New and Notable in the Library
Krazy: George Herriman, a Life in Black and White by Michael Tisserand
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
History of Wolves isn't a typical thriller any more than it's a typical coming-of-age novel; Fridlund does a remarkable job transcending genres without sacrificing the suspense that builds steadily in the book. She's particularly effective using descriptions of nature to provide eerie foreshadowing: "You know how summer goes. You yearn for it and yearn for it, but there's always something wrong. ... The afternoons are so fat and long. You want to see if anything you do matters."
Perhaps the greatest accomplishment in the novel is Fridlund's portrayal of Linda, who the reader encounters not just as a teenager, but, in brief flash-forward scenes, as an adult still psychically wounded from the events of the summer. Sometimes people overcome the traumas they were subjected to as children; sometimes they don't. For most people, and for Linda, it's somewhere in between.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
Unfairness in the Justice system is a major theme of our age. DNA analysis exposes false convictions, it seems, on a weekly basis. The predominance of racial minorities in jails and prisons suggests systemic bias. Sentencing guidelines born of the war on drugs look increasingly draconian. Studies cast doubt on the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. Even the states that still kill people appear to have forgotten how; lately executions have been botched to horrific effect.
This news reaches citizens in articles and television spots about mistreated individuals. But “Just Mercy,” a memoir, aggregates and personalizes the struggle against injustice in the story of one activist lawyer.
Bryan Stevenson grew up poor in Delaware. His great-grandparents had been slaves in Virginia. His grandfather was murdered in a Philadelphia housing project when Stevenson was a teenager. Stevenson attended Eastern College (now Eastern University), a Christian institution outside Philadelphia, and then Harvard Law School. Afterward he began representing poor clients in the South, first in Georgia and then in Alabama, where he was a co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
“Just Mercy” focuses mainly on that work, and those clients.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.
Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade," says the companionable narrator. For the Count, that way of life ultimately becomes less about aristocratic airs and privilege than generosity and devotion. Spread across four decades, this is in all ways a great novel, a nonstop pleasure brimming with charm, personal wisdom, and philosophic insight. Though Stalin and Khrushchev make their presences felt, Towles largely treats politics as a dark, distant shadow. The chill of the political events occurring outside the Metropol is certainly felt, but for the Count and his friends, the passage of time is "like the turn of a kaleidoscope." Not for nothing is Casablanca his favorite film. This is a book in which the cruelties of the age can't begin to erase the glories of real human connection and the memories it leaves behind.
-from starred Kirkus Review
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? Stories by Kathleen Collins
This collection of previously unpublished short fiction is long overdue. Collins, who died of breast cancer in 1988 at the young age of 46, was a playwright, educator, activist and among the first African-American women to make a feature film, the comic drama “Losing Ground.” With “Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?” she weaves what seem to be autobiographical details into her fiction. In “How Does One Say,” Collins makes use of her Sorbonne education and French proficiency to write about a young black girl who establishes a rapport with the professor of a French immersion program in Maine. In the title story, two activist lovers — a black woman and a white man — are struggling to reconcile their relationship with their familial obligations. The lovers met while encouraging others to vote in the South; Collins, for her part, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped with its efforts to register voters in Georgia.
Collins truly understands her characters in all of their ambivalence and complexity, and she shows how respectability politics governs many of their lives, with devastating effects.
The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller
Haunted by a Saddam Hussein henchman's coldblooded execution of a young Shiite girl, British war reporter Thomas Benton and ex–GI Arwood Hobbes reunite in Iraq 22 years later to investigate the unlikely possibility that she is alive.
The unlikely duo first meet in 1991, during the uneasy cease-fire following the first Gulf War. The 22-year-old Hobbes is on patrol at Checkpoint Zulu, 150 miles from the Kuwaiti border. Benton is on the prowl for unsanctioned information about ongoing conflicts. During an attempt to rescue Benton from a dangerous situation in a nearby town, the fearless (and feckless) Hobbes spots a frightened girl in a green dress and tries to get her out of harm's way as well. But a Baathist colonel, with Hobbes' gun pointed at his head—and in full view of U.S. soldiers—shoots her in the back. After beating up a lieutenant who berates him for daring to get involved in local matters, Hobbes is sent home without honor. Benton returns to an unhappy home life in England... In 2013, out of the blue, Hobbes invites the now-63-year-old reporter to join him in Kurdistan, convinced he saw their girl in green on Al Jazeera escaping a mortar attack. Her existence, or lack thereof, speaks to the fact that everything has changed in Iraq, and nothing has changed. The new emerging threat is ISIS, but the same grudge fights are being fought, scores of innocents are still on the run, and Westerners like our heroes are still getting abducted. As in his acclaimed debut, Norwegian by Night (2013), Miller brilliantly blends offbeat reflection and dark emotion, using pop-culture references ranging from Ferris Bueller to Winnie the Pooh to underscore the killing ironies of war.
-from starred Kirkus Review
SP4RX by Wren McDonald
In a gritty future, hackers must fight an evil corporation trying to turn humans into mechanically altered zombies.
SP4RX is a bitnite, or a hacker for hire, barely keeping himself and his best friend, CL1PP3R, afloat with the odd freelancing job. The pair is commissioned by a profiteer to steal a beta botnet program from the prestigious Gaius Corp. The purloined program can control the existing Elpis Program, a dubious free procedure that bionically modifies humans to increase efficiency. However, when a mysterious female bitnite steals the botnet program from SP4RX, he soon finds himself falling down a terrifying rabbit hole of corporate greed that seeks to use the Elpis Program to turn the modified persons into controlled zombies. Told through visually active panels awash with a spectrum of blacks and purples, McDonald’s tale has a wonderfully indie feel that marches in smart synchrony with its nonconformist antihero. For exposition, McDonald intersperses bits of television ads or interviews, creating a depth to his world without awkward infodumps. Teeming with rogue robots, political and corporate corruption, and raw, unflinchingly violent action, this is a must-read for fans seeking a smart sci-fi graphic offering that's a bit off the beaten path.
A pulls-no-punches techno-thriller; think Mr. Robot meets The Stepford Wives.
Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly
-from Los Angelos Review of Books, review by Mekeisha Madden Toby
*This book is available digitally through OverDrive. If you need your login information, please contact Ms. Dalane.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
This is not for you
– the novel’s dedication page
House of Leaves is a cluster of stories told more in their metatext than text, a book that took ten years to write and has given rise to another book (The Whalestoe Letters), an album (Haunted, by Danielewski’s sister, Anne – known as Poe), and an author with a reputation for being so ‘experimental’ his next book, Only Revolutions, was shortlisted for the US National Book Prize despite being practically incomprehensible to any but the most dedicated reader. House of Leaves is a cult classic, reviled by some and adored – fiercely – by others.
-from Weird Fiction Review
*This book was recommended by Mr. Bergman. Reading this book is quite an experience. See an example of a page from the book in the image to the right.