In school, we read about the ancient Greeks: the fierce and clever Spartans who vanquished the Trojans. What brilliance to construct a horse – a GIFT – inside which brave warriors hid, waiting to ambush a kingdom and reclaim the beautiful Helen, whose face had launched a thousand ships – and thousands of sentences from mostly male writers ever since. In Natalie Haynes’ own brilliant construction, the 10-year tale of the Trojan War is retold by the many women ignored, widowed, enslaved, heartbroken and snuffed out by the pride and stupidity of warring men. Cassandra, Hecabe, Iphigenia, Penelope: They speak unfiltered. Muses and goddesses give their derisive takes as well. It is a fresh and utterly satisfying feminist take on one of the oldest stories in Western literature.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063065398", "cover": "0063065398", "goodreads": 53487148, "itunes": 9780063065390, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51tW3IhQyuL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063065390", "isbn10": "0063065398", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 1, "book": "A Thousand Ships", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Trojan women — and many more — speak up in 'A Thousand Ships'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/24/959638472/the-trojan-women-and-many-more-speak-up-in-a-thousand-ships" } ] }, "2": { "id": 2, "title": "A Calling for Charlie Barnes: A Novel", "author": "Joshua Ferris", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Joshua Ferris’ comic novel follows a suburban Chicago investment adviser who believes he’s dying of pancreatic cancer, only to find out that his internet-fueled self-diagnosis was wrong. He tries to make amends with his estranged children, with mixed results. Then things go off the rails with a series of narrative shifts that lead the reader to question whether anything that came before was actually true. The novel wears its metafictional heart on its sleeve, but as smart as it is, Ferris isn’t in love with his own cleverness – the result is a brilliant novel that’s full of heart.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "funny stuff", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316333530", "cover": "0316333530", "goodreads": 56620813, "itunes": 9780316333535, "bookshop": 9780316333535, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41dTFacB5vS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316333535", "isbn10": "0316333530", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 2, "book": "A Calling for Charlie Barnes", "source": "NPR", "text": "No one's telling the truth in Joshua Ferris' new novel — or are they?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/29/1041296785/joshua-ferris-charlie-barnes-review" } ] }, "3": { "id": 3, "title": "A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum: Murder in Ancient Rome", "author": "Emma Southon", "reviewers": [ "Holly Morris" ], "text": "For much of ancient Roman history, most murders weren’t legally crimes. In 81 BCE, the dictator Sulla made laws to discourage elite dudes from killing one another, and purposely inflicting death got more regulated from there. Yet many modes of violent dispatch were cool with the government. Southon, co-host of the podcast History Is Sexy, goes with a broader definition of murder, encompassing gladiatorial combat, crucifixions, offing one’s wife and more. Her approach is both gleeful (she revels in the deathscapades of the pompous rich) and disgusted (a dead slave was regarded as broken furniture). Southon’s chatty, knowing style makes the book, if not exactly a romp, not un-fun for one about death.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "the dark side", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1419753053", "cover": "1419753053", "goodreads": 54776211, "itunes": 9781419753053, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41sfY7FljfL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419753053", "isbn10": "1419753053", "links": [] }, "4": { "id": 4, "title": "A Ghost in the Throat", "author": "Doireann Ní Ghríofa", "reviewers": [ "Ann Powers" ], "text": "“We cannot know from whose mouths the echoes of our lives will chime,” the Irish poet and translator Ní Ghríofa writes in this gorgeous memoir about mothering, love and literary excavation. During her third child’s nursing days, the young writer embarked on a furious quest to put flesh on the ignored bones of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, whose long lament for her murdered husband, “The Keen for Art Ó Laoughaire” Ní Ghríofa first read in grade school. Virtually nothing is known about the woman who wrote what’s considered the greatest poem of Ireland’s 18th century, and as Ní Ghríofa enters the bog of that silencing, she excavates hidden elements of her own voice. Intensely poetic and freewheeling and connecting the bodily details of mothering and erotic love – "female texts" – to linguistic hierarchies and erasures, this book creates its own form: a critical biography of the body, of bloodshed and babies born, of the word made flesh.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "family matters", "let’s talk about sex", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "nonfiction", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1916434266", "cover": "1916434266", "goodreads": 51498568, "itunes": "", "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ZRxdCiYDS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781916434264", "isbn10": "1916434266", "links": [] }, "5": { "id": 5, "title": "A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance", "author": "Hanif Abdurraqib", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Hanif Abdurraqib combines memoir and criticism in this stunning essay collection centered on Black artists such as Michael Jackson and Josephine Baker. The deep dives into history are fascinating, and his criticism is brilliant, but it’s his honest, passionate forays into autobiography that make this collection so singular and powerful. Talent like Abdurraqib’s doesn’t come along often, and this book is one of the best essay collections – and best memoirs – in years.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "no biz like show biz", "nonfiction", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1984801198", "cover": "1984801198", "goodreads": 49247757, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781984801197, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/A-Little-Devil-in-America-by-Hanif-Abdurraqib-683x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984801197", "isbn10": "1984801198", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 5, "book": "A Little Devil in America", "source": "NPR", "text": "Hanif Abdurraqib's rabbit holes into great Black performance", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/26/981791906/hanif-abdurraqibs-rabbit-holes-into-great-black-performance" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 5, "book": "A Little Devil in America", "source": "NPR", "text": "Poet Hanif Abdurraqib on the intersection of Black excellence, joy, and pain", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/06/984708354/poet-hanif-abdurraqib-on-the-intersection-of-black-excellence-joy-and-pain" } ] }, "6": { "id": 6, "title": "A Lot Like Adiós", "author": "Alexis Daria", "reviewers": [ "Lauren Migaki" ], "text": "Childhood besties Michelle and Gabriel hook up one night after high school graduation – and for a moment it looks like the two might finally get together until Michelle discovers that Gabe is planning on leaving for college across the country. After a blowout fight, the two don’t speak again for years – until the gym that Gabriel owns hires Michelle to work on a rebranding campaign. Once they reconnect … well, let’s just say they collaborate on more than a marketing campaign. It’s hot, it’s fun and it’s a great chance to brush up on your Spanish vocabulary.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "identity & culture", "let’s talk about sex", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062959964", "cover": "0062959964", "goodreads": 56269292, "itunes": 9780062959966, "bookshop": 9780062959966, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71iSxhUUXIS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062959966", "isbn10": "0062959964", "links": [] }, "7": { "id": 7, "title": "A Marvellous Light", "author": "Freya Marske", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske is incandescent. In this historical fantasy of manners and magicians, Robin is the new liaison to a secret magical society he has just found out exists. He’s quickly embroiled in the mystery of his predecessor’s disappearance, helped reluctantly by his icy magical counterpart, Edwin. The prose is exquisite, the world-building rich and the magic system so good. The romance is also – ahem – very good. Do you like stories that drip with yearning? A book you might read on a train, pausing only to textscream about some new beauty? That you’ll immediately reread? This is it. Fog-faced menaces, houses with character, magical hedgemazes, romance – go read!
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "love & romance", "historical fiction", "let’s talk about sex", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250788870", "cover": "1250788870", "goodreads": 56179340, "itunes": 9781250788870, "bookshop": 9781250788870, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51EkyLCbW1L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250788870", "isbn10": "1250788870", "links": [] }, "8": { "id": 8, "title": "A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey", "author": "Jonathan Meiburg", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Even if you’re an avid birder, you might never have heard of the striated caracara, a charismatic but endangered scavenger that makes its home in and around Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands. In his fascinating debut book, ornithologist and indie rocker Jonathan Meiburg writes about his journeys in search of the elusive bird, and the changes that threaten its future. You don’t have to know the first thing about birds to be drawn into this beautifully written, enchanting book.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "nonfiction", "science!", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1101875704", "cover": "1101875704", "goodreads": 54390345, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781101875704, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ttjQKGgWL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781101875704", "isbn10": "1101875704", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 8, "book": "A Most Remarkable Creature", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'A Most Remarkable Creature' introduces the little-known, charismatic caracara", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/982631076/-a-most-remarkable-creature" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 8, "book": "A Most Remarkable Creature", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Musician And ornithologist Jonathan Meiburg documents his fascination for caracaras in new book", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/04/06/most-remarkable-creature-meiburg" } ] }, "9": { "id": 9, "title": "A Passage North: A Novel", "author": "Anuk Arudpragasam", "reviewers": [ "Nishant Dahiya" ], "text": "Anuk Arudpragasam’s first novel, A Story of a Brief Marriage, was a hard-to-read, in-your-face accounting of the horrors of Sri Lanka’s three-decade-long civil war – perhaps the best novel set during that moment in history. That same war plays the backdrop to A Passage North and though the themes are much the same (loss, longing, lost love), the war is behind us here. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, you can see Arudpragasam’s progression as a writer; the book is mostly inward looking, meditative and completely immersive. He blends the past and present almost seamlessly, making for an even better novel than its predecessor.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0593230701", "cover": "0593230701", "goodreads": 55873262, "itunes": 9780593230701, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91z3f7lehiL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593230701", "isbn10": "0593230701", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 9, "book": "A Passage North", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'A Passage North' is a quiet elegy for lives lost to Civil War", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1014754686/a-passage-north-is-a-quiet-elegy-for-lives-lost-to-civil-war" } ] }, "10": { "id": 10, "title": "A Psalm for the Wild-Built: A Monk and Robot Book", "author": "Becky Chambers", "reviewers": [ "Beck Harlan" ], "text": "Humans screw a lot of things up. If you need a break from that, read A Psalm for the Wild-Built. You’ll enter a world (not our world) where people have managed to dial things back from the brink. Centuries earlier, humans and robots agreed to part ways, and now the humans are living in harmony with nature – existing on clean energy, eschewing consumerism and working with their hands. But as good as things are, our protagonist, Dex, just isn’t content. The novel opens with the traveling monk abandoning a seemingly good life to seek out cricket song, long vanished in this world – which is when things start to get really interesting. Because that split between robots and humans? It ends when Dex runs into a chipper robot called Splendid Speckled Mosscap.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "rather short", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250236215", "cover": "1250236215", "goodreads": 55200703, "itunes": 9781250236210, "bookshop": 9781250236210, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/513SX9C95NS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250236210", "isbn10": "1250236215", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 10, "book": "A Psalm For The Wild Built", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'A Psalm For The Wild Built' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/18/1017119290/a-monk-and-a-robot-meet-in-a-forest-and-talk-philosophy-in-this-new-novel#:~:text=Review%3A%20'A%20Psalm%20For%20The,%2C'%20By%20Becky%20Chambers%20%3A%20NPR&text=More%20Podcasts%20%26%20Shows-,Review%3A%20'A%20Psalm%20For%20The%20Wild%2DBuilt%2C',other%2C%20and%20robots%20propagate%20themselves." } ] }, "11": { "id": 11, "title": "A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Folk School", "author": "Kim Ruehl", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Most people haven’t heard of Zilphia Horton, but the musician and activist’s influence has lasted to this day. Horton was an influential figure in the Highlander Folk School, which trained civil rights activists including John Lewis and Martin Luther King Jr., and she introduced hymns like “We Shall Overcome” to the mid-20th century social justice movement. Ruehl, the former editor-in-chief of alt-country magazine No Depression, tells Horton’s life story in this exhaustively researched book – beautifully written and endlessly fascinating, it’s one of the best biographies of the year.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for history lovers", "for music lovers", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1477318259", "cover": "1477318259", "goodreads": 52591352, "itunes": 9781477318256, "bookshop": 9781477318256, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41GvndoZefL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781477318256", "isbn10": "1477318259", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 11, "book": "A Singing Army", "source": "WNCW", "text": "A Singing Army: Zilphia Horton and the Highlander Folk School", "url": "https://www.wncw.org/friday-feature-of-the-week-2021/2021-06-02/a-singing-army-zilphia-horton-and-the-highlander-folk-school" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 11, "book": "A Singing Army", "source": "WUOT", "text": "Interview: Zilphia Horton and the power of song", "url": "https://www.wuot.org/2021-05-07/interview-zilphia-horton-and-the-power-of-song" } ] }, "12": { "id": 12, "title": "A Slow Fire Burning", "author": "Paula Hawkins", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "The unreliable narrator is a hallmark of many a thriller, but this book is a master class in not knowing who to believe. There are three narrators, each lying to themselves just as often as they’re trying to deceive others. Paula Hawkins’ universe weaves together memory, imagination, wishful thinking and delusion to create a painful yet propulsive murder mystery in which no one comes out with their hands completely clean.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "073521123X", "cover": "073521123X", "goodreads": 56213354, "itunes": 9780735211230, "bookshop": 9780735211230, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JJtD1pckL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780735211230", "isbn10": "073521123X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 12, "book": "A Slow Fire Burning", "source": "NPR", "text": "Paula Hawkins interrogates tragedy and trauma in new thriller, 'A Slow Fire Burning'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1033002638/paula-hawkins-interrogates-tragedy-and-trauma-in-new-thriller-a-slow-fire-burnin" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 12, "book": "A Slow Fire Burning", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Paula Hawkins - A Slow Fire Burning", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/show/the-book-show/2021-09-14/paula-hawkins-a-slow-fire-burning" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 12, "book": "A Slow Fire Burning", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Paul Hawkins on 'A Slow Fire Burning'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-09-07/marginalia-paula-hawkins-on-a-slow-fire-burning" } ] }, "13": { "id": 13, "title": "A Spindle Splintered", "author": "Alix E. Harrow", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "Zinnia is cursed, not by fairy and spindle, but by a corporation and a genetic disease that will kill her before she’s 22. She’s always felt a connection to the Sleeping Beauty tale – and on her 21st birthday, staring down the barrel of inevitability, she’s suddenly transported to a storybook otherworld, where another sleeping beauty is trying to escape her story. Cue quest, spanning worlds. I adore how Alix Harrow tells stories about story, dredging myth from mundanity, giving us women who save each other. A Spindle Splintered is unapologetically self-aware, but also earnestly romantic. It doesn’t flinch from darkness, and Zinnia’s voice is worth reading.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "rather short", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250765358", "cover": "1250765358", "goodreads": 56179356, "itunes": 9781250765352, "bookshop": 9781250765352, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Q53-nIfPL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250765352", "isbn10": "1250765358", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 13, "book": "A Spindle Splintered", "source": "NPR", "text": "This version of Sleeping Beauty is wide awake, and knows what to do with that spindle", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043497738/alix-harrow-a-spindle-splintered-review" } ] }, "14": { "id": 14, "title": "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life", "author": "George Saunders", "reviewers": [ "Cory Turner" ], "text": "When my faith in humanity falters (often, these days), I reach for either a drink or a George Saunders story. His fiction is the dressing room mirror that finds us naked and vulnerable, capturing us humans at our most embarrassing, selfish, lazy or lovelorn. Saunders’ gift, though, is that he never condemns his characters – or us – but instead pleads for patience and grace, daring readers to forgive each other our awfulness and to live with kindness on our minds. His latest book is nonfiction but still thrums with empathy as Saunders, who also teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, unpacks the short stories of four Russian writers – Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev and Gogol – exploring how they too used verbs, nouns and adjectives to paint and plead for our shared humanity. It’s a must-read for writers, and for the rest of us humans.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1984856022", "cover": "1984856022", "goodreads": 53487237, "itunes": 9781984856029, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+W+1cSJpL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984856029", "isbn10": "1984856022", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 14, "book": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain", "source": "WYPR", "text": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain': George Saunders' life lessons", "url": "https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-03-19/a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain-george-saunders-life-lessons" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 14, "book": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain", "source": "KCRW", "text": "George Saunders: 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life'(Part 1)", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/george-saunders-russians-reading-writing-part-1" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 14, "book": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain", "source": "KCRW", "text": "George Saunders 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life' (Part 2)", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/george-saunders-russians-reading-writing-part-2" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 14, "book": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Book Show #1697 - George Saunders", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/wamc-programs/2021-01-26/the-book-show-1697-george-saunders" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 14, "book": "A Swim In A Pond In The Rain", "source": "WPR", "text": "George Saunders on life lessons learned from Russian writers", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/george-saunders-life-lessons-learned-russian-writers" } ] }, "15": { "id": 15, "title": "A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure", "author": "Hoa Nguyen", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "In this poetry collection, Hoa Nguyen writes about her relationship with her mother, who used to be a proud stunt motorcyclist in an all-women Vietnamese circus troupe. Nguyen’s poems are intimate ones, in which form and language crash into each other. Fragments of sentences spread across the page, and nothing is directly explained, as the poet is more focused on interacting with ghosts – of displacement, of poverty, of the Vietnam War – than translating her Vietnamese heritage to readers. And where language is not enough, we get actual images: The book comes with a postcard with a picture of the poet’s mother on a motorcycle driving down a dirt road. More such images don the last pages of this National Book Award finalist, accompanying what can only be described as a very moving biography written in verse.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "family matters", "nonfiction", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1950268187", "cover": "1950268187", "goodreads": 56769532, "itunes": 9781950268184, "bookshop": 9781950268184, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/A-Thousand-Times-You-Lose-Your-Treasure-by-Hoa-Nguyen_cover-768x1024.jpeg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781950268184", "isbn10": "1950268187", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 15, "book": "A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure", "source": "MTPR", "text": "The Ghost Well Cared-For: Hoa Nguyen's 'A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure'", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/arts-culture/2021-04-23/the-ghost-well-cared-for-hoa-nguyens-a-thousand-times-you-lose-your-treasure" } ] }, "16": { "id": 16, "title": "A Town Called Solace", "author": "Mary Lawson", "reviewers": [ "Catherine Whelan" ], "text": "A Town Called Solace charts an unfolding mystery through three principal characters: Mrs. Olsen, her former (now adult) neighbor Liam, and her current neighbor, 8-year-old Clara. Through their different narratives of past, present and future, a mystery unfolds that is both compelling and weirdly mundane. This novel alchemizes grief and remorse, revealing the interesting bonds that connect us. Lawson’s writing is effortless, and the novel is both a gripping mystery and a lovely slice of emotional storytelling.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0735281270", "cover": "0735281270", "goodreads": 54615134, "itunes": 9780735281271, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ab-JvA2eL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780735281271", "isbn10": "0735281270", "links": [] }, "17": { "id": 17, "title": "Abundance: A Novel", "author": "Jakob Guanzon", "reviewers": [ "Sarah Handel" ], "text": "At the start of Abundance, Henry and his young son Junior are in pretty desperate straits: living in a pickup truck with less than $100, washing up in a McDonald’s bathroom. Things get tougher from there, and while there’s plenty of tension – about Henry’s next impossible choice or rash reaction to something – what really stuck with me was the entirely relatable feeling of wanting to do right by your child, even (or even especially) when you’re given no good options.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "staff picks", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1644450461", "cover": "1644450461", "goodreads": 53317416, "itunes": 9781644450468, "bookshop": 9781644450468, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41BQ0AfVyeL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450468", "isbn10": "1644450461", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 17, "book": "Abundance", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Abundance,' measuring a life in dollars and cents", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/978200892/in-abundance-measuring-a-life-in-dollars-and-cents" } ] }, "18": { "id": 18, "title": "Accidentally Engaged", "author": "Farah Heron", "reviewers": [ "Lauren Migaki" ], "text": "Reena Manji is an excellent baker. The rest of her life is kind of a hot mess, but at least she can make a mean sourdough. An online cooking contest is her chance to turn this baking hobby into something more – the only catch is, the contest is for couples. Enter her atractive, British neighbor. The two drunkenly film their contest entry and shenanigans ensue. Author Farah Heron says she was “raised on Bollywood” and you can see that in her writing – there’s a little bit of cheese to go with the bread, but in a delectable way!
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1538734982", "cover": "1538734982", "goodreads": 54360539, "itunes": 9781538734988, "bookshop": 9781538734988, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Q5Vgl6-kL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538734988", "isbn10": "1538734982", "links": [] }, "19": { "id": 19, "title": "Act Your Age, Eve Brown: A Novel", "author": "Talia Hibbert", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "Has there ever been a better time to read about a charming, hilarious young woman who just can’t seem to get it together? This book follows Eve Brown – a talented cook, phenomenal singer, devoted sister and, at the start of the story, a notorious ne’er-do-well. As her story unspools, Eve winds up learning a lot about herself and what she’s capable of; her struggle also helps illuminate how rigid and often misguided the expectations of our family, friends and communities can be.
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062941275", "cover": "0062941275", "goodreads": 53914936, "itunes": 9780062941275, "bookshop": 9780062941275, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41xntFTttiL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062941275", "isbn10": "0062941275", "links": [] }, "20": { "id": 20, "title": "Afterparties: Stories", "author": "Anthony Veasna So", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Tran" ], "text": "When my sister and I were kids, my dad would drive us every Sunday morning to our local Cambodian doughnut shop whether we felt like it or not, encumbered by lazy mornings. The women in “Three Women of Chuck’s Donuts,” the first short story in Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties, are trapped in the same haze, although theirs is a nightly journey and they work on the other side of the counter. This is a book that examines refugee stories and touches on themes of generational rumination and cultural introspection, focusing on memory. At its fulcrum is a doughnut shop that separates So’s characters from the Cambodia they remember and the America they’ve come to understand. They’re all carrying baggage, and are often enduring – trying to make sense of repressed feelings. As memories go, it is a prison, but also a refuge. These stories, to me, are a reminder of those mornings when my dad drove us to the doughnut shop, mornings that have become just a memory we lived through – a short story memorialized only by a box of doughnuts.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "fiction", "the states we’re in", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0063049902", "cover": "0063049902", "goodreads": 55685332, "itunes": 9780063049901, "bookshop": 9780063049901, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51pBxF5TLvL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063049901", "isbn10": "0063049902", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 20, "book": "Afterparties", "source": "NPR", "text": "Philosophical, queer, angry, romantic, defiant: 'Afterparties' contains multitudes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/03/1023930049/review-afterparties-anthony-veasna-so" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 20, "book": "Afterparties", "source": "NPR", "text": "A young literary star makes his posthumous debut with 'Afterparties'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/01/1021415438/afterparties-anthony-veasna-so-cambodian-american" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 20, "book": "Afterparties", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Afterparties' is a bittersweet triumph for a voice silenced too soon", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/02/1023752698/afterparties-is-a-bittersweet-triumph-for-a-fresh-voice-silenced-too-soon" } ] }, "21": { "id": 21, "title": "Aftershocks: A Memoir", "author": "Nadia Owusu", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "This moving nonlinear memoir explores Nadia Owusu’s many lives – as privileged child of a U.N. employee, world traveler, bereft daughter, caretaker to her siblings, boarding school student, serial job applicant, writer – and the cracks and fault lines running through them. One of her main themes is storytelling, which she sees as the way we understand ourselves, others and the worlds we live in; any story that is too simple or that holds no contradictions is suspect, for that means it lacks the nuance necessary for a deeper understanding. Aftershocks is a marvel of narrative agility.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "1982111232", "cover": "1982111232", "goodreads": 57623540, "itunes": 9781982111236, "bookshop": 9781982111236, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41yxi7NEbLL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982111236", "isbn10": "1982111232", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 21, "book": "Aftershocks", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Aftershocks' is a powerful memoir of life upended — then pieced back together", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/18/955991719/aftershocks-is-a-powerful-memoir-of-a-life-upended-then-pieced-back-together" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 21, "book": "Aftershocks", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Aftershocks' tells of a reckoning with the self — and with memory", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/955592320/aftershocks-tells-of-a-reckoning-with-the-self-and-with-memory" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 21, "book": "Aftershocks", "source": "NPR", "text": "Nadia Owusu examines her Ghanaian-Armenian identity in 'Aftershocks'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/16/957593521/nadia-owusu-examines-her-ghanaian-armenian-identity-in-aftershocks" } ] }, "22": { "id": 22, "title": "Against Silence: Poems", "author": "Frank Bidart", "reviewers": [ "Craig Morgan Teicher" ], "text": "The memories recounted in Frank Bidart’s newest poems are spiked by regret; the hopes barely dare. But the pain is more than worth it if, in exchange, there is some glimpse of the truth. At the center of the collection is the latest fifth in Bidart’s ongoing “Hours of the Night” series, a searing reckoning with a mother and father who lived their lives “seemingly/ without/ catharsis.” When Frank Bidart faces mortality, he really faces it, head-on, from every angle. Each of Bidart’s books is a bit holy to me; I’m grateful to have him as a guide down these dark paths.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "the dark side", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "0374603510", "cover": "0374603510", "goodreads": 56269285, "itunes": 9780374603519, "bookshop": 9780374603519, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31xAeOybXfL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374603519", "isbn10": "0374603510", "links": [] }, "23": { "id": 23, "title": "Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption", "author": "Rafia Zakaria", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "A white feminist is anyone who refuses to see how whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have universalized white feminist concerns, agendas and beliefs as applicable to all feminists. Women of color — especially in non-Western countries — are only included in this movement when they conform to values in service of white supremacy and capitalism. Rafia Zakaria’s case for why such feminism must be dismantled is built on well-researched evidence of systemic racism perpetuated over centuries in our cultures, institutions, socio-political movements and everyday behaviors. She threads three key change propositions throughout for women of color: reshaping the feminist narrative, honoring our own genealogies, and enhancing solidarity through community.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1324006617", "cover": "1324006617", "goodreads": 55298403, "itunes": 9781324006619, "bookshop": 9781324006619, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51HWNtCP6pS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324006619", "isbn10": "1324006617", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 23, "book": "Against White Feminism", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Against White Feminism' is an urget call to action for solidarity and justice", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/17/1027660980/against-white-feminism-is-an-urgent-call-to-action-for-solidarity-and-justice" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 23, "book": "Against White Feminism", "source": "TPR", "text": "Zakaria: 'White Feminism' perpetuates systemic oppression, undermines the fight for gender equity", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2021-08-15/zakaria-white-feminism-perpetuates-systemic-oppression-undermines-the-fight-for-gender-equity" } ] }, "24": { "id": 24, "title": "All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake", "author": "Tiya Miles", "reviewers": [ "Bridget Bentz" ], "text": "In the 1850s, an enslaved woman named Rose, upon learning that her 9-year-old daughter, Ashley, was about to be sold away, packed a tattered cotton bag that would serve as a keepsake. Rose and Ashley never saw each other again, but Ashley’s sack was passed down within the family. In 1921, Rose’s great-granddaughter embroidered it with a cursive script starkly describing the cruelty her foremothers had endured – and the strength and hope embodied in Rose’s gift: “It be filled with my Love always.” In All That She Carried, historian Tiya Miles unpacks Ashley’s sack to tell a sweeping story about the unfathomable horror of slavery – as well as the transcendent power of Black love and resilience.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "1984854992", "cover": "1984854992", "goodreads": 56108283, "itunes": 9781984854995, "bookshop": 9781984854995, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/All-That-She-Carried-by-Tiya-Miles-678x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984854995", "isbn10": "1984854992", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 24, "book": "All That She Carried", "source": "NPR", "text": "Fresh Air: 'All That She Carried'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034799345/how-a-cotton-sack-passed-down-over-generations-tells-a-larger-story-about-slaver" } ] }, "25": { "id": 25, "title": "All the Feels: A Novel", "author": "Olivia Dade", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "All the Feels is Olivia Dade’s latest installment in a loosely linked series of stories about the cast of a fantasy TV show that TOTALLY isn’t Game of Thrones (even though everyone, including the cast, hates the last season). Bad boy actor Alexander can’t stop getting into trouble; he despises his character arc and he’s got plenty of off-screen demons, so after one bar fight too many, the showrunners stick him with a minder – short, stubborn former emergency room therapist Lauren. Do sparks fly? You bet they do. Is there angst? Oh so much. Alex and Lauren have chemistry like Mentos and Diet Coke — and Dade’s spot-on depiction of fan culture is just chef’s kiss.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "love & romance", "no biz like show biz", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0063005581", "cover": "0063005581", "goodreads": 56817007, "itunes": 9780063005587, "bookshop": 9780063005587, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51LWEsXpTnL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063005587", "isbn10": "0063005581", "links": [] }, "27": { "id": 27, "title": "Alone in Space: A Collection", "author": "Tillie Walden", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Throughout the past decade, Tillie Walden has produced a string of graphic novels notable for both their deft artwork and their unpredictable, sometimes brow-crinkling stories. This collection provides a wide-ranging look into the ever-idiosyncratic creator’s brain. It includes her first published comic, in which a character battles illness in an isolated castle, and an array of early sketches and webcomics. Most notable are the deeply felt stories of gay teen experience, What It’s Like to be Gay in an All-Girls Middle School and I Love This Part. It’s hard to say what’s more enthralling, Walden’s art or her heart.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "identity & culture", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1910395587", "cover": "1910395587", "goodreads": 56079932, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781910395585, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+06nRaVzL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781910395585", "isbn10": "1910395587", "links": [] }, "28": { "id": 28, "title": "Amari and the Night Brothers", "author": "B.B. Alston", "reviewers": [ "Kara Frame" ], "text": "Amari and the Night Brothers takes readers on a (literally) magical adventure following a protagonist named Amari, a young Black girl who you can’t help but root for. She’s full of heart and determination, making her way through supernatural trials to find her missing brother, while discovering the magic she had in herself all along. I bought this book for my two nieces, and they finished in just a few days because they couldn’t put it down. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter and the world of fantasy, this is the next series you should jump into. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "kids’ books", "staff picks", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062975161", "cover": "0062975161", "goodreads": 54304139, "itunes": 9780062975164, "bookshop": 9780062975164, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ieTRZOR+S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062975164", "isbn10": "0062975161", "links": [] }, "29": { "id": 29, "title": "America, My Love, America, My Heart", "author": "Daria Peoples-Riley", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "If patriotism is a love of one’s country, what happens when you’re not sure whether your country loves you back? Daria Peoples-Riley explores this topic with a poet’s spirit, asking probing questions that delve into the complexities of American identity. And while she doesn’t claim to have an answer to all these difficult questions, the book is ultimately hopeful. Because questioning is an act of love and holding a country to high expectations is patriotism. The book ends with the lines, “America, I am you. America, you are me.” because one thing is beyond question: It is we the people that make a country. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "kids’ books", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "0062993291", "cover": "0062993291", "goodreads": 54427154, "itunes": 9780062993298, "bookshop": 9780062993298, "image": "https://kbimages1-a.akamaihd.net/e610362f-f118-45be-9d3f-807530b95e2c/1200/1200/False/america-my-love-america-my-heart.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062993298", "isbn10": "0062993291", "links": [] }, "30": { "id": 30, "title": "American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption", "author": "Gabrielle Glaser", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "Did you know that in the mid-20th century, adoption in the U.S. was an industry? Pregnant girls were sent to homes to have children that would be adopted in utter secrecy. Gabrielle Glaser dives into that history while making you feel the personal cost through the story of one mother who gave up her son even though she and the baby’s father married and wanted desperately to keep him. We also meet their son, who though happy with his adoptive family, always wondered about the woman who gave him up. The book powerfully argues against adoption secrecy.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "staff picks", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "for history lovers", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0735224684", "cover": "0735224684", "goodreads": 48710835, "itunes": 9780735224681, "bookshop": 9780735224681, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Q7QL+JF-L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780735224681", "isbn10": "0735224684", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 30, "book": "American Baby", "source": "WBUR", "text": " 'American Baby' takes critical look at adoption through eyes of a mother and her biological son", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/01/26/us-adoption-history-book" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 30, "book": "American Baby", "source": "KPCC", "text": "A new book examines the shadowy history of adoption in the United States", "url": "https://archive.kpcc.org/programs/airtalk/2021/06/02/66814/a-new-book-examines-the-shadowy-history-of-adoptio/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 30, "book": "American Baby", "source": "WNYC", "text": "A disturbing history of closed adoptions in America", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/disturbing-history-closed-adoptions-america" } ] }, "31": { "id": 31, "title": "American Delirium: A Novel", "author": "Betina González, translated by Heather Cleary", "reviewers": [ "Natalie Escobar" ], "text": "At first glance, it’s hard to tell how Betina González is going to stick the landing of this book. She introduces three separate plotlines: An old man discovers a woman who’s been secretly living in his house, a group of retirees learn how to hunt deer, and a young girl finds her mother has vanished without a trace. You can tell that somehow, all these disparate threads are going to be tied together but how exactly isn’t clear. (Spoiler: Everything is, in fact, related in the zaniest way possible.) The 2021 version of the book, which was originally published in Spanish back in 2016, is a wonderful translation job by Heather Cleary; it’s a commentary on aging, sex and the emptiness of modern living in the U.S. that could’ve only been written by an outside observer.
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "seriously great writing", "the dark side", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250621283", "cover": "1250621283", "goodreads": 54895704, "itunes": 9781250621283, "bookshop": 9781250621283, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vh-HkbP0L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250621283", "isbn10": "1250621283", "links": [] }, "32": { "id": 32, "title": "Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies", "author": "Derek DelGaudio", "reviewers": [ "Peter Sagal" ], "text": "I tend to appreciate magic shows more than I enjoy them. So I was surprised to find myself slack-jawed and dizzy at the end of Derek DelGaudio’s astounding performance In and Of Itself, which, happily, was filmed and can be seen on Hulu. His book Amoralman, although it stands on its own, can be read as a kind of program note for that show. Primarily a memoir of his growing up, learning card magic and then working as a dealer at a rigged high-stakes poker game, it centers on his obsessions: identity, belief and the ways in which we both define and fool ourselves. DelGaudio’s life story is fascinating, especially in the array of substitute father figures who inspired him and taught him the literal tricks of his trade. But his tales of fleecing the unsuspecting will leave you wondering, as I did at the end of his performance: “How in the world did that happen?”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "no biz like show biz", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0593295382", "cover": "0593295382", "goodreads": 53168892, "itunes": 9780593295380, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1cJRv42EXL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593295380", "isbn10": "0593295382", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 32, "book": "Amoralman", "source": "NPR", "text": "Magician Derek DelGaudio traces his journey from card cheat to illusionist", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/01/972501227/magician-derek-delgaudio-traces-his-journey-from-card-cheat-to-illusionist" } ] }, "33": { "id": 33, "title": "Appleseed: A Novel", "author": "Matt Bell", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "This novel of climate collapse presents a triptych of tales: In the first, two brothers walk the American Midwest in the late 18th century, planting apple orchards everywhere they go. In the second, set in the near future, climate change has become endemic, disastrous, unfixable – except, maybe, for the efforts of a single, massive global corporation with plans to resettle half of America and cloud over the abandoned West to counteract global warming. In the third, a recycled cyborg clone lives and dies over and over again, exploring the depths of a glacier in its attempt to discover what happened to humanity. And while this might seem like standard dystopian fare, Matt Bell uses an odd mix of magical realism, pioneer mythology and weird science to twist his tale in unusual directions and imbue Appleseed with fauns, nano-pollinators, magic apples and a strain of dreamy strangeness that makes it a meditative thriller with an ethical heart.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "rather long", "science!", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "006304014X", "cover": "006304014X", "goodreads": 55659625, "itunes": 9780063040144, "bookshop": 9780063040144, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iL0U-M6lS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063040144", "isbn10": "006304014X", "links": [] }, "34": { "id": 34, "title": "Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple", "author": "Dorie Greenspan", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Who doesn’t like baking with Dorie? You might feel a jolt of déjà vu at this new release from the popular baking doyenne (author of Baking, Baking Chez Moi, and the Baking with Dorie app, among others). Same meticulous Dorie-style foolproof instructions but newly packaged into a collection of irresistible essentials. Most are sweet sophisticates, like Mocha-Walnut Torte, Tea and Honey Madeleines, and Apple Szarlotka; but there are head-turning savories (clam chowder pie!) and breakfast treats (cheddar-scallion scones!) too. Whether this winter brings convivial gatherings or yet another unwelcome quarantine, these indulgences will lift all spirits and every mood.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "035822358X", "cover": "035822358X", "goodreads": 55959416, "itunes": 9780358223580, "bookshop": 9780358223580, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51CCIjBYfoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358223580", "isbn10": "035822358X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 34, "book": "Baking with Dorie", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Sweet or savory? Both, according to 'Baking With Dorie,' acclaimed baker's creative new cookbook", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/11/04/baking-with-dorie-greenspan-recipes" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 34, "book": "Baking with Dorie", "source": "KCRW", "text": "How to be a successful recipe developer? Dorie Greenspan shares the secret", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/baking-grains-legumes-monsanto/dorie-greenspan-cookbook" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 34, "book": "Baking with Dorie", "source": "WPR", "text": "Food Friday: Sweet and savory baking", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/food-friday-sweet-and-savory-baking" } ] }, "35": { "id": 35, "title": "Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna", "author": "Alda P. Dobbs", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "It’s 1913, and 12-year-old Petra is tasked with leading her family through war-torn Mexico to seek safety in the United States. A fast-paced, thrilling tale of courage, danger and loss, Petra Luna is based on author Alda P. Dobbs’ own great-grandmother. This is Dobbs’ middle-grade debut novel, and it’s not just a powerful story that tackles serious issues – it’s a gripping piece of historical fiction that you may read in one sitting. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters", "historical fiction", "tales from around the world", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1728234654", "cover": "1728234654", "goodreads": 53410874, "itunes": 9781728234656, "bookshop": 9781728234656, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51HK7uUCDsL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781728234656", "isbn10": "1728234654", "links": [] }, "36": { "id": 36, "title": "Beautiful Country: A Memoir", "author": "Qian Julie Wang", "reviewers": [ "Hafsa Fathima" ], "text": "Qian Julie Wang’s story weaves through the streets of New York City, where she and her family try to build a life as undocumented immigrants from China. Wang’s world is shaken when her mother falls extremely ill, but cannot risk going to a doctor because of her immigration status. I was moved by how powerfully Wang writes about the grief of being an outsider, but also the courage required to forge onward. As a fellow immigrant to the U.S., her journey resonated with me. It powerfully illustrates a question in the center of American identity today: What does it mean to call America home?
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0385547218", "cover": "0385547218", "goodreads": 56461570, "itunes": 9780385547215, "bookshop": 9780385547215, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51C9dgXtyBL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385547215", "isbn10": "0385547218", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 36, "book": "Beautiful Country", "source": "NPR", "text": "Qian Julie Wang details a life in 'Hei' in memoir 'Beautiful Country'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1038533093/qian-julie-wang-details-a-life-in-hei-in-memoir-beautiful-country" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 36, "book": "Beautiful Country", "source": "WSHU", "text": "Join the Conversation with Qian Julie Wang, author of 'Beautiful Country'", "url": "https://www.wshu.org/wshu/2021-09-10/join-the-conversation-with-qian-julie-wang-author-of-beautiful-country" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 36, "book": "Beautiful Country", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All of It: Qian Julie Wang's Memoir 'Beautiful Country'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/qian-julie-wangs-memoir-beautiful-country/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 36, "book": "Beautiful Country", "source": "KPCW", "text": "The Mountain Life: Qian Julie Wang author of Beautiful Country ", "url": "https://www.kpcw.org/show/the-mountain-life/2021-10-20/qian-julie-wang-author-of-beautiful-country-oct-20-2021" } ] }, "37": { "id": 37, "title": "Beautiful World, Where Are You: A Novel", "author": "Sally Rooney", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "Sally Rooney’s third novel is again about a small group of young, literary Irish folks swirling around each other, experiencing searing feelings of need, ego and beauty. They live otherwise unremarkable lives. When I talk about the book in person, I have trouble making eye contact, worried that admitting an intense connection with Rooney’s writing reveals something about myself that I wouldn’t otherwise share – as though I (to borrow a scene) inadvertently disclosed my mobile browsing history to an acquaintance.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0374602603", "cover": "0374602603", "goodreads": 56597885, "itunes": 9780374602604, "bookshop": 9780374602604, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51cidczO3xS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374602604", "isbn10": "0374602603", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 37, "book": "Beautiful World, Where Are You", "source": "NPR", "text": "Sally Rooney's new book tries to find meaning in an increasingly troubled world", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1031904202/sally-rooney-review-beautiful-world-where-are-you" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 37, "book": "Beautiful World, Where Are You", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Beautiful World' is Sally Rooney's toughest, most sweeping novel to date", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/09/1035494728/beautiful-world-is-sally-rooneys-toughest-most-sweeping-novel-to-date" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 37, "book": "Beautiful World, Where Are You", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: Sally Rooney’s new novel paints a world full of angst and beauty", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/book-review/2021-09-27/book-review-sally-rooneys-new-novel-paints-a-world-full-of-angst-and-beauty" } ] }, "38": { "id": 38, "title": "Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice", "author": "Yusef Salaam", "reviewers": [ "Ericka Taylor" ], "text": "Yusef Salaam was only 15 years old when he and four other children were falsely accused of the brutal rape of a Central Park jogger. Despite this horrific miscarriage of justice, Salaam’s memoir, Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice, is one of astounding warmth. His incarceration doesn’t keep Salaam from experiencing encouragement and gratitude, but he doesn’t shy away from the pain of he endured either. His book is a powerful counter to the more than 400 articles vilifying the teens in 1989 and illuminates just how badly the American justice system can fail.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1538705001", "cover": "1538705001", "goodreads": 55426158, "itunes": 9781538705001, "bookshop": 9781538705001, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41LgIJJNjoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538705001", "isbn10": "1538705001", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 38, "book": "Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice", "source": "NPR", "text": "One of the falsely accused Central Park Five tells his story in 'Better, Not Bitter'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997792060/in-better-not-bitter-one-of-the-central-park-five-tells-his-own-story" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 38, "book": "Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice", "source": "NPR", "text": "Central Park 'Exonerated 5' member reflects on freedom and forgiveness", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000454798/central-park-exonerated-5-member-reflects-on-freedom-and-forgiveness" } ] }, "39": { "id": 39, "title": "Bewilderment: A Novel", "author": "Richard Powers", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "A widowed father cares for his autistic son as they both struggle to reckon with their grief – for their lost loved one and for the planet in the time of climate change. It’s a quick read compared to Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning climate epic The Overstory, but no less powerful, a wrenching mediation on the twinned pains of love and grief and what it means when we’re forced to feel things that are simply too big to feel.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "staff picks", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0393881148", "cover": "0393881148", "goodreads": 56404444, "itunes": 9780393881141, "bookshop": 9780393881141, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jf0Rju1fL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393881141", "isbn10": "0393881148", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "NPR", "text": "Richard Powers spins a smaller, sadder story in 'Bewilderment'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1039090479/richard-powers-bewilderment-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "NPR", "text": "Richard Powers' book 'Bewilderment' explores life on and beyond Earth", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039799994/richard-powers-book-bewilderment-explores-life-on-and-beyond-earth" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "WAMU", "text": "The IA: Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers on his new novel, ‘Bewilderment’", "url": "https://the1a.org/segments/pulitzer-prize-winner-richard-powers-on-his-new-novel-bewilderment/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "KQED", "text": "‘Bewilderment’ explores resplendence of the cosmos and a child’s mind", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885582/bewilderment-explores-resplendence-of-the-cosmos-and-a-childs-mind" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "KRCW", "text": "The Bookworm: Richard Powers: 'Bewilderment'", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/richard-powers-bewilderment" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Book Show: Richard Powers - 'Bewilderment'", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/show/the-book-show/2021-10-19/richard-powers-bewilderment" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 39, "book": "Bewilderment", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Richard Powers' 'Bewilderment' looks at love, loss and the unending cosmos", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/book-review/2021-10-25/richard-powers-bewilderment-looks-at-love-loss-and-the-unending-cosmos" } ] }, "40": { "id": 40, "title": "Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora", "author": "Bryant Terry", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "“Like Black people, this book contains multitudes.” That’s how Bryant Terry ends the intro to this book, and it’s fitting. Black Food is part cookbook, essay collection, photo collage, history textbook and playlist. It comes together like a 300-page zine drawing on chefs and thinkers from Barbados to Somalia to Haiti to the Carolinas.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "for art lovers", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1984859722", "cover": "1984859722", "goodreads": 58649825, "itunes": 9781984859723, "bookshop": 9781984859723, "image": "https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9781984859730", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984859723", "isbn10": "1984859722", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 40, "book": "Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora", "source": "WBUR", "text": " 'Black Food' gives a taste of the African Diaspora through food, essays, art and music", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/npr/1055897731/black-food-bryant-terry" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 40, "book": "Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora", "source": "KQED", "text": "Chef Bryant Terry curates a feast of food and self-discovery in ‘Black Food’", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101886379/chef-bryant-terry-curates-a-feast-of-food-and-self-discovery-in-black-food" } ] }, "41": { "id": 41, "title": "Boogie Boogie, Y'all", "author": "C.G. Esperanza", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Get ready! Grown-ups often can’t see what’s right in front of them. Yet for the kids in author-illustrator C.G. Esperanza’s joyous picture book, the graffiti, sounds and scenes of the Bronx are a feast for the eyes and ears. This kaleidoscope of words and color celebrates “art on the wall!,” “art on the train!” and “art in the park!” And you won’t want to miss the exuberant art in the book! Combined with a rhythm and beat perfect for reading out loud, Boogie, Boogie, Y’all is a party on every page and everyone is invited. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "for art lovers", "identity & culture", "for music lovers" ], "isbn": "0062976222", "cover": "0062976222", "goodreads": 53968530, "itunes": 9780062976222, "bookshop": 9780062976222, "image": "https://d1o5nklc3mwtqp.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/31012839/BoogieBoogie-hc-c-1-1024x842.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062976222", "isbn10": "0062976222", "links": [] }, "42": { "id": 42, "title": "Book of the Other: Small in Comparison", "author": "Truong Tran", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "Mixing cadenced prose, vernacular speech and legal grievance, Vietnamese American poet Truong Tran invokes the three questions that serve as framework for his classroom teaching and cultural identity, “what haunts you. what hunts you. what are you hunting.” Tran’s answers to these questions resist both the traditional poetic form and the performance of trauma. Repeatedly denied promotion at the college where he teaches, Tran bluntly asserts, “my living. cannot be literary. it does not have. the elevation of poetry … there is no creative. to this nonfiction.” Audacious and inspiring, Tran’s latest work shows how artistic expression can be consciously reinvented as an act of protest.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1885030754", "cover": "1885030754", "goodreads": 58796749, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781885030757, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bwym6WnNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781885030757", "isbn10": "1885030754", "links": [] }, "44": { "id": 44, "title": "Borders", "author": "Thomas King, illustrated by Natasha Donovan", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "A boy and his mother get caught between the American and Canadian border when they refuse to deny their Blackfoot citizenship. Don’t look for front matter. Don’t look for back matter. Don’t search for an author’s note or explanation. The kids who pick up this graphic novel will just have to read through the book and then sit and think about it for a while. These characters calmly refuse to claim themselves as either Canadians or Americans, throwing the world around them into chaos. A powerful story of identity and standing up for yourself. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "comics & graphic novels", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0316593060", "cover": "0316593060", "goodreads": 56620853, "itunes": 9780316593069, "bookshop": 9780316593069, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51zWwwdBRbS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316593069", "isbn10": "0316593060", "links": [] }, "45": { "id": 45, "title": "Bright Star", "author": "Yuyi Morales", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "Bright Star takes readers on an exploration of the borderlands between the United States and Mexico, inviting us to observe moments of joy, to be attentive to danger and to shout out in anger when necessary. Yuyi Morales includes reminders to “breathe in, breathe out” throughout the book, giving the story the feel of a guided meditation that crosses from the world of animals to the world of people. In doing so, she shows how the actions of humanity can sometimes run counter to the ways of the natural world. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "kids’ books", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0823443280", "cover": "0823443280", "goodreads": 56294908, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780823443284, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5187PLuJISS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780823443284", "isbn10": "0823443280", "links": [] }, "46": { "id": 46, "title": "Broken Horses: A Memoir", "author": "Brandi Carlile", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I must admit that I didn’t read a word of musician Brandi Carlile’s memoir. Instead, I listened to the audiobook on a cross-country flight. I was enthralled as one of my favorite artists shared stories about her dysfunctional childhood, life on the road and what it’s actually like to be a songwriter. But what makes the audiobook a must-listen is that each chapter is punctuated by Carlile singing a song that shaped her life; you’ll get to hear phenomenal covers of the artists who shaped Carlile, like Elton John and Dolly Parton, plus new takes on some of her classic songs “The Joke” and “The Story.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for music lovers", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593237242", "cover": "0593237242", "goodreads": 54895726, "itunes": 9780593237243, "bookshop": 9780593237243, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/412PzxjtRvL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593237243", "isbn10": "0593237242", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 46, "book": "Broken Horses", "source": "NPR", "text": "Singer Brandi Carlile talks ambition, avoidance, and finally finding her place", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/983815671/singer-brandi-carlile-talks-ambition-avoidance-and-finally-finding-her-place" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 46, "book": "Broken Horses", "source": "WXPN", "text": "Brandi Carlile: The World Cafe Interview", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2021/10/01/1042267861/brandi-carlile-the-world-cafe-interview" } ] }, "47": { "id": 47, "title": "Build Your House Around My Body: A Novel", "author": "Violet Kupersmith", "reviewers": [ "Ari Shapiro" ], "text": "Build Your House Around My Body begins with the disappearance of a young woman named Winnie, and works its way backwards through time, telling a story of unfinished business and long-delayed revenge. Some of its set pieces are familiar from Hollywood horror movies and Brothers Grimm fairy tales – there’s an exorcism and a haunted forest. But because this book is set in Vietnam, the forest is an overgrown rubber tree plantation and the exorcism doesn’t have crucifixes or holy water. It’s a sprawling novel that tells a ghost story spanning generations, drawing the reader into its supernatural world.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0812993322", "cover": "0812993322", "goodreads": 55656269, "itunes": 9780812993325, "bookshop": 9780812993325, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51blFL+POKL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780812993325", "isbn10": "0812993322", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 47, "book": "Build Your House Around My Body", "source": "NPR", "text": "Revenge, red smoke, and rubber trees: A Vietnam ghost story", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1015371445/revenge-red-smoke-and-rubber-trees-a-vietnam-ghost-story" } ] }, "48": { "id": 48, "title": "The Caesars Palace Coup: How a Billionaire Brawl Over the Famous Casino Exposed the Power and Greed of Wall Street", "author": "Sujeet Indap and Max Frumes", "reviewers": [ "Mary Childs" ], "text": "Max Frumes and Sujeet Indap’s deeply reported book takes you on a nonstop adventure into the wild world of Chapter 11 bankruptcy – where corporations go when they’re out of money, and where clever investors are still somehow able to extract billions upon billions of dollars. It’s an upside-down case study in entrepreneurship and brinkmanship. The book reads like a thriller, except you’ll come away knowing how hedge funds and private equity funds do what they do. But it’s not just about who won what: Thanks to years of dogged reporting and comprehensive interviews with basically every party involved, you get to witness it as it happened in real life. It’s a romp that also happens to be true, and the system Frumes and Indap lay out has vast consequences for American society.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "the dark side", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "163576677X", "cover": "163576677X", "goodreads": 54696215, "itunes": 9781635766776, "bookshop": 9781635766776, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rMUUZp5fL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635766776", "isbn10": "163576677X", "links": [] }, "50": { "id": 50, "title": "Castaway Mountain: Love and Loss Among the Wastepickers of Mumbai", "author": "Saumya Roy", "reviewers": [ "Gabino Iglesias" ], "text": "A distressing account of life on the Deonar garbage mountains outside Mumbai, this book chronicles the life of Farzana Ali Shaikh and her family to paint a broader picture of how families survive while literally surrounded by trash. Carefully researched and written with a lot of heart, this book opens a door into a different way of life – one in which people are forced to make a living in an incredibly unhealthy and dangerous environment while the government repeatedly fails to find sustainable, humane solutions.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads", "family matters" ], "isbn": "166260095X", "cover": "166260095X", "goodreads": 56706509, "itunes": 9781662600951, "bookshop": 9781662600951, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41r5+Gz4dJS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781662600951", "isbn10": "166260095X", "links": [] }, "51": { "id": 51, "title": "Celestia", "author": "Manuele Fior, translated by Jamie Richards", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Manuele Fior’s graphic novel is an eccentric take on climate fiction, the genre that imagines life after global warming. Celestia is remarkably beautiful considering its post-apocalyptic setting. Its pages are dominated by soothing sky blues and warm tans, but that’s because it takes place in a Europe that’s been reduced to deserts and brackish seas. The quest-style story introduces the poet Pierrot and the spacey and curvaceous telepath Dora to all the different types of people the apocalypse has produced; Fior plays with the reader’s sympathies in a tale that’s alternately fascinating and alienating.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "the dark side", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1683964381", "cover": "1683964381", "goodreads": 55678445, "itunes": 9781683964384, "bookshop": 9781683964384, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Uinv2UAqS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781683964384", "isbn10": "1683964381", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 51, "book": "Celestia", "source": "NPR", "text": "New graphic novel 'Celestia' wanders an Earth that's no longer home", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1019923949/celestia-manuele-fior-review" } ] }, "52": { "id": 52, "title": "Certain and Impossible Events", "author": "Candace Jane Opper", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "When Candace Jane Opper was 13, a boy she had a crush on died by suicide. She has never been able to stop thinking about it – about the boy himself, what she knew about him and all that she didn’t know about him, and also about the way he died and the nature of suicide. This beautiful and tender memoir spans the years of her obsession, which matured along with her even as the boy she once liked stayed stuck in time.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "rather short", "seriously great writing", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1888553936", "cover": "1888553936", "goodreads": 55025421, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781888553932, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51AVQFl4o1L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781888553932", "isbn10": "1888553936", "links": [] }, "53": { "id": 53, "title": "Chaos on CatNet", "author": "Naomi Kritzer", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "A terrific sequel to Catfishing on CatNet – which somehow managed to be both a tender coming-of-age story and an edge-of-your-seat thriller – Chaos introduces new characters and new dangers. On her first day in a new school, Steph meets Nell, a closeted teen raised in a doomsday cult; entrusted to her estranged father after her mother’s strange disappearance, Nell is both worried and testing the bounds of her relative new freedom. Steph and CheshireCat (her benevolent, cat-loving AI friend) decide to help – but find themselves uncovering app-based conspiracies and terrorist plots, as well as a mysterious new AI.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250165229", "cover": "1250165229", "goodreads": 53205853, "itunes": 9781250165220, "bookshop": 9781250165220, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51AEhK5zWhL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250165220", "isbn10": "1250165229", "links": [] }, "54": { "id": 54, "title": "Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South", "author": "Winfred Rembert and Erin I. Kelly", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "This book is visually stunning, full of images of the late Winfred Rembert’s art, which he carved and painted in leather. There are scenes of his life growing up in rural Georgia – a jarring juxtaposition of nostalgic moments like fishing or dancing in the juke joint, and dark memories of picking cotton, escaping a lynching, and working on the chain gang. Rembert’s brutally honest storytelling helps us see the sacrifice and grit it took for Black Americans to survive in the Jim Crow South, something he said should make families proud and want to talk about their history.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "the states we’re in", "for art lovers", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1635576598", "cover": "1635576598", "goodreads": 48915089, "itunes": 9781635576597, "bookshop": 9781635576597, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/815OsW9ZFjS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635576597", "isbn10": "1635576598", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 54, "book": "Chasing Me To My Grave", "source": "NPR", "text": "The late Winfred Rembert documented his life with art — and now a book", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/11/1026628894/the-late-winfred-rembert-documented-his-life-with-art" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 54, "book": "Chasing Me To My Grave", "source": "WABE", "text": "The late artist Winfred Rembert’s new memoir documents life growing up in Jim Crow South", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/artist-winfred-rembert/" } ] }, "55": { "id": 55, "title": "Chetna's 30 Minute Indian: Quick and Easy Everyday Meals", "author": "Chetna Makan", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Since her memorable appearance in the 2014 Great British Bake Off, Chetna Makan has released a steady parade of cookbook offerings that circumnavigate an endless cosmos of Indian flavors. By strategically deploying masalas and whole spices, Makan whips up an astonishing array of fast-moving scene-stealers: creamy Korma-style Chicken Curry, sweet and aromatic Coconut Paneer Tikka, decadent Rose and Pistachio Cake with Cardamom Toffee Sauce. If you’re lucky enough to live near an Indian grocery, stock up on curry leaves, coriander and cumin! This breezy showstopper will put them on frequent rotation in your kitchen.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "1784727504", "cover": "1784727504", "goodreads": 55901765, "itunes": 9781784727505, "bookshop": 9781784727505, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51EANtvJyQS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781784727505", "isbn10": "1784727504", "links": [] }, "56": { "id": 56, "title": "Children of the Fox: A Thieves of Shadow Novel", "author": "Kevin Sands", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "What’s better than a group of clever, brave kids who get the better of adults? If they happen to be criminals, all the more entertaining. Kevin Sands brings mystery, magic and a pretty major con-job to his first fantasy novel, a story where things are never quite as they seem. It’s not easy to create an entirely new mythology, but Sands does a fine job with this first installment in his new series. Be prepared for an exciting read. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "mysteries & thrillers", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593327519", "cover": "0593327519", "goodreads": 56631876, "itunes": 9780593327517, "bookshop": 9780593327517, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51rb4Mc5kkS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593327517", "isbn10": "0593327519", "links": [] }, "57": { "id": 57, "title": "Children Under Fire: An American Crisis", "author": "John Woodrow Cox", "reviewers": [ "Chris Benderev" ], "text": "It’s one thing to be told America’s gun violence epidemic is bad for kids. It’s quite another to let Washington Post reporter John Woodrow Cox take you inside the Olsen family as their 8-year-old daughter – who survived a school shooting – experiences a 34-minute violent fit of rage and self-loathing that requires her parents to restrain her and administer sedatives. Or to have Cox introduce you to a 9-year-old boy in Washington, D.C., who told his mom he wants to die so he can be reunited with his dad, who was fatally shot. Neither of these children was ever hit by a bullet, but that’s exactly the point.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0062883933", "cover": "0062883933", "goodreads": 53175315, "itunes": 9780062883933, "bookshop": 9780062883933, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Q-V43YXlL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062883933", "isbn10": "0062883933", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 57, "book": "Children Under Fire: An American Crisis", "source": "NPR", "text": "How gun violence affects American children", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986966908/how-gun-violence-affects-american-children" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 57, "book": "Children Under Fire: An American Crisis", "source": "KQED", "text": "Beyond bullet wounds: how gun violence hurts kids", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101882993/beyond-bullet-wounds-how-gun-violence-hurts-kids" } ] }, "58": { "id": 58, "title": "China Room: A Novel", "author": "Sunjeev Sahota", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "Sunjeev Sahota’s third novel has dual narratives: One set in 1929 Punjab (inspired partly by the author’s own family history) and told from the viewpoint of a young bride, Mehar, and one set in 1990s Punjab and England with Mehar’s great-grandson, known simply as S. Mehar is one of three new wives of three brothers; due to some unusual circumstances, none of the women know which brother they’ve married. Mehar tries to solve this husband mystery, which results in tragic events. Meanwhile, S. struggles to recover from an addiction linked to a difficult childhood in England where he deals with racism, violence and estrangement as the son of immigrant shopkeepers. The novel weaves back and forth smoothly to illuminate certain common themes and differences but doesn’t give in to easy answers.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction", "identity & culture", "historical fiction", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0593298144", "cover": "0593298144", "goodreads": 55994371, "itunes": 9780593298145, "bookshop": 9780593298145, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ipqy7MQVS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593298145", "isbn10": "0593298144", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 58, "book": "China Room", "source": "NPR", "text": "Three women wait every day for their unknown husbands in The 'China Room'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/1017264523/three-women-wait-every-day-for-their-unknown-husbands-in-the-china-room" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 58, "book": "China Room", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Sunjeev Sahota on 'China Room'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-08-03/marginalia-sunjeev-sahota-on-china-room" } ] }, "59": { "id": 59, "title": "Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel", "author": "Anthony Doerr", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "In 15th century Constantinople, a young girl scales an abandoned monastery looking to steal books. In the 1940s, in Lakeport, Idaho, a boy follows his father to a new job, a new life and, eventually, a new war. In 2020, a troubled teenager sits in his car outside the Lakeport public library, a gun in his pocket, a bomb in the backpack beside him. In 2146, on a generation ship headed for a new home on Beta Oph2, a girl waits inside a sealed room, hiding from a deadly plague, her only company an artificial intelligence called Sybil. These characters are linked, brilliantly, impossibly, through words, stories, libraries and, most notably, an invented manuscript (for which the novel is named) about a man who gets turned into a goat, a fish and a bird while searching for an imaginary city in the sky.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "seriously great writing", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "historical fiction", "fiction", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1982168439", "cover": "1982168439", "goodreads": 56783258, "itunes": 9781982168438, "bookshop": 9781982168438, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Cloud-Cuckoo-Land-by-Anthony-Doerr-678x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982168438", "isbn10": "1982168439", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 59, "book": "Cloud Cuckoo Land", "source": "NPR", "text": "Anthony Doerr's new novel spans centuries, yet fits together like clockwork", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041004908/anthony-doerr-cloud-cuckoo-land-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 59, "book": "Cloud Cuckoo Land", "source": "NPR", "text": "With 'Cloud Cuckoo Land,' Anthony Doerr dazzles and disturbs", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041124507/with-cloud-cuckoo-land-anthony-doerr-dazzles-and-disturbs" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 59, "book": "Cloud Cuckoo Land", "source": "NPR", "text": "Anthony Doerr on the spark that inspired 'Cloud Cuckoo Land'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/25/1040669138/anthony-doerr-on-the-spark-that-inspired-cloud-cuckoo-land" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 59, "book": "Cloud Cuckoo Land", "source": "KWGS", "text": " 'Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-09-29/cloud-cuckoo-land-a-novel" } ] }, "60": { "id": 60, "title": "Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World", "author": "Wil Haygood", "reviewers": [ "Bob Mondello" ], "text": "Billed as “One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World,” this fascinating, exhaustively researched and gorgeously written tome delves deep into the background of everything from D.W. Griffith’s monstrous silent Birth of a Nation, to teenager Darnella Frazier’s video of the murder of George Floyd. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t see the Sidney Poitier/Dorothy Dandridge Porgy and Bess, or why Spike Lee had to borrow money to fly to Cannes to win Best Young Director for She’s Gotta Have It, or why … nah, I should stop. So many treasures to unearth, you’ll want to do it yourself.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "no biz like show biz", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "rather long", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "0525656871", "cover": "0525656871", "goodreads": 56845581, "itunes": 9780525656876, "bookshop": 9780525656876, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RwZZXsviL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525656876", "isbn10": "0525656871", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 60, "book": "Colorization", "source": "WGBH", "text": "Under The Radar Book Club: Wil Haygood's 'Colorization: One Hundred Years Of Black Films In A White World'", "url": "https://www.wgbh.org/news/national-news/2021/10/01/under-the-radar-book-club-wil-haygoods-colorization-one-hundred-years-of-black-films-in-a-white-world" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 60, "book": "Colorization", "source": "WCBE", "text": "CMC Forum - 'Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World'", "url": "https://www.wcbe.org/post/cmc-forum-colorization-one-hundred-years-black-films-white-world" } ] }, "61": { "id": 61, "title": "Concrete Rose", "author": "Angie Thomas", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "The Hate U Give is one of my favorite books of the past few years, so I knew I had to read its new prequel – and it did not disappoint. The first book focused on 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses her best friend’s death at the hand of the police. In Concrete Rose, Thomas proves she’s a master at world-building and shifts the focus to Maverick Carter, Starr’s father. Set in 1998, 17-year-old Maverick learns he is the father of a young baby. Once again, Thomas creates an honest and compelling story about what it’s like to bear adult responsibilities when you’re only a teenager – a reality many young Black people face. I hope Thomas continues to revisit this universe again and again.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "young adult", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "006284671X", "cover": "006284671X", "goodreads": 52822210, "itunes": 9780062846716, "bookshop": 9780062846716, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41GGxoR3OSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062846716", "isbn10": "006284671X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 61, "book": "Concrete Rose", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Concrete Rose' is Angie Thomas' follow-up to 'The Hate U Give'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/12/955938704/concrete-rose-is-angie-thomas-follow-up-to-the-hate-u-give" } ] }, "62": { "id": 62, "title": "Cook Real Hawai'i", "author": "Sheldon Simeon With Garrett Snyder", "reviewers": [ "Wynne Davis" ], "text": "Most of us don’t know Hawai’i the same way chef Sheldon Simeon does. He knows that, and that’s part of what led him to write Cook Real Hawai’i with Garrett Snyder. If you’re expecting recipes for the kind of food you would eat at fancy resorts, you won’t find that here. Instead, you’ll find recipes that provide warmth and comfort often associated with family gatherings, which is how these are designed to be served. This cookbook isn’t just about the food; it’s about the people and cultures from places like China, Japan, Portugal, Korea and the Philippines that all have distinct influences on the local food. The stories, recipes and photography showcase the Hawai’i that Simeon knows best.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1984825836", "cover": "1984825836", "goodreads": 56167720, "itunes": 9781984825834, "bookshop": 9781984825834, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5164vFUS+tL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984825834", "isbn10": "1984825836", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 62, "book": "Cook Real Hawai'i", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Hawaiian cuisine: Respecting land, community, and food", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/food-family-memoirs-filipino-hawaiian-chicken-squash-blossoms/sheldon-simeon-cook-real-hawaii" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 62, "book": "Cook Real Hawai'i", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All Of It: Sheldon Simeon's new cookbook", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/sheldon-simeons-new-cookbook/" } ] }, "63": { "id": 63, "title": "Cook This Book: Techniques That Teach & Recipes to Repeat", "author": "Molly Baz", "reviewers": [ "Wynne Davis" ], "text": "Whether you’re a longtime Molly Baz fan or just discovering her, you’re sure to have a good time with Cook This Book. Time in the kitchen is meant to be fun, and Baz works to make that so by providing the fundamentals to take your home cooking to the next level. Throughout the book, you’ll find QR codes that help you learn a new technique visually. Follow her guidance when it comes to seasoning and flavor profiles, and then you can make any recipe your own. Hot ‘n’ Crispy Chicken Cutlets with Kimchi Ranch and Paccheri with Pork & Lentil Ragù are just a couple of the recipes that you’ll want to make over and over, making them more your own each time.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593138279", "cover": "0593138279", "goodreads": 54895707, "itunes": 9780593138274, "bookshop": 9780593138274, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519JVsscuAL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593138274", "isbn10": "0593138279", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 63, "book": "Cook This Book", "source": "WPR", "text": "Food Friday: Molly Baz", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/food-friday-molly-baz" } ] }, "64": { "id": 64, "title": "The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood – Youth – Dependency", "author": "Tove Ditlevsen", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "I had never heard of Tove Ditlevsen before I stumbled upon her memoirs, but now I know her as well as any personal friend I’ve ever had. Ditlevsen, a Danish poet and fiction writer, died by suicide in 1976. She is beloved in her home country and should be better known here. Her three-part memoir is so precise and specific that it’s almost uncomfortable to read (Nazis, unpredictable mother, awful husband, Demerol addiction); but readers who love that kind of thing (hi!) will find themselves in an intimate world that is both tragic and funny and contains the kind of prose that even in translation, you will want to read out loud to unsuspecting co-habiters. This is the kind of book that you almost definitely will not read in one sitting, but the multiple entrances in and out of Ditlevsen’s life are a complete and satisfying journey.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "biography & memoir", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0374602395", "cover": "0374602395", "goodreads": 53317528, "itunes": 9780374602390, "bookshop": 9780374602390, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/411YH61zlPL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374602390", "isbn10": "0374602395", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 64, "book": "Copenhagen trilogy", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'Copenhagen Trilogy'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/03/963592455/new-translation-shares-the-voice-of-a-poet-who-wrote-as-intensely-as-she-lived" } ] }, "65": { "id": 65, "title": "Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping", "author": "Matthew Salesses", "reviewers": [ "Kumari Devarajan" ], "text": "In this book, Matthew Salesses makes a bulletproof case for why we should dismantle the way that people are taught to write fiction. If you’re in the world of writing fiction, you’ve heard the word “craft” thrown around a lot. And loaded into that word are criteria for what makes good fiction. But Salesses explains that these criteria were formed long ago by no-longer-living white men and suggests they should be revisited. If publishing is a crapshoot, why not redefine what makes a story good?
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1948226804", "cover": "1948226804", "goodreads": 55155120, "itunes": 9781948226806, "bookshop": 9781948226806, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51LnSCfI6iL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781948226806", "isbn10": "1948226804", "links": [] }, "66": { "id": 66, "title": "Creatures of Passage", "author": "Morowa Yejidé", "reviewers": [ "Cara Stevens" ], "text": "Morowa Yejidé transports us to 1977 Anacostia – a historic neighborhood of D.C. too often overlooked by tourists, pundits and fiction writers – and reimagines the city as a mystical realm nestled between the “kingdoms” of Virginia and Maryland. With a murdered girl’s ghost in the trunk of a Plymouth Belvedere, an aging woman’s mystical connection to her dead twin brother and the death prophecies of an estranged niece, the novel is worthy of every Toni Morrison comparison it receives, effortlessly blending the brutalities of D.C.’s history with the mythical and supernatural. Creatures of Passage is a lyrical journey that will stick with you.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1617758760", "cover": "1617758760", "goodreads": 39314725, "itunes": 9781617758768, "bookshop": 9781617758768, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gDjFxcsWL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781617758768", "isbn10": "1617758760", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 66, "book": "Creatures of Passage", "source": "WAMU", "text": "This D.C. native has written a haunted novel about the district's history", "url": "https://dcist.com/story/21/03/17/dc-novel-creatures-of-passage-morowa-yejide/" } ] }, "67": { "id": 67, "title": "Crossroads: A Novel", "author": "Jonathan Franzen", "reviewers": [ "Rose Friedman" ], "text": "People love to hate on Jonathan Franzen. He writes chick lit! He snubbed Oprah! What’s with all those essays about birds!? But even if you’re in it for the hate-read, you kind of have to admit the man knows novel writing. Crossroads explores the inner life of each member of the Hildebrandt family, beginning with Russ, the small-town Indiana pastor whose inner life is more angsty than those of the teens he preaches to; his wife, Marion; and their four kids. Every character makes bad decisions, each is wracked with insecurity, but they’re so richly drawn with delicious, gossipy backstories that it’s too much fun to pass up.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "rather long", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0374181179", "cover": "0374181179", "goodreads": 55881796, "itunes": 9780374181178, "bookshop": 9780374181178, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51nu8ZWhQSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374181178", "isbn10": "0374181179", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 67, "book": "Crossroads", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Jonathan Franzen talks with David Remnick about “Crossroads”", "url": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/jonathan-franzen-talks-david-remnick-about-crossroads" } ] }, "68": { "id": 68, "title": "Crying in H Mart: A Memoir", "author": "Michelle Zauner", "reviewers": [ "Alyssa Jeong Perry" ], "text": "Michelle Zauner’s debut memoir eloquently lays out the complexity and the ongoing grief of losing a parent in your 20s, just as your own life is about to start. Zauner, who heads the indie band Japanese Breakfast, writes about how she turned to Korean food as a way to process her grief when her mother, her only tie to Korean culture, died of cancer. The book, which was first excerpted as viral New Yorker essay in 2018, reflects on how cooking and eating the food that her mom once prepared gives her a way to connect to her identity. As someone who also lost a parent in my 20s, it’s hard to convey the loss of identity and confusion that I faced, so I’m so thankful this book exists.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "cookbooks & food", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "identity & culture", "for music lovers" ], "isbn": "0525657746", "cover": "0525657746", "goodreads": 54814676, "itunes": 9780525657743, "bookshop": 9780525657743, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51gNCTAbLJS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525657743", "isbn10": "0525657746", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 68, "book": "Crying in H Mart", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Crying In H Mart' Michelle Zauner grapples with food, grief and identity", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989234501/in-crying-in-h-mart-michelle-zauner-grapples-with-food-grief-and-identity" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 68, "book": "Crying in H Mart", "source": "NPR", "text": "A daughter grieves her Mom, and finds herself, in 'Crying In H Mart'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/20/988665726/a-daughter-grieves-her-mom-and-finds-herself-in-crying-in-h-mart" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 68, "book": "Crying in H Mart", "source": "NPR", "text": "You are what you cook: An interview with Michelle Zauner on 'Crying in H Mart'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/10/02/246211198/you-are-what-you-cook" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 68, "book": "Crying in H Mart", "source": "WBEZ", "text": "Nerdette Book Club: 'Crying In H Mart'", "url": "https://www.wbez.org/stories/nerdette-book-club-crying-in-h-mart/ecd98159-3cfd-4b60-b925-a2acf1ea952c" } ] }, "69": { "id": 69, "title": "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism", "author": "Amanda Montell", "reviewers": [ "Rachel Treisman" ], "text": "In this thought-provoking-yet-accessible read, linguist Amanda Montell weaves together personal anecdotes, survivor interviews and academic research to walk us through the loaded language of cults. The book explores the influence of “cultish” groups from Scientology to SoulCycle, examining how they use language to their advantage and why so many of us find them fascinating. Montell, the daughter of a cult survivor, breaks down these communities’ stories and rhetorical strategies with context and care, asking important questions about what constitutes a cult and how exactly they win over their followers. You’ll come away armed with some nifty vocab terms and a better understanding of the cultish language that shapes us on a daily basis.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0062993151", "cover": "0062993151", "goodreads": 55338982, "itunes": 9780062993151, "bookshop": 9780062993151, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519PjrsTupL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062993151", "isbn10": "0062993151", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 69, "book": "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All Of It: 'The Language of Fanaticism'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/language-fanaticism/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 69, "book": "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism", "source": "KUER", "text": "Amanda Montell on 'The Language Of Fanaticism'", "url": "https://radiowest.kuer.org/post/amanda-montell-language-fanaticism" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 69, "book": "Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism", "source": "WPR", "text": "Linguist explores how cults gain followers", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/shows/linguist-explores-how-cults-gain-followers" } ] }, "70": { "id": 70, "title": "Curb", "author": "Divya Victor", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "This is a hybrid collection of verse and prose, memoir and history, reflections and imaginings, cultural criticism and what the writer Cathy Park Hong calls “minor feelings.” Divya Victor explores her own modes of survival, belonging and displacement, while reminding us of five South Asian men killed by white supremacists and nationalists in post-9/11 acts of domestic terrorism. In her endnotes, she says that a fear-filled confession from her mother helped her cross an emotional threshold to start the book – and like blood blooming from that open wound, Victor’s words spill onto page after page with an unstanchable urgency. This book is a profound act of poetic debridement for the South Asian American diaspora, and an insistent plea to resist erasure by first acknowledging, absorbing, processing and remembering our own communal histories.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "short stories, essays & poetry", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "1643620703", "cover": "1643620703", "goodreads": 55594499, "itunes": 9781643620701, "bookshop": 9781643620701, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Y8CHz1mbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781643620701", "isbn10": "1643620703", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 70, "book": "Curb", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Curb' uses poetry to scrub at the wounds of Anti-Asian racism", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/25/985926080/curb-uses-poetry-to-scrub-at-the-wounds-of-anti-asian-racism" } ] }, "71": { "id": 71, "title": "Cyclopedia Exotica", "author": "Aminder Dhaliwal", "reviewers": [ "Danny Lore" ], "text": "Exotification, dating apps, interracial dating, tokenization and the need to belong are all at the center of Aminder Dhaliwal’s comic Cyclopedia Exotica, but with a twist: Our protagonists are all fantastical cyclops dealing with marginalization. The cast is as varied as their struggles: the team of artists questioning tokenism and selling out, the first cyclops featured in an erotic human magazine, and a young man suffering from the aftereffects of the first surgeries to try to pass as having two eyes. What really makes this book special, however, is how it illuminates microaggressions without ever forgetting how many of us use humor to survive them. Full of laughter, frustration and tears, Cyclopedia Exotica is a must-read for anyone wishing to be seen.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1770464379", "cover": "1770464379", "goodreads": 53317432, "itunes": 9781770464377, "bookshop": 9781770464377, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41h4WMTUUnL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781770464377", "isbn10": "1770464379", "links": [] }, "72": { "id": 72, "title": "Darryl: A Novel", "author": "Jackie Ess", "reviewers": [ "Ben Lenk" ], "text": "Jackie Ess writes the feeling of being on the edge of a revelation better than anybody I’ve ever read. In her novel, the titular character, Darryl, narrates his adventure into the cuckolding lifestyle in short blog posts full of introspection and the sort of questions that lead you to realize that the life you have isn’t the one you want. It reminded me of nothing so much as my own early fumbling toward transition. Alternately meditative and razor-sharp, absurd and painfully real; Darryl probably isn’t the transgender novel you thought you wanted – but it is the one this moment calls for.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "staff picks", "fiction", "let’s talk about sex", "rather short" ], "isbn": "1944866841", "cover": "1944866841", "goodreads": 55878529, "itunes": 9781944866846, "bookshop": 9781944866846, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41g7fslWCQL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781944866846", "isbn10": "1944866841", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 72, "book": "Darryl", "source": "MPR", "text": "Poetry’s Collective Language: 'Darryl'", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/arts-culture/2021-02-11/poetrys-collective-language-a-conversation-with-andrea-abi-karam-and-kay-gabriel" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 72, "book": "Darryl", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Book Picks - Chatham Bookstore: 'Darryl'", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-07-13/book-picks-chatham-bookstore" } ] }, "73": { "id": 73, "title": "Dear Miss Metropolitan: A Novel", "author": "Carolyn Ferrell", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Gwin, Fern and Jesenia spent 10 years locked in a basement, enduring torture from a figure known as “Boss Man.” Ferrell’s debut novel, based on Cleveland’s Ariel Castro case, startles in its subject matter, but even more startling is the author’s moving excavation of an important, complicated story from the tragedy. Gwin lives on her love of Prince; Fern cherishes memories of dancing to Soul Train; and Jesenia lives by her wits. Ferrell’s book reminds readers that no trauma exists in an utter vacuum and that no survivor of trauma lacks dreams.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250793610", "cover": "1250793610", "goodreads": 55077564, "itunes": 9781250793614, "bookshop": 9781250793614, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/518zeeEkiQL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250793614", "isbn10": "1250793610", "links": [] }, "74": { "id": 74, "title": "Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally", "author": "Emily Ladau", "reviewers": [ "Erin Sells" ], "text": "If you’re like me, fear of causing offense or saying the wrong thing can prevent me from saying anything at all – which only perpetuates ignorance, or even harm. But the disability community is huge and extremely diverse and complex. Where to begin? I suggest starting with Emily Ladau’s Demystifying Disability, a fantastic primer for improving your understanding of disability and ableism. This book will give you the history, ideas, language, etiquette and practical tools you need to begin your journey to becoming a more knowledgeable and aware ally, along with resources for where to go next.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "rather short" ], "isbn": "1984858971", "cover": "1984858971", "goodreads": 56922093, "itunes": 9781984858979, "bookshop": 9781984858979, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51k5gSjTI-L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984858979", "isbn10": "1984858971", "links": [] }, "75": { "id": 75, "title": "Destroy All Monsters: A Reckless Book", "author": "Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ long partnership has produced a number of clever takes on hard-boiled crime fiction, but Ethan Reckless – a former Weather Underground radical who lives in an old movie theater and drives a VW van – is their quirkiest hero to date. Reckless has starred in several of the duo’s books since last year, each notable for its explosive mix of Brubaker’s wry, allusive writing and Phillips’ re-creation of ‘70s style. This one focuses on Reckless’ relationship with his movie-buff sidekick, Anna, the only character in the series who’s more relatable than he is.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "mysteries & thrillers", "historical fiction", "the dark side", "no biz like show biz", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1534319247", "cover": "1534319247", "goodreads": 57511004, "itunes": 9781534319240, "bookshop": 9781534319240, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519Zbzy70+S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781534319240", "isbn10": "1534319247", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 75, "book": "Destroy All Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": "You can 'Destroy All Monsters,' but you can't kill rock and roll", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2018/10/20/658928016/you-can-destroy-all-monsters-but-you-cant-kill-rock-and-roll" } ] }, "76": { "id": 76, "title": "Detransition Baby: A Novel", "author": "Torrey Peters", "reviewers": [ "Ari Shapiro" ], "text": "Transgender characters in literature often get flattened into archetypes, which I didn’t fully realize until I started to see the world through the eyes of the funny, flawed, complicated characters in this debut novel by Torrey Peters. Peters pivots from comedy to tragedy and back as effortlessly as great writers like Annie Dillard. Describing a funeral for a trans girl, Peters writes, “Everyone will dress themselves in some shade of goth – in goth apparel you can look sad while also showing off fishnets and boobs.” Few authors can walk that tightrope without tumbling. Peters does it with grace, all the while giving us a front-row seat.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "let’s talk about sex", "seriously great writing", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0593133374", "cover": "0593133374", "goodreads": 56765784, "itunes": 9780593133378, "bookshop": 9780593133378, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91zhCIMNa4L.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593133378", "isbn10": "0593133374", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 76, "book": "Detransition Baby", "source": "NPR ", "text": "It's Been A Minute with Sam Sanders: Author Torrey Peters on seeing through a trans lens", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/01/972593880/author-torrey-peters-on-seeing-through-a-trans-lens" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 76, "book": "Detransition Baby", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Seeing through a trans lens: Torrey Peters pens 'Detransition, Baby'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974705967/seeing-through-a-trans-lens-torrey-peters-pens-detransition-baby" } ] }, "77": { "id": 77, "title": "Dial A for Aunties", "author": "Jesse Q. Sutanto", "reviewers": [ "Tayla Burney" ], "text": "A crime novel wrapped up in a romance? Just what the doctor ordered for readers during the pandemic! There’s a lot to love here, especially the criminal high jinks that Meddelin, her mother and her aunts find themselves immersed in as she rekindles a lost flame. Above and beyond, though, this is a love letter to the bonds of family and culture.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593336739", "cover": "0593336739", "goodreads": 53310061, "itunes": 9780593336731, "bookshop": 9780593336731, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51J9mOj1h2L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593336731", "isbn10": "0593336739", "links": [] }, "78": { "id": 78, "title": "Dream Girl: A Novel", "author": "Laura Lippman", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Laura Lippman’s latest standalone thriller, Dream Girl, deftly draws on #MeToo themes and owes a lot to Stephen King’s 1987 horror classic, Misery. Here’s the premise: Shortly after a famous novelist named Gerry Anderson moves into a duplex penthouse in Baltimore, he tumbles down his “floating staircase” and is rendered immobile, totally dependent on a night nurse and young assistant for care and company. That’s when the threatening phone calls begin. Cranky, funny, brilliant and unscrupulous, Gerry is a marvelous creation – a literary lion in winter who may belatedly pay a high price for the crimes of his youth.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062390074", "cover": "0062390074", "goodreads": 55425157, "itunes": 9780062390073, "bookshop": 9780062390073, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519dzv+mMAL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062390073", "isbn10": "0062390074", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 78, "book": "Dream Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "Laura Lippman's 'Dream Girl' is the latest thriller to center on stolen stories", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/18/1028471590/laura-lippmans-dream-girl-is-the-latest-thriller-to-center-on-stolen-stories" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 78, "book": "Dream Girl", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: Dream Girl, by Laura Lippman", "url": "https://www.wyso.org/show/book-nook/2021-08-11/conrads-corner-dream-girl-by-laura-lippman" } ] }, "79": { "id": 79, "title": "Driving While Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Versus the Latino Resistance", "author": "Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Joe Arpaio, the right-wing Republican ex-sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., has been one of the most controversial political figures of the past few decades, accused of racial profiling and mistreating prisoners, and convicted of criminal contempt of court in 2017. (President Donald Trump pardoned him weeks later.) In their new book, journalists Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block tell the story of the Latinx activists who brought about his downfall – it’s a smart, well-documented book about a group of people determined to hold the powerful to account.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0520294084", "cover": "0520294084", "goodreads": 55167467, "itunes": 9780520294080, "bookshop": 9780520294080, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51oJphQnNcL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780520294080", "isbn10": "0520294084", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 79, "book": "Driving While Brown", "source": "TPR", "text": "Joe Arpaio, 'America's Toughest Sheriff' For Immigration Enforcement, And The Latino Resistance That Met Him Head On", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2021-04-25/joe-arpaio-americas-toughest-sheriff-for-immigration-enforcement-and-the-latino-resistance-that-met-him-head-on" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 79, "book": "Driving While Brown", "source": "WBUR", "text": " 'Driving While Brown' Chronicles How Latino Activists Brought Down Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/04/20/driving-while-brown-joe-arpaio" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 79, "book": "Driving While Brown", "source": "JPR", "text": " 'America's Toughest Sheriff' versus Latinos: 'Driving While Brown'", "url": "https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2021-05-18/wed-9-am-americas-toughest-sheriff-versus-latinos-driving-while-brown" } ] }, "80": { "id": 80, "title": "E.X.O.: The Legend of Wale Williams, Volume One", "author": "Roye Okupe, illustrated by Sunkanmi Akinboye and Raphael Kazeem", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Nigerian comics creator Roye Okupe has invented an array of superhero sagas drawing on African myth and imagery, and E.X.O. is his centerpiece, presenting the origin story of super-protagonist Wale Williams. Wale’s just an ordinary guy – well, ordinary for the sleek, high-tech world of Okupe’s 2025 Africa – when he inherits a technologically tricked-out suit and begins to encounter all the complications that come with advanced abilities. As Williams races to stop an extremist group, readers will meet a fascinating range of characters inspired by different aspects of African culture.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "tales from around the world", "it’s all geek to me", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1506723020", "cover": "1506723020", "goodreads": 56992299, "itunes": 9781506723020, "bookshop": 9781506723020, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51I5oBBqjhS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781506723020", "isbn10": "1506723020", "links": [] }, "81": { "id": 81, "title": "Eat, Habibi, Eat!: Fresh Recipes for Modern Egyptian Cooking", "author": "Shahir Massoud", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Canadian-Egyptian chef Massoud has made a name for himself as a food commentator on the CBC’s The Goods. In this, his first cookbook, he mixes and matches familiar Middle Eastern flavor profiles and dishes to produce comforting and surprisingly effortless effects – like dead-easy Harissa Chicken Thighs rubbed with brown sugar and garlic, or Roasted Cod Sayadieh with savory melted grape tomatoes and a blazing-fast pan sauce. Sesame seeds, black tahini and halva come together in Triple-sesame Carrots with Goat Cheese – a combination that’s at first shocking, then somehow inevitable, like so much in this beautifully produced debut.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0525610936", "cover": "0525610936", "goodreads": 54997637, "itunes": 9780525610939, "bookshop": 9780525610939, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61e0G1fsY7L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525610939", "isbn10": "0525610936", "links": [] }, "82": { "id": 82, "title": "Edge Case: A Novel", "author": "YZ Chin", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "YZ Chin’s excellent debut follows Edwina, a Malaysian woman who does quality assurance for a New York City startup, as she navigates a host of problems. Her work visa is about to expire, her mother keeps trying to get her to move back home, her co-workers won’t stop making sexist “jokes,” and her husband has gone missing. Chin’s novel explores social problems deftly; it’s smart but not showy, emotional but not sentimental. This is a wonderful novel from an author of deep compassion.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "fiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0063030683", "cover": "0063030683", "goodreads": 55782263, "itunes": 9780063030688, "bookshop": 9780063030688, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Lp0zRVPPL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063030688", "isbn10": "0063030683", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 82, "book": "Edge Case", "source": "NPR", "text": "All the moving parts fit together in 'Edge Case'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026371106/all-the-moving-parts-fit-together-in-this-smart-emotional-debut-novel" } ] }, "83": { "id": 83, "title": "Elegy for Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching", "author": "Rachel Marie-Crane Williams", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Rachel Marie-Crane Williams confronts evil in its own realm – the realm of art. Using a mix of original illustrations, archival documents and handwritten text, she memorializes 10 Black men and one woman – Mary Turner – who were lynched by white residents of Brooks County, Ga., in 1918. Some of Williams’ woodcuts are numbly static; others throb and seethe. This book demonstrates how to fight the kind of evil that stuns you into silence: If you can’t do it with words, go beyond them.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for history lovers", "rather short", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1788739043", "cover": "1788739043", "goodreads": 55145159, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781788739047, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41QKmCqzOIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781788739047", "isbn10": "1788739043", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 83, "book": "Elegy For Mary Turner", "source": "NPR", "text": "An author replies to the unspeakable in her 'Elegy' for lynching victim Mary Turner", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/975960845/an-author-replies-to-the-unspeakable-in-her-elegy-for-lynching-victim-mary-turne" } ] }, "84": { "id": 84, "title": "Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty", "author": "Patrick Radden Keefe", "reviewers": [ "Jane Greenhalgh" ], "text": "This is the story of one family’s pursuit of profit and the trail of death and addiction left in its wake. Empire of Pain is a meticulously reported account of the Sackler family, whose development and ruthless marketing of the painkiller OxyContin triggered the opioid epidemic, devastating communities across the U.S. It’s also a compelling indictment of a drug company more focused on money than alleviating suffering – and a system of checks and balances that didn’t work.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the dark side", "staff picks", "rather long", "science!", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0385545681", "cover": "0385545681", "goodreads": 43868109, "itunes": 9780385545686, "bookshop": 9780385545686, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41FBvt7-FRL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385545686", "isbn10": "0385545681", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Empire Of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty' profiles pharma family", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986929541/empire-of-pain-the-secret-history-of-the-sackler-dynasty-profiles-pharma-family" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "NPR", "text": "Journalist investigates 'Crime Story' of the Sackler family and the opioid crisis", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/14/986736258/journalist-investigates-crime-story-of-the-sackler-family-and-the-opioid-crisis" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "NPR", "text": "In the rise and fall of the Sacklers' opioid empire, an American dream turns toxic", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/08/984870694/in-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-sacklers-opioid-empire-an-american-dream-turns-toxic" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "NPR", "text": "The opioid epidemic", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/22/1048376368/the-opioid-epidemic" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "KQED", "text": " 'Empire of Pain' traces wave of addiction from family's fortune", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101883534/empire-of-pain-traces-wave-of-addiction-from-familys-fortune" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 84, "book": "Empire of Pain", "source": "WPR", "text": "Empire Of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/shows/empire-pain-secret-history-sackler-dynasty" } ] }, "85": { "id": 85, "title": "Unsolved Case Files: Escape at 10,000 Feet: D.B. Cooper and the Missing Money", "author": "Tom Sullivan", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "Loki’s not the only one involved in the D.B. Cooper case. In 1971, a man hijacked a plane and stole $200,000 before parachuting out. He was never found. Did he live? Did he die? And what happened to that money? This book reads like a spy thriller, utilizing all kinds of visuals but never quite tipping over into graphic novel territory. Kids can explore the primary documents and try to solve the case. This new series is thrilling, scary, very mysterious and exhibits a true respect for young readers. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062991515", "cover": "0062991515", "goodreads": 53382168, "itunes": 9780062991515, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/818aJ4pldJL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062991515", "isbn10": "0062991515", "links": [] }, "86": { "id": 86, "title": "Eyes that Kiss in the Corners", "author": "Joanna Ho, illustrated by Dung Ho", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "Eyes that Kiss in the Corners is brilliantly written because it focuses both on how the characters’ eyes look and on how they see. Focusing on a young girl who takes pride in her “eyes that kiss in the corner and glow like warm tea” Joanna Ho’s lyrical intergenerational story combines with Dung Ho’s warm and often magical imagery to bring us a celebration on how we see the world – and how we see ourselves. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "family matters", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0062915622", "cover": "0062915622", "goodreads": 53327864, "itunes": 9780062915627, "bookshop": 9780062915627, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51HXsZvW+nL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062915627", "isbn10": "0062915622", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 86, "book": "Eyes that Kiss in the Corners", "source": "KQED", "text": "Authors Joanna Ho and Lisa Moore Ramée help kids see themselves in stories", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885999/authors-joanna-ho-and-lisa-moore-ramee-help-kids-see-themselves-in-stories" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 86, "book": "Eyes that Kiss in the Corners", "source": "WCMU", "text": "The Children's Bookshelf: Eyes That Kiss in the Corners", "url": "https://radio.wcmu.org/arts-and-culture/2021-06-14/the-childrens-bookshelf-eyes-that-kiss-in-the-corners-6-14" } ] }, "87": { "id": 87, "title": "Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II", "author": "Daniel James Brown", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Daniel James Brown’s absorbing book tells the story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army, which was composed of Nisei, second-generation Japanese American soldiers in World War II. He chronicles the valor of the young American men who fought in Europe, but whose families were imprisoned in internment camps, the victims of the vile racism that choked the country at the time. It’s a fascinating, expertly written look at selfless heroes who emerged from one of the darkest periods of American history.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "rather long", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0525557407", "cover": "0525557407", "goodreads": 55920278, "itunes": 9780525557401, "bookshop": 9780525557401, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/518KYMBwVbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525557401", "isbn10": "0525557407", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 87, "book": "Facing the Mountain", "source": "NPR", "text": "Facing The Mountain' tells story of Japanese American WWII heroes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/15/997105707/facing-the-mountain-tells-story-of-japanese-american-wwii-heroes" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 87, "book": "Facing the Mountain", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Facing The Mountain' Japanese-Americans sacrifice for a country that spurns them", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996106902/in-facing-the-mountain-japanese-americans-sacrifice-for-a-country-that-spurns-th" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 87, "book": "Facing the Mountain", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Roundtable: 'Facing The Mountain' by Daniel James Brown", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-05-21/facing-the-mountain-by-daniel-james-brown" } ] }, "88": { "id": 88, "title": "Fat Chance, Charlie Vega", "author": "Crystal Maldonado", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I’m glad there’s a wave of YA books with fat protagonists, but the characters often possess a level of self-confidence that’s too good to be true. Crystal Maldonado has created a much-needed believable protagonist with teenage and adult readers. Charlie Vega is a fat, glasses-wearing, biracial Puerto Rican with a diet-pushing mother and a beautiful, athletic best friend. When her classmate Brian pursues a romantic relationship, Charlie is plagued with-self doubt. The book is propelled by conflicts both internal and external. I’m glad this book isn’t body-positive escapism, but rather a well-observed story of fat teenage life.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "young adult", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0823447170", "cover": "0823447170", "goodreads": 53399306, "itunes": 9780823447176, "bookshop": 9780823447176, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51r+ad5lrkL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780823447176", "isbn10": "0823447170", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 88, "book": "Fat Chance, Charlie Vega", "source": "WNPR", "text": "Author Crystal Maldonado on celebrating a 'fat' heroine in her debut novel", "url": "https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2021-03-04/listen-author-crystal-maldonado-on-celebrating-a-fat-heroine-in-her-debut-novel" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 88, "book": "Fat Chance, Charlie Vega", "source": "NEPM", "text": "Crystal Maldonado creates YA rom-com character she can relate to", "url": "https://www.nepm.org/post/crystal-maldonado-creates-ya-rom-com-character-she-can-relate#stream/0" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 88, "book": "Fat Chance, Charlie Vega", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Author Crystal Maldonado reflects on new novel, body positivity, and reclaiming the word 'fat’", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/02/09/crystal-maldonado-fat-chance-charlie-vega" } ] }, "89": { "id": 89, "title": "Fight Night: A Novel", "author": "Miriam Toews", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "Miriam Toews’ fiction has long mined the central traumas of her life – her father’s and sister’s depression and their suicides, and her childhood in a repressive Mennonite community. Fight Night adds tenderness by parsing these events from the perspective of a 9-year-old, Swiv, who has been suspended from school for fighting. Written as a letter to her missing father, Fight Night tracks Swiv’s new education. Her teacher is her grandmother Elvira, an effervescent woman with a chronic heart condition. This study of trudging forward after calamity teems with absurdity and reminds us that staying alive, despite it all, can be its own revenge and reward.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1635578175", "cover": "1635578175", "goodreads": 56978048, "itunes": 9781635578171, "bookshop": 9781635578171, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41x1mqbBoPL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635578171", "isbn10": "1635578175", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 89, "book": "Fight Night", "source": "NPR", "text": "Miriam Toews' latest novel offers ardent, funny lessons in staying and fighting", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1043865173/miriam-toews-fight-night-review" } ] }, "90": { "id": 90, "title": "Filthy Animals", "author": "Brandon Taylor", "reviewers": [ "Catherine Whelan" ], "text": "As we head into the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, Brandon Taylor’s collection of short stories, Filthy Animals unfolds like a season of prestige television – a warm potluck of human messiness. It’s actually at a potluck that we meet the three characters whose messy love triangle is the fulcrum around which the stories turn. Taylor’s prose is gorgeous, his stories are sharp and beautiful, and they collect to form an extraordinary portrait of what it means to be overwhelmed, which in 2021 is also what it means to be human.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "0525538917", "cover": "0525538917", "goodreads": 55801198, "itunes": 9780525538912, "bookshop": 9780525538912, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/514uV1Rq3VL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525538912", "isbn10": "0525538917", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 90, "book": "Filthy Animals", "source": "NPR ", "text": "It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders: Brandon Taylor wrote 'Real Life' and 'Filthy Animals' for his queer, Black friends", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1036930975/brandon-taylor-real-life-filthy-animals-library-of-congress" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 90, "book": "Filthy Animals", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Brandon Taylor on his new story collection, 'Filthy Animals'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/19/1008304486/brandon-taylor-on-his-new-story-collection-filthy-animals" } ] }, "91": { "id": 91, "title": "The Final Girl Support Group: A Novel", "author": "Grady Hendrix", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "The Final Girl Support Group is a thriller-mystery as drenched in affection for slasher flicks of the ‘80s and ‘90s as their heroines were in blood. Here, those franchises are based on real-world murder sprees survived by a “final girl,” the lone survivor who takes out the monster at the end. For decades, these women have been meeting for group therapy – and then somebody starts trying to kill them. Glorying in horror tropes, meta-references and social critique, Hendrix’s novel is about women who refuse to give up. There’s interesting stuff here about the way women are discussed, how their stories are monetized and how we as a society consume anguish.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "it’s all geek to me", "no biz like show biz", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059320123X", "cover": "059320123X", "goodreads": 55829194, "itunes": 9780593201237, "bookshop": 9780593201237, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bqq4Gs7qL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593201237", "isbn10": "059320123X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 91, "book": "Final Girl Support Group", "source": "NPR", "text": "Grady Hendrix reimagines the horror movie sequel in 'Final Girl Support Group'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/04/1052434239/grady-hendrix-reimagines-the-horror-movie-sequel-in-final-girl-support-group" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 91, "book": "Final Girl Support Group", "source": "NPR", "text": "After the credits roll, what happens to the Final Girl?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1050177220/after-the-credits-roll-what-happens-to-the-final-girl" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 91, "book": "Final Girl Support Group", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Grady Hendrix explores what happens to 'Final Girls' after the credits roll", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/29/1050479617/author-grady-hendrix-explores-what-happens-to-final-girls-after-the-credits-roll" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 91, "book": "Final Girl Support Group", "source": "WDET", "text": "Grady Hendrix's new novel flips the script for the final girl", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/07/14/91181-grady-hendrixs-new-novel-flips-the-script-for-the-final-girl/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 91, "book": "Final Girl Support Group", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Grady Hendrix on 'The Final Girl Support Group'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-07-13/marginalia-grady-hendrix-on-the-final-girl-support-group" } ] }, "92": { "id": 92, "title": "Finding Junie Kim", "author": "Ellen Oh", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "In this timely novel, Junie is subject to traumatic taunts and attacks. Ellen Oh’s unflinching look at racism in middle school doesn’t shy away from big issues. When Junie learns of her immigrant grandparents’ harrowing hardships during the Korean War, she views them, and her situation, through a new lens. Slowly, she begins to find herself and, in doing so, gains the courage and confidence to speak up and fight back. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "fiction", "kids’ books", "identity & culture", "family matters", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0062987984", "cover": "0062987984", "goodreads": 54798474, "itunes": 9780062987983, "bookshop": 9780062987983, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41RZ5QcvpTL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062987983", "isbn10": "0062987984", "links": [] }, "93": { "id": 93, "title": "Firebreak", "author": "Nicole Kornher-Stace", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "There’ve been a few novels about streamers playing an immersive massively multiplayer online game in the ruins of a corporate dystopia, but none of them is as tense, brutal and furious as Firebreak. Mega-corporations Stellaxis and Greenleaf have carved up the former United States between them. One controls water; the other controls agriculture. Caught between their perpetual war are Mal and Jessa, a pair of streamers struggling to make ends meet when a chance in-game encounter catapults them into the center of a conspiracy that blurs the boundaries between games and reality. A fight song in praise of fierce friendship.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing", "it’s all geek to me", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "198214274X", "cover": "198214274X", "goodreads": 55711630, "itunes": 9781982142742, "bookshop": 9781982142742, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51GSkPuz+mL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982142742", "isbn10": "198214274X", "links": [] }, "94": { "id": 94, "title": "Firekeeper's Daughter", "author": "Angeline Boulley", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "Ojibwe college student Daunis has become enveloped in an FBI investigation that threatens to tear apart her community, and once she agrees to go undercover, she realizes that the corruption runs deeper than she ever could have imagined. This absolute powerhouse of a debut combines a contemplative exploration of existing between two cultural identities with backwoods thriller intrigue, and does it with such confidence and grace that you find yourself suddenly at the end, breathless and hard-pressed to believe that it’s over. Firekeeper’s Daughter forges a new path, creating a deeply engaging mystery that illuminates far more than the expected whodunnit.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "young adult", "identity & culture", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250766567", "cover": "1250766567", "goodreads": 57812106, "itunes": 9781250766564, "bookshop": 9781250766564, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61ctBeP4MhL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250766564", "isbn10": "1250766567", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 94, "book": "Firekeeper's Daughter", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Firekeeper's Daughter' forges a new path between cultures and genres", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/20/979303110/firekeepers-daughter-forges-a-new-path-between-cultures-and-genres" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 94, "book": "Firekeeper's Daughter", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Firekeeper's Daughter' by Angeline Boulley; Post-pandemic 'Normalcy Index'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/06/1013405324/firekeepers-daughter-by-angeline-boulley-post-pandemic-normalcy-index" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 94, "book": "Firekeeper's Daughter", "source": "KPR", "text": "Conversations: Angeline Boulley, 'Firekeeper's Daughter'", "url": "https://kansaspublicradio.org/blog/dan-skinner/conversations-angeline-boulley-firekeepers-daughter" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 94, "book": "Firekeeper's Daughter", "source": "WDET", "text": "Angeline Boulley's debut novel, 'Firekeeper's Daughter,' is a thriller with heart", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/04/28/90903-angeline-boulleys-debut-novel-firekeepers-daughter-is-a-thriller-with-heart/" } ] }, "95": { "id": 95, "title": "First Comes Like: A Novel", "author": "Alisha Rai", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "Alisha Rai is one of my go-to writers when I need a romance. Her books are usually quite spicy, but with First Comes Like, Rai shows she can write a great slow-burn romance. When beauty influencer Jia Ahmed learns that she has been catfished by a man pretending to be Bollywood star Dev Dixit, she ends up striking up a friendship with the real actor. A paparazzi mishap leads Jai and Dev to begin fake-dating. Will their fake relationship lead to real feelings? (Of course it will – this is a romance after all.) It’s a lovely story about decent people just trying to do the right thing.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0062878158", "cover": "0062878158", "goodreads": 59581804, "itunes": 9780062878151, "bookshop": 9780062878151, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41JrL6YAcBL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062878151", "isbn10": "0062878158", "links": [] }, "96": { "id": 96, "title": "Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories", "author": "Lily King", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "Lily King’s writing is my most widely recommended: anchored so insistently around character and plot that it pulls in even the least voracious reader, so keenly observed and gently told that even in a 50-book year, I made time to revisit her novel Euphoria. Many of Five Tuesdays in Winter’s stories are quite sad – but in their refusal to treat emotion with any distance, they manage to make sadness feel less lonely. Hard to imagine what else you might ask a book to do.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0802158765", "cover": "0802158765", "goodreads": 57812401, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780802158765, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51J3xHPHYpS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802158765", "isbn10": "0802158765", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 96, "book": "Five Tuesdays In Winter", "source": "NPR", "text": "The stories in 'Five Tuesdays in Winter' prove Lily King is a star at any length", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/04/1051973897/five-tuesdays-in-winter-lily-king-review" } ] }, "97": { "id": 97, "title": "Flight of the Diamond Smugglers: A Tale of Pigeons, Obsession, and Greed Along Coastal South Africa", "author": "Matthew Gavin Frank", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a quirky mixture of whimsy, history and elegy. Matthew Gavin Frank exposes South Africa’s nefarious diamond industry, along with a history of pigeons, the smugglers in the title. We may know diamonds are a sinister business, but Frank divulges new facets of the trade, taking us into the ancient world, detailing the extinction of the dodo and the passenger pigeon, and teaching intricate lessons in pigeon anatomy, including their inborn GPS systems. He travels through remote territory to expose how diamonds are intimately connected to ruthless colonial rule. The result is a truly intriguing read.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads", "science!" ], "isbn": "1631496026", "cover": "1631496026", "goodreads": 53404756, "itunes": 9781631496028, "bookshop": 9781631496028, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/515kC2snPaL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781631496028", "isbn10": "1631496026", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 97, "book": "Flight of the Diamond Smugglers", "source": "NPR", "text": "Pigeonsstar in a tale of mining in 'Flight Of The Diamond Smugglers'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970109713/pigeons-star-in-a-tale-of-mining-in-flight-of-the-diamond-smugglers" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 97, "book": "Flight of the Diamond Smugglers", "source": "JPR", "text": "A story of pigeons as mules for diamond smugglers", "url": "https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2021-03-10/thu-9-am-a-story-of-pigeons-as-mules-for-diamond-smugglers" } ] }, "98": { "id": 98, "title": "Floaters: Poems", "author": "Martín Espada", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "You’ll read this powerful National Book Award winner in one sitting because Martín Espada is lyrical yet direct with his elegies of love to those burdened with hate. The collection is titled after a term used by some in U.S. Border Patrol to refer to migrants who drown trying to cross over the Río Grande. And Espada, with his eloquent, intimate and sometimes even humorous verses, makes sure we never forget the migrants – beaten, incarcerated, killed – no matter how dangerous or scary the memories are.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0393541037", "cover": "0393541037", "goodreads": 58342122, "itunes": 9780393541038, "bookshop": 9780393541038, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/6114UnWyB9L.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393541038", "isbn10": "0393541037", "links": [] }, "99": { "id": 99, "title": "Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing", "author": "Peter Robison", "reviewers": [ "Denise Couture" ], "text": "This is a story of multiple tragedies. There’s the tragic loss of life when two Boeing 737 Max aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff, one in Indonesia in 2018 and the other in Ethiopia just months later. And there’s the tragedy of how Boeing allowed its once-sterling name in commercial aviation to become tarnished. As Peter Robison tells it, for a long time, Boeing was a company run by engineers focused on perfecting a product. But it became a company of managers focused on enhancing shareholder value. It’s a story with lessons for much of corporate America including, let’s hope, Boeing.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0385546491", "cover": "0385546491", "goodreads": 55994102, "itunes": 9780385546492, "bookshop": 9780385546492, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41oRfM9IA4L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385546492", "isbn10": "0385546491", "links": [] }, "100": { "id": 100, "title": "Folklorn", "author": "Angela Mi Young Hur", "reviewers": [ "Swapna Krishna" ], "text": "Elsa Park is a particle physicist working in Antarctica, trying to uncover the mysteries of the universe – but when she sees her imaginary childhood friend on the snow-white continent, she knows the ghosts of her past have caught up with her, and she must separate the past from the present and walk the line between what’s real and what’s imagined. Angela Mi Young Hur’s Folklorn is a beautiful meditation on childhood trauma as well as an exploration into Korean heritage; it’s also a gorgeous journey into the intersection of science and myth and how our past traumas shape us – but how they need not define us.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "fiction", "science!" ], "isbn": "1645660168", "cover": "1645660168", "goodreads": 54864318, "itunes": 9781645660163, "bookshop": 9781645660163, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51y3aVx6pCL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781645660163", "isbn10": "1645660168", "links": [] }, "101": { "id": 101, "title": "Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age", "author": "Annalee Newitz", "reviewers": [ "Neda Ulaby" ], "text": "What does the ancient city of Pompeii have in common with the even more ancient metropolis known as Cahokia, located alongside the Mississippi River near present-day St. Louis? Or Angkor, a medieval capital of the Khmer Empire? Or the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük, the first known city in the world? All of these cities were eventually abandoned. Journalist Annalee Newitz sifts through the mystique around their demises in this graceful, engrossing urban history, unearthing not only fascinating narratives but poignant warnings about why some places slide into the past.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0393652661", "cover": "0393652661", "goodreads": 53122357, "itunes": 9780393652666, "bookshop": 9780393652666, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51s4oLJyIQL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393652666", "isbn10": "0393652661", "links": [] }, "102": { "id": 102, "title": "From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial That Galvanized the Asian American Movement", "author": "Paula Yoo", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "This story of Vincent Chin’s murder will grab you and not let go, even long after you’ve read the last page. From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry, by Paula Yoo, is a meticulously researched account of the 1982 killing of a young Chinese American – and how the dramatic aftermath united the Asian American community. Extensive interviews give voice to Vincent’s life and death and show us that even though this tragedy occurred 40 years ago, anti-AAPI hate and violence are still jarringly present.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "young adult", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "for history lovers", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1324002875", "cover": "1324002875", "goodreads": 53597797, "itunes": 9781324002871, "bookshop": 9781324002871, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/517cSQr5mXL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324002871", "isbn10": "1324002875", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 102, "book": "From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry", "source": "NPR", "text": "How Vincent Chin's death gave others a voice", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/03/27/981718272/how-vincent-chins-death-gave-others-a-voice" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 102, "book": "From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry", "source": "WMUK", "text": "Art Beat: From Whisper To Rallying Cry", "url": "https://www.wmuk.org/post/art-beat-whisper-rallying-cry#stream/0" } ] }, "103": { "id": 103, "title": "Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America", "author": "Alec MacGillis", "reviewers": [ "Alina Selyukh" ], "text": "America has been sorted into “winner-take-all” places and “left-behind” places – and the two are increasingly isolated, struggling to comprehend the divide. That’s the story that unfolds in Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America. MacGillis, a reporter for ProPublica, had set off to write about U.S. regional disparities and chose Amazon as connective tissue. The narrative does not directly criticize or offer solutions. It lays out an economic history of the U.S. through hyper-detailed portraits of people and companies in Seattle, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other parts of the country – told with the flair of an investigative magazine writer.
", "tags": [ "it’s all geek to me", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0374159270", "cover": "0374159270", "goodreads": 53317467, "itunes": 9780374159276, "bookshop": 9780374159276, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/518C+o5iEGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374159276", "isbn10": "0374159270", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 103, "book": "Fulfillment", "source": "NPR", "text": "In Amazon's shadow, an America divided in search of 'Fulfillment'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/16/975013832/in-amazons-shadow-an-america-divided-in-search-of-fulfillment" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 103, "book": "Fulfillment", "source": "NPR", "text": "Journalist investigates Amazon warehouse life and the pitfalls of 'One-Click America'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/982750146/journalist-investigates-amazon-warehouse-life-and-the-pitfalls-of-one-click-amer" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 103, "book": "Fulfillment", "source": "NPR", "text": "What the rise of Amazon has to do with the rise of Trump", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/21/999258842/what-the-rise-of-amazon-has-to-do-with-the-rise-of-trump" } ] }, "104": { "id": 104, "title": "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law", "author": "Mary Roach", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "Mary Roach is your favorite party friend. Her stories crackle with wit and gumption, and each leaves you thinking: “I can’t believe she did that… and I very much wish I’d been there.” In Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, Roach shadows Vatican rat catchers, investigates simulated animal attacks in a Reno conference center, and (yes) learns how to build a better mousetrap. But the magic of Roach’s work is what lurks just below the surface of each of her escapades: her gentle meditations on how we all might live as better stewards of a planet we share.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "funny stuff", "science!", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1324001933", "cover": "1324001933", "goodreads": 56769577, "itunes": 9781324001935, "bookshop": 9781324001935, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51lUsJuUIqS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324001935", "isbn10": "1324001933", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 104, "book": "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law", "source": "NPR", "text": "What happens when nature breaks the law? Mary Roach tells you in new book 'Fuzz'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038681779/what-happens-when-nature-breaks-the-law-mary-roach-tells-you-in-new-book-fuzz" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 104, "book": "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Roundtable: 'Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law' By Mary Roach", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/podcast/the-roundtable/2021-09-15/fuzz-when-nature-breaks-the-law-by-mary-roach" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 104, "book": "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law", "source": "TPR", "text": "Human-wildlife conflict and a case for coexistence 'When Nature Breaks The Law'", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2021-09-12/human-wildlife-conflict-and-a-case-for-coexistence-when-nature-breaks-the-law" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 104, "book": "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law", "source": "KQED", "text": "Mary Roach explores collision of human and animal worlds in 'Fuzz'", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885491/mary-roach-explores-collision-of-human-and-animal-worlds-in-fuzz" } ] }, "105": { "id": 105, "title": "Garlic and the Vampire", "author": "Bree Paulsen", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "Bree Paulsen’s debut graphic novel for middle-graders, Garlic and the Vampire, is utterly charming. Garlic is one of the vegetable folk who tend Witch Agnes’ garden. She has anxiety, is best friends with Carrot, and definitely doesn’t want an adventure. But then a vampire moves into the neighborhood, and suddenly everybody is relying on Garlic to deal with the newcomer! This is such a warm-hearted story – and it has neat vampire lore and a caution against assumptions. Paulsen’s illustrations glow, the palate all late summer gold and green and rust, and expressive characters. I desperately want to be Garlic’s friend, and you will too. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "kids’ books", "comics & graphic novels", "cookbooks & food", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062995081", "cover": "0062995081", "goodreads": 56470361, "itunes": 9780062995087, "bookshop": 9780062995087, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mXJPvLXzL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062995087", "isbn10": "0062995081", "links": [] }, "106": { "id": 106, "title": "Gay Bar: Why We Went Out", "author": "Jeremy Atherton Lin", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "Jeremy Atherton Lin’s genre-defying book includes elements of memoir, cultural criticism and history, and is a sharp-eyed and loving ode to the gay bar. Exploring the histories of both the gay bar as institution and specific establishments in both the U.S. and U.K., the book is a nuanced celebration and critique of these places so historically central to much – although not all – of gay life. Blending in his own coming-of-age as a gay man, Lin makes Gay Bar educational, nostalgic, critical and emotionally moving all at once.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "0316458732", "cover": "0316458732", "goodreads": 53915332, "itunes": 9780316458733, "bookshop": 9780316458733, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41BbaxqGiiL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316458733", "isbn10": "0316458732", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 106, "book": "Gay Bar: Why We Went Out", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Gay Bar' tracks the wave of a whole culture — and one life", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966752896/gay-bar-tracks-the-wave-of-a-whole-culture-and-one-life" } ] }, "107": { "id": 107, "title": "Gentrifier: A Memoir", "author": "Anne Elizabeth Moore", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "In 2016, Anne Elizabeth Moore moved into a “free” house in Detroit’s Banglatown neighborhood. The bungalow, awarded to her by a now-defunct arts organization, was meant to be a Woolfian “room of one’s own.” Of course, the house wasn’t really free, and it didn’t allow Moore to make a living as a writer. In her funny and biting memoir, Gentrifier, Moore captures the vexation of life in Detroit, a city “shaped” by “corporate greed” that has devolved into a checkerboard of vacant lots. Crucially, she grapples with what it means to be a queer white woman in a Bangladeshi neighborhood in a Black city.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1646220706", "cover": "1646220706", "goodreads": 56993995, "itunes": 9781646220700, "bookshop": 9781646220700, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PQnbsRB9S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781646220700", "isbn10": "1646220706", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 107, "book": "Gentrifier", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Gentrifier' crafts a narrative about Detroit in darkly comic vignettes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/20/1043639619/a-room-of-ones-own-is-not-enough-in-anne-elizabeth-moore-s-memoir-gentrifier" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 107, "book": "Gentrifier", "source": "WDET", "text": "New Book “Gentrifier” looks at author's experience moving into a “free” house in Detroit", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/10/21/91591-new-book-gentrifier-looks-at-authors-experience-moving-into-a-free-house-in-detroit/" } ] }, "108": { "id": 108, "title": "Ghosts: A Novel", "author": "Dolly Alderton", "reviewers": [ "Emily Dagger" ], "text": "Dolly Alderton’s Ghosts is something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It presents itself as a rom-com, the story of 30-something Londoner Nina Dean, who meets a man on a dating app, falls hard for him and thinks things are perfect – until he ghosts her. But it quickly becomes clear that Nina’s other evolving relationships, with her aging parents and a group of friends at different inflection points in their own lives, are the real heart of the story. Ghosts is both a sharp, funny tale about a particularly 21st-century form of heartbreak, and a poignant and insightful look at the different ways people leave us – some with a quick left swipe and others in incremental steps over the course of years.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "funny stuff", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "staff picks", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0593319850", "cover": "0593319850", "goodreads": 56098206, "itunes": 9780593319857, "bookshop": 9780593319857, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ctPMAKH8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593319857", "isbn10": "0593319850", "links": [] }, "109": { "id": 109, "title": "Girlhood", "author": "Melissa Febos", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "Peering back at one’s childhood and adolescence can be a daunting task, one that Melissa Febos takes seriously. Although most of the essays in Girlhood dip into the author’s adult life as well, they keep trying to find the child and teenager that she was – how she learned to be, feel, believe and react. In her trademark lush prose, Febos questions the ways girls’ behaviors are controlled, and how we learn to cage and control ourselves well into adulthood. But there is hope: She also shares her own attempts to unlearn the lessons of girlhood and find pockets of liberation.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1635572525", "cover": "1635572525", "goodreads": 53138199, "itunes": 9781635572520, "bookshop": 9781635572520, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41if1odA3eL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635572520", "isbn10": "1635572525", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 109, "book": "On Girlhood", "source": "KUNM", "text": "STEM women, the next generation of pioneers", "url": "https://www.kunm.org/post/stem-women-next-generation-pioneers-0" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 109, "book": "Girlhood", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Girlhood,' a writer examines her youth for signsof the woman she would become", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/30/982610071/in-girlhood-a-writer-examines-her-youth-for-signs-of-the-woman-she-would-become" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 109, "book": "Girlhood", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All Of It: 'Girlhood'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/girlhood/" } ] }, "110": { "id": 110, "title": "Gold Diggers: A Novel", "author": "Sanjena Sathian", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "Neil – Neeraj when his parents are mad – Narayan is the narrator of this fast-paced, voice-driven debut novel. His rollicking tale begins when he’s a teenager living in Hammond Creek, Ga., with his parents’ expectations weighing on his shoulders and an unrequited crush on Anita, his neighbor and childhood friend. When he discovers that Anita and her mother have been brewing a secret alchemical concoction using stolen gold and ambition to help Anita succeed, he quite understandably wants in, consequences be damned. And the consequences? They are, indeed, damning. A gripping novel that’s as intelligent as it is fun.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1984882031", "cover": "1984882031", "goodreads": 54719856, "itunes": 9781984882035, "bookshop": 9781984882035, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511UMxj-tuL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984882035", "isbn10": "1984882031", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 110, "book": "Gold Diggers", "source": "NPR", "text": "Ambition, alchemy, and searching for a way to fit in 'Gold Diggers'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/08/985138396/ambition-alchemy-and-searching-for-way-to-fit-in-gold-diggers" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 110, "book": "Gold Diggers", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Gold Diggers' is a magical look at what it means to be Indian-American", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/11/986203282/gold-diggers-is-a-magical-look-at-what-it-means-to-be-indian-american" } ] }, "111": { "id": 111, "title": "Goldenrod: Poems", "author": "Maggie Smith", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "During a time when so much felt out of our control – not the least because of the pandemic – Maggie Smith swooped in with her poems to help us make sense of the world. Sure, we all want to know “what is the point?” And Smith, with quintessential charm, responds: “We say in the grand scheme of things / as if there were one. We say that’s not how / the world works, as if the world works.” Instead of trying to figure out “how the world works” Smith’s poems ask that we turn to smaller objects. The stone, the seashell, the goldenrod – what can they tell us? Maybe there are no answers. Just lessons to be learned and unlearned; our vision continually altered by the small details around us.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1982185066", "cover": "1982185066", "goodreads": 56802114, "itunes": 9781982185060, "bookshop": 9781982185060, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51H8h+HCOkS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982185060", "isbn10": "1982185066", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 111, "book": "Goldenrod", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Goldenrod,' a poet finds lessons in the good, the bad, and the unexpected", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/01/1022982734/in-goldenrod-a-poet-finds-lessons-in-the-good-the-bad-and-the-unexpected" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 111, "book": "Goldenrod", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Maggie Smith - Goldenrod", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/show/the-book-show/2021-09-28/maggie-smith-goldenrod" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 111, "book": "Goldenrod", "source": "KWGS", "text": " 'Goldenrod: Poems'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-07-28/goldenrod-poems" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 111, "book": "Goldenrod", "source": "JPR", "text": "Poet Maggie Smith publishes new collection, 'Goldenrod'", "url": "https://www.ijpr.org/show/the-jefferson-exchange/2021-08-02/tue-9-am-poet-maggie-smith-publishes-new-collection-goldenrod" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 111, "book": "Goldenrod", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Maggie Smith on her poetry collection 'Goldenrod'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-08-10/marginalia-maggie-smith-on-her-poetry-collection-goldenrod" } ] }, "112": { "id": 112, "title": "Gordo: Stories", "author": "Jaime Cortez", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Jaime Cortez’s debut short story collection is an unforgettable portrait of the working-class Mexican Americans who lived in 1970s central California – including the charming misfit title character, who narrates most of the stories. Young Gordo isn’t popular – his peers make fun of his lack of hypermasculinity, his ineptitude at sports and, as the nickname would suggest, his weight. But in Cortez’s capable hands, he’s a charmer, and these stories, full of resilience and hope, feel truly universal.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0802158080", "cover": "0802158080", "goodreads": 55836536, "itunes": 9780802158086, "bookshop": 9780802158086, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ien2h4eGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802158086", "isbn10": "0802158080", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 112, "book": "Gordo", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jaime Cortez is the new literary star of the town that inspired John Steinbeck", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/16/1027521278/review-gordo-jaime-cortez" } ] }, "113": { "id": 113, "title": "Great Circle: A Novel", "author": "Maggie Shipstead", "reviewers": [ "Danny Hensel" ], "text": "How delightful, one year into a pandemic, to take a high-flying journey to far-flung corners of our world with Maggie Shipstead. Her aviation novel, Great Circle, takes us from Montana to Antarctica and fits nicely into a grand tradition of epic historical dramas, but it comes with a twist. Woven throughout is a modern Hollywood retelling of the missing pilot’s story, which provides a bonus commentary on how myths and legends refract over time.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "historical fiction", "no biz like show biz", "tales from around the world", "rather long", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0525656979", "cover": "0525656979", "goodreads": 58997456, "itunes": 9780525656975, "bookshop": 9780525656975, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/716gAAu7NZL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525656975", "isbn10": "0525656979", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 113, "book": "Great Circle", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Great Circle' takes flight across decades and continents", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/01/992415116/great-circle-takes-flight-across-decades-and-continents" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 113, "book": "Great Circle", "source": "WBEZ ", "text": "Nerdette Book Club: Maggie Shipstead on ‘Great Circle’", "url": "https://www.wbez.org/stories/nerdette-book-club-maggie-shipstead-on-great-circle/4f1d7037-39e8-49b2-af1b-d23d8681a399" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 113, "book": "Great Circle", "source": "MTPR", "text": "High Latitude Magnetism: Maggie Shipstead’s ‘Great Circle’", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/arts-culture/2021-06-17/high-latitude-magnetism-maggie-shipsteads-great-circle" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 113, "book": "Great Circle", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Maggie Shipstead on 'Great Circle'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-05-04/marginalia-maggie-shipstead-on-great-circle" } ] }, "114": { "id": 114, "title": "Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration", "author": "Reuben Jonathan Miller", "reviewers": [ "Ericka Taylor" ], "text": "Reuben Jonathan Miller’s impressive debut, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, takes on an often-ignored aspect of the U.S. criminal justice system: the fact that even those who leave incarceration are, in many ways, never truly free. Labyrinthine rules and regulations govern the lives of the released and can mean ineligibility for student loans and public housing or the inability to live in a home that has a foster child. Miller combines data with the lived experiences of the people behind the numbers to create a compelling critique of a deeply problematic system.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0316451517", "cover": "0316451517", "goodreads": 53915329, "itunes": 9780316451512, "bookshop": 9780316451512, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41grDJIAQFL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316451512", "isbn10": "0316451517", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 114, "book": "Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Halfway Home' makes case that the formerly incarcerated are never truly free", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/962722415/halfway-home-makes-case-that-the-formerly-incarcerated-are-never-truly-free" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 114, "book": "Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration", "source": "NPR", "text": "Out of prison but still trapped: Examining the 'Afterlife' of incarceration", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/24/980671402/out-of-prison-but-still-trapped-examining-the-afterlife-of-incarceration" } ] }, "115": { "id": 115, "title": "Happy Hour: A Novel", "author": "Marlowe Granados", "reviewers": [ "Clare Marie Schneider" ], "text": "A manifesto for party girls everywhere, Marlowe Granados’ debut novel, Happy Hour, glistens and charms. It’s 2013, and Isa and Gala are in New York bopping around with starlets and It Girls, scrounging up cash to fund their summer of good outfits, chance run-ins and exclusive parties. Granados’ prose is painless and quick, her characters glamorous and assured in a city that unfolds to them at their every turn. In Granados’ world, beauty isn’t frivolous or even fleeting – it’s the truth of youth, the thrum of the city, the luxury of life.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1839764015", "cover": "1839764015", "goodreads": 54173267, "itunes": 9781839764011, "bookshop": 9781839764011, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41l0LcdguBS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781839764011", "isbn10": "1839764015", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 115, "book": "Happy Hour", "source": "WYPR", "text": "New York novels from Elizabeth Strout and Marlowe Granados", "url": "https://www.wypr.org/show/the-weekly-reader-on-wypr/2021-10-27/new-york-novels-from-elizabeth-strout-and-marlowe-granados" } ] }, "116": { "id": 116, "title": "Hard Like Water", "author": "Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas", "reviewers": [ "Leland Cheuk" ], "text": "In the midst of the Cultural Revolution, Gao Aijun returns from the army to his wife and kids feeling like he still has more to give to Mao’s revolution. When he meets Xia Hongmei, a beautiful woman who feels the same way, they begin a torrid affair and devise a diabolical plan to revolutionize their ancestral village, like a Chinese Bonnie and Clyde. Few are better than Yan Lianke, a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, at satirizing the madness of China’s turbulent 20th century.
", "tags": [ "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "historical fiction", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0802158129", "cover": "0802158129", "goodreads": 58434173, "itunes": 9780802158123, "bookshop": 9780802158123, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/514qbGgk2sL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802158123", "isbn10": "0802158129", "links": [] }, "117": { "id": 117, "title": "Harlem Shuffle: A Novel", "author": "Colson Whitehead", "reviewers": [ "Denny S. Bryce" ], "text": "Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle is about a heist in Harlem and the ramifications of the crime for those who did the deed. The novel kicks off in 1959 and storms into the 1960s with Ray Carney, furniture store owner, at the helm. Whitehead’s characters live in Harlem (thus the title), and his book brings the Black community of the 1960s to life with insight, grace, research, an outstanding cast of characters, and humor that is by turns gritty, culturally observant and wickedly funny. Harlem Shuffle is a powerful must-read – if it isn’t already on your bookshelf.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "identity & culture", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0385545134", "cover": "0385545134", "goodreads": 54626223, "itunes": 9780385545136, "bookshop": 9780385545136, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51D2vmAUeIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385545136", "isbn10": "0385545134", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 117, "book": "Harlem Shuffle", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Harlem Shuffle,' Colson Whitehead departs from heavy themes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/13/1036533194/in-harlem-shuffle-colson-whitehead-departs-from-heavy-themes" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 117, "book": "Harlem Shuffle", "source": "NPR", "text": "Colson Whitehead returns to his home turf with 'Harlem Shuffle'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037318264/colson-whitehead-harlem-shuffle-fresh-air-interview" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 117, "book": "Harlem Shuffle", "source": "NPR", "text": "Colson Whitehead on his crime novel 'Harlem Shuffle'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037362758/colson-whitehead-on-his-crime-novel-harlem-shuffle" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 117, "book": "Harlem Shuffle", "source": "NPR", "text": "Colson Whitehead's latest gives readers a half-crook they'll wholly love", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037086900/harlem-shuffle-colson-whitehead-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 117, "book": "Harlem Shuffle", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Colson Whitehead on 'Harlem Shuffle'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/colson-whitehead-harlem-shuffle/" } ] }, "118": { "id": 118, "title": "Hell of a Book: A Novel", "author": "Jason Mott", "reviewers": [ "Erin Sells" ], "text": "As a nameless narrator and debut author of a bestselling novel travels the country on his first book tour, he finds himself on an epic journey of self-discovery – even though he is usually drunk and never entirely certain of where he is or even what his book is about. He is also never entirely certain of what is real – is he being followed by a young Black boy who was recently murdered by the police? Why is his dead mother in the audience? This is a novel about racism and loss and fear and trauma and the toll it all exacts. It is also about who we become as a result. It also, as the narrator insists, a very unusual love story.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "staff picks", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059333096X", "cover": "059333096X", "goodreads": 55964195, "itunes": 9780593330968, "bookshop": 9780593330968, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Hell-of-a-Book-by-Jason-Mott-678x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593330968", "isbn10": "059333096X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 118, "book": "Hell of a Book", "source": "NPR", "text": "2021 National Book Award nomination list: 'Hell of a Book'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043127200/national-book-awards-finalists-2021" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 118, "book": "Hell of a Book", "source": "WUTC", "text": "Talking Writing: Jason Mott on “Hell of a Book”", "url": "https://www.wutc.org/arts-culture/2021-08-18/talking-writing-jason-mott-on-hell-of-a-book" } ] }, "119": { "id": 119, "title": "Hoarders", "author": "Kate Durbin", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "I never watched the American show Hoarders growing up. But Kate Durbin, whose family has a history of mental illness, hoarding and substance use, aptly depicts how a common viewer of the A&E television series is not well positioned to fully understand the subjects of the show. Instead, we tend to judge. This collection comprises poems that focus on individuals and the objects they hold on to, zooming into the meaning of those objects. Durbin told me that the show’s goal was to fix everyone really quickly by the end of each episode. But with her poems, she doesn’t want to resolve anything for the reader. She simply wants to stop and listen to whatever the people and their objects have to say.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1950268136", "cover": "1950268136", "goodreads": 56080791, "itunes": 9781950268139, "bookshop": 9781950268139, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31tD3xr4nEL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781950268139", "isbn10": "1950268136", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 119, "book": "Hoarders", "source": "NPR", "text": "Reality TV inspired this poetic look at people and the things they hoard", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996197971/reality-tv-inspired-this-poetic-look-at-people-and-the-things-they-hoard" } ] }, "120": { "id": 120, "title": "Honey Girl", "author": "Morgan Rogers", "reviewers": [ "Lauren Migaki" ], "text": "One night, Grace Porter – burned out and aimless after finally getting her Ph.D. in astronomy – gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she does not know, in Vegas no less. Cliché? Definitely. A bad idea? Maybe … not? Through the mists of her epic hangover, Grace starts to piece together clues about her mysterious new wife. Yuki, as it turns out, hosts a radio show about the supernatural. What follows is a delightfully weird summer where together, Grace and Yuki learn about mythical monsters and even face down some of their own.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0778311023", "cover": "0778311023", "goodreads": 53922305, "itunes": 9780778311027, "bookshop": 9780778311027, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51AIkQRms1L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780778311027", "isbn10": "0778311023", "links": [] }, "121": { "id": 121, "title": "House of Sticks: A Memoir", "author": "Ly Tran", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "Ly Tran’s memoir House of Sticks is unique among Vietnamese American narratives in the sense that the author’s identity crisis is not about liberating herself from her parents’ past, but her unwillingness to remove herself from their suffering. As an unsentimental yet deeply moving examination of filial bonds, displacement, war trauma, and poverty, the impact of House of Sticks lies in Tran’s nuanced celebration of a family love that withstands the enormous cost of the American dream.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1501118811", "cover": "1501118811", "goodreads": 55710553, "itunes": 9781501118814, "bookshop": 9781501118814, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/417ulAiAUDL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781501118814", "isbn10": "1501118811", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 121, "book": "House of Sticks", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'House Of Sticks' is an immigrant success story with filial bonds at the core", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/01/1002069907/house-of-sticks-is-an-immigrant-success-story-with-filial-bonds-at-the-core" } ] }, "122": { "id": 122, "title": "How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: A Novel", "author": "Cherie Jones", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "There’s a crime at the beginning of this novel, but it isn’t crime fiction – it’s a noirish Caribbean-set drama. Starting with a young woman’s act of defiance and the botched robbery of a wealthy British visitor, tragic events occur in quick succession in a far-from-idyllic fictional island community. The full consequences and interconnectedness of those events are revealed at a slower pace, however. Alternating between generations, time periods and characters’ points of view, Barbadian author Cherie Jones unveils an absorbing and authentic allegory of race, class, and intergenerational trauma.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316536989", "cover": "0316536989", "goodreads": 53369488, "itunes": 9780316536981, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51qPLqBh+WL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316536981", "isbn10": "0316536989", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 122, "book": "How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House", "source": "NPR", "text": "Cherie Jones' debut novel sees characters in paradise put through Hell", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/30/962358003/cherie-jones-debut-novel-sees-characters-in-paradise-put-through-hell" } ] }, "123": { "id": 123, "title": "Hummingbird Salamander: A Novel", "author": "Jeff VanderMeer", "reviewers": [ "Jenna McLaughlin" ], "text": "From the moment you meet bodybuilder security consultant Jane Smith and her massive purse she’s dubbed “Shovel Pig,” you’re stuck with her – in a good way. The book kicks off with a taxidermied hummingbird and a mysterious note, and it just gets stranger from there. VanderMeer is known for his weird and wonderful world-building, as well as his ability to inject commentary about the perils of climate change and surveillance into his plots, making a sci-fi thriller something more. Hummingbird Salamander doesn’t disappoint. For big VanderMeer fans, it’s also a lot easier to follow than his 2019 novel Dead Astronauts.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "science!", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374173540", "cover": "0374173540", "goodreads": 53359447, "itunes": 9780374173548, "bookshop": 9780374173548, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ME6C0rn6L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374173548", "isbn10": "0374173540", "links": [] }, "124": { "id": 124, "title": "Hunting by Stars", "author": "Cherie Dimaline", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "Hunting by Stars is fantasy – but just barely. In it, North America’s Indigenous people are being hunted for their ability to dream, which most of the rest of the continent has lost. Within that landscape, almost everything that Cherie Dimaline’s characters experience – from being separated from their families to being threatened for access to resources to being thrown in boarding schools – is based on real history. And while the book paints a painful, sometimes relentless portrait of the injustices that have been inflicted on Native people, it still manages to be nuanced, engrossing and beautifully imagined.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "young adult", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1419753479", "cover": "1419753479", "goodreads": 56969519, "itunes": 9781419753473, "bookshop": 9781419753473, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51uUE20e85S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419753473", "isbn10": "1419753479", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 124, "book": "Hunting By Stars", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Characters Are The Light'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/16/1056349778/the-characters-are-the-light" } ] }, "125": { "id": 125, "title": "Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose", "author": "Leigh Cowart", "reviewers": [ "Frankie de la Cretaz" ], "text": "In this exploration of masochism, what author Leigh Cowart calls “pain on purpose,” Cowart does something we so rarely see in discussions on the topic: refuses to pathologize their subjects. Through conversations with sexual masochists, along with ballet dancers, ultramarathon runners, hot pepper enthusiasts and folks who self-harm, Cowart takes the stigma out of the idea that people might enjoy experiencing pain by making masochism into something nearly everyone can identify with.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "let’s talk about sex", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "science!", "book club ideas", "for sports lovers" ], "isbn": "154179804X", "cover": "154179804X", "goodreads": 56644004, "itunes": 9781541798045, "bookshop": 9781541798045, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/416RzhW-aNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781541798045", "isbn10": "154179804X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 125, "book": "Hurts So Good", "source": "NPR", "text": "IA: From chili-eating contests to ultramarathons, why do we seek pain for pleasure?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/24/1048836211/from-chili-eating-contests-to-ultramarathons-why-do-we-seek-pain-for-pleasure" } ] }, "126": { "id": 126, "title": "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year", "author": "Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker", "reviewers": [ "Eric Deggans" ], "text": "This is an authoritative tale, which starts with then-President Donald Trump being briefed on the serious of the novel coronavirus in January 2020 and ends with a March 2021 interview at his Mar-a-Lago resort, where people avoid mentioning he used to be president. In between, the book meticulously documents a sad saga of “anguish and abject failure,” including a fumbled pandemic response, a lost election and a riot that penetrated the Capitol building. Some around Trump, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper, are shown resisting his worst impulses (which leaves questions about if, or how, their input may have guided the narrative). Still, between Milley’s quotes comparing Trump’s election lies to the rise of Hitler and Trump’s embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters’ goals, readers get definitive documentation of a seriously dysfunctional presidency.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "the states we’re in", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0593298942", "cover": "0593298942", "goodreads": 58411199, "itunes": 9780593298947, "bookshop": 9780593298947, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ItBEAc3kS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593298947", "isbn10": "0593298942", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 126, "book": "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year", "source": "NPR", "text": "How It Went Down: Authors go deep into doomed 2020 Trump White House", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/15/1015877795/how-it-went-down-authors-go-deep-into-doomed-2020-trump-white-house" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 126, "book": "I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year", "source": "KWGS", "text": "Studio Tulsa: 'I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-07-29/i-alone-can-fix-it-donald-j-trumps-catastrophic-final-year" } ] }, "127": { "id": 127, "title": "I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness: A Novel", "author": "Claire Vaye Watkins", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Claire Vaye Watkins may be our greatest living chronicler of the American West, showing how everything from geology to poverty to Charles Manson has shaped it. Hers are always stories of place first, and then the people who find themselves in that place – by choice sometimes, by circumstance often. She writes about the people broken by the land and those who have come to it in an attempt at healing. Darkness focuses on a writer named Claire Vaye Watkins who abandoned her husband and newborn back East by coming out for a book event in Reno and simply … not going home. There’s fun to be had in trying to parse the real Watkins from the made-up one, but the novel itself takes the form of a sex, drugs and Oregon Trail revisitation of all the lovely and horrible things that make us who we are.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0593330218", "cover": "0593330218", "goodreads": 56769579, "itunes": 9780593330210, "bookshop": 9780593330210, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1UB1zp8hlL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593330210", "isbn10": "0593330218", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 127, "book": "I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness", "source": "NPR", "text": "Claire Vaye Watkins goes on an autofictional odyssey out West in her latest", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043174602/claire-vaye-watkins-i-love-you-but-ive-chosen-darkness-review" } ] }, "128": { "id": 128, "title": "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden", "author": "Mannie Murphy", "reviewers": [ "Katie Daugert" ], "text": "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is both a page turner and an education. It’s a fascinating, illustrated account of many things, such as film director Gus Van Sant’s social world and influence in 1990s Portland, Ore., and how white nationalism sort of coexisted with the alternative/grunge culture scene. Murphy’s report on white supremacy in the region, from the first colonists all the way up to present day, somehow begins as a memoir of a teenage fan crush on actor River Phoenix. The expansive scope totally works thanks to Murphy’s beautiful ink-on-newsprint drawings.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "comics & graphic novels", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1683964101", "cover": "1683964101", "goodreads": 53458052, "itunes": 9781683964100, "bookshop": 9781683964100, "image": "https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-igquupw3/images/stencil/500x500/products/1390207/28790912/9781683964100__38530.1616929207.jpg?c=2", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781683964100", "isbn10": "1683964101", "links": [] }, "129": { "id": 129, "title": "I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories", "author": "Kim Bo-young, translated by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "This collection contains two pairs of interconnected short stories evocatively translated from Korean by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu. The first and last stories are mirror images of each other, following a star-crossing bride and groom who keep missing each other by decades as they struggle to meet in the same time and place. The middle two stories are more esoteric, contemplating the nature of reality and the self from somewhere beyond human understanding. Rounding off the whole is a beautiful series of notes from the author, the translators and the couple whose marriage catalyzed the opening and closing tales.
", "tags": [ "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "love & romance", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062951467", "cover": "0062951467", "goodreads": 56816904, "itunes": 9780062951465, "bookshop": 9780062951465, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81mjNZlo+OS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062951465", "isbn10": "0062951467", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 129, "book": "I'm Waiting For You And Other Stories", "source": "NHPR", "text": "2021 Summer Book Show: 'I'm Waiting For You And Other Stories'", "url": "https://www.nhpr.org/the-exchange/2021-06-16/replay-2021-summer-book-show" } ] }, "130": { "id": 130, "title": "In the Country of Others: A Novel", "author": "Leila Slimani", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "Freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. That’s one of the lessons from Leila Slimani’s latest family epic; her characters are desperate to forge lives of their own, but as they do, they learn that the trade-off for their independence is security, community, even happiness. The story takes place in Morocco in the 1940s and 1950s, during the fight for independence from France. It’s a beautifully written portrait of both a country and a family trying to establish their identities in the midst of immense turmoil.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "014313597X", "cover": "014313597X", "goodreads": 55850508, "itunes": 9780143135975, "bookshop": 9780143135975, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41YK8Qv0TGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780143135975", "isbn10": "014313597X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 130, "book": "In The Country of Others", "source": "NPR", "text": "Walking through 'The Country Of Others'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/09/15/228844506/walking-through-the-country-of-others" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 130, "book": "In The Country of Others", "source": "KAXE", "text": "A powerful story of resilience in 1940s Morocco: Leila Slimani's 'In the Country of Others'", "url": "https://www.kaxe.org/books/2021-10-01/a-powerful-story-of-resilience-in-1940s-morocco-leila-slimanis-in-the-country-of-others" } ] }, "131": { "id": 131, "title": "In: A Graphic Novel", "author": "Will McPhail", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Tran" ], "text": "I will remember Will McPhail’s debut graphic novel In because of how much he does with so little. McPhail consistently reduces some of life’s most poignant moments down to their starkest forms, allowing them to color our imaginations while lingering on the page in monochromatic gray. The story follows Nick, an irreverent young illustrator unable to connect with those around him – likely because he’s trying so hard not to. In follows him into love and loss and is told through small, haunting images engulfed by white pages and through grids of sudden expressivity. This is a book about the fleeting connections people miss and the moments they’ll never get to share with loved ones they’ve lost.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "comics & graphic novels", "for art lovers", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0358345545", "cover": "0358345545", "goodreads": 53968432, "itunes": 9780358345541, "bookshop": 9780358345541, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31Fr9IdCzuL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358345541", "isbn10": "0358345545", "links": [] }, "132": { "id": 132, "title": "Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale", "author": "Tim Fielder", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "With the awesome, time-and-space-spanning scope that characterizes much Afrofuturist work, Tim Fielder has crafted an epic of family, birth, death and redemption. When King Aja Ọba and his wife can’t have an heir, the king kidnaps the son he had with a concubine, Obinrin. She, in turn, curses King Ọba with immortality. Once his wife and son pass away, the king is doomed to wander the Earth, then the universe, in search of a new kingdom. Fielder’s art is as sharp-edged and dynamic as a superhero comic, and his story is rich with challenging themes.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062964089", "cover": "0062964089", "goodreads": 48982562, "itunes": 9780062964083, "bookshop": 9780062964083, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51DeHIdNC+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062964083", "isbn10": "0062964089", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 132, "book": "Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale", "source": "WABE", "text": "Tim Fielder discusses new graphic novel, ‘Infinitum: An Afrofuturist Tale’", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/tim-fielder-discusses-new-book-infinitum-an-afrofuturist-tale/" } ] }, "133": { "id": 133, "title": "Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City", "author": "Andrea Elliott", "reviewers": [ "Ericka Taylor" ], "text": "Andrea Elliot’s riveting debut, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City, takes on poverty, homelessness, racism, addiction, hunger and more as they shape the lives of one remarkable girl, Dasani Coates, and her tight-knit family. Covering a period of eight years, the book chronicles an array of heartrending tragedies and remarkable triumphs. It also details how the stunningly flawed systems that trap Dasani and her family – from homeless services to public assistance to child assistance – came to be.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0812986946", "cover": "0812986946", "goodreads": 57359691, "itunes": 9780812986945, "bookshop": 9780812986945, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41vP8hWXGYL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780812986945", "isbn10": "0812986946", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 133, "book": "Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Invisible Child' and childhood homelessness; Implants to relieve depression", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/06/1043718653/invisible-child-and-childhood-homelessness-implants-to-relieve-depression" } ] }, "134": { "id": 134, "title": "Island Queen: A Novel", "author": "Vanessa Riley", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "Island Queen is a historical novel in diary form, dramatizing the remarkable real life and times of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, an enslaved woman born on a plantation in the Caribbean in the 18th century who purchased her own freedom from her own father and rose to be a person of money and influence. Though Dorothy was born into bondage and fought her way to freedom, she’s neither superhero, savior nor Cinderella but a singular figure all her own. Kirwan has several intimate relationships in the novel, but they’re complicated and constrained by her position and social boundaries, and Island Queen is no love story.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "tales from around the world", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063002841", "cover": "0063002841", "goodreads": 55577664, "itunes": 9780063002845, "bookshop": 9780063002845, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51kay5bL-7L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063002845", "isbn10": "0063002841", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 134, "book": "Island Queen", "source": "WABE", "text": "Atlanta-based author's latest historical fiction novel 'Island Queen' to be adapted into TV film", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/atlanta-based-authors-novel-island-queen-to-be-adapted-into-film/" } ] }, "135": { "id": 135, "title": "Jade Legacy", "author": "Fonda Lee", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Over the course of three books – Jade City, Jade War and now Jade Legacy – Fonda Lee has charted the history of the Kaul family of the No Peak clan as they engage in war, politics and murder. Those characters we met as young men and women in City have grown up now. Those who lived through War have husbands and wives, children are growing into their own power; they’ve all spent two decades (or more) jockeying for control over territory, businesses and, most important, the magical/bioenergetic jade that gives superhuman powers to those who possess it. Lee’s Green Bone Saga is The Godfather with an Asian cast, Game of Thrones in a suit, tie and sunglasses. It has all the earmarks of a modern, international gangster epic juiced with boardroom intrigue, economic theory and swordfights.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316440973", "cover": "0316440973", "goodreads": 57653196, "itunes": 9780316440974, "bookshop": 9780316440974, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51x9WLzPObL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316440974", "isbn10": "0316440973", "links": [] }, "136": { "id": 136, "title": "Jew-ish: A Cookbook: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch", "author": "Jake Cohen", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Food writer and self-described “nice Jewish boy” Jake Cohen’s love letter to his Ashkenazi culinary heritage concerns itself with more than brisket and latkes. Even as he hunts down the perfect challah or matzo ball soup, he’s also toying with weird and wonderful mashups like Pastrami Biscuits and Gravy, or Pesto and Sun-dried Tomato Babka. And he has one eye on the very different foodways of his Mizrahi husband. That means Roasted Cauliflower with Pistachios and Golden Raisins, or Sour Cherry Rice Pudding. This may not be your bubbe’s recipe collection, but the marriage of flavors it brings to life was clearly meant to be.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "035835398X", "cover": "035835398X", "goodreads": 53968433, "itunes": 9780358353980, "bookshop": 9780358353980, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Sxv30BOEL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358353980", "isbn10": "035835398X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 136, "book": "Jew-ish: A Cookbook", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All Of It: Jake Cohen's 'Jew-ish' cookbook", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/jake-cohens-jew-ish-cookbook/" } ] }, "137": { "id": 137, "title": "Juan Hormiga", "author": "Gustavo Roldán, translated by Robert Croll", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "Juan Hormiga is the one red ant among thousands of black ants, but it’s not his being red that sets him apart from the rest of the colony. While every other ant is as industrious as you might expect, busily collecting food or digging tunnels, that’s just not Juan Hormiga’s forté. No, Juan has some extraspecial talents: “If there was one way in which Juan Hormiga was second to none, it was his way of taking a nap.” And he’s a born storyteller. Roldán’s illustrations – whimsical, charming, fun, adorable – show wide-eyed ants at rapt attention. How can the ants possibly work when Juan is telling such wonderful stories? Juan Hormiga is a jewel of a story. It has everything kids want from a book: silliness, adventure (kind of), daring (kind of), a cliffhanger (kind of), a satisfying ending (truly!). (For ages 5 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "tales from around the world", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1939810825", "cover": "1939810825", "goodreads": 55573785, "itunes": 9781939810823, "bookshop": 9781939810823, "image": "https://elsewhereeditions.org/wp-content/uploads/9781939810823-scaled-e1591389309651.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781939810823", "isbn10": "1939810825", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 137, "book": "Juan Hormiga", "source": "NPR", "text": "The ant-icipation is over: 'Juan Hormiga' is here!", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/18/985805447/the-ant-icipation-is-over-juan-hormiga-is-here" } ] }, "138": { "id": 138, "title": "July: Poems", "author": "Kathleen Ossip", "reviewers": [ "Craig Morgan Teicher" ], "text": "Kathleen Ossip is one of my favorite poets and, in my estimation, one of the best now writing. She is the rare poet who can “Uber home with guilt” on one page and, on another, claim to have “made a God.” July navigates these disparate registers seamlessly, throwing in a bit of everything, from public outrage to motherly anxiety and assertive nods to the literary tradition; it’s one of the most encompassing and exciting books of poetry I’ve read in a long time.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1946448788", "cover": "1946448788", "goodreads": 57644711, "itunes": 9781946448781, "bookshop": 9781946448781, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51GjXeH0ozL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781946448781", "isbn10": "1946448788", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 138, "book": "July", "source": "NPR", "text": "While the possible is possible: A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 3", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963697735/while-the-possible-is-possible-a-2021-poetry-preview-part-3" } ] }, "139": { "id": 139, "title": "Just as I Am: A Memoir", "author": "Cicely Tyson", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "In a memoir published just days before her death, Cicely Tyson reflected on her 96 years on Earth, including over six massively influential decades in the entertainment industry. The book is a rich text; it goes beyond the surface of just chronicling a legendary performer’s career highlights. Instead it’s an eye-opening look at life as a Black actress in Hollywood, proving that little has changed. The book is an opus that should be read by anyone who cares about film and television.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0062931067", "cover": "0062931067", "goodreads": 50622390, "itunes": 9780062931061, "bookshop": 9780062931061, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41SrQ9us8GL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062931061", "isbn10": "0062931067", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 139, "book": "Just as I Am", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Just As I Am': Cicely Tyson reflects on her long career", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/24/959608246/just-as-i-am-cicely-tyson-reflects-on-her-long-career-and-the-miles-davis-she-kn" } ] }, "140": { "id": 140, "title": "Kaleidoscope", "author": "Brian Selznick", "reviewers": [ "Philipp Goedicke" ], "text": "To tell you the story of the book implies that I know more than I do. Here’s what I do know: It’s amazing and worth many visits. A series of vignettes introduced by luscious pencil drawings of the view inside a kaleidoscope and an image from the vignette itself, it features a 13-year-old narrator and his friend James, who is alive in some of the vignettes and dead in others, but never any less real or present. It’s about memory and love. It’s amazing and beautiful. (For ages 10 and up)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "kids’ books", "eye-opening reads", "for art lovers", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1338777246", "cover": "1338777246", "goodreads": 57190490, "itunes": 9781338777246, "bookshop": 9781338777246, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51j3FGboV+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781338777246", "isbn10": "1338777246", "links": [] }, "141": { "id": 141, "title": "Kennedy's Avenger: Assassination, Conspiracy, and the Forgotten Trial of Jack Ruby", "author": "Dan Abrams and David Fisher", "reviewers": [ "Patricia Cole" ], "text": "For much of the nation – save the conspiracy theorists – Dallas’ role in the Kennedy assassination ended with the death of Lee Harvey Oswald at the hands of Jack Ruby. But what became of the man who assassinated the assassin on national TV? Dan Abrams and David Fisher, who have cornered the market on overlooked trials of historic significance, bring us Ruby’s murder trial. We meet the characters (Ruby and his celebrity lawyer), hear the arguments (was Ruby insane and when?) and contemplate the reputation of Dallas, which became a national pariah.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "the dark side", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "133591403X", "cover": "133591403X", "goodreads": 55504154, "itunes": 9781335914033, "bookshop": 9781335914033, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51kVWxg6PrL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781335914033", "isbn10": "133591403X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 141, "book": "Kennedy's Avenger", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jack Ruby's trial moves from side stage to center in 'Kennedy's Avenger'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/04/1003190634/jack-rubys-trial-moves-from-side-stage-to-center-in-kennedys-avenger" } ] }, "142": { "id": 142, "title": "Klara and the Sun: A Novel", "author": "Kazuo Ishiguro", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Klara and the Sun is a masterpiece from Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro about the saving grace of love. The story is set in a United States of the near future, a place riven by fascist political movements. Our narrator, Klara, is a type of robot known as an “Artificial Friend,” designed as a companion for the children of this brave new world. Klara becomes the companion of a girl named Josie, who’s sick, and the story turns on Klara’s attempts to heal her. Poignant and profound, Klara and the Sun will make you think about what makes a creature truly “human.”
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "staff picks", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059331817X", "cover": "059331817X", "goodreads": 54120408, "itunes": 9780593318171, "bookshop": 9780593318171, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Lq0vHRzrS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593318171", "isbn10": "059331817X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 142, "book": "Klara and the Sun", "source": "NPR", "text": "Klara And The Sun' is a masterpiece about life, love, and mortality", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/03/972841445/klara-and-the-sun-is-a-masterpiece-about-life-love-and-mortality" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 142, "book": "Klara and the Sun", "source": "NPR", "text": "Klara And The Sun' asks what it means to be human", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/971851192/klara-and-the-sun-asks-what-it-means-to-be-human" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 142, "book": "Klara and the Sun", "source": "NPR", "text": "Kazuo Ishiguro draws on his songwriting past to write novels about the future", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/978138547/kazuo-ishiguro-draws-on-his-songwriting-past-to-write-novels-about-the-future" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 142, "book": "Klara and the Sun", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Get Lit': Kazuo Ishiguro, 'Klara and the Sun'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/get-lit-kazuo-ishiguro-klara-and-sun/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 142, "book": "Klara and the Sun", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Kazuo Ishiguro explores love, loneliness, and connection in 'Klara And The Sun'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/05/974173578/author-kazuo-ishiguro-explores-love-loneliness-and-connection-in-klara-and-the-s" } ] }, "143": { "id": 143, "title": "Lala's Words: A Story of Planting", "author": "Gracey Zhang", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Lala is a bundle of energy. Whether racing around the neighborhood or tumbling on the sofa, she never seems to slow down. That is, until she stops to whisper words of encouragement to what most would observe as short green weeds growing in dirt and concrete. But Lala sees things differently and recognizes this as a glorious place of her own. Author-illustrator Gracey Zhang’s exuberant debut captures the magic of love and kindness as Lala’s Words transforms a neighborhood. Using a palette of gray, green and yellow, the expressive art jumps off the page and into your heart. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1338648233", "cover": "1338648233", "goodreads": 52664797, "itunes": 9781338648232, "bookshop": 9781338648232, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wiGOSpQSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781338648232", "isbn10": "1338648233", "links": [] }, "144": { "id": 144, "title": "Land of Big Numbers: Stories", "author": "Te-Ping Chen", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "Set in both mainland China and the United States, Te-Ping Chen’s stories explore the personal and the public, individuality and community, and the complicated relationships between those. In one story, a group of commuters gets stuck on a subway platform for days, then weeks, and they begin making a new life down there. In another, a widow goes in search of her husband’s family, about whom she knows next to nothing. Including tales both realist and fabulist, Chen’s stories shine with haunting details and nuanced emotions.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0358272556", "cover": "0358272556", "goodreads": 52782536, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780358272557, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wf-Vze2mL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358272557", "isbn10": "0358272556", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 144, "book": "Land of Big Numbers", "source": "NPR", "text": "A journalist's eye enlivens 'Land Of Big Numbers'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/06/964567998/a-journalists-eye-enlivens-land-of-big-numbers" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 144, "book": "Land of Big Numbers", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Land Of Big Numbers,' short story collection from Te-Ping Chen", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/01/962714219/land-of-big-numbers-short-story-collection-from-te-ping-chen" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 144, "book": "Land of Big Numbers", "source": "TPR", "text": " 'Land of Big Numbers': Te-Ping Chen discusses debut collection of short stories", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public/2021-03-26/land-of-big-numbers-te-ping-chen-discusses-debut-collection-of-short-stories" } ] }, "145": { "id": 145, "title": "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency", "author": "Michael Wolff", "reviewers": [ "Eric Deggans" ], "text": "True to Michael Wolff’s well-established style, his book on the end of Donald Trump’s presidency – his third in a trilogy about this president – is filled with juicy gossip and telling details on Trump’s fight to overturn his 2020 election loss. Adviser Rudy Giuliani struggles with deteriorating faculties and a habit of passing gas “constantly.” Trump displays basic incompetence and considers using the pandemic to postpone the election. Wolff provides fly-on-the-wall storytelling on how Trump created an atmosphere of chaos inside the White House that hobbled his presidency while keeping a tight grip on the Republican Party. Critics may note that Wolff’s own reporting methods have been challenged before. But his analysis of what motivated Trump and how it led to his political failure remains irresistible, revelatory reading.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1408714647", "cover": "1408714647", "goodreads": 58436503, "itunes": "", "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41uzygvRkcS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781408714645", "isbn10": "1408714647", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 145, "book": "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency", "source": "NPR", "text": "Michael Wolff's third strike at Trump White House has hits and misses", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1018198107/michael-wolffs-third-strike-at-trump-white-house-landslide-book-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 145, "book": "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Thr Roundtable: 'Landslide: The Final Days Of The Trump Presidency' by Michael Wolff", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-07-23/landslide-the-final-days-of-the-trump-presidency-by-michael-wolff" } ] }, "146": { "id": 146, "title": "Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal", "author": "George Packer", "reviewers": [ "Scott Detrow" ], "text": "It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve thought about the essay at the core of this book – about how America has sorted itself into four tribes that increasingly view each other with suspicion and contempt – just about every day since I first read it. I think I’ve sent a link to the Atlantic excerpt to nearly everyone I know. George Packer’s analysis of how the pandemic and Trump-era hypercharged division in the country is bleak, despite the positive spin that the title’s framing and the book’s final chapter attempt to put on things. But it’s essential reading to understand what has gone wrong in our politics and civic institutions.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0374603669", "cover": "0374603669", "goodreads": 55467212, "itunes": 9780374603663, "bookshop": 9780374603663, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5103FblrkcL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374603663", "isbn10": "0374603669", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 146, "book": "Last Best Hope", "source": "WBUR", "text": "In 'Last Best Hope,' George Packer asks if America can unite again", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/07/02/in-last-best-hope-george-packer-asks-if-american-can-be-united-again" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 146, "book": "Last Best Hope", "source": "KQED", "text": "Journalist George Packer on a ‘Last Best Hope’ for a divided America", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101883918/journalist-george-packer-on-a-last-best-hope-for-a-divided-america" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 146, "book": "Last Best Hope", "source": "Maine Public Radio", "text": "George Packer: The journalist's new book analyzes the problem of tribalism in America today", "url": "https://www.mainepublic.org/show/maine-calling/2021-07-06/george-packer-the-journalists-new-book-analyzes-the-problem-of-tribalism-in-america-today" } ] }, "147": { "id": 147, "title": "Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York", "author": "Elon Green", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "This hard-boiled true crime book tells the story of the “Last Call Killer,” a man who preyed on gay men in the 1980s and ’90s. Instead of leading with the killer’s story, Elon Green puts the victims first, shining a light onto their complicated lives and the messiness of who they were. Along the way, he gives readers glimpses into queer life in New York City at the time and of the gay activists working to protect their community during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1250224357", "cover": "1250224357", "goodreads": 53317339, "itunes": 9781250224354, "bookshop": 9781250224354, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41k7DXLM-VL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250224354", "isbn10": "1250224357", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 147, "book": "Last Call", "source": "NPR", "text": "The victims, rather than the killer, are the center of 'Last Call'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/973932239/the-victims-rather-than-the-killer-are-at-the-center-of-last-call" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 147, "book": "Last Call", "source": "WNYC", "text": "All Of It: 'Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/last-call-true-story-love-murder-new-york/" } ] }, "148": { "id": 148, "title": "Last Chance Texaco: Chronicles of an American Troubadour", "author": "Rickie Lee Jones", "reviewers": [ "Ann Powers" ], "text": "In 1979, Rickie Lee Jones released her self-titled debut album and set a new standard for rock ’n’ roll infused with classic bohemian cool. This memoir shows how that happened: how a kid with vaudeville, big dreams and tragedies in her family line went on the road as a countercultural teenager and ended up in LA amid a cast of characters who virtually begged to be immortalized in song. They’re all here in their scarves and leather jackets, including Tom Waits, her lover and partner in troubadourism. Both fans and those who only know Jones from her 1980s radio breakthroughs will find much in this story of a young woman finding her feet in a world full of both possibility and roadblocks.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "no biz like show biz", "for music lovers" ], "isbn": "0802127126", "cover": "0802127126", "goodreads": 34496929, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780802127129, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51MiTnJ3S9L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802127129", "isbn10": "0802127126", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 148, "book": "Last Chance Texaco:Chronicles of an American Troubadour", "source": "NPR", "text": "Rickie Lee Jones debuts memoir named after one of her best-known songs", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/03/984060391/rickie-lee-jones-debuts-memoir-names-after-one-of-her-best-known-songs" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 148, "book": "Last Chance Texaco:Chronicles of an American Troubadour", "source": "WFUV", "text": "Rickie Lee Jones: Last Chance Texaco", "url": "https://wfuv.org/content/rickie-lee-jones-last-chance-texaco" } ] }, "149": { "id": 149, "title": "Last Night at the Telegraph Club", "author": "Malinda Lo", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "What would you risk for the truth? Growing up in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1950s, all Chinese American Lily Hu can see is what’s expected of her from her family and friends. But her views are challenged when she falls in love with a white girl who makes her question everything about the life she thought she was supposed to lead. Danger, racism and homophobia, overt and otherwise, strike from all sides in this nuanced and thrilling page-turner. Malinda Lo’s Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a novel for anyone who has ever dared to wonder “what if?”
", "tags": [ "fiction", "young adult", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0525555250", "cover": "0525555250", "goodreads": 35224992, "itunes": 9780525555254, "bookshop": 9780525555254, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Last-Night-at-the-Telegraph-Club-by-Malinda-Lo-1200x1820.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525555254", "isbn10": "0525555250", "links": [] }, "150": { "id": 150, "title": "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing: Essays", "author": "Lauren Hough", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "Containing the viral essay “Cable Guy” among others, Lauren Hough’s debut collection chronicles her time being raised in the Children of God cult – also known as The Family – and the years after she left. But this alternatively funny and painful book isn’t only a cult memoir. Slowly, essay after essay, Hough draws parallels between the cult she was raised in and good ol’ fashioned American Exceptionalism in all its various facets, from rah-rah-’Merica attitudes surrounding freedom to the worship of individualism to the demands of capitalism. A startling, vivid read.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0593080769", "cover": "0593080769", "goodreads": 54814821, "itunes": 9780593080764, "bookshop": 9780593080764, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fwaEGMNAL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593080764", "isbn10": "0593080769", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 150, "book": "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Leaving Isn't The Hardest Thing' isn't just a cult memoir", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/15/987127818/leaving-isn-t-the-hardest-thing" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 150, "book": "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing", "source": "NPR", "text": "Lauren Hough on growing up in a cult, new memoir", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/18/988483556/lauren-hough-on-growing-up-in-a-cult-new-memoir" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 150, "book": "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing", "source": "NPR", "text": "After growing up in a cult, Lauren Hough freed herself by writing the truth", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/20/989032183/after-growing-up-in-a-cult-lauren-hough-freed-herself-by-writing-the-truth" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 150, "book": "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing", "source": "KCRW", "text": " ‘Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing’: Lauren Hough’s story of growing up in a SoCal cult and escaping it", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/san-jose-shooting-cult-video-games-memorial-day/leaving-isnt-the-hardest-thing-lauren-hough" } ] }, "151": { "id": 151, "title": "Let Me Tell You What I Mean", "author": "Joan Didion", "reviewers": [ "Jason DeRose" ], "text": "This latest Joan Didion collection includes stories on addiction, alternative media, not getting into a college and the rise of Martha Stewart. Although some of these pieces are half a century old, Didion’s prose crackles with immediacy and precision. Generations of readers have turned to her iconic Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album to wrestle with the atomization of culture. Didion’s theme continues to be the widening gyre and a center that cannot hold.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "059331848X", "cover": "059331848X", "goodreads": 53308149, "itunes": 9780593318485, "bookshop": 9780593318485, "image": "https://images3.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9780593318485", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593318485", "isbn10": "059331848X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 151, "book": "Let Me Tell You What I Mean", "source": "NPR", "text": "Joan Didion's 'Let Me Tell You What I Mean' offers plenty of 'Journalistic Gold'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/951064638/joan-didions-let-me-tell-you-what-i-mean-offers-plenty-of-journalistic-gold" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 151, "book": "Let Me Tell You What I Mean", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: New collection of Joan Didion essays will delight fans new or old", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/book-review/2021-01-18/book-review-new-collection-of-joan-didion-essays-will-delight-fans-new-or-old" } ] }, "152": { "id": 152, "title": "Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993", "author": "Sarah Schulman", "reviewers": [ "Sascha Cohen" ], "text": "This sprawling history of AIDS activism, based on hundreds of interviews conducted over a 20-year period, offers a stirring retrospective of the social movement responsible for tremendous advances in the ways people with HIV are treated in America – medically, politically and culturally. A veteran queer activist herself, Sarah Schulman aims to properly historicize both the accomplishments and the limitations of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Let the Record Show is invaluable as both an archive and a blueprint for contemporary organizers of all stripes.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "rather long", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0374185131", "cover": "0374185131", "goodreads": 54785548, "itunes": 9780374185138, "bookshop": 9780374185138, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51zQ-2vApqS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374185138", "isbn10": "0374185131", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 152, "book": "Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT-UP in New York, 1987-1993", "source": "NPR", "text": "ACT UP: A history of AIDS/HIV activism", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/16/1007361916/act-up-a-history-of-aids-hiv-activism" } ] }, "153": { "id": 153, "title": "Let Them Lead: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America's Worst High School Hockey Team", "author": "John U. Bacon", "reviewers": [ "Edith Chapin" ], "text": "The story of how a team went from worst in school history to best in three seasons is built around the mantra of “work hard” and “support your teammates.” It is a story of perseverance with the players learning to believe in themselves while learning how to lead. Achievement in a team sport is not always about skill; it needs the right mindset and camaraderie. There are lessons for the workplace and life, but it is the power of the players’ determination and passion that make it a fun read.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for sports lovers", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0358533260", "cover": "0358533260", "goodreads": 55959497, "itunes": 9780358533269, "bookshop": 9780358533269, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516uCEEE0mS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358533269", "isbn10": "0358533260", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 153, "book": "Let Them Lead", "source": "WDET", "text": "New book 'Let Them Lead' explores lessons in leadership from America’s worst high school hockey team", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/09/08/91409-new-book-let-them-lead-explores-lessons-in-leadership-from-americas-worst-high-school-hockey-team/" } ] }, "154": { "id": 154, "title": "Light Perpetual: A Novel", "author": "Francis Spufford", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Light Perpetual opens with a slow-motion depiction of a real-life incident: the dropping of a V-2 rocket on a Woolworths store in London one Saturday in 1944. What follows is a narrative that imagines the lives that five of the victims – all children – might have lived. Avoiding the pitfalls of sentimentality, Francis Spufford also conjures up an impressionistic history of six decades of London life – encompassing “The Swinging Sixties” and Thatcherism – that ends in 2009 when the “children” are about 70. In resurrecting lives that never were, Spufford’s novel is a miracle, not only of art but also of empathy.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982174145", "cover": "1982174145", "goodreads": 55711743, "itunes": 9781982174149, "bookshop": 9781982174149, "image": "https://www2.alibris-static.com/light-perpetual-longlisted-for-the-booker-prize-2021/isbn/9780571336487_l.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982174149", "isbn10": "1982174145", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 154, "book": "Light Perpetual", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Light Perpetual' imagines adulthood for 5 fictional kids killed in WWII attack", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/22/1007677086/light-perpetual-francis-spufford-novel-book-review-world-war-ii" } ] }, "155": { "id": 155, "title": "Like Other Girls", "author": "Britta Lundin", "reviewers": [ "Alethea Kontis" ], "text": "Six-foot-two basketball player Mara Deeble gets kicked off her team for fighting, so she tries out for football instead. But in small-town Oregon, Mara’s simple decision becomes a statement. A group of girls decides to try out for football as well, including Valentina, Mara’s crush, and Carly, Mara’s loud-mouth nemesis – who got her kicked out in the first place. It becomes a bonding experience for the whole group. Lundin not so subtly reminds us that Mara isn’t the only young woman walking around with the constant desire to punch someone – and readers will be inspired by Mara’s story of inner and outer growth.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "identity & culture", "for sports lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1368039928", "cover": "1368039928", "goodreads": 56221776, "itunes": 9781368039925, "bookshop": 9781368039925, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51g1pOkDHrL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781368039925", "isbn10": "1368039928", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 155, "book": "Like Other Girls", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Like Other Girls,' you can be — and play — whatever you want. Even football.", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/08/1025326894/like-other-girls-ya-novel-review-football" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 155, "book": "Like Other Girls", "source": "WCVU", "text": "The WGVU Morning Show: 'Like Other Girls'", "url": "https://www.wgvunews.org/the-wgvu-morning-show/2021-08-13/like-other-girls" } ] }, "156": { "id": 156, "title": "Lore Olympus: Volume 1", "author": "Rachel Smythe", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Rachel Smythe’s stylish creation is a retelling of Greek myths – particularly the myth of Persephone’s abduction by Hades, king of the underworld – but Lore Olympus’ characters act less like their millennia-old versions than like young people of today. These gods play the same interpersonal games that dominate today’s sexually frank, cellphone-mediated social world. Smythe’s take is full of lavish visuals, wit and seductive ambiguity.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "family matters", "love & romance", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593356071", "cover": "0593356071", "goodreads": 57282218, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780593356074, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/516LGPjsgLL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593356074", "isbn10": "0593356071", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 156, "book": "Lore Olympus Volume 1", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Greek gods — they're just like us in 'Lore Olympus'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/27/1049434574/lore-olympus-rachel-smythe-review" } ] }, "157": { "id": 157, "title": "Love and Other Poems", "author": "Alex Dimitrov", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "Everyone who lives in New York (or yearns for it, as I do) should have a copy of this book on their nightstand at all times. It’s a long love poem to the city, but also – for a city where one can easily get dialed down to just a number – it’s full of poems about holding on to hope. These poems aren’t cheesy; it’s actually Alex Dimitrov’s vivid vulnerability and depictions of loneliness that make the reader feel less alone. He leans into the feeling and embraces it. Turn to any page and Dimitrov will show you that love will find you. And if it doesn’t, New York City will always be right there.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1556595999", "cover": "1556595999", "goodreads": 51009761, "itunes": 9781556595998, "bookshop": 9781556595998, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31TAxIOfJvL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781556595998", "isbn10": "1556595999", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 157, "book": "Love And Other Poems", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Love And Other Poems' promises that love will find us", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965505330/love-and-other-poems-promises-that-love-will-find-us" } ] }, "158": { "id": 158, "title": "Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold", "author": "Bolu Babalola", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "This multifaceted, multitalented Nigerian-British writer – humorist, television creator and now bestselling author – searched the globe to find a radically diverse group of stories about love, from magical folk tales of West Africa to iconic Greek myths and ancient legends from the Middle East. Then, with an evocative and vivid style, she brought new life to old tales and wrote three original stories of her own. The result is a remarkable modern collection of 13 short stories about love.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "006307849X", "cover": "006307849X", "goodreads": 54698746, "itunes": 9780063078499, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Zen4dwr8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063078499", "isbn10": "006307849X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 158, "book": "Love in Color", "source": "WAMU", "text": "Seeing ‘Love In Color’", "url": "https://the1a.org/segments/love-stories-babalola/" } ] }, "159": { "id": 159, "title": "Magic Candies", "author": "Heena Baek, translated by Sophie Bowman", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "This picture book import is so good that it’s been turned into stage productions in South Korea. When Tong Tong purchases a bag of strange, round candies, he discovers that each one allows him to hear the hidden speech of someone, or some thing. Intricately designed models bring this kooky story to life. And honestly, who wouldn’t want to hear what the leaves have to say? You’ll also be sure to treat your couch with greater kindness after a single read. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1542029597", "cover": "1542029597", "goodreads": 56483335, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781542029599, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41gMyWV3N5L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781542029599", "isbn10": "1542029597", "links": [] }, "160": { "id": 160, "title": "Martita, I Remember You / Martita, Te Recuerdo: A Story in English and Spanish", "author": "Sandra Cisneros", "reviewers": [ "Natalie Escobar" ], "text": "Every time that Sandra Cisneros has a new book out, I race to the library. I’ve never been disappointed, and this book is no exception. It’s a short story that Cisneros wrote in English, then had translated into Spanish with an unconventional tête-bêche binding: there’s a front cover for the English version, and when you flip the book over, there’s the Spanish one. The story is structured around letters between three women – Corina, Martita and Paola – who became friends in Paris and are now trying to revive the embers of that bond. Fans of Cisneros will recognize fictionalized elements of her own life: a young Latina woman abroad trying to kick-start her writing career while waiting on an arts grant she desperately needs, all the while making friends and getting her heart broken. But Corina’s story takes turns quite unlike Cisneros’ life and makes for an ending that I’ll be thinking about for a while.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "identity & culture", "rather short", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0593313666", "cover": "0593313666", "goodreads": 54785556, "itunes": 9780593313664, "bookshop": 9780593313664, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81HAApJPSBL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593313664", "isbn10": "0593313666", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 160, "book": "Martita, I Remember You / Martita, Te Recuerto", "source": "TPR", "text": "Martita, I Remember You/Martita, Te Recuerdo': Sandra Cisneros' homage to the forever friendships of youth", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public/2021-09-08/martita-i-remember-you-martita-te-recuerdo-sandra-cisneros-homage-to-the-forever-friendships-of-youth" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 160, "book": "Martita, I Remember You / Martita, Te Recuerto", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Sandra Cisneros: 'Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo'", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/sandra-cisneros-martita-i-remember-you-martita-te-recuerdo" } ] }, "161": { "id": 161, "title": "Mary Jane: A Novel", "author": "Jessica Anya Blau", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "The title stands for protagonist Mary Jane Dillard, but anyone who remembers the 1970s – during which which Blau’s latest book is set – will get the double entendre, even if Mary Jane herself is fairly oblivious. Hired to babysit Isabelle “Izzy” Cone, whose parents Dr. and Mrs. Cone have an eccentric lifestyle, Mary Jane relishes the escape from her staid upper-class Baltimore neighborhood. When the Cones announce that rock star Jimmy Bendinger and his rock star girlfriend Sheba will be moving in for the summer, things get a little wild. But not too wild. Mary Jane provides exactly the right hit of the good (nostalgic) stuff.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "for music lovers", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063052296", "cover": "0063052296", "goodreads": 54870208, "itunes": 9780063052291, "bookshop": 9780063052291, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/511kwc1jkxL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063052291", "isbn10": "0063052296", "links": [] }, "162": { "id": 162, "title": "Matrix: A Novel", "author": "Lauren Groff", "reviewers": [ "Eric McDaniel" ], "text": "It’s 1158 and an unlucky but well-educated girl of 17 is sent from her home to become a nun. She proves savvy and sharp-elbowed: In a mere lifetime, she transforms the decrepit abbey into a women-only, lightly queer Vatican. Fans of Fates and Furies will recognize Lauren Groff’s penchant for leads with dark psychologies – and not much else. It’s a challenging read, but deeply rewarding.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1594634491", "cover": "1594634491", "goodreads": 57185348, "itunes": 9781594634499, "bookshop": 9781594634499, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Matrix-by-Lauren-Groff-679x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781594634499", "isbn10": "1594634491", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "NPR", "text": "Lauren Groff delves into the world of nunnery in new book", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1034281173/lauren-groff-delves-into-the-world-of-the-nunnery-in-new-book" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "NPR", "text": "A poet-nun inspired this tale of Medieval ambition, pleasure and aspiration", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/06/1031907772/matrix-lauren-groff-book-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "MPR", "text": "Talking Volumes: Lauren Groff on 'Matrix'", "url": "https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2021/09/15/talking-volumes-lauren-groff-on-matrix" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Book Show: Lauren Groff- 'Matrix'", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/show/the-book-show/2021-10-26/lauren-groff-matrix" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Lauren Groff on 'Matrix'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-09-21/marginalia-lauren-groff-on-matrix" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 162, "book": "Matrix", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Cozy up with these top reads for Fall from NPR Books' Petra Mayer: 'Matrix'", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/09/23/september-books-authors" } ] }, "163": { "id": 163, "title": "Me (Moth)", "author": "Amber McBride", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "A girl who lost her family in a car accident takes a transformative road trip across America with a boy she barely knows. Me (Moth) may feature a list of sightseeing stops and a series of motels, but it defies the road trip genre, carving out a pensive path through ancestry, trauma and art. On every page, author Amber McBride builds layer upon layer of meaning, entwining imagery of moths with Navajo creation stories with American history with Hoodoo magic. For a book in verse that is so spare and careful with words, Me (Moth) is very full of meaning.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "family matters", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250780365", "cover": "1250780365", "goodreads": 50498335, "itunes": 9781250780362, "bookshop": 9781250780362, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Me-Moth-by-Amber-McBride.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250780362", "isbn10": "1250780365", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 163, "book": "Me (Moth)", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Review: 'Me (Moth)'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/21/1029897732/me-moth-amber-mcbride-review" } ] }, "164": { "id": 164, "title": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "author": "Mark Harris", "reviewers": [ "Rachel Treisman" ], "text": "This story starts with Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, a German refugee with vaccine-induced baldness who spent most of his childhood quietly observing others and skipping school to hide out in a movie theater. It ends with Mike Nichols, one and the same, the legendary performer-turned-director who dominated both Hollywood and Broadway with a string of spectacular hits and misses. Mark Harris, who knew Nichols, takes us through everything that happened along the way in this immersive biography that includes amazing photos. It’s a book to savor, full of juicy industry details, nonstop name-dropping and insights from scores of Nichols’ famous friends. It truly feels like stepping into Nichols’ world.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "no biz like show biz", "rather long", "funny stuff", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0399562249", "cover": "0399562249", "goodreads": 53479533, "itunes": 9780399562242, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31C1RND6a6S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780399562242", "isbn10": "0399562249", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Mike Nichols: A Life' charts a lonely outsider's path to Hollywood's peak", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/06/964764229/mike-nichols-a-life-charts-a-lonely-outsiders-path-to-hollywoods-peak" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "NPR", "text": "Legendary director Mike Nichols is as brilliant as he is enigmatic in new biography", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/03/963543661/legendary-director-mike-nichols-is-as-brilliant-as-he-is-enigmatic-in-new-biogra" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "TPR", "text": " 'Mike Nichols: A Life': Mark Harris chronicles Mike Nichols' complex life and brilliant career", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public/2021-02-19/mike-nichols-a-life-mark-harris-chronicles-mike-nichols-complex-life-and-brilliant-career" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "KWGS", "text": "Film historian Mark Harris offers 'Mike Nichols: A Life'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-02-18/film-historian-mark-harris-offers-mike-nichols-a-life" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "WPR", "text": "Mark Harris' biography 'Mike Nichols: A Life' explores the icon's innovative approach to comedy and directing", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/lasting-and-influential-legacy-mike-nichols" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Full Bio: The early life of director Mike Nichols", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/full-bio-early-life-director-mike-nichols/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "WAMC", "text": " 'Mike Nichols: A Life' by Mark Harris", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-02-10/mike-nichols-a-life-by-mark-harris" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 164, "book": "Mike Nichols: A Life", "source": "KCRW", "text": "The Treatment: Mark Harris: ‘Mike Nichols: A Life’", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-treatment/mark-harris-mike-nichols" } ] }, "165": { "id": 165, "title": "Monkey Boy: A Novel", "author": "Francisco Goldman", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Francisco Goldman’s first novel since his gut-wrenching Say Her Name is brilliantly constructed auto-fiction that explores the author’s twin Catholic/Jewish and American/Guatemalan identities. The main character, Francisco Goldberg, traveling from Mexico to visit his ailing mother in Boston, plumbs his memory to reconstruct not only his mother’s story but also his own. Goldman writes with humor and honesty as he unpacks some of America’s senseless racial politics and deconstructs one family’s volatile, cross cultural history. The result is a family portrait that is funny, loving and fierce, all at the same time.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "080215767X", "cover": "080215767X", "goodreads": 55836533, "itunes": 9780802157676, "bookshop": 9780802157676, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5116fFFD6aS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802157676", "isbn10": "080215767X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 165, "book": "Monkey Boy", "source": "NPR", "text": "Novelist Francisco Goldman revisits his difficult childhood in 'Monkey Boy'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/11/995817221/novelist-francisco-goldman-revisits-his-difficult-childhood-in-monkey-boy" } ] }, "166": { "id": 166, "title": "Monster in the Middle: A Novel", "author": "Tiphanie Yanique", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "Tiphanie Yanique’s Monster in the Middle is a striking and beautifully written intergenerational exploration of love’s origins. Its core belief and organizing principle is that love stories are life stories that begin long before two lovers ever meet. So though Stela and Fly are the ultimate focus, the journey starts with their parents – how they grew up, met and fell in love – and then progresses to Fly and Stela’s coming of age and their first loves and formative experiences. Though I wanted more time with the couple, I thoroughly enjoyed this thought-provoking voyage into the complex social origins of that thing we call love.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1594633606", "cover": "1594633606", "goodreads": 57165445, "itunes": 9781594633607, "bookshop": 9781594633607, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41QenqahxoS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781594633607", "isbn10": "1594633606", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 166, "book": "Monster in the Middle", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Monster in the Middle' muses on the complex nature of romantic love", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048496952/monster-in-the-middle-tiphanie-yanique-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 166, "book": "Monster in the Middle", "source": "NPR", "text": "Tiphanie Yanique's 'Monster in the Middle' tackles love and religion", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/16/1046686011/tiphanie-yaniques-monster-in-the-middle-tackles-love-and-religion" } ] }, "167": { "id": 167, "title": "Monsters", "author": "Barry Windsor-Smith", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "The artist famous for his work on Conan the Barbarian in the 1970s has been drawing, redrawing and refining this graphic novel for three decades. Not surprisingly, Monsters’ story – about a man who’s subjected to a secret government experiment that transforms him into something terrifying – is as dense as its drawings are. Barry Windsor-Smith ranges over a vast narrative canvas (the book is over 350 pages) to explore wide-ranging questions about the nature of humanity and the scope of individual responsibility. His artwork is astonishingly intricate, straining to reach the heights of expressionism in every panel.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "for art lovers", "the states we’re in", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1683964152", "cover": "1683964152-monsters", "goodreads": 53458056, "itunes": 9781683964155, "bookshop": 9781683964155, "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781683964155", "isbn10": "1683964152", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 167, "book": "Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": "Comics hero Barry Windsor-Smith is back, and he's brought something monstrous", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/02/992500125/comics-hero-barry-windsor-smith-is-back-and-hes-brought-something-monstrous" } ] }, "168": { "id": 168, "title": "Mother Grains: Recipes for the Grain Revolution", "author": "Roxana Jullapat", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Flour-dusted hands down, Mother Grains is my favorite cookbook of the year. Many of its recipes are favorites from Roxana Jullapat’s Friends & Family bakery in Los Angeles. All incorporate local and heirloom grains to maximize texture, nutrition and deliciousness – plus a bonus sense of virtue. Her Oatmeal Date Cookies, Baked Buckwheat Pancake, and Freekeh with Shiitake Mushrooms, Leeks, and Sugar Snap Peas have become staples in my home. But whether you opt for the barley, buckwheat, oat, sonora, sorghum, spelt, rice, or rye version of her chocolate chip cookies – all helpfully pictured – you’ll never want to revert to the standard all-purpose flour Toll House recipe again.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1324003561", "cover": "1324003561", "goodreads": 53404264, "itunes": 9781324003564, "bookshop": 9781324003564, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ZovXAknwL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324003564", "isbn10": "1324003561", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 168, "book": "Mother Grains", "source": "WPR", "text": "Food Friday: 'Mother Grains' wants you to embrace local, ancient grains in your pantry", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/food-friday-mother-grains-wants-you-embrace-local-ancient-grains-your-pantry" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 168, "book": "Mother Grains", "source": "KCRW", "text": "‘Mother Grains’: Go beyond all-purpose flour, make these buckwheat crepes with chef Roxana Jullapat", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/press-play-with-madeleine-brand/coronavirus-hygiene-air-baking-museums/mother-grains-roxana-jullapat-crepes-recipes" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 168, "book": "Mother Grains", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Baker Roxana Jullapat brings mother grains to modern times — and makes chocolate chip cookies", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/good-food/mother-grains-food-tv-kids-tasmanian-cuisine-pies/roxana-jullapat-grain-revolution-cookbook" } ] }, "169": { "id": 169, "title": "Mr. Watson's Chickens", "author": "Jarrett Dapier, illustrated by Andrea Tsurumi", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "Big chaos energy alert! What happens when three chickens turn into 456? Mr. Nelson never signed on for this, but his partner, Mr. Watson, started with just a handful of poultry, never dreaming where it might lead. Can this relationship be saved? Madcap energy infuses Tsurumi’s wild illustrations. It’s also nice to see a loving, gay relationship in a picture book that doesn’t center on parenthood – of human children, anyway. (For ages 3 to 5)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1452177147", "cover": "1452177147", "goodreads": 57007886, "itunes": 9781452177144, "bookshop": 9781452177144, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RphAgjk8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781452177144", "isbn10": "1452177147", "links": [] }, "170": { "id": 170, "title": "My Begging Chart", "author": "Keiler Roberts", "reviewers": [ "Malaka Gharib" ], "text": "Award-winning cartoonist Keiler Roberts’ My Begging Chart is a collection of hilarious and, at times, surreal autobiographical vignettes about parenthood, the mundaneness of life at home, and illness – as the pandemic looms in the backdrop. Roberts has the amazing ability to slow down time and focus on the smallest of moments – wiping down a smelly air mattress, making a batch of brownies and then realizing the ingredients are expired, lounging with her daughter in bed. It’s a refreshingly intimate portrait of family life.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "rather short", "family matters", "staff picks", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1770464581", "cover": "1770464581", "goodreads": 54785567, "itunes": 9781770464582, "bookshop": 9781770464582, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41YByat795L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781770464582", "isbn10": "1770464581", "links": [] }, "171": { "id": 171, "title": "My Brilliant Life: A Novel", "author": "Ae-ran Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "A mortally ill 16-year-old, Areum, narrates this debut novel – nominally about his parents, who were also 16 when they had him. Areum has progeria, a disease that accelerates aging in children. Already inhabiting an old man’s body, Areum wants what every teenager wants – friends and love. He plows through epic loneliness in the bosom of a warm, but deeply flawed, extended family. He befriends his ribald grandfather and listens to the stories of his great-grandfather. And in telling his parents’ story with remarkable dispassion, he discovers his own. The result is a book that braids a rare tragedy with unstinting family love and humor.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1250750555", "cover": "1250750555", "goodreads": 53205917, "itunes": 9781250750556, "bookshop": 9781250750556, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JEKxwYhfL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250750556", "isbn10": "1250750555", "links": [] }, "172": { "id": 172, "title": "My Broken Language: A Memoir", "author": "Quiara Alegría Hudes", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "Yes, Quiara Alegría Hudes wrote the book to the Lin Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights. But she’s also a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright in her own right. This memoir shows why. Hudes writes about growing up half white, half Latinx, and struggling to find her artistic voice in language that, despite the title, is lyrical and powerful.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks", "family matters", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0399590048", "cover": "0399590048", "goodreads": 54997060, "itunes": 9780399590047, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ym0BeNW6L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780399590047", "isbn10": "0399590048", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 172, "book": "My Broken Language", "source": "NPR", "text": "Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes writes about family and heritage in 'My Broken Language'", "url": "https://www.nprillinois.org/2021-10-21/playwright-quiara-alegria-hudes-writes-about-family-and-heritage-in-my-broken-language" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 172, "book": "My Broken Language", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes Explores How Her Puerto Rican Roots Shaped Her Artistic Voice", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/04/02/my-broken-language-hudes" } ] }, "173": { "id": 173, "title": "My Heart Is a Chainsaw", "author": "Stephen Graham Jones", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "You know the saying, “If you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”? In this book, every problem looks like a slasher movie to 17-year-old Jade Daniels. She sees the world through the lens of doomed towns and sinners, masked killers and final girls. But behind Jade’s dramatic interpretation of events is a more mundane type of horror: the loneliness of a girl with next-to-no community, the isolation of living in a small rural town, the specter of wealthy newcomers who treat Proofrock, Idaho, as a new world to be conquered. Despite all the doom and gloom and bodies piling up, My Heart Is a Chainsaw still manages to be just as hilarious as it is human.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982137630", "cover": "1982137630", "goodreads": 55711617, "itunes": 9781982137632, "bookshop": 9781982137632, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41On9a6AnCS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982137632", "isbn10": "1982137630", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 173, "book": "My Heart Is A Chainsaw", "source": "NPR", "text": "Slasher films provide the lens that frames this horror story", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1031875240/my-heart-is-a-chainsaw-stephen-graham-jones-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 173, "book": "My Heart Is A Chainsaw", "source": "MTPR", "text": " ‘My Heart Is a Chainsaw’: Stephen Graham Jones’s slasher scaffolding", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/podcast/the-write-question/2021-11-11/my-heart-is-a-chainsaw-stephen-graham-joness-slasher-scaffolding" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 173, "book": "My Heart Is A Chainsaw", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones", "url": "https://www.wyso.org/podcast/book-nook/2021-09-21/book-nook-my-heart-is-a-chainsaw-by-stephen-graham-jones" } ] }, "174": { "id": 174, "title": "My Monticello: Fiction", "author": "Jocelyn Nicole Johnson", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "Say “Charlottesville” and two things might come to mind immediately: Thomas Jefferson’s august estate and the white supremacy riot that occurred in the city in 2017. Both figure prominently in Jocelyn Nicole Johnson’s first book – a collection of finely crafted short stories and a novella of the same title. Each focuses on race, belonging and community and the question “To whom does American history belong?” All will leave you thinking long after you’ve turned the last page.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250807158", "cover": "1250807158", "goodreads": 56347314, "itunes": 9781250807151, "bookshop": 9781250807151, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vfaUIXPAS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250807151", "isbn10": "1250807158", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 174, "book": "My Monticello", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'My Monticello' grapples with the past, present and future of American racism", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1045277325/my-monticello-review-jocelyn-nicole-johnson" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 174, "book": "My Monticello", "source": "NPR", "text": "Jocelyn Nicole Johnson talks home, identity, and 'My Monticello'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/10/14/249003729/jocelyn-nicole-johnson-talks-home-identity-and-my-monticello" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 174, "book": "My Monticello", "source": "KMUW", "text": " 'My Monticello' offers an unflinching view of American racism", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/book-review/2021-11-22/my-monticello-offers-an-unflinching-view-of-american-racism" } ] }, "175": { "id": 175, "title": "My Sweet Girl: A Novel", "author": "Amanda Jayatissa", "reviewers": [ "Swapna Krishna" ], "text": "When Paloma walks into her apartment and finds her roommate dead, she knows things are about to get very messed up. But for Paloma, a transracial adoptee from Sri Lanka now living in California, things are already very complicated. My Sweet Girl is a debut thriller from Amanda Jayatissa and is ostensibly about the mysteries in Paloma’s past. Really, though, it’s an intricate story of the masks we wear, the layers we hide behind, the expectations we try to live up to – and a beautiful meditation on identity.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593335082", "cover": "0593335082", "goodreads": 55510715, "itunes": 9780593335086, "bookshop": 9780593335086, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/417GEtJiTeS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593335086", "isbn10": "0593335082", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 175, "book": "My Sweet Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'My Sweet Girl' centers on identity and its many layers", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1037386126/my-sweet-girl-amanda-jayatissa-review" } ] }, "176": { "id": 176, "title": "Names for Light: A Family History", "author": "Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint – born in Myanmar (formerly Burma) – was raised in Thailand until age 8, when her family immigrated to San Jose, Calif., which she describes as “a place with strip malls, ranch-style houses, and foothills in every direction,” a place she still has “no name for.” Composed in compressed, laser-sharp interrogations of immigration and prejudice, colonialism and inheritance, Names for Light reads like poetry. Language – and its absence – are central to Myint’s narrative. Pages contain blocks of empty space, signifying memory/ies lost to geographic displacement. In its power, intensity and visual presentation, Names for Light evokes recent works of Claudia Rankine.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "rather short", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1644450615", "cover": "1644450615", "goodreads": 54785499, "itunes": 9781644450611, "bookshop": 9781644450611, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41CoXlpkmaL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450611", "isbn10": "1644450615", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 176, "book": "NAMES FOR LIGHT", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author explores her family's displacement in 'Names For Light: A Family History'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/24/1030723343/author-explores-her-familys-displacement-in-names-for-light-a-family-history" } ] }, "177": { "id": 177, "title": "Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued", "author": "Peter Sis", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Nicky had a secret. An unassuming businessman, he saved hundreds of children from the Nazis – and never told anyone. This brilliant picture book by author-illustrator Peter Sis is also the story of Vera, a young Czech girl Nicky helped rescue. Their lives come together 50 years later when he is surprised on a television show and honored by those he saved. In addition to the moving text, the exquisite art is at once intimate and expansive, as is this incredibly moving story. (For ages 6 to 8)
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "kids’ books", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1324015748", "cover": "1324015748", "goodreads": 55904454, "itunes": 9781324015741, "bookshop": 9781324015741, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71EanH5KVuL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324015741", "isbn10": "1324015748", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 177, "book": "Nicky & Vera", "source": "NPR", "text": "He saved 669 children from Nazis — a new book tells his story to kids", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/960439081/he-saved-669-children-from-nazis-a-new-book-tells-his-story-to-kids" } ] }, "178": { "id": 178, "title": "Night Bus", "author": "Zuo Ma, translated by Orion Martin", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "Chinese comic artist Zuo Ma’s collection of 11 lushly drawn stories are eye-opening trips that embody Proust’s yearning in Remembrance of Things Past: “The only true voyage of discovery would be to behold the universe through the eyes of another … [and] the hundred universes that each of them beholds.” Exploring the porous boundary between fiction and autobiography, familiar and otherness, human and animal, untamed nature and rampant development, the stories are elegies for the author’s past as well as China’s rural past. In using the comic medium to re-create his beloved grandmother’s memory and his childhood’s bucolic landscape, Zuo Ma also acknowledges his conflicted modern self as both artist and consumer, peasant and city-dweller, nature lover and callous hunter.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "biography & memoir", "for art lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1770464654", "cover": "1770464654", "goodreads": 54785571, "itunes": 9781770464650, "bookshop": 9781770464650, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51+mLxetmCS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781770464650", "isbn10": "1770464654", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 178, "book": "Night Bus", "source": "NPR", "text": "Take a magical mystery tour with this Chinese comic artist", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/1031090182/zuo-ma-comic-artist-night-bus-review" } ] }, "179": { "id": 179, "title": "Night Came With Many Stars: A Novel", "author": "Simon Van Booy", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "In 1933, Carol’s daddy, Clay, wagers her in a game of poker and loses. In 1986, Carol’s grandson Samuel gets a nail in his eye while messing around with his best friend during shop class. These two points – fixed in history, set on the page – are the moments upon which everything else hangs. Simon Van Booy’s Night is a book about generations. It’s about crossroads and choices, the poisoned well of memory. It is a heartbreaking, gorgeous book, told in the native tongue and tempos of paint factory employees and domestics and diner waitresses, of the guys working 20 years on the line at the Ford plant and those walking dazedly out into the light after 10 spent in prison. An ordinary world that Van Booy sketches with sharp clarity and a softness that borders on magical, finding the weakness, grace and beauty of common lives fully lived.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1567927033", "cover": "1567927033", "goodreads": 55844037, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781567927030, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/4193V0SdMpL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781567927030", "isbn10": "1567927033", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 179, "book": "Night Came with Many Stars", "source": "NPR", "text": "This family saga finds grace and beauty in ordinary lies, fully lived", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1004816550/this-family-saga-finds-grace-and-beauty-in-ordinary-lives-fully-lived" } ] }, "180": { "id": 180, "title": "Night Rooms: Essays", "author": "Gina Nutt", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "In her trenchant essay collection Night Rooms, Gina Nutt blends images from horror films with personal experience, revealing how horror tropes both echo and affect real life. An essay on being a child beauty queen, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane,” flashes between shopping malls and JonBenét Ramsey; a current of fear and desire pulses underneath. Nutt punctuates her meditations on anxiety, depression, suicide and grief with scenes from campy films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and quotes from poets like Paul Celan. Reading Night Rooms feels like wandering the rooms of a haunted house as a final girl, trapped and forever reckoning with her survival.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "the dark side", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1953387004", "cover": "1953387004", "goodreads": 55279852, "itunes": 9781953387004, "bookshop": 9781953387004, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41MXY2JIc2L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781953387004", "isbn10": "1953387004", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 180, "book": "Night Rooms", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Night Rooms,' a life is reviewed through memories and movies", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980252396/in-night-rooms-a-life-is-reviewed-through-memories-and-movies" } ] }, "181": { "id": 181, "title": "Nina: A Story of Nina Simone", "author": "Traci N. Todd, illustrated by Christian Robinson", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "When history demands you speak, what happens when you sing? Artist Christian Robinson may be associated with adorable books, but he began his career with serious picture book bios like Harlem’s Little Blackbird and Josephine. Here, he pulls out all the stops with Nina. History is visually incorporated into the day-to-day features of Nina’s life. Meanwhile, Traci N. Todd synthesizes Nina’s importance in a child-friendly manner, punctuating the text with such phrases as “politeness had gotten her people nothing.” Award-winner material and a visual stunner. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "kids’ books", "for music lovers", "for history lovers", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "1524737283", "cover": "1524737283", "goodreads": 57286019, "itunes": 9781524737283, "bookshop": 9781524737283, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51LzJ2y+rfS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781524737283", "isbn10": "1524737283", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 181, "book": "Nina: A Story of Nina Simone", "source": "NPR", "text": "How an author and illustrator adapted Nina Simone's complicated life story for kids", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041266618/how-an-author-and-illustrator-adapted-nina-simones-complicated-life-story-for-ki" } ] }, "182": { "id": 182, "title": "Nives: A Novel", "author": "Sacha Naspini", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "I’ve never written these words before about a novel, but in the case of Nives by Italian writer Sacha Naspini, I must admit that the chicken made me read it. In its opening pages, a newly widowed older woman named Nives, who lives on a remote farm in Tuscany, decides to ease her loneliness by bringing a hen called Giacomina into the house for company. Soon Giacomina is settling into the parlor armchair to watch TV and listen to the story of Nives’ life. This is a plucky and poignant tale.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "love & romance", "rather short", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1609456661", "cover": "1609456661", "goodreads": 55502882, "itunes": 9781609456665, "bookshop": 9781609456665, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/815BbYGqTYL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781609456665", "isbn10": "1609456661", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 182, "book": "Nives", "source": "NPR", "text": "Why did the chicken befriend the widow? Find out in this plucky Italian novella", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/22/989758370/why-did-the-chicken-befriend-the-widow-find-out-in-this-plucky-italian-novella" } ] }, "183": { "id": 183, "title": "No Gods, No Monsters: A Novel", "author": "Cadwell Turnbull", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "No Gods, No Monsters opens with police shooting and killing an unarmed Black man. Lincoln had been addicted to drugs, estranged from his family, living on the street. Not the sort of man the community rallies around, Caldwell Turnbull tells us. But when Lincoln’s sister, Laina, is mysteriously offered a copy of suppressed police bodycam footage of the shooting, it becomes a whole different kind of story. Because Lincoln is a werewolf. The footage proves it. And from that shocking start, Turnbull builds a world where monsters and magic are real and exist within a world like ours, already grappling with issues of race and sexuality and class and collectivism. There’s the overarching idea of othering those who do not look like us or live like us or love like us, and the terrible consequences of both hiding our secrets and revealing them.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982603720", "cover": "1982603720", "goodreads": 55748103, "itunes": 9781982603724, "bookshop": 9781982603724, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51m6T-MqiNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982603724", "isbn10": "1982603720", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 183, "book": "No Gods, No Monsters", "source": "NPR", "text": "If monsters were real, this book knows what you'd really do — nothing", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/05/1031846954/no-gods-no-monsters-review-cadwell-turnbull" } ] }, "184": { "id": 184, "title": "No One Is Talking About This: A Novel", "author": "Patricia Lockwood", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "I have a morbid fascination with people who are Extremely Online, so this book was my jam. Patricia Lockwood’s debut novel follows an unnamed narrator whose post on “the portal” becomes a viral sensation. Lockwood is a gifted writer whose prose captures the profane and often mind-numbingly dumb nature of the internet. Her observations are so sharp and funny – I repeatedly thought of the “I’m in This Photo and I Don’t Like It” meme while reading it. The book delivers a gut punch in the second half – I won’t ruin it for you here. But taken together, the two halves are a well-observed look at millennials, which is why this is one of my favorites of the year.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "it’s all geek to me", "the dark side", "seriously great writing", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593189582", "cover": "0593189582-us", "goodreads": 53733106, "itunes": 9780593189580, "bookshop": 9780593189580, "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593189580", "isbn10": "0593189582", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 184, "book": "No One Is Talking About This", "source": "NPR", "text": "You actually will be talking about 'No One Is Talking About This'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/18/968718574/you-actually-will-be-talking-about-no-one-is-talking-about-this" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 184, "book": "No One Is Talking About This", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'No One Is Talking About This,' Patricia Lockwood enters an internet portal", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/17/968760684/in-no-one-is-talking-about-this-patricia-lockwood-enters-an-internet-portal" } ] }, "185": { "id": 185, "title": "Nonbinary: A Memoir", "author": "Genesis P-Orridge", "reviewers": [ "Nicolette Khan" ], "text": "The best parts of Genesis P-Orridge’s memoir, Nonbinary, read like the oldest punk at a party talking about their glory days – and I mean that in the best way. P-Orridge is a great storyteller, and they lived a fascinating life, from meeting William S. Burroughs to hanging out with the Hell’s Angels to pioneering industrial music. What I’ve always loved about P-Orridge’s work is their commitment to living a life inseparable from their art. That spirit permeates the book, which begins and ends with a call to short-circuit control.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "for art lovers", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1419743864", "cover": "1419743864", "goodreads": 51075403, "itunes": 9781419743863, "bookshop": 9781419743863, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510n4mQ2KfL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419743863", "isbn10": "1419743864", "links": [] }, "186": { "id": 186, "title": "Noor", "author": "Nnedi Okorafor", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "Yes, this book by Nnedi Okorafor contains all of the bracing fast-paced narrative action of her other Africanfuturist novels, and yes it takes on many of the issues she plumbs so well without being heavy-handed (trying desperately not to say “late stage capitalism” but truthfully she is so good at this). But this one is just… so weird and specific and genius. AO, born Anwuli Okwudili, has always felt those initials stood for Artificial Organism. She’s got technically advanced prosthetics for which she is often demonized. DNA, or Dangote Nuhu Adamu, is a Fulani herdsman with a deeply felt connection to nature and folklore. The two of them are on the run – both wrongly accused – in a story that explores how technology and nature are both exploited, and how they can be harnessed in ways that might give a reader not just a bangin’ page turner, but something akin to … hope.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0756416094", "cover": "0756416094", "goodreads": 57632292, "itunes": 9780756416096, "bookshop": 9780756416096, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ac56AVcVS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780756416096", "isbn10": "0756416094", "links": [] }, "187": { "id": 187, "title": "Not Here to Be Liked", "author": "Michelle Quach", "reviewers": [ "Alethea Kontis" ], "text": "Eliza, the Chinese Vietnamese American heroine of Michelle Quach’s marvelous debut novel, Not Here to Be Liked, has worked tirelessly on Willoughby High School’s Bugle newspaper for years. So when an inexperienced ex-basketball player with tons of charisma walks away with the editor-in-chief position, she’s understandably upset. After her rant about the situation is unintentionally published, Eliza finds herself held up as the Voice of Feminism. But the more she gets to know the handsome and kind “face of the patriarchy,” the more she likes him. Is following through with her activism worth killing their budding relationship? Not Here to Be Liked is a truly excellent book, helmed by two captivating main characters and an author who is not shy about tackling weighty subjects.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "love & romance", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063038366", "cover": "0063038366", "goodreads": 54228607, "itunes": 9780063038363, "bookshop": 9780063038363, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51QHwxF-iiS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063038363", "isbn10": "0063038366", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 187, "book": "Not Here to Be Liked", "source": "NPR", "text": "Despite the title, we bet you'll like this YA novel — a lot", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/19/1038463478/not-here-to-be-liked-michelle-quach-review" } ] }, "189": { "id": 189, "title": "Notes From the Burning Age", "author": "Claire North", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "In our own distant future, three people – Ven (a priest and translator), Yue (a politician) and Georg (the cruel leader of a rebel uprising) – enter into a dance as elegant and choreographed as any ballet. They are one another’s old friends, lovers, protégés, traitors and spies. They are traumatized, dependent, manipulated and lied to. They do terrible things and regret them (or don’t). And Claire North places the three of them at the center of a brilliantly realized future where control over the facts of the past – the wonders we are capable of today, the record of our genius and the technologies that will ultimately come to destroy us – will determine who rules tomorrow’s world. Like a post-apocalyptic John le Carré, Notes From the Burning Age will stick with you long after the echoes of the final explosions fade.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "rather long", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316498831", "cover": "0316498831", "goodreads": 50892313, "itunes": 9780316498838, "bookshop": 9780316498838, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51aEt1OIE7S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316498838", "isbn10": "0316498831", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 189, "book": "Notes from the Burning Age", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Notes From The Burning Age,' we're the ones on fire", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/21/1018496548/in-notes-from-the-burning-age-were-the-ones-on-fire" } ] }, "190": { "id": 190, "title": "Oh William!: A Novel", "author": "Elizabeth Strout", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Elizabeth Strout’s third novel about writer Lucy Barton finds her beloved character distracting herself from grief over her second husband’s death by revisiting her relationship with her first, the philandering father of her daughters. Against all odds, William and Lucy have remained friendly, and he turns to her to help navigate some unhappy developments in his life, which lands them on a road trip to Maine. Lucy is repeatedly reminded that people are essentially unknowable and the past is never truly past. But oh, that titular Oh! — two letters that perfectly express Lucy’s abiding fondness for and exasperation with her ex.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "love & romance", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0812989430", "cover": "0812989430", "goodreads": 53138232, "itunes": 9780812989434, "bookshop": 9780812989434, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41e9-1iYqES._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780812989434", "isbn10": "0812989430", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 190, "book": "Oh, William!", "source": "NPR", "text": "Lucy Barton returns — and reconnects with an old love — in 'Oh William!'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047132621/elizabeth-strout-oh-william-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 190, "book": "Oh, William!", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Elizabeth Strout's 'Oh William!'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047327180/author-elizabeth-strouts-oh-william-composer-pens-remembrance-songs" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 190, "book": "Oh, William!", "source": "NPR", "text": "October Book-Ahead: 'Oh William!'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1040851872/new-books-out-in-october" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 190, "book": "Oh, William!", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Author Elizabeth Strout explores marriage, memory and class in 'Oh William!'", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/10/19/elizabeth-strout-oh-william" } ] }, "191": { "id": 191, "title": "On Fragile Waves: A Novel", "author": "E. Lily Yu", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Firuzeh and her little brother, Nour, were born in Afghanistan during the war, but peacetime proves even more dangerous to their small family. With their parents, their Abay and Atay, they embark on the long, cruel journey to Australia with little more than stories of legendary adventurers – and the ghost of a drowned girl – to guide them through unspeakable grief. One of the most devastatingly beautiful books I read all year.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "family matters", "identity & culture", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1645660095", "cover": "1645660095", "goodreads": 49151032, "itunes": 9781645660095, "bookshop": 9781645660095, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51L5We+ztnL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781645660095", "isbn10": "1645660095", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 191, "book": "On Fragile Waves", "source": "NPR", "text": "Life Kit: 'On Fragile Waves'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/24/1030658106/science-fiction-fantasy-reading-guide-recommendations" } ] }, "192": { "id": 192, "title": "On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint", "author": "Maggie Nelson", "reviewers": [ "Catherine Whelan" ], "text": "In her 10th book, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, writer/philosopher Maggie Nelson explores freedom, a concept stunningly hard to define except in negative. Through four essays, this book examines how we practice freedom through art, sex, drugs and the climate. Each essay is thought-provoking and incisive, deepening the complexity and contractions inherent to our experience of freedom and, simultaneously laying them bare. I haven’t stopped thinking about One Freedom, and I am not certain I ever will.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "for art lovers", "let’s talk about sex", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1644450623", "cover": "1644450623", "goodreads": 56269292, "itunes": 9781644450628, "bookshop": 9781644450628, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41odQVYF-XL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450628", "isbn10": "1644450623", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 192, "book": "On Freedom", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'On Freedom'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1035105717/writer-maggie-nelson-asks-what-it-means-to-feel-free" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 192, "book": "On Freedom", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author Maggie Nelson's new book examines the meaning and rhetoric of freedom", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/14/1037096490/author-maggie-nelsons-new-book-examines-the-meaning-and-rhetoric-of-freedom" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 192, "book": "On Freedom", "source": "KQED", "text": "Maggie Nelson ‘On Freedom’", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885606/maggie-nelson-on-freedom" } ] }, "193": { "id": 193, "title": "On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library", "author": "Glory Edim", "reviewers": [ "Keishel Williams" ], "text": "From the young girl being schooled and scolded in Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” to the teenager reckoning with her parents’ abandonment in Alexia Arthurs’ “Bad Behavior,” from the sister who learns to love herself and crawls out of the shadow of her shallow sibling in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” to the young woman in Edwidge Danticat’s “Seeing Things Simply,” who discovers that her body is a work of art; these short stories in Glory Edim’s anthology On Girlhood make a heartfelt window into the expansive world of Black girlhood. We see the way they love, the way they hate, the way they respond to pressure, and perhaps most importantly, the way they respond to society.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1631497693", "cover": "1631497693", "goodreads": 56769526, "itunes": 9781631497698, "bookshop": 9781631497698, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41saA5KIF3L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781631497698", "isbn10": "1631497693", "links": [] }, "194": { "id": 194, "title": "On Juneteenth", "author": "Annette Gordon-Reed", "reviewers": [ "Eric Deggans" ], "text": "Every person tempted to hyperventilate over fake controversies involving critical race theory should read this book. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed mingles her groundbreaking personal story – she was the first Black student to desegregate schools in her hometown of Conroe, Texas – with a less white-centered version of the state’s history to create a new narrative. Shifting away from myths aimed at comforting white people, she reveals a truth that includes everyone, especially those freed by the official emancipation of enslaved people in the state on June 19, 1865. Along the way, Gordon-Reed notes Texas’ long-ago legacy in breaking away from Mexico to preserve its status as a slaveholder’s republic. Her story challenges Texas’ pop culture image as a land of heroic, mostly white cowboys to suggest a more complicated vision that mirrors America’s fitful history on race, equality and society.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "rather short", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "1631498835", "cover": "1631498835", "goodreads": 55298325, "itunes": 9781631498831, "bookshop": 9781631498831, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41brYCSq0mL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781631498831", "isbn10": "1631498835", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 194, "book": "On Juneteenth", "source": "NHPR", "text": "Replay: 'On Juneteenth' with historian Annette Gordon-Reed", "url": "https://www.nhpr.org/the-exchange/2021-06-17/replay-on-juneteenth-with-historian-annette-gordon-reed" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 194, "book": "On Juneteenth", "source": "WABE", "text": "Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed’s new book, ‘On Juneteenth’ examines the holiday through a personal lens", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/pulitzer-prize-winning-author-annette-gordon-reeds-new-book-on-juneteenth-examines-the-holiday-through-a-personal-lens/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 194, "book": "On Juneteenth", "source": "WYPR", "text": " 'On Juneteenth': Annette Gordon-Reed's ode to emancipation joy", "url": "https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-08-31/on-juneteenth-annette-gordon-reeds-ode-to-emancipation-joy" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 194, "book": "On Juneteenth", "source": "KUOW", "text": "In 'On Juneteenth' Annette Gordon-Reed chronicles hardship and joy on the path to Black freedom", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/in-on-juneteenth-annette-gordon-reed-chronicles-hardship-and-joy-on-the-path-to-black-freedom" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 194, "book": "On Juneteenth", "source": "WDET", "text": "The little-known history of Black people in America before 1619", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/05/07/90935-the-little-known-history-of-black-people-in-america-before-1619/" } ] }, "195": { "id": 195, "title": "One Last Stop: A Novel", "author": "Casey McQuiston", "reviewers": [ "Sharon Pruitt-Young" ], "text": "One Last Stop made me fall in love with Casey McQuiston’s writing all over again. In this one, August, an inexperienced 20-something trying to figure out life in the big city, is an expert at keeping other people at arm’s length until she meets Jane, an impossibly cool girl who always seems to be riding the subway at the same time as her. One Last Stop is queer romance with a side of time-travel shenanigans, but amid all the whip-smart banter and heartwarming rom-com tropes is a potent reminder to make room for love in all parts of your life.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "1250244498", "cover": "1250244498", "goodreads": 54860443, "itunes": 9781250244499, "bookshop": 9781250244499, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/4118noDx64L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250244499", "isbn10": "1250244498", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 195, "book": "One Last Stop", "source": "NPR", "text": "Love rides the Q train in this supernaturally sweet romance", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/06/1003374310/love-rides-the-q-train-in-this-supernaturally-sweet-romance" } ] }, "196": { "id": 196, "title": "Our Woman in Moscow", "author": "Beatriz Williams", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Pao" ], "text": "I’ve always loved old-school thrillers – to me, there’s nothing better than le Carré by the fireplace. But their protagonists were always men. I wanted to read about women like those hard-boiled men, smart and sharp-witted loners caught up in political and historical forces larger than themselves. In Beatriz Williams’ Our Woman in Moscow, I’ve found one: Ruth Macallister, a former model who’s thrust into a Cold War missing-person mystery after her twin sister, Iris, and Iris’ U.S. diplomat husband disappear in London – and then reappear, four years later, in Moscow. The less glamorous Iris saved her sister’s life when they were children; now it’s Ruth’s turn to do the rescuing. Williams borrows liberally from the thriller and noir genres, with dead drops, double-crosses and lots of drinking and smoking. Real spies – of the Cambridge variety – make appearances. Our Woman in Moscow is a breezy, welcome twist on a genre that, decades after the end of the various wars – both World and Cold – I haven’t bored of yet.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "staff picks", "tales from around the world", "rather long", "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063020785", "cover": "0063020785", "goodreads": 55200703, "itunes": 9780063020788, "bookshop": 9780063020788, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41KOpkf8jEL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063020788", "isbn10": "0063020785", "links": [] }, "197": { "id": 197, "title": "Outlawed: A Novel", "author": "Anna North", "reviewers": [ "Elissa Nadworny" ], "text": "An old Western with a young female protagonist? Count me in! I almost finished this book in one sitting – just couldn’t stop reading. There’s the young Ada at its center, navigating a world that’s told her she doesn’t belong. She joins a band of outlaws in search of answers and a better future. Along the way, there’s a love story, bank robberies, gunbattles and an epic road trip.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "historical fiction", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1635575427", "cover": "1635575427", "goodreads": 50997696, "itunes": 9781635575422, "bookshop": 9781635575422, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/517jkPqm4jL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635575422", "isbn10": "1635575427", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 197, "book": "Outlawed", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Outlawed' frontiers of gender and sexuality beckon in this sly Western", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953573503/outlawed-frontiers-of-gender-and-sexuality-beckon-in-this-sly-western" } ] }, "198": { "id": 198, "title": "Palmares", "author": "Gayl Jones", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "I struggle with how to describe a book as singular as Palmares. Suffice it to say that Gayl Jones’ latest book, some 40 years in the making, comes after she disappeared from the public eye for two of those four decades. Jones’ Palmares is a hidden colony of runaway slaves, Indigenous peoples and Portugese colonials in 17th century Brazil. There’s a brave heroine, a love story and an epic journey, all of it infused with the magical realism and interiority that are Jones’ trademark. The writing is luminous, the story nonlinear. Best to let it wash over you and savor the journey.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "love & romance", "historical fiction", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "fiction", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0807033499", "cover": "0807033499", "goodreads": 56378193, "itunes": 9780807033494, "bookshop": 9780807033494, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51UQtyE6hgL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780807033494", "isbn10": "0807033499", "links": [] }, "199": { "id": 199, "title": "Pastoral Song: A Farmer's Journey", "author": "James Rebanks", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "James Rebanks, a British sheep farmer, captures both the allure and challenges of his work while articulating the complex, worrisome issues that face farmers today. Inspired by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the author of the bestselling The Shepherd’s Life urgently conveys how the drive for cheap, mass-produced food has impoverished both small farmers and the soil, threatening humanity’s future. Rebanks offers lovely memories of the “rotational” farming his grandfather taught him as a boy in the 1980s before farming became industrialized. He also proposes solutions for using the land and animals more responsibly and sustainably in this eloquent and impassioned manifesto for change.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "nonfiction", "seriously great writing", "science!", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0063073277", "cover": "0063073277", "goodreads": 55004160, "itunes": 9780063073272, "bookshop": 9780063073272, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RSXFR9ZbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063073272", "isbn10": "0063073277", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 199, "book": "Pastoral Song", "source": "NPR", "text": "A farmer offers a stark time-lapse portrait of his family's land over a lifetime", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/05/1023217506/farmer-offers-stark-time-lapse-portrait-of-his-familys-land-over-a-lifetime" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 199, "book": "Pastoral Song", "source": "KPR", "text": "Conversations: James Rebanks, 'Pastoral Song: A Farmer's Journey'", "url": "https://kansaspublicradio.org/blog/dan-skinner/conversations-james-rebanks-pastoral-song-farmers-journey" } ] }, "200": { "id": 200, "title": "People From My Neighborhood", "author": "Hiromi Kawakami translated by Ted Goossen", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Fairy tales aren’t just for kids – especially not the ones in Hiromi Kawakami’s dark, bizarre collection of short stories. The interconnected tales in this slim volume are weird in the best possible way, following a memorable cast of characters that includes a one-eyed chicken farmer, a rotund gambling boss, a possibly murderous princess and a dog school principal. It’s a magical book that’s a lot of fun to read.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1593767110", "cover": "1593767110", "goodreads": 57251431, "itunes": 9781593767112, "bookshop": 9781593767112, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/411J9QqlMAL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781593767112", "isbn10": "1593767110", "links": [] }, "201": { "id": 201, "title": "People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present", "author": "Dara Horn", "reviewers": [ "Jerome Socolovsky" ], "text": "This is a book Dara Horn didn’t want to write, but something bugged the novelist about the way Jewish victims of antisemitic violence are remembered. Like Anne Frank, who was betrayed and died in a Nazi concentration camp, yet is frequently quoted for this line: “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” The teenage diarist’s legacy, Horn argues, has been deployed to ease discomfort over the Holocaust and provide “grace and absolution from a murdered Jew (exactly the gift that lies at the heart of Christianity).” Writing about topics as varied as a blockbuster Auschwitz exhibit in New York and a Chinese city’s efforts to commemorate its vanished Jewish community, Horn argues the intentions may be noble but where these endeavors fall short is in fostering an acceptance of Jews as they are. As she writes in the opening sentence, “People love dead Jews. Living Jews, not so much.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0393531562", "cover": "0393531562", "goodreads": 56769532, "itunes": 9780393531565, "bookshop": 9780393531565, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41I-aW8uZ5S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393531565", "isbn10": "0393531562", "links": [] }, "202": { "id": 202, "title": "People We Meet on Vacation", "author": "Emily Henry", "reviewers": [ "Anjuli Sastry Krbechek" ], "text": "For another year in a row, Emily Henry provided me some much-needed escapism. Poppy and Alex are best friends who vacation together each year. The book flip-flops from their pivotal trips (Tuscany, New Orleans, Croatia …) to the present day and chronicles their history from first meeting to when they became close to when things fell apart as adults. They’re polar opposites who are never in the right time in their lives to be together, despite their intense attraction. I found myself screaming at them but also asking the same questions they ask themselves, about safety, comfort and misread romantic gestures. You might think you know how romance novels end, but this was one of those books I couldn’t put down at night, even though I really should have been asleep – I wasn’t sure if things would turn out the way they always do. The slow-burn journey to love makes it all worth it.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "love & romance" ], "isbn": "1984806750", "cover": "1984806750", "goodreads": 54985743, "itunes": 9781984806758, "bookshop": 9781984806758, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wHHB9OkwL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984806758", "isbn10": "1984806750", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 202, "book": "People We Meet On Vacation", "source": "KRCU", "text": "Martin's Must Reads: 'People We Meet on Vacation'", "url": "https://www.krcu.org/arts-culture/2021-08-03/martins-must-reads-people-we-meet-on-vacation" } ] }, "203": { "id": 203, "title": "Pilgrim Bell: Poems", "author": "Kaveh Akbar", "reviewers": [ "Erin Sells" ], "text": "There is something in this volume for every kind of poetry reader – fine craftsmanship for the former English majors who still like to geek out about form and style; playfulness for the reader who likes to see poets do fun and clever things with words; raw beauty and vulnerability for those who turn to poetry for a reminder of what makes us human. Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet, and Pilgrim Bell is a volume about faith and devotion, divided into five sections to evoke the five daily calls to prayer for the Muslim faithful. In the space between the tolling of the bells that call us to a life of faith, we explore the gaps in ourselves, our world and our language – the failures and losses and insufficiencies that make us who we are and that lead us to search for more.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "staff picks", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1644450593", "cover": "1644450593", "goodreads": 54785508, "itunes": 9781644450598, "bookshop": 9781644450598, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31j-YVsRM5L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450598", "isbn10": "1644450593", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 203, "book": "Pilgrim Bell", "source": "NPR", "text": "Kaveh Akbar pits the self against the sacred in new poems", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/14/1027502715/kaveh-akbar-pits-the-self-against-the-sacred-in-his-new-poems" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 203, "book": "Pilgrim Bell", "source": "MTPR", "text": "Making shapes from silence: Kaveh Akbar’s ‘Pilgrim Bell’", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/arts-culture/2021-07-29/making-shapes-from-silence-kaveh-akbars-pilgrim-bell" } ] }, "204": { "id": 204, "title": "Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems", "author": "Rita Dove", "reviewers": [ "Nina Gregory" ], "text": "Poet Rita Dove’s new volume is both for and of our current moment – one that can feel apocalyptic. In her first collection of new poems in 12 years, Dove’s words pierce history, explore meaning and interrogate memory. And readers learn the Pulitzer Prize-winning former U.S. Poet Laureate has been living with a form of multiple sclerosis since 1997. Her poetry explores living with the illness, but not without hope. It’s a book certain to be a great companion in these uncertain times and beyond.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir" ], "isbn": "0393867773", "cover": "0393867773", "goodreads": 55298387, "itunes": 9780393867770, "bookshop": 9780393867770, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yP2KWHi5S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393867770", "isbn10": "0393867773", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 204, "book": "Playlist for the Apocalypse", "source": "KQED", "text": "Poet Rita Dove offers a ‘Playlist for the Apocalypse’", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885104/poet-rita-dove-offers-a-playlist-for-the-apocalypse" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 204, "book": "Playlist for the Apocalypse", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Bookworm: Rita Dove: 'Playlist for the Apocalypse'", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/rita-dove-playlist-for-the-apocalypse" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 204, "book": "Playlist for the Apocalypse", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Rita Dove's 'Playlist for the Apocalypse'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/rita-doves-playlist-apocalypse/" } ] }, "205": { "id": 205, "title": "Poet Warrior: A Memoir", "author": "Joy Harjo", "reviewers": [ "Gabino Iglesias" ], "text": "There are many reasons why Harjo is the first Native American to be named United States poet laureate – and only the second person to hold that post for at least three terms, and they’re all on display in this book. More than a straightforward memoir, this is a biographical survey that focuses on the people, poetry and music that shaped Harjo’s life. It’s also a spiritual guide for those who want to learn how to forgive, move forward and focus on the positive things in life.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "biography & memoir", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0393248526", "cover": "0393248526", "goodreads": 56769519, "itunes": 9780393248524, "bookshop": 9780393248524, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bhRXtTIOS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393248524", "isbn10": "0393248526", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 205, "book": "Poet Warrior", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Poet Warrior' Joy Harjo wants Native peoples to be seen as human", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034751793/poet-laureate-warrior-joy-harjo" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 205, "book": "Poet Warrior", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Poet Warrior' centers on the role of poetry, art, and music in Joy Harjo's life", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/08/1035033419/poet-warrior-centers-on-the-role-of-poetry-art-and-music-in-joy-harjo-s-life" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 205, "book": "Poet Warrior", "source": "NPR", "text": "Fresh Air: Poet Laureate Joy Harjo / Historian Tiya Miles", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034829076/poet-laureate-joy-harjo-historian-tiya-miles" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 205, "book": "Poet Warrior", "source": "WPR", "text": "Joy Harjo finds spiritual understanding through music and poetry", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/joy-harjo-finds-spiritual-understanding-through-music-and-poetry" } ] }, "206": { "id": 206, "title": "Pop Song: Adventures in Art and Intimacy", "author": "Larissa Pham", "reviewers": [ "Marissa Lorusso" ], "text": "Writer Larissa Pham originally trained as a painter, so it’s fitting that, for her memoir-in-essays, she explores desire through the lens of art. In Pop Song’s delicate prose, she makes deft connections between the art she loves – from Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings to Nan Goldin’s photography to Frank Ocean’s lyrics to Sylvia Plath’s verse – and her experiences of heartache and connection. The result is a book as personal, generous and touching as a mixtape passed between lovers.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for art lovers", "for music lovers", "love & romance", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1646220269", "cover": "1646220269", "goodreads": 54777446, "itunes": 9781646220267, "bookshop": 9781646220267, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41DKVsQH-lL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781646220267", "isbn10": "1646220269", "links": [] }, "207": { "id": 207, "title": "Pregnant Girl: A Story of Teen Motherhood, College, and Creating a Better Future for Young Families", "author": "Nicole Lynn Lewis", "reviewers": [ "Elissa Nadworny" ], "text": "When Nicole Lewis went to college at William & Mary, there was something about her that made her stand out. Most days she was accompanied by her young daughter, Nerissa. Those days, she felt alone, different. But the reality is, there are nearly 5 million college students that are also parents. Lewis graduated and eventually founded a nonprofit that helps other teen moms make it through college. This memoir recounts Lewis’ journey and weaves in the stories of the parents she’s helped along the way.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "family matters", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0807056030", "cover": "0807056030", "goodreads": 57940799, "itunes": 9780807056035, "bookshop": 9780807056035, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510KWtPem+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780807056035", "isbn10": "0807056030", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 207, "book": "Pregnant Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "Former 'Pregnant Girl' builds support to help other teen moms", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/05/03/993012219/former-pregnant-girl-builds-support-to-help-other-teen-moms" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 207, "book": "Pregnant Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "Former 'Pregnant Girl' now helps other teen moms succeed", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/26/990876795/former-pregnant-girl-now-helps-other-teen-moms-succeed" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 207, "book": "Pregnant Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "Lewis' memoir describes being a teen mom in college while raising a daughter", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996446065/lewis-memoir-describes-being-a-teen-mom-in-college-while-raising-a-daughter" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 207, "book": "Pregnant Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "Best Of: Advocate for teen moms, Nicole Lynn Lewis / cartoonist Alison Bechdel", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/30/992438091/best-of-advocate-for-teen-moms-nicole-lynn-lewis-cartoonist-alison-bechdel" } ] }, "208": { "id": 208, "title": "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George", "author": "James Lapine", "reviewers": [ "Jeff Lunden" ], "text": "“Art isn’t easy” is a lyric in Stephen Sondheim’s song “Putting It Together,” from the 1983 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical he wrote with James Lapine, about pointillistic painter Georges Seurat. And that point is made over and over in Lapine’s remarkable book of the same title. Part memoir and part oral history, Lapine chronicles the creation of this landmark musical, with brutal honesty. While the collaboration was ultimately successful, the birthing process was often painful, as conversations in the book reveal. The book is truly a must-have for anyone interested in theater and how it’s put together.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "biography & memoir", "for music lovers", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0374200092", "cover": "0374200092", "goodreads": 53317429, "itunes": 9780374200091, "bookshop": 9780374200091, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51UvPYjG+gS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374200091", "isbn10": "0374200092", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 208, "book": "Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created Sunday in the Park with George", "source": "NPR", "text": "Finishing 'Sunday In The Park': Behind-the-scenes stories of working with Sondheim", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/03/1024191839/finishing-sunday-in-the-park-behind-the-scenes-stories-of-working-with-sondheim" } ] }, "209": { "id": 209, "title": "Quiet in Her Bones", "author": "Nalini Singh", "reviewers": [ "Preeti Aroon" ], "text": "Ten years ago, Aarav’s mom vanished. He awakened to a piercing scream on a stormy night and saw the taillights of his mom’s Jaguar fade into the darkness. Now, authorities have discovered his mom’s skeleton entombed inside her Jaguar in the dense bush of New Zealand’s Waitākere Ranges Regional Park. Someone on his parents’ affluent cul-de-sac knows what happened – and Aarav is scrutinizing all the neighbors. In this thriller whodunit, we even start questioning the memory and mind of our narrator, loyal son Aarav. Read this mystery to pass the time on a rainy winter weekend when it’s too nasty to leave home.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "the dark side", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593099109", "cover": "0593099109", "goodreads": 55655042, "itunes": 9780593099100, "bookshop": 9780593099100, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51eW0cQeZSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593099100", "isbn10": "0593099109", "links": [] }, "210": { "id": 210, "title": "Radha & Jai’s Recipe for Romance", "author": "Nisha Sharma", "reviewers": [ "Alethea Kontis" ], "text": "Radha had a panic attack and tanked the biggest kathak dancing competition of her life, and now she’s back at Princeton Academy with one last chance. Jai is the incredibly handsome captain of the Bollywood Beats dance team, but he’s got his own troubles. He understands Radha’s aversion to public performance and recommends that she choreograph the dance team’s Winter Showcase. But the school’s director knows that the seniors won’t win the Showcase if Radha doesn’t dance the lead role. Can she do it? Reader, I laughed, I googled words and I wept as I finished the book in the wee hours of the morning. It was a beautiful thing to witness both Jai and Radha find their joy.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "staff picks", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "0553523295", "cover": "0553523295", "goodreads": 55873089, "itunes": 9780553523294, "bookshop": 9780553523294, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81uFVTQqKoL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780553523294", "isbn10": "0553523295", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 210, "book": "Radha and Jai’s Recipe for Romance", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Radha and Jai' is a toe-tapping dance romance treat", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/19/1016938561/radha-and-jai-is-a-toe-tapping-dance-romance-treat" } ] }, "211": { "id": 211, "title": "Ramadan Ramsey: A Novel", "author": "Louis Edwards", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "Louis Edwards takes us on a delightful journey from his hometown New Orleans to the Middle East, through the eyes of a boy in search of his identity. Ramadan is born of a forbidden romance between Mustafa, a Syrian immigrant, and Alicia, a young African American woman, who fall in love over a bag of chips at the corner store. Mustafa’s family whisks him back to Syria before he knows about his son. Ramadan endures much hardship, including a hurricane, before embarking on a global quest to meet his father. Edwards taps into how places, and secrets, shape our lives.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "love & romance", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0063012030", "cover": "0063012030", "goodreads": 58768047, "itunes": 9780063012035, "bookshop": 9780063012035, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41FrwSavY+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063012035", "isbn10": "0063012030", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 211, "book": "Ramadan Ramsey", "source": "NPR", "text": "After a 20-year wait, Louis Edwards' Latest Novel Is Out", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026322869/after-a-20-year-wait-louis-edwards-latest-novel-is-out" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 211, "book": "Ramadan Ramsey", "source": "WWNO", "text": "The Reading Life: Louis Edwards", "url": "https://www.wwno.org/podcast/the-reading-life/2021-08-06/the-reading-life-louis-edwards" } ] }, "212": { "id": 212, "title": "Razorblade Tears: A Novel", "author": "S.A.Cosby", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "S.A. Cosby is a master of gritty, propulsive crime fiction, and his latest novel is a jolt to the heart. This moody and bloody Southern Gothic thriller marries the skillful action and plotting of Lee Child with the atmosphere and insight of Attica Locke. At the center are two battle-scarred, middle-aged men, one Black, one white, who know their way around trouble. Though they were in-laws, they’re virtual strangers suddenly brought together when their adult children are gunned down in cold blood. United in grief and determination, they’ll do whatever it takes to get rough justice for their murdered sons.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250252709", "cover": "1250252709", "goodreads": 54860585, "itunes": 9781250252708, "bookshop": 9781250252708, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51IEtMFgbcL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250252708", "isbn10": "1250252709", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 212, "book": "Razorblade Tears", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'Razorblade Tears'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/06/1012647702/two-fathers-risk-it-all-to-avenge-their-murdered-sons-in-this-new-thriller" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 212, "book": "Razorblade Tears", "source": "NPR", "text": "July Book-Ahead: What we're excited to read next month: 'Razorblade Tears' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/29/1010256924/july-book-ahead-what-were-excited-to-read-next-month" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 212, "book": "Razorblade Tears", "source": "WFAE", "text": "SouthBound: S.A. Cosby on writing his novel 'Razorblade Tears' and navigating race, class, and sexuality in the South", "url": "https://www.wfae.org/podcast/southbound/2021-08-04/southbound-s-a-cosby-on-writing-his-novel-razorblade-tears-and-navigating-race-class-and-sexuality-in-the-south" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 212, "book": "Razorblade Tears", "source": "WPR", "text": "Author S. A. Cosby takes the American crime novel 'Razorblade Tears' in new directions", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/author-s-cosby-takes-american-crime-novel-new-directions" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 212, "book": "Razorblade Tears", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: S.A. Cosby's 'Razorblade Tears' is a frst-class buddy (and bloody) novel", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/book-review/2021-08-30/book-review-s-a-cosbys-razorblade-tears-is-a-first-class-buddy-and-bloody-novel" } ] }, "213": { "id": 213, "title": "Real Estate: A Living Autobiography", "author": "Deborah Levy", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "This final volume of British writer Deborah Levy’s bracing autobiographical trilogy finds her wondering, on the cusp of both 60 and empty-nesthood, how and where she wants to live. Her career finally took off in her 50s after she left her husband, which gives her some leeway, though not quite enough to afford the “un-real estate” of her dreams. But Real Estate isn’t really about dream houses or house lust. Levy’s multilayered, playful musings concern a different sort of property ownership – of one’s own life. The point, she reminds us, is to create a life for yourself in which you feel most at home.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "rather short", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1635572215", "cover": "1635572215", "goodreads": 54546064, "itunes": 9781635572216, "bookshop": 9781635572216, "image": "https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/08/24/real_custom-s500.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635572216", "isbn10": "1635572215", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 213, "book": "Real Estate", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Real Estate' is an elegant exploration of — and desire for — home", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/24/1030585800/real-estate-ls-an-elegant-exploration-of-the-concept-of-and-desire-for-home" } ] }, "214": { "id": 214, "title": "Red Island House: A Novel", "author": "Andrea Lee", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "Shay, the lead of this lyrical novel, is a Black American intellectual and expatriate newly married to Senna, an older, wealthy Italian man. When Senna builds his dream house in a remote part of Madagascar, he says it’s for her, but they both know it’s really his fantasy. So they alternate between a good life in Italy and lengthy, destabilizing interludes on the island, where Shay is thrust into the awkward role of plantation mistress while her husband plays the white lord of the manor. The novel offers fascinating glimpses into class, culture and Malagasy society – territory that Lee knows intimately – alongside gorgeous writing.
", "tags": [ "family matters", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982137800", "cover": "1982137800", "goodreads": 54304139, "itunes": 9781982137809, "bookshop": 9781982137809, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51h3F1S0oSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982137809", "isbn10": "1982137800", "links": [] }, "215": { "id": 215, "title": "Redemptor", "author": "Jordan Ifueko", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "If you like fantasy, you’ve probably read 500 versions of the same story – noble hero overthrows a corrupt monarch and promises to rule the land with a just and even hand. But what happens next? When the rebellious outsider becomes the most powerful person in the kingdom, will they still be able to tell what justice looks like? In Redemptor – the sequel to 2020’s Raybearer, Jordan Ifueko follows her characters into that second phase, where suddenly they have to confront the painful contradictions of having the last word – or at least seeming to.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "young adult", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1419739840", "cover": "1419739840", "goodreads": 55624056, "itunes": 9781419739842, "bookshop": 9781419739842, "image": "https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/08/20/814s7ghjgdl_custom-s500.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419739842", "isbn10": "1419739840", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 215, "book": "Redemptor", "source": "NPR", "text": "In this strong sequel, taking the throne is easy — keeping it, not so much", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/21/1029890572/in-this-strong-sequel-taking-the-throne-is-easy-keeping-it-not-so-much" } ] }, "216": { "id": 216, "title": "Refugee High: Coming of Age in America", "author": "Elly Fishman", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "What happens to refugee teenagers when Donald Trump becomes president? Reporter Elly Fishman embedded in Chicago’s Roger Sullivan High School, which has the highest percentage of refugees of any American high school. She interviews teachers, administrators, students and their families in a community with over 30 languages. Often in dire financial straits, students from Iraq, Guatemala, Congo, Myanmar and points in between come off like teenagers everywhere, worried about love lives and grades. Fishman shows that when a school works to ensure students thrive, even against severe hardship and loss, refugee teens become the best of America’s melting pot.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1620975084", "cover": "1620975084", "goodreads": 56953631, "itunes": 9781620975084, "bookshop": 9781620975084, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51qfQc4RizS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781620975084", "isbn10": "1620975084", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 216, "book": "Refugee High", "source": "WBEZ", "text": "At Sullivan High School — AKA ‘Refugee High’ — students are the ‘Next Generation’", "url": "https://www.wbez.org/stories/elly-fishmans-refugee-high-on-sullivan-high-school-in-chicago/fd2bb5de-f4f7-44a1-a635-d0d6061b3210" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 216, "book": "Refugee High", "source": "WUWM", "text": "New book highlights Chicago's refugee high school students", "url": "https://www.wuwm.com/2021-08-13/new-book-highlights-chicagos-refugee-high-school-students" } ] }, "217": { "id": 217, "title": "Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting", "author": "Lisa Genova", "reviewers": [ "Lauren Migaki" ], "text": "Remember is a long-overdue user’s manual for memory. In a year where it felt like we were all collectively losing our marbles, it is a salve. Genova introduces us to folks who have no ability to remember, folks with impeccable memories who can’t forget, and to normals like us who forget to do things like take out the trash but remember every lyric to the 1996 hit song “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. Genova reassures us that forgetting is normal (famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma once forgot his $2.5 million cello in the back of a cab!). She also reminds us that who we are is largely based on the memories we’ve kept and – just as importantly – the things we’ve forgotten.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "science!", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593137957", "cover": "0593137957", "goodreads": 54895704, "itunes": 9780593137956, "bookshop": 9780593137956, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41xOaLPf-bL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593137956", "isbn10": "0593137957", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 217, "book": "Remember", "source": "WFAE", "text": "Neuroscientist Lisa Genova shares the science of memory and why we forget", "url": "https://www.wfae.org/show/charlotte-talks-with-mike-collins/2021-10-04/neuroscientist-lisa-genova-shares-the-science-of-memory-and-why-we-forget" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 217, "book": "Remember", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Lisa Genova on the science of memory and the art of forgetting", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-03-26/lisa-genova-on-the-science-of-memory-and-the-art-of-forgetting" } ] }, "218": { "id": 218, "title": "Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People", "author": "Kekla Magoon", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "This 2021 National Book Award finalist from Kekla Magoon brings to life one of the most influential groups in civil rights history: The Black Panther Party. Chock full of photographs, news clippings and more, this nonfiction novel for teens (and adults) explores the need for the group, its development, its actions and its influences. A must-read for anyone interested in fighting injustice, this courageous book takes readers beyond what we think we know and provides an objective and insightful view of our nation’s history. And there’s a great accompanying soundtrack. (For ages 12 and up)
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "kids’ books", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "seriously great writing", "for music lovers" ], "isbn": "1536214183", "cover": "1536214183", "goodreads": 50180355, "itunes": 9781536214185, "bookshop": 9781536214185, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Revolution-in-Our-Time-by-Kekla-Magoon-scaled.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781536214185", "isbn10": "1536214183", "links": [] }, "219": { "id": 219, "title": "Rez Dogs", "author": "Joseph Bruchac", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "When the COVID-19 pandemic hits, Malian is visiting her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation. Now sheltering with them away from her parents and her school in Boston, she struggles with her own isolation and pandemic-related stress. It is in Malian’s grandparents’ stories that she learns how the people of her Indigenous community have always taken care of one another, through the government boarding schools and forced adoptions that tore Native American children from their families, and now COVID-19. Written in verse, this middle-grade novel shows us the pandemic through a child’s eyes and helps remind us that responsibility and caring for one another is something we all can do. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "0593326210", "cover": "0593326210", "goodreads": 55873270, "itunes": 9780593326213, "bookshop": 9780593326213, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519YFDB+QtL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593326213", "isbn10": "0593326210", "links": [] }, "220": { "id": 220, "title": "Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause", "author": "Ty Seidule", "reviewers": [ "Scott Detrow" ], "text": "As people protest, counterprotest and counter-counterprotest the removal of Confederate statues in Virginia and other Southern states, and argue over the relevance of a 156-year-old war, Ty Seidule’s book provides an important and engaging history lesson. Seidule cuts down myths about the Confederacy and about Robert E. Lee, and makes it clear to anyone who doubts that their cause was deeply racist and wrong. The fact that this book is written by a Southerner, an Army veteran and a onetime Lee acolyte – a story Seidule weaves through the book, too – makes it all the more powerful.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1250239265", "cover": "1250239265", "goodreads": 53138120, "itunes": 9781250239266, "bookshop": 9781250239266, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81KbFKjwW9L.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250239266", "isbn10": "1250239265", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 220, "book": "Robert E Lee and Me", "source": "BSPR", "text": "Reader's Corner: 'Robert E. Lee & Me' by Ty Seidule", "url": "https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/show/readers-corner/2021-05-14/robert-e-lee-me-by-ty-seidule" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 220, "book": "Robert E Lee and Me", "source": "WAMC", "text": "A Southerner's reckoning with the myth of the lost cause", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-03-29/a-southerners-reckoning-with-the-myth-of-the-lost-cause" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 220, "book": "Robert E Lee and Me", "source": "WFAE", "text": "As Confederate statues come down, a retired soldier on how he broke up with the lost cause", "url": "https://www.wfae.org/show/charlotte-talks-with-mike-collins/2021-10-29/as-confederate-statues-come-down-a-retired-soldier-on-how-he-broke-up-with-the-lost-cause" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 220, "book": "Robert E Lee and Me", "source": "WVTF", "text": "A surprising new bio of Robert E. Lee", "url": "https://www.wvtf.org/news/2021-05-19/a-surprising-new-bio-of-robert-e-lee" } ] }, "221": { "id": 221, "title": "Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake", "author": "Alexis Hall", "reviewers": [ "Lauren Migaki" ], "text": "If you, like me, spent the better part of last winter cocooned in blankets while watching kindly British folks whisk up delicate pastries in the countryside, this one is for you. Rosaline Palmer is a lovable single mom who enters a familiar-sounding baking competition in the hopes of changing her life – and finds a little romance along the way! This book, with its bake-off archetypes, laugh-out-loud banter and charming love interests, is downright delicious. It’s not a spoiler to say that the book mostly stays true to its real-life Great British Bake Off parallel with one deeply satisfying upgrade: The bakes don’t take place in a &$%ing tent.
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "staff picks", "cookbooks & food", "no biz like show biz" ], "isbn": "1538703327", "cover": "1538703327", "goodreads": 55533831, "itunes": 9781538703328, "bookshop": 9781538703328, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ZXlyspEHL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538703328", "isbn10": "1538703327", "links": [] }, "223": { "id": 223, "title": "Save It for Later: Promises, Parenthood, and the Urgency of Protest", "author": "Nate Powell", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "There aren’t a lot of mid-length, nonfiction comics being produced these days, but Nate Powell shows us why the essay is still a terrific format for visual storytelling. In seven interconnected pieces, Powell describes what it was like to be both an artist and a parent to a 4-year-old daughter while despairing of, and fighting for, American democracy over the past five years. As ever, Powell’s drawings are just stunning: vigorous, heartfelt and supremely accomplished. Save It for Later is an invaluable record of these times, and a great read besides.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "family matters", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1419749129", "cover": "1419749129", "goodreads": 54776156, "itunes": 9781419749124, "bookshop": 9781419749124, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51yZh5Px7QL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419749124", "isbn10": "1419749129", "links": [] }, "224": { "id": 224, "title": "Sea Loves Me: Selected Stories", "author": "Mia Couto, translated by David Brookshaw and Eric M.B. Becker", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "When António Emílio Leite Couto was 3 years old, he renamed himself Mia, or miaow, confessing that “I didn’t just like cats; I thought I was a cat.” Considered one of Lusophone Africa’s most influential writers, Couto, a native of Mozambique and 2014 recipient of the Neustadt Prize, is best known for his short fiction that dissects the burdens of race, history and culture in the aftermath of Mozambique’s 1974 independence from Portugal. As with his natural affinity toward cats, Couto’s stories — deftly translated by David Brookshaw and Eric M.B. Becker — represent graceful attempts to transcend barriers between the colonizer and colonized, native and settler, human and animal, matter and antimatter.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1771963883", "cover": "1771963883", "goodreads": 4035212671, "itunes": 9781771963886, "bookshop": 9781771963886, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41nxHZYDaYL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781771963886", "isbn10": "1771963883", "links": [] }, "225": { "id": 225, "title": "Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir", "author": "Kat Chow", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "Early in her affecting memoir, Kat Chow writes, “It is not incorrect to say that for years, the way my family grieved my mother was to avoid acknowledging her altogether.” Seeing Ghosts is a corrective to that silence, wherein Chow writes her mother “into being” and excavates her family history. A founding member of NPR’s Code Switch, Chow’s interest in race, identity and cultural history drives her memoir’s larger project, tracing her family from southern China to Hong Kong, Havana and the United States. The result is a meditation on what we owe our ancestors, generational grief’s root system and the melancholia of loss.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1538716321", "cover": "1538716321", "goodreads": 53376379, "itunes": 9781538716328, "bookshop": 9781538716328, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/414uAdpgfDL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538716328", "isbn10": "1538716321", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 225, "book": "Seeing Ghosts", "source": "NPR", "text": "Seeing Ghosts' navigates the melancholia of loss — of people, places, and identities", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/25/1030590736/kat-chow-book-seeing-ghosts-navigates-the-melancholia-of-loss" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 225, "book": "Seeing Ghosts", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Seeing Ghosts' across generations", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/20/1029896173/seeing-ghosts-across-generations" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 225, "book": "Seeing Ghosts", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Seeing Ghosts,' Kat Chow relives her mom's death and what followed", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1030223408/in-seeing-ghosts-kat-chow-relives-her-moms-death-and-what-followed" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 225, "book": "Seeing Ghosts", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Kat Chow examines the long life of grief in 'Seeing Ghosts'", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/kat-chow-examines-the-long-life-of-grief-in-her-memoir-seeing-ghosts" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 225, "book": "Seeing Ghosts", "source": "MPR", "text": "Kat Chow chronicles her loss to help us navigate our own", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/kat-chow-examines-the-long-life-of-grief-in-her-memoir-seeing-ghosts" } ] }, "226": { "id": 226, "title": "Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness", "author": "Kristen Radtke", "reviewers": [ "Malaka Gharib" ], "text": "Kristen Radtke looks at the science of loneliness and its presence in American society – and interweaves it with poignant stories from her own life. She dives into its evolutionary purpose while retracing the surprising places where loneliness comes up: in TV laugh tracks, in the much-venerated lone cowboys in American pop culture. All the while, she shares her own brushes with isolation – mourning the end of a TV series, scrolling through her phone in bed, witnessing the death of her grandmother. It’s a deeply engaging, masterful work of science and heart, and incredibly timely as the pandemic continues on.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "science!", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1524748064", "cover": "1524748064", "goodreads": 55648627, "itunes": 9781524748067, "bookshop": 9781524748067, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81BddJ7uFLL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781524748067", "isbn10": "1524748064", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 226, "book": "Seek You", "source": "NPR", "text": "Loneliness is a communal experience in 'Seek You'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015618618/loneliness-is-a-communal-experience-in-seek-you" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 226, "book": "Seek You", "source": "NPR", "text": "Graphic novel 'Seek You' illustrates the loneliness of modern life, pre-pandemic", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/11/1014967428/graphic-novel-seek-you-illustrates-the-loneliness-of-modern-life-pre-pandemic" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 226, "book": "Seek You", "source": "WPR", "text": "Author, artist Kristen Radtke explores loneliness in graphic detail", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/author-artist-kristen-radtke-explores-loneliness-graphic-detail" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 226, "book": "Seek You", "source": "KQED", "text": "Author Kristen Radtke takes a 'Journey Through American Loneliness'", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101884675/author-kristen-radtke-takes-a-journey-through-american-loneliness" } ] }, "227": { "id": 227, "title": "Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994-2007)", "author": "Dan Ozzi", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Limbong" ], "text": "“Let breathe new dawn - this art is dead / No sense of original thought in the mainstream” goes a lyric in the opening track of Against Me!’s first major-label album – one I (wrongly) thought sucked before ever having heard it, simply because it was on a major label. In Sellout, Dan Ozzi examines this intersection among bands trying to make a mark in the world, music labels hoping to make a buck off them and fans feeling betrayed by their idols. Even if you never spent time on punknews.org arguing about the taxonomy of “folk punk,” it’s a question that exists in every art form: How much is it worth to get paid?
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for music lovers", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0358244307", "cover": "0358244307", "goodreads": 53968530, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780358244301, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41NSEdpSBCL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358244301", "isbn10": "0358244307", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 227, "book": "Sellout", "source": "NPR", "text": "OK, so you're a 'Sellout.' Now what?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/27/1048005853/sellout-dan-ozzi-punk-music-industry" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 227, "book": "Sellout", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Sellout' explores how anti-establishment views in punk puts bands in a tough spot", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/26/1049450432/sellout-explores-how-anti-establishment-views-in-punk-puts-bands-in-a-tough-spot" } ] }, "228": { "id": 228, "title": "Seven Days in June: A Novel", "author": "Tia Williams", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "Eva and Shane meet when they are damaged teens on the same high school campus. They both have been traumatized by abuse – and the need to shrug off their trauma. The two become confidants and lovers for seven magical days their senior year – and then Shane disappears. Eva is devastated. Twenty years later, both are hugely successful authors. An awards show brings them together again; there’s passion – and a lot of wariness. Tia Williams does a great job of plumbing the hesitancies of emotionally gun-shy people and satirizing bougie Black literary life in this wonderfully adult romance.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "153871910X", "cover": "153871910X", "goodreads": 55648820, "itunes": 9781538719107, "bookshop": 9781538719107, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41j-hzBvCgS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538719107", "isbn10": "153871910X", "links": [] }, "229": { "id": 229, "title": "Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution", "author": "John Archibald", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "Pulitzer Prize-winning Alabama columnist John Archibald reckons with his late father’s silence during the civil rights movement in Birmingham, an epicenter for the struggle. His dad was a Methodist minister; Archibald looks through his old sermons and compares them to events of the day with rich historical detail. The exercise has Archibald turning inward to examine his own choices. “Better to say it wrong than to wonder why you didn’t have anything to say at all,” he writes. Archibald and I are of the same age, faith and region, so I found this a meaningful read that got me thinking about my own family’s legacy.
", "tags": [ "for history lovers", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "0525658114", "cover": "0525658114", "goodreads": 51151767, "itunes": 9780525658115, "bookshop": 9780525658115, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51jsFcO3x+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525658115", "isbn10": "0525658114", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 229, "book": "Shaking the Gates of Hell", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author explores preacher father's silence in 1960s Alabama", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/974430465/author-explores-preacher-fathers-silence-on-racial-injustice-in-1960s-alabama" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 229, "book": "Shaking the Gates of Hell", "source": "APR", "text": " 'Shaking the Gates of Hell' by: John Archibald", "url": "https://www.apr.org/arts-life/2021-03-15/shaking-the-gates-of-hell-by-john-archibald" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 229, "book": "Shaking the Gates of Hell", "source": "WFAE", "text": "In 'Shaking The Gates Of Hell,' John Archibald confronts father's silence from pulpit in Civil Rights Era", "url": "https://www.wfae.org/podcast/southbound/2021-03-17/in-shaking-the-gates-of-hell-john-archibald-confronts-fathers-silence-from-pulpit-in-civil-rights-era" } ] }, "230": { "id": 230, "title": "Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic", "author": "Glenn Frankel", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "More than 50 years after it was released, John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy has endured as one of the most original films in history. In his book, Glenn Frankel reveals that filming the movie, about a young man who travels to New York to become a male escort, was as difficult as it can be to watch. Frankel blends history and analysis to explore how a film “so bleak, troubling, and sexually raw that no ordinary film studio would go near it” became so groundbreaking. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in cinema and is an enthralling look at Schlesinger’s “dark, difficult masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed men and women who made it.”
", "tags": [ "for history lovers", "no biz like show biz", "nonfiction", "the dark side", "the states we’re in", "let’s talk about sex" ], "isbn": "0374209014", "cover": "0374209014", "goodreads": 53317522, "itunes": 9780374209018, "bookshop": 9780374209018, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jIcHSybCL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374209018", "isbn10": "0374209014", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 230, "book": "Shooting Midnight Cowboy", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Shooting Midnight Cowboy' turns an eye to a dark, problematic masterpiece", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/978090926/shooting-midnight-cowboy-turns-an-eye-to-a-dark-problematic-masterpiece" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 230, "book": "Shooting Midnight Cowboy", "source": "KWGS", "text": " 'Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, sex, lonelines, liberation, and the making of a dark classic'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-03-25/shooting-midnight-cowboy-art-sex-loneliness-liberation-and-the-making-of-a-dark-classic" } ] }, "231": { "id": 231, "title": "Silent Winds, Dry Seas: A Novel", "author": "Vinod Busjeet", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "A descendant of the indentured Indian laborers brought to Mauritius by British colonizers, first-time author Vinod Busjeet’s coming-of-age story depicts the country’s independence and the ensuing conflicts within and across the white, Indian, Chinese and Creole communities. Through the archetypal protagonist, Vishnu Bhushan, and a large ensemble cast of characters, Busjeet charts the evolution of Mauritian society, grounded in its historical context, with sharp wit, poetic charm and graceful insights. There are books where writers play skilled games on the page. And there are books where writers bring their experiences, heart and radical living to the page. This debut, from a writer in his 70s, is a luminous example of the latter.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0385547021", "cover": "0385547021", "goodreads": 56023358, "itunes": 9780385547024, "bookshop": 9780385547024, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JIG0INZ8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385547024", "isbn10": "0385547021", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 231, "book": "Silent Winds, Dry Seas", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Silent Winds, Dry Seas' takes readers to a crossroads of empires and cultures", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/19/1029112040/this-surprising-debut-takes-readers-to-a-crossroads-of-empires-and-cultures" } ] }, "232": { "id": 232, "title": "Singing Like Germans: Black Musicians in the Land of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms", "author": "Kira Thurman", "reviewers": [ "Tom Huizenga" ], "text": "Denied opportunities to study and perform in the U.S., Black classical musicians fled to German-speaking Europe as early as the 1870s in search of artistic freedom. They found it, according to author Kira Thurman, but they also discovered new forms of racism. Some applauded the musicians for their extraordinary talent – musicians such as Sissieretta Jones, called the “Black Patti,” or Brindis de Salas, the “Black Paganini,” and Hazel Harrison, the first Black soloist to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic. Others rejected them, fearing encroachment on Germany’s sacred art. With this book, Thurman presents untold stories within some of the most groundbreaking research ever published in classical music.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1501759841", "cover": "1501759841", "goodreads": 57285799, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781501759840, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41gw79TrURL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781501759840", "isbn10": "1501759841", "links": [] }, "233": { "id": 233, "title": "Six Crimson Cranes", "author": "Elizabeth Lim", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "When a princess discovers she can do forbidden magic, her evil stepmother curses her and turns her brothers into cranes. “The Six Swans” has long been one of my favourite Grimm fairy tales, and Elizabeth Lim’s reimagining of it does not disappoint. It takes all the tropes – the princess in disguise as a kitchen wench, the enchanted brothers, the kindly prince – and twists them just enough to make them fresh, rendering this retelling more nuanced and compassionate than the original tale.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "family matters", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593300912", "cover": "0593300912", "goodreads": 53457092, "itunes": 9780593300916, "bookshop": 9780593300916, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bfS7myLwL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593300916", "isbn10": "0593300912", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 233, "book": "Six Crimson Cranes", "source": "NPR", "text": "Book Review: 'Six Crimson Cranes'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/31/1022820744/monsters-and-magic-run-in-the-family-in-these-2-ya-novels" } ] }, "234": { "id": 234, "title": "Skin of the Sea", "author": "Natasha Bowen", "reviewers": [ "Keishel Williams" ], "text": "This is not your typical little mermaid! In Skin of the Sea, debut author Natasha Bowen brings to life West African myth, religion and history in an action-packed, nail-biting story about Simi, a Black mermaid tasked with collecting the souls of enslaved people who are thrown into the sea during the crossing from Africa, and granting them safe passage. But Simi is only supposed to pick up the souls of dead people. When she saves a living boy, she sets in motion the wrath of vengeful gods and has to face the truth and trauma about the slave trade. This is a great novel about power and who deserves to have it.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593120949", "cover": "0593120949", "goodreads": 48691825, "itunes": 9780593120941, "bookshop": 9780593120941, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51TH1m1thIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593120941", "isbn10": "0593120949", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 234, "book": "Skin of the Sea", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Skin of the Sea' sends its little mermaid swimming into very different waters", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049805130/skin-of-the-sea-natasha-bowen-review" } ] }, "235": { "id": 235, "title": "Skinship: Stories", "author": "Yoon Choi", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Immigration is a popular literary subject, but it’s Yoon Choi’s approach – the way the eight stories in this debut collection splinter out to touch on decades of family history – that makes this special. Our narrator in the title story, for instance, is a 13-year-old Korean girl named So-hyun, who describes how she and her brother skip school one morning. What we learn is that they’re not cutting, but fleeing with their mother to an aunt’s house in Virginia because their father is abusive. So-hyun’s account of becoming dependent on her relatives’ “kindness” is a master class by Choi in the art of show, don’t tell.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "staff picks", "family matters", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0593318218", "cover": "0593318218", "goodreads": 58232545, "itunes": 9780593318218, "bookshop": 9780593318218, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/311vx+W9XlL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593318218", "isbn10": "0593318218", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 235, "book": "Skinship", "source": "NPR", "text": "Think you know where the stories in 'Skinship' Are Going? Think again", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/25/1030611449/skinship-review-yoon-choi-short-story-collection" } ] }, "236": { "id": 236, "title": "Small Things Like These", "author": "Claire Keegan", "reviewers": [ "Catherine Whelan" ], "text": "Claire Keegan is just one of those authors who never misses.Small Things Like These considers one of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries (Catholic houses of “fallen women”), bringing them into focus through the glance of an ordinary man who accidentally uncovers one. With the precision and depth of a short story – her usual genre – Keegan captured and affected my whole attention. She draws a web of complicity around the convent’s activities that is chillingly mundane and brutally true. These kinds of places existed not just because of the cruelty of the people who ran them, but also because of the fear and selfishness of those who were willing to ignore them. Stunning. Just stunning.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "rather short", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0802158749", "cover": "0802158749", "goodreads": 58662236, "itunes": 9780802158741, "bookshop": 9780802158741, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mBv1ZnKsL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802158741", "isbn10": "0802158749", "links": [] }, "237": { "id": 237, "title": "Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir", "author": "Ashley Ford", "reviewers": [ "Asma Khalid" ], "text": "Ashley Ford’s riveting memoir is an honest, heartbreaking story about her father’s incarceration and the resulting family trauma. Her story is about race and family and about how the choices we make, plus those forced upon us, can complicate the trajectory of our lives. Ford writes with a refreshing and riveting candor. As a fellow Hoosier, I found the book particularly compelling because it is not only a coming-of-age Midwestern tale with all the typical concerns about body image and mother-daughter tension, but also a sharp commentary on the harsh realities of growing up as a Black person in Indiana. Ford also gives us an important glimpse of how prison shapes the daughters left behind.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "the states we’re in", "family matters", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1250305977", "cover": "1250305977", "goodreads": 58229613, "itunes": 9781250305978, "bookshop": 9781250305978, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41HA1EVbIkS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250305978", "isbn10": "1250305977", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 237, "book": "Somebody's Daughter", "source": "NPR", "text": "Code Switch: To love and not forgive", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/26/1020711720/ashley-ford-somebodys-daughter-interview" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 237, "book": "Somebody's Daughter", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Somebody's Daughter' Ashley C. Ford confronts the crimes of her father", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/15/1006277910/ashley-c-ford-somebodys-daughter" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 237, "book": "Somebody's Daughter", "source": "KQED ", "text": "Ashley C. Ford explores love and longing in her memoir ‘Somebody’s Daughter’", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101884127/ashley-ford-explores-love-and-longing-in-her-memoir-somebodys-daughter" } ] }, "238": { "id": 238, "title": "Someone Builds the Dream", "author": "Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Loren Long", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "From the construction of buildings and bridges to the creation of roller coasters and books, Lisa Wheeler and Loren Long’s thoughtful story shines a spotlight on all the people who come together to turn these visions into a reality. Someone Builds the Dream is a celebration of the cooperative spirit and a testament to what we can achieve if we work together. And after having the curtain pulled back like this, children (and probably many adults) will look at the world around them with fresh eyes. (For ages 5 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1984814338", "cover": "1984814338", "goodreads": 56222221, "itunes": 9781984814333, "bookshop": 9781984814333, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51RFo6QsI8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984814333", "isbn10": "1984814338", "links": [] }, "239": { "id": 239, "title": "Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be: Essays", "author": "Nichole Perkins", "reviewers": [ "Kelsey Page" ], "text": "Nichole Perkins is a master storyteller like no other. This collection of intimate essays showcases her warm, inviting, provocative voice as she opens up about facets of her life and personality you might not have known from her podcasting (such as Thirst Aid Kit and This Is Good For You) or other writing. On one page, you’ll find yourself thinking about your formative life experiences and what it might take to be more fully and unapologetically yourself, and on the next you’ll feel like you’re out with a friend hearing about the latest hilarities of dating. Enjoy breezing through this book and don’t be surprised when you wish for more once it’s over.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry", "let’s talk about sex", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1538702746", "cover": "1538702746", "goodreads": 56222187, "itunes": 9781538702741, "bookshop": 9781538702741, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51VY-1jpOTS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538702741", "isbn10": "1538702746", "links": [] }, "240": { "id": 240, "title": "Sorrowland: A Novel", "author": "Rivers Solomon", "reviewers": [ "Amal El-Mohtar" ], "text": "Rivers Solomon’s previous books were set in outer space and the depths of the ocean; Sorrowland takes root in the nightmarish soil of the contemporary United States. Vern, a pregnant Black teenager on the run from a cult, gives birth to twins alone in the woods. She raises her children while stalked by a threatening presence she thinks of as “the fiend.” But something even more transformative than pregnancy is happening to Vern’s body, causing turbulent illness and superhuman powers by turn, and she and her twins set out on a dangerous journey to find help and understanding.
", "tags": [ "the states we’re in", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374266778", "cover": "0374266778", "goodreads": 58725035, "itunes": 9780374266776, "bookshop": 9780374266776, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/518xHoHj9FL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374266776", "isbn10": "0374266778", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 240, "book": "Sorrowland", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Sorrowland,' the story gets lost in the forest", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/14/996658839/in-sorrowland-the-story-gets-lost-in-the-forest" } ] }, "241": { "id": 241, "title": "Speak, Okinawa: A Memoir", "author": "Elizabeth Miki Brina", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "Elizabeth Miki Brina’s mother met her GI father at a nightclub in Okinawa, Japan, where she was a hostess. He married her and they settled in an all-white suburb in America, where they raised their daughter. Brina writes unflinchingly about feeling ashamed of her mother and her “otherness” and how she worked to overcome that shame. As a Japanese American who also grew up in a mostly white town, I could relate. But I also learned about Okinawa, its second-class status to the rest of Japan and its fraught relationship with the United States, which continues to maintain a military presence there.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "tales from around the world", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0525657347", "cover": "0525657347", "goodreads": 53438050, "itunes": 9780525657347, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71QrVb8KJkL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525657347", "isbn10": "0525657347", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 241, "book": "Speak Okinawa", "source": "TPR", "text": " 'Speak, Okinawa': Elizabeth Miki Brina’s memoir about family, identity, and forgiveness", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public/2021-03-19/speak-okinawa-elizabeth-miki-brinas-memoir-about-family-identity-and-forgiveness" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 241, "book": "Speak Okinawa", "source": "WBUR", "text": "New memoir 'Speak, Okinawa' looks at family, identity, Okinawa's tough relationship with the U.S.", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/02/23/speak-okinawa-memoir" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 241, "book": "Speak Okinawa", "source": "WWNO", "text": "The Reading Life: Brian Mitchell & Nick Weldon, Elizabeth Miki Brina", "url": "https://www.wwno.org/show/the-reading-life/2021-02-26/the-reading-life-brian-mitchell-nick-weldon-elizabeth-miki-brina" } ] }, "242": { "id": 242, "title": "Stone Fruit", "author": "Lee Lai", "reviewers": [ "Nicolette Khan" ], "text": "I was immediately drawn to the opening scene in Lee Lai’s debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit. Six-year-old Nessie is running through the woods with her aunties, Ray and Bron, all in their loose and feral form. Their world at first appears magical, though Ray later explains that it’s just a state of play – something also accessible to adults. Nessie’s wiggly view of the world foils that of the other characters, who struggle between that looseness and the structures imposed by family, religion and heteronormativity. Lai poignantly illustrates the sometimes futile search for happiness and the grace in being open to the changes around us.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "family matters", "identity & culture", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1683964268", "cover": "1683964268", "goodreads": 55678434, "itunes": 9781683964261, "bookshop": 9781683964261, "image": "http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0601/1913/products/7963543-0152045514-STL17_1200x1200.jpg?v=1621027324", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781683964261", "isbn10": "1683964268", "links": [] }, "243": { "id": 243, "title": "Sumac: Recipes and Stories From Syria", "author": "Anas Atassi", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "Anas Atassi makes it clear right away: Sumac is not a cookbook concerned with purity or authenticity. It’s about luxuriating in Syrian food, yes, but food that has changed and adapted based on the ingredients that are available, the trends of the time, the preferences of people eating, and the memories of the one’s cooking. As such, the recipes are interlaced with descriptions of when and where Atassi encountered the dishes – more often than not, in his mother’s kitchen.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "family matters" ], "isbn": "162371897X", "cover": "162371897X", "goodreads": 55898679, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781623718978, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519EvQiqPSL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781623718978", "isbn10": "162371897X", "links": [] }, "244": { "id": 244, "title": "Summer Sons", "author": "Lee Mandelo", "reviewers": [ "Liam McBain" ], "text": "Set in the stifling last gasps of summer, Vanderbilt grad student Andrew investigates the apparent suicide of his closest friend – while being haunted by his ghost. As Andrew searches for answers, he falls into a world full of bad boys, fast cars and centuries-old secrets. Summer Sons is an atmospheric Southern gothic wrapped in the spirit of dark academia, a combination I loved. I was equally intrigued by the twisting plot and the slow-burn romance, and Lee Mandelo’s visceral style brought the mounting pressure to life. A jagged story packed with loss and queer longing, Summer Sons is addictively tormenting.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "125079028X", "cover": "125079028X", "goodreads": 53290204, "itunes": 9781250790286, "bookshop": 9781250790286, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41IIKrkNEOL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250790286", "isbn10": "125079028X", "links": [] }, "245": { "id": 245, "title": "Summerwater", "author": "Sarah Moss", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "Sarah Moss writes so gracefully and perceptively about nature and time, and Summerwater is no different. Taking place over a rainy day at a Scottish vacation site, it’s full of human drama: married couples finding time away from each other, an overworked mother, a lonely teenage boy. But Moss interrupts these storylines with lovely interludes on plants and animals, water and wind. Nature doesn’t care about our problems, she seems to be reminding the reader. I often come away from Moss’ books feeling small, in the best sense.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "family matters", "love & romance", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0374105936", "cover": "0374105936", "goodreads": 52185452, "itunes": 9780374105938, "bookshop": 9780374105938, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jXeholVpL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374105938", "isbn10": "0374105936", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 245, "book": "Summerwater", "source": "NPR", "text": "Escape to a picturesque Scotland in Sarah Moss' 'Summerwater'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/09/955192019/escape-to-a-picturesque-scotland-in-sarah-moss-summerwater" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 245, "book": "Summerwater", "source": "NPR", "text": "The clouds and downpours of 'Summerwater' set the scene for human drama", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/956847917/the-clouds-and-downpours-of-summerwater-set-the-scene-for-human-drama" } ] }, "246": { "id": 246, "title": "Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous", "author": "Suzanne Park", "reviewers": [ "Alethea Kontis" ], "text": "Feisty Sun-Hee Song is a 17-year-old Korean American influencer who ends up in a digital detox camp after a slightly PG-13 moment goes viral. She’s forced to spend a month in the cornfields of Iowa among celebrities with no digital devices whatsoever – except the burner phone she smuggled in. Sunny’s in the running for an exclusive influencer contest, and she actually has a shot! But the other competitor is the meanest girl in camp, who has 10 times Sunny’s following. And is maintaining her social status worth risking her adorable budding romance with the farm family’s youngest son? An absolute joy to read.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "identity & culture", "funny stuff", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1728209420", "cover": "1728209420", "goodreads": 51219281, "itunes": 9781728209425, "bookshop": 9781728209425, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Xl+GGmAzL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781728209425", "isbn10": "1728209420", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 246, "book": "Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous", "source": "NPR", "text": "A wannabe influencer gets sent to digital detox in 'Sunny Song Will Never Be Famous'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/05/1003349720/a-wannabe-influencer-gets-sent-to-digital-detox-in-sunny-song-will-never-be-famo" } ] }, "247": { "id": 247, "title": "Sword Stone Table: Old Legends, New Voices", "author": "Edited by Swapna Krishna and Jenn Northington", "reviewers": [ "Petra Mayer" ], "text": "King Arthur is famously “the once and future king,” and that epithet has never been truer than in Sword Stone Table, which brings together an epic roster of talent to rework Arthurian legend from marginalized perspectives. These stories span millennia, from Camelot through the eyes of a visitor from the 12th century Almohad Caliphate to Sir Gawain in a Martian colony. We see Merlin as a small-time stage magician comforting AIDS patients in 1980s New York, Arthur as a minor-league ballplayer, and Merlin’s lover Nia as an albino sorceress from Uganda. Come, sit and listen, say editors Swapna Krishna (an NPR contributor) and Jenn Northington. This is a Round Table with seats for everyone.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593081897", "cover": "0593081897", "goodreads": 56212881, "itunes": 9780593081891, "bookshop": 9780593081891, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1mIRnn7aQS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593081891", "isbn10": "0593081897", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 247, "book": "Sword Stone Table", "source": "NPR", "text": "New anthology gives everyone a seat at the round table", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/14/1016030184/new-anthology-gives-everyone-a-seat-at-the-round-table" } ] }, "248": { "id": 248, "title": "Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer", "author": "Rax King", "reviewers": [ "Sascha Cohen" ], "text": "In this original essay collection, podcaster and Twitter personality Rax King uses the cultural artifacts of her youth to access emotional and interpersonal truths about grief, sex and growing up. Tacky is an unabashed celebration of the uncool and the lowbrow, an excavation of millennial girlhood, and an exercise in affectionate nostalgia for the early 2000s. King urges readers to let retro delights like Creed, Jersey Shore, Hot Topic and America’s Next Top Model into our “embarrassing little hearts.” An antidote to contemporary cultural criticism steeped in moralism, Tacky will resonate with everyone who prefers to enjoy their guilty pleasures unironically.
", "tags": [ "funny stuff", "biography & memoir", "let’s talk about sex", "short stories, essays & poetry", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "0593312724", "cover": "0593312724", "goodreads": 57246958, "itunes": 9780593312728, "bookshop": 9780593312728, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/414v3byRBrL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593312728", "isbn10": "0593312724", "links": [] }, "249": { "id": 249, "title": "Take Back the Block", "author": "Chrystal D. Giles", "reviewers": [ "Lisa Yee" ], "text": "Summer is supposed to be fun, right? But when developers threaten Wes’ close-knit community, he gets yanked into the controversy. In Chrystal D. Giles’ delightful, humorous and empowering debut novel, Take Back the Block, tensions are raised as the reality of gentrification is brought to the forefront. Wes is torn as neighbors, friends and family take sides, arguing about what is to be gained, and lost. Though the last thing he wants to be is an activist, Wes wonders if maybe he has something worth saying. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "fiction", "kids’ books", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "0593175174", "cover": "0593175174", "goodreads": 54326411, "itunes": 9780593175170, "bookshop": 9780593175170, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51di-6TegkL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593175170", "isbn10": "0593175174", "links": [] }, "250": { "id": 250, "title": "Taste: My Life Through Food", "author": "Stanley Tucci", "reviewers": [ "Elena Burnett" ], "text": "Taste is the perfect morsel of a book if Stanley Tucci has ever made the list of your dream dinner party guests. Tucci warmly and generously serves tales of the meals that accompanied laughter and heartbreak throughout his life, cooking tips you’ll marvel that you once lived without and countless recipes made more flavorful and elegant by their simplicity. There’s his infamous Negroni, the only tomato sauce you’ll ever need and every imaginable improvement on pasta. Crucially, if you ever do find yourself across the table from Stanley Tucci, for the love of all things culinary, don’t you dare cut your spaghetti.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "cookbooks & food", "no biz like show biz", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1982168013", "cover": "1982168013", "goodreads": 55360284, "itunes": 9781982168018, "bookshop": 9781982168018, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41KCbNo6fRL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982168018", "isbn10": "1982168013", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 250, "book": "Taste: My Life Through Food", "source": "NPR", "text": "For Stanley Tucci, food is like religion — and cancer almost took it away", "url": "https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1043295823" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 250, "book": "Taste: My Life Through Food", "source": "NPR", "text": "Fall is filled with celebrity memoirs. Read tales from stage and screen:", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1052746065/fall-is-filled-with-celebrity-memoirs-read-tales-from-stage-and-screen" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 250, "book": "Taste: My Life Through Food", "source": "JPR", "text": "2021 Thanksgiving Specials: 'Taste: My Life Through Food'", "url": "https://www.ijpr.org/2021-11-15/2021-thanksgiving-specials" } ] }, "251": { "id": 251, "title": "Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America", "author": "Mayukh Sen", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "After World War II, the U.S. went through a food revolution driven by immigrants from other countries. Mayukh Sen examines the lives and works of seven such immigrant women through archival research, original reporting and well-crafted prose. But this book is more than history or biography. It is also an interrogation of cultural politics and historiography, of who and what gets recorded, remembered, forgotten and celebrated. As a queer, brown writer born to Bengali immigrants, Sen offers insightful critiques into how American media’s biases against immigrants, women and people of color have caused these lapses in our collective consciousness. He invites us to appreciate the important culinary contributions made by these women fully, with joy and pleasure.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing", "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "1324004517", "cover": "1324004517", "goodreads": 56769581, "itunes": 9781324004516, "bookshop": 9781324004516, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71nK983HtrL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324004516", "isbn10": "1324004517", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 251, "book": "Taste Makers", "source": "KQED", "text": "These immigrant women changed American food forever, even if you haven't heard their names", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/arts/13906189/mayukh-sen-taste-makers-immigrant-women-food-america" } ] }, "252": { "id": 252, "title": "Tastes Like War: A Memoir", "author": "Grace M. Cho", "reviewers": [ "Bridget Bentz" ], "text": "Growing up, Grace M. Cho’s mother, a Korean “military bride” named Koonja, was a dynamic force in their small town, cooking for their white neighbors and foraging the nearby forest for wild blackberries and mushrooms. But things began to change when Cho turned 15 and her mother began to hear voices. In the decades that followed, schizophrenia took over. Koonja stopped cooking and refused to leave the house. In this powerful memoir, Cho writes about the trauma that shaped her mother’s life and contributed to her mental illness – and about her own efforts to reclaim the mother she knew by cooking traditional Korean dishes.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "cookbooks & food", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "staff picks", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1952177944", "cover": "1952177944", "goodreads": 57895732, "itunes": 9781952177941, "bookshop": 9781952177941, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51KOhXYEh5L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781952177941", "isbn10": "1952177944", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 252, "book": "Tastes Like War", "source": "KUOW", "text": "The ingredients for madness': Author Grace M. Cho’s memoir on colonialism, food, and love", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/the-ingredients-for-madness-author-grace-m-cho-s-memoir-on-colonialism-food-and-love" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 252, "book": "Tastes Like War", "source": "NPR", "text": "2021 National Book Awards Longlists: 'Tastes Like War'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/15/1037097073/national-book-award-longlists" } ] }, "253": { "id": 253, "title": "That Old Country Music: Stories", "author": "Kevin Barry", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Irish author Kevin Barry has never shied away from the dark side, but he’s always had a touch of the romantic underneath his hard-boiled prose. In his new short story collection, he casts a wide net, writing about a varied cast of people – some hardened by life, some still vulnerable – living in western Ireland. He evokes the landscape of the human heart beautifully, but his greatest accomplishment is his understanding of the ways our collective psyche works. There’s not a bad story in this collection, and it’s as accomplished a book as Barry has ever written.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0385540337", "cover": "0385540337", "goodreads": 54294099, "itunes": 9780385540339, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41AzsZRdUBL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385540339", "isbn10": "0385540337", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 253, "book": "That Old Country Music", "source": "NPR", "text": "There's not a single off note in 'That Old Country Music'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/12/955692348/theres-not-a-single-off-note-in-that-old-country-music" } ] }, "254": { "id": 254, "title": "The 1619 Project: Born on the Water", "author": "Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "A class assignment to “trace your roots” leads one Black child to ask her grandmother about her own family history. Grandma responds with a proud history of what it means to come from a resilient people that have loved, resisted and persevered. Beginning with the rich cultures of West Africa, the book tells how, after the Middle Passage, Black Americans created a new people in America. This Black history (told in poetry) does not begin in slavery, struggle and strife but instead “bridges the gap between Africa and the United States of America.” Strong poems. Necessary history. Extraordinary art. (For ages 7 to 10)
", "tags": [ "the states we’re in", "kids’ books", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "0593230574", "cover": "0593230574", "goodreads": 57569796, "itunes": 9780593230572, "bookshop": 9780593230572, "image": "https://images4.penguinrandomhouse.com/cover/9780593307359", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593230572", "isbn10": "0593230574", "links": [] }, "255": { "id": 255, "title": "The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet", "author": "John Green", "reviewers": [ "Brandon Carter" ], "text": "Is it possible to review the entirety of our current geologic era? Probably not. But don’t tell that to John Green, whose sparkling collection of essays attempts to make sense of the anthropocene through five-star-scale reviews of everything from Piggly Wiggly to staphylococcus aureus. The essays are charming, curious and heartfelt – a short yet poignant ode to The Mountain Goats chief among them – and each feels like its own adventure on a journey toward understanding our world and humanity’s impact on it.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "science!" ], "isbn": "0525555218", "cover": "0525555218", "goodreads": 55145261, "itunes": 9780525555216, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71hxtOdIgFS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525555216", "isbn10": "0525555218", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 255, "book": "The Anthropocene Reviewed", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author John Green explores how to live in uncertainty in 'The Anthropocene Reviewed'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997793426/author-john-green-explores-how-to-live-in-uncertainty-in-the-anthropocene-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 255, "book": "The Anthropocene Reviewed", "source": "WNYC", "text": "The Anthropocene Reviewed, reviewed", "url": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/episodes/anthropocene-reviewed-john-green" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 255, "book": "The Anthropocene Reviewed", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: John Green on 'The Anthropocene Reviewed", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-05-18/marginalia-john-green-on-the-anthropocene-reviewed" } ] }, "256": { "id": 256, "title": "The Big Bath House", "author": "Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Gracey Zhang", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "You say you believe in body positivity? Time to put your mouth where your money is! In this picture book, an American girl and her Japanese grandmother don’t share a language, but they do share a love of bathhouses. Look for some U.S. readers to get squeamish when they realize that everyone inside the bathhouse is naked. It’s a small price to pay for a book celebrating all kinds of people, big and small. You’ll find this to be one of the best “love your body” titles for kids on the market today. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0593181956", "cover": "0593181956", "goodreads": 56988008, "itunes": 9780593181959, "bookshop": 9780593181959, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51jfVYh6C5L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593181959", "isbn10": "0593181956", "links": [] }, "257": { "id": 257, "title": "The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with recipes)", "author": "Kate Lebo", "reviewers": [ "Natalie Escobar" ], "text": "Perhaps you, like me, have been having a tough time reading nonfiction when reality feels so bleak. But the one such book that’s held my attention has been The Book of Difficult Fruit, an inventive book that combines memoir, essays and recipes to such a compelling effect that I couldn’t put it down. Structured as a set of 26 essays about different fruits – one for every letter of the alphabet – Kate Lebo examines each, picked for its “difficulty,” such as astringency (aronia, as well as quince), rareness (thimbleberries) or pungence (durian). She relates each to her own experience of cooking and consuming them, and gives readers recipes to prepare even the most demanding fruits. Taken as a whole, this collection of essays is much more than the sum of its parts; rather, it’s a celebration of the natural world and our relationship to the food it produces.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "cookbooks & food", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0374110328", "cover": "0374110328", "goodreads": 53317437, "itunes": 9780374110321, "bookshop": 9780374110321, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51F+Ogf224L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374110321", "isbn10": "0374110328", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 257, "book": "The Book of Difficult Fruit", "source": "MTPR", "text": "Fruit and functionality: A conversation with Kate Lebo", "url": "https://www.mtpr.org/podcast/the-write-question/2021-10-07/fruit-and-functionality-a-conversation-with-kate-lebo" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 257, "book": "The Book of Difficult Fruit", "source": "SPR", "text": "Kate Lebo on 'The Book of Difficult Fruit'", "url": "https://www.spokanepublicradio.org/post/kate-lebo-book-difficult-fruit" } ] }, "258": { "id": 258, "title": "The Boy and the Sea", "author": "Camille Andros, illustrated by Amy Bates", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "Like the ocean itself, this book sparkles on the surface while containing immense depth below. Following a young boy over the course of a lifetime, Camille Andros’ story ebbs and flows with a comforting rhythm while Amy Bates’ timeless artwork washes over you. As the boy grows older, he returns regularly to the sea looking for answers but discovers something more valuable: perspective. As an author, I desperately wish I had written this book myself, but I’ll happily settle for cherishing it as a reader. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "family matters", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "1419749404", "cover": "1419749404", "goodreads": 54776157, "itunes": 9781419749407, "bookshop": 9781419749407, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51f0RoR3UbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781419749407", "isbn10": "1419749404", "links": [] }, "259": { "id": 259, "title": "The Chosen and the Beautiful", "author": "Nghi Vo", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful is heady stuff, soaked through with longing as thoroughly as strawberries left overnight in gin. Told from Jordan Baker’s perspective, this is the retelling of The Great Gatsby we deserve: vibrant, dazzling examination of ambition; an insightful exploration of character and the drive to belong; a dreamy, sharply-etched glamour, dripping with exquisite images, infernal deals, and paper silhouettes brought to life. Jordan’s uncertain social status, as a Vietnamese adoptee in a rich white family, coupled with a keen wit make for a compelling narrator. I’d spend more time with her.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250784786", "cover": "1250784786", "goodreads": 55169019, "itunes": 9781250784780, "bookshop": 9781250784780, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/417UaFPacLL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250784780", "isbn10": "1250784786", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 259, "book": "The Chosen and the Beautiful", "source": "NPR", "text": "This retelling of 'Gatsby' has demonic flair to spare", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/06/1003365223/this-retelling-of-gatsby-has-demonic-flair-to-spare" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 259, "book": "The Chosen and the Beautiful", "source": "WGCU", "text": "Nghi Vo, 'The Chosen and the Beautiful'", "url": "https://news.wgcu.org/show/gclbookclub/2021-10-20/nghi-vo-the-chosen-and-the-beautiful" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 259, "book": "The Chosen and the Beautiful", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Get Lit Preview: Nghi Vo's 'The Chosen and the Beautiful'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/get-lit-preview-nghi-vos-chosen-and-beautiful/" } ] }, "260": { "id": 260, "title": "The City of Good Death: A Novel", "author": "Priyanka Champaneri", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "For devout Hindus, a “good death” frees the soul from endless reincarnation cycles and allows eternal liberation, or moksha. People travel to the ancient city of Kashi (also known as Varanasi) to spend their last days at retreats designed to help them achieve this through ritual and prayer. In her award-winning debut, Priyanka Champaneri examines this kind of “good death” through stories crammed within stories. Characters share folklore, myth, reminiscences or dreams, and all of these deeply alter their existence and relationships. Making full use of the mysticism and magnetism of Kashi, Champaneri’s precise and evocative prose immerses us in a city teeming with as much life as death.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads", "rather long" ], "isbn": "1632062526", "cover": "1632062526", "goodreads": 51231905, "itunes": 9781632062529, "bookshop": 9781632062529, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41P2DCiCRTL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781632062529", "isbn10": "1632062526", "links": [] }, "261": { "id": 261, "title": "The Committed: A Novel", "author": "Viet Thanh Nguyen", "reviewers": [ "Krishnadev Calamur" ], "text": "Although sequels to literary successes aren’t rare, few deliver on the promise of the initial work. But that’s not so with Viet Thanh Nguyen’s book The Committed. The formerly unnamed narrator of The Sympathizer trades the underbelly of Los Angeles and the squalid reeducation camps of Vietnam for Paris, where he sells hashish to intellectuals while undergoing a mental breakdown. On the face of it, the novel is a thriller, but dig deeper and it tells the story of not only what immigrants often must do to survive, but also the dehumanizing impact of colonialism on the colonized.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "staff picks", "fiction", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0802157068", "cover": "0802157068", "goodreads": 57424944, "itunes": 9780802157065, "bookshop": 9780802157065, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/415RvbjVYMS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802157065", "isbn10": "0802157068", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 261, "book": "The Committed", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Committed' remains uncommitted — and that's its strength", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/04/973393447/the-committed-remains-uncommitted-and-thats-its-strength" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 261, "book": "The Committed", "source": "MPR", "text": "Author Viet Thanh Nguyen on ‘The Committed’", "url": "https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2021/04/07/author-viet-thanh-nguyen-on-the-committed" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 261, "book": "The Committed", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Bookworm: Viet Thanh Nguyen: “The Committed”", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/viet-thanh-nguyen-the-committed" } ] }, "262": { "id": 262, "title": "The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History", "author": "Margalit Fox", "reviewers": [ "Carol Ritchie" ], "text": "This story is so gripping and so extraordinary, I had to keep double-checking to see if it was true. It is. During World War I, two British officers imprisoned in a remote Turkish camp conned their way to freedom using – wait for it – a Ouija board. Margalit Fox weaves in bits of history about the long con, spiritualism, telepathy and the treatment of people experiencing with mental illness. But it’s the plot that rivets (and sometimes makes you laugh out loud).
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "tales from around the world", "for history lovers", "funny stuff", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1984853848", "cover": "1984853848", "goodreads": 57428181, "itunes": 9781984853844, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41F3aIuGd2L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984853844", "isbn10": "1984853848", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 262, "book": "The Confidence Men", "source": "WAMC", "text": "Book Picks - The Bookstore In Lenox: 'The Confidence Men'", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-06-22/book-picks-the-bookstore-in-lenox" } ] }, "263": { "id": 263, "title": "The Cookie Bible", "author": "Rose Levy Beranbaum", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Smartly organized by technique (e.g., hand-rolled, dropped, shaped, etc.) this collection boasts some 150 recipes, measured by weight and volume with Rose Levy Beranbaum’s trademark precision. Some old friends from previous Beranbaum Bibles are here (including my all-time favorite cookie, a fussy apricot-chocolate dreamboat called “the Ischler”), but also a generous helping of newcomers, like Caramelized Maple Macadamia squares, Turkish Ginger Lime Cookies, and the adorable-sounding Banana Custard Cuddle Cookies. All in all, this is one of the more delicious ways you can put on a layer of winter padding.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0358353998", "cover": "0358353998", "goodreads": 55959437, "itunes": 9780358353997, "bookshop": 9780358353997, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Ol4-ixxgL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358353997", "isbn10": "0358353998", "links": [] }, "264": { "id": 264, "title": "The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America", "author": "Barrett Holmes Pitner", "reviewers": [ "Leah Donnella" ], "text": "How do you talk about something that doesn’t have a name? Or something whose name is wildly broad? It might feel like trying to distinguish between lemonade and coffee when you only have the word “beverage.” That’s one of the inadequacies of talking about racism in the U.S., Barrett Holmes Pitner argues in this book. The experiences that people live through include everything from police brutality to voting restrictions to being confused for a co-worker to being told you don’t “sound Black.” Those inadequacies were brought into sharp relief during the Trump presidency, when giving a proper name to the events we saw unfolding felt both urgent and, in many cases, impossible.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "1640094849", "cover": "1640094849", "goodreads": 56950014, "itunes": 9781640094840, "bookshop": 9781640094840, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ADUk63p3L._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781640094840", "isbn10": "1640094849", "links": [] }, "265": { "id": 265, "title": "The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America", "author": "Adam Serwer", "reviewers": [ "Meg Anderson" ], "text": "Each of the essays in this collection from The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer was written at a different point during the Trump era, but this book is so much more than a time capsule of that presidency. Taken together, the essays are like a mirror, reflecting back on us the cruelty not only of the last four years, but of the policies and history that have shaped – and continue to shape – our country. Even if you read these pieces when they were originally published, reading them in book form, with fresh analysis from Serwer before each one, helps to make sense not only of recent history, but also of everything leading up to this moment.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0593230809", "cover": "0593230809", "goodreads": 55873263, "itunes": 9780593230800, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41UEsIyJR-S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593230800", "isbn10": "0593230809", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 265, "book": "The Cruelty Is The Point", "source": "NPR", "text": "Adam Serwer on new book: 'The Cruelty Is The Point' in Trump's America", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/27/1010760890/adam-serwer-on-new-book-the-cruelty-is-the-point-in-trump-america" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 265, "book": "The Cruelty Is The Point", "source": "NPR", "text": "Trump's America and why 'The Cruelty Is The Point'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014208767/trumps-america-and-why-the-cruelty-is-the-point" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 265, "book": "The Cruelty Is The Point", "source": "WHYY", "text": "The Cruelty Is the Point: The past, present, and future of Trump’s America", "url": "https://whyy.org/episodes/the-cruelty-is-the-point-the-past-present-and-future-of-trumps-america/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 265, "book": "The Cruelty Is The Point", "source": "WDET", "text": "Adam Serwer’s 'The Cruelty Is the Point' explores the rise of Trump in America", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/07/09/91175-adam-serwers-the-cruelty-is-the-point-explores-the-rise-of-trump-in-america/" } ] }, "266": { "id": 266, "title": "The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion", "author": "Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell", "reviewers": [ "Christopher Doorley" ], "text": "The story of WeWork, a coworking office leasing company that masqueraded as a tech startup, and specifically of Adam Neumann is hard to believe in hindsight. At its height, WeWork was valued at a staggering $47 billion. Shortly after this peak, Neumann would be out of the company, the IPO canceled, and the valuation dropped by more than 50%. If that sounds like a wild ride down, it’s an even wilder ride up. Knowing Neumann’s fate only adds to the tensions of this story, and it’ll leave you wondering how anyone let this all happen.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "it’s all geek to me", "the dark side", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593237110", "cover": "0593237110", "goodreads": 54998264, "itunes": 9780593237113, "bookshop": 9780593237113, "image": "https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/5HHGR3W7JMI6XNIHNF3WFUEQ3U.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593237113", "isbn10": "0593237110", "links": [] }, "267": { "id": 267, "title": "The Dating Playbook", "author": "Farrah Rochon", "reviewers": [ "Denny S. Bryce" ], "text": "Any list of 2021’s best romantic comedies must include Farrah Rochon’s The Dating Playbook. The story she weaves about Taylor Powell, a fitness trainer in need of some clients, and Jamar Dixon, an injured football superstar in need of a secret but hard-core fitness regime, is fresh, funny and sexy. It also boasts a ripped-from-the-headlines plot that touches on topics like football and concussion, and how social media has made having a private life an artform for anyone with celebrity status. Rochon presents her themes with jump-off-the-page humor, and they go far beyond the ups and downs of romance to broader concerns about family, women, friendship and jealousy.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "for sports lovers", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "1538716674", "cover": "1538716674", "goodreads": 55919760, "itunes": 9781538716670, "bookshop": 9781538716670, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51TeoDBlvLS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538716670", "isbn10": "1538716674", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 267, "book": "The Dating Playbook", "source": "NPR", "text": "Your laughing muscles will get a workout in this sporty romance", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/22/1029902678/farrah-rochon-dating-playbook-review" } ] }, "268": { "id": 268, "title": "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity", "author": "David Graeber and David Wengrow", "reviewers": [ "Erin Sells" ], "text": "The past few years have given us many reasons to wonder: How did we get here? In The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, an anthropologist and an archaeologist attempt to answer that question, while also examining the assumptions upon which most of social history is based. You may be familiar with the basic story that gets told: It starts with hunter-gatherers in their “state of nature,” which is followed by the rise of agriculture, which leads to population growth, private property and eventually hierarchy and bureaucracy, all culminating in the modern state. But what if that narrative is a little too linear and neatly organized? What if that version of history is actually kind of racist and sexist and overlooks many of the most interesting moments in the history of humankind? As we struggle with where to go next as a species, this book asks us to reexamine the story we’ve told about ourselves – and to imagine some new possibilities.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "rather long" ], "isbn": "0374157359", "cover": "0374157359", "goodreads": 56269264, "itunes": 9780374157357, "bookshop": 9780374157357, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bDwt4ewZL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374157357", "isbn10": "0374157359", "links": [] }, "269": { "id": 269, "title": "The Death of Jane Lawrence: A Novel", "author": "Caitlin Starling", "reviewers": [ "Caitlyn Paxson" ], "text": "The Death of Jane Lawrence asks the age-old question pondered by Gothic novels and fairy tales alike: What do you do if your deeply attractive but hastily married husband is hiding a dark secret in his crumbling manor house? Well, when bookkeeper Jane’s arranged marriage gets complicated, she takes matters into her own hands. Gothic novels have to walk the line between horror and romance and not flinch from either. The Death of Jane Lawrence is up to this task, even as it descends into a sort of frenzied madness. By the time the story reached that point of no return, I was so invested that I would have followed Jane into the very depths of hell.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "staff picks", "love & romance", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250272580", "cover": "1250272580", "goodreads": 48915818, "itunes": 9781250272584, "bookshop": 9781250272584, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mRwHy0-DS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250272584", "isbn10": "1250272580", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 269, "book": "The Death of Jane Lawrence", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'The Death of Jane Lawrence' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/10/1044640260/the-death-of-jane-lawrence-review" } ] }, "270": { "id": 270, "title": "The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe", "author": "Josh Mitchell", "reviewers": [ "Michel Martin" ], "text": "If you remember the days of people working their way through college doing shifts on the docks or driving a cab – or lived that yourself – you might be wondering why those days are long gone unless you’re, say, an equity fund baby or the Olsen twins. Josh Mitchell, a Wall Street Journal reporter, explains why: government policies designed to help Americans compete in the global technological race, but also an unholy alliance of funding systems, lax regulation and institutional competition that has bid up the price of a college education far beyond the rate of inflation and far beyond the ability of many people to pay. This might be an unlikely choice for a book club pick but hear me out. You could do worse than to educate yourself about how a system that is designed to improve access to education seems to be doing the opposite.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1501199447", "cover": "1501199447", "goodreads": 54304313, "itunes": 9781501199448, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/31EBWdo7k+S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781501199448", "isbn10": "1501199447", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 270, "book": "The Debt Trap", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Debt Trap' author on the generational setbacks from student loans", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/21/1030023061/the-debt-trap-author-on-the-generational-setbacks-from-student-loans" } ] }, "271": { "id": 271, "title": "The Ex Talk: A Novel", "author": "Rachel Lynn Solomon", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "There are a boatload of romance readers at NPR, so my Slack messages were ablaze once we were able to get our hands on The Ex Talk, a rom-com about a pair of public radio producers who are forced to team up to co-host an advice show. I can confirm that Rachel Lynn Solomon takes some liberties with life as a public radio producer, but I’m a sucker for a fake dating (fake exes?) story. Plus, it’s about time public radio producers get to see themselves on the page.
", "tags": [ "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "0593200128", "cover": "0593200128", "goodreads": 53415121, "itunes": 9780593200124, "bookshop": 9780593200124, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41mD2nltFbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593200124", "isbn10": "0593200128", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "NPR", "text": "It's the public radio romance! Questions for Rachel Solomon, author of 'The Ex Talk'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/962897222/its-the-public-radio-romance-questions-for-rachel-solomon-author-of-the-ex-talk" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "WABE", "text": "Rachel Lynn Solomon’s ‘The Ex Talk’ tells the hilarious story of a faux public radio romance", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/rachel-lynn-solomons-the-ex-talk-tells-the-hilarious-story-of-a-faux-public-radio-romance/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "KPR", "text": "Conversations: Rachel Lynn Solomon, 'The Ex Talk: Love is On the Air'", "url": "https://kansaspublicradio.org/blog/dan-skinner/conversations-rachel-lynn-solomon-ex-talk-love-air" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "WAMC", "text": " 'The Ex Talk' by Rachel Lynn Solomon", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-03-15/the-ex-talk-by-rachel-lynn-solomon" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Is this romance novel about a Seattle public radio station about us?", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/is-this-romance-novel-about-a-seattle-public-radio-station-about-us" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 271, "book": "The Ex Talk", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Rachel Lynn Solomon on the love of storytelling", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-03-23/marginalia-rachel-lynn-solomon-on-the-love-of-storytelling" } ] }, "272": { "id": 272, "title": "The Family Roe: An American Story", "author": "Joshua Prager", "reviewers": [ "Michel Martin" ], "text": "Roe v. Wade is one of the most talked about Supreme Court cases. But what about the woman behind Roe? It might surprise you to know she never actually had the abortion she sought; she gave birth to a daughter who reveals her identity here for the first time. This remarkable work of reporting explains why the daughter sought to keep her identity private. But it also explains the difficult roads all the women in this family – most especially the woman who became known as Jane Roe, Norma McCorvey – had to travel as well as the personalities and politics that have continued to make the abortion issue so toxic in American life. The scope is sweeping, the writing is beautiful. It’s an epic story worthy of the impact this one case has had on the American psyche.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "family matters", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0393247716", "cover": "0393247716", "goodreads": 57356641, "itunes": 9780393247718, "bookshop": 9780393247718, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41HWXYgREpS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393247718", "isbn10": "0393247716", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 272, "book": "The Family Roe", "source": "NPR", "text": "Author tells the story of the family at the center of landmark case 'Roe V. Wade'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1038606413/-the-family-roe-author-tells-the-story-of-the-baby-at-the-center-of-a-landmark-c" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 272, "book": "The Family Roe", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Roundtable: 'The Family Roe: An American Story' by Joshua Prager", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/podcast/the-roundtable/2021-09-20/the-family-roe-an-american-story-by-joshua-prager" } ] }, "273": { "id": 273, "title": "The Final Revival of Opal and Nev", "author": "Dawnie Walton", "reviewers": [ "Ann Powers" ], "text": "Most novels about popular music are bad. But author Dawnie Walton beats the curse with her story of a Black woman from Detroit, Opal Jewel, and a white Englishman, Nev Charles, who pair up and become an early-1970s sensation. Walton, a longtime arts journalist, goes granular and gets all the details right, whether it’s the particular accents of the British Invasion, the sleaze of the music business or the fabulosity of the industry’s designers who turned ordinary strivers into birds of paradise. The book is a tour de force structurally and, on the level of language, a total gas. Best is the character of Opal, an amalgam of real-life rock heroines like Nona Hendryx and Merry Clayton, whom Walton renders as utterly unique. This is the rock novel that owns the subgenre now.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "for music lovers", "identity & culture", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "198214016X", "cover": "198214016X", "goodreads": 54304125, "itunes": 9781982140168, "bookshop": 9781982140168, "image": "https://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781982140168/the-final-revival-of-opal-nev-9781982140168_hr.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982140168", "isbn10": "198214016X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 273, "book": "The Final Revival of Opal and Nev", "source": "NPR ", "text": "The Final Revival Of Opal & Nev' is a faux music history that rocks", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986712823/the-final-revival-of-opal-nev-is-a-faux-music-history-that-rocks" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 273, "book": "The Final Revival of Opal and Nev", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Dawnie Walton's 'Opal And Nev' are so compelling you might forget they're not real", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/27/981875210/dawnie-waltons-opal-and-nev-are-so-compelling-you-might-forget-theyre-not-real" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 273, "book": "The Final Revival of Opal and Nev", "source": "NPR ", "text": "NPR Book of the Day: 'The Final Revival of Opal and Nev'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/01/1051154799/tiphanie-yanique-and-dawnie-walton-on-music-monsters-and-family-baggage" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 273, "book": "The Final Revival of Opal and Nev", "source": "WDET", "text": "Dawnie Walton's debut novel 'The Final Revival of Opal & Nev' strikes sociopolitical and racial chords", "url": "https://wdet.org/posts/2021/08/19/91344-dawnie-waltons-debut-novel-the-final-revival-of-opal-nev-strikes-sociopolitical-and-racial-chords/" } ] }, "274": { "id": 274, "title": "The Five Wounds: A Novel", "author": "Kristin Valdez Quade", "reviewers": [ "Nina Kravinsky" ], "text": "I read this book months ago, and I still think about the opening – in which unemployed and floundering Amadeo ponders his role as Jesus in his town’s Good Friday procession. He takes the job, arguably, too seriously. The end result involves a nail gun and trip to the emergency room. From there, we spend a year with Amadeo and his family as they try to hold it together in fictional Las Penas, N.M.; through a teen pregnancy, cancer and the launch of a doomed windshield repair business. Kirstin Valdez Quade’s debut novel is often funny, but it doesn’t hesitate to dive into the darkest corners of family life either. Quade weaves the stories of several family members, plus friends and lovers, together easily. You end up feeling like you’ve known them all, and their often messy and beautiful dynamics, forever.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0393242838", "cover": "0393242838", "goodreads": 55759252, "itunes": 9780393242836, "bookshop": 9780393242836, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71d6sh9t5YL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780393242836", "isbn10": "0393242838", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 274, "book": "The Five Wounds", "source": "NPR", "text": "Kirstin Valdez Quade's debut novel 'The Five Wounds' is a highly anticipated release", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/10/986042481/kirstin-valdez-quades-debut-novel-the-five-wounds-is-a-highly-anticipated-rel" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 274, "book": "The Five Wounds", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Kirstin Valdez Quade on 'The Five Wounds'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-04-06/marginalia-kirstin-valdez-quade-on-the-five-wounds" } ] }, "275": { "id": 275, "title": "The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War", "author": "Louis Menand", "reviewers": [ "Neal Carruth" ], "text": "This brick of a book is a dazzling, often dizzying, cultural history of the decades following World War II. It was a period when, in Louis Menand’s words, “Ideas mattered. Painting mattered. Movies mattered. Poetry mattered.” I learned a lot about towering intellectual and artistic figures such as George Kennan, James Baldwin and Pauline Kael. Much to his credit, Menand does not indulge in hero worship. His sketches can be frank and unflattering. And he does not skimp on the struggles of women, as well as writers and thinkers of color, to get their due in the intellectual hothouse of Cold War America.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for art lovers", "for music lovers", "for history lovers", "rather long", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0374158452", "cover": "0374158452", "goodreads": 53317422, "itunes": 9780374158453, "bookshop": 9780374158453, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Free-World-by-Louis-Menand.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374158453", "isbn10": "0374158452", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 275, "book": "The Free World", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Louis Menand on 'The Free World'", "url": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/segments/louis-menand-free-world" } ] }, "276": { "id": 276, "title": "The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain", "author": "Eugene Yelchin", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "Poor Yevgeny. Growing up in Cold War Russia, his parents have made it infinitely clear that his ticket out is to have an artistic gift. Unfortunately, discovering what you’re good at is a tricky proposition. Could his pencil drawings under the family dinner table be more than just an odd habit? And who knew you could pull a deft memoir this funny out of Communism? Bet you’ll never guess where Mikhail Baryshnikov’s blue jeans end up. (For ages 10 and up)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "funny stuff", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "for art lovers", "for history lovers" ], "isbn": "153621552X", "cover": "153621552X", "goodreads": 56733508, "itunes": 9781536215526, "bookshop": 9781536215526, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/510cyultisS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781536215526", "isbn10": "153621552X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 276, "book": "The Genius Under the Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain", "source": "WPR", "text": "Books for kids from the Cooperative Children's Book Center: 'The Genuis Under The Table: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain'", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/books-kids-cooperative-childrens-book-center" } ] }, "277": { "id": 277, "title": "The Gilded Ones", "author": "Namina Forna", "reviewers": [ "Nikki Birch" ], "text": "The old adage warns against judging a book by its cover but the vibrant colors of The Gilded Ones are what first attracted me to Namina Forma’s exhilarating debut novel. This gripping fantasy adventure stars Deka, a young woman whose golden blood causes her to be cast out of her community – but not before she suffers unspeakable atrocities. When Deka accepts an opportunity to start fresh in service of the emperor’s elite army of warriors, she leaves her home behind, embarking on a campaign that puts her special abilities to the test and sow the seeds of revolution. Every bit as intriguing as its cover, The Gilded Ones is packed with action, shocking revelations and a bold heroine whose courage and tenacity are sure to keep readers turning the pages until its thrilling conclusion.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "young adult", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1984848690", "cover": "1984848690", "goodreads": 40024121, "itunes": 9781984848697, "bookshop": 9781984848697, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Q70k-MRoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984848697", "isbn10": "1984848690", "links": [] }, "278": { "id": 278, "title": "The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems", "author": "Arthur Sze", "reviewers": [ "Craig Morgan Teicher" ], "text": "This 500-page, career-spanning retrospective allows readers to take in the full breadth of what Sze has achieved over 10 collections. Early poems find spiritual resonance in imagery drawn from the natural world; the middle books feature various kinds of loose sequences that meditate on various subjects. My favorite poems come toward the end: columns of single lines, each ending with an em-dash, like a bank of windows that open onto the sky, inviting questions: “in a past life, I played the clarinet in a marching band – / now the vault has cracked – / have we not meandered, bewildered, in a cloud forest? – “. This book is an overwhelming feast, a treasure.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "identity & culture", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1556596219", "cover": "1556596219", "goodreads": 55843999, "itunes": 9781556596216, "bookshop": 9781556596216, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51BZSdC90ZL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781556596216", "isbn10": "1556596219", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 278, "book": "The Glass Constellation", "source": "NPR", "text": "Glimmers Of Hope: A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 1", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955092851/glimmers-of-hope-a-2021-poetry-preview-part-1" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 278, "book": "The Glass Constellation", "source": "KUOW", "text": "A visionary constellation of poetry, five decades in the making", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/a-visionary-constellation-of-poetry-five-decades-in-the-making" } ] }, "279": { "id": 279, "title": "The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing", "author": "Sonia Faleiro", "reviewers": [ "Jenny Bhatt" ], "text": "In mid-2014, the news in India was dominated by two stories: Narendra Modi’s landmark election as the country’s prime minister and the horrific deaths of two teenage girls in Badaun, Uttar Pradesh. The image of the girls’ bodies hanging from a tree in a village grove went viral. A year later, Sonia Faleiro began her multiyear journey of reporting their deaths by investigating their lives. This groundbreaking book goes beyond the national conversations about sex and violence, the sociopolitical machinations and the media-generated controversies around the killings to weave an intricate, page-turning whodunit. Faleiro doesn’t simply lay out the various problems that beset the case. She shows us, in precise detail, its human, historical, political and economic costs.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "080215820X", "cover": "080215820X", "goodreads": 55574506, "itunes": 9780802158208, "bookshop": 9780802158208, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51QuGR7iuIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780802158208", "isbn10": "080215820X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 279, "book": "The Good Girls", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Good Girls' aims to uncover the story behind the deaths between two Indian girls", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/06/964380905/the-good-girls-aims-to-uncover-the-story-behind-the-deaths-of-two-indian-girls" } ] }, "280": { "id": 280, "title": "The Grizzly in the Driveway: The Return of Bears to a Crowded American West", "author": "Robert Chaney", "reviewers": [ "Eric Whitney" ], "text": "More than just a book about increasing conflicts as the number of these enormous and still widely misunderstood animals has quadrupled in and around Yellowstone and Glacier national parks since the 1970s. Meticulous new research methods reveal fascinating insights into bear behavior. Author Robert Cheney has spent decades observing human-grizzly encounters and challenges traditional thinking about conservation and preserving the wild. A good journalist, he doesn’t neglect Indigenous perspectives.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "science!", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0295747935", "cover": "0295747935", "goodreads": 53154244, "itunes": "", "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/713QoYq0UfL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780295747934", "isbn10": "0295747935", "links": [] }, "281": { "id": 281, "title": "The Guncle: A Novel", "author": "Steven Rowley", "reviewers": [ "Jason DeRose" ], "text": "Don that caftan, shake that cocktail and settle in for the story of a single, not-quite-middle-aged guncle (gay uncle) learning to care for two small children. Patrick acquires his niece and nephew through a series of family tragedies. He’s a successful sitcom actor hiding out from his celebrity and from himself, it turns out, in Palm Springs. While mostly a comic novel, The Guncle also portrays slights against queer people and the toll those take on a person’s life. Patrick learns to nurture the children and himself.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "family matters", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0525542280", "cover": "0525542280", "goodreads": 54508798, "itunes": 9780525542285, "bookshop": 9780525542285, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41qf-JBDQeL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525542285", "isbn10": "0525542280", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 281, "book": "The Guncle", "source": "KALW", "text": "Steven Rowley's 'The Guncle' heals grief with humor", "url": "https://www.kalw.org/show/out-in-the-bay/2021-05-18/steven-rowleys-the-guncle-heals-grief-with-humor" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 281, "book": "The Guncle", "source": "KAXE", "text": "Love, humor and coping with grief in Steven Rowley's 'The Guncle'", "url": "https://www.kaxe.org/tags/the-guncle" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 281, "book": "The Guncle", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Book Review: 'The Guncle' offers a sassy, warm, big-hearted splash into Summer reading", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/book-review/2021-05-24/book-review-the-guncle-offers-a-sassy-warm-big-hearted-splash-into-summer-reading" } ] }, "282": { "id": 282, "title": "The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story", "author": "Kate Summerscale", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "In 1938, Alma Fielding, a 34-year-old housewife in London, told the press that a poltergeist invaded her home. Nandor Fodor, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant working for the International Institute for Psychical Research, spent the next several months investigating the strange activity in Fielding’s home. These two intriguing figures are at the center of Kate Summerscale’s excellent narrative, a ghost story that is also about women and power, the anxiety of the unknown and the ways people (consciously or unconsciously) behave in order to escape certain aspects of their lives.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "book club ideas", "tales from around the world", "seriously great writing", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "052555792X", "cover": "052555792X", "goodreads": 53465936, "itunes": 9780525557920, "bookshop": 9780525557920, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51OGrBcUEjL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525557920", "isbn10": "052555792X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 282, "book": "The Haunting of Alma Fielding", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Haunting Of Alma Fielding' is a ghost story — and a tale of power and fear", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/28/991151623/the-haunting-of-alma-fielding-is-a-ghost-story-and-a-tale-of-power-and-fear#:~:text=More%20Podcasts%20%26%20Shows-,'The%20Haunting%20Of%20Alma%20Fielding'%20Is%20A%20Ghost%20Story%20%E2%80%94,power%2C%20anxiety%2C%20and%20choices." } ] }, "283": { "id": 283, "title": "The Heart Principle: A Novel", "author": "Helen Hoang", "reviewers": [ "Candice Lim" ], "text": "Anna Sun is a talented violinist in the Bay Area whose disappointing boyfriend springs a proposal on her: an open relationship. While processing her boyfriend’s request and battling a creative block, Anna meets Quan and wonders if he might be the real deal. I love this book because it deals with issues that feel really relevant to today, such as creative burnout, bad boyfriends and neurodivergence, which Helen Hoang explores through these deeply rich and heartfelt characters.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "let’s talk about sex", "love & romance", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0451490843", "cover": "0451490843", "goodreads": 50056075, "itunes": 9780451490841, "bookshop": 9780451490841, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51avLIcBvVL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780451490841", "isbn10": "0451490843", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 283, "book": "The Heart Principle", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Review: 'The Heart Principal'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/31/1031851325/helen-hoang-heart-principle-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 283, "book": "The Heart Principle", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Petra Mayer's August Book Picks: 'The Heart Principal'", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/08/23/books-of-the-month" } ] }, "284": { "id": 284, "title": "The Isolation Artist: Scandal, Deception, and\nthe Last Days of Robert Indiana", "author": "Bob Keyes", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Even if you don’t know the name Robert Indiana, you’ve almost certainly seen the secretive millionaire’s work. The late artist’s Love sculpture is one of the most recognizable images in American pop culture. In this fascinating new book, journalist Bob Keyes chronicles the reclusive Indiana’s last days and the fallout from his death in 2018 – accusations of coercion and elder abuse by some of Indiana’s acquaintances popped up in the months following his passing. Keyes’ book reads almost like a mystery novel; it’s a gripping look at a unique and profoundly sad man. Even if you’re not an art aficionado, you’ll find it hard to put down.
", "tags": [ "for art lovers", "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1567926894", "cover": "1567926894", "goodreads": 58342122, "itunes": 9781567926897, "bookshop": 9781567926897, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51YeiP5jihS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781567926897", "isbn10": "1567926894", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 284, "book": "The Isolation Artist", "source": "MPR", "text": "Journalist Bob Keyes discusses his new book about the reclusive and difficult last days of artist Robert Indiana", "url": "https://www.mainepublic.org/show/maine-calling/2021-09-26/robert-indiana-journalist-bob-keyes-discusses-his-new-book-about-the-reclusive-and-difficult-last-days-of-artist-robert-indiana" } ] }, "285": { "id": 285, "title": "The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease", "author": "Daisy Hernández", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "Daisy Hernández grew up hearing that her Colombian aunt contracted the kissing bug disease, formally known as Chagas, after eating an apple. The parasitic illness wrecked her digestive system, and she died at 59, one of the 10,000 people Chagas kills each year. If you live in the U.S., you might not have ever heard of kissing bugs or Chagas, which is endemic in Latin America. The Kissing Bug, which weaves together family memoir and investigative journalism, seeks to remedy that, raising damning questions about which infectious diseases get attention and whom we believe to be deserving of care.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "identity & culture", "science!", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1951142527", "cover": "1951142527", "goodreads": 55698111, "itunes": 9781951142520, "bookshop": 9781951142520, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41rnYEAFs4L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781951142520", "isbn10": "1951142527", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 285, "book": "The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Kissing Bug' challenges which diseases matter — and why", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002371596/the-kissing-bug-challenges-which-diseases-matter-and-why" } ] }, "286": { "id": 286, "title": "The Legend of Auntie Po", "author": "Shing Yin Khor", "reviewers": [ "Mallory Yu" ], "text": "Set in a Sierra Nevada logging camp three years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law, The Legend of Auntie Po focuses on 13-year-old Mei. As a Chinese kid, Mei is exposed to the racial tumult created by the law, and she copes by telling stories about the legendary Auntie Po and her giant blue water buffalo, Pei Pei. Written and illustrated by Shing Yin Khor, Auntie Po is a really sweet book that centers nonwhite Americans within American history. The art is lovely and accessible for young readers, and there’s plenty to enjoy for older comics enthusiasts too. (For ages 10 and up)
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "the states we’re in", "kids’ books", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "comics & graphic novels" ], "isbn": "0525554890", "cover": "0525554890", "goodreads": 40612185, "itunes": 9780525554899, "bookshop": 9780525554899, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/The-Legend-of-Auntie-Po-by-Shing-Yin-Khor-scaled.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525554899", "isbn10": "0525554890", "links": [] }, "287": { "id": 287, "title": "The Liar's Dictionary: A Novel", "author": "Eley Williams", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "This clever first novel is a beguiling dual love story about how language and people intersect and connect – the joy of lex. A century apart, two lexicographers beaver away in London on the same unfinished Encyclopedic Dictionary. Peter Winceworth, stuck working on the S’s in 1899, rues the English language’s lamentable gaps, and has a habit of fabricating words that might fill them, such as “procrastinattering” about the weather. A hundred years later, an intern named Mallory is hired to update definitions and weed out any bogus entries, aka Mountweazels. The intertwining plotlines build to an explosive climax that raises questions about the instability of language, how words gain currency, and whether fake words are any less real than actual words.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "love & romance", "seriously great writing", "funny stuff", "tales from around the world", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0385546777", "cover": "0385546777", "goodreads": 53284801, "itunes": 9780385546775, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41vz-aSOxUL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780385546775", "isbn10": "0385546777", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 287, "book": "The Liar's Dictionary", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Liar's Dictionary' is a delight from A to Z", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/06/953627624/the-liars-dictionary-is-a-delight-from-a-to-z" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 287, "book": "The Liar's Dictionary", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Liar's Dictionary' is a clever delight for language lovers", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/11/955480798/the-liars-dictionary-is-a-clever-delight-for-language-lovers" } ] }, "288": { "id": 288, "title": "The Life of the Mind: A Novel", "author": "Christine Smallwood", "reviewers": [ "Maureen Corrigan" ], "text": "Christine Smallwood’s debut novel breathes fresh life into the venerable genre of academic farce. Her heroine, Dorothy, is a graduate student and adjunct professor of literature whose dissertation, appropriately enough, is on female confinement in Gothic literature. An academic conference in Las Vegas is the comic highlight here, but along with lots of erudite humor about the likes of Frank O’Hara and Samuel Beckett, this novel movingly dramatizes the erosion of dreams and the slow leak of youthful buoyancy.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "book club ideas", "funny stuff", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0593229894", "cover": "0593229894", "goodreads": 57424944, "itunes": 9780593229897, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ni5tCihnL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593229897", "isbn10": "0593229894", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 288, "book": "The Life of the Mind", "source": "NPR", "text": "Farcical 'Life Of The Mind' skewers academic life and adjunct 'Hell'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/979973694/farcical-life-of-the-mind-skewers-academic-life-and-adjunct-hell" } ] }, "289": { "id": 289, "title": "The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler's Ghettos", "author": "Judy Batalion", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "This book reads like adventure fiction but with a wealth of detail that makes you realize it’s a true story. Young Jewish women living in the Polish ghettos during the 1940s took enormous risks to resist the Nazis: They smuggled weapons, medicine and, sometimes, people. They took full advantage of the fact that as women, it was easier to pass as Catholic Poles. Though many were caught and killed, a few managed to make it out and live as Israeli citizens. Reading about their courage is astonishing and humbling.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0062874217", "cover": "0062874217", "goodreads": 52090762, "itunes": 9780062874214, "bookshop": 9780062874214, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51PCctW4uoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062874214", "isbn10": "0062874217", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 289, "book": "The Light of Days", "source": "WBUR", "text": "The Light Of Days' tells the stories of young Jewish women resistance fighters in WWII Poland", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/04/05/light-of-days-judy-batalion" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 289, "book": "The Light of Days", "source": "KALW", "text": "Binah: Judy Batalion’s The Light of Days", "url": "https://www.kalw.org/show/binah/2021-06-10/binah-judy-batalions-the-light-of-days" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 289, "book": "The Light of Days", "source": "WGVU", "text": "The WGVU Morning Show: 'The Light of Days'", "url": "https://www.wgvunews.org/the-wgvu-morning-show/2021-04-13/the-light-of-days" } ] }, "290": { "id": 290, "title": "The Lincoln Highway: A Novel", "author": "Amor Towles", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Amor Towles’ latest is a compulsively readable joyride. Set in 1954, with the country on the brink of major change, this Great American Road Novel follows four boys, three fresh from a juvenile reformatory, as they set out in an old Studebaker in pursuit of a better future. Their route from Nebraska to New York is filled with unexpected twists, turns, detours and close encounters. This is a quest novel, and its large cast – not all of whom are heroic – settle scores as they seek to find their way home.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "rather long", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "historical fiction" ], "isbn": "0735222355", "cover": "0735222355", "goodreads": 57109107, "itunes": 9780735222359, "bookshop": 9780735222359, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51wH91YObNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780735222359", "isbn10": "0735222355", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 290, "book": "The Lincoln Highway", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Lincoln Highway' is set in the 1950's landscape of highways and railways", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/09/1044682360/lincoln-highway-is-set-in-the-1950-s-landscape-of-highways-and-railways" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 290, "book": "The Lincoln Highway", "source": "NPR", "text": "With four kids in an old Studebaker, Amor Towles takes readers on a real joyride", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043187103/amor-towles-the-lincoln-highway-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 290, "book": "The Lincoln Highway", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Amor Towles on his new novel, 'The Lincoln Highway'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/2021-10-07/amor-towles-on-his-new-novel-the-lincoln-highway" } ] }, "291": { "id": 291, "title": "The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess", "author": "Tom Gauld", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "When a childless king and queen seek kids of their own, they end up with a wooden robot and a girl made from a log. And when tragedy places the siblings in danger, this unlikely duo will plunge into a multitude of adventures to help each other. First-time picture book creator Tom Gauld has a keen ear for fairy-tale conventions with much of the story’s charm coming down to his keen ear for tone. And with blurbs from Neil Gaiman, Oliver Jeffers, Jillian Tamaki, Jon Klassen and Carson Ellis, clearly this book is doing something right. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff" ], "isbn": "0823446980", "cover": "0823446980", "goodreads": 55400711, "itunes": 9780823446988, "bookshop": 9780823446988, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61dm97Y-SbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780823446988", "isbn10": "0823446980", "links": [] }, "292": { "id": 292, "title": "The Loneliest Americans", "author": "Jay Caspian Kang", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Limbong" ], "text": "Jay Caspian Kang is a combative writer. When he’s not roasting upwardly mobile liberals for their lack of class solidarity or dunking on dorks who are far too invested in an Asian person being in a superhero movie (which, combined, make a pretty significant portion of the people who will probably read this book), he mostly picks at himself. The book is partly a look at what “Asian America” is today by way of the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965. But it’s also a look at who Kang is (and who his half-white daughter will be) and having to be OK with that answer.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "0525576223", "cover": "0525576223", "goodreads": 58145392, "itunes": 9780525576228, "bookshop": 9780525576228, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51c7ERQZRsS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525576228", "isbn10": "0525576223", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 292, "book": "The Loneliest Americans", "source": "KQED", "text": "In 'The Loneliest Americans,' Jay Caspian Kang explores the meaning of 'Asian American'", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101886056/in-the-loneliest-americans-jay-caspian-kang-explores-the-meaning-of-asian-american" } ] }, "293": { "id": 293, "title": "The Lost Village: A Novel", "author": "Camilla Sten, translated by Alexandra Fleming", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Make room in your favorite Nordic-noir fan’s stocking for a copy of this creepy story set in the abandoned Swedish mining town of Silvertjärn. Once a bustling outpost, since 1959, the place has been fallow – yet Alice Lindstedt, whose grandmother Margarethe was once the local nurse, can’t get Silvertjärn out of her head. She brings a film crew there to make a documentary, and everything goes wrong. What makes this thriller fresh is that it focuses on nondetective female characters who solve a decades-old mystery by thinking about how those involved once actually lived.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture", "family matters", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250249252", "cover": "1250249252", "goodreads": 53137992, "itunes": 9781250249258, "bookshop": 9781250249258, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/415j1LZPJDL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250249258", "isbn10": "1250249252", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 293, "book": "THE LOST VILLAGE", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: The Lost Village by Camilla Sten", "url": "https://www.wyso.org/show/book-nook/2021-06-18/book-nook-the-lost-village-by-camilla-sten" } ] }, "294": { "id": 294, "title": "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel", "author": "Honorée Fannone Jeffers", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "I will admit up front that Honorée Fannone Jeffers’ debut novel is intimidating. For one thing, it’s almost 800 pages long. For another, it is stupendously good. Rooted in the South, this is a very American tale: Jeffers’ heroine, Ailey Pearl Garfield, is a blend of her family’s ethnicities (African, Native, white) and circumstances (enslaved, free, indentured). Readers follow Ailey’s life as she comes of age, becomes a historian and begins to research her family’s accomplishments and traumas over generations. Jeffers’ renditions of Black family traditions and the burden of respectability politics are spot-on, and made me wish the book was even longer.
", "tags": [ "rather long", "staff picks", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture", "family matters", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "006294293X", "cover": "006294293X", "goodreads": 52716716, "itunes": 9780062942937, "bookshop": 9780062942937, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Love-Songs-of-WEB-Du-Bois-by-Honoree-Fanonne-Jeffers.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062942937", "isbn10": "006294293X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 294, "book": "The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois", "source": "NPR", "text": "In a poet's fiction debut, one woman's story guides a journey through Black history", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/28/1031714841/love-songs-of-web-dubois-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 294, "book": "The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Love Songs Of W.E.B. Du Bois,' is poet Jeffers first novel", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/24/1030561832/the-love-songs-of-w-e-b-du-bois-is-poet-jeffers-first-novel" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 294, "book": "The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois", "source": "WABE", "text": "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/episode/the-love-songs-of-w-e-b-du-bois/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 294, "book": "The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois", "source": "KWGS", "text": " 'The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Novel'", "url": "https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/studiotulsa/2021-08-20/the-love-songs-of-w-e-b-du-bois-a-novel" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 294, "book": "The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Honoree Fanonne Jeffers: 'The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois' (Part 1)", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/honoree-fanonne-jeffers-love-songs-of-web-dubois-part-1" } ] }, "295": { "id": 295, "title": "The Magician: A Novel", "author": "Colm Tóibín", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Colm TóibÍn’s magnificent biographical novel about Thomas Mann encompasses the full sweep of the German Nobel Prize-winner’s life, including his carefully repressed homosexuality, the genesis of major works like the story “Death in Venice” and The Magic Mountain, and the devastating rise of Nazism, which sent him, his wealthy, secular Jewish wife, and their large, often ungovernable brood of artistic offspring into exile in Switzerland and the U.S. With its intertwined portraits of a deep, complicated writer and a world that changed beyond recognition in his lifetime, The Magician should appeal to history buffs as well as literary mavens.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "eye-opening reads", "family matters", "historical fiction", "rather long", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1476785082", "cover": "1476785082", "goodreads": 58839754, "itunes": 9781476785080, "bookshop": 9781476785080, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/410SjCbebnS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781476785080", "isbn10": "1476785082", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 295, "book": "The Magician", "source": "WOSU", "text": "All Sides Weekend: Books- 'The Magician'", "url": "https://news.wosu.org/show/all-sides-with-ann-fisher/2021-08-20/all-sides-weekend-books" } ] }, "296": { "id": 296, "title": "The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women's Self Portraits", "author": "Jennifer Higgie", "reviewers": [ "Elena Burnett" ], "text": "Whether you’ve missed losing yourself in art museums or simply feel lost whenever you step into one, Jennifer Higgie’s The Mirror and the Palette will bring a fresh perspective on the power of art. The personality and preoccupations expressed by a painting in a single frame are made even more potent with these self-portraits, ultimate acts of defiance in a world that often demands what a woman should (or, more frequently, shouldn’t) be. Higgie’s meticulous research into those obstacles and the artists who faced them captures how miraculous it is that some of these paintings even came to exist but, far more than that, the inexorability of these women’s resilience in taking back control of how the world saw them.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "for art lovers", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1643138030", "cover": "1643138030", "goodreads": 57573746, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781643138039, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ApSDNKy5L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781643138039", "isbn10": "1643138030", "links": [] }, "297": { "id": 297, "title": "The Morning Star: A Novel", "author": "Karl Ove Knausgaard", "reviewers": [ "Casey Morell" ], "text": "It’s often said if five people see the same thing happen, they’ll tell you about it in five different ways. Karl Ove Knausgaard’s new novel The Morning Star takes this truism to an extreme: When a supernatural, massive star appears in the sky over Southern Norway one day, it causes all kinds of weirdness, which each of the novel’s many narrators recount differently. They relate the event to the drama and difficulties they’re facing in their lives, whether that’s staring down a loveless marriage or grappling with the existential drama of finding one’s place in the world. (You know, the easy stuff.) Equal parts realistic, fantastical and surreal, The Morning Star will leave you with more questions than answers – and perhaps a greater sense of observation toward what’s in the sky above.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "rather long", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0399563423", "cover": "0399563423", "goodreads": 57799745, "itunes": 9780399563423, "bookshop": 9780399563423, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/414bJ-zlAYS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780399563423", "isbn10": "0399563423", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 297, "book": "The Morning Star", "source": "NPR", "text": "Karl Ove Knausgaard on exploring a 'World Out Of Joint' in his new book 'The Morning Star'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041266545/karl-ove-knausgaard-on-exploring-a-world-out-of-joint-in-his-new-book" } ] }, "298": { "id": 298, "title": "The Most Fun Thing: Dispatches from a Skateboard Life", "author": "Kyle Beachy", "reviewers": [ "Milton Guevara" ], "text": "The year 2021 is the year of skateboarding. The “rebel” pursuit was transformed into an Olympic sport. Thrasher magazine, the skateboarding’s bible, turned 40. And many have picked up skateboards for the first time. So The Most Fun Thing couldn’t have come at a better time. Kyle Beachy is a longtime skater and writing professor. His memoir, compiled from essays that span a decade, ponder the meaning of skateboarding. “What percentage of skateboarding, I wonder, is talking about skateboarding?” he writes. “Half, probably. There is such rich joy to be found in these debates without stakes.” Even as they “go nowhere, slowly.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry", "for sports lovers", "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "staff picks", "it’s all geek to me" ], "isbn": "1538754118", "cover": "1538754118", "goodreads": 56222218, "itunes": 9781538754115, "bookshop": 9781538754115, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51JFAF84UIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538754115", "isbn10": "1538754118", "links": [] }, "299": { "id": 299, "title": "The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood", "author": "Krys Malcom Belc", "reviewers": [ "Frankie de la Cretaz" ], "text": "Krys Malcom Belc’s debut memoir-in-essays is the book I wish I’d had when I was navigating pregnancy in my nonbinary body. Through the use of source documents and personal narrative, Belc questions what it means to be someone who is not a woman, yet who gives birth in a society where pregnancy and birthing are so aggressively gendered as “feminine” activities. A prescient book for the time we’re in, Belc’s experience deserves to be heard.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1640094385", "cover": "1640094385", "goodreads": 58350861, "itunes": 9781640094383, "bookshop": 9781640094383, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81kiBvDPc+L.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781640094383", "isbn10": "1640094385", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 299, "book": "The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/15/1006183612/the-natural-mother-of-the-child-non-binary-parenthood" } ] }, "300": { "id": 300, "title": "The One Thing You'd Save", "author": "Linda Sue Park, illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "Kids love their things, but which of their things is the most important? The 2002 Newbery-winner Linda Sue Park gets to the heart of the matter in The One Thing You’d Save. When a teacher gives her class an assignment asking what each student would save from a fire (if all people and pets were already safe), the answers are not what you might expect. Is a laptop really more important than an insulin kit? What about a piano or a sweater hand-knitted by Grandma? Written in the Korean sijo verse style and cozily illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng, this heartwarming story is thought-provoking and illuminating. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1328515133", "cover": "1328515133", "goodreads": 53968573, "itunes": 9781328515131, "bookshop": 9781328515131, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51EFiHSTmjL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781328515131", "isbn10": "1328515133", "links": [] }, "301": { "id": 301, "title": "The Other Black Girl: A Novel", "author": "Zakiya Dalila Harris", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "Effective satire is steeped in truth, and after three years as one of the few Black women in the trenches of mainstream publishing, Zakiya Dalila Harris had a wealth of material to borrow from for her provocative and sharp debut novel. The action centers on a Black editorial assistant whose dream job turns into her worst nightmare when a second Black girl enters the mix, and instead of sisterly camaraderie, she gets competition and gaslighting. The tension and danger escalate from there. With its arresting mix of sly social commentary, subtle horror and suspense, I found The Other Black Girl thoroughly and viscerally entertaining.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "identity & culture", "the dark side", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982160136", "cover": "1982160136", "goodreads": 59348308, "itunes": 9781982160135, "bookshop": 9781982160135, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51SdurB71kS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982160135", "isbn10": "1982160136", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "The Other Black Girl' in this new thriller may not be your friend", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/29/1001313891/the-other-black-girl-in-this-new-thriller-may-not-be-your-friend" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "It's Been a Minute with Sam Sanders: Zakiya Dalila Harris and 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/24/999933219/zakiya-dalila-harris-and-the-other-black-girl" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "NPR", "text": "An office rivalry turns strange — and maybe dangerous — in 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/04/1002959204/an-office-rivalry-turns-strange-and-maybe-dangerous-in-the-other-black-girl" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "WPR", "text": "Get Out' meets 'The Devil Wears Prada' in 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/get-out-meets-devil-wears-prada-other-black-girl" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "WNYC", "text": "Get Lit Preview: 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.wnyc.org/story/get-lit-other-black-girl/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "WGBH", "text": "Book Club: Zakiya Dalila Harris’ 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.wgbh.org/news/arts/2021/07/09/book-club-zakiya-dalila-harris-the-other-black-girl" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 301, "book": "The Other Black Girl", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Zakiya Dalila Harris on 'The Other Black Girl'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-06-01/marginalia-zakiya-dalila-harris-on-the-other-black-girl" } ] }, "302": { "id": 302, "title": "The Personal Librarian: A Novel", "author": "Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray", "reviewers": [ "Karen Grigsby Bates" ], "text": "This novel tells a fictionalized tale about a very real woman: Belle da Costa Greene, one of the “it” girls of the turn of the 20th century. As the personal librarian to J.P. Morgan, one of the richest and most powerful men in America at the time, Belle crisscrossed Europe acquiring rare art and manuscripts for Morgan’s personal library. She also led a glittering social life in the upper echelons of Gilded Age New York. But the whole time, Belle was keeping a huge secret: She was “colored,” in the parlance of that time, and passing for white. Authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray imagine how Belle navigated a world she wasn’t born into, why she chose to pass, and what the cost of keeping that lifelong secret might have been.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "for art lovers", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593101537", "cover": "0593101537", "goodreads": 55333938, "itunes": 9780593101537, "bookshop": 9780593101537, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51OavFWpUNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593101537", "isbn10": "0593101537", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 302, "book": "The Personal Librarian", "source": "NPR", "text": "J.P. Morgan's personal librarian was a Black woman. This is her story.", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/04/1012600661/j-p-morgans-personal-librarian-was-a-black-woman-this-is-her-story" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 302, "book": "The Personal Librarian", "source": "NPR", "text": "The story of J.P. Morgan's 'Personal Librarian' — and why she chose to pass as White", "url": "https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2021/08/31/1031802246/the-story-of-j-p-morgans-personal-librarian-and-why-she-chose-to-pass-as-white" } ] }, "303": { "id": 303, "title": "The Postscript Murders", "author": "Elly Griffiths", "reviewers": [ "Tayla Burney" ], "text": "The second in a series, this charming novel is a must-read for dedicated mystery fans. An ode to the genre, it’s a heartwarming story of intergenerational friendship that just so happens to be fueled by murder.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0358418615", "cover": "0358418615", "goodreads": 53968497, "itunes": 9780358418610, "bookshop": 9780358418610, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41x7+ZE9RGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358418610", "isbn10": "0358418615", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 303, "book": "The Postscript Murders", "source": "NPR", "text": "Books hold the key to 'The Postscript Murders'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/03/10/975699769/books-hold-the-key-to-the-postscript-murders" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 303, "book": "The Postscript Murders", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Elly Griffiths on the art of the murder", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-03-02/marginalia-elly-griffiths-on-the-art-of-the-murder" } ] }, "304": { "id": 304, "title": "The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make", "author": "Rob Lieber", "reviewers": [ "Elissa Nadworny" ], "text": "For many families, paying for college is one of the biggest financial decisions they’ll make. But the process to do it – navigating financial aid, applying for scholarships, just figuring out how much a semester will actually cost – can be extremely opaque. Journalist Ron Lieber, who writes a personal finance column for The New York Times, offers families a behind-the-scenes look at college costs and insights on how to game the system to pay less for higher ed.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "family matters", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "006286730X", "cover": "006286730X", "goodreads": 48836839, "itunes": 9780062867308, "bookshop": 9780062867308, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71-5LA2smxL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062867308", "isbn10": "006286730X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 304, "book": "The Price You Pay for College", "source": "WPR", "text": "Uncovering the real costs of college", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/uncovering-real-costs-college" } ] }, "305": { "id": 305, "title": "The Prisoner: A Memoir", "author": "Hwang Sok-yong, translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Anton Hur", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "In this expansive memoir, celebrated South Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong’s life unfolds as a series of harrowing quests to further the rapprochement of North and South Korea. By cinematically intertwining his personal history with South Korea’s collective history, Hwang shows how lack of closure regarding the Korean War – there has been no formal peace treaty since the war ended in 1953 – has rendered many South Korean lives rootless and unfulfilled. Offering the reader a holistic view of his literal and metaphorical imprisonment, Hwang poignantly illustrates what it means to be exiled by politics, geography, language and emotional ties.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "rather long", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1839760834", "cover": "1839760834", "goodreads": 58694641, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781839760839, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ba6GasoFS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781839760839", "isbn10": "1839760834", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 305, "book": "The Prisoner", "source": "NPR", "text": "In this memoir, prison is a place — and a state of mind", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026197786/review-hwang-yok-song-memoir-prisoner" } ] }, "306": { "id": 306, "title": "The Prophets: A Novel", "author": "Robert Jones, Jr.", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "This book broke my heart in a necessary way. It’s spectacular. A poetic queer love story and an excruciating portrait of life on a Mississippi plantation, it deserves every accolade. At the center are Samuel and Isaiah, two enslaved boys who grow up as best friends and eventually become lovers, and an older enslaved man, Amos, who takes on the role of preacher as a way of securing some semblance of safety and power. Jones excels at ensemble storytelling, treating each character with compassion while being brutally unsparing about the system they live under and the desperate compromises they have to make.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "love & romance", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059308568X", "cover": "059308568X", "goodreads": 52576333, "itunes": 9780593085684, "bookshop": 9780593085684, "image": "https://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/The-Prophets-by-Robert-Jones-Jr-678x1024.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593085684", "isbn10": "059308568X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "NPR ", "text": "Love and hope are at the heart of 'The Prophets'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/09/954501970/love-and-hope-are-at-the-heart-of-the-prophets" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "WABE", "text": " 'The Prophets'", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/episode/the-prophets/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "WABE", "text": "Robert Jones Jr.’s ‘The Prophets’pays homage to literary greats James Baldwin and Toni Morrison", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/robert-jones-jrs-the-prophets-pays-homage-to-literary-greats-james-baldwin-and-toni-morrison/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "KCRW", "text": "Bookworm: Robert Jones, Jr. 'The Prophets'", "url": "https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/robert-jones-jr-the-prophets" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "KALW", "text": " 'The Prophets' unveils Black queer ancestors", "url": "https://www.kalw.org/show/out-in-the-bay/2021-08-24/the-prophets-unveils-black-queer-ancestors" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "NPR ", "text": "5 Books to read on social justice that go beyodn the instructive: 'The Prophets'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/18/1007744912/social-justice-juneteeth-book-recommendations" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 306, "book": "The Prophets", "source": "WAMC", "text": "The Book Show #1700 - Robert Jones Jr.", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/wamc-programs/2021-02-16/the-book-show-1700-robert-jones-jr" } ] }, "307": { "id": 307, "title": "The Raconteur's Commonplace Book: A Greenglass House Story", "author": "Kate Milford, illustrated by Nicole Wong", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "Twelve guests, trapped at the Blue Vein Tavern by rising floodwaters, tell stories to pass the time. Is there more to their tales than mere fantasy and myth? With tales that cross over between storytelling and reality, what starts as a series of unrelated tales weaves together into something smart and tight. And as the stories grow closer and closer together, the people in the inn become increasingly dangerous. A puzzle book that adults may enjoy just as much as its intended child audience. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "mysteries & thrillers", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1328466906", "cover": "1328466906", "goodreads": 48947244, "itunes": 9781328466907, "bookshop": 9781328466907, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51XyE9jx1CL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781328466907", "isbn10": "1328466906", "links": [] }, "308": { "id": 308, "title": "The Red Boat Fish Sauce Cook Book: Beloved Recipes from the Family Behind the Purest Fish Sauce", "author": "Cuong Pham with Tien Nguyen and Diep Tran", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Branded cookbooks, with their loyalties to just one condiment or liquor, can be hit or miss. But the Red Boat Fish Sauce Cookbook isn’t mere product placement: It’s the story of an immigrant family that made good in the U.S. but missed its roots enough to replicate – and literally bottle – them. Colorful and quirky, the book waxes poetic on the origins and qualities of fish sauce and its traditional uses: in sticky, savory pork ribs, for example, or pho. But it also turns out to be an unexpected umami booster in some distinctly non-Vietnamese contexts, like Pan-Seared Ribeyes with Red Boat Butter or pasta marinara or roast chicken.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "0358410975", "cover": "0358410975", "goodreads": 55959454, "itunes": 9780358410973, "bookshop": 9780358410973, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91DNLUg1AuL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780358410973", "isbn10": "0358410975", "links": [] }, "310": { "id": 310, "title": "The Rock Eaters: Stories", "author": "Brenda Peynado", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "This debut short story collection is a fabulist marvel. Whether about the angels guarding suburban houses like oversized pigeons, helpless alien refugees or children of a flying people who wish, for once, to stay earthbound, these stories post deeply human questions: How do we cope with loss and uncertainty? How do love and violence coexist? What does it mean to be on the outside looking in? And what does it mean to be trapped inside a tradition, a body or a place of safety and wish to escape? Brenda Peynado’s stories are rich, textured and exciting.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0143135627", "cover": "0143135627", "goodreads": 54732983, "itunes": 9780143135623, "bookshop": 9780143135623, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Mdan6EbIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780143135623", "isbn10": "0143135627", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 310, "book": "The Rock Eaters", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Rock Eaters' explores the boundaries of emotion, possibility, and longing", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/15/996915920/the-rock-eaters-explores-the-boundaries-of-emotion-possibility-and-longing" } ] }, "311": { "id": 311, "title": "The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live", "author": "Danielle Dreilinger", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "The secret’s out! Before I read this book, home economics was just a class that I took in junior high with the aptly named Mrs. Housekeeper. But in reading this book, I discovered that in the early 20th century, the field provided jobs for women in the sciences, corporations and government. And despite a flirtation with the eugenics movement, it was an area in which Black women could, and did, make significant contributions. Danielle Dreilinger also makes the case that cooking and managing a budget are invaluable lessons for all children and should still be part of the school curriculum.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "cookbooks & food", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1324004495", "cover": "1324004495", "goodreads": 55298398, "itunes": 9781324004493, "bookshop": 9781324004493, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51BZkIbGrJL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324004493", "isbn10": "1324004495", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 311, "book": "The Secret History of Home Economics", "source": "NPR", "text": "New book dives into 'The Secret History Of Home Economics'", "url": "https://www.nprillinois.org/2021-06-09/new-book-dives-into-the-secret-history-of-home-economics" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 311, "book": "The Secret History of Home Economics", "source": "WAMC", "text": " 'The Secret History Of Home Economics' by Danielle Dreilinger", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-05-14/the-secret-history-of-home-economics-by-danielle-dreilinger" } ] }, "313": { "id": 313, "title": "The Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and the Discovery of DNA’s Double Helix", "author": "Howard Markel", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "If you have an abiding interest in genetics, you might have heard the old joke that begins “What did Watson and Crick discover?” The punchline: “Rosalind Franklin’s notes.” Franklin, the English scientist who died in 1958 at the age of 37, was responsible for much of the research that led to the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure but often isn’t credited for it. Markel’s engrossing book makes a convincing case that Franklin deserves much more recognition; science lovers and laypeople alike will be drawn in by this compelling story.
", "tags": [ "eye-opening reads", "nonfiction", "science!", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1324002239", "cover": "1324002239", "goodreads": 56769579, "itunes": 9781324002239, "bookshop": 9781324002239, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41dHLKOVwIL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324002239", "isbn10": "1324002239", "links": [] }, "314": { "id": 314, "title": "The Secret to Superhuman Strength", "author": "Alison Bechdel", "reviewers": [ "Neda Ulaby" ], "text": "I’m among the weirdos who responded to the pandemic by upping my workouts, which made Alison Bechdel’s latest graphic novel feel unexpectedly timely. A lifelong fitness freak, who’s embraced everything from martial arts to mountaineering, Bechdel applies the same rigor to her analysis of her quest for a mind/body connection, which contains the sort of psychoanalytic layers, self-deprecating charm and ambitious complexities her fans have come to expect.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "for sports lovers", "identity & culture", "biography & memoir", "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "0544387651", "cover": "0544387651", "goodreads": 53968436, "itunes": 9780544387652, "bookshop": 9780544387652, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51saqQxDOmL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780544387652", "isbn10": "0544387651", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 314, "book": "The Secret to Superhuman Strength", "source": "NPR", "text": "Alison Bechdel on 'The Secret To Superhuman Strength'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/30/992437323/alison-bechdel-on-the-secret-to-superhuman-strength" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 314, "book": "The Secret to Superhuman Strength", "source": "NPR", "text": "Alison Bechdel discusses a lifelong affair with excercise in new memoir", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/30/992437323/alison-bechdel-on-the-secret-to-superhuman-strength" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 314, "book": "The Secret to Superhuman Strength", "source": "NCPR", "text": "Books: 'The Secret to Superhuman Strength'", "url": "https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/43963/20210622/books-the-secret-to-superhuman-strength" } ] }, "315": { "id": 315, "title": "The Sentence: A Novel", "author": "Louise Erdrich", "reviewers": [ "Keishel Williams" ], "text": "Fresh off of winning the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich follows up with The Sentence, an intimate novel that’s a bit offbeat, yet filled with mordant humor. The story spans one year, from All Souls’ Day 2019 to All Souls’ Day 2020, in the life of Tookie, a Native American woman in Minneapolis. Tookie’s fresh out of prison and working at Birchbark Books – the same store Erdrich owns in real life – when she finds herself having to fend off a stubborn spirit as the novel coronavirus begins to wreak havoc in the country and the killing of George Floyd sparks outrage in their city, then the world.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "fiction" ], "isbn": "006267112X", "cover": "006267112X", "goodreads": 56816904, "itunes": 9780062671127, "bookshop": 9780062671127, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/519jGfSJc8S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062671127", "isbn10": "006267112X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 315, "book": "The Sentence", "source": "NPR", "text": "Louise Erdrich's disquieting new novel will keep you on your toes", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1052730892/louise-erdrichs-the-sentence-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 315, "book": "The Sentence", "source": "UIS", "text": "Author Louise Erdrich's 'The Sentence' follows a haunting during a momentous year", "url": "https://www.nprillinois.org/2021-11-09/author-louise-erdrichs-the-sentence-follows-a-haunting-during-a-momentous-year" } ] }, "316": { "id": 316, "title": "The Startup Wife: A Novel", "author": "Tahmima Anam", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "The Startup Wife is an incisive satire about faith, technology and intimacy in the modern world. When three close friends (two of whom are a couple) form a startup to create customized spiritual experiences that help the masses connect, it has the ironic effect of blowing their relationships apart. What’s especially thorny is that while the algorithm and research that make the tech work belong to South Asian American Asha, her charismatic white husband is the star the media and investors want to see. Tahmima Anam’s novel is a thought-provoking skewering of startup culture specifically – but because Americans revere tech and its leaders, we all share in those sins.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "it’s all geek to me", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "funny stuff", "family matters" ], "isbn": "198215618X", "cover": "198215618X", "goodreads": 55713051, "itunes": 9781982156183, "bookshop": 9781982156183, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51iP5DcviMS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982156183", "isbn10": "198215618X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 316, "book": "The Startup Wife", "source": "NPR", "text": "Startup Wife' satirizes tech culture and boardroom sexism — from experience", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1015224321/the-startup-wife-tahmima-anam-novel" } ] }, "317": { "id": 317, "title": "The State Must Provide: Why America's Colleges Have Always Been Unequal – And How to Set Them Right", "author": "Adam Harris", "reviewers": [ "Michel Martin" ], "text": "Did you go to an HBCU? And did you ever, like author Adam Harris did, travel a few miles or even a few blocks away to a state-funded predominately white institution (PWI) and wonder why the library was so much bigger, the books so much newer or the gym so much better? Harris retraces the history of the funding strategies that all but ensured that historically Black college and universities would never compete on a level playing field. What he uncovers is shocking but not surprising: States would spend millions to keep institutions segregated and HBCUs underfunded but wouldn’t spend that same coin to actually improve their facilities. It sounds like a harsh meal, but it’s food for thought – and a call to action to anybody who cares about educational equity.
", "tags": [ "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0062976486", "cover": "0062976486", "goodreads": 55919292, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780062976482, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51L29nHw8hL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062976482", "isbn10": "0062976486", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 317, "book": "The State Must Provide", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The State Must Provide' author on funding inequality across nation's colleges", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/28/1032065941/the-state-must-provide-author-on-funding-inequality-across-nations-colleges" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 317, "book": "The State Must Provide", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The State Must Provide' is a lesson on inequality in higher ed, past and present", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/16/1028076069/the-state-must-provide-is-a-lesson-on-inequality-in-higher-ed-past-and-present" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 317, "book": "The State Must Provide", "source": "STLPR", "text": "In ‘The State Must Provide,’ Adam Harris explores racial disparites in higher education", "url": "https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2021-09-22/in-the-state-must-provide-adam-harris-explores-racial-disparities-in-higher-education" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 317, "book": "The State Must Provide", "source": "WNPR", "text": "Adam Harris: Fixing racism in higher education", "url": "https://www.ctpublic.org/show/where-we-live/2021-10-20/adam-harris-fixing-racism-in-higher-education" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 317, "book": "The State Must Provide", "source": "KQED", "text": "Adam Harris on racial inequity in higher education and how ‘The State Must Provide", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101885032/adam-harris-on-racial-inequity-in-higher-education-and-how-the-state-must-provide" } ] }, "318": { "id": 318, "title": "The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void", "author": "Jackie Wang", "reviewers": [ "Jeevika Verma" ], "text": "As the title suggests, this poetry collection – a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award – is full of surreal, whimsical images. They come from the mind of author Jackie Wang, who takes on the grand task of documenting her dreams through poetry. When I spoke to her earlier this year, she mentioned reading about people’s pandemic dreams working as a sort of “collective” expression of restlessness during lockdown; many were dreaming about “bugs,” “disease spreading” or “invisible senses of evil.” Using the motif of the sunflower as a guide to her subconscious, Wang shows us how social processes and traumas show up in our dreams and how we can better understand ourselves by tuning in to them.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1643620363", "cover": "1643620363", "goodreads": 54359483, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781643620367, "image": "https://nightboat.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FrontCover_NBAMedal-2.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781643620367", "isbn10": "1643620363", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 318, "book": "The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save Us from the Void", "source": "NPR", "text": "With sunflowers as her guide, poet tunes into dream life for debut collection", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/960478147/with-sunflowers-as-her-guide-poet-tunes-in-to-dream-life-for-debut-collection" } ] }, "319": { "id": 319, "title": "The Sweetness of Water: A Novel", "author": "Nathan Harris", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "The Sweetness of Water is an American saga about a small Georgia community trying to find its footing after emancipation and the trauma of the Civil War. Two young freedmen, brothers from a local plantation, are hiding out in the woods, trying to avoid their obstinate former master until they can make their way north. They find unlikely but steadfast allies in the eccentric white family who own the land. It’s a thoughtful, emotional and humane story and a surprising page turner full of twists and turns. The issues this book raises feel strikingly resonant right now.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "the states we’re in", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316362484", "cover": "0316362484", "goodreads": 54818325, "itunes": 9780316362481, "bookshop": 9780316362481, "image": "https://hachette.imgix.net/books/9781472274373.jpg?auto=compress,format", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316362481", "isbn10": "0316362484", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 319, "book": "The Sweetness of Water", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'The Sweetness of Water' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/04/1023943694/oprah-picked-it-so-did-obama-why-this-novel-is-the-summer-book" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 319, "book": "The Sweetness of Water", "source": "WBUR", "text": "Petra Mayer's Summer reading list: 'The Sweetness of Water'", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/07/22/reading-summer-books" } ] }, "320": { "id": 320, "title": "The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest", "author": "Mark Synnott", "reviewers": [ "Liz Baker" ], "text": "Why climb Mount Everest? As mountaineer George Mallory famously said, “Because it’s there” But Mallory’s 1924 expedition with Sandy Irvine ended in both of their deaths and an enduring mystery: Did Mallory and Irvine become the first to stand on the summit before they died? In 2019, author Mark Synnott joins an expedition to see if the answer is still up there, frozen on the mountain, and ends up struggling against both the elements and the Chinese Communist Party during one of Everest’s deadliest seasons, when hundreds of unprepared climbers are caught in a traffic jam near the summit. Why climb Mount Everest? With Synnott’s vivid, heart-pounding dispatch from the top of the world, you won’t need to … or want to.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "eye-opening reads", "for history lovers", "for sports lovers", "tales from around the world", "staff picks", "rather long", "fiction" ], "isbn": "152474557X", "cover": "152474557X", "goodreads": 55288158, "itunes": 9781524745578, "bookshop": 9781524745578, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51hJECOMIlL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781524745578", "isbn10": "152474557X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 320, "book": "The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest", "source": "NHPR", "text": "The Exchange: The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest", "url": "https://www.nhpr.org/the-exchange/2021-04-12/the-third-pole-mystery-obsession-and-death-on-mount-everest" } ] }, "321": { "id": 321, "title": "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation", "author": "Anna Malaika Tubbs", "reviewers": [ "Emiko Tamagawa" ], "text": "Reams of material has been written about Malcolm X, James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr. But Anna Malaika Tubbs looks at the lives of their mothers. We discover that though their paths were very different, all three women were instrumental in shaping their sons’ lives. Louise Little was an activist, Berdis Baldwin encouraged her son’s creativity, and Alberta King gave young Martin lessons in faith and social justice. All three mothers ended up outliving their sons. Their stories add needed dimension to the ones we thought we knew.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "book club ideas", "family matters" ], "isbn": "125075612X", "cover": "125075612X", "goodreads": 53138238, "itunes": 9781250756121, "bookshop": 9781250756121, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41K8LRJSjNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250756121", "isbn10": "125075612X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 321, "book": "The Three Mothers", "source": "NPR", "text": "The mothers who raised Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/17/968695922/the-mothers-who-raised-martin-luther-king-jr-malcolm-x-and-james-baldwin" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 321, "book": "The Three Mothers", "source": "WBUR", "text": "New book seeks to restore hidden histories of 'The Three Mothers' of MLK, Malcolm X, James Baldwin", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/02/08/the-three-mothers-book" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 321, "book": "The Three Mothers", "source": "WABE", "text": "Anna Malaika Tubbs’ new book shares the unknown history of the mothers who raised MLK, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/anna-malaika-tubbs-new-book-shares-the-unknown-history-of-the-mothers-who-raised-mlk-malcolm-x-and-james-baldwin/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 321, "book": "The Three Mothers", "source": "WYPR", "text": "The Three Mothers' author Anna Malaika Tubbs on 3 Black women whose sons changed the world", "url": "https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-04-09/the-three-mothers-author-anna-malaika-tubbs-on-3-black-women-whose-sons-changed-the-world" } ] }, "322": { "id": 322, "title": "The Trees: A Novel", "author": "Percival Everett", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "At a certain point, dark social satire bleeds into horror. That can be powerful, but it can also very easily miss its target. Percival Everett’s new novel The Trees is a shocking and darkly funny novel that hits just the right mark. A contemporary revenge fantasy about a series of confounding and gruesome murders in the town of Money, Miss., linked to the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, it’s a racial allegory grounded in history, shrouded in mystery and dripping with blood.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "the dark side", "funny stuff", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "mysteries & thrillers", "identity & culture", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "164445064X", "cover": "164445064X", "goodreads": 57986250, "itunes": 9781644450642, "bookshop": 9781644450642, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ySs0eVinL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450642", "isbn10": "164445064X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 322, "book": "The Trees", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'The Trees'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/22/1039434714/percival-everett-the-trees-review" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 322, "book": "The Trees", "source": "NPR", "text": "Percival Everett's novel 'The Trees' parses through race's part in a Southern murder", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1038533170/percival-everetts-novel-the-trees-parses-through-races-part-in-a-southern-murder" } ] }, "323": { "id": 323, "title": "The Turnout: A Novel", "author": "Megan Abbott", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "Sisters Dara and Marie Durant run their family ballet school, with Dara’s husband, Charlie, once a student there. When Marie accidentally burns one of their studios down, a “dance mom” recommends a contractor named Derek. The bulky, leering Derek transfixes them all so that renovations go far beyond necessary, just as ballet bodies turn out far past possibility. But what hold does Derek have on Marie, and what hold does Marie have on Dara and Charlie? As the annual clock ticks down to Nutcracker Week, all will be revealed, building up to a pain as exquisite as being en pointe.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "seriously great writing", "family matters", "the dark side", "for sports lovers", "no biz like show biz", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059308490X", "cover": "059308490X", "goodreads": 55573785, "itunes": 9780593084908, "bookshop": 9780593084908, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/418l3i6Q3ML._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593084908", "isbn10": "059308490X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 323, "book": "THE TURNOUT", "source": "WPR", "text": "Crime novelist Megan Abbott remains on pointe with 'The Turnout'", "url": "https://www.wpr.org/crime-novelist-megan-abbott-remains-pointe-turnout" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 323, "book": "The Turnout ", "source": "NPR", "text": "What's making us happy: 'The Turnout' ", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/01/1042183502/what-to-watch-read-listen-this-weekend-maid-sohla-el-waylly-will-smith" } ] }, "324": { "id": 324, "title": "The Twisted Soul Cookbook: Modern Soul Food with Global Flavors", "author": "Deborah VanTrece", "reviewers": [ "T. Susan Chang" ], "text": "Once a flight attendant, now an Atlanta-based chef, Deborah VanTrece takes a cosmopolitan approach to the soul food you thought you knew – for example smothered pork chops, but draped in a sage-infused tomato gravy. Or that old chicken standby Country Captain, but paired with scallion-peanut rice noodles. And is there any good reason you shouldn’t braise your short ribs in Manischewitz? There is not! Whether she’s crusting trout in pumpkin seeds or turning crab cakes into meat loaf, VanTrece’s mission is to redefine soul cuisine for the now. If she can go there, so can you.
", "tags": [ "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0847869695", "cover": "0847869695", "goodreads": 54896638, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9780847869695, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61Di3GzyS-L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780847869695", "isbn10": "0847869695", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 324, "book": "The Twisted Soul Cookbook", "source": "WABE", "text": "Chef Deborah VanTrece shares her unique approach to elevating classic comfor foods and Southern cuisines", "url": "https://www.wabe.org/chef-deborah-vantrece-shares-her-unique-approach-to-elevating-classic-comfort-foods-and-southern-cuisines/" } ] }, "325": { "id": 325, "title": "The Vixen: A Novel", "author": "Francine Prose", "reviewers": [ "Sacha Pfeiffer" ], "text": "I confess I almost stopped reading this after the first chapter. It’s loosely based on Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the American couple executed during the Cold War for being suspected Soviet spies, and I feared it would be depressingly serious. Who needs that these days? But I pushed on, and it became another book entirely. Part coming-of-age story, part romance and part comedy, it’s alternately poignant and hilarious, with wonderful insights into family, society, class and ethics, and wry commentary on the fragile egos of writers. It’s filled with life lessons and, in a bonus, contains an intentionally cheesy novel-within-a-novel. As Francine Prose told me: “Writing badly on purpose is so much fun!”
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "book club ideas", "family matters", "love & romance", "staff picks", "funny stuff", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0063012146", "cover": "0063012146", "goodreads": 58518166, "itunes": 9780063012141, "bookshop": 9780063012141, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51TTiQO6VoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063012141", "isbn10": "0063012146", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 325, "book": "The Vixen", "source": "NPR", "text": "The novel, 'The Vixen,' explores the moral ambiguity of 1950s America", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/12/1015185077/the-novel-the-vixen-explores-the-moral-ambiguity-of-1950s-america" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 325, "book": "The Vixen", "source": "WSHU", "text": "Book Review: The Vixen", "url": "https://www.wshu.org/culture/2021-10-06/book-review-the-vixen" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 325, "book": "The Vixen", "source": "KALW", "text": "Binah: Francine Prose’s The Vixen" } ] }, "326": { "id": 326, "title": "The Waiting", "author": "Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, translated by Janet Hong", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s The Waiting tells the story of Gwija, a North Korean woman who marries again and forms a new family after becoming separated from her husband and young son while marching south with a group of refugees fleeing the Korean War. In illustrating the plight of biological family members separated along the North-South border, Gendry-Kim celebrates the beauty of “found” family ties forged to mitigate the destructive forces of war. And by centering her graphic narrative on women’s experience, she also acknowledges the arduous process of bringing gender equality to Korean society; The Waiting poignantly depicts Gwija’s emotional exile as a consequence of not just war, but patriarchy.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "tales from around the world", "family matters", "for history lovers", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1770464573", "cover": "1770464573", "goodreads": 56269286, "itunes": 9781770464575, "bookshop": 9781770464575, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Df8YMh3yL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781770464575", "isbn10": "1770464573", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 326, "book": "The Waiting", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'The Waiting' is an unflinching portrayal of the separations caused by war", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/06/1053080537/the-waiting-gendry-kim-review" } ] }, "327": { "id": 327, "title": "The Whiteness of Wealth: How the Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans – And How We Can Fix It", "author": "Dorothy A. Brown", "reviewers": [ "Michel Martin" ], "text": "If you read Caste by Isabel Wilkerson or Maid by Stephanie Land, this is a book you won’t want to miss. It’s written by Dorothy A. Brown, a tax law professor at Emory University who deliberately started her research in the field because she thought it would be race-neutral. But years of studying the history of the U.S. tax code and comparing the tax records of wealthy public figures with those of poorer people, she was left with one inescapable conclusion. The tax code, she argues, has been designed to advantage those who are already privileged and to disadvantage those who are not: including Black people who are doing everything “right” – marrying, working and raising families. The information is infuriating, but it’s a surprisingly easy read. Readers can gain a sense of mastery over a subject area that, whether intentional or not, seems designed to make the average person feel confused and defeated.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0525577327", "cover": "0525577327", "goodreads": 55028680, "itunes": 9780525577324, "bookshop": 9780525577324, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41Jk3NzwEoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525577324", "isbn10": "0525577327", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 327, "book": "The Whiteness of Wealth", "source": "NPR", "text": "How taxes keep American wealth White", "url": "https://the1a.org/segments/wealth-inequality-race/" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 327, "book": "The Whiteness of Wealth", "source": "NPR", "text": "The bias built into tax laws that disadvantages income from labor", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/30/1050850687/the-bias-built-into-tax-laws-that-disadvantages-income-from-labor" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 327, "book": "The Whiteness of Wealth", "source": "WBUR", "text": " 'The Whiteness Of Wealth' proves why Black Americans pay higher taxes", "url": "https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/17/us-taxes-dorothy-brown" } ] }, "328": { "id": 328, "title": "The Wolf and the Woodsman: A Novel", "author": "Ava Reid", "reviewers": [ "Jessica P. Wick" ], "text": "I have a soft spot for fantasy inspired by Hungarian history, but there’s little softness in Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman, which takes Hungarian history and Jewish mythology and braids them into a complex, often brutal story. Unlikely allies, questions of identity, betrayal, nuanced exploration of identity and what it is to be a conquered people, what it is to inherit a dark legacy, survival in the face of erasure, deeply flawed protagonists, and body horror – the woods are dark and deep, my friends! And make for a compelling read. Although the ending is abrupt, this is a solid debut. Ava Reid’s on my radar now.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "family matters", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062973126", "cover": "0062973126", "goodreads": 48915408, "itunes": 9780062973122, "bookshop": 9780062973122, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51STZtx1MLL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062973122", "isbn10": "0062973126", "links": [] }, "329": { "id": 329, "title": "The Woman in the Purple Skirt: A Novel", "author": "Natsuko Imamura, translated by Lucy North", "reviewers": [ "Leland Cheuk" ], "text": "When the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan sees the Woman in the Purple Skirt in the park, it’s obsession at first sight. Soon, Yellow Cardigan is stalking her target, watching her eat, taking the same buses, even getting her a job as a hotel housekeeper so they can be co-workers. Deadpan and disturbing, Imamura’s novel explores the tangled roots of female invisibility and visibility, while taking the reader on a journey into the fascinating world of hotel housekeeping in Japan.
", "tags": [ "tales from around the world", "mysteries & thrillers", "eye-opening reads", "the dark side", "fiction" ], "isbn": "014313602X", "cover": "014313602X", "goodreads": 55782299, "itunes": 9780143136026, "bookshop": 9780143136026, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41G2EsZOCCL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780143136026", "isbn10": "014313602X", "links": [] }, "330": { "id": 330, "title": "Yellow Wife: A Novel", "author": "Sadeqa Johnson", "reviewers": [ "Denny S. Bryce" ], "text": "The harrowing tale of Pheby Delores Brown begins in the 1850s when she is just 17 years old. Inspired by the real life of an enslaved woman in Virginia, Sadeqa Johnson’s Yellow Wife tells the story of Pheby and her connection to an infamous slave jail called the Devil’s Half-Acre – and the man who ran it. Johnson writes emotionally, passionately and fearlessly, blending the violence and insidiousness of slavery with the courage and strength of her characters. Throughout the story, threads of motherhood, family and sacrifice provide an anchor for hope, joy and love, making this novel a memorable journey to be discussed and cherished.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1982149108", "cover": "1982149108", "goodreads": 54304031, "itunes": 9781982149109, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81WsEOaoZlL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982149109", "isbn10": "1982149108", "links": [] }, "331": { "id": 331, "title": "These Precious Days: Essays", "author": "Ann Patchett", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "Ann Patchett, beloved writer, bookstore owner and friend to many, gives readers more reasons to love her with this new essay collection. The centerpiece is the title essay – a tribute to Sooki Raphael, Tom Hanks’ longtime personal assistant and an artist whom Patchett befriended and helped in the difficult final years of her life. (Sooki’s soulful painting of Patchett’s dog adorns the book’s cover.) This isn’t the only essay that moved me to tears: There are lovely pieces about Patchett’s three fathers (biological and two steps); about what opening her Nashville bookstore has meant to her; and about the intimations of mortality induced by her induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. This heartwarming book reminds us to make the most of our precious days.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "book club ideas", "family matters", "nonfiction", "short stories, essays & poetry", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "0063092786", "cover": "0063092786", "goodreads": 56922687, "itunes": 9780063092785, "bookshop": 9780063092785, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51E1flck-qS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780063092785", "isbn10": "0063092786", "links": [] }, "332": { "id": 332, "title": "These Toxic Things: A Thriller", "author": "Rachel Howzell Hall", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "This creative and creepy thriller kept me up all night. As a digital archaeologist, young, bright and inquisitive Michaela pieces together a person’s life story from the artifacts they hold dear, transforming them into a supercharged, high-tech scrapbook. Now she’s tasked with helping an older woman obsessed with memorabilia make a record of her own life before the memories slip away. But just as she’s getting started, that client is found dead with a plastic bag over her head. Though a note points to suicide, there’s plenty of room for doubt, and Michaela is determined to find the truth no matter the danger.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "family matters", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1542027470", "cover": "1542027470", "goodreads": 56977509, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781542027472, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Td93zCH0S._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781542027472", "isbn10": "1542027470", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 332, "book": "These Toxic Things", "source": "NPR", "text": "Review: 'These Toxic Things'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/02/1031881611/these-toxic-things-rachel-howzell-hall" } ] }, "333": { "id": 333, "title": "This is Your Mind on Plants", "author": "Michael Pollan", "reviewers": [ "Liz Baker" ], "text": "Broken into sections on caffeine, mescaline and opium, this book might (briefly) persuade you to switch to decaf or change how you look at that cactus in your neighbor’s yard. But the heart of this book is an old magazine article Pollan wrote when he was a gardening columnist during the mid-’90s War on Drugs. He had colorful poppies in his backyard and wondered whether he could homebrew an opium tea. What could possibly go wrong? Now that attitudes toward drugs have become a bit looser and with the benefit of 2021 hindsight (hello, Purdue Pharma!), it is well worth picking up a copy for that section alone. It’ll get you thinking, in that gentle Michael Pollan way, about where society draws the line between good/bad, natural/synthetic, challenging/threatening.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "science!", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "cookbooks & food" ], "isbn": "0593296907", "cover": "0593296907", "goodreads": 56015023, "itunes": 9780593296905, "bookshop": 9780593296905, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41w5mGr1n8L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593296905", "isbn10": "0593296907", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 333, "book": "This is Your Mind on Plants", "source": "NPR", "text": "Michael Pollan talks new book, 'This Is Your Mind On Plants'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/04/1013044454/michael-pollan-talks-new-book-this-is-your-mind-on-plants" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 333, "book": "This is Your Mind on Plants", "source": "NPR", "text": "The power of plants to heal and harm", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/08/1014277966/the-power-of-plants-to-heal-and-harm" } ] }, "334": { "id": 334, "title": "This Thing Between Us: A Novel", "author": "Gus Moreno", "reviewers": [ "Gabino Iglesias" ], "text": "This Thing Between Us is a creepy novel about grief that will change the way you look at smart speakers forever. At once an exploration of the supernatural and a study of the ways in which a terrible loss can affect the psyche, this dark tale – which is packed with tips of the hat to its genre – announces the arrival of an exciting new voice in horror fiction.
", "tags": [ "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "the dark side", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0374539235", "cover": "0374539235", "goodreads": 56269269, "itunes": 9780374539238, "bookshop": 9780374539238, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51DZgwGgjmL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374539238", "isbn10": "0374539235", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 334, "book": "This Thing Between Us", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'This Thing Between Us' wants to hurt you — and you should let it", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/16/1046394346/this-thing-between-us-gus-moreno-review" } ] }, "335": { "id": 335, "title": "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket: Stories", "author": "Hilma Wolitzer", "reviewers": [ "Heller McAlpin" ], "text": "This winningly titled baker’s dozen is bookended on one end by the title tale, which was first published in 1966, and on the other by a powerful new story. Written in 2020, “The Great Escape” checks in on Hilma Wolitzer’s longtime recurring couple – melancholic Howard and garrulous Paulie – at 90, just as the pandemic hits New York. Like her novels, Wolitzer’s stories delve into the vicissitudes of love and marriage with wisdom, wit and warmth. But brace yourself for the last one, which masterfully demonstrates literature’s power to move and console.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "love & romance", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "1635577624", "cover": "1635577624", "goodreads": 55891837, "itunes": 9781635577624, "bookshop": 9781635577624, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51jyBWWn-AL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635577624", "isbn10": "1635577624", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 335, "book": "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket,' it's the details that really get you", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/04/1031889765/hilma-wolitzer-review-today-woman-went-mad-in-supermarket" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 335, "book": "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket", "source": "NPR", "text": "Hilma Wolitzer on writing the short story that helped her process her husband's death", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034926696/hilma-wolitzer-on-the-new-short-story-that-helped-her-process-her-husband-s-deat" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 335, "book": "Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket", "source": "TPR", "text": "‘Today A Woman Went Mad In The Supermarket’: Hilma Wolitzer is writing stories again", "url": "https://www.tpr.org/podcast/book-public/2021-09-03/today-a-woman-went-mad-in-the-supermarket-hilma-wolitzer-is-writing-stories-again" } ] }, "336": { "id": 336, "title": "Too Bright to See", "author": "Kyle Lukoff", "reviewers": [ "Juanita Giles" ], "text": "When 11-year-old Bug tries to prepare to enter middle school, it’s not as easy as it seems. Bug’s best friend Moira spends her time putting on makeup and checking out cute boys, but Bug has no interest. As Bug tries to manage leaving tomboy-hood behind, the ghost of recently-gone Uncle Roderick seems to be haunting the house. But why? What is he trying to help Bug figure out? A beautiful middle-grade novel about grief, self-realization and acceptance, Too Bright to See is a heart-rending tale of Bug’s transgender journey, with plenty of creepy ghost story thrills. (For ages 10 and up)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "family matters", "identity & culture", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "seriously great writing", "mysteries & thrillers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "059311115X", "cover": "059311115X", "goodreads": 54786049, "itunes": 9780593111154, "bookshop": 9780593111154, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Too-Bright-to-See-by-Kyle-Lukoff-scaled.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593111154", "isbn10": "059311115X", "links": [] }, "337": { "id": 337, "title": "Too Small Tola", "author": "Atinuke, illustrated by Onyinye Iwu", "reviewers": [ "Betsy Bird" ], "text": "Author Atinuke raises the bar and shows the world what a quick, funny, smart early chapter book can be. Tola lives in an apartment in Lagos, Nigeria, with her Grandmommy, brother and sister. In three perfectly paced tales, she uses her cleverness to prove to the world that size isn’t everything. Atinuke can make everyday city life in Lagos accessible to any child reader. A true standout. (For ages 7 to 9)
", "tags": [ "kids’ books", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "family matters" ], "isbn": "1536211273", "cover": "1536211273", "goodreads": 55442215, "itunes": 9781536211276, "bookshop": 9781536211276, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51jb2Ga7K1L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781536211276", "isbn10": "1536211273", "links": [] }, "338": { "id": 338, "title": "Trust: A Novel", "author": "Domenico Starnone, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri", "reviewers": [ "Bethanne Patrick" ], "text": "In author Domenico Starnone’s Italian-to-English translation, a couple named Pietro and Teresa are on-again, off-again until the day Teresa says, essentially, “Let’s tell each other our worst secret.” What she thinks will bind them together forever turns out to be what drives them apart; they’ve revealed the worst and it’s unforgettable. For a lesser writer, this might be enough. For Starnone, it’s a jumping-off point, even in a slim, taut book with no wasted words or ideas. When Pietro and Teresa meet again in the evening of their lives, the power one of them holds over the other still matters.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "love & romance", "tales from around the world", "rather short" ], "isbn": "160945703X", "cover": "160945703X", "goodreads": 57609340, "itunes": 9781609457037, "bookshop": 9781609457037, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41RB1dkw64L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781609457037", "isbn10": "160945703X", "links": [] }, "339": { "id": 339, "title": "Twice Alive", "author": "Forrest Gander", "reviewers": [ "Craig Morgan Teicher" ], "text": "In these surprisingly accessible poems about new love after grief, Forrest Gander finds fresh metaphors in the life cycles of lichen, which is “theoretically immortal,” and comes up with ingenious yet almost always circuitous routes toward coupling and what comes after. “Whoever/ thought anyone was just one thing?” Gander asks, a reminder that nothing could be more natural than, if not conflict, ambivalence, a strong pull from opposite directions. Twice Alive is an unlikely celebration following a dark time.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "science!", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "0811230295", "cover": "0811230295", "goodreads": 55688764, "itunes": 9780811230292, "bookshop": 9780811230292, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/415jsUp90WS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780811230292", "isbn10": "0811230295", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 339, "book": "Twice Alive", "source": "NPR", "text": "A Different Day: A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 2", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/958853210/a-different-day-a-2021-poetry-preview-part-2" } ] }, "340": { "id": 340, "title": "The Twilight Zone: A Novel", "author": "Nona Fernández, translated by Natasha Wimmer", "reviewers": [ "Lily Meyer" ], "text": "In 1984, at the height of Augusto Pinochet’s repressive dictatorship, a Chilean secret policeman named Andrés Antonio Valenzuela Morales testified publicly to having tortured and disappeared people. The nameless narrator of Nona Fernández’s The Twilight Zone is 13 at the time and becomes “unhealthily obsess[ed]” with Valenzuela Morales; in adulthood, she sets out to write a novel about him. As her protagonist struggles with the limits of her own memory and imagination, Fernández asks the reader to confront not only the atrocities that Valenzuela Morales committed, but also the question that most haunts her narrator: What would she – or anyone – have done in his place?
", "tags": [ "rather short", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "164445047X", "cover": "164445047X", "goodreads": 57429180, "itunes": 9781644450475, "bookshop": 9781644450475, "image": "http://www.nationalbook.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/The-Twilight-Zone-by-Nona-Fernandez-scaled.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450475", "isbn10": "164445047X", "links": [] }, "341": { "id": 341, "title": "The Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus", "author": "Allan Gurganus", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Allan Gurganus’ first book since 2013 is more than worth the wait. In this short story collection, the Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All author tackles a pandemic quarantine, a flying (well, kind of) boy, a couple trying to save their drowning dog, and more – and he does so with wit, compassion and the amazing ability to reflect the lightness – and darkness – in the souls of his characters. It’s a remarkable book, and it proves once again why Gurganus is one of the country’s most talented and imaginative writers.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0871403781", "cover": "0871403781", "goodreads": 53404233, "itunes": 9780871403780, "bookshop": 9780871403780, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41-ovkisDrL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780871403780", "isbn10": "0871403781", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 341, "book": "Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus", "source": "NPR", "text": "The 'Uncollected Stories' show Allan Gurganus at his finest", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/19/956885911/the-uncollected-stories-show-allan-gurganus-at-his-finest" } ] }, "342": { "id": 342, "title": "Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future", "author": "Elizabeth Kolbert", "reviewers": [ "Mano Sundaresan" ], "text": "There’s a pervading sense throughout Under a White Sky that we royally screwed up. Elizabeth Kolbert reports on the many ways humans have created environmental problems, tried to solve those problems and created more problems as a result. Sounds bleak, and it is, but Kolbert injects just enough dry, academic humor to make the massively bizarre projects she investigates, including a festival dedicated to the preparation and consumption of Asian carp, feel like a fever dream.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "staff picks", "science!", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "0593136276", "cover": "0593136276", "goodreads": 54814834, "itunes": 9780593136270, "bookshop": 9780593136270, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Ex4juXgNL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593136270", "isbn10": "0593136276", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 342, "book": "Under A White Sky", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Under A White Sky' examines what it might take for humans to continue to exist", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/965306203/under-a-white-sky-examines-what-it-might-take-for-humans-to-continue-to-exist" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 342, "book": "Under A White Sky", "source": "NPR", "text": "From electrifying rivers to dimming the Sun, how humans try (and fail) to master nature", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/09/965335352/from-electrifying-rivers-to-dimming-the-sun-how-humans-try-and-fail-to-master-na" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 342, "book": "Under A White Sky", "source": "NPR", "text": "What can we do next to change nature — in order to save it?", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/967079417/what-can-we-do-next-to-change-nature-in-order-to-save-it" } ] }, "344": { "id": 344, "title": "Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre", "author": "Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "Carole Boston Weatherford, a master of children’s nonfiction, transports readers back to Greenwood, aka Black Wall Street, not only to the day of the Tulsa Race Massacre 100 years ago, but also to the days preceding the tragedy. She and Floyd Cooper paint a portrait of the thriving community, and by bringing Greenwood back to life, they make the loss feel all the more devastating. Cooper, whose grandfather lived in Tulsa at the time, was a beloved figure in the children’s literature community who, sadly, died earlier this year. Unspeakable is a fitting capstone to a career and life. (For ages 8 to 12)
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "nonfiction", "kids’ books", "seriously great writing" ], "isbn": "1541581202", "cover": "1541581202", "goodreads": 54222468, "itunes": 9781541581203, "bookshop": 9781541581203, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/916p9KB0SHL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781541581203", "isbn10": "1541581202", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 344, "book": "Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre", "source": "WYPR", "text": "Teaching The Tulsa Race Massacre: Carole Weatherford's 'Unspeakable'", "url": "https://www.wypr.org/show/midday/2021-05-31/teaching-the-tulsa-race-massacre-carole-weatherfords-unspeakable" } ] }, "345": { "id": 345, "title": "Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction", "author": "Kate Masur", "reviewers": [ "Edith Chapin" ], "text": "From the nation’s founding, the American creed included the idea that “all men are created equal.” Kate Masur shows how from the Revolution to the Civil War, there was an eight-decade fight for equality – an effort to make those words more than notional. Free Blacks were subjected to kidnapping and imprisonment. The petition movement available to all would be challenged by states with laws superseding individual freedom in the absence of federal law. This is the story of the drive for racial equality in civil and political rights and the effort to nationalize that fight for the full rights of citizenship. It is an illuminating and compelling read thanks to detailed, but approachable, research.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "eye-opening reads", "staff picks", "identity & culture", "rather long" ], "isbn": "1324005939", "cover": "1324005939", "goodreads": 53754943, "itunes": 9781324005933, "bookshop": 9781324005933, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51NDbq1ks+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324005933", "isbn10": "1324005939", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 345, "book": "Until Justice Be Done", "source": "NPR", "text": "Until Justice Be Done' examines Northern free states' so-called Black Laws", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/03/1024108231/until-justice-be-done-examines-northern-free-states-so-called-black-laws" } ] }, "346": { "id": 346, "title": "Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine", "author": "Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley", "reviewers": [ "Annalisa Quinn" ], "text": "I picked up Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, by journalists Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, with a degree of dread. Who wants to remain, even intellectually, in that claustrophobic place in which we slunk and mouldered our way through 2020 and 2021? But this book is not a hastily assembled response to the pandemic. Instead it’s a witty, charming consideration of one of our oldest and most effective responses to danger. I found it oddly comforting.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "science!", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0374126585", "cover": "0374126585", "goodreads": 54785556, "itunes": 9780374126582, "bookshop": 9780374126582, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41TJzlIUbBL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374126582", "isbn10": "0374126585", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 346, "book": "Until Proven Safe", "source": "NPR", "text": "Echoes across centuries are a reminder that the next quarantine is a matter of when", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1018264265/echoes-across-centuries-are-reminders-that-the-next-quarantine-is-a-matter-of-wh" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 346, "book": "Until Proven Safe", "source": "KQED", "text": "How the pandemic affected how we think about place", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101882571/how-the-pandemic-affected-how-we-think-about-place" } ] }, "347": { "id": 347, "title": "Velvet Was the Night", "author": "Silvia Moreno-Garcia", "reviewers": [ "Nina Fill" ], "text": "Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s newest novel takes place in 1970s Mexico City, toward the start of the country’s Dirty War. At the center of the story is Maite, a 30-year-old secretary who leads a lonely, boring life amid the political tumult. She prefers to escape into romance novels and rock music. But when her neighbor goes missing under strange circumstances, Maite soon finds herself deep in a world of danger, dissidents and radical artists, all while she’s being followed by an eccentric criminal named Elvis. Pro tip: Be sure to listen to the novel’s playlist on Spotify while you read to be completely transported back in time.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "book club ideas", "for music lovers", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "the dark side", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593356829", "cover": "0593356829", "goodreads": 54746205, "itunes": 9780593356821, "bookshop": 9780593356821, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51uQ27duykS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593356821", "isbn10": "0593356829", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 347, "book": "Velvet was the Night", "source": "NPR", "text": "This noir adventure shows Silvia Moreno-Garcia can do it all, with style to spare", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/08/20/1029522252/this-noir-adventure-shows-silvia-moreno-garcia-can-do-it-all-with-style-to-spare" } ] }, "348": { "id": 348, "title": "Victories Greater Than Death", "author": "Charlie Jane Anders", "reviewers": [ "Jason Sheehan" ], "text": "Tina Mains seems like any normal human teenager – except for the interplanetary beacon stuck in her chest. Pursued by alien assassins, she escapes (along with her best friend, Rachael) aboard an understaffed, broken-down spaceship called Indomitable and becomes the ultimate prize in a battle between two galactic superpowers. Since neither really wants to go back to Earth, Tina and Rachael join the Indomitable’s crew, recruit a super-team of teenage Earth nerds to round out the wildly diverse crew of misfits, and run off across the galaxy to try to save themselves, the Royal Fleet (and everyone else) from the evil Compassion. Victories begins as a kind of Midwestern, geeks-vs-bullies high school drama, ends as a modern re-skin of a classic, pulpy space opera, and in between Anders gets to spin a heartfelt and action-packed coming-of-age story about friendship, acceptance, loyalty and finding your own way in the world, all dressed in the spaceships-and-alien-assassins trappings of YA science fiction.
", "tags": [ "young adult", "sci fi, fantasy & speculative fiction", "identity & culture", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1250317312", "cover": "1250317312", "goodreads": 53205810, "itunes": 9781250317315, "bookshop": 9781250317315, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51qsybmfJwL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781250317315", "isbn10": "1250317312", "links": [] }, "349": { "id": 349, "title": "Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts", "author": "Rebecca Hall and Hugo Martinez", "reviewers": [ "Etelka Lehoczky" ], "text": "Rebecca Hall’s remarkable epic is as much about the present as the past. She doesn’t just want to tell the parts of the story that are eminently drawable – desperate women attacking slavers in the streets or chiseling through chains in the holds of the death ships. Those stories are here, but they make up only half of Hall’s saga. The other half is her own struggle against the conspiracy of silence that’s shut these women out of history. Martinez’s terrific depictions of Hall’s research process are as gripping as those of the revolts themselves.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "1982115181", "cover": "1982115181", "goodreads": 55711552, "itunes": "", "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51kwffV1cmL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982115180", "isbn10": "1982115181", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 349, "book": "Wake", "source": "NPR", "text": "A stunning graphic novel uncovers the history of enslaved women who fought back", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/30/1001430516/a-stunning-graphic-novel-uncovers-the-history-of-enslaved-women-who-fought-back" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 349, "book": "Wake", "source": "KNPR", "text": "Graphic novel 'Wake' explores the history of women-led slave revolts", "url": "https://knpr.org/npr/2021-06/graphic-novel-wake-explores-history-women-led-slave-revolts" } ] }, "350": { "id": 350, "title": "Walking on Cowrie Shells: Stories", "author": "Nana Nkweti", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "Cameroonian American Nana Nkweti is a linguistic pole vaulter. Her debut book of short stories walks an impressive tightrope between laugh-out-loud comedy and breathtaking profundity. Nkweti hovers at the edge of pop culture, writing about its highs and lows, as well as its pervasive impact on contemporary life. Rich portrayals of Cameroonian elders, particularly women with the gift of the gab, thread through this wonderful collection. Nkweti immerses readers in the smells and tastes of Cameroonian cuisine and the sound of local patois, women clucking their tongues and trying – often fruitlessly – to enforce moral codes on the girls in their care.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "fiction", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1644450542", "cover": "1644450542", "goodreads": 54785544, "itunes": 9781644450543, "bookshop": 9781644450543, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51sfl0yhtQL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781644450543", "isbn10": "1644450542", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 350, "book": "Walking on Cowrie Shells", "source": "NPR", "text": "These stories dance deftly between America and Cameroon", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/07/1003380153/these-stories-dance-deftly-between-america-and-cameroon" } ] }, "351": { "id": 351, "title": "Want Me: A Sex Writer's Journey Into the Heart of Desire", "author": "Tracy Clark-Flory", "reviewers": [ "Isabella Gomez Sarmiento" ], "text": "As a woman, dating men is kind of exhausting – especially when you consider all of the ways women’s understanding of our own sexuality is shaped by the male gaze. In her new memoir, Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey Into the Heart of Desire, Jezebel writer Tracy Clark-Flory unpacks the different ways women are taught to be passive objects of lust, rather than active participants in sex. Through a combination of personal stories, previous reporting and feminist theory, Clark-Flory decodes the messy yet massively rewarding journey of taking agency over one’s pleasure, with or without a partner.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "let’s talk about sex", "staff picks", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "0143134612", "cover": "0143134612", "goodreads": 43301938, "itunes": 9780143134619, "bookshop": 9780143134619, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41162aje6zL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780143134619", "isbn10": "0143134612", "links": [] }, "352": { "id": 352, "title": "Watercress", "author": "Andrea Wang, illustrated by Jason Chin", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "When a family pulls over on the side of the road to pick watercress, the young daughter is filled with a deep sense of shame at having to pick their dinner from a ditch. But as she learns more about her family’s past, that shame transforms into a newfound appreciation. Andrea Wang’s heartfelt and nuanced intergenerational story comes to life through Jason Chin’s brilliant watercolors, making Watercress a feast for the senses. But be warned: Come prepared with tissues. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "family matters", "kids’ books" ], "isbn": "0823446247", "cover": "0823446247", "goodreads": 54502238, "itunes": 9780823446247, "bookshop": 9780823446247, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mVyB1Pz+L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780823446247", "isbn10": "0823446247", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 352, "book": "Watercress", "source": "NPR", "text": "Embarrassed by your parents? 'Watercress' explores that universal kid experience", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/25/989887758/embarrassed-by-your-parents-watercress-explores-that-universal-kid-experience" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 352, "book": "Watercress", "source": "KPR", "text": "Conversations: Andrea Wang and Jason Chin, 'Watercress'", "url": "https://kansaspublicradio.org/blog/dan-skinner/conversations-andrea-wang-and-jason-chin-watercress" } ] }, "353": { "id": 353, "title": "We Are Bridges: A Memoir", "author": "Cassandra Lane", "reviewers": [ "Martha Anne Toll" ], "text": "In 1904, Burt Bridges was expecting his first child. He was a successful shop owner with big dreams. For refusing to surrender his store and “sell” his land to the white mayor of Holmesville, Miss., Bridges was lynched. He is author Cassandra Lane’s great-grandfather, and We Are Bridges resurrects his memory. With deep reverberations for today, Lane offers her own memoir, as well as an American history lesson to the child she carries in utero at the beginning of the book. In doing so, she honors her elders’ admonition that “not telling the whole truth is a lie.”
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "family matters", "identity & culture", "nonfiction", "eye-opening reads", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "1952177928", "cover": "1952177928", "goodreads": 55926788, "itunes": 9781952177927, "bookshop": 9781952177927, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51g+6gieUxL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781952177927", "isbn10": "1952177928", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 353, "book": "We Are Bridges", "source": "NPR", "text": "In 'We Are Bridges,' a writer resurrects her great grandfather's memory", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/21/988666372/in-we-are-bridges-a-writer-resurrects-her-great-grandfathers-memory" } ] }, "354": { "id": 354, "title": "We Are Watching Eliza Bright: A Novel", "author": "A.E. Osworth", "reviewers": [ "Frankie de la Cretaz" ], "text": "In their debut novel, A.E. Osworth takes readers on heck of a ride. Through the use of two wildly different collective narrators, We Are Watching Eliza Bright shows just how easily reality can be distorted based on who is telling the story – in this case, following the events of a Gamergate-type incident and the ensuing fallout. By the time you’re done reading, you will question everything you think you know.
", "tags": [ "mysteries & thrillers", "it’s all geek to me", "seriously great writing", "book club ideas", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1538717638", "cover": "1538717638", "goodreads": 54360370, "itunes": 9781538717639, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ACc-coqVS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781538717639", "isbn10": "1538717638", "links": [] }, "355": { "id": 355, "title": "We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice", "author": "Mariame Kaba", "reviewers": [ "LaTesha Harris" ], "text": "I carry rage in me: centuries of violence and opportunity inflicted against Black people, the memory of which produces an anger that can immobilize me. A newfound restorative I’ve found is Mariame Kaba’s essay collection We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. She outlines the immediate need for abolition of prisons and policing by explaining how these systems perpetuate violence and harm. Full of altruistic grace, accessible language and thoughtful analysis, it’s a must-read: Our future, Kaba argues, depends on recognizing how our learned punishment mindset routinely damages lives. It’s a helpful text for those new to the fight for abolition, veteran organizers and everyone in between.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "staff picks", "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas", "identity & culture", "eye-opening reads" ], "isbn": "164259525X", "cover": "164259525X", "goodreads": 56019003, "itunes": "", "bookshop": 9781642595253, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Pp9pGStDL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781642595253", "isbn10": "164259525X", "links": [] }, "356": { "id": 356, "title": "We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy", "author": "Kliph Nesteroff", "reviewers": [ "Sam Yellowhorse Kesler" ], "text": "This year we saw the boom of Native comedy in TV shows Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs, but Indigenous people have been cracking jokes about the Rez, Custer and fry bread for ages now. In We Had A Little Real Estate Problem, Kliph Nesteroff proves just that with a blend of stories covering everything from Indian sideshows to the life of legendary stand-up Charlie Hill (the title a nod to his most famous one-liner), and profiles of today’s Indigenous comedy scene. Nesteroff, hand-in-hand with the community whose story he aims to tell, gives a serious account of an unserious lineage.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "funny stuff", "identity & culture", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "1982103035", "cover": "1982103035", "goodreads": 54304279, "itunes": 9781982103033, "bookshop": "", "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41FvztNWmoL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781982103033", "isbn10": "1982103035", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 356, "book": "We Had A Little Real Estate Problem", "source": "WAMU", "text": "Native American comedians make their voices heard", "url": "https://wamu.org/story/21/03/01/native-american-comedians-make-their-voices-heard/" } ] }, "357": { "id": 357, "title": "We Run the Tides: A Novel", "author": "Vendela Vida", "reviewers": [ "Arielle Retting" ], "text": "Who are your friends, and are they really who you think they are? Set in 1980s San Francisco, We Run the Tides transports you back to the feeling of middle school, for better (the confidence!) or worse (the awkwardness!). This coming-of-age story revolves around female friendship and the growing pains that come with it. It also includes a mysterious disappearance and an equally puzzling reunion. This book expertly captures the desperate feeling of needing to belong and the devastation we feel when that bond is shattered.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "fiction", "book club ideas", "mysteries & thrillers" ], "isbn": "0062936239", "cover": "0062936239", "goodreads": 53402121, "itunes": 9780062936233, "bookshop": 9780062936233, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/412sBOP2k3L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062936233", "isbn10": "0062936239", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 357, "book": "We Run The Tides", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'We Run The Tides' pulls you into the rough seas of female adolescence", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/08/964041355/we-run-the-tides-pulls-you-into-the-rough-seas-of-female-adolescence" } ] }, "358": { "id": 358, "title": "We Were Never Here: A Novel", "author": "Andrea Bartz", "reviewers": [ "Molly Seavy-Nesper" ], "text": "Emily and Kristen, two longtime best friends, are on a backpacking trip in Chile when a hookup goes awry and a male traveler ends up dead. This is the second time they have found themselves in this predicament: overseas, traumatized and having to dispose of a body. How could this happen twice? I devoured this book and didn’t want it to end. Beneath the thrilling cliffhangers and impeccably paced plot lies a very sharp portrait of female friendship and how magical and intense it can be.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "book club ideas", "the dark side", "staff picks", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "198482046X", "cover": "198482046X", "goodreads": 56084054, "itunes": 9781984820464, "bookshop": 9781984820464, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vWTv4E+jL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984820464", "isbn10": "198482046X", "links": [] }, "359": { "id": 359, "title": "What Storm, What Thunder", "author": "Myriam J.A. Chancy", "reviewers": [ "Andrew Limbong" ], "text": "We know, in a general, macro-level sense, what happened after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Governments failed. Companies profited. But in What Storm, What Thunder, Myriam J.A. Chancy brings us the vivid, micro-level details of the lives of survivors. Her characters are stratified by class and country, but connected by guilt and grief. That we know another massive earthquake isn’t too far in their future only adds to the weight of Chancy’s writing.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "eye-opening reads", "seriously great writing", "tales from around the world", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1951142764", "cover": "1951142764", "goodreads": 56889469, "itunes": 9781951142766, "bookshop": 9781951142766, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ztQ5XHC-L._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781951142766", "isbn10": "1951142764", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 359, "book": "What Storm, What Thunder", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'What Storm, What Thunder' brings to life voices from Haiti's 2010 earthquake", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/02/1042667317/what-storm-what-thunder-brings-to-life-voices-from-haitis-2010-earthquake" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 359, "book": "What Storm, What Thunder", "source": "NPR", "text": "Book Review: 'What Storm, What Thunder'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/09/1044619151/what-storm-what-thunder-review-myriam-chancy" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 359, "book": "What Storm, What Thunder", "source": "NPR", "text": "NPR Book of the Day: 'What Storm, What Thunder'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1044069339/what-storm-what-thunder-myriam-j-a-chancy-interview" } ] }, "360": { "id": 360, "title": "What Strange Paradise: A Novel", "author": "Omar El Akkad", "reviewers": [ "Gabino Iglesias" ], "text": "What Strange Paradise is as dark and poetic as it is devastating and emotionally gritty. But what makes it unforgettable is that it’s so close to the reality of immigration worldwide that it could almost be dipping its toes into nonfiction. A harrowing account of illegal migration gone wrong, this is one of those rare narratives that obliterates your belief in humanity — and then somehow manages to restore it.
", "tags": [ "identity & culture", "tales from around the world", "eye-opening reads", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0525657908", "cover": "0525657908", "goodreads": 53773242, "itunes": 9780525657903, "bookshop": 9780525657903, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41OlrMrYCPL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780525657903", "isbn10": "0525657908", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 360, "book": "What Strange Paradise", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'What Strange Paradise' focuses on the human stories at the heart of a crisis", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/07/25/1019857793/what-strange-paradise-focuses-on-the-human-stories-at-the-heart-of-a-crisis#:~:text=Review%3A%20'What%20Strange%20Paradise%2C,By%20Omar%20El%2DAkkad%20%3A%20NPR&text=More%20Podcasts%20%26%20Shows-,Review%3A%20'What%20Strange%20Paradise%2C'%20By%20Omar%20El%2D,core%20of%20the%20migrant%20crisis." }, { "year": 2021, "id": 360, "book": "What Strange Paradise", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'What Strange Paradise' explores forced displacement through a child's eyes", "url": "https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101884969/what-strange-paradise-explores-forced-displacement-through-a-childs-eyes" } ] }, "361": { "id": 361, "title": "When Evil Lived in Laurel: The \"White Knights\" and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer", "author": "Curtis Wilkie", "reviewers": [ "Debbie Elliott" ], "text": "Journalist Curtis Wilkie, who covered many key moments in the civil rights movement, takes a deep dive into the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist terrorist organization operating out of Laurel, Miss., in the 1960s. This book reads like a Greg Iles novel, but it’s sadly the true story of how KKK leader Sam Bowers orchestrated the firebombing that killed NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer (and had a hand in other notorious civil rights era killings). The account is rich with details recorded by an FBI informant who had infiltrated the klan.
", "tags": [ "for history lovers", "staff picks", "nonfiction", "the states we’re in", "identity & culture" ], "isbn": "1324005750", "cover": "1324005750", "goodreads": 55298401, "itunes": 9781324005759, "bookshop": 9781324005759, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ekYuS3GZL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781324005759", "isbn10": "1324005750", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 361, "book": "When Evil Lived in Laurel", "source": "WAMC", "text": " 'When Evil Lived In Laurel' Curtis Wilkie's book about the KKK in Mississippi", "url": "https://www.wamc.org/the-roundtable/2021-06-15/when-evil-lived-in-laurel-curtis-wilkies-book-about-the-kkk-in-mississippi" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 361, "book": "When Evil Lived in Laurel", "source": "WWNO", "text": "The Reading Life: Curtis Wilkie", "url": "https://www.wwno.org/podcast/the-reading-life/2021-07-09/the-reading-life-curtis-wilkie" } ] }, "362": { "id": 362, "title": "When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers", "author": "Ken Krimstein", "reviewers": [ "Thúy Ðinh" ], "text": "During the 1930s, the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut, a Jewish cultural think tank founded in Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), decided to conduct some research on Jewish youth culture by holding an autobiographical essay contest aimed at young people 13 to 21. The grand prize would be 150 zlotys (equivalent to $1,000 today) for the “most truthful entry.” Tragically, the award ceremony – scheduled for Sept. 1, 1939, the day Nazi Germany invaded Poland and kicked off World War II – had to be canceled. Nearly 80 years later, these six contestants’ essays were resurrected via comic artist Ken Krimstein’s fluid brushstrokes and cinematic narratives. Unflinchingly examining gender and class bias, spiritual beliefs, political affiliations, the conflict between faith and worldly love, these mesmerizing accounts reflect the young writers’ deep commitment to depicting the Jewish experience as hauntingly complex and endlessly vital.
", "tags": [ "comics & graphic novels", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "tales from around the world", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "163557370X", "cover": "163557370X", "goodreads": 56268894, "itunes": 9781635573701, "bookshop": 9781635573701, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51-7oP6quGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635573701", "isbn10": "163557370X", "links": [] }, "363": { "id": 363, "title": "While We Were Dating", "author": "Jasmine Guillory", "reviewers": [ "Anjuli Sastry Krbechek" ], "text": "Jasmine Guillory is the queen of charming romance novels. In her sixth book, we meet ad exec Ben Stephens and movie star Anna Gardiner, who hit it off at a marketing campaign meeting and end up falling into a just-for-cameras relationship (with some fun benefits too). Unfortunately, romantic feelings (as they always do) get in the way of this arrangement. You might remember Ben from one of Guillory’s last books, The Wedding Date – the brother of uptight Theo. The best part about Guillory’s books is revisiting these characters and guessing who will show up in subsequent novels. Not to mention the descriptive California references (as a California native, I eat those up). Guillory’s writing style is addictive, but she also tackles heavy themes. I can guarantee you’ll finish this book quickly and want to check out her other ones.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks", "let’s talk about sex", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "0593100840", "cover": "0593100840", "goodreads": 55904454, "itunes": 9780593100844, "bookshop": 9780593100844, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bDb0Bz9cL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593100844", "isbn10": "0593100840", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 363, "book": "While We Were Dating", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Jasmine Guillory on 'While We Were Dating'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/podcast/marginalia/2021-07-21/marginalia-jasmine-guillory-on-while-we-were-dating" } ] }, "364": { "id": 364, "title": "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea", "author": "Tyler Stovall", "reviewers": [ "Ilana Masad" ], "text": "The focus of this timely history is the relationship between the concepts of freedom and race in the modern world. Tyler Stovall defines white freedom – which, he demonstrates, has been the foundation of liberty beloved especially by European and North American nations – as “the belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free.” His argument is convincing, and the way he makes it is fascinating, with chapters covering a wide range of topics, from the golden age of piracy to the modern-era limitations on children’s freedom.
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "eye-opening reads", "identity & culture", "the states we’re in", "book club ideas" ], "isbn": "0691179468", "cover": "0691179468", "goodreads": 53232151, "itunes": 9780691179469, "bookshop": 9780691179469, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51SyuIeICbL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780691179469", "isbn10": "0691179468", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 364, "book": "White Freedom", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'White Freedom' examins the tandem development of the concepts of freedom and race", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/20/958313643/white-freedom-examines-the-tandem-development-of-the-concepts-of-freedom-and-rac" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 364, "book": "White Freedom", "source": "NPR", "text": "Historian Tyler Stovall discusses his new book: 'White Freedom'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/01/20/958689598/historian-tyler-stovall-discusses-his-new-book-white-freedom" } ] }, "365": { "id": 365, "title": "White Magic: Essays", "author": "Elissa Washuta", "reviewers": [ "Kristen Martin" ], "text": "White Magic explores iterations of magic and witchiness including everything from the Native rituals that shape Elissa Washuta’s Cowlitz heritage to smudge sticks packaged in plastic. The book unfolds in three mesmerizing acts, like a magic show; across the intertwining essays, Washuta is drawn to magic as a method of healing from a decade of abusive relationships, alcoholism and PTSD, looking for meaning and control. Standouts include an essay about playing the classic computer game Oregon Trail as a coping mechanism, and one on her home state of New Jersey as a “land of genocidal fairy tales.”
", "tags": [ "nonfiction", "biography & memoir", "eye-opening reads", "short stories, essays & poetry", "identity & culture", "the dark side" ], "isbn": "195114239X", "cover": "195114239X", "goodreads": 50704742, "itunes": 9781951142391, "bookshop": 9781951142391, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51cZG3vosjL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781951142391", "isbn10": "195114239X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 365, "book": "White Magic", "source": "NPR", "text": "Survival is an invitation to push through hard times in 'White Magic'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/991129323/survival-is-an-invitation-to-push-through-hard-times-in-white-magic" } ] }, "366": { "id": 366, "title": "Who is Maud Dixon? A Novel", "author": "Alexandra Andrews", "reviewers": [ "Barrie Hardymon" ], "text": "Oh boy, friends, do you love a publishing mystery? If you’re searching through the Books We Love, you probably do, so gather ‘round. A young woman named Florence Darrow, down on her luck and yearning to become a famous author, is hired to become the assistant to a bestselling writer who publishes under the pseudonym Maud Dixon. Trying to break a bad spell of writer’s block, the two head to Morocco. To say any more would be unfair to your future self who will want to reread this to see what you missed, but suffice to say, this one is a thriller. Who are you rooting for? No one, who cares? Both “Maud” and Florence are deliciously difficult ladies (don’t say unlikeable, don’t say unlikeable). Who is Maud Dixon? is for lovers of Misery, The Talented Mr. Ripley and anyone whose speculation about the real identity of Elena Ferrante went just a smidge too far.
", "tags": [ "staff picks", "mysteries & thrillers", "tales from around the world", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0316500313", "cover": "0316500313", "goodreads": 58340726, "itunes": 9780316500319, "bookshop": 9780316500319, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41TL9WxdZQL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780316500319", "isbn10": "0316500313", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 366, "book": "Who is Maud Dixon", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: Alexandra Andrews on 'Who Is Maud Dixon?'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-05-25/marginalia-alexandra-andrews-on-who-is-maud-dixon" } ] }, "367": { "id": 367, "title": "Why We Fly", "author": "Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal", "reviewers": [ "Alethea Kontis" ], "text": "In Why We Fly, bestselling duo Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal create believable heroines out of two genuine athletes who don’t conform to old cheerleader stereotypes, all while conveying a story of adversity and hope for the future. The Franklin High cheer squad takes a knee during the national anthem at the first game of the season to draw attention to the unequal treatment of people of color in America. The team’s efforts are lauded at first, but when they become a viral sensation, the response turns to punishment and hate. When the dust settles, will the same friends they’ve always counted on still be beside them?
", "tags": [ "young adult", "identity & culture", "for sports lovers", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1492678929", "cover": "1492678929", "goodreads": 45184410, "itunes": 9781492678922, "bookshop": 9781492678922, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51KPHdLwuxL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781492678922", "isbn10": "1492678929", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 367, "book": "Why We Fly", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Why We Fly' flips dusty old cheerleader stereotypes upside down", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/15/1046202242/why-we-fly-kimberly-jones-gilly-segal-review" } ] }, "368": { "id": 368, "title": "Widespread Panic: A Novel", "author": "James Ellroy", "reviewers": [ "Gabino Iglesias" ], "text": "The Demon Dog of Crime Fiction is in fine form with the fast-paced, violent, filthy, and foul-mouthed Widespread Panic, perhaps the most Ellroy book James Ellroy has ever written. Packed with gossip, starlets, crooked cops, pervs, prowlers and putzo politicians, this is quintessential Ellroy, a bizarre mix of fact and fiction that brings both 1950s Los Angeles and legendary cop-turned-Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash to the page with uncanny realism and enough dirt to soil Hollyweird forever.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "mysteries & thrillers", "the states we’re in", "the dark side", "no biz like show biz", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0593319346", "cover": "0593319346", "goodreads": 58401731, "itunes": 9780593319345, "bookshop": 9780593319345, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/612YC8LqhJL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593319345", "isbn10": "0593319346", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 368, "book": "Widespread Panic", "source": "NPR", "text": "Widespread Panic' might be the most Ellroy book James Ellroy has ever written", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/06/20/1007785389/widespread-panic-might-be-the-most-ellroy-book-james-ellroy-has-ever-written" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 368, "book": "Widespread Panic", "source": "KMUW", "text": "Marginalia: James Ellroy on 'Widespread Panic'", "url": "https://www.kmuw.org/marginalia/2021-06-15/marginalia-james-ellroy-on-widespread-panic" } ] }, "369": { "id": 369, "title": "Wild Rain: Women Who Dare", "author": "Beverly Jenkins", "reviewers": [ "Carole V. Bell" ], "text": "Wild Rain is boldly feminist and unabashedly swoony. It’s about Spring, a Black female rancher who rescues – and then falls in love with – Garrett, a journalist passing through her part of Wyoming on assignment. In historical romances, Black men are too rarely afforded the space to be soft, sweet and supportive heroes who dote on their women and don’t mind when those women take the reins. But Garrett is all of those things, and that’s why I adored him. The way he knows when to stand up for Spring, while also knowing when to stand down, makes him all the more appealing.
", "tags": [ "love & romance", "let’s talk about sex", "historical fiction", "fiction" ], "isbn": "0062861719", "cover": "0062861719", "goodreads": 43701060, "itunes": 9780062861719, "bookshop": 9780062861719, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51usNHMUxGL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780062861719", "isbn10": "0062861719", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 369, "book": "Wild Rain", "source": "NPR", "text": "Let this 'Wild Rain' sweep you away", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/02/11/966486281/let-this-wild-rain-sweep-you-away" } ] }, "370": { "id": 370, "title": "Win Me Something: A Novel", "author": "Kyle Lucia Wu", "reviewers": [ "Michael Schaub" ], "text": "Kyle Lucia Wu’s impressive debut novel follows Willa, a young Chinese American woman in Brooklyn who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy white couple’s precocious 9-year-old daughter. While Willa bonds with the girl, her job causes her to reflect on her own childhood, which was never really happy or unhappy. The novel is filled with quiet moments that pack a devastating emotional punch. It’s perfectly structured and is clear that Wu has thought carefully about each sentence. This is a subtle but powerful triumph.
", "tags": [ "book club ideas", "family matters", "identity & culture", "fiction", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in" ], "isbn": "195114273X", "cover": "195114273X", "goodreads": 56889467, "itunes": 9781951142735, "bookshop": 9781951142735, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51TADUJmfXL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781951142735", "isbn10": "195114273X", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 370, "book": "Win Me Something", "source": "NPR", "text": " 'Win Me Something' is full of little moments that pack a big emotional punch", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/10/31/1050648545/win-me-something-kyle-lucia-wu-review" } ] }, "371": { "id": 371, "title": "Winter Recipes From the Collective: Poems", "author": "Louise Glück", "reviewers": [ "Craig Morgan Teicher" ], "text": "Rather than her usual sharp edges and cutting mic drops, Louise Glück speaks in softer voices in her first post-Nobel collection. “I try to comfort you,” she writes, “but words are not the answer.” And yet there is an unlikely kind of comfort here, as well as a kind of dark resolve, the knowledge that luck and joy are always fleeting – “I threw some snow over my shoulder/ since I had no salt.” As ever, Glück is good company, or at least honest company. Reading her, I feel much less alone.
", "tags": [ "seriously great writing", "short stories, essays & poetry" ], "isbn": "037460410X", "cover": "037460410X", "goodreads": 58929901, "itunes": 9780374604103, "bookshop": 9780374604103, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71TMimtYYPL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780374604103", "isbn10": "037460410X", "links": [] }, "372": { "id": 372, "title": "Wishes", "author": "Muon Thi Van, illustrated by Victo Ngai", "reviewers": [ "Minh Lê" ], "text": "This book brings to mind the line from Warsan Shire’s well-known poem “Home”: “no one puts their children in a boat/unless the water is safer than the land.” Wishes is a story about the refugee journey ingeniously told from the perspective of the objects surrounding the travelers. (“The path wished it was shorter. The boat wished it was bigger.”) By focusing on the wishes underlying the journey, Muon Thi Van, a refugee herself, shifts the story from one of despair to one of hope – because as harrowing as the journey is, it is ultimately fueled by the wish and hope that there is something better on the other end. (For ages 4 to 8)
", "tags": [ "family matters", "kids’ books", "tales from around the world" ], "isbn": "1338305891", "cover": "1338305891", "goodreads": 54776511, "itunes": 9781338305890, "bookshop": 9781338305890, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Z+EhdXYFS._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781338305890", "isbn10": "1338305891", "links": [] }, "373": { "id": 373, "title": "Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology", "author": "Jess Zimmerman", "reviewers": [ "Kelsey Page" ], "text": "Women and Other Monsters made me – and I say this as the highest compliment – think about everything I am most afraid of thinking about. Jess Zimmerman weaves together Greek mythology about Medusa, Scylla, The Sphinx and others, with personal experiences and universal challenges, creating essays that that give a framework to even the heaviest considerations: whether to have a child, what a meaningful partnership looks like, what it means to have a fulfilling life, how to want things when you’ve been taught not to. I can already tell that I will be revisiting this collection often, especially at times when I am feeling brave enough to look in the metaphorical mirror.
", "tags": [ "short stories, essays & poetry", "book club ideas", "staff picks", "the dark side", "identity & culture", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0807054933", "cover": "0807054933", "goodreads": 54228607, "itunes": 9780807054932, "bookshop": 9780807054932, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51ozActIDiL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780807054932", "isbn10": "0807054933", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 373, "book": "Women And Other Monsters", "source": "KUOW", "text": "Jess Zimmerman subverts the dominant monster myth paradigm", "url": "https://www.kuow.org/stories/jess-zimmerman-subverts-the-dominant-monster-myth-paradigm" } ] }, "374": { "id": 374, "title": "Yearbook", "author": "Seth Rogen", "reviewers": [ "Jessica Reedy" ], "text": "What sets Seth Rogen’s book of essays apart from other books by Hollywood Famouses is his self-awareness. He’s a white Canadian stoner who knows he rode a wave of privilege into an A-list movie career. But with that privilege also comes legitimate comedy chops. He’s a masterful storyteller, sharing funny anecdotes from his childhood and his early years in Los Angeles. He also shares fantastically hilarious showbiz stories about folks like Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise. But his stories aren’t mean – he shares just enough to keep us normals entertained, but he also maintains boundaries with the reader. I love Seth Rogen’s movies, but I hope he writes more books in the future.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "short stories, essays & poetry", "funny stuff", "no biz like show biz", "staff picks", "nonfiction" ], "isbn": "1984825402", "cover": "1984825402", "goodreads": 44678031, "itunes": 9781984825407, "bookshop": 9781984825407, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71QTWz+g+bS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781984825407", "isbn10": "1984825402", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 374, "book": "Yearbook", "source": "NPR", "text": "Seth Rogen on the comedy advice he got at 12 that he still thinks about", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/05/18/997827530/seth-rogen-on-the-comedy-advice-he-got-at-12-that-he-still-thinks-about" } ] }, "375": { "id": 375, "title": "Yolk", "author": "Mary H.K. Choi", "reviewers": [ "Kelsey Page" ], "text": "Yolk is a story about two sisters and their complicated relationship. It’s also about coping when life gets messy and about what it takes to love your family and yourself. Mary H.K. Choi has proven yet again that she knows how to show the inside of a character’s mind better than anyone. As you witness Jayne and June navigate the complexities of early adulthood and the difficult situations they find themselves in – unstable housing, family secrets, disordered eating, cancer – you’ll find yourself wishing you could dive into their world and give them each a big hug (and maybe help them reform the healthcare system).
", "tags": [ "fiction", "young adult", "family matters", "identity & culture", "staff picks" ], "isbn": "1534446001", "cover": "1534446001", "goodreads": 43562313, "itunes": 9781534446007, "bookshop": 9781534446007, "image": "https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fFeHhn6IL._SL500_.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781534446007", "isbn10": "1534446001", "links": [] }, "376": { "id": 376, "title": "Zorrie: A Novel", "author": "Laird Hunt", "reviewers": [ "Tayla Burney" ], "text": "This slender novel packs a big punch. Laird Hunt shifts from mundane to the profound elements and aspects of Zorrie’s life – and the lives intertwined with hers – within the span of a single page. A beautiful rumination on finding meaning in our days, it will appeal to fans of Elizabeth Strout and Lauren Groff.
", "tags": [ "historical fiction", "book club ideas", "seriously great writing", "the states we’re in", "rather short", "staff picks", "fiction" ], "isbn": "1635575362", "cover": "1635575362", "goodreads": 53138232, "itunes": 9781635575361, "bookshop": 9781635575361, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ND0sXEkIL.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781635575361", "isbn10": "1635575362", "links": [ { "year": 2021, "id": 376, "book": "Zorrie", "source": "NPR", "text": "Laird Hunt proves life centers on the seemingly-mundane through the life of 'Zorrie'", "url": "https://www.npr.org/2021/11/13/1055503620/laird-hunt-proves-life-lays-in-the-seemingly-mundane-through-the-life-of-zorrie" }, { "year": 2021, "id": 376, "book": "Zorrie", "source": "WYSO", "text": "Book Nook: Zorrie by Laird Hunt", "url": "https://www.wyso.org/show/book-nook/2021-03-16/book-nook-zorrie-by-laird-hunt" } ] }, "377": { "id": 377, "title": "The Paper Palace: A Novel", "author": "Miranda Cowley Heller", "reviewers": [ "Mary Louise Kelly" ], "text": "I tore through this novel on a New England beach this summer, which felt appropriate since the story unfolds on Cape Cod. It’s about a middle-aged woman facing a choice: stay with the husband she loves, or leave him and embark on an entirely different life with her childhood sweetheart, the only man who knows her deepest secrets. The pages drip with longing and desire. And they pose an intriguing question: How do we know if we’re living the life we were meant to lead? If you’re looking for a beach read – one you can’t put down but that also makes you think – this is a great choice.
", "tags": [ "fiction", "staff picks", "love & romance", "family matters" ], "isbn": "0593329821", "cover": "0593329821", "goodreads": 55994372, "itunes": 9780593329825, "bookshop": 9780593329825, "image": "https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/91CGnSmKmTS.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9780593329825", "isbn10": "0593329821", "links": [] }, "378": { "id": 378, "title": "The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America's Judicial Hero", "author": "Peter S. Canellos", "reviewers": [ "Nina Totenberg" ], "text": "The Great Dissenter is the story of John Marshall Harlan, the famous lone dissenter in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1896 decision upholding racial segregation. But Harlan – a white man from a prosperous, upper-crust, slave-owning family in Kentucky – was more than a dissenter in that single ruling. In case after case after the Civil War, he dissented, usually alone, when the court sought to nullify many of the measures that Congress had enacted to protect the rights of African Americans and newly freed slaves. Notable in his backstory is that his father had sought, bought, and brought back to the family home a slave child that was schooled with John. Robert Harlan, likely John’s half-brother, would go on to enormous successes, overcoming many of the obstacles placed in his way. This book is his story too. It’s one of the finest judicial biographies I have read – and I have read quite a few. Author Peter S. Canellos has done himself, and John Marshall Harlan, proud.
", "tags": [ "biography & memoir", "nonfiction", "for history lovers", "the states we’re in", "rather long" ], "isbn": "1501188208", "cover": "1501188206", "goodreads": 55710575, "itunes": 9781501188206, "bookshop": 9781501188206, "image": "https://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781501188206/the-great-dissenter-9781501188206_lg.jpg", "year": 2021, "isbn13": "9781501188206", "isbn10": "1501188208", "links": [] } }