality in which dragons are real in a saga that is impressively original, fully developed, and peopled with characters you care about.” –David Weber, author of the Honor Harrington series After their fateful adventure in China, Capt. Will Laurence of His Majesty’s Aerial Corps and his extraordinary dragon, Temeraire, are waylaid by a mysterious envoy bearing urgent new orders from Britain. Three valuable dragon eggs have been purchased from the Ottoman Empire, and Laurence and Temeraire must detour to Istanbul to escort the precious cargo back to England. Time is of the essence if the eggs are to be borne home before hatching. Yet disaster threatens the mission at every turn–thanks to the diabolical machinations of the Chinese dragon Lien, who blames Temeraire for her master’s death and vows to ally herself with Napoleon and take vengeance. Then, faced with shattering betrayal in an unexpected place, Laurence, Temeraire, and their squad must launch a daring offensive. But what chance do they have against the massed forces of Bonaparte’s implacable army? |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a The Phoenix interview with Novik about writing her Temeraire Series. Click to read book review for Black Powder War. Click below to watch Novik talk about her series of 9 books. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Children of Blood and Bone
About the Title
Children of Blood and Bone (2018) Adeyemi, T. New York, NY : Henry Holt and Co. Call #: FIC Ade They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise. Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read Kirkus Review of this title Click to listen to a 2018 All Things Considered interview with Adeymi the story. Click to read book review by teens like you on the Teen Ink webiste. Click below to watch Adeyemi discuss the background to her book on BBC in 2019 Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Cutting for Stone
About the Title
Cutting for Stone (2009) Verghese, A. New York, NY : Vintage Books Call #: Fic VER Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Moving from Addis Ababa to New York City and back again, Cutting for Stone is an unforgettable story of love and betrayal, medicine and ordinary miracles--and two brothers whose fates are forever intertwined. 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 Book Club (NPR Radio program with Rachel Syme) interview with Abraham Verghese about his book and medicine. Click to read book review by The New York Times. Click below to watch Abraham Verghese talk about the background and subject of his book. |
Educated: A Memoir -(All Honors students will read this book)
About the Title
Room (2018) Westover, T. New York: Random House Call #: 270.092 Wes Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when Tara’s older brother became violent. Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home. 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 2018 Fresh Air interview with Tara Westover about her book. Click to read March 2018 book review by The New York Times. Click to listen to April 2018 interview with Tara Westover on The New York Times. Click below to watch Tara Westover talk about writing her book on PBS News Hour. |
Escape from Slavery
About the Title
Escape from Slavery; The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America (2003) Bok, F. New York, NY: St. Martins Griffin Call #: 184.77 BOK Also available as Ebook May 1986: Seven-year-old Francis Bok was selling his mother's eggs and peanuts near his village in southern Sudan when Arab raiders on horseback burst into the quiet marketplace, murdering men and gathering the women and young children into a group. Strapped to horses and donkeys, Francis and others were taken north into lives of slavery under wealthy Muslim farmers. For ten years, Francis lived in a shed near the goats and cattle that were his responsibility. After two failed attempts to flee--each bringing severe beatings and death threats--Francis finally escaped at age seventeen. He persevered through prison and refugee camps for three more years, winning the attention of United Nations officials who granted passage to America. Now a student and an antislavery activist, Francis Bok has made it his life mission to combat world slavery. His is the first voice to speak to an estimated 27 million people held against their will in nearly every nation, including our own. Escape from Slavery is at once a riveting adventure, a story of desperation and triumph, and a window revealing a world that few have survived to tell. |
About the Author
Click to visit the publishers website where you can read his bio. Click to listen to Dick staub's 2007 interview with Bok about his life and the change he experienced. Click to read this book review by Kirkus Review. Click below to watch Francis Bokand Ishmael Beah talk in 2009 with Emillio Azcarraga of America's Business Council about their ordeals and integrating afterwards into American society. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Everafter
About the Title
The Everafter (2009) Huntley, A. New York, NY : Balzer and Bray Call #: Fic Hun Madison Stanton doesn't know where she is or how she got there. But she does know this—she is dead. And alone, in a vast, dark space. The only company she has in this place are luminescent objects that turn out to be all the things Maddy lost while she was alive. And soon she discovers that with these artifacts, she can reexperience—and sometimes even change—moments from her life. Her first kiss. A trip to Disney World. Her sister's wedding. A disastrous sleepover. In reliving these moments, Maddy learns illuminating and sometimes frightening truths about her life—and death. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read 2009 YALSA interview with Amy Huntley Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Feed
About the Title
Feed (2002) Anderson, M. T. Cambridge, MA : Candlewick Press Call #: Fic AND Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains. For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a 2013 YALSA (Young Adult Librarian Services Association) interview with M.T. about where we are today years after his iconic book. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch M. T. talk about his years in school ,the process of writing, and the internet. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Flight
About the Title
Flight (2007) Alexie, S. New York : BackCat Call #: Fic ALE Flight follows a troubled foster teenager -- a boy who is not a "legal" Indian because he was never claimed by his father. The journey begins as he's about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time to resurface in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era, where he sees why "Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s." Red River is only the first stop in an eye-opening trip through moments in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these furious travels through time, his refrain grows: "Who's to judge?" and "I don't understand humans. 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 NPR Radio program with Rebecca Roberts interview with Sherman Alexie about his book. Click below to view Sherman Alexie talk about his approach to writing his books. |
Frankenstein (AP Literature students must read the following book)
About the Title
Frankenstein (1818) Shelley, M. New York, NY : Penguin Call #: FIC She Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron's. "We will each write a story," Byron announced to his next-door neighbors, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley. The friends were summering on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, Shelley still unknown as a poet and Byron writing the third canto of Childe Harold. When continued rains kept them confined indoors, all agreed to Byron's proposal. The illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories, but Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge. With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror -- one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart." |
About the Author
Click to visit the Poetry Foundation page for Mary Shelley. Click to read a review by the Guardian for this work by Mary Shelley. Click to read book review by teens like you on Teen Ink website. Click below to watch a funny clip of Mel Brook's movie Young Frankenstein Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Great
About the Title
Great (2014) Benincasa, S. New York, NY : Harper Call #: FIC Ben In this contemporary retelling of The Great Gatsby, by comedian Sara Benincasa, a teenage girl becomes entangled in the romance and drama of a Hamptons social circle and is implicated in a scandal that shakes the summer community. When Naomi Rye arrives in the Hamptons to spend the summer with her socialite mother, she fully expects to be miserable mingling with the sons and daughters of her mother's mega-rich friends. Yet Naomi finds herself unexpectedly drawn to her mysterious and beautiful next-door neighbor, Jacinta, a Hamptons "It" girl who throws wild, lavish parties that are the talk of the town. But Jacinta is hiding something big, and events unfold with tragic consequences. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website. Click to read a review by Kirkus review about the author's title. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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An Invisible Thread
About the Title
An Invisible Thread: A True Story of an 11-year-old panhandler, a busy sales executive, and an unlikely meeting with destiny (2011) Schroff, L. New York, NY : Howard Books Call #: 974.73 SCH Stopping was never part of the plan . . . She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless, eleven-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the website for this book Click to listen to a 2013 Everyday Radio (Blogtalk Radio Program) interview with Laura Schroff about her book. Click to read book review by Kirkus Review Click below to watch Maurice and Laura Schroff reflecting back 18 years from when their story started. |
The Language of Flowers
About the Title
The Language of Flowers (2011) Diffenbaugh, V. London, UK: Picador Books Call #: Fic DIF The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go, Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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About the Author
Click to visit the website for this book Click to listen to a 2011 NPR interview with Vanessa Diffenbaugh about her book. Click to read book review by The New York Times Click below to watch Vannesa Diffenbaugh talk about her book and foster care on the BBC. |
A Man Named Dave
About the Title
A Man Named Dave: A Story of Triumph and Forgiveness (1953) Pelzer, D. New York, NY: Plume Call #: 362.76 PEL Also Available as EBook and AudioBook A Man Named Dave, which has sold over 1 million copies, is the gripping conclusion to Dave Pelzer’s inspirational and New York Times bestselling trilogy that began with A Child Called "It" and The Lost Boy. "All those years you tried your best to break me, and I'm still here. One day you'll see, I'm going to make something of myself." These words were Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, and they represented the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality, denying him food and clothing, torturing him in any way she could imagine. This was the woman who told her son she could kill him any time she wanted to--and nearly did. The more than two million readers of Pelzer's New York Times and international bestselling memoirs know that he lived to tell his courageous story. With stunning generosity of spirit, Dave Pelzer invites readers on his journey to discover how he turned shame into pride and rejection into acceptance. 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 2004 interview at the Gaurdian with Dave Pelzer about turning adversity to his advantage. Click below to watch interview with Pelzer about his own child abuse and his writing and another clip of Pelzer talking with Larry King about his childhood. |
Persian Girls
About the Title
Persian Girls: A Memoir (2006) Rachlin, N. New York, NY: Pinguin Call #: 813.54 Rac Also available as EBook This lyrical and disturbing memoir by the author of four novels (Foreigner, etc.) tells the story of an Iranian girl growing up in a culture where, despite the Westernizing reforms of the Shah, women had little power or autonomy. As an infant in 1946, Rachlin was given to her mother's favorite sister, a widow who had been unable to conceive, and was lovingly raised among supportive widows who took refuge in religion from their frustrations as women in an oppressive society. But at the age of nine, Rachlin's father, whom she barely knew, met her at school without warning and brought her to Ahvaz to live with her birth family. Miserable in the new household, young Nahid was befriended by her American movie-obsessed sister Pari. Both sisters developed artistic ambitions, but only Nahid managed to escape the typical female fate, convincing her father to send her to college in the U.S. Less lucky is Pari, whose life of arranged marriage, divorce from an abusive husband and estrangement from her son ends in depression and early death. Exuding the melancholy of an outsider, this memoir gives American readers rare insight into Iranians' ambivalence toward the United States, the desire for American freedom clashing wit. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's website Click to read a HerCircle 2007 interview with Nahid Rachlin about her memoir. Click to read a 2003 NPR book review. Click below to watch 2013 interview with Nahid Rachlin at Brookdale Community College. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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The Robots of Dawn
About the Title
The Robots of Dawn (1983) Assimov, I. New York, NY: Random House Call # Fic Asi A millennium into the future two advances have altered the course of human history: the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain. Isaac Asimov's Robot novels chronicle the unlikely partnership between a New York City detective and a humanoid robot who must learn to work together. Detective Elijah Baiey is called to the Spacer world Aurora to solve a bizarre case of roboticide. The prime suspect is a gifted roboticist who had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to commit the crime. There's only one catch: Baley and his positronic partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, must prove the man innocent. For in a case of political intrigue and love between woman and robot gone tragically wrong, there's more at stake than simple justice. This time Baley's career, his life, and Earth's right to pioneer the Galaxy lie in the delicate balance. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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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 a 1988 Asimov talk with Bill Moyer about the science fiction that changed into science fact. |
The Samurai's Garden
About the Title
The Samurai's Garden (1996) Tsukiyama, G. New York, NY : St. Martin's Griffin Call #: Fic SUK The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy. 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 WaterBridgeReview interview with Gail Tsukiyama about her book. Click to read book review by Kirkus Review Click below to watch San Francisco Public Library's Main Stage program where Gail Tsukiyama talks about the background and subject of her book. |
Second Foundation
About the Title
Second Foundation (1953) Asimov, I. New York : Gnome Call #: Fic Asi An unsurpassed blend of nonstop action, daring ideas, and extensive world-building, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels chronicle the struggle of a courageous group of men and women dedicated to preserving humanity’s light in a galaxy plunged into a nightmare of ignorance and violence thirty thousand years long. After years of struggle, the Foundation lies in ruins—destroyed by the mutant mind power of the Mule. But it is rumored that there is a Second Foundation hidden somewhere at the end of the Galaxy, established to preserve the knowledge of mankind through the long centuries of barbarism. The Mule failed to find it the first time—but now he is certain he knows where it lies. The fate of the Foundation rests on young Arcadia Darell, only fourteen years old and burdened with a terrible secret. As its scientists gird for a final showdown with the Mule, the survivors of the First Foundation begin their desperate search. They too want the Second Foundation destroyed . . . before it destroys them. |
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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The Shepherd's Life
About the Title
The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape (2015) Rebanks, J. New York, NY: Flatiron Call #: 636.30 REB Some people's lives are entirely their own creations. James Rebanks' isn't. The first son of a shepherd, who was the first son of a shepherd himself, his family have lived and worked in the Lake District of Northern England for generations, further back than recorded history. It's a part of the world known mainly for its romantic descriptions by Wordsworth and the much loved illustrated children's books of Beatrix Potter. But James' world is quite different. His way of life is ordered by the seasons and the work they demand. It hasn't changed for hundreds of years: sending the sheep to the fells in the summer and making the hay; the autumn fairs where the flocks are replenished; the grueling toil of winter when the sheep must be kept alive, and the light-headedness that comes with spring, as the lambs are born and the sheep get ready to return to the hills and valleys. 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 a BBC radio 4 interview with James Rebanks about his work. Click to read a 2015 New Your Times book review. Click below to watch a 2016 interview with James Rebanks as he describes his life and watch James talk about his Twitter success. |
Song of the Nile
About the Title
Song of the Nile (2014) Dray, S. New York, NY : Berkley Call #: Fic Dra Sorceress. Seductress. Schemer. Cleopatra's daughter is the one woman with the power to destroy an empire ... Having survived her perilous childhood as a royal captive of Rome, Selene pledged her loyalty to Augustus and swore she would become his very own Cleopatra. Now the young queen faces an uncertain destiny in a foreign land. The magic of Isis flowing through her veins is what makes her indispensable to the emperor. Against a backdrop of imperial politics and religious persecution, Cleopatra's daughter beguiles her way to the very precipice of power. She has never forgotten her birthright, but will the price of her mother's throne be more than she's willing to pay' 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 2011 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 Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
About the Title
The spirit catches you and you fall down : a Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures (1997) Fadiman, A. New York : Farrar, Staraus, Giroux. Call #: 306.4 FAD When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. The Hmong, traditionally a close-knit and fiercely people, have been less amenable to assimilation than most immigrants, adhering steadfastly to the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Lia's pediatricians, Neil Ernst and his wife, Peggy Philip, cleaved just as strongly to another tradition: that of Western medicine. When Lia Lee entered the American medical system, diagnosed as an epileptic, her story became a tragic case history of cultural miscommunication. Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different. The Hmong see illness and healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices. |
About the Author
Click to visit the author's page on speaker webiste Click to listen to a 2013 NPR interview with Anne Fadima about the subject of her book. Click to read 1997 book review from New York Times. Click below to watch Anne Fadiman speak about her book at Whitman College in 2012. Read Reviews Written in Destiny by other Tri County Patrons
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Strength in What Remains
About the Title
Strength in Waht Remains (2009) Kidd, T. New York, NY : Random House Call #: 305.89 KID In Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder gives us the story of one man’s inspiring American journey and of the ordinary people who helped him, providing brilliant testament to the power of second chances. Deo arrives in the United States from Burundi in search of a new life. Having survived a civil war and genocide, he lands at JFK airport with two hundred dollars, no English, and no contacts. He ekes out a precarious existence delivering groceries, living in Central Park, and learning English by reading dictionaries in bookstores. Then Deo begins to meet the strangers who will change his life, pointing him eventually in the direction of Columbia University, medical school, and a life devoted to healing. Kidder breaks new ground in telling this unforgettable story as he travels with Deo back over a turbulent life and shows us what it means to be fully human. 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 Things Considered (NPR Radio program with Guy Raz) interview with Tracy Kidder about his book and the person behind the story. Click to read book review by tThe New York Times. Click below to watch Tracy Kidder and others who helped Deo talk about the background and subject of this book. |
Tender is the Night
About the Title
Tender is the Night (1934) Fitzgerlad, F. S. New York, NY Charles Scribners Call#: Fic Fit Set on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A brilliant young psychiatrist at the time of his marriage, Dick is both husband and doctor to Nicole, whose wealth goads him into a lifestyle not his own, and whose growing strength highlights Dick's harrowing demise. A profound study of the romantic concept of character -- lyrical, expansive, and hauntingly evocative -- Tender Is the Night, Mabel Dodge Luhan remarked, raised F. Scott Fitzgerald to the heights of "a modern Orpheus." 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 read a 2008 article in the Independant about the significance of this title. Click below to watch a trailer to the 1962 movie based on the Novel. |
