Rock-and-roll memoirs should have lots of sex, drugs and drama, and Sebastian Bach’s 18 and Life on Skid Row hits all the marks. I was never really a fan of his band, Skid Row, but Bach’s memories of his exploits – from getting punched in the nose by (and then befriending) a Hells Angel to doing a mountain of blow with Metallica and having his grandma walk in – keep the story moving at a frenzied clip. But what I really found intriguing was his insight into the machinery, hard work and genetic luck that creates a frontman. (That said, he is a ‘90s rock-and-roll star: Some of his stories about women are hard to read.)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "for music lovers", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0062265393", "seamus": 504851204, "itunes": 9780062265395, "goodreads": 23315800, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062265393", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062265395", "isbn10": "0062265393", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 1, "book": "18 And Life On Skid Row", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'High Times' And High Notes: The Life Of Sebastian Bach", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2016/12/11/504851277/high-times-and-high-notes-the-life-of-sebastian-bach" } ] }, "2": { "id": 2, "title": "300 Arguments: Essays", "author": "Sarah Manguso", "reviewers": [ "Meghan Keane" ], "text": "Think of this book as a collection of those individual sentences in a novel that hit you with a sense of knowing, leave you haunted for a split second, or just make you giggle. Sarah Manguso is able to turn what may seem at first like a list of aphorisms into a unique book of visceral, spry stories and sentiments. The whole conceit of the book is so original that you’ll enjoy the thrill of its sharp turns as it steers you through the unexpected territory each of the 300 Arguments brings up.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1555977642", "seamus": 559098099, "itunes": 9781555977641, "goodreads": 29875902, "bookshop": 9781555977641, "cover": "1555977642", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977641", "isbn10": "1555977642", "links": [] }, "3": { "id": 3, "title": "4 3 2 1: A Novel", "author": "Paul Auster", "reviewers": [ "Carol Ritchie" ], "text": "Archibald Isaac Ferguson is born on March 3, 1947, at the start of Paul Auster’s miraculous 4 3 2 1. After that, this book splits into four narratives as the same boy lives out four different lives, shaped by notable events such as the assassination of JFK, riots in New York and the student revolt at Columbia. Each Ferguson makes different decisions and follows different passions. It’s a massive book (866 pages!), but try it anyway: Auster pulls it off with tenderness and skill and adds a delightful twist at the end as a reward for finally arriving.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "historical fiction", "fiction", "book club ideas", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1627794468", "seamus": 512052578, "itunes": 9781627794466, "goodreads": 30244626, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1627794468", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781627794466", "isbn10": "1627794468", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 3, "book": "4 3 2 1: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "4 Lives In Parallel Run Through Ambitious '4 3 2 1'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/01/512042685/four-lives-in-parallel-run-through-ambitious-4-3-2-1" } ] }, "4": { "id": 4, "title": "5 Worlds Book 1: The Sand Warrior", "author": "Alexis Siegel and Mark Siegel, illustrated by Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller and Boya Sun", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "After only a couple of pages of this epic graphic novel, I was hooked. The Five Worlds can only be saved if five iconic beacons are lit by three unlikely young heroes. 5 Worlds Book 1: The Sand Warrior by Alexis Siegel and Mark Siegel, will keep you turning the pages, even as the gorgeous art by Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller and Boya Sun draws you in. Be prepared to be dazzled by this tale of mystery, intrigue and heart. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "110193588X", "seamus": 559117893, "itunes": 9781101935880, "goodreads": 32573184, "bookshop": 9781101935880, "cover": "110193588X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101935880", "isbn10": "110193588X", "links": [] }, "5": { "id": 5, "title": "A Conspiracy In Belgravia (The Lady Sherlock Series)", "author": "Sherry Thomas", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series, of which this is the second book, takes a straightforward premise – what if Sherlock Holmes had been a woman instead of a man – and explores every possible facet of it in a pitch-perfect, fascinating and gloriously historically accurate manner. True, Charlotte Holmes, her sister Livia and her companion, Mrs. Watson, do get to have adventures few women could have in 1880. But rather than erasing the oppressive systems designed to stamp out lives like theirs, Thomas shows her characters walking the era’s sociocultural tightropes, which raises the stakes. And that’s in addition to telling a mystery that Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud to call his own – and developing not one, but two love stories he could never have created in his wildest dreams.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0425281418", "seamus": 547978811, "itunes": 9780425281413, "goodreads": 33931130, "bookshop": 9780425281413, "cover": "0425281418", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780425281413", "isbn10": "0425281418", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 5, "book": "A Conspiracy In Belgravia (The Lady Sherlock Series)", "source": "NPR", "text": "For September, 3 Twisty, Turny, Thrill-Packed Romances", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/03/547977178/for-september-3-twisty-turny-thrill-packed-romances" } ] }, "6": { "id": 6, "title": "A Face Like Glass", "author": "Frances Hardinge", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "One of my top three books this year. Beneath the earth, the folk of Caverna craft wonders: The right cheese will give you visions of the future, while the wrong wine can obliterate your memory. Even facial expressions are precisely calibrated by master Facesmiths and need to be taught to Cavernans as infants – but each one has a price. Into Caverna’s world of smiling assassins and vicious courtiers tumbles Neverfell, a small girl with no memory and a face so terrifying she has to keep it behind a mask. But piece by exquisite piece, the cogs of her history fall into place, and the machine they make threatens to upend Caverna completely.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "young adult", "seriously great writing", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1419724843", "seamus": 528014927, "itunes": 9781419724848, "goodreads": 31915219, "bookshop": 9781419724848, "cover": "1419724843", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781419724848", "isbn10": "1419724843", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 6, "book": "A Face Like Glass", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'A Face Like Glass' Is A Magical, Perfectly Ticking Machine Of A Tale", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/13/527629909/a-face-like-glass-is-a-magical-perfectly-ticking-machine-of-a-tale" } ] }, "7": { "id": 7, "title": "A Greyhound, A Groundhog", "author": "Emily Jenkins, illustrated by Chris Appelhans", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "Pure joy. That’s the feeling the reader gets from A Greyhound, A Groundhog. Add to that delight and wonder, and it’s everything you want in a picture book. From the moment “A round hound” transforms into a greyhound, you’re hooked. It’s as magical and playful as the titular greyhound, who is beautifully painted in sprite-like watercolors by Chris Appelhans. The plot lies in the play – the rambunctious rompings – of the two animals, as well as in the play of words. Your eye darts and dashes just as the greyhound and groundhog do. Words are fun, this book assures you – as fun as two friends, a greyhound and groundhog, getting into mischievous adventures. (For ages 3 to 7)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0553498053", "seamus": 559027704, "itunes": 9780553498059, "goodreads": 30268071, "bookshop": 9780553498059, "cover": "0553498053", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780553498059", "isbn10": "0553498053", "links": [] }, "8": { "id": 8, "title": "A Perfect Day", "author": "Lane Smith", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "When a picturesque scene is disrupted by a wandering bear, everything quickly takes a turn for the worse (unless, of course, you’re the bear). Like reaching the bottom of a candy dish and unexpectedly biting into a Sour Skittle, the clever A Perfect Day provides a delightful jolt. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1626725365", "seamus": 559579885, "itunes": 9781626725362, "goodreads": 28965128, "bookshop": 9781626725362, "cover": "1626725365", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626725362", "isbn10": "1626725365", "links": [] }, "9": { "id": 9, "title": "A Separation: A Novel", "author": "Katie Kitamura", "reviewers": [ "Elise Hu" ], "text": "Must we merge completely when we partner up? What do we really know about one another? A mystery undergirds this tale of a wife who goes to a foreign locale to piece together what happened to her husband, from whom she was quietly separating. A Separation makes you feel a little off balance throughout the read. Katie Kitamura creates a specific sense of place and a story that moves, but don’t pick it up unless you’re comfortable with a few questions left unanswered.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "family matters" ], "isbn": "039957610X", "seamus": 512922279, "itunes": 9780399576102, "goodreads": 30407998, "bookshop": "", "cover": "039957610X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399576102", "isbn10": "039957610X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 9, "book": "A Separation: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Fires Burn — At A Distance — In Unnerving 'Separation'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/11/512910828/fires-burn-at-a-distance-in-unnerving-separation" } ] }, "10": { "id": 10, "title": "A Thousand Coloured Castles", "author": "Gareth Brookes", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Elderly Myriam lives a quiet suburban life with her curmudgeonly husband until she starts seeing strangler vines sprouting from her television and faceless soldiers wearing ladders for hats marching down her street. Writer/illustrator Gareth Brookes’ crayon drawings depict Myriam’s world as it goes feathery at the edges, while his ear for dialogue (husband Fred keeps up a continous stream of mundane observations: “Right. Half-past-ten. Think I’ll try for a poop.”) nestles us squarely in the everyday. As this sad, slyly surreal book proceeds, neither Myriam nor the reader can be certain what is real, and what is very, very not.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0271079274", "seamus": 558824132, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34951077, "bookshop": 9780271079271, "cover": "0271079274", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780271079271", "isbn10": "0271079274", "links": [] }, "11": { "id": 11, "title": "A.D.: After Death", "author": "Scott Snyder, illustrated by Jeff Lemire", "reviewers": [ "Mike Katzif" ], "text": "A dream matchup between longtime friends and prolific comics creators Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire, .A.D. is the kind of format-breaking collaboration neither could achieve alone. Mixing long prose passages and lush pen-and-ink-and-watercolor illustrations with traditional comic book storytelling, the book is set in a future where a cure for death has been discovered, and people are now unable to age or die. Yet for all its sci-fi world building and heist adventures, A.D. portrays one man’s experiences as he ruminates on his past and the people tethering him to a life that now unfolds slowly and endlessly. The result is an imaginative and personal story about the elasticity of time, the elusiveness of memory and the inevitability of change.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "163215868X", "seamus": 559095008, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33163459, "bookshop": 9781632158680, "cover": "163215868X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781632158680", "isbn10": "163215868X", "links": [] }, "12": { "id": 12, "title": "Accident!", "author": "Andrea Tsurumi", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "Creating the perfect picture-book fiasco requires finesse, timing and a keen sense of the absurd. In Andrea Tsurumi’s debut, an anxiety-ridden armadillo named Lola panics when she spills a pitcher of orange juice on her parents’ pristine white armchair. She runs away, determined to live out the rest of her days in the library, as the world around her explodes into a delightful cacophony of visual chaos rife with hidden details and countless jokes. (For ages 4 to 7)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "0544944801", "seamus": 558408426, "itunes": 9780544944800, "goodreads": 33413935, "bookshop": 9780544944800, "cover": "0544944801", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544944800", "isbn10": "0544944801", "links": [] }, "13": { "id": 13, "title": "Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World Of The Bushmen", "author": "James Suzman", "reviewers": [ "Michaeleen Doucleff" ], "text": "After spending 25 years studying one of the last hunter-gatherers on Earth, James Suzman has an incredibly unique perspective. He has glimpsed what life was like for our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago – and it was surprisingly wonderful! Learning about the Bushmen’s way of life changed the way I think about our modern culture. It made me realize what parts of my life bring genuine joy and how a slight shift in the perception of time can bring peace and comfort.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1632865726", "seamus": 559088635, "itunes": 9781632865724, "goodreads": 31451192, "bookshop": 9781632865724, "cover": "1632865726", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781632865724", "isbn10": "1632865726", "links": [] }, "14": { "id": 14, "title": "After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography", "author": "Chris Kraus", "reviewers": [ "Julia Melfi" ], "text": "How do you recount the life of someone who obsessively cultivated a self-mythology? Kathy Acker was an author of the punk literary scene who seemingly rubbed shoulders and bumped uglies with everyone before she died in 1997. I tore through this biography as if it were a mystery novel. Chris Kraus pieces together Acker’s story through the evidence left behind: her books, her letters, her financial records and the memories of her contemporaries. It’s hard to tell whether Kraus uncovers the events of Acker’s life or the fable she left behind – it’s a slippery matter, and perhaps, in the end, they’re one and the same.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for art lovers", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "1635900069", "seamus": 559023256, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34551013, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1635900069", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781635900064", "isbn10": "1635900069", "links": [] }, "15": { "id": 15, "title": "After the Fall (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again)", "author": "Dan Santat", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "We all know that Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but then what? Wracked with fear and insecurity, Humpty has become terrified of heights. His only solace is making paper airplanes and watching them soar. But when one sails over the wall, Humpty must climb it or lose the plane, forever. Dan Santat’s hilariously touching story and magnificent illustrations give Humpty new life as he confronts his debilitating fear. The final twist in this totally original next chapter of a Mother Goose’s classic offers a stunningly triumphant ending that will take your breath away. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1626726825", "seamus": 559118752, "itunes": 9781626726826, "goodreads": 33376257, "bookshop": 9781626726826, "cover": "1626726825", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626726826", "isbn10": "1626726825", "links": [] }, "16": { "id": 16, "title": "Age Of Anger: A History Of the Present", "author": "Pankaj Mishra", "reviewers": [ "Nishant Dahiya" ], "text": "Why is the world so angry? Why Brexit? Why the rise of nationalism? Why are large swaths of the world suddenly so attracted to demagogues? Pankaj Mishra, attempting to make sense of this confusing world of ours, makes a compelling, erudite case that the disrupting forces of globalization and rising income inequality inevitably provoke backlashes – and points to the turn of the last century, when as the world was modernizing, those left behind turned in frightening ways to demagoguery, violence, hatred of the other and a desired return to some mythical past.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0374274789", "seamus": 558997743, "itunes": 9780374274788, "goodreads": 29875930, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374274789", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374274788", "isbn10": "0374274789", "links": [] }, "17": { "id": 17, "title": "Akata Warrior", "author": "Nnedi Okorafor", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "A 12-year-old kid, scorned by society, comes into possession of magical abilities and discovers, in fact, that the things that have always set them apart from others are a sign they belong to a secret other world, far more glorious than their own, where a fabulous quest awaits. That’s the admittedly familiar premise of Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch series, in which Akata Warrior is the second installment. But instead of a boy named Percy or Harry, our hero is an American-born Nigerian girl named Sunny Nwazue (now in her teens). And where most fantasy tromps staidly in the wake of Tolkien, plundering British, Germanic and Norse myths to give shading and depth to their magic systems, Okorafor instead opts for West African mythology, creating a magical world that’s specific and surprising in its details. Breathtakingly paced and intricately plotted, this book is sure to delight fantasy nerds of all stripes.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "rather long", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "067078561X", "seamus": 559129462, "itunes": 9780670785612, "goodreads": 34346974, "bookshop": "", "cover": "067078561X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780670785612", "isbn10": "067078561X", "links": [] }, "18": { "id": 18, "title": "Ali: A Life", "author": "Jonathan Eig", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "It has been more than 35 years since Muhammad Ali’s last match, but he is still considered “The Greatest,” not just because of his one-time dominance in the ring, but because of his outsize personality. Jonathan Eig’s brilliant, exhaustive look at the boxer’s life is the biography the champ deserves: a beautiful portrait of a man whose name will never be forgotten, who carried a torch for equality and justice and lit a fire that will never go out.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "0544435249", "seamus": 554204437, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33413883, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544435249", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544435247", "isbn10": "0544435249", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 18, "book": "Ali: A Life", "source": "KERA", "text": "Cassius Clay To Muhammad Ali: Becoming The Champ", "url": "http://think.kera.org/2017/10/12/cassius-clay-to-muhammad-ali-becoming-the-champ/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 18, "book": "Ali: A Life", "source": "NPR", "text": "Stunning New Biography 'Ali' Is The Portrait A Champion Deserves", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/07/553975593/stunning-new-biography-ali-is-the-portrait-a-champion-deserves" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 18, "book": "Ali: A Life", "source": "NPR", "text": "New Muhammad Ali Biography Reveals A Flawed Rebel Who Loved Attention", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/04/555301222/new-muhammad-ali-biography-reveals-a-flawed-rebel-who-loved-attention" } ] }, "19": { "id": 19, "title": "All Grown Up", "author": "Jami Attenberg", "reviewers": [ "Maggie Penman" ], "text": "Andrea Bern is a single, childless, almost 40-year-old art school dropout working in advertising. She is remarkably good at avoiding her life – not taking on promotions at her job, not visiting her family while they care for a sick child – which can make her a frustrating protagonist. Regardless, All Grown Up is impossible to put down. Clever, funny and occasionally cringe-inducing, this novel is a referendum on a culture in which being a narcissist is more socially acceptable than being a single woman.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "family matters", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "0544824245", "seamus": 517782506, "itunes": 9780544824249, "goodreads": 30971707, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544824245", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544824249", "isbn10": "0544824245", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 19, "book": "All Grown Up", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'All Grown Up' Is The Picture Of Someone Who Isn't (And A Voice That's Nothing New)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/08/515439535/all-grown-up-is-the-picture-of-someone-who-isnt-and-a-voice-thats-nothing-new" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 19, "book": "All Grown Up", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Middle-Aged Coming Of Age In 'All Grown Up'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/05/518364707/a-middle-aged-coming-of-age-in-all-grown-up" } ] }, "20": { "id": 20, "title": "Amanda Wakes Up: A Novel", "author": "Alisyn Camerota", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "Amanda Gallo is a local TV anchor until she covers a breaking-news story, without pants, and lands her dream job on a national network run by a ratings-obsessed media mogul. Also it’s campaign season, and the two front-runners are a female senator and a wild-card candidate, a former actor. Sound familiar yet? It’s the 2016 election, but much more fun and with more juicy romantic entanglements. And author Alisyn Camerota, who is herself a veteran journalist, promises she isn’t psychic, even though she started writing this book years ago.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "funny stuff", "staff picks", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0399563997", "seamus": 538622883, "itunes": 9780399563997, "goodreads": 33522000, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399563997", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399563997", "isbn10": "0399563997", "links": [] }, "21": { "id": 21, "title": "American Fire: Love, Arson, And Life In A Vanishing Land", "author": "Monica Hesse", "reviewers": [ "Gabriela Saldivia" ], "text": "Monica Hesse’s book reads like a great article you never want to end. The Washington Post feature writer has turned a one-off assignment in rural Accomack County, Va., into a stunning read. This true crime love story gets in the heads of two arsonists who lit more than 80 fires on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Hesse spent several months reporting on the community that lived through the fires, from volunteer firefighters to overworked police officers to the people whose homes burned to the ground. This story of love, betrayal, economic hardship and desolation offers a nuanced view of life in small-town America.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "love & romance", "the dark side", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1631490516", "seamus": 536705389, "itunes": 9781631490514, "goodreads": 32191677, "bookshop": 9781631490514, "cover": "1631490516", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781631490514", "isbn10": "1631490516", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 21, "book": "American Fire: Love, Arson, And Life In A Vanishing Land", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'American Fire' Tells A True Story Of Love And Arson In Rural Virginia", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/16/537294377/-american-fires-tells-a-true-story-of-love-and-arson-in-rural-virginia" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 21, "book": "American Fire: Love, Arson, And Life In A Vanishing Land", "source": "NPR", "text": "Truth Is A Fragmentary Thing In 'American Fire'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/13/535799745/truth-is-a-fragmentary-thing-in-american-fire" } ] }, "22": { "id": 22, "title": "American War: A Novel", "author": "Omar El Akkad", "reviewers": [ "Hanna Rosin" ], "text": "I am not a big reader of post-apocalyptic fiction. I don’t have much patience for all that world building. But this novel by Omar El Akkad breaks all the conventions. It’s America split in two by another civil war and destroying itself, but it is told as a close portrait of a young girl who is hero, pawn and devil.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0451493583", "seamus": 522230830, "itunes": 9780451493583, "goodreads": 32283423, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451493583", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451493583", "isbn10": "0451493583", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 22, "book": "American War: A Novel", "source": "WWNO", "text": "The Reading Life With Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich And Omar El Akkad", "url": "http://wwno.org/post/reading-life-alexandria-marzano-lesnevich-and-omar-el-akkad" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 22, "book": "American War: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'American War' Explores The Universality Of Revenge", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/02/522194002/american-war-explores-the-universality-of-revenge" } ] }, "23": { "id": 23, "title": "Amina's Voice", "author": "Hena Khan", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Middle school is hard enough as is, right? But when your best friend seems like she’s pulling away, and your ultra-strict uncle from Pakistan shows up for an extended visit, what could be worse? Well, how about your beloved mosque being vandalized? Amina struggles to stay true to her cultural roots while navigating through unsettling times and uncertain relationships. Yet Hena Khan’s Amina’s Voice is a universal journey of community, friendship and family that you will not only relate to, but embrace. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1481492063", "seamus": 534901155, "itunes": 9781481492065, "goodreads": 30312547, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1481492063", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481492065", "isbn10": "1481492063", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 23, "book": "Amina's Voice", "source": "NPR", "text": "Summer Reading For Your Woke Kid", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/07/06/534443123/summer-reading-for-your-woke-kid" } ] }, "24": { "id": 24, "title": "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business And How You Can Take It Back", "author": "Elisabeth Rosenthal", "reviewers": [ "Richard Harris" ], "text": "If you’ve ever wanted to understand why hospitals charge $20 for one measly Advil, or why they’re busily upgrading the marble in their lobbies, here’s a book for you. Elisabeth Rosenthal built her career as a reporter at The New York Times and has amassed a long catalog of horror stories from the world of hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies. But An American Sickness does more than that. Dr. Rosenthal (she has an M.D.) looks at the wasteful incentives built into our health care system. This book promises tips to help you fight back, but be prepared to engage when you’re sick and at your most vulnerable. (A word of warning: If you’re prone to high blood pressure, consider consuming this book in small doses.)
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "it’s all geek to me", "science!", "rather long", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1594206759", "seamus": 523005656, "itunes": 9781594206757, "goodreads": 31258172, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594206759", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594206757", "isbn10": "1594206759", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 24, "book": "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business And How You Can Take It Back", "source": "WNPR", "text": "In 'An American Sickness,' The Cost Of Health Care Is Killing Us", "url": "http://wnpr.org/post/cost-health-care-killing-us" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 24, "book": "An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business And How You Can Take It Back", "source": "NPR", "text": "How U.S. Health Care Became Big Business", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/04/10/523005353/how-u-s-health-care-became-big-business" } ] }, "25": { "id": 25, "title": "An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, And An Epic", "author": "Daniel Mendelsohn", "reviewers": [ "Sam Briger" ], "text": "Along with his work as a contributor and critic at The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, Daniel Mendelsohn teaches classics at Bard College. He was preparing to teach his seminar on The Odyssey when he got a call from his 81-year-old father, Jay, who wanted to join the class. Mendelsohn let him in, but soon regretted it: He proved to be a disruptive influence, often challenging the professor, his own son. After the class ended, father and son went on a Mediterranean cruise that toured sites from The Odyssey, and Mendelsohn saw a new side of his dad: a charming storyteller who delighted the ship’s other passengers. In this memoir, Mendelsohn beautifully weaves the story of his relationship with his father with a scholarly but accessible reading of Homer’s epic.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "for art lovers", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0385350597", "seamus": 555076692, "itunes": 9780385350594, "goodreads": 33571159, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385350597", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385350594", "isbn10": "0385350597", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 25, "book": "An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, And An Epic", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Scholar And His Octogenarian Dad Take On Homer's 'Odyssey'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555075030/how-an-epic-poem-helped-transform-a-difficult-father-son-relationship" } ] }, "26": { "id": 26, "title": "An Unkindness Of Ghosts", "author": "Rivers Solomon", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Transposing the cruelties of a Southern plantation to outer space, this book was the best debut I read this year. The white people on the massive spaceship Matilda’s upper decks live in luxury and keep the black people on the lower decks enslaved. Aster is black, neuroatypical, ambiguously gendered according to her society’s mores, and an orphan of the lower decks. While an outsider in her social groups, she is also a medical genius, and with the support and friendship of a light-skinned surgeon from the upper decks, she navigates Matilda’s horrors to bring succour and healing where she can.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1617755885", "seamus": 549482479, "itunes": 9781617755880, "goodreads": 34381254, "bookshop": 9781617755880, "cover": "1617755885", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781617755880", "isbn10": "1617755885", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 26, "book": "An Unkindness Of Ghosts", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Unkindness Of Ghosts' Transposes The Plantation's Cruelty To The Stars", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/06/548665897/unkindness-of-ghosts-transposes-the-plantations-cruelty-to-the-stars" } ] }, "27": { "id": 27, "title": "An Unkindness Of Magicians", "author": "Kat Howard", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "World Fantasy Award nominee Kat Howard takes sorcery to the streets of New York in her urban flight of fancy, An Unkindness of Magicians. Briskly paced yet intricately plotted, the novel imagines a conspiracy of magic lurking amid backstreets and skyscrapers – a tale that’s thrilling, densely packed and reminiscent of Neil Gaiman in its imaginative power.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1481451197", "seamus": 558874970, "itunes": 9781481451192, "goodreads": 32919669, "bookshop": 9781481451192, "cover": "1481451197", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481451192", "isbn10": "1481451197", "links": [] }, "28": { "id": 28, "title": "And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: Stories From The Byways Of American Women And Religion", "author": "Adrian Shirk", "reviewers": [ "Juan Vidal" ], "text": "Adrian Shirk’s debut is a lyrical pilgrimage through faith traditions and the stories of the female spiritual leaders, astrologers and preachers who helped shape America’s religious identity. It’s also a fascinating memoir about the author’s own search for truth and community. Shirk is a generous writer whose penchant for detail and poetic observation will surprise even the staunchest skeptic; the chapter titled “Our Bodies, Our Smoke” is a nicotine-tinged portrait that delivers some of the best writing on the connection between smoking and the physical act of writing.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1619029537", "seamus": 563347398, "itunes": 9781619029538, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781619029538, "cover": "1619029537", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781619029538", "isbn10": "1619029537", "links": [] }, "29": { "id": 29, "title": "Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession: A Novel", "author": "Alison Weir", "reviewers": [ "Jean Zimmerman" ], "text": "Alison Weir’s novel is a persuasive attempt to restore the humanity of a tragic, misrepresented figure, one of history’s original nasty women. Anne Boleyn ruled England alongside Henry VIII for only three years, from 1533 to 1536, before she famously lost her head. But the couple had a bumpy six-year courtship before that, an extended, aphrodisiacal game of hide-and-seek. Weir’s doomed Anne is ferociously smart and guilty of nothing but craving the power that’s rightfully hers to claim. The book suggests that beheading might be the price to pay for having a mind of one’s own.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "rather long", "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1101966513", "seamus": 529156950, "itunes": 9781101966518, "goodreads": 31869862, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101966513", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101966518", "isbn10": "1101966513", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 29, "book": "Anne Boleyn, A King's Obsession: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'A King's Obsession,' Anne Boleyn's True Love Is Power", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/21/527998482/in-a-kings-obsession-anne-boleyns-true-love-is-power" } ] }, "30": { "id": 30, "title": "Anything Is Possible: A Novel", "author": "Elizabeth Strout", "reviewers": [ "Lynn Neary" ], "text": "This book of short stories grew out of Elizabeth Strout’s novel My Name is Lucy Barton. The stories are linked by the town where the characters grew up, and where many still live, and by its most famous resident Lucy Barton, who is now a successful writer living in New York. The stories fill in the details of Lucy’s impoverished and abused childhood. Each introduces a different character: a Vietnam vet who never really recovered from the war, the former school janitor who learns a faith-shattering truth when he visits Lucy’s brother. Shame, regret, anger and pain lurk beneath the surface of these lives, but so do love, kindness and redemption. Elizabeth Strout has a way of looking into the soul of her characters and finding something to make you care.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "family matters", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0812989406", "seamus": 523924674, "itunes": 9780812989403, "goodreads": 32080126, "bookshop": 9780812989403, "cover": "0812989406", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812989403", "isbn10": "0812989406", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 30, "book": "Anything Is Possible: A Novel", "source": "WYPR", "text": "Novelist Elizabeth Strout, On Her Pulitzer Prize-Winning Craft", "url": "http://wypr.org/post/novelist-elizabeth-strout-her-pulitzer-prize-winning-craft" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 30, "book": "Anything Is Possible: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Anything Is Possible' Explores The Unquiet Depths Of Ordinary Lives", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526552405/anything-is-possible-explores-the-unquiet-depths-of-ordinary-lives" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 30, "book": "Anything Is Possible: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Anything Is Possible' Is Unafraid To Be Gentle", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/25/523586746/anything-is-possible-is-unafraid-to-be-gentle" } ] }, "31": { "id": 31, "title": "Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition Of 1761-1767", "author": "Thorkild Hansen, translated by James McFarlane and Kathleen McFarlane", "reviewers": [ "Colin Dwyer" ], "text": "Look, I get it: The name doesn’t exactly scream page turner. I admit I was skeptical, too, before I cracked this one open. But don’t fall prey to the same misconception I did. This tale of an 18th century scientific expedition gone awry (first published in Danish in 1962 and back out in a new English edition) is a brutal, beautiful story of human ideals – and all the clever ways we manage to muck them up. Part history, part fiction, part travelogue, this book balances its central tragedy with some winks and smirks. And yes, it’s true: Before long, I found those pages practically turned themselves.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1681370727", "seamus": 532960045, "itunes": 9781681370729, "goodreads": 32302881, "bookshop": 9781681370729, "cover": "1681370727", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781681370729", "isbn10": "1681370727", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 31, "book": "Arabia Felix: The Danish Expedition Of 1761-1767", "source": "NPR", "text": "In The Refrains Of 'Arabia Felix,' A Reminder: Often The End Is Just A Start", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/17/531929925/in-the-refrains-of-arabia-felix-a-reminder-often-the-end-is-just-a-start" } ] }, "32": { "id": 32, "title": "At The Lightning Field", "author": "Laura Raicovich", "reviewers": [ "Mina Tavakoli" ], "text": "The sublime, as novelist Mary Shelley would describe it, marks a strange midpoint of sensations that occur when mixing both fear and beauty – that state of wooziness spurned by witnessing things like waterfalls, canyons or great works of art. Moved by The Lightning Field, an enormous work of “Land Art” by sculptor Walter De Maria, Laura Raicovich’s essay swallows its subject and gains its strength. It is a testament to At the Lightning Field’s power that the artwork somehow feels exponentially more beautiful experienced through Raicovich; the overall effect is that of a warm, glowing tingle – a paean to the things that, regardless of their gravity or size, awe us.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather short", "for art lovers", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1566894662", "seamus": 559088077, "itunes": 9781566894661, "goodreads": 31945111, "bookshop": 9781566894661, "cover": "1566894662", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566894661", "isbn10": "1566894662", "links": [] }, "33": { "id": 33, "title": "Autonomous: A Novel", "author": "Annalee Newitz", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "In a near-future, post-apocalyptic world where patents last indefinitely, governments are indistinguishable from corporations and the creation of artificial intelligence has paved the way for people to become property on a global scale, Judith “Jack” Chen is a pirate who has dedicated her life to the development and distribution of free drugs. When one of those drugs starts causing people to literally work themselves to death, she calls on old friends to help fix her mistake and take down the big corporation responsible – all while two militant members of the International Property Coalition are hot on her trail. Full of unbearably tender musings on AI intimacy and bubbling with ideas, Autonomous is a thought-provoking ride.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "it’s all geek to me", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "science!", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0765392070", "seamus": 549448475, "itunes": 9780765392077, "goodreads": 28209634, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0765392070", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780765392077", "isbn10": "0765392070", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 33, "book": "Autonomous: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In A Future Ruled By Big Pharma, A Robot Tentatively Explores Freedom — And Sex: 'Autonomous'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/20/548664924/in-a-future-ruled-by-big-pharma-a-robot-tentatively-explores-freedom-and-sex-aut" } ] }, "34": { "id": 34, "title": "Autopsy: Poems", "author": "Donte Collins", "reviewers": [ "Sydnee Monday" ], "text": "Donte Collins’ Autopsy does the work you’d associate with its title, but instead of reflecting on the cause of death, it examines the effect. This collection cuts into the grief of losing a mother and looks at it from all sides, meditates on how that grief spreads to even the most unlikely places. How is a young, queer, black person allowed to mourn? In one poem, Collins translates “I love you” as “we can’t afford another funeral”; “I am here for you” becomes “I will like every status you post.”
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1943735115", "seamus": 559871626, "itunes": 9781943735112, "goodreads": 35330488, "bookshop": 9781943735112, "cover": "1943735115", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781943735112", "isbn10": "1943735115", "links": [] }, "35": { "id": 35, "title": "Autumn", "author": "Karl Ove Knausgaard", "reviewers": [ "Ari Shapiro" ], "text": "The not-quite-poems, not-quite-essays that make up Autumn are a gentle introduction to this Norwegian author who famously wrote a six-volume autobiographical series called My Struggle. Each chapter of this book is just a few pages, with deep observations of subjects ranging from forgiveness to toilet bowls. Readers can be cultish in their devotion to Karl Ove Knausgaard’s work, and while I’m still not a member of the cult, this slim book encouraged me to look more closely at the world. I don’t think I’ll ever take a bite of an apple in quite the same way.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "039956330X", "seamus": 544439847, "itunes": 9780399563300, "goodreads": 34272477, "bookshop": "", "cover": "039956330X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399563300", "isbn10": "039956330X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 35, "book": "Autumn", "source": "NPR", "text": "Knausgaard Comes Up Short: In 'Autumn,' Less Isn't Always More", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/23/543933233/knausgaard-comes-up-short-in-autumn-less-isn-t-always-more" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 35, "book": "Autumn", "source": "NPR", "text": "Knausgaard's 'Autumn' Considers Everything From Toilet Bowls To Twilight", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/22/545313106/knausgaards-autumn-considers-everything-from-toilet-bowls-to-twilight" } ] }, "36": { "id": 36, "title": "Autumn: A Novel", "author": "Ali Smith", "reviewers": [ "Nishant Dahiya" ], "text": "Shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker Prize, Ali Smith’s beguiling, beautifully written novel is about a dying centenarian and a young woman who used to be his neighbor. It’s an elusive, kind-of love story – just not in the way most people are used to. It’s also a post-Brexit novel, with that summer’s events performing as both the background hum and the power that propels the narrative forward.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "for art lovers", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101969946", "seamus": 512920069, "itunes": 9781101969946, "goodreads": 35749432, "bookshop": 9781101969946, "cover": "1101969946", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101969946", "isbn10": "1101969946", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 36, "book": "Autumn: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Autumn' Champions Free Spirits And The Lifeforce Of Art", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/09/512910724/autumn-champions-free-spirits-and-the-lifeforce-of-art" } ] }, "37": { "id": 37, "title": "Back Pocket Pasta: Inspired Dinners To Cook On The Fly", "author": "Colu Henry", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Just when you thought the world had no room for another weeknight pasta book, along comes Back Pocket Pasta, wedging itself in between your wallet and your keys. Alongside the old standbys (the puttanesca, the alfredo, the ragù), Colu Henry miraculously manages to come up with dozens of new-to-you pastas with fewer than 10 ingredients: strozzapreti with broccolini, anchovy and almonds; caramelized fennel and hazelnut pasta; rigatoni with mini chicken meatballs and escarole. It’s as easy as stir-fry and faster than takeout – a trifecta of simplicity, speed and smart flavors.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0553459740", "seamus": 564340843, "itunes": 9780553459746, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780553459746, "cover": "0553459740", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780553459746", "isbn10": "0553459740", "links": [] }, "38": { "id": 38, "title": "Bad Dreams And Other Stories", "author": "Tessa Hadley", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "The 10 instantly immersive tales in Tessa Hadley’s latest meticulously observed collection zoom forward and back decades, resulting in rich complexity, breadth and satisfying closure – rare in short fiction. Hadley is especially drawn to regretted moments or subtly life-altering experiences: a bored 15-year-old girl’s disturbing sexual initiation back in the 1960s or an unhappy young wife’s awkward attempt to shed her sheltered innocence, which she sees as “a sign of something maimed or unfinished” in her. There’s nothing maimed or unfinished about these stories.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "family matters", "fiction", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0062476661", "seamus": 528511996, "itunes": 9780062476661, "goodreads": 31449412, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062476661", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062476661", "isbn10": "0062476661", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 38, "book": "Bad Dreams And Other Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Bad Dreams,' Tessa Hadley Serves Up Satisfying Short Stories", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/16/527997650/in-bad-dreams-tessa-hadley-serves-up-satisfying-short-stories" } ] }, "39": { "id": 39, "title": "Baking Class: 50 Fun Recipes Kids Will Love To Bake!", "author": "Deanna F. Cook", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "What’s the phrase – kid-tested, mother-approved? Two years ago, my then-9-year-old worked her way through Cooking Class, Deanna F. Cook’s previous book, with little to no intervention from me. This year’s charmer has been the same story. It’s a teach-yourself-to-bake book with vast kid appeal, thanks to big step-by-step photos, clear instructions and adorable, easy recipes (cranberry orange scones, teeny tiny apple pies, sugar cookies, macaroons). At the back are stickers, labels and – be still my beating heart – stencils so that you can sugar-powder your cookies into art. (For ages 8 to 12 or so)
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1612128556", "seamus": 558579949, "itunes": 9781612128559, "goodreads": 33590143, "bookshop": 9781612128559, "cover": "1612128556", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781612128559", "isbn10": "1612128556", "links": [] }, "40": { "id": 40, "title": "Baking With Kafka", "author": "Tom Gauld", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Tom Gauld cooks up clever cartoons that have everything to do with books and little to do with food. These satirical, bibliocentric comics, most of which first appeared in The Guardian, puncture current literary trends and pretensions. “Some Murder Methods for Modern Mystery Writers” include “strangled with smartphone charger cable” and “poisoned artisanal brioche.” My favorite promotional sticker for a novel: “occasionally putdownable.” And “My Library” is an instant one-panel classic, with color-coded spines to indicate whether the book has been read, half-read, is purely for show, or utterly unmemorable. This fun little book will surely avoid the grimmer fates.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "funny stuff", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "1770462961", "seamus": 558857187, "itunes": 9781770462960, "goodreads": 34437814, "bookshop": 9781770462960, "cover": "1770462961", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781770462960", "isbn10": "1770462961", "links": [] }, "41": { "id": 41, "title": "Based On A True Story: A Novel", "author": "Delphine de Vigan", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Delphine de Vigan’s Based on a True Story is a powerful novel of suspense that may or may not be based on truth. Like the author, “Delphine” is a middle-aged Parisian author who has written a tell-all memoir. Here, Delphine-the-author is haunted by her success and exhausted, too. When she falls in with an acquaintance named L., who pushes the boundaries of friendship, de Vigan plays with the idea of who tells a story, and how, with epigrams from Stephen King’s Misery to underscore that play. A creepy tale of female friendship gone wrong; vampirism of the emotional kind.
", "tags": [ "the dark side", "tales from around the world", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1632868156", "seamus": 527834994, "itunes": 9781632868152, "goodreads": 31451163, "bookshop": 9781632868152, "cover": "1632868156", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781632868152", "isbn10": "1632868156", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 41, "book": "Based On A True Story: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Based On A True Story' May Not Be True — But It's Still Scary", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/11/526913543/based-on-a-true-story-may-not-be-true-but-its-still-scary" } ] }, "42": { "id": 42, "title": "Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection Of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated", "author": "Shea Serrano, illustrated by Arturo Torres", "reviewers": [ "Juan Vidal" ], "text": "Shea Serrano’s Basketball (And Other Things) is equal parts hilarious and enlightening. Paired with gorgeous illustrations by Arturo Torres, the book is an absorbing 33-chapter compilation of basketball questions and pop culture musings. Serrano’s riffs and tangents – there’s a partial screenplay for an action film titled Death Hammer 2: Hammergeddon – are often purposefully ridiculous, but always entertaining. From breaking down what might have been had the Orlando Magic’s Nick Anderson made even one of his free throws at the close of Game 1 of the 1995 NBA finals, to ranking the most disrespectful dunks ever, this is the ultimate book on basketball fandom.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "1419726471", "seamus": 563349249, "itunes": 9781419726477, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781419726477, "cover": "1419726471", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781419726477", "isbn10": "1419726471", "links": [] }, "43": { "id": 43, "title": "Bellevue: Three Centuries Of Medicine And Mayhem At America's Most Storied Hospital", "author": "David Oshinsky", "reviewers": [ "Nancy Shute" ], "text": "For many New Yorkers, “Bellevue” is synonymous with “hospital,” and the institution has had an outsized effect on the evolution of modern medicine, treating presidents and paupers alike. Hospital history might not sound like the recipe for a gripping read, but David Oshinsky, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, knows that people like me love a morbid tale of pestilence and human failings, especially when it’s leavened with compassion and innovation. Though Bellevue started out an 18th-century poorhouse where people went to die, it became an incubator of advances that helped create modern medicine, including the germ theory of infection, ambulances, maternity wards and forensic pathology.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "science!", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0307386716", "seamus": 502335876, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34472698, "bookshop": 9780307386717, "cover": "0307386716", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780307386717", "isbn10": "0307386716", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 43, "book": "Bellevue: Three Centuries Of Medicine And Mayhem At America's Most Storied Hospital", "source": "NPR", "text": "Bellevue Hospital Pioneered Care For Presidents And Paupers", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/11/16/502301891/bellevue-hospital-pioneered-care-for-presidents-and-paupers" } ] }, "44": { "id": 44, "title": "Between Them: Remembering My Parents", "author": "Richard Ford", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Nobody gives “ordinary” human beings their due with the grace and precision that Richard Ford does. His slim new memoir about his parents is so gently spellbinding that I’ve already read it twice. Ford’s father, Parker, was a traveling bleach salesman in places like Mobile, Ala., and Little Rock, Ark., during the 1930s and early ‘40s. Ford’s mother, Edna, (and later young Richard) would often go along for the ride, stopping at the grocery stores that dotted his father’s route and staying at the small hotels and rooming houses that were the homes-away-from-home to traveling salesmen. Part of the bonus of this little book is that it sits readers down in the company car and takes us on an unsentimental but enchanted journey through the long-ago landscape of the American South.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "rather short", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0062661884", "seamus": 526560630, "itunes": 9780062661883, "goodreads": 31371757, "bookshop": 9780062661883, "cover": "0062661884", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062661883", "isbn10": "0062661884", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 44, "book": "Between Them: Remembering My Parents", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 44, "book": "Between Them: Remembering My Parents", "source": "NPR", "text": "For Richard Ford, Memoir Is A Chance To 'Tell The Unthinkable' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/526559954/for-richard-ford-memoir-is-a-chance-to-tell-the-unthinkable" } ] }, "45": { "id": 45, "title": "Beyond The Bright Sea", "author": "Lauren Wolk", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "An abandoned baby set adrift in an old boat, the whisper of pirate treasure, and a cat named Mouse? Be warned, once you pick up Beyond The Bright Sea, you won’t be able to put it down. The baby, adopted by a man with his own mysteries, is now 12 years old. Shunned by the locals all her life, Crow discovers the shocking reason why. Lauren Wolk’s writing is at once lyrical and fraught with danger and suspense, as Crow follows her instincts to hunt down a past that has eluded her and face an unknown future. (For ages 10 and up)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1101994851", "seamus": 559119685, "itunes": 9781101994856, "goodreads": 32623542, "bookshop": 9781101994856, "cover": "1101994851", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101994856", "isbn10": "1101994851", "links": [] }, "46": { "id": 46, "title": "Bird, Balloon, Bear", "author": "Il Sung Na", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "Bird, Balloon, Bear is a sort of missed-connections, timing-is-everything life lesson told through gorgeous images. A red-crowned bird is eager to make a new friend, but a red balloon is first to meet an adorably round bear. This is a sweet story (with a few surprise twists and turns) about anticipation and timing, buoyed by the fact that everything works out in the end, told through warm and endearing artwork. Very young readers will love it. (For ages 2 to 5)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0399551557", "seamus": 559029358, "itunes": 9780399551550, "goodreads": 30780239, "bookshop": 9780399551550, "cover": "0399551557", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399551550", "isbn10": "0399551557", "links": [] }, "47": { "id": 47, "title": "Black Bolt Vol. 1: Hard Time", "author": "Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Christian Ward", "reviewers": [ "Mike Katzif" ], "text": "The Inhumans are among Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s weirdest – and most troublesome – creations, and Black Bolt, their silent leader and king, has long proven a tough nut to crack. Endowed with a superhuman voice that can cause mass destruction with even a single, whispered utterance, his restraint renders him distant and icy – and often hard to root for. But in the hands of fantasy writer Saladin Ahmed and the gorgeous, psychedelic illustrations of Christian Ward, Blackagar Boltagon (his real name!) has never been more relatable or empathetic. Trapped in a labyrinthian space prison, the character confronts his privilege and questions the nature of heroism as he befriends fellow inmates to mount an escape. On one level, it works as your typical Marvel superhero comic, but Ahmed and Ward are operating on another by threading themes of mass incarceration, sacrifice and redemption into one kinetic, heartfelt story.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "it’s all geek to me", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1302907328", "seamus": 559094716, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34849021, "bookshop": 9781302907327, "cover": "1302907328", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781302907327", "isbn10": "1302907328", "links": [] }, "48": { "id": 48, "title": "Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel To The End Of The World", "author": "Nell Stevens", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In Bleaker House, Nell Stevens describes her time living almost entirely alone on barren, cold Bleaker Island in the Falklands. Though she was isolated, she reached a curious kind of calm: “Surrounded by people, it is very easy to feel alone. Surrounded by penguins, less so.” There, among the penguins, she found solitude, “the contented twin of loneliness.” Bleaker House is a graceful memoir about how loneliness can sometimes be other people.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0385541554", "seamus": 520454222, "itunes": 9780385541558, "goodreads": 30780227, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385541554", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385541558", "isbn10": "0385541554", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 48, "book": "Bleaker House: Chasing My Novel To The End Of The World", "source": "NPR", "text": "Hunger, Boredom And Disappointment Are A Literary Feast In 'Bleaker House'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/21/520448256/hunger-boredom-and-disappointment-are-a-literary-feast-in-bleaker-house" } ] }, "49": { "id": 49, "title": "Blue Sky White Stars", "author": "Sarvinder Naberhaus, illustrated by Kadir Nelson", "reviewers": [ "Sydnee Monday" ], "text": "It has been a long year of questioning and redefining what makes America and what makes an American. Kids who have questions may find some comfort in Blue Sky White Stars. Light-infused Kadir Nelson illustrations accompany Sarvinder Naberhaus’ short phrases, gently reminding us all that America can have many different meanings. It’s a subtle lesson in cultural literacy, showing young readers that the stars in our flag might mirror something as universal as looking up at the stars in the sky. (Ages 4-8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "for art lovers", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0803737009", "seamus": 559577059, "itunes": 9780803737006, "goodreads": 31626023, "bookshop": 9780803737006, "cover": "0803737009", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780803737006", "isbn10": "0803737009", "links": [] }, "50": { "id": 50, "title": "Bolivar", "author": "Sean Rubin", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "Straddling the line between picture books and graphic novels with evident ease, Sean Rubin brings to life the tale of a reclusive Upper West Side dino and the girl that who loves him. Bolivar has been able to hide in plain sight for years (in New York City, nobody notices if you’re a dinosaur), but when young Sybil publicly declares his existence, the introverted reptile must face his fears. Manhattan is rendered in intricate, crosshatched illustrations so accurate you’ll be craving a hot pastrami on rye by the time the book is done. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1684150698", "seamus": 558411080, "itunes": 9781684150694, "goodreads": 34466681, "bookshop": 9781684150694, "cover": "1684150698", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781684150694", "isbn10": "1684150698", "links": [] }, "51": { "id": 51, "title": "Botox Nation: Changing The Face Of America", "author": "Dana Berkowitz", "reviewers": [ "Marilyn Geewax" ], "text": "Fifteen years ago, almost no one had heard of Botox. Then the FDA approved using botulinum toxin to temporarily smooth wrinkles, and today, millions of Americans get injections each year. It has become as routine as getting your hair colored. But why are we so freaked out by aging? Berkowitz unpacks the anti-aging industry in ways that will make you think.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "science!", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1479825263", "seamus": 559114095, "itunes": 9781479825264, "goodreads": 29882931, "bookshop": 9781479825264, "cover": "1479825263", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781479825264", "isbn10": "1479825263", "links": [] }, "52": { "id": 52, "title": "Boundless", "author": "Jillian Tamaki", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Jillian Tamaki’s short comics are propelled by contemporary phenomena: One character joins a skin-care pyramid scheme, while another launches a porn sitcom called Darla! But such elements never seem to shackle Boundless to the present. Tamaki’s existential wistfulness lifts text messages and memes into the realm of archetype. Her inventive, versatile art takes different forms throughout the book. At times her innovative compositions challenge the reader’s eye; elsewhere, wry dramas of intimacy and insecurity unfold in standard arrangements of comic panels. A sense of melancholy is never far off – even the Darla! storyline packs a psychological kick.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1770462872", "seamus": 530103403, "itunes": 9781770462878, "goodreads": 32783840, "bookshop": 9781770462878, "cover": "1770462872", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781770462878", "isbn10": "1770462872", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 52, "book": "Boundless", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Boundless,' The Modern World Is Timeless", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/30/529748942/in-boundless-the-modern-world-is-timeless" } ] }, "53": { "id": 53, "title": "Breathless", "author": "Beverly Jenkins", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Wendell" ], "text": "Ambitious, cautious Portia Carmichael manages a hotel in the Arizona Territory. Kent Randolph, who may have finally grown up and wised up, is courting her, one step at a time – and his respect for Portia’s intellect adds a warmth that grows as readers spend time in their community. Women raise one another up in vivid, resonant scenes, feeding and caring for one another. Jenkins always delivers comfort reading with a hefty dose of historical clarity, and this book reminded me when I needed it most that through rough days and painful moments that there are always people who can help you rediscover happiness.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "historical fiction", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062389025", "seamus": 515033346, "itunes": 9780062389022, "goodreads": 30166205, "bookshop": 9780062389022, "cover": "0062389025", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062389022", "isbn10": "0062389025", "links": [] }, "54": { "id": 54, "title": "Brimstone", "author": "Cherie Priest", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Alice Dartle is a witch, from a long line of witches, seeking her fortune as an independent woman of the 1920s in Cassadega, Fla., learning from and living among a thriving community of clairvoyants. Tomás Cordero is a bereaved tailor recently back from the Great War, haunted by a spirit who communicates in random acts of arson. Tomás travels to Cassadega seeking Alice’s help, but fires start easily in Cassadega and its witches refuse to burn. Though muddled by pacing issues in its middle, this is a warm, charming, very loving book, with well-drawn characters whose happiness I cheered on throughout.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "for history lovers", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1101990732", "seamus": 522084940, "itunes": 9781101990735, "goodreads": 30213129, "bookshop": 9781101990735, "cover": "1101990732", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101990735", "isbn10": "1101990732", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 54, "book": "Brimstone", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Brimstone' Burns Brightly, Despite A Few Flaws", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/11/521959808/brimstone-burns-brightly-despite-a-few-flaws" } ] }, "55": { "id": 55, "title": "Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, And Fake News", "author": "Kevin Young", "reviewers": [ "Michel Martin" ], "text": "It’s no secret that America is going through a fake news moment. There are people in this country who continue to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Sept. 11 was an inside job. In Bunk, New Yorker poetry editor Kevin Young explores America’s obsession with falsehoods. He tells NPR that there’s something particularly American about hoaxes. “There is, in our culture, this notion of you can become anything, you can change,” he says. “And I think that gets intertwined with the hoax.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "rather long", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "155597791X", "seamus": 558316404, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33375625, "bookshop": 9781555977917, "cover": "155597791X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977917", "isbn10": "155597791X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 55, "book": "Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, And Fake News", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Bunk' Is Encyclopedic, Fascinating — And Frustrating", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/18/562557299/bunk-is-encyclopedic-fascinating-and-frustrating" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 55, "book": "Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, And Fake News", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Book On 'Bunk' For Our Post-Truth Times", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/12/563110670/a-book-on-bunk-for-our-post-truth-times" } ] }, "56": { "id": 56, "title": "Calling A Wolf A Wolf", "author": "Kaveh Akbar", "reviewers": [ "Mina Tavakoli" ], "text": "What happens to desire left alone? Can it exist unattended? Will it mutate, grow fangs and claws? In Calling a Wolf a Wolf, Akbar’s poetry orbits carefully around the notion that to exist is to live in a state of permanent psychic yearning – for love and lust, for faith, for sin, for alcohol. As jewel-fires of desire smoke across tender and incantatory verse, we’re left with a story of addiction and recovery that points us in the direction of absolution.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "the dark side", "biography & memoir", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1938584678", "seamus": 567259643, "itunes": 9781938584671, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781938584671, "cover": "1938584678", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781938584671", "isbn10": "1938584678", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 56, "book": "Calling A Wolf A Wolf", "source": "NPR", "text": "Kaveh Akbar Is Poetry's Biggest Cheerleader", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/01/14/577712874/kaveh-akbar-is-poetrys-biggest-cheerleader" } ] }, "57": { "id": 57, "title": "Chai, Chaat & Chutney: A Street Food Journey Through India", "author": "Chetna Makan", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "This year’s subcontinental excitement comes from Chetna Makan, a popular YouTube star and Great British Bake Off. The focus is street food, organized by region: samosas and dosas and uttapam from Chennai; dals and fritters and rolled flatbreads from Kolkata; pav and pulao from Mumbai; sweet puddings from Delhi. Crisp, crunchy and fiery, these are exuberant foods to eat on the run, burning your fingers and numbing your tongue – save your familiar vindaloos and kormas and tikka masalas for another day.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "1784722871", "seamus": 558579669, "itunes": 9781784722876, "goodreads": 33785450, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1784722871", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781784722876", "isbn10": "1784722871", "links": [] }, "58": { "id": 58, "title": "Chemistry: A Novel", "author": "Weike Wang", "reviewers": [ "Ellen Silva" ], "text": "I loved this book by first-time novelist Weike Wang, one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.” Full of fun science facts, Chemistry is about a Chinese immigrant who was raised to be an overachiever. The unnamed storyteller, a scientist in a Boston chemistry lab, has just melted down in said lab, shattering beakers and freaking out her co-workers. This is a character I can relate to: ambivalent about commitments, crushed by parental expectations and hilarious in a nerdy scientist way.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "family matters", "science!", "staff picks", "funny stuff", "love & romance", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1524731749", "seamus": 558518979, "itunes": 9781524731748, "goodreads": 32441704, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1524731749", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524731748", "isbn10": "1524731749", "links": [] }, "59": { "id": 59, "title": "Chester B. Himes: A Biography", "author": "Lawrence P. Jackson", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Chester Himes’ life story, as described in this vivid biography, is just as surreal as those detective novels (like *Cotton Comes to Harlem*) that boosted his literary reputation. While attending Ohio State University in the late 1920s, Himes fell into bad company. After a couple of serious brushes with the law, he robbed a white couple inside their home. The upshot was the stuff of nightmares: In a little over the space of one year, Himes went from the state university to the state penitentiary. In prison, he began writing stories that eventually were published in *Esquire*.
\nHimes, like the literature he created, was difficult and sometimes cruel; but biographer Lawrence P. Jackson demonstrates why he’s well worth the trouble.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "rather long", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "0393063895", "seamus": 539502402, "itunes": 9780393063899, "goodreads": 30231809, "bookshop": 9780393063899, "cover": "0393063895", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780393063899", "isbn10": "0393063895", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 59, "book": "Chester B. Himes: A Biography", "source": "NPR", "text": "New Chester Himes Biography Reveals A Life As Wild As Any Detective Story", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539487052/new-chester-himes-biography-reveals-a-life-as-wild-as-any-detective-story" } ] }, "60": { "id": 60, "title": "Cinemaps: An Atlas Of 35 Great Movies", "author": "Andrew DeGraff, with essays by A.D. Jameson", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "With artist Andrew DeGraff’s whimsically stylized yet painstakingly constructed maps, you can track Luke Skywalker’s circuitous path from Tatooine to Yavin IV, follow Roger Thornhill’s route from New York City to Lincoln’s nose atop Mount Rushmore, and walk in the footsteps of Jack Torrance through the hedge maze of The Shining’s Overlook Hotel. These maps aren’t drawn to scale, but what they lack in rigorous precision they more than make up for in color, clarity and crazily detailed thoroughness.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "for art lovers", "nonfiction", "it’s all geek to me", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "1594749892", "seamus": 558824886, "itunes": 9781594749896, "goodreads": 34144660, "bookshop": 9781594749896, "cover": "1594749892", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594749896", "isbn10": "1594749892", "links": [] }, "61": { "id": 61, "title": "City Of Saints And Thieves", "author": "Natalie C. Anderson", "reviewers": [ "Tasha Robinson" ], "text": "Extraordinary young girls fighting to survive are familiar in YA novels, but the protagonist of this confident, breathless debut thriller is something special. Sixteen-year-old Congolese refugee Tiny Girl is surviving in Kenya as a gang member and burglar, biding her time until she can bring down the rich industrialist she believes murdered her mother. Then new evidence pokes holes in the narrative she has told herself. As Tiny Girl travels across Africa and into her family’s past, author Natalie C. Anderson builds an absorbing mystery that unravels at breakneck speed, as her protagonist doggedly ignores all the dangers that come with the truth.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0399547584", "seamus": 558521169, "itunes": 9780399547584, "goodreads": 29995905, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399547584", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399547584", "isbn10": "0399547584", "links": [] }, "62": { "id": 62, "title": "Conversations With Friends: A Novel", "author": "Sally Rooney", "reviewers": [ "Maggie Penman" ], "text": "Sally Rooney is an astute observer of conversation – in this case, the conversations of 21-year-old Frances, a brilliant (but occasionally self-destructive) college student and poet living in Dublin. This book is thoroughly modern – it’s sprinkled with instant messages and references to Greta Gerwig films and Tinder – but it also feels classic in its keen observations on relationships, jealousy and writing itself. It is essentially a novel about adultery and friendship, but the plot is secondary to the sparkling dialogue. Rooney is just a few years older than her protagonist, and the book feels so honest and specific one can’t help but wonder whether it’s somewhat autobiographical.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "0451499050", "seamus": 559130933, "itunes": 9780451499059, "goodreads": 32766661, "bookshop": 9780451499059, "cover": "0451499050", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451499059", "isbn10": "0451499050", "links": [] }, "63": { "id": 63, "title": "Cook Japanese At Home", "author": "Kimiko Barber", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Another year, another Japanese home cooking book! Yet as common as they’ve become, there is still something new to celebrate in each offering. Here are familiar favorites like tempura, sushi and okonomiyaki – but in this generous compendium of 200 recipes, you’ll also find intriguing Western-influenced hybrids like miso and tofu gratin and Japanese beef bourguignon and a melt-in-your-mouth roast pork belly with gingered apple sauce. Writer and teacher Kimiko Barber is a model of clarity, and the text is an appealing entry point for anyone interested in adding some Japanese repertoire to their regular rotation.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1909487635", "seamus": 563257099, "itunes": "", "goodreads": "", "bookshop": "", "cover": "1909487635", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781909487635", "isbn10": "1909487635", "links": [] }, "64": { "id": 64, "title": "Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among The Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, And Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me To Live For Taste", "author": "Bianca Bosker", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "Once upon a time, Bianca Bosker was a casual wine drinker who, as she put it, generally preferred wines from a bottle but wouldn’t have turned up her nose at something boxed. Then she decided to quit her day job and give herself a year to become a professional sommelier. She changed her diet (no liquids above a lukewarm temperature) and became a professional day-drinker (not as fun as you might think, and expensive). The resulting memoir, Cork Dork, is an ode to tannins, a scientific lesson in smelling better, a journey to high-end New York City restaurants and, of course, a lot of fun to read with a big glass of wine to keep you company.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "it’s all geek to me", "science!", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0143128094", "seamus": 558770122, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31624473, "bookshop": 9780143128090, "cover": "0143128094", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780143128090", "isbn10": "0143128094", "links": [] }, "65": { "id": 65, "title": "Crown: An Ode To The Fresh Cut (Denene Millner Books)", "author": "Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "Where can a young black man be treated like royalty? The barbershop, where the pro at the chair will make you feel like the king of the world. With language so hot you expect the words to ignite the page, Derrick Barnes endows the boy at this book’s center with flash, strut, pizazz and the pure unregulated pride of knowing you look like a million bucks. Accompanied by layered paintings that bounce back the beat of the words like the sweetest of jazz riffs, here’s an ode to looking good and feeling great. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1572842245", "seamus": 558412121, "itunes": 9781572842243, "goodreads": 34144489, "bookshop": 9781572842243, "cover": "1572842245", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781572842243", "isbn10": "1572842245", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 65, "book": "Crown: An Ode To The Fresh Cut (Denene Millner Books)", "source": "KCUR", "text": "How A Black Barbershop In Kansas City Inspired A New Childrens' Book", "url": "http://kcur.org/post/how-black-barbershop-kansas-city-inspired-new-childrens-book#stream/0" } ] }, "66": { "id": 66, "title": "Dadland", "author": "Keggie Carew", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "This riveting blend of personal memoir, biography and World War II military history grew from Keggie Carew’s determination to get a handle on her irrepressible firebrand of a father as he lapsed into dementia in his 80s. As a member of the Jedburghs, an elite multinational special operations resistance force that parachuted behind enemy lines in France and Burma, Tom Carew was a true hero – at war, if not at home. One of the issues his daughter explores with sensitivity and humor is the challenge of following such death-defying exploits with the relative doldrums of domestic life.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "family matters", "for history lovers", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "080212514X", "seamus": 515850664, "itunes": 9780802125149, "goodreads": 30316256, "bookshop": 9780802125149, "cover": "080212514X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780802125149", "isbn10": "080212514X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 66, "book": "Dadland", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Unravels Her Spy Dad's Life, One Secret Mission At A Time", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/08/519234059/author-unravels-her-spy-dads-life-one-secret-mission-at-a-time" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 66, "book": "Dadland", "source": "NPR", "text": "Rebuilding A Father's Life — But Tearing Down His Myths — In 'Dadland'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/07/515439031/rebuilding-a-fathers-life-but-tearing-down-his-myths-in-dadland" } ] }, "67": { "id": 67, "title": "Dare Not Linger: The Presidential Years", "author": "Nelson Mandela and Mandla Langa", "reviewers": [ "Ofeibea Quist-Arcton" ], "text": "It has been four years since Nelson Mandela died and 19 since he began chronicling his tenure as South Africa’s first democratically elected (and first black) president. Writer Mandla Langa has worked with Mandela’s unfinished manuscript to complete Dare Not Linger, a sequel to 1994’s Long Walk to Freedom. Dare Not Linger is not the sort of book you can swallow in one gulp, so don’t be in a hurry. In an interview, Langa said he wants the book to help South Africans remember when “we held the moral high ground, when we walked with our heads held high.” The book’s title is taken from the final few paragraphs of Long Walk, where Mandela writes: “I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.” A warning, perhaps, to South Africa’s future leaders not to forget what it took to jettison colonialism and apartheid and build a nation based on equality.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0374134715", "seamus": 558784314, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34346456, "bookshop": 9780374134716, "cover": "0374134715", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374134716", "isbn10": "0374134715", "links": [] }, "68": { "id": 68, "title": "Dark At The Crossing", "author": "Elliot Ackerman", "reviewers": [ "Quil Lawrence" ], "text": "Of all the new generation of vet writers, Elliot Ackerman has seen the most war – he earned a Silver Star in the second battle of Fallujah and later hunted Taliban with Afghan irregulars along the Pakistani border. But he skipped the traditional war-story-debut-novel in favor of more daring stuff in both his first novel, and now again with Dark At The Crossing. The book follows Haris, an Iraqi-American at the blurry edge of the war in Syria, where contractors, militants, aid workers and refugees wait and conspire on the Turkish side of the border. He catches every detail of the exile purgatory, where most residents don’t know whether they’re moving toward heaven or hell, or which direction is which. With the shooting war echoing from the south, Ackerman looks at the civil war inside his characters as they fall into an uncertain love triangle. It’s a great read and timely.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "the dark side", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101947373", "seamus": 510780787, "itunes": 9781101947371, "goodreads": 29930315, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101947373", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101947371", "isbn10": "1101947373", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 68, "book": "Dark At The Crossing", "source": "KERA", "text": "Covering Conflict: A Conversation With Novelist Elliot Ackerman", "url": "http://think.kera.org/2017/09/28/a-conversation-with-elliot-ackerman/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 68, "book": "Dark At The Crossing", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Failed Revolution And A Failed Marriage In 'Dark At The Crossing'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/510780479/a-failed-revolution-and-a-failed-marriage-in-dark-at-the-crossing" } ] }, "69": { "id": 69, "title": "Days Without End: A Novel", "author": "Sebastian Barry", "reviewers": [ "Sam Briger" ], "text": "The novel Days Without End follows the life of Thomas McNulty, who flees the Great Famine of Ireland as a boy and winds up a soldier on the Great Plains of the United States fighting in the Indian Wars, and later in the Civil War. McNulty finds companionship and love in one of his fellow soldiers, Handsome John Cole. (That part of the novel was inspired by Sebastian Barry’s son, Toby, who came out to him while Barry was researching the book.) McNulty is a lyrical and companionable narrator for this bloody part of America’s history.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "0525427368", "seamus": 515809235, "itunes": 9780525427360, "goodreads": 30212107, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0525427368", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780525427360", "isbn10": "0525427368", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 69, "book": "Days Without End: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "An Irish Immigrant Fights On The Great Plains In 'Days Without End'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/20/515806702/an-irish-immigrant-fights-on-the-great-plains-in-days-without-end" } ] }, "70": { "id": 70, "title": "Dear Friend, From My Life I Write To You In Your Life", "author": "Yiyun Li", "reviewers": [ "Mina Tavakoli" ], "text": "Those who have read Yiyun Li’s fiction can recognize her tone anywhere: calm, but not soothing; matter-of-fact, yet dreamlike; a voice dedicated to seeing the world clearly and without sentimentality. Dear Friend is Li’s unusual memoir, written during a two-year period of hospitalization for suicidal ideations, meandering through memory with the same elegant chilliness that belongs to any of her invented stories. And for all of her logical twists and spiraling narratives, when we realize that Dear Friend is a treatise on the sometimes-Sisyphean task of making life livable, it is difficult not to think like Li.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0399589104", "seamus": 516408536, "itunes": 9780399589102, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780399589102, "cover": "0399589104", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399589102", "isbn10": "0399589104", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 70, "book": "Dear Friend, From My Life I Write To You In Your Life", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Dear Friend' Is A Fraught And Unusual Memoir", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/25/515434225/dear-friend-is-an-fraught-and-unusual-memoir" } ] }, "71": { "id": 71, "title": "Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions", "author": "Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie", "reviewers": [ "Elise Hu" ], "text": "Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie offers advice we all need in Dear Ijeawele, which is structured as tips for parenting a girl growing up in a man’s world. There are reminders that women are more than objects to be liked/disliked, that caregiving isn’t inherently female and, more than anything, that we should live our lives on our own terms. One of her hopes for the girl she addresses is that “she will be full of opinions and that her opinions will come from an informed, humane and broad-minded place.” If you’re short on time but want to be inspired by one of the strongest voices for gender equality today, this book will help you get to that informed, humane, broad-minded place.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "rather short", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "152473313X", "seamus": 518337203, "itunes": 9781524733131, "goodreads": 33585392, "bookshop": "", "cover": "152473313X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524733131", "isbn10": "152473313X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 71, "book": "Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions", "source": "WYPR", "text": "Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie On Her Latest Book, 'Dear Ijeawele'", "url": "http://wypr.org/post/author-chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-her-latest-book-dear-ijeawele-0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 71, "book": "Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Do You Raise A Feminist Daughter? Chimamanda Adichie Has 15 Suggestions", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/03/518160055/how-do-you-raise-a-feminist-daughter-chimamanda-adichie-has-15-suggestions" } ] }, "72": { "id": 72, "title": "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, And The Storming Of The Presidency", "author": "Joshua Green", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "The dedication of this short story collection could be its mission statement: “For difficult women, who should be celebrated for their very nature.” The women in these stories are branded difficult – sisters with a telepathic bond, a wife who knows her husband switched place with his identical twin, a student working as an exotic dancer, an academic in a relationship with a working-class man. But Gay celebrates them and reveals the extraordinary obstacles ordinary women face in order to survive. I feel like our understanding of the “difficult” woman is evolving, so I hope readers find this collection illuminating.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "let’s talk about sex", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0802125395", "seamus": 508200145, "itunes": 9780802125392, "goodreads": 28818921, "bookshop": 9780802125392, "cover": "0802125395", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780802125392", "isbn10": "0802125395", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 73, "book": "Difficult Women", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Roxane Gay On Strong Women (And Other Brilliant Things She Says)", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/roxane-gay-strong-women-and-other-brilliant-things-she-says" } ] }, "74": { "id": 74, "title": "Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes", "author": "Alison Roman", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Amid the hype of the holiday season, you might walk right past this cookbook, with its modest title and quiet design, but take my advice and stop for a closer look. This is the work of Alison Roman, former editor at Bon Appétit, and it’s secretly spectacular. Nearly every recipe I tried was a desert-island dish: blistered green beans with creamy tahini, cumin lamb chops with charred scallions and peanuts, salted butter and chocolate chunk shortbread. Definitely for dining in, as the title suggests, since you’ll want your privacy as you’re licking every last crumb off your plate.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "045149699X", "seamus": 563255755, "itunes": 9780451496997, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780451496997, "cover": "045149699X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451496997", "isbn10": "045149699X", "links": [] }, "75": { "id": 75, "title": "Dinner In An Instant: 75 Modern Recipes For Your Pressure Cooker, Multicooker And Instant Pot", "author": "Melissa Clark", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Risotto in six minutes! Mashed potatoes in eight! Beans in under an hour! The hottest kitchen appliance right now is a speed demon worth every square inch of counter space it commandeers. Whether you’re a longtime adherent, or you got yours on Amazon Prime Day, or it’s hovering, hopefully, on your holiday wish list, you’ll find yourself with an overwhelming array of companion books to choose from. Questions? Award-winning food columnist Melissa Clark has answers, from exuberant sticky tamarind baby back ribs and lamb tagine with apricots and olives, to garlicky squid and chorizo, and wild mushroom, pancetta and pea risotto. A just-right collection with stunning photographs that will leave you grateful for every minute shaved off the wait for dinner.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1524762962", "seamus": 563255488, "itunes": "", "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781524762964, "cover": "1524762962", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524762964", "isbn10": "1524762962", "links": [] }, "76": { "id": 76, "title": "Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters", "author": "Harold Evans", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "Sentences can be about anything, but writing is about clarity. That’s the central idea of Do I Make Myself Clear?, Sir Harold Evans’ memoir-cum-craft manual in which he rollicks – with all the joy and adventurousness of a rock ’n’ roll tell-all – through lessons in English usage gleaned from decades at the helm of The Sunday Times. Of the truly silly number of hours I’ve spent with my nose in the binding of books on the craft of writing, those I spent with Do I Make Myself Clear? were the only I spent smiling, in search of someone I could read aloud to.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for art lovers", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0316277177", "seamus": 528180788, "itunes": 9780316277174, "goodreads": 14781555, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316277177", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316277174", "isbn10": "0316277177", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 76, "book": "Do I Make Myself Clear?: Why Writing Well Matters", "source": "NPR", "text": "Harold Evans Makes Himself Clear: No More Passive Voice", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/13/528173666/harold-evans-makes-himself-clear-no-more-passive-voice" } ] }, "77": { "id": 77, "title": "Draft No. 4: On The Writing Process", "author": "John McPhee", "reviewers": [ "Rebecca Hersher" ], "text": "There are lots of books out there by writers and about writing, but this one is the best (and not just because it’s funny). Longtime New Yorker contributor John McPhee re-edits some of his own work for our benefit. Want to know what poor word choice looks like? McPhee shows you an example from his own writing. The main thing I love about this book is that it doesn’t pretend writing is fun. It’s not fun. It’s maddening. And it’s still worth doing well.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "0374142742", "seamus": 558779387, "itunes": 9780374142742, "goodreads": 33931046, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374142742", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374142742", "isbn10": "0374142742", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 77, "book": "Draft No. 4: On The Writing Process", "source": "WNPR", "text": "An Hour With John McPhee", "url": "http://wnpr.org/post/hour-john-mcphee" } ] }, "78": { "id": 78, "title": "Dreaming The Beatles: The Love Story Of One Band And The Whole World", "author": "Rob Sheffield", "reviewers": [ "Rommel Wood" ], "text": "Don’t care about The Beatles? Weird! But totally fine. Love and know everything about The Beatles? This book might make you re-evaluate how much you thought you knew. Rob Sheffield is a Rolling Stone music critic and author, perhaps best known for writing devastatingly personal, music-reference-drenched books about love and loss. Where a lot of music writing can be dry – or worse, mired in sap or blind fandom – Sheffield successfully avoids these traps to deliver a salacious, surprising, chronological look into the the Fab Four, their music and the impact they have and will continue to have, forever.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "for music lovers", "for history lovers", "funny stuff", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0062207652", "seamus": 558775090, "itunes": 9780062207654, "goodreads": 28448039, "bookshop": 9780062207654, "cover": "0062207652", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062207654", "isbn10": "0062207652", "links": [] }, "79": { "id": 79, "title": "Dunbar (Hogarth Shakespeare)", "author": "Edward St. Aubyn", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "No one is better suited to adapting King Lear – Shakespeare’s most excruciating family tragedy – than Edward St. Aubyn, a writer whose career was built on familial strife with the exquisite Patrick Melrose novels. His language has a wonderful poetic density, dry, expansive, self-conscious and savage, all at once. The result is Dunbar, a moving, brutal and apt adaptation of the play, and the first really successful installment of the Hogarth Shakespeare series.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "the dark side", "for art lovers", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1101904283", "seamus": 554492570, "itunes": 9781101904282, "goodreads": 34130000, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101904283", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101904282", "isbn10": "1101904283", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 79, "book": "Dunbar (Hogarth Shakespeare)", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Dunbar' Is A Moving, Brutal And Apt Update Of 'King Lear'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/553975203/-dunbar-is-a-moving-brutal-and-apt-update-of-king-lear" } ] }, "80": { "id": 80, "title": "Eartha", "author": "Cathy Malkasian", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Cathy Malkasian’s previous graphic novels combine fabulist fiction with social satire, and in the gorgeous, gently surreal Eartha, the satire hits particularly close to home. Consider: Her main character visits a city whose residents are addicted to biscuits printed with headlines of lurid tragedy (“Septic Jackass Gambles Naked! Prominent Orgy Provokes Rabies!”) and are ruled by thuggish, Mussolini-like figures who encourage the populace to embrace dull-eyed cynicism and performative despair. Eartha is an extended dream with a fixed moral compass, a story about the abiding, transformative power of believing in humanity, even when – especially when – it lets you down.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1606999915", "seamus": 523580148, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 30341585, "bookshop": 9781606999912, "cover": "1606999915", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781606999912", "isbn10": "1606999915", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 80, "book": "Eartha", "source": "NPR", "text": "Long-Buried Secrets, Scampering Dreams And A Cat That Talks: 'Eartha'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/11/523286879/long-buried-secrets-scampering-dreams-and-a-cat-that-talks-eartha" } ] }, "81": { "id": 81, "title": "Easternization: Asia's Rise And America's Decline From Obama To Trump And Beyond", "author": "Gideon Rachman", "reviewers": [ "Nishant Dahiya" ], "text": "With lucid, easily readable prose – as befits the chief foreign affairs columnist of the Financial Times – Easternization examines the ways in which global power is shifting to the East – read mostly China and, to some extent, India – and the challenge that poses to the West and its established order. Donald Trump’s election, and his inclination toward isolationism, only make this book, and its argument, more relevant.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "tales from around the world", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1590518519", "seamus": 558997366, "itunes": 9781590518519, "goodreads": 31170708, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1590518519", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781590518519", "isbn10": "1590518519", "links": [] }, "82": { "id": 82, "title": "Eat Only When You're Hungry: A Novel", "author": "Lindsay Hunter", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "The fourth book from Chicago author Lindsay Hunter follows Greg, an emotionally distant West Virginia accountant who eats and drinks too much, as he searches for his son, a feckless drug addict who has disappeared somewhere in Florida. Hunter treats all of her characters with understanding and compassion, and her novel is a stunning and unsparing look at substance abuse, leavened by the dark humor that has made her a favorite of the indie-lit world.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0374146152", "seamus": 559090728, "itunes": 9780374146153, "goodreads": 31450596, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374146152", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374146153", "isbn10": "0374146152", "links": [] }, "83": { "id": 83, "title": "Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine", "author": "Gail Honeyman", "reviewers": [ "Maya Rodale" ], "text": "Eleanor Oliphant is a quirky loner and a model of efficiency with her routine of frozen pizza, vodka and weekly phone calls with Mummy. But that all changes when she sees The Musician, upon whom she develops a crush. And when she meets Raymond, the IT guy at her office and her first real friend, Eleanor steps out and starts to blossom, experimenting with hair, makeup and human interaction. But this isn’t just another woman-finds-makeup-and-falls-in-love story – Eleanor is a woman beginning to heal from unimaginable childhood tragedy, with a voice that is deadpan, heartbreaking and humorous all at once.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0735220689", "seamus": 559105920, "itunes": 9780735220683, "goodreads": 31434883, "bookshop": 9780735220683, "cover": "0735220689", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735220683", "isbn10": "0735220689", "links": [] }, "84": { "id": 84, "title": "Electric Arches", "author": "Eve L. Ewing", "reviewers": [ "Geoff Hing" ], "text": "Sociologist Eve L. Ewing’s debut poetry collection moves fluidly among scholarship, teaching, writing and visual art. In Electric Arches, she constructs an understanding of how forces like white supremacy, disinvestment in public education and migration twist around one another and around the lives of people living in places like Chicago. Ewing takes readers through those ideas with a precision that is both beautiful and deeply uncomfortable. She creates scenes that feel acutely intimate and then, through imagination or belief, asks the reader to step beyond that reality. Together, her poems are a profound act of love for family, a city and its children.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1608468569", "seamus": 558823879, "itunes": 9781608468560, "goodreads": 34144863, "bookshop": 9781608468560, "cover": "1608468569", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781608468560", "isbn10": "1608468569", "links": [] }, "85": { "id": 85, "title": "Enemy Of The Good", "author": "Matthew Palmer", "reviewers": [ "Edith Chapin" ], "text": "Matthew Palmer is a master of the diplomatic thriller. In an era of increasingly dramatic and hyperbolic headlines, he takes us to Central Asia for a fictional look at a villainous autocrat challenged by a young, idealistic democracy movement. The plot goes inside an embassy and stretches the limits (hopefully) to which real life diplomats mix conflicts of interest, romance and clever subterfuge. It is stylishly written with just enough adrenaline to keep you rooting for everyone to do the right thing, even if it isn’t always clear what that really means.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0399175024", "seamus": "", "itunes": 9780399175022, "goodreads": 31850975, "bookshop": 9780399175022, "cover": "0399175024", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399175022", "isbn10": "0399175024", "links": [] }, "86": { "id": 86, "title": "Everything Is Flammable", "author": "Gabrielle Bell", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Gabrielle Bell has a touch of the kismet that’s indispensable for a great memoirist: Like David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, she has a knack for stumbling upon unusual people. Here, the offbeat cast of characters includes her mother, who subsists on an overgrown plot of land in Northern California, her primary companion a shady ex-con. Traveling from New York City to that isolated area, Bell reflects on her untamed, sometimes scary childhood. Her rough-edged drawings pulse with life and conflict.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "1941250181", "seamus": 568600691, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 29875876, "bookshop": 9781941250181, "cover": "1941250181", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781941250181", "isbn10": "1941250181", "links": [] }, "87": { "id": 87, "title": "Exit West: A Novel", "author": "Mohsin Hamid", "reviewers": [ "Mary Louise Kelly" ], "text": "Critics have rightly heaped praise on this slender treasure of a novel. It’s a tale of war and refugees and how we carry ourselves in the places we call home. It is also, powerfully, a love story. I read with a pen in hand, even when I read for pleasure, and my copy of Exit West is riddled with notes; more than once, I paused to scribble “lovely” next to passages such as this: “Saeed noticed that Nadia had a beauty mark on her neck, a tawny oval that sometimes, rarely but not never, moved with her pulse.”
", "tags": [ "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "love & romance", "seriously great writing", "fiction", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0735212171", "seamus": 515621951, "itunes": 9780735212176, "goodreads": 30688435, "bookshop": 9780735212176, "cover": "0735212171", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735212176", "isbn10": "0735212171", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 87, "book": "Exit West: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: Exit West", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/book-review-exit-west" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 87, "book": "Exit West: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "From Refugees To Politics, Mohsin Hamid Writes The Change He Wants To See", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/08/519217991/from-refugees-to-politics-mohsin-hamid-writes-the-change-he-wants-to-see" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 87, "book": "Exit West: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Escaping A World On Fire In 'Exit West'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/01/515438471/escaping-a-world-on-fire-in-exit-west" } ] }, "88": { "id": 88, "title": "Far From The Tree", "author": "Robin Benway", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "This book made me cry three times in the first 30 pages without once making me feel manipulated – that’s how immediately Robin Benway is able to make the characters matter, and how affectingly she depicts their emotional circumstances. Reading this story about three half-siblings separated by adoption who find one another in their teens – and how that reunion affects their families – my tissue count got perilously high. So did the number of friends I really needed to buy a copy for. If you’ve even once wept at NBC’s This Is Us, you particularly owe it to yourself to pick this one up.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062330624", "seamus": 559124952, "itunes": 9780062330628, "goodreads": 33830437, "bookshop": 9780062330628, "cover": "0062330624", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062330628", "isbn10": "0062330624", "links": [] }, "89": { "id": 89, "title": "Felix Yz", "author": "Lisa Bunker", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "Middle school and first crushes are hard enough to navigate without the added inconvenience of having an alien welded to your DNA, but such is Felix’s lot. All he really wants to do is get to know the boy he likes a little better, but looming over his head is an upcoming surgery that will either remove the rather sweet Zyx from his body or kill them both. Weaving together questions of gender expression, science fiction and just a smidgen of the old bildungsroman format to boot, Lisa Bunker plumbs the heart of what truly makes us human. (For ages 10 to 14)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0425288501", "seamus": 558512471, "itunes": 9780425288504, "goodreads": 32078786, "bookshop": 9780425288504, "cover": "0425288501", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780425288504", "isbn10": "0425288501", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 89, "book": "Felix Yz", "source": "NHPR", "text": "The Bookshelf: Lisa Bunker On Gender, Identity, And The Alien Inside 'Felix Yz'", "url": "http://nhpr.org/post/bookshelf-lisa-bunker-gender-identity-and-alien-inside-felix-yz" } ] }, "90": { "id": 90, "title": "Fen: Stories", "author": "Daisy Johnson", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Set in the marshlands of eastern England, Daisy Johnson’s spooky stories are populated by albatrosses, foxes and cats that all seem to know more than they ought to. Johnson has an affinity for twisted stories that examine sexuality from the viewpoint of female desire, dispensing with the idea that the male gaze is the last word on anything. She’s an excellent young writer, and thanks to her dazzling imagination and unique point of view, Fen is one hell of an experience. It’s a haunting book about a haunted place, and it’s more than worth it to take the trip.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "155597774X", "seamus": 526419185, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31451255, "bookshop": 9781555977740, "cover": "155597774X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977740", "isbn10": "155597774X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 90, "book": "Fen: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Eerie 'Fen' Is Full Of Dazzling, Hard-To-Explain Stories", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/02/525768008/eerie-fen-is-full-of-dazzling-hard-to-explain-stories" } ] }, "91": { "id": 91, "title": "Fierce Kingdom: A Novel", "author": "Gin Phillips", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "A mother and her little boy are enjoying an afternoon at the zoo when shooting erupts. I don’t want to share anything more about the plot of Gin Phillips’ novel, which could so easily have gone bad or over the top. This is no salacious, ripped-from-the-headlines tale. It’s a beautiful – and yes, fierce – portrait of motherly love and smarts.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0735224277", "seamus": 538339845, "itunes": 9780735224278, "goodreads": 33155777, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735224277", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735224278", "isbn10": "0735224277", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 91, "book": "Fierce Kingdom: A Novel", "source": "WPSU", "text": "BookMark: 'Fierce Kingdom,' By Gin Phillips", "url": "http://radio.wpsu.org/post/bookmark-fierce-kingdom-gin-phillips" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 91, "book": "Fierce Kingdom: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Zoo Is A Terrifying Place In 'Fierce Kingdom'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/27/537086021/the-zoo-is-a-terrifying-place-in-fierce-kingdom" } ] }, "92": { "id": 92, "title": "Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story", "author": "Peter Bagge", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Cartoonist Peter Bagge sweeps through Zora Neale Hurston’s life at a breakneck pace, sacrificing poignancy to sustain a sense of electricity. Like his subject, Bagge’s full of contradictions, making him a surprisingly apt chronicler of this larger-than-life figure. He doesn’t hesitate to climb inside Hurston’s mind, and he fits remarkably well there. Bagge has fun with the colorful milestones of Hurston’s life, from her psychic visions to her folklore trips, but his style really shows its worth in interpersonal moments. It’s irresistible to try and imagine what Hurston would make of this book, and inevitable to conclude that she’d approve.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for art lovers", "for history lovers", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1770462694", "seamus": 520851914, "itunes": 9781770462694, "goodreads": 29875880, "bookshop": 9781770462694, "cover": "1770462694", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781770462694", "isbn10": "1770462694", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 92, "book": "Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story", "source": "NPR", "text": "Elastic Lines For An Elastic Life In 'Fire!!'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/22/515438118/elastic-lines-for-an-elastic-life-in-fire" } ] }, "93": { "id": 93, "title": "Five-Carat Soul", "author": "James McBride", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life gives the eminent historian Robert Dallek the chance to pull together generations of scholarship and write a through-line narrative for the dominant presidential figure of the 20th century. Dallek recounts the facts and relives the legend, all with the stated mission of showing contemporary Americans “what great presidential leadership looks like.” But he keeps his FDR always in human scale, recounting his failures and flaws along with his gifts and determination. Throughout, Dallek’s emphasis is on how FDR developed and deployed his personal skills to achieve what he wanted – and what he thought the country and the world needed.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "staff picks", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0525427902", "seamus": 562786919, "itunes": 9780525427902, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": "", "cover": "0525427902", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780525427902", "isbn10": "0525427902", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 94, "book": "Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life' Examines The Personal Traits That Marked FDR For Greatness", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/08/562251084/franklin-d-roosevelt-a-political-life-examines-the-personal-traits-that-marked-f" } ] }, "95": { "id": 95, "title": "Fresh Complaint: Stories", "author": "Jeffrey Eugenides", "reviewers": [ "Meghan Keane" ], "text": "Everyone in this short story collection is dealing with a crisis. Whether it’s a quieter disruption like coming to grips with a changing friendship or the full-on panic mode that seizes you when you get caught in a crime, all of these characters tell the universal story of having to perform emotional calculus to solve a new problem. Jeffrey Eugenides’ first short story collection includes works from throughout his career – making it the perfect way to trace the arc of a compelling writer’s work while meeting some new faces along the way.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0374203067", "seamus": 554468733, "itunes": 9780374203061, "goodreads": 33844793, "bookshop": 9780374203061, "cover": "0374203067", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374203061", "isbn10": "0374203067", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 95, "book": "Fresh Complaint: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jeffrey Eugenides' 'Fresh Complaint' Makes For Absorbing Fiction", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/03/553975156/jeffrey-eugenides-fresh-complaint-makes-for-absorbing-fiction" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 95, "book": "Fresh Complaint: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jeffrey Eugenides Calls Short Stories 'Maddening' — And Now He Has A Collection", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/01/554464461/jeffrey-eugenides-calls-short-stories-maddening-and-now-he-has-a-collection" } ] }, "96": { "id": 96, "title": "From Here To Eternity: Traveling The World To Find The Good Death", "author": "Caitlin Doughty", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "In From Here To Eternity, mortician Caitlin Doughty travels the word to learn how other cultures care for their dead. She meets women in Bolivia who collect ñatitas, wish-granting human skulls. And she visits a community in Indonesia where the dead are mummified and often kept in the home for years at a time. These rituals might shock us, but they are all deeply human. Doughty writes bluntly about open-air cremations, natural burials and body composting, bringing a little more clarity and a little less mystery to the question, “What happens to us after we die?” (In case you were wondering: She would choose to be eaten by animals.)
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "it’s all geek to me", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0393249891", "seamus": 557637307, "itunes": 9780393249897, "goodreads": 34068481, "bookshop": 9780393249897, "cover": "0393249891", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780393249897", "isbn10": "0393249891", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 96, "book": "From Here To Eternity: Traveling The World To Find The Good Death", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Caitlyn Doughty Says It's Time To Start Planning For A Good Death", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/its-time-start-planning-good-death" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 96, "book": "From Here To Eternity: Traveling The World To Find The Good Death", "source": "NPR", "text": "Mortician Explores Cultures' Many Paths For 'Sacred Transition' Of Death", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/15/557633180/mortician-explores-cultures-many-paths-for-sacred-transition-of-death" } ] }, "97": { "id": 97, "title": "Frontier", "author": "Can Xue, translated by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Like an abstract painting that reveals new colors and shapes the longer you look at it, Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping’s translation of Can Xue’s Frontier is more experience than narrative, with characters and elements of setting recurring in quiet, moving combination. Haunted by Snow Mountain and the poplar grove and hunting a mysterious tropical garden that might live inside a small boy named Roy, the citizens of Pebble Town try to understand their neighbors – and end up more distant from themselves. Reading it is like trying to solve a mystery in a dream; talking about it is an attempt to describe a forest floor stirring at the cusp of winter.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1940953545", "seamus": 521013601, "itunes": 9781940953540, "goodreads": 29633846, "bookshop": 9781940953540, "cover": "1940953545", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781940953540", "isbn10": "1940953545", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 97, "book": "Frontier", "source": "NPR", "text": "Find Your Way Across This Misty, Mysterious 'Frontier'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/02/520994981/find-your-way-across-this-misty-mysterious-frontier" } ] }, "98": { "id": 98, "title": "Ghost Of The Innocent Man: A True Story Of Trial And Redemption", "author": "Benjamin Rachlin", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Innocence cases spotlight the many corruptions of our justice system: Mistakes beget mistakes – some intentional, some not. An epic bureaucracy protects a deeply flawed system. In this crisply written page turner, Benjamin Rachlin reports from two perspectives: one man’s personal tragedy, and the story of North Carolina’s criminal justice system sluggishly lumbering toward the acknowledgment that innocent people might be incarcerated. Ghost of the Innocent Man opens a window on how errors, both innocent and malign, taint our criminal justice system at every level, raising the question: Shouldn’t we be better than this?
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0316311499", "seamus": 542790135, "itunes": 9780316311496, "goodreads": 33296278, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316311499", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316311496", "isbn10": "0316311499", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 98, "book": "Ghost Of The Innocent Man: A True Story Of Trial And Redemption", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Ghost Of The Innocent Man' Chronicles Justice Too Long Delayed", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/13/542062535/ghost-of-the-innocent-man-chronicles-justice-too-long-delayed" } ] }, "99": { "id": 99, "title": "Ghosts Of The Tsunami: Death And Life In Japan's Disaster Zone", "author": "Richard Lloyd Parry", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "On March 11, 2011, an unprecedented earthquake and tsunami slammed the Tohoku region of northern Japan, leaving towns destroyed and thousands killed, including most of the students and faculty of one elementary school. Richard Lloyd Parry’s book about the tsunami and its aftermath is a brilliant chronicle of one of the modern world’s worst disasters. Ghosts Of The Tsunami is also a necessary act of witness and a beautiful meditation on grief and how it tears families and communities apart.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "0374253978", "seamus": 559089880, "itunes": 9780374253974, "goodreads": 25664489, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374253978", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374253974", "isbn10": "0374253978", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 99, "book": "Ghosts Of The Tsunami: Death And Life In Japan's Disaster Zone", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Ghosts Of The Tsunami' Examines The Disaster That Haunts Japan", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/26/559062959/ghosts-of-the-tsunami-examines-the-disaster-that-haunts-japan" } ] }, "100": { "id": 100, "title": "Glass Houses: A Novel", "author": "Louise Penny", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "*Glass Houses*, the 13th in Louise Penny’s series about Chief Inspector (now Superintendent) Armand Gamache, is what I think of as one of the “Great Gamaches.” This latest entry offers an intricately braided plot and a near apocalyptic climax.
\nA macabre figure materializes at a Halloween party in Gamache’s home village of Three Pines. The black-robed stranger has come to collect “a debt of conscience.” Things swiftly go downhill from there in a tale that involves the current opioid crisis, as well as Three Pines’ violent history during Prohibition. Enough. Any plot summary falls short of conveying the dark magic of this series.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250066190", "seamus": 559108806, "itunes": 9781250066190, "goodreads": 33602101, "bookshop": 9781250066190, "cover": "1250066190", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250066190", "isbn10": "1250066190", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 100, "book": "Glass Houses: A Novel", "source": "NHPR", "text": "10-Minute Writers Workshop: Louise Penny", "url": "http://nhpr.org/post/10-minute-writers-workshop-louise-penny" } ] }, "101": { "id": 101, "title": "Golden Hill: A Novel Of Old New York", "author": "Francis Spufford", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Francis Spufford’s ingenious historical novel, *Golden Hill,* is set in 1746, in the teeming streets of what is now Lower Manhattan – a place of dark alleys and twisted virtue. On a gloomy November evening, a ship sails into the harbor and a stranger disembarks. Rumors swirl that “Mr. Smith” is in town to stir up pre-Revolutionary trouble against the crown.
\nBefore his adventures end, Smith will get a tour of the city’s taverns, theaters, debtor’s prison and dueling grounds. Ultimately, the mystery of Smith’s identity will turn out to be as intricate as that of old New York itself.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1501163876", "seamus": 535014231, "itunes": 9781501163876, "goodreads": 32620302, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501163876", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501163876", "isbn10": "1501163876", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 101, "book": "Golden Hill: A Novel Of Old New York", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 101, "book": "Golden Hill: A Novel Of Old New York", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Golden Hill' Recalls The Dark Alleys And Twisted Virtue Of 18th-Century NYC", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/10/536436007/golden-hill-recalls-the-dark-alleys-and-twisted-virtue-of-18th-century-nyc" } ] }, "102": { "id": 102, "title": "Good Booty: Love And Sex, Black And White, Body And Soul In American Music", "author": "Ann Powers", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "From the Creole sounds of New Orleans in the early 1900s to the cyborg-like divas of the 21st century, NPR Music critic and correspondent Ann Powers considers the history of sexuality in American music in Good Booty. With passion and scope, Powers paints a portrait of America’s obsession with sex as it manifests itself in our anthems, dances and celebrity worship – and how that obsession has much to tell us about our collective desires, fears, inhibitions and beliefs.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for music lovers", "let’s talk about sex", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0062463691", "seamus": 542804527, "itunes": 9780062463692, "goodreads": 32051900, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062463691", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062463692", "isbn10": "0062463691", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 102, "book": "Good Booty: Love And Sex, Black And White, Body And Soul In American Music", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Good Booty: The History Of Sex In American Music", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/good-booty-history-sex-american-music" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 102, "book": "Good Booty: Love And Sex, Black And White, Body And Soul In American Music", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Good Booty' Explores A Century Of Music, Sex And American Culture", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/544430239/good-booty-backing-up-how-music-and-sex-helped-shape-american-culture" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 102, "book": "Good Booty: Love And Sex, Black And White, Body And Soul In American Music", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Good Booty,' Our Hot And Heavy Love Affair With Pop Music", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/17/542468737/in-good-booty-our-hot-and-heavy-love-affair-with-pop-music" } ] }, "103": { "id": 103, "title": "Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel", "author": "Rachel Khong", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Rachel Khong’s debut novel is a book I know I will read over and over again. It’s a stunning and hilarious portrait of Ruth, a woman who has to reset her expectations of reality when she moves home with her parents. She’s looking to take a break from a flailing career and spend more time with her father, who has Alzheimer’s. Told through diary entries, Khong’s prose is crisp and never earnest. She writes tenderly about the moment when the parent-child relationship shifts, and Ruth is forced to puzzle over the secrets her father has kept and determine how best to help him when he’s most vulnerable.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1250109167", "seamus": 535854760, "itunes": 9781250109163, "goodreads": 27746288, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1250109167", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250109163", "isbn10": "1250109167", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 103, "book": "Goodbye, Vitamin: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Goodbye, Vitamin' Is Sweet — But Not Sugarcoated ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/12/535799520/goodbye-vitamin-is-sweet-but-not-sugarcoated" } ] }, "104": { "id": 104, "title": "Gorbachev: His Life And Times", "author": "William Taubman", "reviewers": [ "David Greene" ], "text": "Don’t judge a book by its … length. At 880 pages, and with an old photo of a Soviet leader on the cover, I was intimidated, too. But * Gorbachev: His Life And Times* flies by and is gripping. It reads less like a biography and more like a political thriller with drama, romance and – Russia being Russia – vodka. William Taubman has written what feels like the definitive book on one of the most transformative figures of the 20th century – and he has made it accessible and hard to put down.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "biography & memoir", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0393647013", "seamus": 547943238, "itunes": 9780393647013, "goodreads": 33860134, "bookshop": 9780393647013, "cover": "0393647013", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780393647013", "isbn10": "0393647013", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 104, "book": "Gorbachev: His Life And Times", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Gorbachev' Is A Gripping, Sympathetic And Detailed Portrait", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/10/547560506/gorbachev-is-a-gripping-sympathetic-and-detailed-portrait" } ] }, "105": { "id": 105, "title": "Grace And The Fever", "author": "Zan Romanoff", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Grace Thomas is about to start college and has a secret she keeps from her closest friends: She is deeply involved in online community of her favorite band, Fever Dream. Then the extraordinary happens – Grace strikes up a romance with Fever Dream heartthrob Jes Holloway after a chance meeting on a suburban street. The premise might sound like One Direction fan fiction, but hear me out. This book is not a flimsy romance. It’s a well-observed dissection of what happens when our public and private lives crash into each other, whether you’re an international pop star or a painfully ordinary teenage girl.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "fiction", "staff picks", "for music lovers", "love & romance", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "1524720844", "seamus": 559010205, "itunes": 9781524720841, "goodreads": 32682129, "bookshop": 9781524720841, "cover": "1524720844", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524720841", "isbn10": "1524720844", "links": [] }, "106": { "id": 106, "title": "Greater Gotham: A History Of New York City From 1898 To 1919", "author": "Mike Wallace", "reviewers": [ "Jean Zimmerman" ], "text": "Mike Wallace’s fabulous new work of encyclopedic nonfiction gives readers kaleidoscopic glimpses of turn-of-the-last-century New York. The 1,196-page telling is especially rich because of his “determination to include all the historical actors … left out of earlier studies,” with equal attention to women as well as dead white men. The result is both scholarly and pop: Were you aware that workers on the IRT subway line unearthed mastodon bones at Dyckman Street? Wallace summons great tycoons, ingrate robber barons and the Great War alike out of the gas-lit Gilded Age into the bright electric light of an exuberant 20th century.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0195116356", "seamus": 529156950, "itunes": 9780195116359, "goodreads": 1088564, "bookshop": 9780195116359, "cover": "0195116356", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780195116359", "isbn10": "0195116356", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 106, "book": "Greater Gotham: A History Of New York City From 1898 To 1919", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'A King's Obsession,' Anne Boleyn's True Love Is Power", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/21/527998482/in-a-kings-obsession-anne-boleyns-true-love-is-power" } ] }, "107": { "id": 107, "title": "Harmless Like You: A Novel", "author": "Rowan Hisayo Buchanan", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "Author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan was struck by lightning as she finished Harmless Like You. I’m not setting up an overburdened metaphor, I just want you to know it’s a thing that literally happened to someone as she finished her smash-hit debut. (She’s fine, by the way.) Plus, Harmless Like You isn’t a lightning strike, it’s a perpetual shudder – a frisson that won’t abate until days after you’ve set the book down and, at last, started to reckon with all that Buchanan has to say.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "for art lovers", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1324000740", "seamus": 558529597, "itunes": 9781324000747, "goodreads": 30231823, "bookshop": 9781324000747, "cover": "1324000740", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781324000747", "isbn10": "1324000740", "links": [] }, "108": { "id": 108, "title": "Hate To Want You: Forbidden Hearts", "author": "Alisha Rai", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "Do you love a good dose of hot-and-heavy romantic angst? Get yourself a copy of Alisha Rai’s Hate To Want You, a reworking of Romeo and Juliet set among rival supermarket-tycoon families in upstate New York (trust me, that’s sexier than it sounds – and because this is a romance, you know it won’t end with a double tragedy). Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler have a deal: One secret night together a year to forget past troubles and family feuds – until the night Livvy doesn’t show up. Can they find a way to overcome the past and be together? (You bet.)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "0062566733", "seamus": 558780163, "itunes": 9780062566737, "goodreads": 29422692, "bookshop": 9780062566737, "cover": "0062566733", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062566737", "isbn10": "0062566733", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 108, "book": "Hate To Want You: Forbidden Hearts", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Deliciously Soapy — But Substantial — Supermarket Saga Of 'Forbidden Hearts'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/03/31/598246484/the-deliciously-soapy-but-substantial-supermarket-saga-of-forbidden-hearts" } ] }, "109": { "id": 109, "title": "Hello, Universe", "author": "Erin Entrada Kelly, illustrated by Isabel Roxas", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Since I couldn’t give the kids in this story a hug, I hugged the book instead. Erin Entrada Kelly skillfully weaves together the story of three very different sixth-graders and the bully who ultimately unites them. The middle schoolers, with their own unique challenges and personalities, narrate alternating chapters, allowing us to get the full picture, even if they don’t. Suspenseful, quirky and heartwarming, Hello, Universe makes the world a little smaller, and we are better for that. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0062414151", "seamus": 559123457, "itunes": 9780062414151, "goodreads": 30653713, "bookshop": 9780062414151, "cover": "0062414151", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062414151", "isbn10": "0062414151", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 109, "book": "Hello, Universe", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Hello, Universe' Wins Newbery Medal, While Caldecott Goes To 'Wolf In The Snow'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/12/585076595/hello-universe-wins-newbery-medal-while-caldecott-goes-to-wolf-in-the-snow" } ] }, "110": { "id": 110, "title": "Her Body And Other Parties: Stories", "author": "Carmen Maria Machado", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Her Body and Other Parties – a finalist for the National Book Award – is an abrupt, original and wild collection of stories that somehow catch at familiar, unspoken truths about being women that more straightforward writing wouldn’t. I love how Machado draws on ghost stories, Girl Scout stories, camp stories, urban legends and outlandish myths to reinforce and enshrine a particular kind of young female culture.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "155597788X", "seamus": 554531488, "itunes": 9781555977887, "goodreads": 33375622, "bookshop": 9781555977887, "cover": "155597788X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977887", "isbn10": "155597788X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 110, "book": "Her Body And Other Parties: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Click If You Dare: 100 Favorite Horror Stories", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/632779706/click-if-you-dare-100-favorite-horror-stories" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 110, "book": "Her Body And Other Parties: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Her Body And Other Parties:' Be Your Own Madwoman", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/08/553978325/-her-body-and-other-parties-be-your-own-madwoman" } ] }, "111": { "id": 111, "title": "Her Every Fear: A Novel", "author": "Peter Swanson", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "I read a lot of mysteries, and Peter Swanson’s The Kind Worth Killing was one of my absolute favorites of the last several years. This new book doesn’t quite hit that mark, but it’s still a cracking good read. There is a heroine with a well-earned case of anxiety, newly arrived in a drafty Boston apartment. There is a neighbor’s cat wandering in and out of this apartment, sometimes when the protagonist is sure, just sure the front door was closed and locked. Oh, and there is also the discovery of a body in another apartment across the hall. Her Every Fear has atmosphere and tension to spare.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers" ], "isbn": "0062427024", "seamus": 558591190, "itunes": 9780062427021, "goodreads": 29938365, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062427024", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062427021", "isbn10": "0062427024", "links": [] }, "112": { "id": 112, "title": "Her Right Foot", "author": "Dave Eggers, illustrated by Shawn Harris", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "“Her Right Foot” appeared at just the right time, serving as a palate cleanser to increasingly caustic headlines around immigration. With a disarmingly conversational style, Dave Eggers and Shawn Harris reveal a little-known quirk about the Statue of Liberty (namely, that she is stepping forward) and use it as a call to action – a reminder that when it comes to the issues that truly matter, standing still is not an option. (For ages 6 to 9)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1452162816", "seamus": 559055233, "itunes": 9781452162812, "goodreads": 34523572, "bookshop": 9781452162812, "cover": "1452162816", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781452162812", "isbn10": "1452162816", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 112, "book": "Her Right Foot", "source": "WBUR", "text": "She's Not Standing Still': Dave Eggers On What The Statue Of Liberty's Right Foot Says About America", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/09/20/dave-eggers-her-right-foot" } ] }, "113": { "id": 113, "title": "Here We Are: Notes For Living On Planet Earth", "author": "Oliver Jeffers", "reviewers": [ "Nina Gregory" ], "text": "Author and artist Oliver Jeffers takes young readers to the stars and back in Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth. Written during the first two months of his son’s life, this book serves as a guide to life for a child. From the skies to the animal kingdom to the people of the world and lots of other beautifully rendered examples of life on Earth, Here We Are carries a simple message: Be kind. (For ages 3 to 7)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0399167897", "seamus": 566853883, "itunes": 9780399167898, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780399167898, "cover": "0399167897", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399167898", "isbn10": "0399167897", "links": [] }, "114": { "id": 114, "title": "History of Wolves: A Novel", "author": "Emily Fridlund", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Emily Fridlund’s electrifying debut novel doesn’t follow the now-familiar narrative arc that other coming-of-age novels do. The book tells the story of 14-year-old Madeline, who befriends a mysterious family that has just moved across the lake from the mostly abandoned commune where she lives. The relationship doesn’t end well. Madeline is a fascinating and unique character, and Fridlund’s thriller is as beautiful and as icy as the Minnesota woods where it’s set.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0802125875", "seamus": 507162743, "itunes": 9780802125873, "goodreads": 30183198, "bookshop": 9780802125873, "cover": "0802125875", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780802125873", "isbn10": "0802125875", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 114, "book": "History of Wolves: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Beautiful, Icy 'History Of Wolves' Transcends Genre", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/03/507162378/beautiful-icy-history-of-wolves-transcends-genre" } ] }, "115": { "id": 115, "title": "Hollow: A Novel", "author": "Owen Egerton", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "The title of Owen Egerton’s new novel refers to the idea that our earth is hollow – we live on its crust, just above another world accessible only through special ports at the North and South poles; protagonist Ollie and his friend Lyle are attempting to join an expedition to that fabled North Pole entrance. Egerton invokes a lot of things with this central metaphor – a grieving heart, modern life’s futility and the divine. But Hollow is also a fast-paced mystery/thriller following Ollie’s attempt to save a dying cancer patient. How much can a person take before suffering changes him?
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "the dark side", "mysteries & thrillers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1619029405", "seamus": 535856967, "itunes": 9781619029408, "goodreads": 32332865, "bookshop": 9781619029408, "cover": "1619029405", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781619029408", "isbn10": "1619029405", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 115, "book": "Hollow: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Graceful 'Hollow' Is Solid All The Way Through", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/16/535799653/graceful-hollow-is-solid-all-the-way-through" } ] }, "116": { "id": 116, "title": "Home Fire: A Novel", "author": "Kamila Shamsie", "reviewers": [ "Laurel Wamsley" ], "text": "This book pulled me in with its girl-meets-boy story, but it quickly becomes something bigger and more complicated than I expected. With a range of perspectives and a plot that moves from Massachusetts to London to Syria and back, it’s a gutsy novel. I don’t want to give too much away – just pick it up and be swept into an absurdly readable tale of love and geopolitics.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0735217688", "seamus": 542806838, "itunes": 9780735217683, "goodreads": 33621427, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735217688", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735217683", "isbn10": "0735217688", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 116, "book": "Home Fire: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Kamila Shamsie", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/marginalia-kamila-shamsie" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 116, "book": "Home Fire: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Home Fire' Puts A Topical Spin On Ancient Greek Tragedy", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/542468885/home-fire-puts-a-topical-spin-on-ancient-greek-tragedy" } ] }, "117": { "id": 117, "title": "Hostage", "author": "Guy Delisle", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Christophe André, a Doctors Without Borders administrator assigned to the Caucasus region in 1997, spends the bulk of Guy Delisle’s 432-page graphic memoir in darkness, chained to a radiator in a largely empty room. The account of André’s experience as a hostage, dictated to Delisle years later by the man himself, would be powerful enough, if depicted in prose alone. But it’s Delisle’s art – his character design, his use of page and panel layout to underscore the mind-numbing sameness of solitary confinement while controlling the story’s mood and pacing – that makes us feel André’s plight so deeply. We keep turning pages fearfully, hungrily, plowing on along with him, vibrating in the tension between word and image, terror and hope.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "the dark side", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1770462791", "seamus": 525404368, "itunes": 9781770462793, "goodreads": 32783833, "bookshop": 9781770462793, "cover": "1770462791", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781770462793", "isbn10": "1770462791", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 117, "book": "Hostage", "source": "NPR", "text": "Gripping Comics Memoir 'Hostage' Puts You In The Room Where Nothing Happens", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/25/525404344/gripping-comics-memoir-hostage-puts-you-in-the-room-where-nothing-happens" } ] }, "118": { "id": 118, "title": "House Of Names: A Novel", "author": "Colm Tóibín", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Colm Tóibín, no stranger to fraught family dynamics and themes of loss, exile and return, wanders far from the Ireland and Brooklyn we’ve seen in his earlier books to take on the House of Atreus, the mother of all dysfunctional families, in this violent, psychologically astute page turner. In visceral, accessible language, Tóibín reanimates the revenge tragedies of Clytemnestra, Agamemnon and their three children, Iphigeneia, Electra and Orestes. He makes us feel Clytemnestra’s anguished outrage when her husband sacrifices their eldest daughter in hopes of favorable winds for his warships and adds intimate sagas of suffering not found in the ancient Greeks.
", "tags": [ "for art lovers", "historical fiction", "family matters", "the dark side", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1501140213", "seamus": 527629422, "itunes": 9781501140211, "goodreads": 30753709, "bookshop": 9781501140211, "cover": "1501140213", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501140211", "isbn10": "1501140213", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 118, "book": "House Of Names: A Novel", "source": "KQED", "text": "Colm Tóibín Serves Up An Ancient Tale Of Violence And Vengeance In ‘House of Names’", "url": "https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/06/21/colm-toibin-serves-up-an-ancient-tale-of-violence-and-vengeance-in-house-of-names/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 118, "book": "House Of Names: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'House Of Names' Is A Violent Page-Turner, And A Surprising Departure", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/10/527629908/house-of-names-is-a-violent-page-turner-and-a-surprising-departure" } ] }, "119": { "id": 119, "title": "House Of Women", "author": "Sophie Goldstein", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Following up 2015’s The Oven, Sophie Goldstein continues to put a fresh spin on sci-fi with her Aubrey Beardsley-influenced style. In this cryptic graphic novel, intergalactic travelers in heavy gowns – or are they habits? – and the four-eyed aliens they’re studying are depicted as thick, flowing masses of black and white. That makes it all the creepier when the planet itself seems to rebel against the new arrivals. Goldstein’s art reflects the look of woodcuts and Art Nouveau – a beautiful departure for an explorers-and-aliens tale.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1683960513", "seamus": 558532900, "itunes": 9781683960515, "goodreads": 34445186, "bookshop": 9781683960515, "cover": "1683960513", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781683960515", "isbn10": "1683960513", "links": [] }, "120": { "id": 120, "title": "Human Acts: A Novel", "author": "Han Kang", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Mercy is a human impulse, but so is murder. In Human Acts, Han Kang’s novel of the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, people spill blood and people brave death to donate it. With a sensitivity so sharp that it’s painful, Human Acts sets out to reconcile these paradoxical and coexisting humanities.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "historical fiction", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "110190674X", "seamus": 510648351, "itunes": 9781101906743, "goodreads": 34964181, "bookshop": 9781101906743, "cover": "110190674X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101906743", "isbn10": "110190674X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 120, "book": "Human Acts: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Human Acts' Tries To Reconcile Bloody Human Impulses", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/21/509375755/human-acts-tries-to-reconcile-bloody-human-impulses" } ] }, "121": { "id": 121, "title": "Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body", "author": "Roxane Gay", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Roxane Gay’s highly anticipated memoir chronicles her relationship with her body, her ongoing struggle with weight and a rape that left her reeling for decades, which she revisits several times throughout the book. Gay lingers on some of her life’s most painful moments to give voice to our collective grief and fury at the trauma we feel when something is taken from us.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0062362593", "seamus": 533516120, "itunes": 9780062362599, "goodreads": 26074156, "bookshop": 9780062362599, "cover": "0062362593", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062362599", "isbn10": "0062362593", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 121, "book": "Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body", "source": "WUOM", "text": "Roxane Gay's 'Hunger' Is A Story Of Size, Shape And The Effects Of Sexual Violence", "url": "http://michiganradio.org/post/roxane-gays-hunger-story-size-shape-and-effects-sexual-violence" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 121, "book": "Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body", "source": "NHPR", "text": "10-Minute Writers Workshop: Roxane Gay", "url": "http://nhpr.org/post/10-minute-writers-workshop-roxane-gay#stream/0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 121, "book": "Hunger: A Memoir Of (My) Body", "source": "NPR", "text": "Be Bigger, Fight Harder: Roxane Gay On A Lifetime Of 'Hunger'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/19/533515895/be-bigger-fight-harder-roxane-gay-on-a-lifetime-of-hunger" } ] }, "122": { "id": 122, "title": "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", "author": "Maurene Goo", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "If you find yourself incapable of resisting goofily premised, made-for-TV romantic comedies but wish they had a bit more emotional depth and fewer white people, Maurene Goo’s sweet and hilarious YA romance may be just your cup of tea. Overachieving Desi Lee is on her way to graduating at the top of her class, but when it comes to romance she is prone to “flailure” – epic flirting failures – like hacking mucus onto a crush or accidentally pantsing herself. Desi thinks she’s hopeless – until she watches her Korean dad’s favorite K-Drama and realizes what her love life’s been missing: a highly regimented plan, aka Desi Lee’s 24 K-Drama Steps to True Love. High jinks and surprisingly realistic emotional development ensue, along with a fizzily compelling love story.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "love & romance", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374304041", "seamus": 559124396, "itunes": 9780374304041, "goodreads": 31145133, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374304041", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374304041", "isbn10": "0374304041", "links": [] }, "123": { "id": 123, "title": "I Survived The American Revolution, 1776", "author": "Lauren Tarshis", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "The 15th in Lauren Tarshis’ meticulously researched series is, like its predecessors, a clever marriage of history and character. The title is a spoiler: Each book follows the thrilling (terrifying) path of a young person encountering an historical event, from Pompeii to 9/11. In this one, a boy named Nate wanders into the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776. It’s filled with the kinds of detail that will pleasantly surprise adults and transfix middle-graders who have grown up bopping to Hamilton. (My 6-year-old found answers to lyrics that had been vexing him – “Mom, what’s a bayonet?”) Tarshis’ treatment of the heroes of the Revolution and their relationship to slavery – the country’s original sin – is smart and straightforward and a great way to take the political conversation of the moment, into the personal.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks", "historical fiction", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0545919738", "seamus": 558346300, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33931232, "bookshop": 9780545919739, "cover": "0545919738", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780545919739", "isbn10": "0545919738", "links": [] }, "124": { "id": 124, "title": "I'm Just No Good At Rhyming: And Other Nonsense For Mischievous Kids And Immature Grown-Ups", "author": "Chris Harris, illustrated by Lane Smith", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "If you’re a parent who is in a panic over some think piece about screen time (seriously, pick one), I have some good news for you! It’s possible we’ve entered a golden age for children’s poetry. Beautiful and serious novels and memoirs in verse abound, and if you’re looking for something both sublime and ridiculous, you should pick up I’m Just No Good at Rhyming. It’s a veritable sundae of delights – layers of puns, word games, visual jokes – that I honestly would give to any kid ages short to tall. Got a kid that loves reading and words? It’s a puzzle they can giggle over. You’ve got a reluctant reader on your hands? The interplay of words and illustrations will capture them, promise. You know an adult that grew up on Shel Silverstein? They’ll guffaw with misty eyes.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "0316266574", "seamus": 553716198, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33245396, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316266574", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316266574", "isbn10": "0316266574", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 124, "book": "I'm Just No Good At Rhyming: And Other Nonsense For Mischievous Kids And Immature Grown-Ups", "source": "NPR", "text": "Finally, A Book Of Poetry For Kids Who Are 'Just No Good At Rhyming'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/23/553115072/book-im-just-no-good-at-rhyming" } ] }, "125": { "id": 125, "title": "Ill Will: A Novel", "author": "Dan Chaon", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Dan Chaon’s Ill Will is an intelligent, layered and painfully suspenseful thriller about a psychologist whose childhood was shattered by a series of murders in the family. Chaon writes especially well about conspiracy theories, showing how they can rebound and refract. “[W]e were only peeping through a keyhole of our lives, and the majority of the truth, the reality of what happened to us, was hidden,” says one character. “Memories were no more solid than dreams.”
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "fiction", "family matters", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0345476042", "seamus": 517769839, "itunes": 9780345476043, "goodreads": 30687788, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0345476042", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780345476043", "isbn10": "0345476042", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 125, "book": "Ill Will: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Dread Builds As Good Guys Turn To Bad In 'Ill Will'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/22/515439429/dread-builds-as-good-guys-turn-to-bad-in-ill-will" } ] }, "126": { "id": 126, "title": "Inside Studio 54", "author": "Mark Fleischman", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Inside Studio 54 is true to its title, taking us past the velvet rope, into the heat and sweat and coke and poppers of the dance floor where hundreds of bodies ground against each other, and into the dark alcoves and out-of-the way balconies, where a slightly smaller number of bodies ground against each other with greater assiduousness. Author Mark Fleischman, who took over the club in 1980, proves an eager, garrulous host, gleefully sharing his love of the place, and the time, and the drugs. The drugs, especially.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "1945572574", "seamus": 549454384, "itunes": 9781945572579, "goodreads": 33947336, "bookshop": 9781945572579, "cover": "1945572574", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781945572579", "isbn10": "1945572574", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 126, "book": "Inside Studio 54", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Inside Studio 54' Takes You Behind The Velvet Rope, And Into Some Dark Corners", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/23/549453578/-inside-studio-54-takes-you-behind-the-velvet-rope-and-into-some-dark-corners" } ] }, "127": { "id": 127, "title": "Iraq +100: The First Anthology Of Science Fiction To Have Emerged From Iraq", "author": "Hassan Blasim (editor)", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "Writer, filmmaker and Iraqi expatriate Hassan Blasim asked 10 Iraqi authors to answer a simple, yet complicated question: What do you imagine our country looking like 100 years after the U.S. invasion of 2003? The answer is Iraq + 100, a collection of science fiction short stories that tackle disparity, brutality, national identity and totalitarianism with equally grim and hopeful voices.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads", "short stories, essays & poetry", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250161320", "seamus": 503070567, "itunes": 9781250161321, "goodreads": 34759977, "bookshop": 9781250161321, "cover": "1250161320", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250161321", "isbn10": "1250161320", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 127, "book": "Iraq +100: The First Anthology Of Science Fiction To Have Emerged From Iraq", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Iraq + 100' Is Painful, But Don't Look Away", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2016/12/10/503068002/iraq-100-is-painful-but-dont-look-away" } ] }, "128": { "id": 128, "title": "Isadora: A Novel", "author": "Amelia Gray", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Legendary American dancer Isadora Duncan lost all three of her children before she died in a freak accident; Amelia Gray’s biographical novel about the dancer covers the period between the deaths of her first two children in a car accident and the birth of her third. Gray is a gutsy, utterly original writer, and this is the finest work she has done so far. Isadora is a masterful portrait of one of America’s greatest artists, and it’s also a beautiful reflection on what it means to be suffocated by grief, but not quite willing to give up.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "for art lovers", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374279985", "seamus": 529719925, "itunes": 9780374279981, "goodreads": 31451125, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374279985", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374279981", "isbn10": "0374279985", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 128, "book": "Isadora: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Dancer Is Unstrung By Grief In 'Isadora'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/25/528842969/a-dancer-is-unstrung-by-grief-in-isadora" } ] }, "129": { "id": 129, "title": "Istanbul And Beyond: Exploring The Diverse Cuisines Of Turkey", "author": "Robyn Eckhardt", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "This beautifully shot tribute to Turkish cuisine is organized by region, traveling clockwise from Istanbul to the Black Sea to Iran, Iraq and Syria, and thence to the Mediterranean. It’s evenly divided between greens and grains, soups and meats. Everywhere, we see the passion for one kind of food inside another kind of food: stuffed doughs, stuffed leaves, nut-filled pastries. Pickles are quick, stews are slow and in every dish warm spices signal the region’s long history as a terminus of the Silk Road.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0544444310", "seamus": 558532334, "itunes": 9780544444317, "goodreads": 33413884, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544444310", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544444317", "isbn10": "0544444310", "links": [] }, "130": { "id": 130, "title": "Jabari Jumps", "author": "Gaia Cornwall", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "Jabari Jumps. No exclamation or question mark on the cover – just an African-American boy dressed in orange chevron swim trunks peering over the edge of a high dive. This book holds all of the possibilities of a stretched-out, sunny summer day in the city. Is today the day to jump? Jabari’s pink-suited sister and encouraging dad sit at the water’s edge. Jabari lets other kids cut in front of him at the diving board’s ladder – so high we can’t even see the board. The tall urban landscape in the background is constructed from newspaper print. “It’s okay to be scared,” his dad assures him – and what a wonderful thought. It’s okay to be scared. Every kid should know that, even while sitting safely on the couch reading a picture book, watching Jabari sail off the diving board, hit the water with a splash and whoosh to the top with a big, proud smile. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0763678384", "seamus": 559030727, "itunes": 9780763678388, "goodreads": 31625795, "bookshop": 9780763678388, "cover": "0763678384", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780763678388", "isbn10": "0763678384", "links": [] }, "131": { "id": 131, "title": "Jade City", "author": "Fonda Lee", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "Every year there are books we discover far too late and have to cram them into the Book Concierge at the last minute because there’s just no way we can let them slide again. Fonda Lee’s Jade City is one of those. The island of Kekon won its independence from an occupying empire decades ago – but now the proud rebels who fought for freedom have split into two rival clans, each drawing fearsome fighting powers from a magical jade that’s unique to Kekon. An uneasy peace prevails as the book opens, but of course that can’t last. Jade City is an instantly absorbing tale of blood, honor, family and magic, spiced with unexpectedly tender character beats. In my mind’s eye, it all unspooled in the grainy, supersaturated colors of a classic Shaw Brothers kung fu film.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "family matters", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316440868", "seamus": 568295154, "itunes": 9780316440868, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780316440868, "cover": "0316440868", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316440868", "isbn10": "0316440868", "links": [] }, "132": { "id": 132, "title": "Janesville: An American Story", "author": "Amy Goldstein", "reviewers": [ "Edith Chapin" ], "text": "Janesville is narrative-driven long-form reporting at its best. Amy Goldstein spent years following roughly a dozen workers who were affected by the closing of General Motors’ Janesville Assembly Plant just before Christmas 2008, at the height of the economic crisis. The plant was the center of economic, social and civic life, employing generations of family members for more than 80 years. The Wisconsin city also has a history of civic responsibility – looking out for those who didn’t get the comfortable middle-class life the plant provided. Goldstein follows workers determined to find jobs either through re-invention and significant obstacles, or unyielding belief in the American auto industry. Janesville’s pride is tested at every turn.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1501102230", "seamus": 558523709, "itunes": 9781501102233, "goodreads": 33665908, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501102230", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501102233", "isbn10": "1501102230", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 132, "book": "Janesville: An American Story", "source": "WPR", "text": "More Than Eight Years After The General Motors Plant Closure, What's Ahead For Janesville?", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/shows/more-eight-years-after-general-motors-plant-closure-whats-ahead-janesville" } ] }, "133": { "id": 133, "title": "Keeping On Keeping On", "author": "Alan Bennett", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "In this, Alan Bennett’s third volume of nonfiction prose, the British screenwriter/playwright/cultural institution proves as wry, self-deprecating and fabulously fusty as ever. In excerpts from diaries kept between 2005 and 2015, he tuts and clucks at the Tories, deplores garish new architecture and gets miffed at hearing himself described as “twee” – only to follow that entry with this one: “On Saturday we blackberry up Crummock Lane.” And later, “I’ve taken to eating the occasional date, though it’s not a fruit I wholly like.” Bennett’s fully aware of his charming tea-cosy of a writerly persona, making Keeping On Keeping On the perfect book to curl up with as the nights get longer, and colder. “One does try not to be an Old Git,” he sighs, “but they don’t make it easy.”
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "tales from around the world", "rather long", "for art lovers", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "0374181055", "seamus": 561374211, "itunes": 9780374181055, "goodreads": 32920223, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374181055", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374181055", "isbn10": "0374181055", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 133, "book": "Keeping On Keeping On", "source": "NPR", "text": "Alan Bennett's Inimitable Voice Just Keeps 'Keeping On'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/07/561214799/alan-bennetts-inimitable-voice-just-keeps-keeping-on" } ] }, "134": { "id": 134, "title": "Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars From 4Chan And Tumblr To Trump And The Alt-Right", "author": "Angela Nagle", "reviewers": [ "Hanna Rosin" ], "text": "We are always looking for the roots of the Trump revolution, and in this book, Angela Nagle locates them online. This is a close ethnography of the alt-right and their rebellion against the “normies” (the rest of us). It’s clever, alarming and totally nonjudgmental – or, more accurately, it judges all sides equally harshly. And for me, it explained my world.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "it’s all geek to me", "identity & culture", "rather short", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1785355430", "seamus": 558837514, "itunes": 9781785355431, "goodreads": 35040209, "bookshop": 9781785355431, "cover": "1785355430", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781785355431", "isbn10": "1785355430", "links": [] }, "135": { "id": 135, "title": "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI", "author": "David Grann", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "In the 1920s, members of the Osage Nation seemed fortunate: They were getting huge royalties on the oil that had been discovered under their lands. Then they started dying, one by one. This is easily my favorite book of the year. It reads – sadly – like crime fiction (if only it were fiction). Read this and you will learn something vital about our country’s history that reverberates to this day.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0385534248", "seamus": 523348082, "itunes": 9780385534246, "goodreads": 29496196, "bookshop": 9780385534246, "cover": "0385534248", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385534246", "isbn10": "0385534248", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 135, "book": "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Author David Grann On The Osage Murders And The Start Of The FBI", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/grann-osage-murders-start-fbi" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 135, "book": "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 135, "book": "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI", "source": "NPR", "text": "In The 1920s, A Community Conspired To Kill Native Americans For Their Oil Money", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/17/523964584/in-the-1920s-a-community-conspired-to-kill-native-americans-for-their-oil-money" } ] }, "136": { "id": 136, "title": "L'Appart: The Delights And Disasters Of Making My Paris Home", "author": "David Lebovitz", "reviewers": [ "Hannah Bloch" ], "text": "I’ve been charmed by the writing of American chef David Lebovitz for years – his 2009 memoir, The Sweet Life in Paris, made me laugh till I cried, and its dessert recipe pages bear the chocolatey, buttery traces of my baking. I’ll read anything Lebovitz writes, but L’Appart was of special interest to me since my grandparents also uprooted (long ago) from the U.S. and chose to make their home in France. And though I know they faced frustrations, I don’t think anything approached the ordeals Lebovitz details here. L’Appart isn’t hilarious in the way of his earlier memoir – given the relentless tribulations Lebovitz faced in buying and renovating his apartment, that is not surprising – but we get to know him better. “Living in Paris awakened something inside me that not only changed my cooking,” he writes, “but the kind of person I am.”
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "tales from around the world", "funny stuff", "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0804188386", "seamus": 558840338, "itunes": 9780804188388, "goodreads": 34347751, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0804188386", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780804188388", "isbn10": "0804188386", "links": [] }, "137": { "id": 137, "title": "Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History", "author": "Tori Telfer", "reviewers": [ "Jean Zimmerman" ], "text": "Men are far more likely than women to kill, making Lady Killers’ title a grim pun – though Tori Telfer does her gruesome best to even up the body count. For ages, the received wisdom had it that female serial killers did not actually exist (Aileen Wuornos aside). Like female rocket scientists and cage fighters, these women had to wait for the new millennium to be properly recognized. With selections that are exceptionally well-sourced and engaging, if gory, Lady Killers profiles more than 14 subjects with widely differing motivations for ending multiple lives.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the dark side", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "0062433733", "seamus": 556161680, "itunes": 9780062433732, "goodreads": 34017047, "bookshop": 9780062433732, "cover": "0062433733", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062433732", "isbn10": "0062433733", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 137, "book": "Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Lady Killers:' Cherchez La Femme Fatale", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/14/555690824/lady-killers-cherchez-la-femme-fatale" } ] }, "138": { "id": 138, "title": "Lea: A Novel", "author": "Pascal Mercier", "reviewers": [ "Tamar Charney" ], "text": "Lea is a descent into that place where obsession and brilliance collide to produce the heights of creative expression in one moment … and self destruction in the next. This is the story of two gifted, grief-stricken people unable to save each other from the self-imprisonment of their talents. Lea’s father tells a man he meets in a cafe the story of his daughter’s rise to musical brilliance, and her descent into mental illness. Mercier’s books are populated with people who are obsessed and awkward; Lea is no exception. He brings to life the worlds of people who possess a single-minded focus on the perfection of an idea, a phrase, a game or a note. Like his previous novel Night Train to Lisbon, *Lea * is full of searing images that will stick in my mind long after the details of the plot and characters fade from memory.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "fiction", "tales from around the world", "for music lovers", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0802121667", "seamus": 558527086, "itunes": 9780802121660, "goodreads": 30809689, "bookshop": 9780802121660, "cover": "0802121667", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780802121660", "isbn10": "0802121667", "links": [] }, "139": { "id": 139, "title": "Leopard At The Door: A Novel", "author": "Jennifer McVeigh", "reviewers": [ "Kirk Siegler" ], "text": "A few times while reading Jennifer McVeigh’s page turner, I wondered whether this was what might happen if you mashed up Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa with Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and turned them into fiction. Set in pre-independence Kenya in the 1950s, Leopard at the Door tells the story of a teenage girl who returns to her family’s rural farm after four years in England, amid major upheaval both personal and political. McVeigh gracefully captures the era’s turmoil with well-researched, vivid accounts of land fights and systemic racism. Her characters are equally complex and conflicted (though some are just downright awful). This is one of those books you’ll almost hate to see end – but you’ll feel kind of relieved when it does.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "historical fiction", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0735210381", "seamus": 559116492, "itunes": 9780735210387, "goodreads": 27484575, "bookshop": 9780735210387, "cover": "0735210381", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735210387", "isbn10": "0735210381", "links": [] }, "140": { "id": 140, "title": "Lilli De Jong: A Novel", "author": "Janet Benton", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Janet Benton’s wonderfully imagined debut examines the consequences of a Quaker woman’s decision to keep her baby born out of wedlock. Set in 1880s Philadelphia, this elegantly crafted book immerses the reader in Lilli’s agonizing fight to achieve economic security for herself and her daughter, against a society that condemns both her pregnancy and her decision to mother. Amid contemporary efforts to narrow reproductive freedoms and demean women who assert their right to be free from sexual violence, Lilli’s struggles to abide by her principles are eerily relevant.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "family matters", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0385541457", "seamus": 559113502, "itunes": 9780385541459, "goodreads": 31752152, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385541457", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385541459", "isbn10": "0385541457", "links": [] }, "141": { "id": 141, "title": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "author": "George Saunders", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "This is how George Saunders will get you: He’ll start with some premise that sounds absurd or gimmicky (previously – human lawn ornaments! This time – Abraham Lincoln in purgatory!) and so you’ll go in ungirded, expecting something pleasantly wacky. Then he’ll spin a story so humane and generous and moving that you will be unraveled completely.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "family matters", "rather long", "seriously great writing", "for history lovers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0812995341", "seamus": 514301139, "itunes": 9780812995343, "goodreads": 29906980, "bookshop": 9780812995343, "cover": "0812995341", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812995343", "isbn10": "0812995341", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "WBUR", "text": "George Saunders' 'Lincoln In The Bardo' Goes Inside Our 16th President's Mind At A Pivotal Moment", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/02/14/lincoln-in-the-bardo-george-saunders" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "KUOW", "text": "George Saunders: What Happens When You Die?", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/george-saunders-what-happens-when-you-die" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Letting Go Is The Hardest Thing For 'Lincoln In The Bardo'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/18/514376361/letting-go-is-the-hardest-thing-for-lincoln-in-the-bardo" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Lincoln In The Bardo' Pictures An American Saint Of Sorrow", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/11/514512921/lincoln-in-the-bardo-pictures-an-american-saint-of-sorrow" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 141, "book": "Lincoln In The Bardo: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "George Saunders Re-Imagines A President's Grief With 'Lincoln In The Bardo'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/09/514294006/george-saunders-re-imagines-a-presidents-grief-with-lincoln-in-the-bardo" } ] }, "142": { "id": 142, "title": "Lines", "author": "Suzy Lee", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "A lonely figure skater glides across the ice, cutting an elegant and dynamic path across the blank page. Suzy Lee’s Lines uses this simple premise to launch a surprising meditation on the artistic process. Indeed, midway through the book,when Lee attempts a tricky metafictional twist, readers may find themselves holding their breath and preparing for a crash, but luckily, Lee sticks the landing in style. (For ages 5 to 6)
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "1452156654", "seamus": 559579693, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33606665, "bookshop": 9781452156651, "cover": "1452156654", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781452156651", "isbn10": "1452156654", "links": [] }, "143": { "id": 143, "title": "literally show me a healthy person", "author": "Darcie Wilder", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Limbong" ], "text": "You know those “impressive” literary passages that are 13 million words long with no punctuation? Darcie Wilder’s literally show me a healthy person is kind of like that, except not as full of itself and actually entertaining to read. It’s packed with brutal self-owns and critical reflections on culture, and it barely hides a tight narrative about family, relationships and mental health. Despite being a slim book, it took me forever to get through because there were so many moments that left me emotionally drained – in a very good way.
", "tags": [ "rather short", "fiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "funny stuff", "seriously great writing", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0999218603", "seamus": 558313176, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 36305196, "bookshop": 9780999218600, "cover": "0999218603", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780999218600", "isbn10": "0999218603", "links": [] }, "144": { "id": 144, "title": "Literary Witches: A Celebration Of Magical Women Writers", "author": "Taisia Kitaiskaia, illustrated by Katy Horan", "reviewers": [ "Carmen Maria Machado" ], "text": "The phenomenon of the witch – once used as a shorthand for women who fall outside of certain acceptable parameters, now reclaimed as a label of pride and power – has spilled over to lots of places in contemporary culture. One of the more delightful iterations of this movement is Literary Witches, an art book for book nerds. Gorgeous illustrations accompany profiles of female writers from every genre, identity and era conceivable. As necessary a project as I can imagine in this day and age, this is art, poetry and history marshaled together in tremendous, joyful celebration.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "1580056733", "seamus": 558365080, "itunes": 9781580056731, "goodreads": 34220644, "bookshop": 9781580056731, "cover": "1580056733", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781580056731", "isbn10": "1580056733", "links": [] }, "145": { "id": 145, "title": "Literature Class, Berkeley 1980", "author": "Julio Cortázar , translated by Katherine Silver", "reviewers": [ "Juan Vidal" ], "text": "There’s no question that Julio Cortázar is among the most revered Latin American writers of any age. In Literature Class, readers are treated to a series of talks the author gave at Berkeley circa 1980. They range from meditations on the writer’s path to the elements of an effective short story. “I’m not a critic or theorist,” he writes, “which means that in my work, I look for solutions as problems arise.” While this may be true, it’s hard to imagine anyone better suited to tackle the endless possibilities of literature and language itself.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "0811225348", "seamus": 563345599, "itunes": 9780811225342, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780811225342, "cover": "0811225348", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780811225342", "isbn10": "0811225348", "links": [] }, "146": { "id": 146, "title": "Little Fires Everywhere", "author": "Celeste Ng", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "Celeste Ng’s second novel about family and adoption benefits from perfect timing and great, immersive writing. The opening pages – a beautiful suburban house in flames – are both mission statement and the beginning of a carefully plotted novel. A look at the lives of two families in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in the 1990s, it is a meditation on rules, race, class, insiders, outsiders, motherhood. There is no throwaway character. And after you’ve raced to the end of the book, you’ll want to read it again, to take the ideas and hold them up to the harsh light of 2017. Ng’s novel would be a great read in any time period – but if you’re struggling with the present moment and how we got here, this novel will do what any good piece of fiction does: illuminate.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0735224293", "seamus": 549555410, "itunes": 9780735224292, "goodreads": 34273236, "bookshop": 9780735224292, "cover": "0735224293", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735224292", "isbn10": "0735224293", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 146, "book": "Little Fires Everywhere", "source": "WPSU", "text": "BookMark: Little Fires Everywhere By Celeste Ng", "url": "http://radio.wpsu.org/post/bookmark-little-fires-everywhere-celeste-ng" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 146, "book": "Little Fires Everywhere", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Celeste Ng: 'There’s A Conflict Between Idealism And Action'", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/when-it-comes-race-and-idealism-good-intentions-are-not-enough" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 146, "book": "Little Fires Everywhere", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch's 2018 Book Guide", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/12/12/674672972/code-switchs-2018-book-guide" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 146, "book": "Little Fires Everywhere", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Mother And Daughter Upset Suburban Status Quo In 'Little Fires Everywhere'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/09/549552722/a-mother-and-daughter-upset-suburban-status-quo-in-little-fires-everywhere" } ] }, "147": { "id": 147, "title": "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America", "author": "James Forman Jr.", "reviewers": [ "Robert Siegel" ], "text": "James Forman Jr. may change the way you think about the mass incarceration of African-Americans on drug charges. Forman is a Yale University law professor who used to be a public defender in Washington, D.C. In his new book, he tells the story of how blacks in law enforcement – people who had battled for the right to serve as police and judges, as well as politicians – made the war on drugs very much their own.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0374189978", "seamus": 537717321, "itunes": 9780374189976, "goodreads": 29939042, "bookshop": 9780374189976, "cover": "0374189978", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374189976", "isbn10": "0374189978", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 147, "book": "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Black Leaders Unwittingly Contributed To The Era Of Mass Incarceration", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/17/537715793/how-black-leaders-unwittingly-contributed-to-the-era-of-mass-incarceration" } ] }, "148": { "id": 148, "title": "Lotus: A Novel", "author": "Lijia Zhang", "reviewers": [ "Jean Zimmerman" ], "text": "Readers will find Lijia Zhang’s debut novel rich in Chinese proverbs. After the titular Lotus loses face, she keeps on going despite the hurt, because “a cracked jar doesn’t mind being smashed again.” These lines delight, as does so much of this sensitively drawn world. Lotus herself is a charmer; she enters the oldest profession on an inebriated whim, and a magazine photo of her face changes her life when the photographer falls for her. But this is, above all, Lotus’ story, and Zhang has a light touch even when portraying the well-researched underbelly of contemporary Chinese culture.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1627795669", "seamus": 507168919, "itunes": 9781627795661, "goodreads": 30078655, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1627795669", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781627795661", "isbn10": "1627795669", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 148, "book": "Lotus: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Earthy 'Lotus' Is A Fascinating Flower", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/11/507162629/earthy-lotus-is-a-fascinating-flower" } ] }, "149": { "id": 149, "title": "Love, Santa", "author": "Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Lee White", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "I love writing letters. I love Christmas magic. My twin 13-year-old girls still let me believe in Santa Claus. If the kids in your life are shooting you side-eye when you ask them what they want from Santa, make a mug of hot chocolate, grab a plate of cookies and sit down with Love, Santa. It’s filled with cozy and detailed artwork, and it includes envelopes with real letters exchanged between Santa and a young girl. I want to give this book to everyone I know who says, “It’s so sad the kids are growing older.” Enjoy every chapter of childhood, write letters, believe in Santa. (For ages 9 to 12)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0545700302", "seamus": 559032076, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34381563, "bookshop": 9780545700306, "cover": "0545700302", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780545700306", "isbn10": "0545700302", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 149, "book": "Love, Santa", "source": "NPR", "text": "An Author Addresses A Young Santa Skeptic — Her Daughter", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/23/572553153/an-author-addresses-a-young-santa-skeptic-her-daughter" } ] }, "150": { "id": 150, "title": "Lucia The Luchadora", "author": "Cynthia Leonor Garza, illustrated by Alyssa Bermudez", "reviewers": [ "Renita Jablonski" ], "text": "Spoiler alert: Girls can be superheroes, too.
\nI picked up this book as my then 3-year-old daughter was being told that superheroes weren’t for girls. “Of course they are,” I told her. And then sharp and courageous Lucia came to the rescue. This is a story of empowerment and doing the right thing – a reminder for all ages. Lucia, in her *luchadora* mask and cape, jumps with confidence on her playground, and right into your heart.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1576878279", "seamus": 558777540, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31258127, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1576878279", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781576878279", "isbn10": "1576878279", "links": [] }, "151": { "id": 151, "title": "Lucky Boy", "author": "Shanthi Sekaran", "reviewers": [ "Shereen Marisol Meraji" ], "text": "I wasn’t sure who to root for in Lucky Boy; my allegiances kept changing, which kept me reading all 61 chapters and 400-plus pages. Who is the victim? Who is the victor? I need an answer! But in this novel about race, class, immigration and fierce motherly love, there are no easy answers. Shanthi Sekaran’s writing is simple and beautiful, but her book is complicated and messy. You’ll keep turning it over in your head long after it’s over. It’s a story of and for our time.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "rather long", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101982241", "seamus": 508532723, "itunes": 9781101982242, "goodreads": 29430055, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101982241", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101982242", "isbn10": "1101982241", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 151, "book": "Lucky Boy", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: 'Lucky Boy'", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/book-review-lucky-boy" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 151, "book": "Lucky Boy", "source": "NPR", "text": "Immigration And Infertility Bring Two Mothers Together Over One 'Lucky Boy'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/508409085/immigration-and-infertility-bring-two-mothers-together-over-one-lucky-boy" } ] }, "152": { "id": 152, "title": "Lucky You: A Novel", "author": "Erika Carter", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Erika Carter’s debut novel revolves around Ellie, Chloe and Rachel, three sort-of-friends navigating their 20s in Fayetteville, Ark., who drink maybe too much and attempt to have relationships with a series of unfortunate men. It’s a charming, understated novel that perfectly captures the feeling of being young, depressed and adrift. Carter is both unsparing and compassionate, and among her greatest gifts is an ability to find a savage kind of beauty in the unlikeliest of places.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "1619028999", "seamus": 520452629, "itunes": 9781619028999, "goodreads": 31213612, "bookshop": 9781619028999, "cover": "1619028999", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781619028999", "isbn10": "1619028999", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 152, "book": "Lucky You: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Lucky You' Is A Perfect Balance Of Humor And Tragedy", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/21/520448255/lucky-you-is-a-perfect-balance-of-humor-and-tragedy" } ] }, "153": { "id": 153, "title": "Luna: Wolf Moon: A Novel", "author": "Ian McDonald", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "No one builds a world like Ian McDonald does. Piece by piece, brick by brick, spare and simple when he needs to be, deep and meaty when he wants to be. Here, he gives us exactly what his title promises: the moon. A future moon colonized by battling corporate families recovering after the devastation wrought by war in the previous novel in this series, but already plotting more bloodshed. But what elevates this above being just another moon-war sci-fi trope fest is the way McDonald’s characters feel precious, real and alive, which just makes it all the more gutting when you see the dwindling page count and know that not all of them (or even most of them) are going to make it through to the last page alive.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0765375532", "seamus": 521009995, "itunes": 9780765375537, "goodreads": 28220871, "bookshop": 9780765375537, "cover": "0765375532", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780765375537", "isbn10": "0765375532", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 153, "book": "Luna: Wolf Moon: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Luna: Wolf Moon' Is A Howling Good Read", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/01/520994956/luna-wolf-moon-is-a-howling-good-read" } ] }, "154": { "id": 154, "title": "Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey Of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf", "author": "Helene Cooper", "reviewers": [ "Ofeibea Quist-Arcton" ], "text": "Ellen Johnson Sirleaf – a Nobel peace laureate and Africa’s first democratically elected female president – is poised to bow out of power after 12 years in charge of postwar Liberia. But in Madame President, Helene Cooper (who was born in Liberia) exposes a vulnerable Johnson Sirleaf who survived an abusive marriage, political imprisonment and living away from her young sons so she could study and acquire qualifications in the U.S. This biography, with a backstory about the influence of Liberian women, chronicles Johnson Sirleaf’s triumphs and failures (including accusations of nepotism) without holding back, making Madame President a refreshing read.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "145169735X", "seamus": 558784676, "itunes": 9781451697353, "goodreads": 30753857, "bookshop": "", "cover": "145169735X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781451697353", "isbn10": "145169735X", "links": [] }, "155": { "id": 155, "title": "Made For Love: A Novel", "author": "Alissa Nutting", "reviewers": [ "Anya Kamenetz" ], "text": "Made For Love is a philosophical and outrageously imaginative comic novel about love, mortality, surveillance and dolphin fetishism. Having escaped her billionaire, evil-genius husband, Hazel desperately seeks normalcy – but her aging, bereaved father (who is consoling himself with sex dolls) makes that impossible. It may sound high-concept, but Alissa Nutting’s empathetic imagination makes you care about each character who crosses the page.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "family matters", "funny stuff", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "0062280554", "seamus": 534885547, "itunes": 9780062280558, "goodreads": 32600556, "bookshop": 9780062280558, "cover": "0062280554", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062280558", "isbn10": "0062280554", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 155, "book": "Made For Love: A Novel", "source": "Iowa Public Radio", "text": "Novels Like 'Made For Love' Explore the Dark Side of New Technology", "url": "http://iowapublicradio.org/post/new-novels-explore-dark-side-new-technology#stream/0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 155, "book": "Made For Love: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/752044550/we-did-it-for-the-lols-100-favorite-funny-books" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 155, "book": "Made For Love: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "After A Wild Start, 'Made For Love' Stumbles", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/06/534768804/after-a-wild-start-made-for-love-stumbles" } ] }, "156": { "id": 156, "title": "Magpie Murders: A Novel", "author": "Anthony Horowitz", "reviewers": [ "Lynn Neary" ], "text": "Magpie Murders is a whodunit about whodunits and a mystery within a mystery. It opens on a rainy day in London as an editor at a small publishing company settles in to read the latest from a best-selling mystery writer. But a chapter is missing, and when the editor-turned-sleuth sets out to track it down she stumbles into a real murder mystery that parallels the fictional one. Anthony Horowitz, a master of the genre, packs his story with all the elements of a good whodunit: a quaint English village, a slew of suspects, convoluted motives and alibis and a clever plot twist. He seemed to have a really good time writing this book and so will fans of mystery novels when they read it.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "for art lovers", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062645226", "seamus": 532174276, "itunes": 9780062645227, "goodreads": 32075854, "bookshop": 9780062645227, "cover": "0062645226", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062645227", "isbn10": "0062645226", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 156, "book": "Magpie Murders: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "What Makes A Good Whodunit? 'Magpie Murders' Author Spells It Out", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/13/532173809/what-makes-a-good-whodunit-magpie-murders-author-spells-it-out" } ] }, "157": { "id": 157, "title": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "author": "Jennifer Egan", "reviewers": [ "Ari Shapiro" ], "text": "Manhattan Beach is less structurally daring than Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit From The Goon Squad, but she started researching this novel years before that one came out. It follows a father, his daughter and a mobster whose lives intersect in New York around World War II. Anna, the daughter, works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and in one scene she struggles under the crushing weight of a diving suit. As she enters the water, the weight disappears, and the suit lets her explore an unfamiliar world. Egan pulls off a similar trick with the mountains of research that went into this project: Instead of weighing the reader down, the historical details buoy the story, and the narrative flows like an easy current.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1476716730", "seamus": 553740418, "itunes": 9781476716732, "goodreads": 34467031, "bookshop": 9781476716732, "cover": "1476716730", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781476716732", "isbn10": "1476716730", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: 'Manhattan Beach'", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/book-review-manhattan-beach" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "KQED", "text": "‘Goon Squad’ Author Jennifer Egan Returns to Traditional Storytelling", "url": "https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/10/16/pulitzer-prize-winner-jennifer-egan-returns-to-traditional-storytelling-in-manhattan-beach/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Manhattan Beach,' Jennifer Egan Dives Deep Into WWII New York City", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/554560481/in-manhattan-beach-jennifer-egan-dives-deep-into-wwii-new-york-city" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Story Of 'Manhattan Beach' Lives In Its Details", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/553975434/the-story-of-manhattan-beach-lives-in-its-details" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 157, "book": "Manhattan Beach: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jennifer Egan's 'Manhattan Beach' Is A Gorgeous Tribute To NYC And Its Seaport", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/26/553711791/jennifer-egans-manhattan-beach-is-a-gorgeous-tribute-to-nyc-and-its-seaport" } ] }, "158": { "id": 158, "title": "Marlena: A Novel", "author": "Julie Buntin", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Julie Buntin understands that a brief but intense best-friendship is not necessarily a coming-of-age tale, but rather an origin story. Fifteen-year-old Cat moves to rural Michigan and strikes up a friendship with the beautiful and charismatic Marlena. We know that a year later, Marlena will drown (that’s not a spoiler, I promise). Cat is now a 30-something Brooklynite who is pulling at the threads of her time Marlena, examining the ways a wonderful, magnetic friendship can also be treacherous and devastating. Reading this book wrecked me, but now I can’t stop thinking about how my own teenage friends shaped me.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "1627797645", "seamus": 559011019, "itunes": 9781627797641, "goodreads": 30199414, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1627797645", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781627797641", "isbn10": "1627797645", "links": [] }, "159": { "id": 159, "title": "Meddling Kids: A Novel", "author": "Edgar Cantero", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Meddling Kids is a story about what might’ve happened to the Scooby Doo gang if they’d ever actually grown up. It’s about the surviving members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club returning to their hometown as adults to finally solve the one case that beat them. And it is awesome. It’s a book that lives completely in the sweet recollections of childhood summers and that exists in the power band of maximum pop-culture self-referentialism. It trades on memory and nostalgia with almost zero ironic distance, just embracing the ridiculousness of its own backstory with both arms, making the grown characters wear all their damage and all their scars in plain view. They were kids who saw some messed up stuff. They suffered horribly for it, and mostly in silence. Now they’re going back to mend those things in them that have been broken.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "funny stuff", "the dark side", "it’s all geek to me", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0385541996", "seamus": 536693855, "itunes": 9780385541992, "goodreads": 32905343, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385541996", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385541992", "isbn10": "0385541996", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 159, "book": "Meddling Kids: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Meddling Kids,' The Scooby Gang Grows Up — Hard", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/15/535799772/in-meddling-kids-the-scooby-gang-grows-up-hard" } ] }, "160": { "id": 160, "title": "Meet Me In The Bathroom: Rebirth And Rock And Roll In New York City 2001-2011", "author": "Lizzy Goodman", "reviewers": [ "Mike Katzif" ], "text": "It may feel too soon to look back at the New York music scene of the 2000s with a nostalgic or historical eye: For one thing, many of the most influential and popular bands of that era – The Strokes and Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem – are still making music. But one of the more surprising realizations that emerges from Lizzy Goodman’s meticulously reported oral history is how much has changed: The decade began with a pre-mp3, pre-social-media music industry. Goodman documents a city in transition from pre-9\\11 Manhattan to gentrifying Williamsburg. She interviews both the scene’s biggest names and its forgotten artists as they reflect on the creative ambitions and behind-the-scenes dramas, the self-destructive behavior and messy rivalries. She also tracks down an exhaustive cast of narrators including managers and publicists, fellow journalists and bloggers, promoters and partygoers, who collectively offer up the conflicting points of view that mark the best oral histories. A captivating deep dive for anyone who loves (or despises) this music, Meet Me In The Bathroom is also a love letter to a New York City that no longer exists.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "for music lovers", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0062233092", "seamus": 559094048, "itunes": 9780062233097, "goodreads": 25816741, "bookshop": 9780062233097, "cover": "0062233092", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062233097", "isbn10": "0062233092", "links": [] }, "161": { "id": 161, "title": "Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes On My Dementia", "author": "Gerda Saunders", "reviewers": [ "Melissa Block" ], "text": "I know what you’re thinking. A memoir about dementia? So depressing. But trust me on this: Gerda Saunders doesn’t wallow in her mental slippage. Instead, she writes with clear-eyed honesty and, yes, humor about living with early-onset microvascular disease. She lays out her intent in what she calls her Dementia Field Notes, sprinkled throughout the book: “No whimpering, no whining, no despair. Just the facts.” Interspersed with vignettes about her mental decline are vivid memories of Saunders’ childhood in South Africa. The contrast brilliantly illuminates the gulf between memories richly preserved and memory lost.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0316502626", "seamus": 533240447, "itunes": 9780316502627, "goodreads": 32498108, "bookshop": 9780316502627, "cover": "0316502626", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316502627", "isbn10": "0316502626", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 161, "book": "Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes On My Dementia", "source": "KUER", "text": "Gerda Saunders And 'Memory's Last Breath'", "url": "http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/memorys-last-breath" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 161, "book": "Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes On My Dementia", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Memory's Last Breath' An Academic Confronts Dementia", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/17/533239904/in-memorys-last-breath-an-academic-confronts-dementia" } ] }, "162": { "id": 162, "title": "Men Without Women: Stories", "author": "Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Theodore Goossen", "reviewers": [ "Julia Melfi" ], "text": "Each story in Men Without Women is about a man dealing with who they are in relation to the women around them, whether it’s their lover, deceased wife or chauffeur. Without these women, they’re nothing – sometimes literally. Haruki Murakami’s female characters have always fascinated me. Though even the most banal seem like otherworldly beings, they never read as manic pixies; their mysteriousness is captivating, not nonspecific. The women make me sit at the edge of my seat, and I never feel resolved enough to relax back into my chair. Despite Murakami’s focus on male protagonists, it’s the women that keep me reading.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "love & romance", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0451494628", "seamus": 559024443, "itunes": 9780451494627, "goodreads": 31540817, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451494628", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451494627", "isbn10": "0451494628", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 162, "book": "Men Without Women: Stories", "source": "WBUR", "text": "The Wonderful, Woeful World Of Haruki Murakami's 'Men Without Women'", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/05/04/murakami-men-without-women" } ] }, "163": { "id": 163, "title": "Mikhail And Margarita: A Novel", "author": "Julie Lekstrom Himes", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Julie Lekstrom Himes’ thought-provoking novel Mikhail and Margarita explores one of the most oppressive periods in Russian history – the Stalinist regime. Riffing off the great physician-writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Himes creates extraordinary atmospherics, immersing her readers in Soviet Russia and all the fears and anxieties of real life writers and artists who faced the Faustian choice of staying true to themselves and their craft, or avoiding the Gulag and surviving. Himes, herself a physician, renders years of research into a gripping narrative about art, politics, and above all, love.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "for art lovers", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1609453751", "seamus": 559112876, "itunes": 9781609453756, "goodreads": 31243075, "bookshop": 9781609453756, "cover": "1609453751", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781609453756", "isbn10": "1609453751", "links": [] }, "164": { "id": 164, "title": "Miles Morales: Spider-Man (A Marvel YA Novel)", "author": "Jason Reynolds", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "You wouldn’t normally look to a branded comic book novelization to provide profound insights into the experience of growing up black and Latino in Brooklyn. Or the psychic cost of gentrification. Or the specific pressure of being the only one granted opportunities in a neighborhood dying for a break. Or the anxiety that criminal behavior is encoded in your DNA. But then, few comic book companies have ever invited a National Book Award nominee like Jason Reynolds to tackle their novelizations, as Marvel chose to with Miles Morales: Spider-Man. Reynolds delivers a story that hits all the beats a good Spider-Man story should – With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility; With Great Teening Comes Great Angst; With Great Punching Comes Great Quips – but with fresh depth and specificity, resulting in a book that both you and your favorite 11-year-old could love.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "identity & culture", "it’s all geek to me", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "148478748X", "seamus": 559124113, "itunes": 9781484787489, "goodreads": 32793053, "bookshop": 9781484787489, "cover": "148478748X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781484787489", "isbn10": "148478748X", "links": [] }, "165": { "id": 165, "title": "Milk Street: The New Home Cooking", "author": "Christopher Kimball", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "After his departure from America’s Test Kitchen, Chris Kimball founded another cooking company, Milk Street, where he has continued to play the bow-tied kitchen professor. The new Milk Street book delivers smartly on Kimball’s particular brand of global flavors and canny techniques you haven’t tried before – like caramelizing a sugary dry rub for pork in the broiler, pouring hot oil over blanched greens or binding Turkish meatballs with bread soaked in yogurt and mint. Perfect for cooks who prize that signature blend of infinite reliability and nerdy guidance.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "031643728X", "seamus": 563255049, "itunes": "", "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780316437288, "cover": "031643728X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316437288", "isbn10": "031643728X", "links": [] }, "166": { "id": 166, "title": "Minecraft: The Island: A Novel", "author": "Max Brooks", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Max Brooks made his name writing (in almost clinical detail) about the aftermath of the war against the zombies (in World War Z). Now he’s writing a branded novel operating in the universe of the video game Minecraft that’s full of life lessons and poop jokes. But it is still Max Brooks writing this book, which means he focuses all of his considerable talent and imagination on making a Minecraft version of Robinson Crusoe – the story of one man lost on an island and learning how to survive according to the very strange physical rules of the Minecraft universe.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "it’s all geek to me", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0399181776", "seamus": 537221851, "itunes": 9780399181771, "goodreads": 32148215, "bookshop": 9780399181771, "cover": "0399181776", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399181771", "isbn10": "0399181776", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 166, "book": "Minecraft: The Island: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Novelist Max Brooks On Doomsday, Dyslexia And Growing Up With Hollywood Parents", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/543614192/novelist-max-brooks-on-doomsday-dyslexia-and-growing-up-with-hollywood-parents" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 166, "book": "Minecraft: The Island: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Life Lessons (With Zombies) In 'Minecraft: The Island'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/22/536892650/life-lessons-with-zombies-in-minecraft-the-island" } ] }, "167": { "id": 167, "title": "Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions", "author": "Amy Stewart", "reviewers": [ "Barbara Campbell" ], "text": "Amy Stewart has written a series of novels inspired by Constance Kopp, a real woman and sheriff’s deputy who regularly made headlines in early 20th century New Jersey. In this third installment, Constance takes on society’s crushing expectations of women as Hackensack jail fills up with female prisoners who have been arrested on “morality” charges. (I hope Stewart resists the pressure she alludes to in this book to marry Constance off to the sheriff – she’ll find her happiness without the usual formula.) If you enjoy action, humor and forgotten history, you’ll love Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "historical fiction", "fiction", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "054440999X", "seamus": 561075675, "itunes": 9780544409996, "goodreads": 33413882, "bookshop": "", "cover": "054440999X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544409996", "isbn10": "054440999X", "links": [] }, "168": { "id": 168, "title": "Moxie: A Novel", "author": "Jennifer Mathieu", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "The slogan “Moxie Girls Fight Back” is a call to arms for all the girls who are slipping quietly through the halls, trying hard to be invisible. Vivian Carter is one of those girls, until one too many chauvinist incidents inspires her to print a riot grrrl-style zine – Moxie – in secret. The response is small at first, but then more and more girls begin to align themselves with the zine and speak out against the harassment that they face. Here is hoping it inspires all girls, quiet or otherwise, to take to the streets and demand equality.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1626726353", "seamus": 549460749, "itunes": 9781626726352, "goodreads": 33163378, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1626726353", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626726352", "isbn10": "1626726353", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 168, "book": "Moxie: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Zine And Heard: In 'Moxie,' A Young Woman Fights Back ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/20/548665413/a-zine-for-the-unseen-in-moxie-a-young-woman-fights-back" } ] }, "169": { "id": 169, "title": "Mozart's Starling", "author": "Lyanda Lynn Haupt", "reviewers": [ "Tom Huizenga" ], "text": "Pity the poor starling. Considered an invasive species, it may be the world’s most despised bird. But naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s book offers a delightful balm to the haters. Inspired by Mozart, who kept a pet starling, Haupt adopted a nestling of her own, named it Carmen and raised it in her own home. (Talk about invasive!) Warmly underscoring the bonds between humans and animals, Mozart’s Starling blends committed nature writing with personal reflection, music and humor – and guarantees you will never look the small, speckled birds in quite the same way.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "for music lovers", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0316370894", "seamus": 524756393, "itunes": 9780316370899, "goodreads": 31934015, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316370894", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316370899", "isbn10": "0316370894", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 169, "book": "Mozart's Starling", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: John Kasich And Lyanda Lynn Haupt", "url": "http://wyso.org/post/book-nook-john-kasich-and-lyanda-lynn-haupt" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 169, "book": "Mozart's Starling", "source": "NPR", "text": "Librarian Nancy Pearl Picks 7 Books For Summer Reading", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/06/21/621081170/librarian-nancy-pearl-picks-7-books-for-summer-reading" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 169, "book": "Mozart's Starling", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Do You Bond With Mozart? Adopt A Starling", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/04/20/524349771/how-do-you-bond-with-mozart-adopt-a-starling" } ] }, "170": { "id": 170, "title": "Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel", "author": "Tom Perrotta", "reviewers": [ "Tasha Robinson" ], "text": "Once again, the author of The Leftovers and Little Children has written what feels like a narrow peek into a wide world, just one chapter in a vast, ongoing soap opera. There are many voices here, but the primary characters are a middle-aged mom exploring her sexuality after her son heads to college and the son, a jock who’s baffled when his pleasure-chasing self-absorption alienates people he wanted to impress. Both characters struggle with neediness and deal with rejection, but Perrotta’s bright, humorous edge and impeccably detailed characterization turn these seeming personal tragedies into a wry satire of modern relationships.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "1501144022", "seamus": 540000196, "itunes": 9781501144028, "goodreads": 33584812, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501144022", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501144028", "isbn10": "1501144022", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 170, "book": "Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Life After 'The Leftovers' — Tom Perrotta Returns To Suburbia And Searches For New Identities", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/08/01/tom-perrotta-mrs-fletcher, " }, { "year": 2017, "id": 170, "book": "Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Raunchy But Sweet, 'Mrs. Fletcher' Is One For The Ages", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/09/542061843/raunchy-but-sweet-mrs-fletcher-is-one-for-the-ages" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 170, "book": "Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In New Novel, Tom Perrotta Shares 'Post-Parental' Reflections From An Empty Nest", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/31/540000103/in-new-novel-tom-perrotta-shares-post-parental-reflections-from-an-empty-nest" } ] }, "171": { "id": 171, "title": "Muddy: The Story Of Blues Legend Muddy Waters", "author": "Michael Mahin, illustrated by Evan Turk", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "When asked at the start of their career which musicians they’d most like to meet in America, the Beatles didn’t even hesitate: Muddy Waters. So it seems fitting that to bring his tale to life, artist Evan Turk conjures up fire and lightning on the page, introducing young readers to a legend. From the Mississippi fields to the bright lights of Chicago, this account of Waters’ life makes it clear that humble beginnings are an impediment to success only if you let them define you from the start. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "for history lovers", "for music lovers", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "1481443496", "seamus": 558513452, "itunes": 9781481443494, "goodreads": 29445200, "bookshop": 9781481443494, "cover": "1481443496", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481443494", "isbn10": "1481443496", "links": [] }, "172": { "id": 172, "title": "My Absolute Darling: A Novel", "author": "Gabriel Tallent", "reviewers": [ "Meghan Keane" ], "text": "Turtle is a 14-year-old girl who eats raw eggs for breakfast and carries a gun. She has learned everything about survival from her gritty father, which doesn’t always mean good things. As Turtle starts to make inroads with her classmates, her widower father starts to see his control over his daughter slip. My Absolute Darling is imbued with a beautiful tension that evolves unexpectedly, transforming it from a coming-of-age novel to a thriller that had me gasping in shock so frequently that I got looks on the plane.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0735211175", "seamus": 545779302, "itunes": 9780735211179, "goodreads": 33572350, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735211175", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735211179", "isbn10": "0735211175", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 172, "book": "My Absolute Darling: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Author Gabriel Tallent On His Difficult Debut Novel, 'My Absolute Darling'", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/author-gabriel-tallent-his-difficult-debut-novel-my-absolute-darling" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 172, "book": "My Absolute Darling: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'My Absolute Darling' Is Hard To Read, Harder To Put Down", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/29/545776877/my-absolute-darling-is-hard-to-read-harder-to-put-down" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 172, "book": "My Absolute Darling: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Love And Cruelty Are Bound Together In 'My Absolute Darling'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/26/546117898/love-and-cruelty-are-bound-together-in-my-absolute-darling" } ] }, "173": { "id": 173, "title": "My Brother's Husband", "author": "Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "Set in Japan, My Brother’s Husband follows Yaichi, whose life is upended by a visit from Mike Flanagan, his estranged – now deceased – brother’s husband. Mike is clearly grieving his loss, but at first, Yaichi’s discomfort with homosexuality prevents the two men from connecting. But the longer Mike hangs around, the more Yaichi is forced to question the reasons behind his discomfort. Writer and artist Gengoroh Tagame is perhaps best known for his gay erotic comics, and some of that shows here – men’s bodies are lovingly rendered on the page – but My Brother’s Husband isn’t explicit. It’s a quiet and tender examination of grief and the slow process toward understanding and acceptance of differences.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "family matters", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "fiction", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101871512", "seamus": 559131683, "itunes": 9781101871515, "goodreads": 32337897, "bookshop": 9781101871515, "cover": "1101871512", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101871515", "isbn10": "1101871512", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 173, "book": "My Brother's Husband", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'My Brother's Husband Vol. 2,' Family Values (And The Value Of Family) ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/10/12/639601426/in-my-brothers-husband-vol-2-family-values-and-the-value-of-family" } ] }, "174": { "id": 174, "title": "My Darling Detective", "author": "Howard Norman", "reviewers": [ "Robert Siegel" ], "text": "Howard Norman’s newest novel is set in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and revolves around a photograph at auction. The image shows a dead World War II soldier, and during the auction the protagonist’s mother throws black ink all over it. From there we try to figure out the story of both mother and son.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction", "for art lovers", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0544236106", "seamus": 558775356, "itunes": 9780544236103, "goodreads": 30971781, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544236106", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544236103", "isbn10": "0544236106", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 174, "book": "My Darling Detective", "source": "VPR", "text": "Author Howard Norman's Latest Novel Is Steeped In The Noir Tradition", "url": "http://digital.vpr.net/post/author-howard-normans-latest-novel-steeped-noir-tradition#stream/0" } ] }, "175": { "id": 175, "title": "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", "author": "Emil Ferris", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Many were stunned by this monumental, eccentric achievement from an artistic outsider. On page after page, Ferris’ painstaking yet emotionally fraught drawings add up to a kind of controlled explosion of self-expression. The weird and wrenching story – of a troubled young girl trying to solve her neighbor’s murder – is almost a bonus. Ferris works in rollerball and painstakingly manipulates her sketches to look like her protagonist scribbled them hastily in a school notebook. In fact, they’re layered in by computer, with even the notebook lines added digitally. It’s a haunting and iconic effect.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for art lovers", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1606999591", "seamus": 516643688, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 29069374, "bookshop": 9781606999592, "cover": "1606999591", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781606999592", "isbn10": "1606999591", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 175, "book": "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Every Full Moon We Can Howl At Is A Victory,' Says Emil Ferris", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/08/03/635407169/every-full-moon-we-can-howl-at-is-a-victory-says-emil-ferris" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 175, "book": "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": "Let's Get Graphic: 100 Favorite Comics And Graphic Novels", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/12/533862948/lets-get-graphic-100-favorite-comics-and-graphic-novels" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 175, "book": "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Monsters,' Graphic Novelist Emil Ferris Embraces The Darkness Within", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/30/522034367/in-monsters-graphic-novelist-emil-ferris-embraces-the-darkness-within" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 175, "book": "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'My Favorite Thing Is Monsters' Is A Dazzling, Graphic Novel Tour-De-Force", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/22/516643494/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-is-a-dazzling-graphic-novel-tour-de-force" } ] }, "176": { "id": 176, "title": "My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness", "author": "Nagata Kabi", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "Manga artist Nagata Kabi’s autobiographical graphic novel My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is both deeply specific and universal. Nagata is extremely honest about her struggle to balance personal desire and parental expectation and to find employment in the midst of crippling mental illness. It can be intense, especially if you too struggle with those issues. Her tone, though, is friendly and matter-of-fact, and her art is playful, which lightens the heavy subject matter. Much of the book builds up to Nagata’s first sexual experience – she hires a sex worker, and she’s as refreshingly honest about that encounter as she is about everything else in her life.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "let’s talk about sex", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1626926034", "seamus": 559132036, "itunes": 9781626926035, "goodreads": 33113683, "bookshop": 9781626926035, "cover": "1626926034", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626926035", "isbn10": "1626926034", "links": [] }, "177": { "id": 177, "title": "My Life, My Love, My Legacy", "author": "Coretta Scott King, as told to Barbara Reynolds", "reviewers": [ "Neda Ulaby" ], "text": "This memoir is a bracing account of one of the civil rights movement’s greatest heroines. It’s no surprise to learn about Coretta Scott King’s brave and bounteous spirituality, but she was also conflicted and complex. A leading pacifist of her era, King got in trouble as a little girl for hitting other children. She didn’t want to date Martin Luther King Jr. when she first met him because he was too short, and even her husband failed to understand the profundity and the depth of his wife’s inner calling. In one of the book’s most painful passages, she recounts her self-doubt about how she handled talking to her children about their father’s assassination. King’s decades-long friendship with journalist Barbara Reynolds yields a thrilling portrait of a woman who helped transform American morality while fighting both racial injustice and the men of the civil rights movement who consistently ignored, underestimated and undermined her. This memoir is a tonic at this historical moment and a much-needed and ultimately uplifting refresher on what it means to be a principled American.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "love & romance", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1627795987", "seamus": 559002588, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 30199434, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1627795987", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781627795982", "isbn10": "1627795987", "links": [] }, "178": { "id": 178, "title": "Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What The Numbers Reveal About The Classics, Bestsellers, And Our Own Writing", "author": "Ben Blatt", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Statistician Ben Blatt loaded thousands of books – classics and contemporary best-sellers – into various databases and let his hard drive churn through them, seeking to determine, for example, if our favorite authors follow conventional writing advice about using cliches, adverbs and exclamation points (they mostly do); if men and women write differently (yep); if an algorithm can identify a writer from his or her prose style (it can); and which authors use the shortest first sentences (Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Mark Twain) versus those who use the longest (Salman Rushdie, Michael Chabon, Edith Wharton). It’s a thin slice, looking at literature in this knowingly reductive way. It doesn’t tell you everything, and of course it doesn’t give you a true sense of the feeling you get when you read for yourself. But what it often succeeds in capturing, with astonishing clarity, is your feelings about these authors.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for art lovers", "it’s all geek to me", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1501105388", "seamus": 522075272, "itunes": 9781501105388, "goodreads": 30753786, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501105388", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501105388", "isbn10": "1501105388", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 178, "book": "Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What The Numbers Reveal About The Classics, Bestsellers, And Our Own Writing", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve' Crunches The (Literary) Numbers", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/31/521836700/nabokovs-favorite-word-is-mauve-crunches-the-literary-numbers" } ] }, "179": { "id": 179, "title": "New People", "author": "Danzy Senna", "reviewers": [ "Sam Sanders" ], "text": "A lot of times, with certain hot-button political issues, it feels like we’re saying the same things over and over again. I feel this way especially about race, an issue the whole country seems to talk in circles about, over and over again. That’s why I so loved Danzy Senna’s New People. It made me think about race in a way I never have before: of race as performance, regardless of our identities; of this idea that we all “pass” for something every day, whether we’re white, black, brown or something in between. And on top of that, New People functions as a truly delectable satirical suspense thriller. You’ve gotta read it.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "159448709X", "seamus": 541712492, "itunes": 9781594487095, "goodreads": 33275357, "bookshop": "", "cover": "159448709X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594487095", "isbn10": "159448709X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 179, "book": "New People", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'New People' Author Danzy Senna Loves The Troublesome Characters", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/05/541632183/new-people-author-danzy-senna-loves-the-troublesome-characters" } ] }, "180": { "id": 180, "title": "Norse Mythology", "author": "Neil Gaiman", "reviewers": [ "Tamar Charney" ], "text": "It’s hard not to be familiar with Thor, Loki, Odin and the other characters of Nordic mythology who populate our operas, video games and TV shows. But I was a bit sketchy on the details despite my obsession with all things Icelandic. This is the book I’ve been waiting for. Let’s face it, the classic version of these tales – the Edda – is a bit impenetrable for many of us modern mortals. Gaiman’s take is a funny and accessible account of how these Norse deities succumb to greed and vanity, how they are blinded by their self-righteousness and entitlement, and how, time and time again, they persist through – yup, you guessed it – trickery and force. In the way of myths, these ancient stories speak enduring truths about our time.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "it’s all geek to me", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "039360909X", "seamus": 514557250, "itunes": 9780393609097, "goodreads": 30831912, "bookshop": 9780393609097, "cover": "039360909X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780393609097", "isbn10": "039360909X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 180, "book": "Norse Mythology", "source": "WPSU", "text": "BookMark: 'Norse Mythology' By Neil Gaiman", "url": "http://radio.wpsu.org/post/bookmark-norse-mythology-neil-gaiman" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 180, "book": "Norse Mythology", "source": "NPR", "text": "Looking For Thor's Hammer: Neil Gaiman On 'Norse Mythology'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/13/514557427/looking-for-thors-hammer-neil-gaiman-on-norse-mythology" } ] }, "181": { "id": 181, "title": "Not A Sound: A Novel", "author": "Heather Gudenkauf", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "When was the last time you stayed up to finish a thriller? I usually answer that question with Ken Follett’s *Eye of the Needle* or Geoffrey Household’s *Rogue Male*, two classic World War II suspense novels. This year, though, I added a different kind of novel: Heather Gudenkauf’s *Not a Sound*, a terrific “woman in trouble” tale.
\nGudenkauf’s heroine, Amelia Winn, is profoundly deaf. (Gudenkauf herself identifies as hearing-impaired.) When Amelia and her dog, Stitch, discover the corpse of a former co-worker near her isolated cabin, she begins investigating and sinister happenings escalate. The climax here – involving the intrepid Stitch – is a real knuckle-biter.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0778319954", "seamus": 559107760, "itunes": 9780778319955, "goodreads": 32739978, "bookshop": 9780778319955, "cover": "0778319954", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780778319955", "isbn10": "0778319954", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 181, "book": "Not A Sound: A Novel", "source": "Iowa Public Radio", "text": "Not a Sound': Author Heather Gudenkauf", "url": "http://iowapublicradio.org/post/not-sound-author-heather-gudenkauf#stream/0" } ] }, "182": { "id": 182, "title": "Now", "author": "Antoinette Portis", "reviewers": [ "Sydnee Monday" ], "text": "Every kid has a favorite thing, whether it’s a color (red, because that’s the best Power Ranger) or hobby (playing dress-up because dad’s got a fun closet). Now celebrates kids and their favorites, but introduces different reasons, like “this is my favorite cloud because it’s the one I am watching” and “this is my favorite tree because it’s the one where I am swinging.” With the ever-increasing anxieties surrounding kids and tech, this book is a simple, sweet introduction to mindfulness, with sentences and illustrations as calming as watching a cloud drift by on a sunny day. (Ages 3-6)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1626721378", "seamus": 559578449, "itunes": 9781626721371, "goodreads": 31145066, "bookshop": 9781626721371, "cover": "1626721378", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626721371", "isbn10": "1626721378", "links": [] }, "183": { "id": 183, "title": "On Second Thought", "author": "Kristan Higgins", "reviewers": [ "Maya Rodale" ], "text": "Sometimes love isn’t all sunshine, roses and forever, as Kristan Higgins reminds us in this contemporary romance about two sisters grappling with the sudden demise of their relationships. Kate is approaching 40 and widowed after four months of marriage; Ainsley’s longtime boyfriend has left her suddenly. The sisters’ friendship deepens as they rely on each other to get through both heartache and the sweet second love that finds them both. This is a novel about how love happens when you least expect it, with the people you don’t always anticipate – and at any age.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "book club ideas", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0373789254", "seamus": 515033791, "itunes": 9780373789252, "goodreads": 29095428, "bookshop": 9780373789252, "cover": "0373789254", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780373789252", "isbn10": "0373789254", "links": [] }, "184": { "id": 184, "title": "One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter: Essays", "author": "Scaachi Koul", "reviewers": [ "Emily Bogle" ], "text": "Each essay in BuzzFeed writer Scaachi Koul’s collection begins with an email exchange with her father, who is often simultaneously furious and magnanimous (you can see where Koul gets her dry humor). She examines her family in a frank yet tender way, from her parents’ beautiful and dark sides to her hopes and concerns for her niece, nicknamed Raisin. Koul is especially afraid of death and everyone in her life dying (she mentions planning her own funeral and hypothetically dealing with her parents’ estate several times) but she fights through that anxiety, even if it means facing her fears of flying, open water and spiders on a bumpy trip to Southeast Asia.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "family matters", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "let’s talk about sex", "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1250121027", "seamus": 558521857, "itunes": 9781250121028, "goodreads": 29635591, "bookshop": 9781250121028, "cover": "1250121027", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250121028", "isbn10": "1250121027", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 184, "book": "One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter: Essays", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Scaachi Koul: White Men Tell Me To Be Kinder", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/scaachi-koul-white-men-tell-me-be-kinder" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 184, "book": "One Day We'll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter: Essays", "source": "NPR", "text": "We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/752044550/we-did-it-for-the-lols-100-favorite-funny-books" } ] }, "185": { "id": 185, "title": "One, Two, Three, More", "author": "Helen Levitt", "reviewers": [ "Melissa Block" ], "text": "Oh, to have the brilliant eye of the late photographer Helen Levitt. These photos, taken between 1934 and 1946 (and most never published before), bring a grubby, gritty New York City to life. Women sit on stoops reading the newspaper, or prop their elbows on a window ledge with a pillow for comfort, keeping watch on the action below. Children play in the streets with makeshift toys: a bag filled with flour, a nub of chalk, a piece of string. Life then – before television, before air conditioning – was lived on the street, and Levitt was right there, a sly and sharp observer. Each one of these images is a marvel.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "for art lovers", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "157687852X", "seamus": 559095624, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34013455, "bookshop": 9781576878521, "cover": "157687852X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781576878521", "isbn10": "157687852X", "links": [] }, "186": { "id": 186, "title": "Ordinary Beast: Poems", "author": "Nicole Sealey", "reviewers": [ "Sydnee Monday" ], "text": "There are wry, everyday insights in Ordinary Beast, and then there are things poet Nicole Sealey draws out to let sit. The opening poem is a medical history of her family; in another, a friend’s been left the “House In Virginia” after a breakup, and then Sealey recognizes that’s an acronym – before kissing his hands. Throughout this collection, Sealey is a shapeshifter, adding razor sharp humor when the ironies become too much, softening when those ironies begin to grate.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062688804", "seamus": 558582929, "itunes": 9780062688804, "goodreads": 33545338, "bookshop": 9780062688804, "cover": "0062688804", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062688804", "isbn10": "0062688804", "links": [] }, "187": { "id": 187, "title": "Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life", "author": "Jonathan Gould", "reviewers": [ "Ann Powers" ], "text": "I frankly find most musician biographies more useful than compelling, but Jonathan Gould’s account of Otis Redding’s tragically short life is gripping because Gould gets at what made Redding both a fascinating individual and an emblem. This is a Southern story of desegregation and enduring white supremacy and of country values encountering city opportunities; it’s a story of hope, conveyed within Redding’s electric performances, and disaster. (Few deaths in music history are more wrenching than the singer’s demise in a plane crash at only 26.) Gould’s book is a crucial contribution to our understanding of a time that’s too often obscured by mere nostalgia.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "rather long", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0307453944", "seamus": 528118791, "itunes": 9780307453945, "goodreads": 22318352, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0307453944", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780307453945", "isbn10": "0307453944", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 187, "book": "Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life", "source": "NPR", "text": "Otis Redding's 'Unfinished Life' Still Resonates", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/13/528116058/otis-reddings-unfinished-life-still-resonates" } ] }, "188": { "id": 188, "title": "Out In The Open: A Novel", "author": "Jesus Carrasco", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "In this haunting novel, an unnamed boy flees home to escape sexual and physical abuse. He is taken in by an old goatherd, who – without saying so – teaches the boy how to survive “out in the open.” The deepening relationship between boy and man is composed of deceptively simple encounters with the goats and with the outdoors. Part allegory, part primer on love and caring, Out in the Open deploys beautiful, spare language to unfurl the damaging complexities of trauma, affirming that with the right kind of nurturing, a child can forge a path forward.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "159463436X", "seamus": 559111450, "itunes": 9781594634369, "goodreads": 33113298, "bookshop": "", "cover": "159463436X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594634369", "isbn10": "159463436X", "links": [] }, "189": { "id": 189, "title": "Out Of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets", "author": "Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, illustrated by Ekua Holmes", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "Ostensibly a picture book for children, this collection is an absolute joy – age be damned. Kwame Alexander and collaborators Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth have written original poems in the style of some of the world’s finest poets – Rumi, Langston Hughes and Emily Dickinson, among many others. The poems, paired with Ekua Holmes’ bright illustrations, pop off the page and linger delightfully on the tongue and in the mind: “Make a paint box out of letters; add water and dip your brush. Swirl it on the paper with style while you are humming a tune, smiling or standing still. Waiting for the school bus, you can dazzle your friends with the words you have made and strung together like beads around your neck.” (“The Blue Alphabet,” by Marjory Wentworth, celebrating Terrance Hayes)
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "kids’ books", "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "076368094X", "seamus": 520422576, "itunes": 9780763680947, "goodreads": 31247819, "bookshop": 9780763680947, "cover": "076368094X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780763680947", "isbn10": "076368094X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 189, "book": "Out Of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Out Of Wonder' Aims To Inspire A New Generation Of Poets", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/17/520421503/out-of-wonder-aims-to-inspire-a-new-generation-of-poets" } ] }, "190": { "id": 190, "title": "Pachinko", "author": "Min Jin Lee", "reviewers": [ "Lynn Neary" ], "text": "Japan’s bright, noisy pachinko parlors hide a dark secret. These pinball emporiums are run mostly by Japan’s Korean minority because for decades it was the only employment available to them. In Pachinko, Min Jin Lee traces the difficult history of Koreans in Japan through one family’s story. The saga begins before World War I in a small Korean fishing village, where a young woman becomes pregnant and is saved from disgrace by a man who offers to marry her and takes her to Japan. We follow her and her two sons as they struggle against discrimination, trying to gain respect in a hostile country. Min Jin Lee brings this corner of history to life in a tale that spans three wars and the growth of a multibillion-dollar business that offered Korean-Japanese a way out of poverty.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "staff picks", "historical fiction", "fiction", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "eye-opening reads", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1455563935", "seamus": 512916694, "itunes": 9781455563937, "goodreads": 29983711, "bookshop": 9781455563937, "cover": "1455563935", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781455563937", "isbn10": "1455563935", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 190, "book": "Pachinko", "source": "NPR", "text": "Culture Clash, Survival And Hope In 'Pachinko'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/512910187/culture-clash-survival-and-hope-in-pachinko" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 190, "book": "Pachinko", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Pachinko' Is A Family Saga Of Exile, Discrimination ... And Japanese Pinball", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/06/513304628/pachinko-is-a-family-saga-of-exile-discrimination-and-japanese-pinball" } ] }, "191": { "id": 191, "title": "Piecing Me Together", "author": "Renee Watson", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "It’s incredible how much insight can be wrung from familiar stories when they are approached thoughtfully and grounded by close observation. For example, while the challenge of being a scholarship student at an elite private school has been canvassed pretty thoroughly ever since Tom Brown first had his school days, Renee Watson manages to find fresh life in this old narrative. With poetically efficient writing, Watson manages to create astonishingly nuanced relationships, sneaking 86 undercurrents into conversations with fewer than 17 words – all resulting in a richly complex story about whom we imagine needs help and what women – across age, class and race divides – really have to teach one another.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "fiction", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1681191059", "seamus": 559123952, "itunes": 9781681191058, "goodreads": 30038963, "bookshop": 9781681191058, "cover": "1681191059", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781681191058", "isbn10": "1681191059", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 191, "book": "Piecing Me Together", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Piecing Me Together' Novelist Says She Writes To Help Kids Feel Seen", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/02/17/586479140/piecing-me-together-novelist-says-she-writes-to-help-kids-feel-seen" } ] }, "192": { "id": 192, "title": "Pretending Is Lying", "author": "Dominique Goblet, translated by Sophie Yanow", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Here’s a terrific example of the current wave of great comics from Europe. Dominique Goblet’s approach is postmodern, with a scruffy, anything-goes mix of styles and moods, but it’s marked everywhere by her forays into photography. She intersperses her tale – an autobiographical account of family, a lover, truth, lies and brutality – with images that look like photos. She’s fascinated by the same aesthetic conundrum that has captivated photographers throughout the medium’s history: Can an image tell a lie? Can it ever not tell one?
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for art lovers", "fiction", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1681370476", "seamus": 512056754, "itunes": 9781681370477, "goodreads": 29236428, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1681370476", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781681370477", "isbn10": "1681370476", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 192, "book": "Pretending Is Lying", "source": "NPR", "text": "With A Photographer's Eye, A French Cartoonist Interrogates Truth", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/05/512043013/with-a-photographers-eye-a-french-cartoonist-interrogates-truth" } ] }, "193": { "id": 193, "title": "Pretty Face", "author": "Lucy Parker", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Wendell" ], "text": "A talented British actress with a too-easily-typecast face, voice and figure auditions for a role in a London debut production directed by a cranky, stressed and unwillingly impressed veteran of the stage. There are many reasons they shouldn’t be together. In fact, Lily calls Luc “all of her lifelong deal-breakers in one man.” Outstanding dialogue and world-building, emotional honesty, characters determined to be decent people, and realistic, relatable obstacles combine to make this book a delightful twist on the celebrity fairy tale. I highlighted so many memorable lines that I probably doubled the ebook file size.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "for art lovers", "tales from around the world", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "1335013261", "seamus": 559876588, "itunes": 9781335013262, "goodreads": 30631124, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1335013261", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781335013262", "isbn10": "1335013261", "links": [] }, "194": { "id": 194, "title": "Priestdaddy: A Memoir", "author": "Patricia Lockwood", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "“I like to think I sprang from a head; I like to think the head was mine,” writes Patricia Lockwood in Priestdaddy, her affectionate memoir of growing up with a Catholic priest for a father. But no. She sprang from the loins of Father Gregory Lockwood, who rarely wears pants, washes himself with dish soap and plays the guitar like “a whole band dying in a plane crash in the year 1972.” At its best, Priestdaddy is antic, funny and humane.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1594633738", "seamus": 527633604, "itunes": 9781594633737, "goodreads": 31920820, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594633738", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594633737", "isbn10": "1594633738", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 194, "book": "Priestdaddy: A Memoir", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Patricia Lockwood", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/marginalia-patricia-lockwood" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 194, "book": "Priestdaddy: A Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": "We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/752044550/we-did-it-for-the-lols-100-favorite-funny-books" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 194, "book": "Priestdaddy: A Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Priestdaddy' Shimmers With Wonderful, Obscene Life", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/10/527629781/priestdaddy-shimmers-with-wonderful-obscene-life" } ] }, "195": { "id": 195, "title": "Priscilla Gorilla", "author": "Barbara Bottner, illustrated by Michael Emberley", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "Priscilla is one of those kids with an obsession: Hers is gorillas. That enthusiasm sends her to her classroom’s thinking corner again and again. Yet we can’t help but root for troublemaking Priscilla, because she can’t help constantly bubbling over with gorilla facts. I love her parents’ calmness and how Priscilla’s joy helps her make friends and how she evolves over the course of the story. Her teacher and her energy remind me of the Kevin Henkes’ classic Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse. Michael Emberley’s artwork surprises as much as Priscilla herself, reveling in life’s sun-filled moments and messy details. (For ages 4 to 7)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1481458973", "seamus": 559031298, "itunes": 9781481458979, "goodreads": 28954096, "bookshop": 9781481458979, "cover": "1481458973", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481458979", "isbn10": "1481458973", "links": [] }, "196": { "id": 196, "title": "Quicksand", "author": "Malin Persson Giolito", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Maja killed her best friend, Amanda, and her boyfriend, Sebastian, at their school. We know she has confessed; we know she is on trial for the crimes. In this English-language debut from Swedish novelist Malin Persson Giolito, however, everything is quicksand, and that includes Maja’s memories of what happened on that bloody day. The book provides a razor-sharp view of modern Sweden and its criminal justice system, yet is a tonic for readers who have had enough of the brooding, often-bloody “Scandi-crime” that has been so popular in recent years.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1590518578", "seamus": 558356046, "itunes": 9781590518571, "goodreads": 30724110, "bookshop": 9781590518571, "cover": "1590518578", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781590518571", "isbn10": "1590518578", "links": [] }, "197": { "id": 197, "title": "Refugee", "author": "Alan Gratz", "reviewers": [ "Ellen Silva" ], "text": "If you are the parent of a 9- to 12-year-old who shows interest in politics or injustice and isn’t prone to nightmares, Refugee is an intelligent, human, harrowing read by Alan Gratz. It unspools three stories of children in their own (fictional) voices. Josef’s story begins in 1938 Nazi Germany on Kristallnacht (or, the Night of Broken Glass); Isabel’s story opens in 1994 Cuba; and Mahmoud is trying to survive 2015 Aleppo, Syria. Each child goes on a dangerous journey to find what most of us take for granted – a safe place to call home. My advice: Read with your kid and be around to discuss. (For ages 9 to 12)
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "fiction", "kids’ books", "eye-opening reads", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0545880831", "seamus": 567819541, "itunes": 9780545880831, "goodreads": 34324487, "bookshop": 9780545880831, "cover": "0545880831", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780545880831", "isbn10": "0545880831", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 197, "book": "Refugee", "source": "NPR", "text": "New Kids' Books Put A Human Face On The Refugee Crisis", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/07/10/626184256/new-kids-books-put-a-human-face-on-the-refugee-crisis" } ] }, "198": { "id": 198, "title": "Reincarnation Blues: A Novel", "author": "Michael Poore", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Milo is a wise man who is making his own meandering way toward perfection, who has already lived 9,995 of his allotted 10,000 lives. If that sounds soft and New Age-y, it isn’t. Instead it’s a very heavy story about redemption and kindness cloaked in goofiness and the kind of wild imagination that you just don’t see often. Michael Poore tells the story of Milo’s final five lives here, but the real joy in Reincarnation Blues is when he digresses into discussions of some of the other 9,995 that Milo has lived. Poore can break your heart with a single line. He can do absurdity, dry humor, shark attacks, philosophical anarchy and an acceptance of the hard fact that every life is a death sentence, made valuable only by what we choose to do between the first day and the last one.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "love & romance", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0399178481", "seamus": 544543186, "itunes": 9780399178481, "goodreads": 33571217, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399178481", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399178481", "isbn10": "0399178481", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 198, "book": "Reincarnation Blues: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Take A Walk On The Wilder Side Of Death With 'Reincarnation Blues'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/26/543933403/take-a-walk-on-the-wilder-side-of-death-with-reincarnation-blues" } ] }, "199": { "id": 199, "title": "Richard Nixon: The Life", "author": "John A. Farrell", "reviewers": [ "Scott Detrow" ], "text": "He seethes and rages at the press, which he casts as his enemy. He spends decades with his nose pressed up against the glass, looking in on the establishment, longing for its acceptance, and raging at its rejection. And then, suddenly, he taps into an undercurrent of populism that establishment didn’t quite understand, and he makes it to the White House. But investigations loom. You get the picture. Even without eye-popping parallels on seemingly every other page, John Farrell’s book would be a top-tier political biography. With Donald Trump in the White House, it’s essential political reading.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "biography & memoir", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0385537352", "seamus": 522926193, "itunes": 9780385537353, "goodreads": 31579314, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385537352", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385537353", "isbn10": "0385537352", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 199, "book": "Richard Nixon: The Life", "source": "KUER", "text": "The Life And Legacy of Richard Nixon", "url": "http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/life-and-legacy-richard-nixon" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 199, "book": "Richard Nixon: The Life", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Nixon: The Life' Humanizes — But Doesn't Rehabilitate", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/12/522926517/nixon-the-life-humanizes-but-doesnt-rehabilitate" } ] }, "200": { "id": 200, "title": "Righteous", "author": "Joe Ide", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "Joe Ide’s second book in a planned series features his hero, Isaiah Quintabe (IQ), a brilliant high school dropout who has morphed into a private eye for home folks whom the police can’t or won’t help. Righteous takes IQ to Las Vegas, where he fights off Chinese gangsters, searches for a DJ on the run from a loan shark and chips away at the mystery of who killed his adored big brother, Marcus, via a savage hit-and-run. It’s all spiked with Ide’s mordant observations on humanity’s darker impulses. Read slowly: Book 3 isn’t due till next year.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316267775", "seamus": 564170827, "itunes": 9780316267779, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316267775", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316267779", "isbn10": "0316267775", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 200, "book": "Righteous", "source": "NPR", "text": "Joe Ide: Creating A Complicated Hero From the Hood", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/11/10/562935061/joe-ide-creating-a-complicated-hero-from-the-hood" } ] }, "201": { "id": 201, "title": "Rise Of The Jumbies", "author": "Tracey Baptiste", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "Why buy another mediocre retelling of a Greek myth for your kid, when you can introduce them to a gorgeously told fairy tale that originated outside of Europe? Jumbies are the malevolent spirits of Caribbean folklore, and Corrine is the plucky 11-year-old heroine who had to call on her own magic to fight them in Tracey Baptiste’s first book, The Jumbies. This one, Rise of the Jumbies, is one of those great sequels that really delivers on the promise of its predecessor – taking Corrine and her buddies into an expanded undersea world and connecting the mythology to the roots of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in a way that is complex but not heavy-handed.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1616206659", "seamus": 558352410, "itunes": 9781616206659, "goodreads": 33590220, "bookshop": 9781616206659, "cover": "1616206659", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781616206659", "isbn10": "1616206659", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 201, "book": "Rise Of The Jumbies", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Explores A Dark History Through A Magical Story In 'Rise Of The Jumbies'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/12/563276589/tackling-a-dark-subject-for-young-readers" } ] }, "202": { "id": 202, "title": "River Of Teeth", "author": "Sarah Gailey", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "It’s like Ocean’s Eleven, set in the Wild West … but with hippos! What more could you want? Sarah Gailey’s novella takes off from a real, but justly-forgotten early 20th century government plan to ranch hippos in the Louisiana bayous. From that unlikely premise, she spins a tight, rollicking heist tale starring a gorgeously diverse crew of misfits (and their faithful hippos, who have just as much personality as their riders). Prepare to be surprised – and not just by how fast and mean hippos really are.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "rather short", "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0765395231", "seamus": 530095720, "itunes": 9780765395238, "goodreads": 33099585, "bookshop": 9780765395238, "cover": "0765395231", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780765395238", "isbn10": "0765395231", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 202, "book": "River Of Teeth", "source": "NPR", "text": "Hip, Hippo Hooray For 'River Of Teeth'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/28/528842986/hip-hippo-hooray-for-river-of-teeth" } ] }, "203": { "id": 203, "title": "Royal City Volume 1: Next Of Kin", "author": "Jeff Lemire", "reviewers": [ "Mike Katzif" ], "text": "The distinctive writer and illustrator Jeff Lemire’s most personal work yet, Royal City centers on a struggling author who returns home to a decaying factory town after his father suffers a heart attack. But being back home cannot help but dredge up the pain and trauma of his childhood. As he is forced to confront and reconnect with his family, which has frayed in the decades following a tragic death, they are still haunted by an array of manifestations of their lost sibling. A story of isolation and grief, crumbling relationships and lingering secrets, Royal City reveals why we can never truly escape the past.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "the dark side", "family matters", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "153430262X", "seamus": 559092136, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34975030, "bookshop": 9781534302624, "cover": "153430262X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781534302624", "isbn10": "153430262X", "links": [] }, "204": { "id": 204, "title": "Run For It: Stories Of Slaves Who Fought For Their Freedom", "author": "Marcelo D'Salete", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Brazilian artist Marcelo D’Salete draws extensively on historical documents to tell these harrowing stories of Africans living under slavery. In striking black-and-white illustrations using a variety of pens and brushes, he tells deeply unsettling stories about the institution’s brutality in his country. Spare compositions contrast with pages packed with dense jungle – which, like the ocean, was a beacon of freedom to escaping slaves. D’Salete has researched slaves’ art and myths to bring an extraordinary depth to each short tale, and he offers additional background in an informative glossary.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1683960491", "seamus": 558535040, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34445188, "bookshop": 9781683960492, "cover": "1683960491", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781683960492", "isbn10": "1683960491", "links": [] }, "205": { "id": 205, "title": "Salt Houses: A Novel", "author": "Hala Alyan", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "What does home mean when you no longer have a house – or a homeland? This beautiful novel traces one Palestinian family’s struggle with that question and how it can haunt generations. Hala Alyan’s own family history – for years, she felt as if she belonged nowhere – clearly informed her book, but her professional life as a clinical psychologist who has worked with refugee clients plays a part too. Along with another favorite from this year – Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West – this is an example of how fiction is often the best filter for the real world around us.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "historical fiction", "identity & culture", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0544912586", "seamus": 526786085, "itunes": 9780544912588, "goodreads": 30971664, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544912586", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544912588", "isbn10": "0544912586", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 205, "book": "Salt Houses: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch Book Club, Summer 2019", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/06/20/733808217/code-switch-book-club-summer-2019" } ] }, "206": { "id": 206, "title": "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering The Elements Of Good Cooking", "author": "Samin Nosrat, illustrated by Wendy MacNaughton", "reviewers": [ "Catherine Whelan" ], "text": "I talk about Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat the way people talk about beloved pets or newborn babies; like I was a different person before I read it – and I was. I liked to eat, but hated to cook. I was a huge proponent of what I called “snack dinner,” basically whatever I had that didn’t require a cooking implement. Samin Nosrat (and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton) set me straight. Together they debunk the concept of recipes, instead teaching you how to build food (and flavor) from scratch and by instinct. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat uses its eponymous guiding principles to chart a very delicious course toward never eating snack dinner again.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "eye-opening reads", "it’s all geek to me", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1476753830", "seamus": 530274313, "itunes": 9781476753836, "goodreads": 30753841, "bookshop": 9781476753836, "cover": "1476753830", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781476753836", "isbn10": "1476753830", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 206, "book": "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering The Elements Of Good Cooking", "source": "KQED", "text": "Chef Samin Nosrat Revels In ‘Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat’", "url": "https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/05/04/chef-samin-nosrat-revels-in-salt-fat-acid-heat/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 206, "book": "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering The Elements Of Good Cooking", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' Star Samin Nosrat Wants To Burn It All Down", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/12/14/676694693/salt-fat-acid-heat-star-samin-nosrat-wants-to-burn-it-all-down" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 206, "book": "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering The Elements Of Good Cooking", "source": "NPR", "text": "An Illustrated Guide To Master The Elements Of Cooking — Without Recipes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/30/529699099/-salt-fat-acid-heat-a-guide-to-the-elements-of-cooking" } ] }, "207": { "id": 207, "title": "Scandalous Ever After (Romance Of The Turf Book 2)", "author": "Theresa Romain", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "I only discovered Theresa Romain this summer, and then I lost several weeks of my life reading everything she had ever written. Scandalous Ever After is actually Book 2 in a series set in England’s horse-racing scene, but it stands perfectly well on its own. If you like Regency romances, sensitively-written heroes and consent as one of the hottest parts of sex, you’ll definitely fall for the widowed Lady Kate and her old friend, Evan.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1492649023", "seamus": 536915855, "itunes": 9781492649021, "goodreads": 32681107, "bookshop": 9781492649021, "cover": "1492649023", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781492649021", "isbn10": "1492649023", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 207, "book": "Scandalous Ever After (Romance Of The Turf Book 2)", "source": "NPR", "text": "For July, 3 Romance Heroines Who Want It All", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/15/536915769/for-july-3-romance-heroines-who-want-it-all" } ] }, "208": { "id": 208, "title": "Selection Day: A Novel", "author": "Aravind Adiga", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In Aravind Adiga’s charming novel of cricket and adolescence, the narrator swoops in and out of his characters’ inner voices with frightening precision and speed, laying out the paranoia, obsessions, tokens, idols and self-made prisons of each kid in a few bright, laserlike sentences. It’s sharp, sweet and never, ever, ever boring.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "1501150847", "seamus": 507163333, "itunes": 9781501150845, "goodreads": 34338494, "bookshop": 9781501150845, "cover": "1501150847", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501150845", "isbn10": "1501150847", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 208, "book": "Selection Day: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Cricket And Difficult Choices In 'Selection Day'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/08/507162506/cricket-and-difficult-choices-in-selection-day" } ] }, "209": { "id": 209, "title": "Sex And Rage: A Novel", "author": "Eve Babitz", "reviewers": [ "Rommel Wood" ], "text": "Eve Babitz’s 1979 novel Sex and Rage – reissued this year – is that third drink you stay out for, knowing you’re going to regret it the next morning (but in the best way possible). Babitz knows the ‘70s Los Angeles scene intimately because she lived it – and lived to tell the tale. Her writing is a refreshing antithesis to Joan Didion’s bleak vision of L.A., and her experiences blow through this book like hot wind in the jacaranda trees. Sex and Rage isn’t as sharp as the books Babitz made her name on (Eve’s Hollywood; Slow Days, Fast Company), but it’s nonetheless a mesmerizing account of a young woman grappling with addiction and balance in her career and life.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "let’s talk about sex", "the dark side", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1619029359", "seamus": 558774604, "itunes": 9781619029354, "goodreads": 32332902, "bookshop": 9781619029354, "cover": "1619029359", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781619029354", "isbn10": "1619029359", "links": [] }, "210": { "id": 210, "title": "Shadowhouse Fall", "author": "Daniel Jose Older", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Following the events of Shadowshaper, Sierra Santiago and her friends are experimenting with their new powers when they receive a warning: Something called the Deck of Worlds seeks to draw them all into its intrigues, casting them as villains in a centuries-long power struggle between Light and Dark. This dynamic recurs with teachers, security guards and police officers, all part of a system that wants to push Sierra’s Shadowhouse into the most degraded position possible, while she and her friends stand and proclaim the truth of their humanity and the unfairness of the deck stacked hundreds of years deep against them and their families.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "young adult", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0545952824", "seamus": 549273850, "itunes": 9780545952828, "goodreads": 34051373, "bookshop": 9780545952828, "cover": "0545952824", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780545952828", "isbn10": "0545952824", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 210, "book": "Shadowhouse Fall", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Shadowhouse Fall,' Magical Threats Map Real-World Peril", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/16/548664359/in-shadowhouse-fall-magical-threats-map-real-world-peril" } ] }, "211": { "id": 211, "title": "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign", "author": "Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes", "reviewers": [ "Ron Elving" ], "text": "Shattered was conceived as a behind-the-scenes account of how the first female president won the White House. But Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, who had unusual degrees of access to the Clinton campaign, could not have foreseen the outside forces and inside failings that led to her defeat – many of which they describe here in detail. An early front-runner in the race to explain Clinton’s stunning fall, this account has held its own through a long year of self-examination among Democrats, journalists and other professional observers.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0553447084", "seamus": 524339017, "itunes": 9780553447088, "goodreads": 31522140, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0553447084", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780553447088", "isbn10": "0553447084", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 211, "book": "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign", "source": "WYPR", "text": "Shattered' Authors Allen, Parnes On Why Clinton Lost", "url": "http://wypr.org/post/shattered-authors-allen-parnes-why-clinton-lost" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 211, "book": "Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Shattered' Picks Through The Broken Pieces Of Hillary Clinton's Dream", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/18/524338718/shattered-picks-through-the-broken-pieces-of-hillary-clintons-dream" } ] }, "212": { "id": 212, "title": "Shining City: A Novel", "author": "Tom Rosenstiel", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Uncannily pertinent to today’s hypercharged partisan battles, Shining City is a political thriller that opens with the sudden death of a Supreme Court justice. The president calls in Washington fixer Peter Rena and his partner Randi Brooks to secretly vet his new nominee to the Court, and as Peter and Randi wade through congressional minefields and treacherous, journalistic turf wars, they stumble upon a series of murders that appear linked to the president’s pick. Shining City is an entertaining page turner with an insider’s’ view of how Washington works.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062475363", "seamus": 515826981, "itunes": 9780062475367, "goodreads": 30319969, "bookshop": 9780062475367, "cover": "0062475363", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062475367", "isbn10": "0062475363", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 212, "book": "Shining City: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Shining City' Is Packed With Timely Thrills", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/18/515646786/shining-city-is-packed-with-timely-thrills" } ] }, "213": { "id": 213, "title": "Shutter Volume 5: So Far Beyond", "author": "Joe Keatinge, illustrated by Leila del Duca", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "Shutter Volume 5 is the final chapter in the Shutter comic series, written by Joe Keatinge and illustrated by Leila del Duca. At the beginning of the series, main character Kate Kristopher found herself the unwitting center of a bloody, centuries-old family drama. Now, older and a bit wiser, Kate leads her band of misfits directly into the fray. Keatinge’s writing is paced well – frantic and chaotic at times, quiet and reflective at others – and del Duca’s art is pitch perfect. It revels in the frenetic action of fight scenes (a note for the queasy, there’s a lot of violence), but shines best in the quiet, affectionate gestures between characters. The whole series is worth a read, and Shutter Volume 5 is explosive and bombastic – a fitting end to a series built on explosions and bombast.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1534302506", "seamus": 559131718, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34972076, "bookshop": 9781534302501, "cover": "1534302506", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781534302501", "isbn10": "1534302506", "links": [] }, "214": { "id": 214, "title": "Signals: New And Selected Stories", "author": "Tim Gautreaux", "reviewers": [ "Tom Cole" ], "text": "“Several angry looking people sat in hot cars, their faces carrying the uncomprehending disappointment of boiled crabs.” That is how Tim Gautreaux describes the denizens of a steamy Walmart parking lot in Louisiana.
\nGautreaux is the son of a Cajun tugboat captain, but he has never liked being described as a “Southern writer.” His latest book of short stories presents vivid, poignant portraits of a junk collector in Ohio, a furnace repairman in Minnesota, a Latvian in Louisiana and many other working-class characters who want to do good but struggle. You root for them – you’re completely drawn into their world. And that, for me, is the mark of a great writer.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "fiction", "staff picks", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0451493044", "seamus": 558308864, "itunes": 9780451493040, "goodreads": 30090088, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451493044", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451493040", "isbn10": "0451493044", "links": [] }, "215": { "id": 215, "title": "Sin Bravely: A Memoir Of Spiritual Disobedience", "author": "Maggie Rowe", "reviewers": [ "Natalie Friedman Winston" ], "text": "Everything about Sin Bravely is unexpected. It’s a deeply personal examination of what can happen when you take religion to the extreme, but it’s also hilarious. Maggie Rowe tells her own story of checking into an evangelical psychiatric facility after years of worrying she isn’t devout enough. Her fear of eternal damnation is real and at times uncomfortable to read about. But what I found so refreshing about this book was the way Rowe balanced serious religious reflection and humor without an ounce of snark or cynicism.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1593766599", "seamus": 559003441, "itunes": 9781593766597, "goodreads": 30652324, "bookshop": 9781593766597, "cover": "1593766599", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781593766597", "isbn10": "1593766599", "links": [] }, "216": { "id": 216, "title": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "author": "Jesmyn Ward", "reviewers": [ "Melissa Block" ], "text": "“I like to think I know what death is.” With that first line, Jesmyn Ward’s latest novel takes off like a shot, with 13-year-old Jojo, stoic and old beyond his years, leading the way. What follows is a gripping story of struggle, family bonds and racial injustice, told in alternating chapters by multiple narrators: Jojo; his drug-addicted mother, Leonie; and the ghost of a young boy long dead but still aching for answers. Set along Ward’s native Mississippi Gulf Coast – the setting, too, for her last novel, the indelible Salvage the Bones – Sing, Unburied, Sing shows an author with a commanding voice and a big, unflinching heart.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1501126067", "seamus": 547855239, "itunes": 9781501126062, "goodreads": 32920226, "bookshop": 9781501126062, "cover": "1501126067", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501126062", "isbn10": "1501126067", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 216, "book": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Jesmyn Ward", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/marginalia-jesmyn-ward" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 216, "book": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "source": "WWNO", "text": "The Reading Life with Jesmyn Ward", "url": "http://wwno.org/post/reading-life-jesmyn-ward" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 216, "book": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 216, "book": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Sing' Mourns The Dead, Both Buried And Unburied", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/06/547560046/sing-mourns-the-dead-both-buried-and-unburied" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 216, "book": "Sing, Unburied, Sing: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Writing Mississippi: Jesmyn Ward Salvages Stories Of The Silenced", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/31/547271081/writing-mississippi-jesmyn-ward-salvages-stories-of-the-silenced" } ] }, "217": { "id": 217, "title": "Slider", "author": "Pete Hautman", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "I never knew a book about competitive eating could be so charming, funny – and descriptive. When David, a high school freshman, accidentally buys a $2,000 half-eaten hot dog, he must win a pizza-eating contest to pay for it. Oh, and he’s also put in charge of taking care of his autistic younger brother for the summer. With its hysterical twists and turns, and heartfelt family struggles and triumphs, you will devour Pete Hautman’s Slider. (For ages 10 to 14)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0763690708", "seamus": 559124187, "itunes": 9780763690700, "goodreads": 34051894, "bookshop": 9780763690700, "cover": "0763690708", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780763690700", "isbn10": "0763690708", "links": [] }, "218": { "id": 218, "title": "Smile: A Novel", "author": "Roddy Doyle", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Irish novelist Roddy Doyle has always been known for his uproariously funny books, but his latest novel doesn’t have any laughs, and that’s by design. Smile follows a middle-aged man reeling from a breakup as he meets an old schoolmate who reminds him of a past he’d just as soon forget. It’s a shocking book, at times almost unbearable to read, and it’s by far the most serious of Doyle’s career. It’s also his bravest novel yet, and, by far, his best.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "the dark side", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0735224447", "seamus": 557348569, "itunes": 9780735224445, "goodreads": 34347431, "bookshop": 9780735224445, "cover": "0735224447", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735224445", "isbn10": "0735224447", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 218, "book": "Smile: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Not Much To 'Smile' About In Roddy Doyle's Intense New Novel", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/18/557191324/not-much-to-smile-about-in-roddy-doyles-intense-new-novel" } ] }, "219": { "id": 219, "title": "Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant And Unfussy New Favorites", "author": "Deb Perelman", "reviewers": [ "Gabriela Saldivia" ], "text": "The thing I love the most about the blog Smitten Kitchen isn’t the recipes – it’s the way Deb Perelman writes them. Equal parts tongue-in-cheek commentary and measuring instructions, Perelman’s style is relatable and fun. Her self-deprecating jokes are enough to make any novice cook feel comforted, and her well-thought-out recipe caveats will impress the most experienced baker. Perelman fills her latest cookbook with pages and pages of “real recipes for real people,” as it says on the inside cover. I trust her to give me a great recipe for just about anything, and when a friend gives me a rave review, I tell them, “Deb hasn’t let me down yet.”
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101874813", "seamus": 558780120, "itunes": 9781101874813, "goodreads": 34129998, "bookshop": 9781101874813, "cover": "1101874813", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101874813", "isbn10": "1101874813", "links": [] }, "220": { "id": 220, "title": "Solar Bones: A Novel", "author": "Mike McCormack", "reviewers": [ "Nishant Dahiya" ], "text": "You would think this book, written in one long sentence, with only commas for punctuation, would be a slog, but instead it’s a pleasure, and Mike McCormack has created a narrative of such power and precision, with a character, a civil engineer in a small Irish town, who exudes such quiet gentleness, confusion, sometimes anger and many a foible, that despite the sense that you might get lost between the past and present and inner and outer world, you don’t, and the book, contemporary and tragic and funny, is a delight(.)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1616958537", "seamus": 558996548, "itunes": 9781616958534, "goodreads": 33670613, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1616958537", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781616958534", "isbn10": "1616958537", "links": [] }, "221": { "id": 221, "title": "Solid State", "author": "Matt Fraction and Jonathan Coulton, illustrated by Albert Monteys", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "Musician Jonathan Coulton turned to writer Matt Fraction and artist Albert Monteys to tranform his concept album Solid State into a graphic novel set largely in a future that will seem familiar to any reader of science fiction: a corporate-owned dystopia where humans have become dutiful, unthinking, unfeeling worker bees attending to menial tasks amid a culture engineered to keep them unthinking and unfeeling. But the true subject of the book is not where humanity ends up, but how we’ll get from here to there. These three creators believe that the roots of a dystopic future lie all around us, but we’re collectively choosing to ignore them. As a consequence, the mood that Solid State leaves the reader in is a singular and contradictory one: a blithe, doggedly cheerful sense of hopelessness.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "comics & graphic novels", "for music lovers", "the dark side", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1534303650", "seamus": 540834312, "itunes": 9781534303652, "goodreads": 34975045, "bookshop": 9781534303652, "cover": "1534303650", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781534303652", "isbn10": "1534303650", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 221, "book": "Solid State", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Solid State': Jonathan Coulton's Sci-Fi Concept Album Becomes A Graphic Novel", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/03/539598382/-solid-state-jonathan-coulton-s-sci-fi-concept-album-becomes-a-graphic-novel" } ] }, "222": { "id": 222, "title": "Sour Heart", "author": "Jenny Zhang", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Jenny Zhang’s short story collection lit up my text messages with friends for weeks. We couldn’t stop dissecting Zhang’s characters, many of them Chinese immigrants or kids of Chinese immigrants, like us. Getting to know these characters and their varied flaws was like seeing parts of our lives reflected back at us – a rare experience. Zhang’s incisive, no-holds-barred style exposes the world of young Chinese-Americans in New York City as they attempt to make sense of how they and their families fit into it. Place is a crucial part of her work, as is the relationship of her young adults to their parents and siblings. Zhang deftly constructs a world in which many different types of characters co-exist and connect; I couldn’t help but feel as though the breadth of the Chinese-American experience had been rightfully acknowledged. Zhang is a writer to watch.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "fiction", "family matters", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0399589384", "seamus": 540954070, "itunes": 9780399589386, "goodreads": 32956008, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399589384", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399589386", "isbn10": "0399589384", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 222, "book": "Sour Heart", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Sour Heart' Offers A Fierce, Fresh Take On The 'Hell' Of Coming To America", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/18/544048748/sour-heart-offers-a-fierce-fresh-take-on-the-hell-of-coming-to-america" } ] }, "223": { "id": 223, "title": "Sourdough: A Novel", "author": "Robin Sloan", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Robin Sloan’s new novel, Sourdough, is like Fight Club meets The Great British Bake Off. It’s like Fight Club if no one got punched. It’s like Fight Club if Fight Club were written by someone concerned with a different, quieter kind of revolution, and if Fight Club were all about bread. Like his first book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, it is about geeks, nerds, coders, secret societies and bizarrely low-impact conspiracies that solely concern single-noun obsessives (food, in this case, rather than books). It concerns a young woman working as a robotics engineer who inherits a (semi)-magical sourdough starter that makes her friends, makes her famous and then almost eats San Francisco. And I’m only half-exaggerating that last part.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "cookbooks & food", "it’s all geek to me", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374203105", "seamus": 547023856, "itunes": 9780374203108, "goodreads": 33916024, "bookshop": 9780374203108, "cover": "0374203105", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374203108", "isbn10": "0374203105", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 223, "book": "Sourdough: A Novel", "source": "KQED", "text": "Tech And Food Cultures Collide In Robin Sloan’s ‘Sourdough’", "url": "https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/09/05/tech-and-food-cultures-collide-in-robin-sloans-sourdough/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 223, "book": "Sourdough: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Sourdough' Rises Like A Good Loaf", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/03/545778079/sourdough-rises-like-a-good-loaf" } ] }, "224": { "id": 224, "title": "South And West: From A Notebook", "author": "Joan Didion", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Full disclosure: I worship Joan Didion. She could publish a volume of her old grocery lists and I would read it. But I promise you, this book is meatier than that – it’s a fascinating glimpse at two unfinished projects. The first section contains observations and interviews from a 1970 road trip through the American South. The second is a meditation on Californian girlhood that Didion wrote during the 1976 Patty Hearst trial. Both provide a peek into Didion’s process while offering insightful crumbs with newfound relevance.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1524732796", "seamus": 559014824, "itunes": 9781524732790, "goodreads": 32842454, "bookshop": 9781524732790, "cover": "1524732796", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524732790", "isbn10": "1524732796", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 224, "book": "South And West: From A Notebook", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Joan Didion's 'South And West' Paints A Portrait Of The American Disconnect", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/artery/2017/03/07/south-and-west-joan-didion" } ] }, "225": { "id": 225, "title": "Spoonbenders: A Novel", "author": "Daryl Gregory", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Following a singular family of dysfunctional psychics between the 1960s and 1990s, Spoonbenders is a wacky, heartfelt novel, cutting its deck across three generations and shuffling them together with the perils of washed-up secret government agents, aging mobsters and long-distance relationships. From sleazy con-man beginnings to moving accounts of trauma and intimacy, this reads like a game of 52 Pick-Up resolving into a royal flush.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "historical fiction", "family matters", "funny stuff", "fiction" ], "isbn": "152473182X", "seamus": 534154291, "itunes": 9781524731823, "goodreads": 32842453, "bookshop": "", "cover": "152473182X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524731823", "isbn10": "152473182X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 225, "book": "Spoonbenders: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Charm Of 'Spoonbenders' Is No Cheap Trick", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/01/533819059/the-charm-of-spoonbenders-is-no-cheap-trick" } ] }, "226": { "id": 226, "title": "Standard Deviation: A Novel", "author": "Katherine Heiny", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I love a breezy domestic novel, and Standard Deviation certainly scratches that itch. Graham is married to Audra, a charming and vivacious graphic designer who lovingly dotes on their autistic son, Matthew. Things get interesting when the couple reconnects with Elspeth, Graham’s emotionally distant first wife. This book charmed me because of the two women at its center – they aren’t archetypes, but fully realized women. I understand why Graham fell in love with both of them.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0385353812", "seamus": 529161581, "itunes": 9780385353816, "goodreads": 31868125, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0385353812", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780385353816", "isbn10": "0385353812", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 226, "book": "Standard Deviation: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Second Thoughts About A Second Marriage In 'Standard Deviation'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/23/528839323/second-thoughts-about-a-second-marriage-in-standard-deviation" } ] }, "227": { "id": 227, "title": "Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary", "author": "Walter Stahr", "reviewers": [ "Ron Elving" ], "text": "When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton took over the immediate task of running the government in the final throes of the Civil War. Lincoln would not have been surprised, knowing as he did the complex and driven man who was the workhorse of his Cabinet. Here, biographer Walter Stahr details the grief, ambition and struggle that formed this Ohio river town lad who became perhaps the first Washington power lawyer. One Union general called him “the vilest man I ever knew,” but Lincoln gave him enormous credit for winning the war.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather long", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1476739307", "seamus": 542079963, "itunes": 9781476739304, "goodreads": 32810811, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1476739307", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781476739304", "isbn10": "1476739307", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 227, "book": "Stanton: Lincoln's War Secretary", "source": "NPR", "text": "New Biography Of Lincoln's Secretary Of War Reveals A Resilient Man, Haunted By Grief", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/08/542062280/new-biography-of-lincolns-secretary-of-war-reveals-a-resilient-man-haunted-by-gr" } ] }, "228": { "id": 228, "title": "Startup: A Novel", "author": "Doree Shafrir", "reviewers": [ "Anya Kamenetz" ], "text": "Startup is a morality play for the era of sexting. Tech company TakeOff is looking for funding, but a young tech reporter is chasing a sexual harassment story that would put TakeOff’s future in jeopardy. New York City’s Silicon Alley in the 2010s finally has the satirical novel it deserves. Doree Shafrir, a writer for BuzzFeed, gets the details spot-on and keeps the pace tight.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "funny stuff", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0316360384", "seamus": 558345214, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31423188, "bookshop": 9780316360388, "cover": "0316360384", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316360388", "isbn10": "0316360384", "links": [] }, "229": { "id": 229, "title": "Stay With Me: A Novel", "author": "Ayobami Adebayo", "reviewers": [ "Lynn Neary" ], "text": "The desire – no, make that the need – to have a child is the driving force of this novel set in Nigeria at the turn of this century. A young couple, Akin and Yejide, are very much in love but they cannot get pregnant. When Akin’s mother insists he take a second wife so he can be a father, Yejide becomes increasingly desperate. But few readers will guess the lengths this couple will go to in order to have a family, and what should bring happiness ends in tragedy. This is a sad story but a compelling one that will keep you turning pages as the secrets and lies that underpin this marriage are revealed and the love that first brought them together begins to collapse under the weight of deception.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0451494601", "seamus": 544534607, "itunes": 9780451494603, "goodreads": 32969150, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451494601", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451494603", "isbn10": "0451494601", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 229, "book": "Stay With Me: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Subtle, Brilliant 'Stay With Me' Blends The Personal And The Political", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/26/546142484/subtle-brilliant-stay-with-me-blends-the-personal-and-the-political" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 229, "book": "Stay With Me: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Stay With Me' Is A Novel Of Commitment, Culture And The Struggle To Conceive", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/544533403/stay-with-me-is-a-novel-of-commitment-culture-and-the-struggle-to-conceive" } ] }, "230": { "id": 230, "title": "Steal The Stars", "author": "Nat Cassidy and Mac Rogers", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "I first experienced this book as an audio play written by Mac Rogers and meticulously directed by Jordana Williams for Tor Labs, with stellar performances and jaw-dropping production standards, serialized into podcast episodes that kept me looking for stuff to clean so I could binge-listen. And now it’s a book, novelized by Nat Cassidy, who is also one of the cast members. Cornered by cruel contracts and an unforgiving military-industrial complex, Dakota Prentiss and Matt Salem decide to spectacularly quit their jobs by stealing the state secret they’re meant to be guarding. Cassidy does a brilliant job of adapting the podcast’s scalpel-sharp pacing, heartbreaking characters and flawless execution of a fascinating premise into a new format.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "mysteries & thrillers", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250172624", "seamus": 558309597, "itunes": 9781250172624, "goodreads": 35343342, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1250172624", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250172624", "isbn10": "1250172624", "links": [] }, "231": { "id": 231, "title": "Stephen Florida", "author": "Gabe Habash", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Gabe Habash’s brilliant debut novel follows Stephen Florida, a megalomaniac college wrestler in North Dakota, as he tries to win the NCAA championship that has been his goal for years. Habash manages to make his protagonist both charismatic and repelling, frequently on the same page, and the result is one of the most fascinating characters to come along in quite a while. Stephen Florida is brash and audacious; it’s not just one of the best novels of the year, it’s one of the best sports books to come along in quite a while.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1566894646", "seamus": 530794732, "itunes": 9781566894647, "goodreads": 31945100, "bookshop": 9781566894647, "cover": "1566894646", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566894647", "isbn10": "1566894646", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 231, "book": "Stephen Florida", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Stephen Florida' Goes To The Mat — And Wins", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/07/530794327/stephen-florida-goes-to-the-mat-and-wins" } ] }, "232": { "id": 232, "title": "Strange Practice (A Dr. Greta Helsing Novel)", "author": "Vivian Shaw", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "This year, there seems to be a mini-trend of women reworking classic horror and science fiction tropes, and Strange Practice is my favorite of the bunch. Dr. Greta Helsing (she has ditched the “van”), granddaughter to the famous doctor in Dracula, has her own medical practice in modern-day London. But rather than hunting vampires, she is curing earaches for ghouls and modeling new toes for decrepit mummies – until something starts killing off Londoners, both human and otherwise. A delightful ensemble mystery featuring some of literature’s favorite vampires (and one really great demon).
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "for art lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316434604", "seamus": 538321701, "itunes": 9780316434607, "goodreads": 32792667, "bookshop": 9780316434607, "cover": "0316434604", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316434607", "isbn10": "0316434604", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 232, "book": "Strange Practice (A Dr. Greta Helsing Novel)", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Strange Practice:' The Doctor Is In", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/537085986/strange-practice-the-doctor-is-in" } ] }, "233": { "id": 233, "title": "Strange The Dreamer", "author": "Laini Taylor", "reviewers": [ "Tasha Robinson" ], "text": "Laini Taylor’s fantasy-duology kickoff seems expressly designed to appeal to book lovers who know what it’s like to fall hard for a fantasy world. Her protagonist, a shy librarian, is obsessed with a missing magical city. Then a delegation from that city visits his library – but another man casually steals his research and his dream of visiting the place. This lyrical novel is full of shifting sympathies and rich description. Its world unfolds slowly, revealing cruel gods, deep loves and hidden traumas. Part adventure novel, part romance, and part exercise in epic myth-building, it’s gorgeously written and full of surprises.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "rather long", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316341681", "seamus": 558516095, "itunes": 9780316341684, "goodreads": 28449207, "bookshop": 9780316341684, "cover": "0316341681", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316341684", "isbn10": "0316341681", "links": [] }, "234": { "id": 234, "title": "Sunshine State: Essays", "author": "Sarah Gerard", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "In Sunshine State, Sarah Gerard’s penetrating and deeply felt debut collection of essays, she draws on the experiences and environment of her own life – specifically, her formative years in Florida. Neither a glowing encomium nor a snarky takedown, it’s a drifting, psycho-geographical exploration of Gerard’s enduring link to the unique state she once called home.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "006243487X", "seamus": 522878090, "itunes": 9780062434876, "goodreads": 30653587, "bookshop": 9780062434876, "cover": "006243487X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062434876", "isbn10": "006243487X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 234, "book": "Sunshine State: Essays", "source": "WUSF", "text": "Hear Sarah Gerard Read At Florida Matters: 2017 Festival Of Reading", "url": "http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/florida-matters-2017-festival-reading#stream/0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 234, "book": "Sunshine State: Essays", "source": "NPR", "text": "All Roads Lead Back To Florida In 'Sunshine State'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/13/522778179/all-roads-lead-back-to-florida-in-sunshine-state" } ] }, "235": { "id": 235, "title": "Sweet: Desserts From London's Ottolenghi", "author": "Yotam Ottolenghi", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Yotam Ottolenghi, who has won legions of fans with his Middle Eastern-inflected recipes in Jerusalem and Plenty, has produced another seductive winner with his longtime collaborator, pastry chef Helen Goh. In addition to traditional components like chocolate, butter and berries, many feature ingredients found in his savory dishes – coconut, tahini, pistachios, rhubarb, rose and orange blossom water. Calories be damned, the issue is which recipe to try first. Particularly appealing: an apricot and almond cake with cinnamon topping, chocolate tartlets with tahini and sesame brittle, and frozen espresso parfait. There is also a bunch of gluten-free and nut-free options, including puddings, cheesecakes, sorbets and a buttery flourless coconut and chocolate cake.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "1607749149", "seamus": 558868149, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34063669, "bookshop": 9781607749141, "cover": "1607749149", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781607749141", "isbn10": "1607749149", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 235, "book": "Sweet: Desserts From London's Ottolenghi", "source": "NPR", "text": "Showstopping Holiday Desserts For Home Cooks Of All Skill Levels", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/13/568819659/showstopping-holiday-desserts-for-home-cooks-of-all-skill-levels" } ] }, "236": { "id": 236, "title": "Swimmer Among the Stars", "author": "Kanishk Tharoor", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "Kanishk Tharoor’s debut collection of short stories, Swimmer Among the Stars, tackles topics ranging from the trickiness of language to technology, history and myth. It’s a testament to his empathy, rich voice and immaculate craftsmanship as a storyteller that the book succeeds in illuminating all these things while assembling a global mosaic – even as it veers unnervingly into the fringes of the fantastic.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374272182", "seamus": 519625123, "itunes": 9780374272180, "goodreads": 29875892, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374272182", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374272180", "isbn10": "0374272182", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 236, "book": "Swimmer Among the Stars", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Swimmer Among the Stars' Infuses Relics With Resonance", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/515439633/swimmer-among-the-stars-infuses-relics-with-resonance" } ] }, "237": { "id": 237, "title": "Swimming Lessons", "author": "Claire Fuller", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "A mystery built around a set of letters hidden in various old books – stories within stories within a story. How delicious! Claire Fuller’s Swimming Lessons is a kind of anti-cozy cozy mystery. Flora’s novelist father lost his wife, Ingrid, over a decade ago, and now he thinks he has seen her again. When he tries to follow her, he has a terrible accident, and his daughters (Flora and Nan) come to a seaside family home to nurse him back to health. Then, Flora starts finding her mother’s letters and realizes they offer an alternative narrative of her parents’ marriage that may unlock the secret of Ingrid’s disappearance.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "fiction", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "1941040519", "seamus": 558357388, "itunes": 9781941040515, "goodreads": 30304221, "bookshop": 9781941040515, "cover": "1941040519", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781941040515", "isbn10": "1941040519", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 237, "book": "Swimming Lessons", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Claire Fuller", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/marginalia-claire-fuller" } ] }, "238": { "id": 238, "title": "Sympathy", "author": "Olivia Sudjic", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Sympathy is a sneaky, subtle debut novel about intimacy, aspiration and the Internet. As the protagonist, Alice, stalks and befriends her Instagram hero in a worsening spiral of obsession, the reader falls into something like the glassy-eyed fugue state you reach after too much online scrolling: mesmerized, inert, unable to stop.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0544836596", "seamus": 558336751, "itunes": 9780544836594, "goodreads": 30971716, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544836596", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544836594", "isbn10": "0544836596", "links": [] }, "239": { "id": 239, "title": "Tasting Georgia: A Food And Wine Journey In The Caucasus", "author": "Carla Capalbo", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "More travelogue than cookbook, more journey than destination, Tasting Georgia is an exhaustive, lavish look at the foodways of a country often overshadowed by neighboring Russia and Turkey. Georgia’s population is scarcely greater than Connecticut’s, but Carla Capalbo devotes loving attention to each of its 10 regions and its traditional manner of food production: beehives built into the walls of monasteries, house-sized conical bread ovens, hand-operated grape presses. Interspersed between interviews, maps and photographs are recipes just the other side of familiar: beet-green bread, green beans with walnut paste, mulberry and goat cheese salad.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1566560594", "seamus": 563255948, "itunes": "", "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781566560597, "cover": "1566560594", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566560597", "isbn10": "1566560594", "links": [] }, "240": { "id": 240, "title": "Teeth: The Story Of Beauty, Inequality, And The Struggle For Oral Health In America", "author": "Mary Otto", "reviewers": [ "Nancy Shute" ], "text": "For many Americans, skipping trips to the dentist isn’t about forgoing pearly whites worthy of an actor’s headshot. It’s about being unable to get basic care. Almost <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/dental.htm”>20 percent of children in the U.S. have untreated cavities; the number’s higher for adults. Mary Otto, a former Washington Post reporter, doesn’t just dwell on the numbers – she makes what could have been a turgid health policy tome spark with outrage over the stories of people who have suffered, including <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10591383”>Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old Maryland boy who died from an infection caused by one neglected tooth.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "science!", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1620971445", "seamus": 559030851, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31212864, "bookshop": 9781620971444, "cover": "1620971445", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781620971444", "isbn10": "1620971445", "links": [] }, "241": { "id": 241, "title": "Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In 40 Questions", "author": "Valeria Luiselli", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I didn’t expect these 128 pages to haunt me. Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli volunteered as a translator in a New York immigration court, asking undocumented Central American children the 40 official questions that will determine their future in the United States. Luiselli uses these questions as the framework for her essay, outlining a devastating portrait of how a child’s journey in search of a better life can rob them of their humanity. I read this book several months ago, and I still find myself wondering what happened to the children ensnared in our immigration bureaucracy. That is a testament to Luiselli’s deft and compelling writing.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1566894956", "seamus": 521794526, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33608721, "bookshop": 9781566894951, "cover": "1566894956", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566894951", "isbn10": "1566894956", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 241, "book": "Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In 40 Questions", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Tell Me How It Ends' Offers A Moving, Humane Portrait Of Child Migrants ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/521791352/tell-me-how-it-ends-offers-a-moving-humane-portrait-of-child-migrants" } ] }, "242": { "id": 242, "title": "Tender: Stories", "author": "Sofia Samatar", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "Most of the 20 sumptuous tales in Sofia Samatar’s collection Tender take place on Earth – although not always the Earth we might recognize. Sprawling in subject from the supernatural power of names to the loneliness of a half-robot woman, Tender redefines the emotional power and literary heft that speculative fiction can convey. Where Samatar’s acclaimed fantasy novels exist in a strange, dreamlike world, her short stories daringly explore the overlap of familiarity and otherness.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1618731262", "seamus": 523805814, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31945153, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1618731262", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781618731265", "isbn10": "1618731262", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 242, "book": "Tender: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Tender' Stories Are A Feast Of Ideas", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/523586344/tender-stories-are-a-feast-of-ideas" } ] }, "243": { "id": 243, "title": "Tenements, Towers and Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History Of New York City", "author": "Julia Wertz", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "This book is an epic achievement in comics. Wertz has drawn dozens of New York streetscapes, past and present, in meticulous detail, presenting them in an oversized tome of 300+ pages. Her love for the city is tangible and moving, even as she highlights its freaks and failures. Her style distinguishes her from other artists who’ve chronicled the city scene. Cool, stripped-down renderings function as a kind of visual democracy: Dead or alive, all her subjects get a fair shake at capturing the reader’s interest.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for art lovers", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0316501212", "seamus": 554195878, "itunes": 9780316501217, "goodreads": 34219893, "bookshop": 9780316501217, "cover": "0316501212", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316501217", "isbn10": "0316501212", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 243, "book": "Tenements, Towers and Trash: An Unconventional Illustrated History Of New York City", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Tenements, Towers & Trash' Brings Clean Lines To The City Of Failure", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/04/553975574/tenements-towers-trash-brings-clean-lines-to-the-city-of-failure" } ] }, "244": { "id": 244, "title": "The Alice Network: A Novel", "author": "Kate Quinn", "reviewers": [ "Nicole Cohen" ], "text": "Two years after the end of World War II, American college student Charlie St. Clair is looking for a cousin who disappeared in France. Together with jaded former spy Eve Gardiner, she combs shattered French villages for clues – but that’s only part of this story. The other part recounts Eve’s history with the Alice Network, a real spy ring that gathered crucial intelligence for Allied forces during the previous war, and the challenges of being a female spy in the 1910s. (Challenges like deceiving and charming your targets, while maintaining your virtue in the eyes of male superiors.) The Alice Network has history, suspense, romance and women kicking butt. I couldn’t put it down.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "rather long", "mysteries & thrillers", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062654195", "seamus": 531895620, "itunes": 9780062654199, "goodreads": 32051912, "bookshop": 9780062654199, "cover": "0062654195", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062654199", "isbn10": "0062654195", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 244, "book": "The Alice Network: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Alice Network' Is A Crackling Tale Of Spies And Suspense", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/08/530794379/the-alice-network-is-a-crackling-tale-of-spies-and-suspense" } ] }, "245": { "id": 245, "title": "The Animators: A Novel", "author": "Kayla Rae Whitaker", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Filmmakers and animators Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught are creative partners, best friends and platonic soulmates. Hot off a well-received indie film, they visit Sharon’s Kentucky hometown to work on an ambitious new project based on Sharon’s childhood trauma. (To reveal more than that would spoil it.) The novel made me rethink the benefits and consequences of marrying your creative work and your personal life and who you hurt when you turn shared pain into art.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "for art lovers", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0812989309", "seamus": 559018111, "itunes": 9780812989304, "goodreads": 34069438, "bookshop": 9780812989304, "cover": "0812989309", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812989304", "isbn10": "0812989309", "links": [] }, "246": { "id": 246, "title": "The Answers: A Novel", "author": "Catherine Lacey", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In The Answers, a woman named Mary responds to an ad for a mysterious job. It turns out to be a social experiment in which a famous actor hires a fleet of “girlfriends” to suit all of his needs – the protagonist’s title is “Emotional Girlfriend.” If it sounds unsettling, it is. It’s also psychologically and socially astute and leaves the reader with a kind of pleasant, lingering unease that lasts for days.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374100268", "seamus": 558338303, "itunes": 9780374100261, "goodreads": 29939084, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374100268", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374100261", "isbn10": "0374100268", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 246, "book": "The Answers: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: 'The Answers'", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/book-review-answers" } ] }, "247": { "id": 247, "title": "The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, And The Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost", "author": "Peter Manseau", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "In 1869, William Mumler was brought to trial in New York City. Technically, it was for consumer fraud. But the “spirit photographs” he had claimed to have taken – in which ghostly figures hover behind the living subjects – were about more than just getting your money’s worth. Peter Manseau deftly outlines a century to explain how war, technology, religion and commerce came together in a perfect storm, in a court case that was fundamentally about the limits of faith. And he finds a clever balance between historical remove and the immediacy of suspense, making The Apparitionists a biography about why we believe.
", "tags": [ "for history lovers", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0544745973", "seamus": 556186711, "itunes": 9780544745971, "goodreads": 30971741, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544745973", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544745971", "isbn10": "0544745973", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 247, "book": "The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, And The Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Apparitionists' Raises The Specters That Haunted America", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/11/555689728/-the-apparitionists-raises-the-specters-that-haunt-america" } ] }, "248": { "id": 248, "title": "The Art Of Starving: A Novel", "author": "Sam J. Miller", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "A gay teenager believes that starving himself gives him superpowers: The less he eats, the more he can feel his supernatural abilities sharpening, making it possible for him to take control. But what could easily turn into a supervillain origin story instead blossoms into a poignant journey toward self-acceptance. This book will tear your heart in two and then gently place the pieces back inside your chest – while reminding you to have a sandwich and love yourself.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062456717", "seamus": 558363115, "itunes": 9780062456717, "goodreads": 25978892, "bookshop": 9780062456717, "cover": "0062456717", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062456717", "isbn10": "0062456717", "links": [] }, "249": { "id": 249, "title": "The Backstagers Volume 1", "author": "James Tynion IV, illustrated by Rian Sygh", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "The Backstagers Volume 1 is set, well, backstage, following a ragtag stage crew as they deal with snooty actors, friendship drama, and otherworldly monsters. Wait, what? See, there’s a door backstage that leads to a corridor, which leads to other doors, which lead to other worlds. Some of them are harmless and fun, like the one populated with supernatural creatures attracted to the color red, while others are more menacing. Writer James Tynion IV’s characters are fun and distinctive, and Rian Sygh’s art brings them all to charming, colorful life. If you’re looking for a magical-realist graphic novel that’s cute and just a bit creepy, this is one for you.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "for art lovers", "young adult", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1608869938", "seamus": 559131574, "itunes": 9781608869930, "goodreads": 32898210, "bookshop": 9781608869930, "cover": "1608869938", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781608869930", "isbn10": "1608869938", "links": [] }, "250": { "id": 250, "title": "The Beautiful Country And The Middle Kingdom: America And China, 1776 To The Present", "author": "John Pomfret", "reviewers": [ "Greg Myre" ], "text": "In the early 1800s, adventurous Americans made their fortunes by slaughtering fur seals and selling them to China. The U.S.-China relationship has a long and rich history dating to America’s earliest days. Author John Pomfret weaves a grand tale as he lays out the cooperation and the competition, the mutual fascination and the rivalry that has marked the relationship since the beginning.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "for history lovers", "rather long", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0805092501", "seamus": 504826271, "itunes": 9780805092509, "goodreads": 28696594, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0805092501", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780805092509", "isbn10": "0805092501", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 250, "book": "The Beautiful Country And The Middle Kingdom: America And China, 1776 To The Present", "source": "NPR", "text": "The U.S. And China: 2 Centuries Of Infatuation And Disappointment", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/12/11/504478025/the-u-s-and-china-two-centuries-of-infatuation-and-disappointment" } ] }, "251": { "id": 251, "title": "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir", "author": "Thi Bui", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "While the new Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War has received more attention this year, Thi Bui’s masterful graphic novel is required reading for anyone interested in that conflict, and in Vietnam itself. In this searing and soulful memoir, Bui examines her own family’s journey from Vietnam to the United States, using an unflinching lens to reveal the traumas that people carry – and sometimes pass on – long after wars end.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "comics & graphic novels", "tales from around the world", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "1419718770", "seamus": 559054018, "itunes": 9781419718779, "goodreads": 29936927, "bookshop": 9781419718779, "cover": "1419718770", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781419718779", "isbn10": "1419718770", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 251, "book": "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir", "source": "KQED", "text": "Struggles Of A Vietnamese Refugee Family Told In Illustrated Memoir", "url": "https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2017/10/05/struggles-of-a-vietnamese-refugee-family-told-in-illustrated-memoir/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 251, "book": "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": "Here's What College Freshmen Are Reading", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/11/22/651094749/heres-what-college-freshmen-are-reading" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 251, "book": "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": "Cartoonist Thi Bui Weaves Together Personal And Political History", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/08/01/634606313/cartoonist-thi-bui-weaves-together-personal-and-political-history" } ] }, "252": { "id": 252, "title": "The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman And The Scandal That Rocked Paris", "author": "Tom Sancton", "reviewers": [ "Nina Martyris" ], "text": "When Liliane Bettencourt, the aging heiress to the L’Oreal fortune, fell under the spell of a handsome, talented artist and began to shower him with gifts amounting to an incredible 1 billion euros, her daughter filed a criminal suit against the artist claiming that this “Rasputin” had exploited her mother’s oncoming dementia. The ensuing 10-year scandal outed all kinds of ugly secrets, including the company’s Nazi-collaborationist past. “There was no dye,” writes Tom Sancton in this riveting page-turner, “that could hide the family’s dark roots.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1101984473", "seamus": 542690224, "itunes": 9781101984475, "goodreads": 32971744, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101984473", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101984475", "isbn10": "1101984473", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 252, "book": "The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman And The Scandal That Rocked Paris", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Bettencourt Affair': Extravagant Friendship Or Cruel Swindle?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/12/542891936/the-bettencourt-affair-extravagant-friendship-or-cruel-swindle" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 252, "book": "The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman And The Scandal That Rocked Paris", "source": "NPR", "text": "L'Oreal's Dark Roots Are On Display In 'The Bettencourt Affair'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/12/542062147/loreals-dark-roots-are-on-display-in-the-bettencourt-affair" } ] }, "253": { "id": 253, "title": "The Betting Vow", "author": "K.M. Jackson", "reviewers": [ "Maya Rodale" ], "text": "What happens in Vegas definitely does not stay in Vegas in The Betting Vow. Leila Darling is a supermodel with a temper and aspirations to be taken seriously as an actress. Carter Bain is a television executive in charge of launching a new network. To do that, he needs a star – someone like Leila. A late-night, high-stakes card game leads to a marriage of convenience – and that leads to sexy, satisfying romance in which the wedding is just the beginning of the happily ever after.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "1496705726", "seamus": 547977396, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33369335, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1496705726", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781496705723", "isbn10": "1496705726", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 253, "book": "The Betting Vow", "source": "NPR", "text": "For September, 3 Twisty, Turny, Thrill-Packed Romances", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/03/547977178/for-september-3-twisty-turny-thrill-packed-romances" } ] }, "254": { "id": 254, "title": "The Blood Of Emmett Till", "author": "Timothy B. Tyson", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "On Aug. 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi after he allegedly flirted with a white woman in a grocery store. Timothy B. Tyson’s shocking new book about Till’s murder reveals that the woman who accused Till now admits that he was not guilty of any inappropriate behavior. Tyson examines how the boy’s slaying galvanized the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s. It’s a beautifully written book, and its importance can’t be overstated.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1476714843", "seamus": 559088769, "itunes": 9781476714844, "goodreads": 30753852, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1476714843", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781476714844", "isbn10": "1476714843", "links": [] }, "255": { "id": 255, "title": "The Book Of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage", "author": "Philip Pullman", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Compassionate, smart, and suspenseful, La Belle Sauvage is a worthy companion to Philip Pullman’s splendid His Dark Materials saga. In the first of three planned volumes, the baby Lyra is hidden from a would-be kidnapper by Malcolm, an innkeeper’s son, and the kitchen girl, Alice, who set out across flooded Oxford by canoe in a adventure on the river Thames.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "young adult", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0375815309", "seamus": 557207299, "itunes": 9780375815300, "goodreads": 34128219, "bookshop": 9780375815300, "cover": "0375815309", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780375815300", "isbn10": "0375815309", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 255, "book": "The Book Of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage", "source": "NPR", "text": "Philip Pullman Returns To The Dark Materials Universe In A New Prequel — Er, 'Equel'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/21/558877877/philip-pullman-returns-to-the-dark-materials-universe-in-a-new-prequel-er-equel" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 255, "book": "The Book Of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage", "source": "NPR", "text": "Philip Pullman's Realm Of Poetry And Inspiration", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/19/557189779/philip-pullmans-realm-of-poetry-and-inspiration" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 255, "book": "The Book Of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage", "source": "NPR", "text": "Exclusive First Read: Philip Pullman's 'The Book Of Dust'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/13/557189964/exclusive-first-read-philip-pullmans-the-book-of-dust" } ] }, "256": { "id": 256, "title": "The Book Of Joan: A Novel", "author": "Lidia Yuknavitch", "reviewers": [ "Carmen Maria Machado" ], "text": "In the near future, a space station called CIEL circles the dying Earth like a bloated star, peopled by mutated humans baroquely decorated with skin grafts. Below them, Joan of Dirt, a young woman who hears voices and has an ability to manipulate the elements, makes her way across the blighted landscape. The reality of The Book of Joan is just as tremendous and inexplicable as its premise. A take-no-prisoners disregard for genre boundaries, it is a searing fusion of literary fiction and reimagined history and science fiction thriller and eco-fantasy, one that treats sex and filth and decay and violence and nature and love with equal relish. It’s not for the squeamish – but then again, nothing interesting is.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "let’s talk about sex", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "rather short", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062383272", "seamus": 523804716, "itunes": 9780062383273, "goodreads": 30653706, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062383272", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062383273", "isbn10": "0062383272", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 256, "book": "The Book Of Joan: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Book Of Joan' Is A Dizzying, Dystopian Genre Mashup", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/523586278/the-book-of-joan-is-a-dizzying-dystopian-genre-mashup" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 256, "book": "The Book Of Joan: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Book Of Joan' Recasts A Historic Heroine — In Space", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/16/524006612/the-book-of-joan-recasts-a-historic-heroine-in-space" } ] }, "257": { "id": 257, "title": "The Book Of Mistakes", "author": "Corinna Luyken", "reviewers": [ "Jacob Ganz" ], "text": "The first time I read Corinna Luyken’s stunningly detailed, concept-driven, off-kilter debut with my son, I worried it would go right over his 4-year-old head. But he asked for it again as soon as we got to the end, and the second time through, I saw how carefully Luyken had layered goofball jokes, nonsense, wonder and other kid-friendly points of entry into her increasingly elaborate pictures, which all serve her book’s one simple idea: that mistakes are more than OK – they are in fact essential to the discovery of new worlds and the opening of little minds.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0735227926", "seamus": 559544084, "itunes": 9780735227927, "goodreads": 31456756, "bookshop": 9780735227927, "cover": "0735227926", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735227927", "isbn10": "0735227926", "links": [] }, "258": { "id": 258, "title": "The Bright Hour: A Memoir Of Living And Dying", "author": "Nina Riggs", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Like Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, Nina Riggs’ gorgeous, morbidly irreverent posthumous memoir about facing terminal cancer in her 30s has earned her a measure of immortality with a place on the shelf of classics about mortality. Heartbreaking? Yes. But with inspiration from her triple-great-grandfather Ralph Waldo Emerson “to cease for a bright hour to be a prisoner of this sickly body and to become as large as the World,” Riggs achieves a measure of transcendence. A poet, happily married wife and mother of two young sons, she uses wit, grit and lit to show us what it means to “distill what matters most to each of us in life.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the dark side", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1501169351", "seamus": 558868911, "itunes": 9781501169359, "goodreads": 34104392, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501169351", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501169359", "isbn10": "1501169351", "links": [] }, "259": { "id": 259, "title": "The Burning Girl: A Novel", "author": "Claire Messud", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "Julia and Cassie have been thisclose since nursery school. But when this novel opens, it’s the last summer of their friendship. And it’s a magical one, spent lying in the sun by the quarry, exploring the woods for an abandoned asylum and playing make-believe games. But as seventh grade begins, the two friends drift apart. Julia, our narrator, can’t understand why and, as Cassie begins to go down a dangerous path, neither can she help her old friend. At its heart, The Burning Girl is a vivid, true-to-life portrait of what it feels like to have an intense childhood friendship and how hurtful and confusing it can be when it’s over. Claire Messud’s beautifully written latest novel will surely resonate with anyone who has ever either had a friend or been a teenager.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0393635023", "seamus": 546757534, "itunes": 9780393635027, "goodreads": 34068534, "bookshop": 9780393635027, "cover": "0393635023", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780393635027", "isbn10": "0393635023", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 259, "book": "The Burning Girl: A Novel", "source": "WSHU", "text": "Book Review: 'The Burning Girl'", "url": "http://wshu.org/post/book-review-burning-girl#stream/1" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 259, "book": "The Burning Girl: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Adolescent Friendship Fades Away In Claire Messud's Gothic 'Burning Girl'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/12/550394260/adolescent-friendship-fades-away-in-claire-messuds-gothic-burning-girl" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 259, "book": "The Burning Girl: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Burning Girl' Is More Than Just A Pretty Victim", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/31/545777700/the-burning-girl-is-more-than-just-a-pretty-victim" } ] }, "260": { "id": 260, "title": "The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine", "author": "Lindsey Fitzharris", "reviewers": [ "Robert Siegel" ], "text": "Lindsey Fitzharris’ The Butchering Art isn’t about carving meat for cooking. It’s about surgery the way it used to be done, and it’s about one surgeon in particular who changed everything. In 19th-century England, the introduction of anesthesia led to emboldened surgeons and a spike in surgical and post-surgical deaths. That’s when Joseph Lister began to champion germ theory antiseptic surgery. At first, his theories were met with opposition, but they were ultimately accepted – with help from Queen Victoria.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "science!", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0374117292", "seamus": 557356816, "itunes": 9780374117290, "goodreads": 33931044, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374117292", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374117290", "isbn10": "0374117292", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 260, "book": "The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine", "source": "NPR", "text": "No One's Hands Are Clean In 'The Butchering Art'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/21/557192408/no-ones-hands-are-clean-in-the-butchering-art" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 260, "book": "The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Butchering Art': How A 19th Century Physician Made Surgery Safer", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/13/557367840/the-butchering-art-how-a-19th-century-physician-made-surgery-safer" } ] }, "261": { "id": 261, "title": "The Changeling: A Novel", "author": "Victor LaValle", "reviewers": [ "Ann Powers" ], "text": "I love fractured fairy tales, and 21st-century magical realism master Victor LaValle uncovers a doozy in * The Changeling.* It’s the story of a baby lost, a mother deranged and a father descending deep into his own mess of a family inheritance. LaValle has fun with the bortbyting legend he mines; the trolls that steal babies in that Scandinavian lore first appear in LaValle’s plot as basement-dwelling computer hackers. But he’s best when showing how the current realities that afflict urban dwellers of color – above all, racism – stymie even the most heroic monster hunters. Here, as in old fairy tales, mythic threats can’t hold a candle to the volatility of actual people.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "family matters", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0812995945", "seamus": 533271416, "itunes": 9780812995947, "goodreads": 31147267, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0812995945", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812995947", "isbn10": "0812995945", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 261, "book": "The Changeling: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Changeling' Is, Itself, A Changeling Of A Book", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/17/531929876/the-changeling-is-itself-a-changeling-of-a-book" } ] }, "262": { "id": 262, "title": "The Child: A Novel", "author": "Fiona Barton", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Like her 2016 smash hit The Widow, Fiona Barton’s new book centers on a cold case involving a little one. This time, the child is a newborn’s skeleton, discovered at London building site. Newspaper journalist Kate Waters is back, looking for a way to impress her boss; The Child unfolds from her perspective and that of two other women, a grieving mother named Angela and an anxiety-stricken young woman, Emma. Barton moves the story along with spliced action-narration, an excellent way of reminding you that no crime affects just one person, and each person it affects has many other people in her life.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1101990481", "seamus": 534141123, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 32337905, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101990481", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101990483", "isbn10": "1101990481", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 262, "book": "The Child: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Fiona Barton", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/marginalia-fiona-barton" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 262, "book": "The Child: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Multiple Narratives Mean Non-Stop Action In 'The Child'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/28/532976621/multiple-narratives-mean-non-stop-action-in-the-child" } ] }, "263": { "id": 263, "title": "The Cold Eye (The Devil's West Book 2)", "author": "Laura Anne Gilman", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "The second book in Laura Anne Gilman’s “The Devil’s West” series follows the further adventures of Isobel, the 16-year-old girl whose job it is to be the eyes, ears, conscience and justice of the Devil in the Old West. Here, she’s chasing after disbelieving Easterners looking to co-opt the powerful magic that resides in the West. And like the book that came before, the best thing about The Cold Eye is the interactions between its characters and the grimy, rugged, merciless world that Gilman has created where the horses always need brushing, the firewood always needs gathering and there are never enough baths. It’s a Western that doesn’t forget how hard life once was, and Gilman offers no easy mercy to those who live within it.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "148142971X", "seamus": 509351392, "itunes": 9781481429719, "goodreads": 28954202, "bookshop": 9781481429719, "cover": "148142971X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481429719", "isbn10": "148142971X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 263, "book": "The Cold Eye (The Devil's West Book 2)", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Cold Eye,' A Small Story That Packs A Big Punch", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/14/509350652/in-cold-eye-a-small-story-that-packs-a-big-punch" } ] }, "264": { "id": 264, "title": "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America", "author": "Richard Rothstein", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "The Color of Law lays out in clear, accessible prose “A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.” Throughout the 20th century, racist policies at the local, state and federal level worsened housing segregation and its attendant ills, educational and economic deprivation. Far from being the de facto segregation that prominent commentators and courts frequently suggest, American segregation is de jure and made up of decades of government-designed and government-sanctioned policies preventing black Americans from receiving benefits for military service, purchasing and renting homes, and much more. This book could not be more timely.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1631492853", "seamus": 526656129, "itunes": 9781631492853, "goodreads": 32191706, "bookshop": 9781631492853, "cover": "1631492853", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781631492853", "isbn10": "1631492853", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 264, "book": "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch Book Club, Summer 2019", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/06/20/733808217/code-switch-book-club-summer-2019" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 264, "book": "The Color Of Law: A Forgotten History Of How Our Government Segregated America", "source": "NPR", "text": "A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america" } ] }, "265": { "id": 265, "title": "The Color Of Our Sky: A Novel", "author": "Amita Trasi", "reviewers": [ "Sophia Boyd" ], "text": "Mukta, the daughter of a temple prostitute, and Tara, the daughter of an upper middle-class family, form an unlikely bond in Mumbai. But when Mukta is kidnapped, that bond is put into question, and years later Tara is tortured with regret as she searches for her friend. Amita Trasi’s personal, up-close telling of Mukta’s story exposes the harsh realities of prostitution in India. The friends’ narratives appear side-by-side, and as the book progresses it becomes more about the power of women’s relationships than the oppression of women in India.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062474073", "seamus": 558585911, "itunes": 9780062474070, "goodreads": 30653957, "bookshop": 9780062474070, "cover": "0062474073", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062474070", "isbn10": "0062474073", "links": [] }, "266": { "id": 266, "title": "The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest For The Perfect Dish To Mend A Broken Heart", "author": "Emily Nunn", "reviewers": [ "Nina Martyris" ], "text": "An insightful memoir by former New Yorker food editor Emily Nunn, who launched herself on a comfort food tour after the “darkest winter of her life,” when she lost her brother, broke up with her fiancé and descended into alcoholism. After a stint in rehab, she hit the road visiting family and friends. Everywhere she went, she and her hosts cooked up a storm. For Nunn, food became a “touchstone for understanding what real love is.” The other dominant theme in the book is family, and Nunn re-evaluates her relationship with her “exquisitely dysfunctional” Southern family. Written with candor and acerbic wit, this misery memoir is in no danger of having a soggy bottom.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "1451674201", "seamus": 549480728, "itunes": 9781451674200, "goodreads": 23492783, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1451674201", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781451674200", "isbn10": "1451674201", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 266, "book": "The Comfort Food Diaries: My Quest For The Perfect Dish To Mend A Broken Heart", "source": "NPR", "text": "Hunger, Both Physical And Emotional, In 'The Comfort Food Diaries'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/30/548665733/hunger-both-physical-and-emotional-in-the-comfort-food-diaries" } ] }, "267": { "id": 267, "title": "The Complete Stories Of Leonora Carrington", "author": "Leonora Carrington", "reviewers": [ "Carmen Maria Machado" ], "text": "This collection of the late surrealist artist Leonora Carrington’s published and unpublished short stories – many newly translated from their original French and Spanish – is a terrific introduction to her bizarre, dreamlike worlds. These stories have the distinct affect of fairy tales – intuitive logic that carries the reader from one moment to the next without a sense of cause-and-effect, as far away from psychological realism as possible. A woman undresses down to her skeleton; a witch gives birth to a litter of boars and kills all but the one that most resembles its father – and all in Carrington’s stripped-down prose. Complete Stories is an unusual but singular delight.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "the dark side", "for art lovers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0997366648", "seamus": 522083830, "itunes": 9780997366648, "goodreads": 33395084, "bookshop": 9780997366648, "cover": "0997366648", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780997366648", "isbn10": "0997366648", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 267, "book": "The Complete Stories Of Leonora Carrington", "source": "NPR", "text": "Rediscovering Surrealist Leonora Carrington's Delights And Disturbances", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/08/521959754/rediscovering-surrealist-leonora-carringtons-delights-and-disturbances" } ] }, "268": { "id": 268, "title": "The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History In The Old South", "author": "Michael W. Twitty", "reviewers": [ "Maria Godoy" ], "text": "Michael W. Twitty is one of the most fascinating people in food today. A cook, writer, Judaic studies teacher, self-taught historian and historical interpreter (he cooks antebellum meals while dressing the part), Twitty has devoted much of his career to uncovering African-Americans’ often-unsung contributions to Southern food. And that means exploring the uncomfortable fact that many of the cuisine’s favorite comfort foods were born out of slavery. As Twitty once said, “My work has always emphasized that Black lives matter.”
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0062379291", "seamus": 559116337, "itunes": 9780062379290, "goodreads": 29100223, "bookshop": 9780062379290, "cover": "0062379291", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062379290", "isbn10": "0062379291", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 268, "book": "The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History In The Old South", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Rediscovering African-American Roots And Cuisine With Michael Twitty", "url": "http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/08/01/rediscovering-african-american-roots-and-cuisine" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 268, "book": "The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History In The Old South", "source": "WCVE", "text": "At Colonial Williamsburg, Culinary Historian Michael Twitty Elevates Stories of Creativity And Courage", "url": "http://ideastations.org/radio/news/colonial-williamsburg-culinary-historian-michael-twitty-elevates-stories-creativity-and" } ] }, "269": { "id": 269, "title": "The Dark Dark: Stories", "author": "Samantha Hunt", "reviewers": [ "Carmen Maria Machado" ], "text": "Like the best short story collections, The Dark Dark chews on some delicious, evergreen themes in extraordinary ways. In particular, that of pregnancy – its mysterious introduction, its peculiar and alarming doubling and redoubling, its elusiveness. Hunt’s female characters are full of deep trenches that overflow with sorrow and rage. They are safe and suburban and utterly, profoundly alone – abandoned to their griefs, their desires, their particular understanding of the world. This is liminal fantasy and horror with a solid literary sensibility; sure to please fans of Karen Russell and Lidia Yuknavitch.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0537228117", "seamus": 537228117, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31702762, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0537228117", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780537228115", "isbn10": "0537228117", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 269, "book": "The Dark Dark: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "We All Live In The Dark, But Some Of Us Live In 'The Dark Dark' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/19/536892907/we-all-live-in-the-dark-but-some-of-us-live-in-the-dark-dark" } ] }, "270": { "id": 270, "title": "The Dinner Party: And Other Stories", "author": "Joshua Ferris", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "The Dinner Party is a dark and delicious chocolate box of dysfunction – stories about inept, entitled, cruel or merely stupid men, often in failing relationships. In one, a sitcom writer flounders at a party. In another, a mover irritates his employer. These stories often start out mild and spiral out of control. With this collection, Joshua Ferris interrogates the demands and expectations of masculinity with black humor and a great instinct for timing.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "fiction", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "031646595X", "seamus": 526581655, "itunes": 9780316465953, "goodreads": 31934046, "bookshop": "", "cover": "031646595X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316465953", "isbn10": "031646595X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 270, "book": "The Dinner Party: And Other Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "At 'The Dinner Party,' Stories That Walk The Line Between Tragedy And Comedy ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/525767945/at-the-dinner-party-stories-that-walk-the-line-between-tragedy-and-comedy" } ] }, "271": { "id": 271, "title": "The Dry: A Novel", "author": "Jane Harper", "reviewers": [ "Shannon Rhoades" ], "text": "Jane Harper’s debut novel opens with three dead bodies – an apparent murder-suicide – in a small Australian town beset by drought. Federal agent Aaron Falk is lured back to his hometown for the funerals and soon ensnared in a place that is haunted by mysteries, past and present. The real horror of the story, though, is the water-starved landscape. There’s a moment when Falk is overcome by a moment of terrifying silence, but there’s no serial killer lurking in the quiet. Rather, he has discovered that the river he has known since childhood has run dry. For this reader, raised in the American West, that reality is scarier than just about anything I’ve ever read.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "1250105609", "seamus": 558588876, "itunes": 9781250105608, "goodreads": 28220971, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1250105609", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250105608", "isbn10": "1250105609", "links": [] }, "272": { "id": 272, "title": "The Essex Serpent: A Novel", "author": "Sarah Perry", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry’s glorious historical novel, nature is not inertly beautiful, but dangerous and alive: A sheep is sucked into the mud, boats are taken by the water, earthquakes split houses, and the residents wake in the mornings “from dreams of wet black wings.” Those wings belong to the titular Essex Serpent, a water serpent terrorizing the village of Aldwinter. A story of collective panic, fear, superstition, and chaos, The Essex Serpent is utterly, endlessly lovely.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "tales from around the world", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062666371", "seamus": 532286913, "itunes": 9780062666376, "goodreads": 32075861, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062666371", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062666376", "isbn10": "0062666371", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 272, "book": "The Essex Serpent: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Confronting The Possibility Of Monsters In 'The Essex Serpent'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/14/532818864/confronting-the-possibility-of-monsters-in-the-essex-serpent" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 272, "book": "The Essex Serpent: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Essex Serpent' Spreads Its Wings", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/10/530794385/the-essex-serpent-spreads-its-wings" } ] }, "273": { "id": 273, "title": "The Family Imprint: A Daughter's Portrait Of Love And Loss", "author": "Nancy Borowick", "reviewers": [ "Nancy Shute" ], "text": "When Nancy Borowick learned that both her parents were facing deadly cancers while still in their 50s, she cried, then picked up her camera. Her chronicle of the last two years of their lives together is heartbreaking, compassionate and funny. I return to these photos again and again, wishing that I could have known Howie and Laurel in life – and grateful that I can know them and their family through their daughter’s eyes.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "rather short", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "family matters" ], "isbn": "3775742484", "seamus": 559005092, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33220760, "bookshop": 9783775742481, "cover": "3775742484", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9783775742481", "isbn10": "3775742484", "links": [] }, "274": { "id": 274, "title": "The First Rule Of Punk", "author": "Celia C. Pérez", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "Meet 12-year-old Maria Luisa – everyone calls her Malú – the main character in The First Rule of Punk. She calls her mom the “SuperMexican,” and her dad is white. So where does she fit in? As she wrestles with moving to a new town and being different, it’s punk rock that speaks to her and helps her find her sense of self. As Malú figures it out, she makes plenty of mistakes, but she is really trying. And in the end, the book shows how good friends and good music (and making a good zine) can lift your soul. Spoiler alert: The first rule of punk? Be yourself. A thousand times yes.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books", "identity & culture", "for music lovers", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0425290409", "seamus": 559033370, "itunes": 9780425290408, "goodreads": 33245571, "bookshop": 9780425290408, "cover": "0425290409", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780425290408", "isbn10": "0425290409", "links": [] }, "275": { "id": 275, "title": "The Force: A Novel", "author": "Don Winslow", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Before this novel was published in June, I was at a gathering of famous mystery writers; all of them were raving about The Force as the police procedural to read in 2017. It follows an elite squad of NYPD detectives as they close in on a seriously evil drug kingpin. At a time when the role of the police is under question across the country, The Force balances its respect for the tough jobs cops do with a clear-eyed acknowledgement of how easy it is for those in authority to believe their own mythology. This is a terrific suspense story, packed with twists, turns and double-crosses.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062664417", "seamus": 534120985, "itunes": 9780062664419, "goodreads": 32075859, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062664417", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062664419", "isbn10": "0062664417", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 275, "book": "The Force: A Novel", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: 'The Force'", "url": "http://wyso.org/post/book-nook-force-don-winslow" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 275, "book": "The Force: A Novel", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: 'The Force'", "url": "http://kmuw.org/post/book-review-force" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 275, "book": "The Force: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Force' Is Basically 'Game Of Thrones' With Cops — And That's Pretty Great", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/24/532976297/the-force-is-basically-game-of-thrones-with-cops-and-thats-pretty-great" } ] }, "276": { "id": 276, "title": "The Gentleman's Guide To Vice And Virtue", "author": "Mackenzi Lee", "reviewers": [ "Margaret Willison" ], "text": "If you’ve ever mentally shouted “NOW KISS” at a pair of fictional male best friends, this is the book for you – particularly if you like stories that acknowledge that the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name used its mouth to do plenty of other things in Europe’s secretly wild 18th century. Blithely bisexual, Henry “Monty” Montague has always found dalliances among his fellow British nobles to be a delightful romp – until he realizes he is in love with his best friend, the serious, seemingly straight Percy. Now the two are setting off for the continent for Monty’s grand tour, one last hurrah before Monty must come home, marry responsibly and take charge of his family’s estate – a fate he deems worse than death, and one his biracial best friend and stifled little sister would give their eyeteeth for. In Monty, Mackenzi Lee has created a narrator who’s equal parts irresistible and infuriating – watching the balance shift from the latter to the former as Monty learns to pay attention to the people around him is every bit as satisfying as the slow, aching love that blossoms between him and Percy.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "let’s talk about sex", "historical fiction", "funny stuff", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062382802", "seamus": 559123952, "itunes": 9780062382801, "goodreads": 29283884, "bookshop": 9780062382801, "cover": "0062382802", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062382801", "isbn10": "0062382802", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 276, "book": "The Gentleman's Guide To Vice And Virtue", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Piecing Me Together' Novelist Says She Writes To Help Kids Feel Seen", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/02/17/586479140/piecing-me-together-novelist-says-she-writes-to-help-kids-feel-seen" } ] }, "277": { "id": 277, "title": "The Golden House: A Novel", "author": "Salman Rushdie", "reviewers": [ "Ari Shapiro" ], "text": "One of Salman Rushdie’s characters in The Golden House tells an American, “Your country is young – one thinks differently when one has millennia behind one; you have not even 250 years.” Rushdie has experience with ancient countries, having lived in and written about India and the U.K. This book follows a wealthy Bombay family that moves to New York just as Barack Obama becomes president. It’s deeply American, with themes of reinvention and immigration. At the same time, The Golden House is unmistakably Rushdie, packed with pop culture references and mythological tropes, telling an archetypical story in a way that feels new.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0399592806", "seamus": 548688084, "itunes": 9780399592805, "goodreads": 34128285, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399592806", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399592805", "isbn10": "0399592806", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 277, "book": "The Golden House: A Novel", "source": "WHYY", "text": "Salman Rushdie On His New Book, 'The Golden House'", "url": "https://whyy.org/episodes/salman-rushdie-golden-house/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 277, "book": "The Golden House: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Leaving The Past Behind — Or Trying To — In Rushdie's Latest", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/05/548688029/leaving-the-past-behind-or-trying-to-in-rushdies-latest" } ] }, "278": { "id": 278, "title": "The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea", "author": "Jack E. Davis", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "I’ve been captivated by the emerald green Gulf of Mexico since I was a kid, and now I have more reason to be in awe. University of Florida historian Jack Davis provides a colorful, sweeping history of the Gulf with stories about its communities, industries, estuaries, wildlife, people and politics. He says it’s the story of America – from Native Americans and European explorers, to oil wildcatters and fishing guides. Also a professor of sustainability studies, Davis portrays a vulnerable Gulf Coast in ecological crisis. In a chapter about the late artist Walter Anderson (who rode out hurricanes on Mississippi’s barrier islands), Davis writes, “If anything was certain on the Gulf, it was the inevitability of change.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "it’s all geek to me", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "087140866X", "seamus": 558402039, "itunes": 9780871408662, "goodreads": 30231749, "bookshop": "", "cover": "087140866X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780871408662", "isbn10": "087140866X", "links": [] }, "279": { "id": 279, "title": "The Hate U Give", "author": "Angie Thomas", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "Starr Carter lives in the heart of a black neighborhood but goes to a private school across town, where she is one of just a few black students. When her best friend, Khalil, is killed by a policeman during an arbitrary stop, Starr is the only witness, and she is called to testify to a grand jury about what she saw. The 16-year-old is determined to stand up for her slain friend, and it’s riveting to see how she navigates the civic unrest that follows the shooting, as well as the media maelstrom around it. The Hate U Give may be a young adult novel, but older adults would do well to read it.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "young adult", "fiction", "rather long", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0062498533", "seamus": 522191657, "itunes": 9780062498533, "goodreads": 32075671, "bookshop": 9780062498533, "cover": "0062498533", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062498533", "isbn10": "0062498533", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 279, "book": "The Hate U Give", "source": "NPR", "text": "Here's What College Freshmen Are Reading", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/11/22/651094749/heres-what-college-freshmen-are-reading" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 279, "book": "The Hate U Give", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Hate U Give' Star Says The Novel Was Like 'Reading My Own Diary'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/10/20/658251028/the-hate-u-give-star-says-the-novel-was-like-reading-my-own-diary" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 279, "book": "The Hate U Give", "source": "NPR", "text": "Summer Reading For Your Woke Kid", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/07/06/534443123/summer-reading-for-your-woke-kid" } ] }, "280": { "id": 280, "title": "The Hearts Of Men: A Novel", "author": "Nickolas Butler", "reviewers": [ "Scott Detrow" ], "text": "If, like me, you grew up spending summers at Boy Scout camp, this book cuts right to your soul. But even if you’ve never built a fire or tied a square knot, Nickolas Butler’s The Hearts of Men provides an engrossing and entertaining read. The book’s plot unfolds over the course of 60 years in and around a Wisconsin Scout camp. It probes at what changes, and what stays pretty much the same, as the decades pass and technology, society, and cultural values shift.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062469681", "seamus": 506477853, "itunes": 9780062469687, "goodreads": 30531869, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062469681", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062469687", "isbn10": "0062469681", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 280, "book": "The Hearts Of Men: A Novel", "source": "WUWM", "text": "Nickolas Butler's Latest Novel Delves Into Hard Truths", "url": "http://wuwm.com/post/nickolas-butlers-latest-novel-delves-hard-truths" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 280, "book": "The Hearts Of Men: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "What's Inside 'The Hearts Of Men'? A New Novel Forages For Answers", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/518877262/whats-inside-the-hearts-of-men-a-new-novel-forages-for-answers" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 280, "book": "The Hearts Of Men: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Still Puzzled By The Election? Authors Prescribe Fiction For Better Understanding", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2016/12/22/506476143/still-puzzled-by-the-election-authors-prescribe-fiction-for-better-understanding" } ] }, "281": { "id": 281, "title": "The Heirs: A Novel", "author": "Susan Rieger", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "The question that Susan Rieger explores in The Heirs is a fascinating one: Does death root us in memory as the people we were while breathing, or should consequent data, gathered after the fact, be used to ret-con the recollections of the survivors? Or, put more simply, is a good man forever a good man even after death shakes loose secrets he kept hidden in life? Though never explicitly answered – or answered in different ways by different characters – the primary joy in The Heirs is in chewing over Rieger’s gorgeous prose. The entire book reads in a clipped, clean, lockjawed voice, as if the words themselves had all gone to Vassar and spent their summers boating in the Hamptons.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "1101904712", "seamus": 530093418, "itunes": 9781101904718, "goodreads": 31869858, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101904712", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101904718", "isbn10": "1101904712", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 281, "book": "The Heirs: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Love, Money And Betrayal Make For Great Storytelling In 'The Heirs'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/27/528843001/love-money-and-betrayal-make-for-great-storytelling-in-the-heirs" } ] }, "282": { "id": 282, "title": "The Idiot", "author": "Elif Batuman", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Elif Batuman’s novel The Idiot encapsulates those years of humiliating, but vibrant confusion that come in your late teens. A confusion that’s not even sexual, but existential and practical: Where do people get their opinions from? “How did you separate where someone was from, from who they were?” How do I “dispose of my body in space and time, every minute of every day, for the rest of my life[?]” Like those years, The Idiot is boring and strangely intense, depressing and absurd – but mostly charming.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "it’s all geek to me", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1594205612", "seamus": 520252882, "itunes": 9781594205613, "goodreads": 30962053, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594205612", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594205613", "isbn10": "1594205612", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 282, "book": "The Idiot", "source": "NPR", "text": "Both Pointless And Playful, 'The Idiot' Is Like A Long Dream", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/515439759/both-pointless-and-playful-the-idiot-is-like-a-long-dream" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 282, "book": "The Idiot", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Idiot' Chronicles First Love, Freshman Year And The Early Days Of Email", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/520346752/idiot-chronicles-first-love-freshman-year-and-the-early-days-of-email" } ] }, "283": { "id": 283, "title": "The Inexplicable Logic Of My Life", "author": "Benjamin Alire Sáenz", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "The Inexplicable Logic of My Life has the word count of a book with worlds to build, but rather than using its pages to explore the confines of an imaginary land, it delves deeply into the complex inner world of one teenage boy. Sal begins his senior year with an unfamiliar fire burning inside him. He has always been a good kid, but suddenly, every cut and insult sends him into a violent rage. Benjamin Alire Sáenz tackles issues of race, queerness, feminism and poverty with a deft and gentle hand as he offers us a window into a brutal and beautiful year in Sal’s life.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "fiction", "rather long", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "0544586506", "seamus": 518837539, "itunes": 9780544586505, "goodreads": 23447923, "bookshop": 9780544586505, "cover": "0544586506", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544586505", "isbn10": "0544586506", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 283, "book": "The Inexplicable Logic Of My Life", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Inexplicable Logic' Maps A Teen Boy's Complicated Mind", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/16/515439579/inexplicable-logic-maps-a-teen-boys-complicated-mind" } ] }, "284": { "id": 284, "title": "The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, And The Power Of Seeing", "author": "Damion Searls", "reviewers": [ "Nancy Shute" ], "text": "Who can resist a quickie quiz that promises to reveal the secrets of our psyches? Especially when the quiz includes those arresting, mysterious inkblots. For decades, courts, the military and prospective employers relied on the personality test devised in 1921 by Hermann Rorschach, a dashing young Swiss psychiatrist and artist. Thanks to author Damion Searls, I now know that the eminent Dr. Rorschach was a Ryan Gosling lookalike who died tragically young. Searls also points out that the Rorschach test has proved to be pretty much worthless, even though it’s still in use. Given the current replication crisis in social science research, it’s good to be reminded that the problem of alluring but sketchy science has deep roots.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "science!", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0804136548", "seamus": 515584257, "itunes": 9780804136549, "goodreads": 30746292, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0804136548", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780804136549", "isbn10": "0804136548", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 284, "book": "The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, And The Power Of Seeing", "source": "WNPR", "text": "What Would Rorschach Tell You About You?", "url": "http://wnpr.org/post/what-would-rorschach-tell-you-about-you-0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 284, "book": "The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, And The Power Of Seeing", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Hermann Rorschach's 'Inkblots' Took On A Life Of Their Own", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/02/17/515449428/how-hermann-rorschachs-inkblots-took-on-a-life-of-their-own" } ] }, "285": { "id": 285, "title": "The King Is Always Above The People: Stories", "author": "Daniel Alarcón", "reviewers": [ "Juan Vidal" ], "text": "In his second story collection, Daniel Alarcón delivers 10 enthralling tales on migration, lost love and broken families – people who are perpetually on the outside looking in. Most of these stories take place in unnamed Latin American cities, giving the author a broad brush with which to work. I recall reading some of them over a decade ago in magazines and literary journals, and they strike just as hot today. A sense of urgency looms over every page of this beautiful and oftentimes unsettling collection.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1594631727", "seamus": 560287109, "itunes": 9781594631726, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594631727", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594631726", "isbn10": "1594631727", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 285, "book": "The King Is Always Above The People: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Empathy And Detachment Mix In 'The King Is Always Above The People'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/02/560097325/empathy-and-detachment-mix-in-the-king-is-always-above-the-people" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 285, "book": "The King Is Always Above The People: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The King Is Always Above The People' In More Lands Than One", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/28/560408414/the-king-is-always-above-the-people-in-more-lands-than-one" } ] }, "286": { "id": 286, "title": "The Last Kid Left: A Novel", "author": "Rosecrans Baldwin", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Rosecrans Baldwin’s novel of young love, small-town desolation and bloody murder plays out like a crowded and oddly modern version of The Scarlet Letter, but one without easy nobility and where every single character is broken and walks around all day with their guts hanging out. It is a witch-hunt story for our age of witch hunts. Guilty-until-proven-innocent-by-someone-else-just-being-MORE-guilty. Like a small town news broadcast brought to vivid life using the points of view of multiple characters, each one of them less trustworthy than the last.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "love & romance", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374298564", "seamus": 531930530, "itunes": 9780374298562, "goodreads": 31450937, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374298564", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374298562", "isbn10": "0374298564", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 286, "book": "The Last Kid Left: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Last Kid Left' Is A Summer Read For People Who Hate The Light", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/11/530794417/last-kid-left-is-a-summer-read-for-people-who-hate-the-light" } ] }, "287": { "id": 287, "title": "The Leavers: A Novel", "author": "Lisa Ko", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Eleven-year-old Deming’s mother, Polly, is a Chinese immigrant, in the country illegally. One day she goes to her job at a nail salon and never returns. Ten years later, Deming goes by Daniel, and he is a college dropout with a gambling problem – and then someone from his past unexpectedly contacts him with information about his mother. The Leavers is plotted like a good mystery, but that is not really the point. Instead, it’s a heartbreaking account of the terrible circumstances that would cause a mother to abandon her son.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "1616206888", "seamus": 559019346, "itunes": 9781616206888, "goodreads": 30753987, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1616206888", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781616206888", "isbn10": "1616206888", "links": [] }, "288": { "id": 288, "title": "The Legend Of Rock, Paper, Scissors", "author": "Drew Daywalt, illustrated by Adam Rex", "reviewers": [ "Justine Kenin" ], "text": "This is a wonderfully imagined origin story of the silly game kids – and some grown-ups – play to figure out who gets the short end of the stick. In the beginning, Rock, Paper and Scissors are all unbeatable in their own realms – until they come face to face. The book is filled with dialogue that makes you laugh, as when Scissors says, “I hope you’re wearing your battle pants, Rock Warrior,” and Rock responds, “If by ‘battle pants’ you man ‘no pants but I’m willing to fight you’, then yes … Yes, I am wearing my ‘battle pants.’ ” We all know how that ends. But then Paper arrives, and round they go again. Even if kids can’t read, they can appreciate the clever use of typefaces to distinguish Rock from Paper from Scissors. This is a great read-aloud book that gives you a chance to try out all sorts of voices. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "fiction", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "0062438891", "seamus": 534762197, "itunes": 9780062438898, "goodreads": 31215005, "bookshop": 9780062438898, "cover": "0062438891", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062438898", "isbn10": "0062438891", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 288, "book": "The Legend Of Rock, Paper, Scissors", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'I Want The Pages To Turn': Librarian Nancy Pearl's Summer Reading List", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/29/534709986/i-want-the-pages-to-turn-librarian-nancy-pearls-summer-reading-list" } ] }, "289": { "id": 289, "title": "The Little French Bistro: A Novel", "author": "Nina George", "reviewers": [ "Hannah Bloch" ], "text": "I started this novel in July with low expectations. The title suggested something breezy, but the book opens with the musings of a suicidal, 60-something German housewife – not exactly the summer read I had expected. I was won over by Nina George’s smart, unsentimental story, its free-spirited characters and its fierce undercurrent of hope, as the miserable Marianne Messmann changes her life by becoming part of a tight-knit Breton community. The Little French Bistro is about the transformative power of love – a hard-nosed fairy tale for grown-ups.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0451495586", "seamus": 559865289, "itunes": 9780451495587, "goodreads": 32283424, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451495586", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451495587", "isbn10": "0451495586", "links": [] }, "290": { "id": 290, "title": "The Marrow Thieves", "author": "Cherie Dimaline", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "After the ecological and psychological collapse of North America, indigenous people all over the continent – the only ones who can still dream – are hunted by the government and put in second-generation versions of residential schools. When orphan Frenchie joins a group of refugees led by the experienced Miigwans, the new family moves slowly North, looking for a place safe enough to be home. With writing that is crisp, lyrical and evocative, Métis author Cherie Dimaline breathes new life into the young adult apocalypse, with a near-future story that holds up an uncompromising mirror to the present. Unsettling, poignant and satisfying.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1770864865", "seamus": 558783559, "itunes": 9781770864863, "goodreads": 34649348, "bookshop": 9781770864863, "cover": "1770864865", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781770864863", "isbn10": "1770864865", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 290, "book": "The Marrow Thieves", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch's 2018 Book Guide", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/12/12/674672972/code-switchs-2018-book-guide" } ] }, "291": { "id": 291, "title": "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness: A Novel", "author": "Arundhati Roy", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "I confess to a weakness for sprawling , messy epics – books that embrace the evolution of history and culture, with lashings of intrigue and romance throughout. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness does all this. (It begins in a graveyard – I was hooked.) Arundhati Roy weaves many themes of contemporary India – caste divisions (still), interethnic conflict, eco wars, transgender rights – into a story that will satisfy many (but not all) of the fans who so rabidly embraced her first book, The God of Small Things, some 20 years ago. This is not that. But it is very much worth your time.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "rather long" ], "isbn": "1524733156", "seamus": 559086760, "itunes": 9781524733155, "goodreads": 34139539, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1524733156", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524733155", "isbn10": "1524733156", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 291, "book": "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness: A Novel", "source": "KUOW", "text": "God Of Small Things' Author Has A New Book After 20 Years", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/god-small-things-author-has-new-book-after-20-years" } ] }, "292": { "id": 292, "title": "The Misfortune Of Marion Palm: A Novel", "author": "Emily Culliton", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "Marion Palm is on the lam. She has a backpack full of money embezzled from the private school where she works. Left behind are her lazy husband and their two daughters, who begin to fray a bit around the edges (Nathan Palm becomes an obsessive lifestyle blogger). But Marion is finally free to do as she likes – even though she doesn’t really have a plan. Will she return to her life? Should she feel worse about escaping it? Do you empathize with her and her longing for financial and emotional freedom? Do you condemn or condone her abandoning her children? The Misfortune of Marion Palm is a fun caper, maybe especially because it’s hard to tell if you’re rooting for Marion Palm or against her.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1524731900", "seamus": 558601668, "itunes": 9781524731908, "goodreads": 33208830, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1524731900", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781524731908", "isbn10": "1524731900", "links": [] }, "293": { "id": 293, "title": "The Mother Of All Questions", "author": "Rebecca Solnit", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "After decades of publishing trenchant essays on politics, feminism and the environment, Rebecca Solnit is finally getting the attention she deserves. The Mother of All Questions, a follow-up to her 2014 book Men Explain Things to Me, is a typically sharp, graceful work on the subject of misogyny, motherhood and “the reciprocal silence we call gender roles.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1608467406", "seamus": 558340886, "itunes": 9781608467402, "goodreads": 29633797, "bookshop": 9781608467402, "cover": "1608467406", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781608467402", "isbn10": "1608467406", "links": [] }, "294": { "id": 294, "title": "The Mountain: Stories", "author": "Paul Yoon", "reviewers": [ "Ellen Silva" ], "text": "Not for the faint of heart, this exquisitely painful collection of stories by writing professor Paul Yoon will take you to several countries in a couple hundred pages. Yoon creates each of his characters with precision, economy and quiet empathy; I was surprised by how long I thought about them after I put the book down. All six stories are unique, perfect and haunting.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1501154087", "seamus": 558520482, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 32920266, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501154087", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501154089", "isbn10": "1501154087", "links": [] }, "295": { "id": 295, "title": "The New Analog: Listening And Reconnecting In A Digital World", "author": "Damon Krukowski", "reviewers": [ "Bryant Urstadt" ], "text": "This is not a book about why vinyl sounds better; it’s way more interesting than that. Damon Krukowski, who used to be in a band called Galaxie 500, writes about how the transition to digital sound has changed the way we interact with one another in ways we might not understand. It’s a subtle book, and it isn’t full of opinions. But it is full of things I didn’t know, like why people yell into cellphones. (It has to do with the design of the microphone.) Ultimately, it’s about how we consume sound as a society – which is, increasingly, on an individual basis.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "for music lovers", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1620971976", "seamus": 558360287, "itunes": 9781620971970, "goodreads": 31213293, "bookshop": 9781620971970, "cover": "1620971976", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781620971970", "isbn10": "1620971976", "links": [] }, "296": { "id": 296, "title": "The New Odyssey: The Story Of The Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis", "author": "Patrick Kingsley", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Baker" ], "text": "Despite paying attention to the flood of news reports, documentaries and articles about the Syrian refugee crisis, I’ve had a hard time getting a grasp on the big picture. This book put everything in perspective. Patrick Kingsley draws you into the global crisis by presenting the personal stories of migrants, along different routes and in different stages of the journey. His writing is absolutely gripping, and his book is informative without feeling like homework. He makes each person an individual, not a statistic.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1631492551", "seamus": 559499003, "itunes": 9781631492556, "goodreads": 30047019, "bookshop": 9781631492556, "cover": "1631492551", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781631492556", "isbn10": "1631492551", "links": [] }, "297": { "id": 297, "title": "The Ninth Hour: A Novel", "author": "Alice McDermott", "reviewers": [ "Lynn Neary" ], "text": "The Ninth Hour begins with a suicide. The aftermath is handled with indisputable authority by a nun who works with the sick and poor, Sister St. Saviour, who arranges both a funeral for the dead man and a future for his pregnant widow, Annie. The young woman begins working in the laundry at the local convent where her daughter Sally spends much of her childhood. As Sally becomes steeped in the world of the nuns, her mother enters into a secret life beyond the convent. Alice McDermott carefully builds a world and a story that leads to an act of love so unexpected it will leave you lingering over the final page, wondering how she pulled it off.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0374280142", "seamus": 549275110, "itunes": 9780374280147, "goodreads": 33931059, "bookshop": 9780374280147, "cover": "0374280142", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374280147", "isbn10": "0374280142", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 297, "book": "The Ninth Hour: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 297, "book": "The Ninth Hour: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'The Ninth Hour,' A Tonic For The Ills Of The World", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/548665244/in-the-ninth-hour-a-tonic-for-the-ills-of-the-world" } ] }, "298": { "id": 298, "title": "The Palestinian Table", "author": "Reem Kassis", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Quick: What’s Palestinian food? Think you don’t know? In fact, you do. Kibbeh, flatbreads, tabbouleh and za’atar are all dishes and ingredients found across the Fertile Crescent. Born in Jerusalem and educated in the West, Reem Kassis faced a familiar predicament: What would happen to her family’s culinary legacy in a generation or two, as the family’s women left the kitchen? Like so many others before her, Kassis decided to court posterity with a cookbook. Here are the stuffed grape leaves, shakshuka, fenugreek semolina cake and labneh and cabbage rolls of her family, and much more. Those with the patience for stuffing, chopping and kneading will find this book richly rewarding. Everyone else? Wait for an easy weekend, and take your time – thanks to one more daughter’s labor of love, these recipes aren’t going anywhere.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0714874965", "seamus": 563256851, "itunes": "", "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9780714874968, "cover": "0714874965", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780714874968", "isbn10": "0714874965", "links": [] }, "299": { "id": 299, "title": "The Pearl Thief", "author": "Elizabeth Wein", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Standing perfectly well on its own and in no way diminishing Code Name Verity (to which it’s a prequel), The Pearl Thief is a gorgeous coming-of-age story. Julia Beaufort-Stuart is the granddaughter of the Earl of Strathfearn, visiting the estate one last time before it’s to be sold during the summer she turns 16. As Julia dozes near the estate’s pearl-laden river, someone hits her on the back of the head, hard enough to put her in hospital for days, leaving her with no memory of what happened. Meanwhile, a professor who works for her family has gone missing, local Travellers are persecuted, and slowly, with the help of friends and siblings, Julia begins unknotting the mysteries one river pearl at a time.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "historical fiction", "young adult", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1484717163", "seamus": 523934826, "itunes": 9781484717165, "goodreads": 31178738, "bookshop": 9781484717165, "cover": "1484717163", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781484717165", "isbn10": "1484717163", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 299, "book": "The Pearl Thief", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Pearl Thief' Is Part Murder Mystery, Part Coming-Of-Age Tale", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/04/523587252/the-pearl-thief-is-part-murder-mystery-part-coming-of-age-tale" } ] }, "300": { "id": 300, "title": "The Pho Cookbook: Easy To Adventurous Recipes For Vietnam's Favorite Soup And Noodles", "author": "Andrea Nguyen", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "This is a book about soup, noodles and noodle soup – specifically the addictive (and increasingly ubiquitous) beef noodle soup of Vietnam. If you think that wrangling beef bones, fish sauce, Thai basil, ginger, etc. into the sublime elixir known as pho was well beyond your skillset, Andrea Nguyen begs to differ. With the same clarity and care displayed in her previous books, Nguyen guides even the nervous first-time pho navigator to slurp-worthy success. And it’s not just pho – the rest of the book abounds with stir-fries and weeknight noodle dishes that will make you fall in love with lemongrass and garlic all over again. Buy without hesitation, cook with confidence and … pronounce with care.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1607749580", "seamus": 563256319, "itunes": 9781607749585, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781607749585, "cover": "1607749580", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781607749585", "isbn10": "1607749580", "links": [] }, "301": { "id": 301, "title": "The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers", "author": "Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (editors)", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "In The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Hollis Robbins have assembled an incisive collection of pieces by over 50 women, spanning nearly a century and highlighting the importance of varied narratives in connecting the past to the present. From slave testimony to satire, romance novels to cultural commentary, these pieces form a complex and compelling whole. This isn’t a book seeking tidy answers about the “right” ambitions. It’s a rewarding history and a reminder that the past is never a single story.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "014310599X", "seamus": 538330683, "itunes": 9780143105992, "goodreads": 30422260, "bookshop": 9780143105992, "cover": "014310599X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780143105992", "isbn10": "014310599X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 301, "book": "The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers", "source": "NPR", "text": "A 'Portable' Overview Of A Complex, Compelling History ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/30/537086011/a-portable-overview-of-a-complex-compelling-history" } ] }, "302": { "id": 302, "title": "The Potlikker Papers: A Food History Of The Modern South", "author": "John T. Edge", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "We Southerners tend to brag about the quality of our potlikker – the flavorful broth (perfect for cornbread sopping) left when you cook a pot of greens. But you won’t find recipes here, only tales of the cooks, waiters, farmers, writers and immigrants who forged change through food. John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi, uses food as a lens to explore Southern identity, seeking to reconcile a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow with who claims the Southern table today. “Potlikker is salvage food,” he writes; masters ate the greens and left the potlikker for slave cooks and their families, “unaware that the broth, not the greens, was nutrient rich.”
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "staff picks", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "1594206554", "seamus": 532371829, "itunes": 9781594206559, "goodreads": 31812079, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594206554", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594206559", "isbn10": "1594206554", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 302, "book": "The Potlikker Papers: A Food History Of The Modern South", "source": "NPR", "text": "Why The Story Of Southern Food Is As Much About People As Dishes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/06/11/532086897/grappling-with-race-class-and-southern-foods-great-debt-of-pleasure" } ] }, "303": { "id": 303, "title": "The Power", "author": "Naomi Alderman", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "What if women could summon electricity from their fingers? How would the world change? Naomi Alderman’s novel * The Power* begins as a kind of feminist fantasy – women with newfound power, living free from fear – and spins into a darker parable about the inevitable corruptions of power. It’s wonderful.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316547611", "seamus": 556191335, "itunes": 9780316547611, "goodreads": 33641244, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0316547611", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316547611", "isbn10": "0316547611", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 303, "book": "The Power", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'The Power,' Women Develop A Weapon That Changes Everything", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/26/573507226/in-the-power-women-develop-a-weapon-that-changes-everything" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 303, "book": "The Power", "source": "NPR", "text": "Electrifying 'Power' Flips The Gender Script To Unsettling Effect", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/11/555689738/electrifying-power-flips-the-gender-script-to-unsettling-effect" } ] }, "304": { "id": 304, "title": "The President's Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma In Power And Out Of Prison", "author": "Jacques Pauw", "reviewers": [ "Ofeibea Quist-Arcton" ], "text": "Wow, this one’s a cracker. It’s dynamite. You may not be steeped in South African politics, or the whys and wherefores of the late Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, but Jacques Pauw’s exposé of the party’s current leader, the increasingly discredited President Jacob Zuma, pulls no punches. In The President’s Keepers, Pauw, an investigative journalist, breathlessly and painstakingly documents the people he describes as maintaining Zuma and his compromised government in power – and keeping the president himself out of prison. There’s evidence and anecdote aplenty in this gripping tale of Zuma’s fight for his political life, and it’s never quite clear whether he is the puppet or the puppet master.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0624083039", "seamus": 562628995, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 36495163, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0624083039", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780624083030", "isbn10": "0624083039", "links": [] }, "305": { "id": 305, "title": "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America's Shining Women", "author": "Kate Moore", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "After World War I, many women worked in factories painting light-up dials. Not long after, they started to get sick. The companies claimed not to know why. The women knew better; they were being poisoned by the radium in their glowing paint. This isn’t an easy read; The Radium Girls viscerally describes both the pain these women suffered and their struggle for justice in a legal system designed to favor corporations. At times, it reads like a true-crime story (radium killed these young women, but the companies murdered them), but there’s still a hint of hope at the end.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "for history lovers", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "149264935X", "seamus": 525060291, "itunes": 9781492649359, "goodreads": 31409135, "bookshop": "", "cover": "149264935X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781492649359", "isbn10": "149264935X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 305, "book": "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America's Shining Women", "source": "WNPR", "text": "The Story Of Waterbury's 'Radium Girls'", "url": "http://wnpr.org/post/story-waterburys-radium-girls-0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 305, "book": "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America's Shining Women", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Radium Girls' Is Haunted By Glowing Ghosts", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/27/525765323/the-radium-girls-is-haunted-by-glowing-ghosts" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 305, "book": "The Radium Girls: The Dark Story Of America's Shining Women", "source": "NPR", "text": "Dark Lives Of 'The Radium Girls' Left A Bright Legacy For Workers, Science", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/22/525063024/dark-lives-of-the-radium-girls-left-a-bright-legacy-for-workers-science" } ] }, "306": { "id": 306, "title": "The Red", "author": "Tiffany Reisz", "reviewers": [ "Maya Rodale" ], "text": "Mona will do just about anything to save her late mother’s art gallery. Enter Malcolm, a mysterious (sexy) stranger with an unusual (and sexy) proposition – permission to do whatever he wants with her body in exchange for help saving her gallery. This familiar plot gets a smart and intriguing twist: Each sexual encounter is staged like a famous work of art. They start with Manet’s Olympia and move onto William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Nymphs and Satyr, and James Sharples’ A Portrait of a Gentleman among others. Let’s just say that these scenes make for some very interesting subway reading.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "1537217763", "seamus": 536916366, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 30755704, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1537217763", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781537217765", "isbn10": "1537217763", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 306, "book": "The Red", "source": "NPR", "text": "For July, 3 Romance Heroines Who Want It All", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/15/536915769/for-july-3-romance-heroines-who-want-it-all" } ] }, "307": { "id": 307, "title": "The Refugees", "author": "Viet Thanh Nguyen", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Viet Thanh Nguyen’s short story collection was published at a critical moment at the start of 2017, as the U.S. was rife with debate about the immigration status of those fleeing conflicts abroad. With his gorgeous prose, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizers continues his tradition of illuminating Vietnamese-Americans in all their humanity. Stories about ghosts, family, sexuality and place fill this collection. It’s not one to be missed.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0802126391", "seamus": 512920701, "itunes": 9780802126399, "goodreads": 30358505, "bookshop": 9780802126399, "cover": "0802126391", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780802126399", "isbn10": "0802126391", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 307, "book": "The Refugees", "source": "KUER", "text": "Viet Thanh Nguyen Talks About The Lives Of Refugees", "url": "http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/viet-thanh-nguyen-refugees" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 307, "book": "The Refugees", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Refugees' Author Says We Should All Know What It Is To Be An Outsider", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/10/513694099/the-refugees-author-says-we-should-all-know-what-it-is-to-be-an-outsider" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 307, "book": "The Refugees", "source": "NPR", "text": "Memory And Loss Haunt The Stories In 'The Refugees'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/09/512910786/memory-and-loss-haunt-the-stories-in-the-refugees" } ] }, "308": { "id": 308, "title": "The River Bank: A Sequel To Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows", "author": "Kij Johnson", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "A beautiful, pitch-perfect sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, with characters original to Kij Johnson and spot illustrations by Kathleen Jennings, The River Bank is that species of fan fiction that unfolds new material from a beloved property with hardly a hint of a seam. Meandering with a river’s pace through musings on art, home and the end of summer, The River Bank is a more than worthy successor.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "seriously great writing", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1618731300", "seamus": 549239828, "itunes": 9781618731302, "goodreads": 31944834, "bookshop": 9781618731302, "cover": "1618731300", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781618731302", "isbn10": "1618731300", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 308, "book": "The River Bank: A Sequel To Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Wind Still Blows Through The Willows — And Along 'The River Bank'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/14/548663459/the-wind-blows-through-the-willows-and-delightfully-along-the-river-bank" } ] }, "309": { "id": 309, "title": "The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir", "author": "Ariel Levy", "reviewers": [ "Elise Hu" ], "text": "In this memoir, New Yorker writer Ariel Levy reflects on her life leading up to a breathtakingly painful period that – at the risk of sounding cliché – changed everything. Instead of being a downer, this ends up as a hopeful meditation on womanhood and a universal question: What’s the most we should expect from ourselves and our bodies? It’s also a rumination on memory, family, commitment and the frailty of those things. You don’t have to be a woman for Levy’s writing to resonate, though. It’s unfailingly raw and relentlessly human.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0812996933", "seamus": 540822817, "itunes": 9780812996937, "goodreads": 32572166, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0812996933", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812996937", "isbn10": "0812996933", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 309, "book": "The Rules Do Not Apply: A Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'I Was Somebody's Mother': Reflections On The Guilt And Grief Of Miscarriage", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/01/540822381/i-was-somebodys-mother-reflections-on-the-guilt-and-grief-of-miscarriage" } ] }, "310": { "id": 310, "title": "The Rules Of Magic", "author": "Alice Hoffman", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "This standalone prequel to Practical Magic is mostly set in the 1960s and features the lives of the Owens siblings – Frances, Bridget and Vincent. Coming of age on the Upper East Side with fashionable parents suspicious of the extraordinary, they explore and develop their powers together in secret, all the while resisting – and failing to resist – falling in love, with catastrophic consequences. Alice Hoffman’s prose is as tender, dreamy and sweet as ever, laced with the sting of vinegar and broken glass, and The Rules of Magic blends the tug of the familiar with the enchantment of the new into a lovely, bittersweet brew.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "family matters", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1501137476", "seamus": 555717055, "itunes": 9781501137471, "goodreads": 34466968, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501137476", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501137471", "isbn10": "1501137476", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 310, "book": "The Rules Of Magic", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Rules Of Magic' Blends The Charm Of The Familiar With New Enchantments", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/10/555689524/rules-of-magic-blends-the-charm-of-the-familiar-with-new-enchantments" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 310, "book": "The Rules Of Magic", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 1960s New York, Witchy Women Learn 'The Rules Of Magic'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/08/556174995/in-1960s-new-york-witchy-women-learn-the-rules-of-magic" } ] }, "311": { "id": 311, "title": "The Sarah Book", "author": "Scott McClanahan", "reviewers": [ "Mina Tavakoli" ], "text": "In a just world, there will be people who, after exhausting themselves of the tired “dirty realist” establishment (Raymond Carver, Charles Bukowski, et. al), instinctively and logically reach for Scott McClanahan next. The Sarah Book is a strange, unlovely tragicomedy, charting the fall of a character we’re never really meant to root for in the first place. Each page feels heavy with a greasy, blue-collar nihilism – a classic sort of American melancholy so embedded in our blood that moments of salvation or stupidity within feel, for better or worse, uncannily ours.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "rather short", "fiction", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0988518392", "seamus": 533703599, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31944806, "bookshop": 9780988518391, "cover": "0988518392", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780988518391", "isbn10": "0988518392", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 311, "book": "The Sarah Book", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Sarah Book' Is An Unsparing Primal Scream Of A Book", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/21/532975930/the-sarah-book-is-an-unsparing-primal-scream-of-a-book" } ] }, "312": { "id": 312, "title": "The Scent Of Jasmine: Coming Of Age In Jerusalem And Damascus", "author": "Anan Ameri", "reviewers": [ "Neda Ulaby" ], "text": "A vibrant collection of vignettes evokes the author’s childhood in Damascus, Syria, and Jerusalem and her coming-of-age in Amman, Jordan, and Cairo in the 1950s and ‘60s. Each chapter is linked by the era’s heady political atmosphere, which Ameri’s family fully participated in, and the aroma of jasmine, which grew in abundance in the courtyard of her grandfather’s elegant Damascus home. Now a sociologist and journalist, Ameri writes with tenderness, energy and wit about her secular Muslim family, and her stories are filled with often-poignant surprises: the dramatic marriage between her wealthy Syrian mother and socialist Palestinian father, the open secret of a lesbian relative, the pleasures of visiting a Syrian ice cream shop established in 1885 and Ameri’s eventual move to the U.S. to work as an activist. More than anything, this memoir is a love letter to Damascus and Jerusalem, two cities that tug on the heart of the world, and a warm, wistful look back at a Middle East that has virtually disappeared.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1566560012", "seamus": 559001581, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 33920724, "bookshop": 9781566560016, "cover": "1566560012", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566560016", "isbn10": "1566560012", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 312, "book": "The Scent Of Jasmine: Coming Of Age In Jerusalem And Damascus", "source": "Michigan Radio", "text": "New Memoir Challenges Perceptions Of What It Means To Grow Up In The Middle East", "url": "http://michiganradio.org/post/new-memoir-challenges-perceptions-what-it-means-grow-middle-east" } ] }, "313": { "id": 313, "title": "The Secret Lives Of Color", "author": "Kassia St. Clair", "reviewers": [ "Nina Martyris" ], "text": "In this beautifully written and thoughtfully produced book, Kassia St.Clair, who writes a column on color for Elle Decoration, examines the roots of 75 different shades, dyes and hues, from the obscure – like gamboge and celadon – to more familiar shades like saffron, magenta and emerald. These potted histories of pigments double as a history of human civilization: Why did Homer never mention the color blue? Why was purple an imperial color? Why is scarlet both regal and scandalous? And did you know puce came from the French word for flea? Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "it’s all geek to me", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0143131141", "seamus": 558998039, "itunes": 9780143131144, "goodreads": 34122206, "bookshop": 9780143131144, "cover": "0143131141", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780143131144", "isbn10": "0143131141", "links": [] }, "314": { "id": 314, "title": "The Seventh Function Of Language: A Novel", "author": "Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Laurent Binet’s follow-up to HHhH is a postmodern intellectual romp and hilarious mystery for the Mensa set and fans of Umberto Eco and Tom Stoppard. With a lineup of characters plucked from the heavyweights of 20th century French linguistic and critical theory, Binet spins a wild plot that begins with the (actual) death of literary critic Roland Barthes in 1980. Between car chases, mutilations, graphic sex, multiple murders, Russian spies, Bulgarian assassins and Venetian thugs, this action-packed, fiendishly clever novel cunningly sneaks in serious discussions about the many ways language exerts power, particularly in politics and fiction.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "for art lovers", "seriously great writing", "funny stuff", "tales from around the world", "it’s all geek to me", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374261563", "seamus": 540118034, "itunes": 9780374261566, "goodreads": 31450626, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374261563", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374261566", "isbn10": "0374261563", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 314, "book": "The Seventh Function Of Language: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Seventh Function' Is A Postmodern Mashup Of Fact, Fiction And Philosophy", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/539597890/seventh-function-is-a-postmodern-mashup-of-fact-fiction-and-philosophy" } ] }, "315": { "id": 315, "title": "The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen", "author": "Sean Sherman", "reviewers": [ "Maria Godoy" ], "text": "Food is culture, but what happens to your culture’s traditional cuisine after well over a century of forced assimilation? Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman has spent years researching the foods his Native American ancestors ate before Europeans first arrived in the Americas – which means no sugar or dairy, among other things. In The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, he brings traditional ingredients into the modern age with healthful, intriguing recipes like amaranth crackers, braised bison, and smoked turkey and acorn soup. More than just a cookbook, this is an act of reclamation of Native Americans’ history – and their future.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0816699798", "seamus": 559115635, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34448042, "bookshop": 9780816699797, "cover": "0816699798", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780816699797", "isbn10": "0816699798", "links": [] }, "316": { "id": 316, "title": "The State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity", "author": "Esther Perel", "reviewers": [ "Elise Hu" ], "text": "Love doc Esther Perel has made a career of addressing a central question: How do we get both stability and adventure in exclusive romantic pairings? Her research led her to the fraught topic of infidelity, which she describes as the most universally condemned yet widely practiced taboo in relationships today. In The State of Affairs, Perel explores a vast landscape of the adulterous terrain – whether disclosing an affair is worth it, why people in happy relationships cheat, and all kinds of fresh ideas that challenge conventional wisdom. Written in a way that’s deeply humane and never preachy, Perel’s book is a reminder that couples – and the way they organize themselves – are as diverse as the people in them.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "0062322583", "seamus": 558404373, "itunes": 9780062322586, "goodreads": 34017009, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062322583", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062322586", "isbn10": "0062322583", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 316, "book": "The State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity", "source": "NPR", "text": "As Marriage Standards Change, A Therapist Recommends 'Rethinking Infidelity' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/13/570131890/as-marriage-standards-change-a-therapist-recommends-rethinking-infidelity" } ] }, "317": { "id": 317, "title": "The Stone Sky", "author": "N.K. Jemisin", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "This thrilling conclusion to the Broken Earth trilogy more than sticks the landing – it rearranges the terrain on impact. Delving deep into the Evil Earth’s history with the inhuman Stone Eaters and their history, in turn, with those who made them and to what purpose, The Stone Sky also sees protagonist Essun’s reunion with her daughter-turned-rival, Nassun, as they wrestle for control of the Moon and with it, the fate of the Earth. A transformative cap to a series that hasn’t so much raised the bar on epic fantasy as it has fundamentally changed the genre.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316229245", "seamus": 544215855, "itunes": 9780316229241, "goodreads": 33296259, "bookshop": 9780316229241, "cover": "0316229245", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316229241", "isbn10": "0316229245", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 317, "book": "The Stone Sky", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'The Stone Sky,' Some Worlds Need To Burn", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/19/542469223/in-the-stone-sky-some-worlds-need-to-burn" } ] }, "318": { "id": 318, "title": "The Storm Before The Storm: The Beginning Of The End Of The Roman Republic", "author": "Mike Duncan", "reviewers": [ "Scott Detrow" ], "text": "Mike Duncan’s popular podcast, The History of Rome and Revolutions, packed facts, dry humor and historical parallels into easily digestible 20-minute episodes. His new book, The Storm Before The Storm, focuses on the decades that led up to the fall of the Republic. From income inequality to questions about who does and doesn’t deserve citizenship to the rise of populism, it’s consistently surprising how the issues we’re facing today were relevant two millennia ago. And if you’re worried about those parallels, this book provides a dose of reassurance. We’re divided, but hey, at least we’re not laying siege to our political rivals’ cities just yet!
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "book club ideas", "it’s all geek to me", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1610397215", "seamus": 558595755, "itunes": 9781610397216, "goodreads": 34184069, "bookshop": 9781610397216, "cover": "1610397215", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781610397216", "isbn10": "1610397215", "links": [] }, "319": { "id": 319, "title": "The Strange Case Of The Alchemist's Daughter", "author": "Theodora Goss", "reviewers": [ "Jason Heller" ], "text": "The premise Theodora Goss lays out in her novel The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter is simple, elegant and rich with promise: The daughters of some of 19th-century literature’s greatest literary villains (and, in some cases, antiheroes) come together in a grand mystery. Strange Case is a lively Victorian adventure that celebrates, overhauls, and pokes gentle fun at the era’s weird-fiction tradition. But it’s also a sparkling conversation with the canon from which it sprang.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "148146650X", "seamus": 533567997, "itunes": 9781481466509, "goodreads": 32714264, "bookshop": "", "cover": "148146650X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481466509", "isbn10": "148146650X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 319, "book": "The Strange Case Of The Alchemist's Daughter", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Alchemist's Daughter' Is No Frankenstein's Monster", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/20/532975927/the-alchemists-daughter-is-no-frankensteins-monster" } ] }, "320": { "id": 320, "title": "The Strays: A Novel", "author": "Emily Bitto", "reviewers": [ "Jean Zimmerman" ], "text": "This debut novel showcases a dazzling and doomed collection of human beings assembled under one bohemian roof in 1930s Australia. One, an adolescent named Lily, sees all but says little – until she comes to narrate this book. Framed as a memoir drafted in 1985, The Strays invites readers into a world that is by turns disturbing and magical. The avant-garde art scene in Melbourne burns white hot, becoming the reefer-fueled backdrop here. In the foreground, two young girls fall in love, creating an intense private relationship amid the adult chaos that reigns around them, and Emily Bitto’s word pictures elevate the ordinary to the exquisite.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "for art lovers", "tales from around the world", "historical fiction" ], "isbn": "1455537721", "seamus": 507163052, "itunes": 9781455537723, "goodreads": 30145124, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1455537721", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781455537723", "isbn10": "1455537721", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 320, "book": "The Strays: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Strays' Invites You To A Disturbing, Magical World", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/01/04/507161974/the-strays-invites-you-to-a-disturbing-magical-world" } ] }, "321": { "id": 321, "title": "The Thing About Love", "author": "Julie James", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Wendell" ], "text": "John Shepherd and Jessica Harlow were rivals in their FBI training class. Now experienced agents assigned to the same undercover case, they’re both dealing with private, painful life changes and not at all pleased to be working together. John and Jessica have to trust each other immediately as professionals – but learning to trust emotionally takes more time, and fortunately for us, more dialogue. Bonus: Jessica’s sly inner monologue as she navigates a very male-dominated field with intelligent strategy will seem familiar to any reader who has had to run the workplace obstacle course of power plays and small talk.
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0425273776", "seamus": 528019175, "itunes": 9780425273777, "goodreads": 27246123, "bookshop": 9780425273777, "cover": "0425273776", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780425273777", "isbn10": "0425273776", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 321, "book": "The Thing About Love", "source": "NPR", "text": "4 Romances To Kick Off Your Summer", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/14/527630238/4-romances-to-kick-off-your-summer" } ] }, "322": { "id": 322, "title": "The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness", "author": "Paula Poundstone", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "We all need some laughs these days, and Paula Poundstone provides a hootfest in this hilarious quest for the missing key to human happiness, which captures the off-the-wall skepticism we’ve come to love from her performances on Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me. She is willing to try anything: getting fit with taekwondo, promiscuous hugging, swing dancing, volunteering with the elderly and a usually forbidden all-day home-movie binge with her three kids and 12 cats. One high point: the charge she feels at the sight of canned goods neatly organized on tiered risers “like a can glee club.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1616204168", "seamus": 527104157, "itunes": 9781616204167, "goodreads": 30753999, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1616204168", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781616204167", "isbn10": "1616204168", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 322, "book": "The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness", "source": "WUTC", "text": "The Petting of Cats, Cats, And More Cats Pertinent To Poundstone's Happiness", "url": "http://wutc.org/post/petting-cats-cats-and-more-cats-pertinent-poundstones-happiness" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 322, "book": "The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness", "source": "NPR", "text": "Paula Poundstone's 'Totally Unscientific' Search For The Secret Of Happiness", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/07/527101956/paula-poundstones-totally-unscientific-search-for-the-secret-of-happiness" } ] }, "323": { "id": 323, "title": "The Twelve Lives Of Samuel Hawley: A Novel", "author": "Hannah Tinti", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "If you love father-son adventure novels, meet the father-daughter adventure novel, starring Samuel Hawley and his 12-year-old daughter, Loo. They have a lot of guns, and Loo is learning how to shoot at least a few of them. While Samuel, a true freelance, a gun-for-hire, attempts to hide his outlaw identity from Loo, his 12 bullet wounds eventually become a dozen stories that he remembers – and readers learn, along with a great deal more. As Samuel attempts to dull his own pain, Loo passes into adolescence and her own pain awakens. Hannah Tinti’s tender, careful evocation of how memories work for and on each of them makes this a must-read.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "mysteries & thrillers" ], "isbn": "0812989880", "seamus": 558359354, "itunes": 9780812989885, "goodreads": 30556459, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0812989880", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780812989885", "isbn10": "0812989880", "links": [] }, "324": { "id": 324, "title": "The Twenty Days Of Turin: A Novel", "author": "Giorgio De Maria, translated by Ramon Glazov", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Giorgio De Maria’s cult novel was published in Italy in 1977, at a time when the country was wracked by constant terror attacks and consequent police state crackdowns and violence. Neighbors distrusted each other. The social and political fabric was unraveling. They called it the “Years Of Lead,” and it was the inspiration for The Twenty Days – a spooky, strange piece of magical realism that captures, nearly note for note, the turmoil and chaos of a community whose center has shattered but is being held together by a willful, communal rejection of the breakage. It’s an odd book to be reading at this point in history, but one that is almost spookily prescient of our current time and place.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1631492292", "seamus": 507168279, "itunes": 9781631492297, "goodreads": 30285138, "bookshop": 9781631492297, "cover": "1631492292", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781631492297", "isbn10": "1631492292", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 324, "book": "The Twenty Days Of Turin: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Nothing Is Quite What It Seems In Surreal, Unsettling 'Twenty Days'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/08/507168482/nothing-is-quite-what-it-seems-in-surreal-unsettling-twenty-days" } ] }, "325": { "id": 325, "title": "The Unwomanly Face Of War: An Oral History Of Women In World War II", "author": "Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky", "reviewers": [ "Mark Katkov" ], "text": "Think of Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich as the Studs Terkel of the former Soviet Union. Her books are compilations of oral history; she’s conducted hundreds of interviews with survivors of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, veterans of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and, in this case, female veterans of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union lost an unfathomable 20 million soldiers and civilians in World War II. Alexievich spoke exclusively to women, who served on the front to a degree unmatched in any other country. They were astonished that someone asked for their stories. We’re astonished, in turn, by their first-person accounts of horror, heroism, love, patriotism, loss and disillusion. The translation is by the famed husband-wife team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, who live up to their reputation.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0399588728", "seamus": 559114009, "itunes": 9780399588723, "goodreads": 32905382, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399588728", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399588723", "isbn10": "0399588728", "links": [] }, "326": { "id": 326, "title": "The Unyielding", "author": "Shelly Laurenston", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Wendell" ], "text": "Campy, rage-drenched hilarity with a side order of Norse mythology, retold through a cast of diverse characters, The Unyielding is Part 3 of a trilogy wherein the Norse gods have human clans of warriors on Earth. The Crows are loyal to the goddess Skuld; their motto is “Let rage be your guide.” This book, and the whole series, is the superhero television show you wish you could watch as well as a meditation on finding your true allies and friends. After all, when you’re heading into life’s daily battles, you should always know the answer to the question: “Who are my sister Crows?”
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "funny stuff", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1617735132", "seamus": 559875700, "itunes": 9781617735134, "goodreads": 31084722, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1617735132", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781617735134", "isbn10": "1617735132", "links": [] }, "327": { "id": 327, "title": "The Way Of The Hare", "author": "Marianne Taylor", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "Sometimes, you just want a book about something someone loves. The Way of the Hare isn’t particularly interested in poetic turns of phrase; it’s interested in lagomorphs, and that’s enough. Marianne Taylor fondly follows her subjects from their introduction to Britain through to their occasionally-grim futures, gathering information about witch hunts and rabbit hearts as she goes. The history is absorbing, the science full of interesting trivia, and the author’s passion evident – for Taylor, treatment of the hare is a symptom of our greater relationship with the natural world. As goes the genus Lepus, so go we.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "science!", "eye-opening reads", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1472909895", "seamus": 558821994, "itunes": 9781472909893, "goodreads": 34351216, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1472909895", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781472909893", "isbn10": "1472909895", "links": [] }, "328": { "id": 328, "title": "The Wide Circumference Of Love", "author": "Marita Golden", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Let the title of this beautiful novel entice you. Set in a Washington, D.C., readers don’t often see, The Wide Circumference of Love is a generous rendering of a black family’s efforts to adapt and cope with its architect patriarch’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease. Gregory Tate’s progressive condition provides an opportunity for family members to revisit parts of their own, painful past. Meanwhile, Diane Tate, a devoted and supremely pragmatic wife and mother, transforms the loss of her husband and their cherished life together into a journey of optimism and love.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1628727357", "seamus": 559109811, "itunes": 9781628727357, "goodreads": 31212863, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1628727357", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781628727357", "isbn10": "1628727357", "links": [] }, "329": { "id": 329, "title": "The Wine Lover's Daughter: A Memoir", "author": "Anne Fadiman", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "Clifton Fadiman was many things: author, critic, editor, radio/television personality – and wine lover. He loved wine so much that his daughter, Anne Fadiman, thought it was a foregone conclusion that she would, too. In The Wine Lover’s Daughter, Anne explores her relationship with her father through his passion for wine, to which she could never quite relate. It’s part biography, part memoir, part history of wine. But it’s primarily about the relationship between a daughter and her beloved father.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "cookbooks & food", "family matters", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0374228086", "seamus": 558600542, "itunes": 9780374228088, "goodreads": 33931053, "bookshop": 9780374228088, "cover": "0374228086", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374228088", "isbn10": "0374228086", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 329, "book": "The Wine Lover's Daughter: A Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": "A 'Wine Lover's Daughter' Savors Her Dad's Vintage Story", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/04/561813417/a-wine-lover-s-daughter-savors-her-dad-s-vintage-story" } ] }, "330": { "id": 330, "title": "The Woman Next Door: A Novel", "author": "Yewande Omotoso", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Handel" ], "text": "Ever had a “hate-ship”? That’s how author Yewande Omotoso <a href https://www.npr.org/2017/02/12/514495267/next-door-neighbors-gradually-learn-to-get-along-in-post-apartheid-cape-town" target="_blank" >characterizes the relationship between Hortensia and Marion, the neighbors in her novel, The Woman Next Door. Hortensia, who’s black, and Marion, who’s white (and racist), live in an affluent part of Cape Town, South Africa. They have a lot in common: Both women were creative professionals with their own businesses, and both are widows. But they’re enemies until Hortensia breaks her leg in an accident that also leaves Marion temporarily homeless. Hortensia invites Marion in, and slowly their relationship begins to thaw. There’s no tidy Golden Girls ending , but you do have a sense that these two women will continue to talk and, bit by bit, bridge their ideological divide.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1250124573", "seamus": 514496460, "itunes": 9781250124579, "goodreads": 29875925, "bookshop": 9781250124579, "cover": "1250124573", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250124579", "isbn10": "1250124573", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 330, "book": "The Woman Next Door: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Next Door' Neighbors Gradually Learn To Get Along In Post-Apartheid Cape Town", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/12/514495267/next-door-neighbors-gradually-learn-to-get-along-in-post-apartheid-cape-town" } ] }, "331": { "id": 331, "title": "The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story Of Love, Spies, And The Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies", "author": "Jason Fagone", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "Elizebeth Friedman (and her husband, William) practically invented cryptology, and by World War II, they were crucial assets to the American government. The code-breaking nuts-and-bolts here are fascinating, but as her work became a political proving ground and William’s spiraled out of his control, this intelligence-gathering operation becomes more John Le Carré than James Bond. That nuance serves the book; the Friedmans are undoubtedly heroes, and they also helped build a surveillance state – a tension not easily resolved. The Woman Who Smashed Codes is both a compelling biography and food for thought about how wars shape nations from within as much as without.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "biography & memoir", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0062430483", "seamus": 554503254, "itunes": 9780062430489, "goodreads": 32025298, "bookshop": 9780062430489, "cover": "0062430483", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062430489", "isbn10": "0062430483", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 331, "book": "The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story Of Love, Spies, And The Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies", "source": "NPR", "text": "From Dinner Parties To Spy Rings, 'The Woman Who Smashed Codes' Bursts With Detail", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/30/548666129/from-dinner-parties-to-spy-rings-the-woman-who-smashed-codes-bursts-with-detail" } ] }, "332": { "id": 332, "title": "The World Broke In Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, And The Year That Changed Literature", "author": "Bill Goldstein", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "The ingenious conceit of Bill Goldstein’s book is to follow, using excerpts from correspondence and diaries, the intertwined personal and literary lives of four writers (Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and T.S. Eliot) as 1922’s three literary shocks – the publications of Ulysses, The Waste Land and In Search of Lost Time – ripple through their lives, and their work. In letting these four writers speak in their own words – their own witty, gossipy, often waspish words – Goldstein neatly avoids a dutiful chronicling of anything so weighty and abstruse as The Rise of Modernism. Cannily, he sacrifices historical sweep and gravitas for something much more grounded and intimate. In his hands, these literary lions prove surprisingly – and bracingly – catty.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "for art lovers", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "0805094024", "seamus": 537942142, "itunes": 9780805094022, "goodreads": 30199420, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0805094024", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780805094022", "isbn10": "0805094024", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 332, "book": "The World Broke In Two: Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, And The Year That Changed Literature", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The World Broke In Two': Four Writers, One Transformational Year", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/537085202/the-world-broke-in-two-four-writers-one-transformational-year" } ] }, "333": { "id": 333, "title": "The Year I Was Peter The Great: 1956 – Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia", "author": "Marvin Kalb", "reviewers": [ "Robert Siegel" ], "text": "Marvin Kalb, 87, was a Moscow bureau chief and diplomatic correspondent for CBS and NBC, and he has written many books. His latest is a memoir of an especially interesting year: 1956. Kalb was a graduate student doing research in Moscow when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave a supposedly secret speech denouncing his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, who up to that point had been worshipped as a great leader. The speech sparked a liberalization movement in the country, which Khrushchev mercilessly crushed. By the end of 1956, the premier was once again praising Stalin.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0815731612", "seamus": 556196548, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 34367328, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0815731612", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780815731610", "isbn10": "0815731612", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 333, "book": "The Year I Was Peter The Great: 1956 – Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Year I Was Peter The Great': A Young American In Soviet Russia", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/10/556195587/the-year-i-was-peter-the-great-a-young-american-in-soviet-russia" } ] }, "334": { "id": 334, "title": "Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)", "author": "David Sedaris", "reviewers": [ "Molly Seavy-Nesper" ], "text": "It’s safe to say most NPR listeners are familiar with the work of humorist David Sedaris – but who was he before he was famous? In Theft By Finding, his published diaries spanning 25 years, we find out. Sedaris shows us a broke, drugged-out, aspiring artist who spends late nights people-watching at IHOP and longing for fame. The entries are often short – it’s easy to dip in and out of the book – and we see Sedaris’ voice and humor develop before our very eyes.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "rather long", "funny stuff", "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "0316154725", "seamus": 530793495, "itunes": 9780316154727, "goodreads": 32498038, "bookshop": 9780316154727, "cover": "0316154725", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316154727", "isbn10": "0316154725", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 334, "book": "Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)", "source": "WVXU", "text": "Book Review: 'Theft By Finding'", "url": "http://wvxu.org/post/book-review-theft-finding-david-sedaris#stream/0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 334, "book": "Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Theft By Finding' Is As Mesmerizing As A Spinning Chicken (Trust Us)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/04/529749117/theft-by-finding-is-as-mesmerizing-as-a-spinning-chicken-trust-us" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 334, "book": "Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)", "source": "NPR", "text": "David Sedaris On The Life-Altering And Mundane Pages Of His Old Diaries", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/31/530810011/david-sedaris-on-the-life-altering-and-mundane-pages-of-his-old-diaries" } ] }, "335": { "id": 335, "title": "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays", "author": "Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib", "reviewers": [ "Juan Vidal" ], "text": "With a slew of sharp and expansive essays, poet and critic Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib delivers a much-needed collection for our time. He is a firm but generous cultural critic, and as a music writer, he has proven to be one of the most essential voices of his generation. In They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Willis-Abdurraqib covers subjects ranging from Migos to Carly Rae Jepsen and Bruce Springsteen. But in many cases, music is simply a vehicle for him to delve deeper, as he movingly explores themes of race, friendship and our shared quest for meaning.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "for music lovers", "book club ideas", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1937512657", "seamus": 563351615, "itunes": 9781937512651, "goodreads": "", "bookshop": 9781937512651, "cover": "1937512657", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781937512651", "isbn10": "1937512657", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 335, "book": "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch Book Club, Summer 2019", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/06/20/733808217/code-switch-book-club-summer-2019" } ] }, "336": { "id": 336, "title": "This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare", "author": "Gabourey Sidibe", "reviewers": [ "Rachel Martin" ], "text": "Gabourey Sidibe is hilarious – as in laugh-out-loud, smile-so-big-your-face-hurts funny. You might not know it from the serious fare she’s tackled in film and TV, but this is a woman who knows her voice, and it comes alive on the written page. In her remarkably candid memoir, This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare, Sidibe takes readers inside her life story in such a personal way. There is nothing off-limits: the depression and eating disorders that nearly paralyzed her as a child, her complicated relationship with her mom, how Hollywood has opened some doors for her and kept others closed. And, yes, there’s plenty of real talk about body image and learning to block out the noise. Sidibe is a gifted writer who always digs in when faced with the chance to reveal more truth or take a step back to more comfortable territory. And we, the readers, win big because of it.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "0544786769", "seamus": 526058208, "itunes": 9780544786769, "goodreads": 30971731, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0544786769", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780544786769", "isbn10": "0544786769", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 336, "book": "This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare", "source": "NPR", "text": "Actress Gabourey Sidibe On Anxiety, Phone Sex And Life After 'Precious'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/08/527392123/actress-gabourey-sidibe-on-anxiety-phone-sex-and-life-after-precious" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 336, "book": "This Is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare", "source": "NPR", "text": "Gabourey Sidibe's Message To The World: 'Mind Your Own Body'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/01/526057360/gabourey-sidibes-message-to-the-world-mind-your-own-body" } ] }, "337": { "id": 337, "title": "Thousand Star Hotel", "author": "Bao Phi", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Bao Phi’s poetry collection ambitiously meditates on loss, on police brutality and on how Phi, who fled Vietnam in an airplane while the Viet Cong bombed the airport, has constructed a sense of identity he’s now attempting to share with his young daughter Song. Phi, who also published a children’s book this year (A Different Pond) has a remarkable talent for bringing to life his experiences growing up poor and Asian in an urban environment.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1566894700", "seamus": 538287811, "itunes": 9781566894708, "goodreads": 31945208, "bookshop": 9781566894708, "cover": "1566894700", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781566894708", "isbn10": "1566894700", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 337, "book": "Thousand Star Hotel", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Poet Bao Phi, On Creating A 'Guidebook' For Young Asian-Americans ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/07/20/537580283/the-poet-bao-phi-on-creating-a-guidebook-for-young-asian-americans" } ] }, "338": { "id": 338, "title": "Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise And Reign Of The Unruly Woman", "author": "Anne Helen Petersen", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, the cultural critic Anne Helen Petersen writes about celebrities and other cultural figures who have been called “too strong,” “too fat,” “too gross,” “too slutty,” “too old,” “too pregnant,” “too shrill,” “too queer,” “too loud” and “too naked” for uncomplicated cultural acceptance. She ranges from Serena Williams (“too strong”) to Lena Dunham (“too naked”) and shows how each woman defies norms while still staying close enough to the edges of respectability to achieve mainstream success. Petersen interrogates our culture with precision and nuance.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0399576851", "seamus": 534122513, "itunes": 9780399576850, "goodreads": 33257571, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0399576851", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780399576850", "isbn10": "0399576851", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 338, "book": "Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise And Reign Of The Unruly Woman", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Too Fat, Too Slutty' Challenges Cultural Expectations Of Women", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/24/532976166/too-fat-too-slutty-challenges-cultural-expectations-of-women" } ] }, "339": { "id": 339, "title": "Too Much And Not The Mood: Essays", "author": "Durga Chew-Bose", "reviewers": [ "Kat Chow" ], "text": "Durga Chew-Bose breaks form constantly in her debut collection of essays. The first, “Heart Museum,” clocks in at 93 pages and slides in and out of meditations on the ways that seemingly innocuous things – like albums or films – can change your life. Others touch on what it means to examine a space and the people who inhabit it; her family; and what it feels like to be the only brown girl in a white place. Chew-Bose’s writing has rightfully been compared to the form-breaking work of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, and she delightfully expands the essay genre.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "for art lovers", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0374535957", "seamus": 559115721, "itunes": 9780374535957, "goodreads": 29875846, "bookshop": 9780374535957, "cover": "0374535957", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374535957", "isbn10": "0374535957", "links": [] }, "340": { "id": 340, "title": "Touch", "author": "Courtney Maum", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Touch, Courtney Maum’s satire of bougie techies, is a zany, manic pleasure. It follows a successful trend forecaster named Sloane who gradually loses faith in technology and consumerism and decides she wants to build real, in-person relationships again. Though it’s not a radical idea, Maum’s energy and wit make it memorable.
", "tags": [ "it’s all geek to me", "love & romance", "funny stuff", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0735212120", "seamus": 558344522, "itunes": 9780735212121, "goodreads": 32336834, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735212120", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735212121", "isbn10": "0735212120", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 340, "book": "Touch", "source": "WUTC", "text": "A Satirist At Starline: Courtney Maum Chats About 'Touch'", "url": "http://wutc.org/post/satirist-starline-courtney-maum-chats-about-touch" } ] }, "341": { "id": 341, "title": "Town Is By The Sea", "author": "Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Sydney Smith", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "A touching tribute to a mining town (where author Joanne Schwartz grew up), this story ebbs and flows like the sea itself, alternating between expansive seaside vistas and claustrophobic scenes of miners tunneling deep beneath the ocean floor. In one of the best illustrated books of the year, the masterful Sydney Smith uses luscious color and expressive lines to infuse each page with a fitting mix of melancholy and beauty. (For ages 5 to 9)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "1554988713", "seamus": 559053718, "itunes": 9781554988716, "goodreads": 31213527, "bookshop": 9781554988716, "cover": "1554988713", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781554988716", "isbn10": "1554988713", "links": [] }, "342": { "id": 342, "title": "Triangle", "author": "Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen", "reviewers": [ "Jacob Ganz" ], "text": "Parents and other over-and-over-again readers love subtext, sly references and hidden meanings, but some of the best books for kids leave it all on the page. This prickly little charmer from two of the heavyweights of the picture-book set – who also collaborated on this year’s The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse – couldn’t be simpler. It’s the story of a pair of big-eyed, two-legged, differently-shaped pals and rivals who simply want to play tricks on each other. But what Barnett and Klassen do with a handful of words and bold illustrations give these simple shapes a spark of life.
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "076369603X", "seamus": 559882966, "itunes": 9780763696030, "goodreads": 31247841, "bookshop": 9780763696030, "cover": "076369603X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780763696030", "isbn10": "076369603X", "links": [] }, "343": { "id": 343, "title": "Trust No Aunty", "author": "Maria Qamar", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Maria Qamar’s drawings of Pakistani émigré culture are just pure fun. Her unique adaptation of Roy Lichtenstein’s style conveys the sometimes-histrionic tone of desi life while giving it a modern sheen. If you’re familiar with Qamar’s Instagram feed, you already know the irritation of getting set up with the neighbors’ eligible son and seeing white girls sporting bindis at Coachella. If, on the other hand, you’re wondering what “desi” means, Qamar has the answer – along with advice on how to dodge a chappal, shape the perfect roti and cope with the meddling older women in your life.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "identity & culture", "family matters", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1501154737", "seamus": 540113800, "itunes": 9781501154737, "goodreads": 30753647, "bookshop": 9781501154737, "cover": "1501154737", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501154737", "isbn10": "1501154737", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 343, "book": "Trust No Aunty", "source": "NPR", "text": "We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/752044550/we-did-it-for-the-lols-100-favorite-funny-books" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 343, "book": "Trust No Aunty", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maria Qamar Dishes Up Desi Pop in 'Trust No Aunty'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/02/539598311/maria-qamar-dishes-up-desi-pop-in-trust-no-aunty" } ] }, "344": { "id": 344, "title": "Turtles All The Way Down", "author": "John Green", "reviewers": [ "Samantha Balaban" ], "text": "John Green has written another young adult novel that is part adventure story and part love story – but this book is a little darker. Sixteen-year-old Aza Holmes suffers from anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. She has a wound on her finger that she is compelled to reopen and clean, reopen and clean. Much of the book takes place in her mind, which is consumed by thoughts of bacteria, microbes and what-if spirals. But Aza also has a great best friend who is trying to understand. And together they have a crime to solve. Turtles All The Way Down is a sometimes heartbreaking, always illuminating, glimpse into how it feels to live with mental illness.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "young adult", "fiction", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0525555366", "seamus": 558733362, "itunes": 9780525555360, "goodreads": 35504431, "bookshop": 9780525555360, "cover": "0525555366", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780525555360", "isbn10": "0525555366", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 344, "book": "Turtles All The Way Down", "source": "NPR", "text": "For Novelist John Green, OCD Is Like An 'Invasive Weed' Inside His Mind", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/19/558534128/for-novelist-john-green-ocd-is-like-an-invasive-weed-inside-his-mind" } ] }, "345": { "id": 345, "title": "Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier", "author": "Mark Frost", "reviewers": [ "Glen Weldon" ], "text": "This summer’s Showtime series Twin Peaks: The Return was a rich and dizzying affair, though its narrative abstraction proved frustrating to those of us seeking closure. Now comes co-creator Mark Frost’s novel, which takes the form of FBI Agent Tamara Preston’s final, post-events-of-The-Return report to her supervisor, Gordon Cole. The Final Dossier is all story – in fact, it reads like the “story bible” television showrunners create to build a show’s narrative universe, filled with all the good, grounding stuff The Return never bothered with. But Frost is doing more than filling in blanks and checking boxes here. The chapters on The Log Lady and – surprisingly, perhaps – Sheriff Harry S. Truman are deft, gentle and moving. And the final chapter does something so quietly transformative to the show’s entire infrastructure that it takes a while to digest. Note: Only diehard fans need apply.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "it’s all geek to me", "rather short", "for art lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250163307", "seamus": 558831693, "itunes": 9781250163301, "goodreads": 34802642, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1250163307", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250163301", "isbn10": "1250163307", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 345, "book": "Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier' Does What 'The Return' Didn't", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/06/561579343/twin-peaks-the-final-dossier-does-what-the-return-didnt" } ] }, "346": { "id": 346, "title": "Two Kinds Of Truth", "author": "Michael Connelly", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Retired LAPD detective Harry Bosch may be even busier in his golden years than he was in his prime. Now volunteering for the tiny San Fernando Police Department, Bosch is called in to investigate the murder of a druggist and his son at work in their store. The case draws Bosch into the nightmarish underworld of pharmaceutical cons. Meanwhile, a serial murder case Bosch closed years ago is reopened and Bosch’s integrity is put on trial. In addition to the “two kinds of truth” this novel explores, here’s a third truth to consider: Michael Connelly is the hard-boiled fiction master of our time.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316225908", "seamus": 559106825, "itunes": 9780316225908, "goodreads": 34379864, "bookshop": 9780316225908, "cover": "0316225908", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316225908", "isbn10": "0316225908", "links": [] }, "347": { "id": 347, "title": "Tyrannosaurus Rex Vs. Edna The Very First Chicken", "author": "Douglas Rees, illustrated by Jed Henry", "reviewers": [ "Holly Herzfeld" ], "text": "We can all agree that chickens are seemingly uncomplicated creatures, right? Not according to this book. In this fun and empowering tale, Edna, “the very first chicken,” is fierce, feminine and fearless. She is unafraid of what most other dinosaurs in the forest fear: Tyrannosaurus rex. As hungry T. rex stomps around looking for his breakfast, he spots Edna. And she doesn’t budge. She remains true to her character and reminds us that despite our size, we, too, can be powerful and daring. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books", "science!" ], "isbn": "1627795103", "seamus": 558535950, "itunes": 9781627795104, "goodreads": 33275682, "bookshop": 9781627795104, "cover": "1627795103", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781627795104", "isbn10": "1627795103", "links": [] }, "348": { "id": 348, "title": "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", "author": "Tom Hanks", "reviewers": [ "David Greene" ], "text": "I dare you to start reading Uncommon Type pretending you haven’t yet seen the author’s name – bet you’ll love it anyway. The fact that it’s Tom Hanks is a bonus that adds to the experience, because you’re getting inside the whimsical mind of an actor we all think we already know. Though the quirky stories are fiction, Hanks reveals himself: his obsession with old typewriters and appliances, how his parents’ divorce fueled his curiosity, and – in one of the funnier moments – what it’s like to be a movie actor on a rigidly planned PR junket.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1101946156", "seamus": 557331283, "itunes": 9781101946152, "goodreads": 34389773, "bookshop": 9781101946152, "cover": "1101946156", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101946152", "isbn10": "1101946156", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 348, "book": "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Tom Hanks on Writing Fiction", "url": "http://www.wnyc.org/story/tom-hanks-makes-his-literary-debut/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 348, "book": "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Tom Hanks And Matthew Weiner Cross Over Into The World Of Fiction", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/30/560394997/tom-hanks-and-matthew-weiner-cross-over-into-the-world-of-fiction" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 348, "book": "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Tom Hanks Lays Out A Kinder, Gentler World In 'Uncommon Type'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/17/557189603/tom-hanks-lays-out-a-kinder-gentler-world-in-uncommon-type" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 348, "book": "Uncommon Type: Some Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Tom Hanks Is Obsessed With Typewriters (So He Wrote A Book About Them)", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/10/16/557636219/tom-hanks-is-obsessed-with-typewriters-so-he-wrote-a-book-about-them" } ] }, "349": { "id": 349, "title": "Universal Harvester: A Novel", "author": "John Darnielle", "reviewers": [ "Mike Katzif" ], "text": "Whether with his band The Mountain Goats or in his debut novel, Wolf In White Van, John Darnielle has always demonstrated a keen understanding and care for even the most flawed of his characters. Darnielle’s follow-up novel Universal Harvester continues this mindset by capturing the claustrophobic intimacy of a declining American town in the mid-1990s with knowing nuance. When a video store clerk – an admitted underachiever caring for his father and stuck in bored workaday stasis after his mother’s death – comes across inexplicable found footage on VHS tapes, he grows invested in a mystery that uncovers long-dormant secrets about the town’s history. Blending small-town life with disquieting gothic horror, Universal Harvester is told with a matter-of-fact wit and carefully crafted phrases as lyrical as his song.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374282102", "seamus": 512919056, "itunes": 9780374282103, "goodreads": 29939268, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0374282102", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780374282103", "isbn10": "0374282102", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 349, "book": "Universal Harvester: A Novel", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Researcher: The Government Engineered Seattle's Racial Segregation", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/government-engineered-seattles-racial-segregation-says-researcher" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 349, "book": "Universal Harvester: A Novel", "source": "Iowa Public Radio", "text": "Mountain Goats' John Darnielle Talks About His New Novel 'Universal Harvester'", "url": "http://iowapublicradio.org/post/mountain-goats-john-darnielle-talks-about-his-new-novel-universal-harvester#stream/0" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 349, "book": "Universal Harvester: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "Horror Tropes And Human Sadness In 'Universal Harvester'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/11/512910513/horror-tropes-and-human-sadness-in-universal-harvester" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 349, "book": "Universal Harvester: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Universal Harvester,' Mountain Goats Lyricist Reaps A Creepy Crop", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/02/07/513770461/in-universal-harvester-mountain-goats-lyricist-reaps-a-creepy-crop" } ] }, "350": { "id": 350, "title": "Wait Till You See Me Dance: Stories", "author": "Deb Olin Unferth", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "The characters in Deb Olin Unferth’s story collection Wait Till You See Me Dance are often people whose potential is unfulfilled – an adjunct professor, an ineffective insurgent, disillusioned spouses, a bad father trying to mentor a prison inmate. The way she writes these people is reminiscent of the unsentimental, often absurd compassion of George Saunders, for whom there are no heroes and villains, just various kinds of achingly familiar weirdos trying to inhabit the same planet without more humiliation than is necessary.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1555977685", "seamus": 520458085, "itunes": 9781555977689, "goodreads": 29939138, "bookshop": 9781555977689, "cover": "1555977685", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977689", "isbn10": "1555977685", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 350, "book": "Wait Till You See Me Dance: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Wait Till You See Me Dance' Is A Marvelous Waltz Of Misdirection", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/26/520448516/wait-till-you-see-me-dance-is-a-marvelous-waltz-of-misdirection" } ] }, "351": { "id": 351, "title": "Walkaway: A Novel", "author": "Cory Doctorow", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "“The point of Walkaway is the first days of a better nation,” says one of Cory Doctorow’s characters in this brilliant, occasionally life-altering new novel. Walkaway is the story of what comes after the slow-burn apocalypse we all secretly fear is coming – how it will work, how it will all go wrong and how it will get made right again with drones, wet printers and elbow grease. It’s like the Genesis story of a world not yet here, but maybe dangerously close. It is world-as-lesson-as-world. An anti-Atlas Shrugged. An origami argument that unfolds into a novel that presents roughly 10,000 new, mind-bending and ground-breaking ideas per page and stitches them all together (with drone fights, robots and lots of sex) into one of the most important and hopeful books of the year.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "it’s all geek to me", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0765392763", "seamus": 523926236, "itunes": 9780765392763, "goodreads": 30139664, "bookshop": 9780765392763, "cover": "0765392763", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780765392763", "isbn10": "0765392763", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 351, "book": "Walkaway: A Novel", "source": "KDNK", "text": "Cory Doctorow On Net Neutrality And His New Book, 'Walkaway'", "url": "http://kdnk.org/post/cory-doctorow-his-new-book-net-neutrality" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 351, "book": "Walkaway: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Walkaway,' A Blueprint For A New, Weird (But Better) World", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/27/523587179/in-walkaway-a-blueprint-for-a-new-weird-but-better-world" } ] }, "352": { "id": 352, "title": "We Are Never Meeting In Real Life.: Essays", "author": "Samantha Irby", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Have you ever read a book so funny and warm and insightful that the writer becomes your imaginary best friend? No? Just me? Reading blogger Samantha Irby’s second essay collection is like checking in with an old friend. The subjects are expansive, covering everything from an ill-fated trip to scatter her dad’s ashes, to why she should be the next Bachelorette. I’m thrilled I can press this book into the hands of my real-life friends.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "funny stuff", "let’s talk about sex", "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1101912197", "seamus": 559020297, "itunes": 9781101912195, "goodreads": 33381433, "bookshop": 9781101912195, "cover": "1101912197", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101912195", "isbn10": "1101912197", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 352, "book": "We Are Never Meeting In Real Life.: Essays", "source": "WILL", "text": "Samantha Irby Talks About Her New Book: 'We Are Never Meeting In Real Life'", "url": "https://soundcloud.com/21st-show/samantha-irby-talks-new-book-we-are-never-meeting-in-real-life" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 352, "book": "We Are Never Meeting In Real Life.: Essays", "source": "NPR", "text": "We Did It For The LOLs: 100 Favorite Funny Books", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2019/08/20/752044550/we-did-it-for-the-lols-100-favorite-funny-books" } ] }, "353": { "id": 353, "title": "We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter", "author": "Celeste Headlee", "reviewers": [ "Parth Shah" ], "text": "Longtime public radio listeners may recognize Celeste Headlee’s name – she has hosted a handful of public radio shows. In this book, Headlee gets candid about live, on-air interviews that she has flubbed and gives practical tips on how to talk – and, more importantly, listen – like an NPR host. ( She’s got a great TED Talk, too.)
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062669001", "seamus": 558784009, "itunes": 9780062669001, "goodreads": 33385440, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0062669001", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062669001", "isbn10": "0062669001", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 353, "book": "We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter", "source": "WVXU", "text": "Journalist Celeste Headlee On The Importance Of Real Human Conversations", "url": "http://wvxu.org/post/public-radio-journalist-celeste-headlee-importance-real-human-conversations#stream/0" } ] }, "354": { "id": 354, "title": "What Happened", "author": "Hillary Rodham Clinton", "reviewers": [ "Danielle Kurtzleben" ], "text": "What Happened is Hillary Clinton’s account of running for, and eventually losing, the presidency to Donald Trump. It’s at times a chatty campaign memento, a policy primer, a timeline and an autopsy of what exactly went wrong. Clinton is charming and even funny at times, without trying to paint herself in too flattering of a light. If you’re wondering who this book is for, though, that may be irrelevant: It reads like a book Clinton had to write, audience be damned. If Trump’s combative inauguration speech was “a howl from the white nationalist gut,” as Clinton puts it, her book is a howl from the gut of Hermione Granger – the embattled cry of the hypercompetent woman who desperately wishes the world were a meritocracy.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "staff picks", "biography & memoir", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1501175564", "seamus": 548985934, "itunes": 9781501175565, "goodreads": 34138013, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1501175564", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501175565", "isbn10": "1501175564", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 354, "book": "What Happened", "source": "NPR", "text": "Clinton Won't Rule Out Questioning 2016 Election, But Says No Clear Means To Do So", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/18/551217204/hillary-clinton-says-shes-optimistic-about-our-country-but-i-am-not-naive" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 354, "book": "What Happened", "source": "NPR", "text": "Who Is 'What Happened' For? Maybe Hillary Clinton Most Of All", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/12/549566749/who-is-what-happened-for-maybe-hillary-clinton-most-of-all" } ] }, "355": { "id": 355, "title": "What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky: Stories", "author": "Lesley Nneka Arimah", "reviewers": [ "Tasha Robinson" ], "text": "Fans of Roxane Gay’s short fiction shouldn’t miss this debut collection, a magical-realist anthology focused on fierce black women who break the rules and awkward black girls fumbling toward becoming fierce women. Some of these stories are strange, fantastical metaphors, like the one about a world where babies are constructed of scrap materials, then breathed into life. In other, more down-to-earth settings, teenage girls joust for attention and a sense of their own identities. Lesley Nneka Arimah handles fables and rich family drama with equally confident ease, and the wide variety of tones and genres makes this a compulsive, satisfyingly diverse read.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0735211027", "seamus": 522047636, "itunes": 9780735211025, "goodreads": 31522415, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735211027", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735211025", "isbn10": "0735211027", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 355, "book": "What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky: Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky' Is Defiantly, Electrically Original", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/05/521959681/what-it-means-when-a-man-falls-from-the-sky-is-defiantly-electrically-original" } ] }, "356": { "id": 356, "title": "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women And The Food That Tells Their Stories", "author": "Laura Shapiro", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "Eleanor Roosevelt was famously indifferent to food: During her tenure, White House lunches were moments of dread, or at least digestive difficulty. But as food historian Laura Shapiro demonstrates in What She Ate, the first lady’s attitude toward White House meals was intimately linked to her troubled marriage; elsewhere in life, she relished things like crab legs or a “delicious Arab dinner” in 1952. Shapiro takes this culinary-detective approach to six prominent women, revealing rich details of their inner lives through their relationships with food (or, in Helen Gurley Brown’s case, the lack thereof).
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "cookbooks & food", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "0525427643", "seamus": 535600705, "itunes": 9780525427643, "goodreads": 32969710, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0525427643", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780525427643", "isbn10": "0525427643", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 356, "book": "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women And The Food That Tells Their Stories", "source": "WABE", "text": "In New Book, Author Profiles Six Notable Women Through Food They Ate", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/new-book-author-profiles-six-notable-women-food-ate/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 356, "book": "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women And The Food That Tells Their Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "Maureen Corrigan Picks Books To Close Out A Chaotic 2017", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/12/12/568305196/theres-nothing-canned-or-contrived-in-maureen-corrigans-best-books-of-2017" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 356, "book": "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women And The Food That Tells Their Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'What She Ate' Reveals The Plates And Palates Of 6 Notable Women", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/09/542394016/what-she-ate-reveals-the-plates-and-palates-of-6-notable-women" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 356, "book": "What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women And The Food That Tells Their Stories", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Eva Braun's Champagne-Soaked Fantasies Fueled A 'Make-Believe Morality'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/05/534117546/how-eva-brauns-champagne-soaked-fantasies-fueled-a-make-believe-morality" } ] }, "357": { "id": 357, "title": "What We Lose: A Novel", "author": "Zinzi Clemmons", "reviewers": [ "Heidi Saman" ], "text": "What feels at first like fragments and vignettes of narrator Thandi’s life (watching her mother die, graphs depicting her levels of depression, trips to visit family in South Africa, orgasms with partners) become a remarkable book about how you become a woman when the defining woman in your life is taken away. Clemmons knows how grief experienced at a young age can form, dent and deprive. I love this book because Clemmons’ simple writing encapsulates a messy and many-layered woman
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "let’s talk about sex", "rather short", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0735221715", "seamus": 537263898, "itunes": 9780735221710, "goodreads": 33280160, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0735221715", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780735221710", "isbn10": "0735221715", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 357, "book": "What We Lose: A Novel", "source": "WHYY", "text": "Zinzi Clemmons On Her New Book 'What We Lose'", "url": "https://whyy.org/episodes/zinzi-clemmons-trump-coaches-jr-2/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 357, "book": "What We Lose: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "New Novel Explores 'What We Lose' When We Lose A Parent", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/07/16/537076874/new-novel-explores-what-we-lose-when-we-lose-a-parent" } ] }, "358": { "id": 358, "title": "Whatever Happened To Interracial Love?: Stories", "author": "Kathleen Collins", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "A collection of unpublished work by a well-known author? Meh, I’ve heard enough of that guy, probably. I gotta be a fan. But there is another type of posthumous publishing that I cannot get enough of – the sheaf of stories found in a trunk that, once unearthed, tell us something emotional, modern, right for our time. Particularly when they belong to a woman of color only just getting her due. Kathleen Collins was a playwright, filmmaker and activist. This group of her newly found short stories is so fascinating that after reading the title story, I said a small “thank you” under my breath to her daughter for uncovering them. They’re a tour through the emotional and high-stakes time of the ‘60s and ‘70s, when interracial relationships seemed to be one path to understanding and a more cohesive future. As far from that future as we are now, it’s sad but instructive to read Collins’ stories.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "fiction", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "006248415X", "seamus": 558355036, "itunes": 9780062484154, "goodreads": 29100285, "bookshop": 9780062484154, "cover": "006248415X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062484154", "isbn10": "006248415X", "links": [] }, "359": { "id": 359, "title": "When Dimple Met Rishi", "author": "Sandhya Menon", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I didn’t expect this rom-com to melt my cold, black heart. Dimple winces every time her mother mentions marriage – she would rather focus on college and her love of coding. Rishi, like Dimple, is a first-generation Indian-American, but he embraces his family’s history and culture. Their parents have arranged for them to meet at an app development competition. It’s a disaster – and that is before they’re paired up to develop a life-saving app. The romance that unfolds is earnest and believable; Dimple and Rishi challenge each other’s beliefs and priorities while falling in love, which makes for a winning book – even for cynics like me.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "young adult", "family matters", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "it’s all geek to me", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1481478680", "seamus": 559021249, "itunes": 9781481478687, "goodreads": 28458598, "bookshop": 9781481478687, "cover": "1481478680", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781481478687", "isbn10": "1481478680", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 359, "book": "When Dimple Met Rishi", "source": "CPR", "text": "Coloradan's Young Adult Novel About Arranged Marriage Defines 'Culture Clash", "url": "http://www.cpr.org/news/story/coloradan-s-young-adult-novel-about-arranged-marriage-defines-culture-clash" } ] }, "360": { "id": 360, "title": "When's My Birthday?", "author": "Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Christian Robinson", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "I’m not sure how writer Julie Fogliano and illustrator Christian Robinson managed to stuff 365 days’ worth of enthusiasm and anticipation into one slim book, but they did. With playful illustrations and text that bounces like a bouquet of balloons, if you were to blow out your candles and wish for a perfect birthday book, this is what you’d get (assuming you were good that year). (For ages 3 to 6)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1626722935", "seamus": 559579098, "itunes": 9781626722934, "goodreads": 33163368, "bookshop": 9781626722934, "cover": "1626722935", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781626722934", "isbn10": "1626722935", "links": [] }, "361": { "id": 361, "title": "Where The Water Goes: Life And Death Along The Colorado River", "author": "David Owen", "reviewers": [ "Genevieve Valentine" ], "text": "Water is a primary environmental concern of our age. The Colorado River Compact, determining water usage rights across seven states and Mexico, has shaped the West – and Where the Water Goes traces all of the river’s 1,400 miles. It’s a restless travelogue of human impact on the natural world and how politics and economics have as much to do with redirecting rivers as any earthwork. With its historical eddies, policy asides, and trips to the Hoover Dam, Where the Water Goes is about water as a function of time and a reminder that we’re running out of both.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "science!", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1594633770", "seamus": 522875829, "itunes": 9781594633775, "goodreads": 31544566, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1594633770", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781594633775", "isbn10": "1594633770", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 361, "book": "Where The Water Goes: Life And Death Along The Colorado River", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Where The Water Goes' Is Effortlessly Engaging — And Also Scary", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/04/11/522778149/where-the-water-goes-is-effortlessly-engaging-and-also-scary" } ] }, "362": { "id": 362, "title": "WHEREAS: Poems", "author": "Layli Long Soldier", "reviewers": [ "Mina Tavakoli" ], "text": "Thrillingly, we seem to be upon a moment in contemporary poetry wherein young women of color feel empowered to gather the forms, sounds and spirits of their ancient languages and rework them into pieces of weaponry. In other words, prepare yourselves for the welcome shiv of Layli Long Soldier’s work. Knifing through decades of garbled American legislative responses to Native American peoples, the Ogala Sioux writer shows us fury, grief and power all in a voice as clear as birdsong.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1555977677", "seamus": 559060820, "itunes": 9781555977672, "goodreads": 29875897, "bookshop": 9781555977672, "cover": "1555977677", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781555977672", "isbn10": "1555977677", "links": [] }, "363": { "id": 363, "title": "White Fur: A Novel", "author": "Jardine Libaire", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "It begins the way all great stories should: with a boy, a girl, a shotgun and a cheap motel room. Three hundred lightning bolt pages later, it ends the same way – a girl, a boy and a gun. And in between, White Fur, the new novel from Jardine Libaire, is not so much a story as a fable. A fairy tale of love and class and money and death and New York City in the 1980s, as seen through eyes so new and so young that everything seems like magic all the time. What holds it together is ferocity – Libaire’s elegant, incongruous, glitz-and-trash command of the language of youth and young love, and the uncompromising fire of her main characters as they drift and dash from page to page.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "historical fiction" ], "isbn": "0451497929", "seamus": 530792886, "itunes": 9780451497925, "goodreads": 32025142, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451497929", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451497925", "isbn10": "0451497929", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 363, "book": "White Fur: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'White Fur' Is A Fable Of Love, Class, Money And Death", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/06/03/529749177/white-fur-is-a-fable-of-love-class-money-and-death" } ] }, "364": { "id": 364, "title": "White Tears: A Novel", "author": "Hari Kunzru", "reviewers": [ "Marc Rivers" ], "text": "Seth roams New York’s streets recording everything he hears – including a voice that seems to come from nowhere singing an unsettling blues song. His wealthy hipster friend persuades him to remix the tune and release it as if it were a real, rediscovered recording – but the music has plans of its own. What starts off as almost a satire about two troubled white kids obsessed with authenticity and black musicians eventually plunges, as if through a trapdoor, into horror. White Tears unearths the racial trauma and exploitation inside the soul of America’s music and gives it terrifying life.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0451493699", "seamus": 518988849, "itunes": 9780451493699, "goodreads": 30780283, "bookshop": "", "cover": "0451493699", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780451493699", "isbn10": "0451493699", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 364, "book": "White Tears: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'White Tears' Appropriation Has Horrifying Consequences", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/515439756/in-white-tears-appropriation-has-horrifying-consequences" } ] }, "365": { "id": 365, "title": "Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race", "author": "Reni Eddo-Lodge", "reviewers": [ "Silvia Viñas" ], "text": "In a blog post in 2014, British journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote that she would no longer talk about race with white people who “refuse to accept the legitimacy of structural racism and its symptoms.” The post went viral, and, fortunately for us, Eddo-Lodge went on to write this collection of essays about what it means to be a person of color in Britain. Don’t be put off by that geographical reference. You don’t have to live in the U.K. to recognize the issues of white privilege, class, feminism and structural racism that she explores in this essential book.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "140887055X", "seamus": 558587219, "itunes": 9781408870556, "goodreads": 33606119, "bookshop": 9781408870556, "cover": "140887055X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781408870556", "isbn10": "140887055X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 365, "book": "Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race' Is A Call To Action", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/14/563728725/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race-is-a-call-to-action" } ] }, "366": { "id": 366, "title": "Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams", "author": "Matthew Walker", "reviewers": [ "Parth Shah" ], "text": "What does the song “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones have in common with the novel *Frankenstein* and the periodic table of elements? They’re all products of dreams. Neuroscientist Matthew Walker argues that the sleeping brain is far more active than we realize. He blends hard science with heartfelt stories to illuminate the brain and body benefits of a good night’s rest.
\nMy favorite line: “Should you feel drowsy and fall asleep while reading the book, unlike most authors, I will not be disheartened. … On the contrary, I would be delighted.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "science!", "it’s all geek to me", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1501144316", "seamus": 558061359, "itunes": 9781501144318, "goodreads": 34466963, "bookshop": 9781501144318, "cover": "1501144316", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781501144318", "isbn10": "1501144316", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 366, "book": "Why We Sleep: Unlocking The Power Of Sleep And Dreams", "source": "NPR", "text": "Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In An Underslept State'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/10/16/558058812/sleep-scientist-warns-against-walking-through-life-in-an-underslept-state" } ] }, "367": { "id": 367, "title": "Wild Things: The Joy Of Reading Children’s Literature As An Adult", "author": "Bruce Handy", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "In Wild Things, Bruce Handy explores “the joy of reading children’s literature as an adult,” beginning at Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon, moving on through Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Beatrix Potter, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books (“like Henry James with much shorter sentences”), C.S. Lewis and others, ending with E.B. White. Handy’s generous, warm voice is just the kind you would want reading you bedtime stories.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for art lovers", "eye-opening reads", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1451609957", "seamus": 543475722, "itunes": 9781451609950, "goodreads": 32919295, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1451609957", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781451609950", "isbn10": "1451609957", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 367, "book": "Wild Things: The Joy Of Reading Children’s Literature As An Adult", "source": "KERA", "text": "Rediscovering The Favorites: Kids Books For Grownups", "url": "http://think.kera.org/2017/08/16/rediscovering-the-favorites-kids-books-for-grownups/" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 367, "book": "Wild Things: The Joy Of Reading Children’s Literature As An Adult", "source": "NPR", "text": "Sweet, Generous 'Wild Things' Is A Playful Survey Of Kid Lit", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/542469703/sweet-generous-wild-things-is-a-playful-survey-of-kid-lit" } ] }, "368": { "id": 368, "title": "Winter Tide (The Innsmouth Legacy)", "author": "Ruthanna Emrys", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "Ruthanna Emrys takes on a formidable challenge in Winter Tide: Reworking the world of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos in a way that will appeal to Lovecraft fans, readers who don’t know Lovecraft from Love Story, and people who wouldn’t touch Lovecraft’s work with a 10-foot tentacle, given his well-known and despicable thoughts on anyone who wasn’t a white Christian man. She succeeds mightily with this new take on “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” salted with tears and ocean waves.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "historical fiction", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0765390906", "seamus": 526590943, "itunes": 9780765390905, "goodreads": 29939089, "bookshop": 9780765390905, "cover": "0765390906", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780765390905", "isbn10": "0765390906", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 368, "book": "Winter Tide (The Innsmouth Legacy)", "source": "NPR", "text": "Remastering The Mythos: Questions For Ruthanna Emrys", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/05/04/526591070/remastering-the-mythos-questions-for-ruthanna-emrys" } ] }, "369": { "id": 369, "title": "Wishtree", "author": "Katherine Applegate", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Did you know trees can talk? An impressive, more-than-200-year-old oak named Red is the narrator of Katherine Applegate’s Wishtree. For centuries, neighbors have been leaving their wishes on scraps of paper and cloth in Red’s hallows and branches. When Samar and her Muslim family move nearby, they are met with intolerance and hostility. Red is touched by Samar’s simple wish and determined to make it come true, even at the risk of being cut down. This tender story is powerful without being preachy. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250043220", "seamus": 559124373, "itunes": 9781250043221, "goodreads": 33158525, "bookshop": 9781250043221, "cover": "1250043220", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250043221", "isbn10": "1250043220", "links": [] }, "370": { "id": 370, "title": "Wolf In The Snow", "author": "Matthew Cordell", "reviewers": [ "Elizabeth Bird" ], "text": "As every schoolchild knows, little girls in red-hooded outerwear rarely fare well when encountering wolves in the wild. Yet in this nearly wordless tale, a girl’s meeting with a wayward wolf cub fuels a wary friendship that transcends their very different worlds. From the hyperrealism of the wolves, frightening in their detail, to the sketched-out, almost cartoonish, rendering of the girl, Matthew Cordell offers young readers a dreamy fable with a lot to say about making connections outside your comfort zone. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "for art lovers" ], "isbn": "1250076366", "seamus": 558514347, "itunes": 9781250076366, "goodreads": 29102937, "bookshop": 9781250076366, "cover": "1250076366", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781250076366", "isbn10": "1250076366", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 370, "book": "Wolf In The Snow", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Hello, Universe' Wins Newbery Medal, While Caldecott Goes To 'Wolf In The Snow'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/12/585076595/hello-universe-wins-newbery-medal-while-caldecott-goes-to-wolf-in-the-snow" } ] }, "371": { "id": 371, "title": "Wonder Valley: A Novel", "author": "Ivy Pochoda", "reviewers": [ "Kirk Siegler" ], "text": "Wonder Valley starts and ends on a freeway. Just like everything in Los Angeles, right? Ivy Pochoda’s imaginative characters are just as complicated as this megalopolis, too. I can’t decide if that’s why I liked the book so much, or if it was the pretty clear dystopian themes (a favorite genre for me), even though it’s set in the not-so-distant past. Everyone in Wonder Valley – from Ren, who takes a bus west from Brooklyn to look for his mom on Skid Row to Patrick, a self-proclaimed healer who runs a chicken farm in the Mojave Desert – has their own complications and struggles. And no one ends up being who you initially think they are … kind of like Los Angeles.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "006265635X", "seamus": 559117343, "itunes": 9780062656353, "goodreads": 34217575, "bookshop": "", "cover": "006265635X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780062656353", "isbn10": "006265635X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 371, "book": "Wonder Valley: A Novel", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Wonder Valley,' There's More Than One Los Angeles", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/11/10/563041832/in-wonder-valley-theres-more-than-one-los-angeles" } ] }, "372": { "id": 372, "title": "World Without Mind: The Existential Threat Of Big Tech", "author": "Franklin Foer", "reviewers": [ "Richard Harris" ], "text": "George Orwell got one thing wrong in his classic novel 1984: Big Brother isn’t the government, it’s a few deeply invasive businesses. Franklin Foer, a correspondent for The Atlantic, ponders the effects of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple on our privacy, values and intellectual property. This isn’t simply about the “filter bubbles” and echo chambers so many people are now trapped in online; it’s a sobering reminder that if you are getting a service for free, you are actually the product, not the customer.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "it’s all geek to me", "the dark side", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1101981113", "seamus": 549214321, "itunes": 9781101981115, "goodreads": 34274961, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1101981113", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781101981115", "isbn10": "1101981113", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 372, "book": "World Without Mind: The Existential Threat Of Big Tech", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'World Without Mind' Is An Urgent, Personal Polemic", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2017/09/13/548662507/world-without-mind-is-an-urgent-personal-polemic" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 372, "book": "World Without Mind: The Existential Threat Of Big Tech", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'World Without Mind': How Tech Companies Pose An Existential Threat", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/09/11/550177421/world-without-mind-how-tech-companies-pose-an-existential-threat" } ] }, "373": { "id": 373, "title": "You & A Bike & A Road", "author": "Eleanor Davis", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "You & a Bike & a Road is cartoonist Eleanor Davis’ chronicle of a bike trip she took in 2016, riding from her parents’ home in Arizona to her own home in Athens, Ga. The book is, essentially, a travel diary – a day-to-day account of her trip – and its strength is in its focus on small, specific moments: Davis’ interactions with strangers on the road, her frustration on hard days, incidents she witnesses with the Border Patrol. Its lack of structure makes for a meditative read, and Davis’ reflective voice raises thoughtful questions about what our border looks like.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1927668409", "seamus": 559131426, "itunes": "", "goodreads": 31944971, "bookshop": "", "cover": "1927668409", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9781927668405", "isbn10": "1927668409", "links": [] }, "374": { "id": 374, "title": "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir", "author": "Sherman Alexie", "reviewers": [ "David Greene" ], "text": "Sherman Alexie once went three years without talking to his mom. It’s not that they were estranged; they’d be in the same room, but they just wouldn’t talk. The National Book Award winner, already known for deeply personal explorations of his life, has now written his most personal book yet: a raw memoir of his relationship with his mom called You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me. In it, Alexie veers without warning from prose to poetry. The result can feel uncomfortable and unpredictable, putting you on edge about where the tension will surface next. And that’s exactly as he wanted it.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "rather long", "family matters", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "031627075X", "seamus": 533653906, "itunes": 9780316270755, "goodreads": 31420708, "bookshop": "", "cover": "031627075X", "year": 2017, "isbn13": "9780316270755", "isbn10": "031627075X", "links": [ { "year": 2017, "id": 374, "book": "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir", "source": "WPSU", "text": "BookMark: You Dont Have To Say You Love Me, By Sherman Alexie", "url": "http://radio.wpsu.org/post/bookmark-you-dont-have-say-you-love-me-sherman-alexie" }, { "year": 2017, "id": 374, "book": "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me: A Memoir", "source": "KUOW", "text": "The Honest Eulogy Sherman Alexie Didn't Give His Mom", "url": "http://kuow.org/post/honest-eulogy-sherman-alexie-didnt-give-his-mom" } ] } }