Readers’ Advisory Committee

STAFF PICKS JANUARY 2018 Libraries To find on the web go to www.nccde.org/libraries and click on “What Do I Read Next”

FICTION

TTTHEHEHE SSSTORY OFOFOF AAARTHUR TTTRULUV BYBYBY EEELIZABETH BBBERGERGERG (((PICKED BYBYBY SHSHSH ))) A moving novel about three people who find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of happiness. Arthur, a widow, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who is avoiding school by hiding out at the cemetery, where Arthur goes every day for lunch to have imaginary conversations with his late wife, and think about the lives of others. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation. Maddy gives Arthur the name Truluv, for his loving and positive responses to every outrageous thing she says or does. With Arthur’s nosy neighbor Lucille, they create a loving and unconventional family, proving that life’s most precious moments are sweeter when shared . (240 pages) MMMANHATTAN BBBEACH BYBYBY JJJENNIFER EEEGANGANGAN (((PICKED BYBYBY SLSSLSSLS ))) Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. Anna observes the uniformed servants, the lavishing of toys on the children, and some secret pact between her father and Dexter Styles. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief career as a Ziegfield girl, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a night club, she chances to meet Styles, the man she visited with her father before he vanished, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have been murdered. (438 pages) HHHERERER BBBODYODYODY ANDANDAND OOOTHER PPPARTIES BYBYBY CCCARMEN MMMARIA MMMACHADO (((PICKED BYBYBY KTKTKT ))) In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous”, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit , a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction. (248 pages)

A SA S INGLE SSSPYPYPY BYBYBY WWWILLIAM CCCHRISTIE (((PICKED BYBYBY KSKSKS ))) Aleksi Smirnov, an orphan and a thief, has been living by his wits surviving below the ever- watchful eye of the Soviet system until, at the age of 16, Aleksi is caught by the NKVD and transported to Moscow. There, in the headquarters of the secret police, he is given a choice: be trained and inserted as a spy into Nazi Germany under the identity of his best friend, the long lost nephew of a high ranking Nazi official, or disappear forever in the basement of the Lubyanka. Over the course of the next seven years, Aleksi has to live his role - all the while acting as a double agent—reporting back to the NKVD and avoiding detection by the Gestapo. In 1943, Aleksi is chosen by the Gestapo to spearhead one of the most desperate operations of the war—to infiltrate the site of the upcoming Tehran conference between Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, and set them up to be assassinated. (400 pages).

New Castle County Libraries | Department of Community Services | Matthew Meyer , County Executive STAFF PICKS FICTION SSSWEET BBBEANEANEAN PPPASTE BYBYBY DDDURIAN SSSUKEGAWA (((PICKED BYBYBY SMSMSM ))) Sentaro has failed: he has a criminal record, drinks too much, and hasn't managed to fulfil his dream of becoming a writer. Instead, he works in a confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with a sweet paste made of red beans. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days listlessly filling the pastries. Until one day an elderly, handicapped woman enters the shop. Tokue makes the best bean paste imaginable, and begins to teach Sentaro her art. But as their friendship flourishes, societal prejudices become impossible to escape, in this quietly devastating novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. (224 pages) TTTHEHEHE CCCOTTINGLEY SSSECRET BYBYBY HHHAZEL GGGAYNOR (((PICKED BYBYBY SMSMSM ))) 1917 … When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claim to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle becomes convinced of the photographs’ authenticity, the girls become a national sensation, their discovery offering hope to those longing for something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war. Frances and Elsie will hide their secret for many decades. But Frances longs for the truth to be told. One hundred years later … When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript in her late grandfather’s bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls’ lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present, and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, can Olivia find a way to believe in herself? (383 pages) SSSLEEP NNNOOO MMMOREOREORE BYBYBY P.D. J AMES (((PICKED BYBYBY SLSSLSSLS ))) It's not always a question of "whodunit?" Sometimes there's more mystery in the why or how. And although we usually know the unhealthy fates of both victim and perpetrator, what of those clever few who plan and carry out the perfect crime? The ones who aren't brought down even though they're found out? And what about those who do the finding out—who witness a murder or who identify the murderer but keep the information to themselves? These are some of the mysteries that we follow through six stories as we are drawn into the thinking, the memories, the emotional machinations, the rationalizations, the dreams and desires behind murderous cause and effect. (208 pages) SSSTATION EEELEVEN BYBYBY EEEMILY SSSTTT. J. J OHNOHNOHN MMMANDEL (((PICKED BYBYBY KSKSKS ))) One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains - this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self- proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it. (336 pages)

SSSPYPYPY OFOFOF THETHETHE FFFIRST PPPERSON BYBYBY SSSAMAMAM SSSHEPARD (((PICKED BYBYBY KTKTKT ))) In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an unnamed narrator who traces his memories of work, adventure, and travel as he undergoes medical tests and treatments for a condition that is rendering him more and more dependent on the loved ones who are caring for him. The narrator’s memories and preoccupations often echo those of our current moment—for here are stories of immigration and community, inclusion and exclusion, suspicion and trust. But at the book’s core, and his, is family—his relationships with those he loved, and with the natural world around him. (96 pages)

New Castle County Libraries | Department of Community Services | Matthew Meyer, County Executive STAFF PICKS JANUARY 2018 Libraries

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AAASKSKSK ANANAN AAASTRONAUT BYBYBY TTTIMIMIM PPPEAKE (P(P(P ICKED BYBYBY SMCSMCSMC ))) Ask an Astronaut is Tim Peake’s personal guide to life in space, based on his historic Principia mission, and the thousands of questions he has been asked since his return to Earth. Tim shares his thoughts on every aspect of his mission. From training to launch, from his historic spacewalk to re-entry, he reveals for readers of all ages the cutting-edge science behind his ground-breaking experiments, and the wonders of day-to-day life on board the International Space Station. The public was invited to submit questions using the hashtag #askanastronaut, and a selection are answered by Tim in the book, which are accompanied with illustrations, diagrams and never-before-seen photos. (272 pages) TTTHEHEHE NNNEWCOMERS BYBYBY HHHELEN TTTHORPE (P(P(P ICKED BYBYBY SMCSMCSMC ))) The Newcomers follows the lives of 22 immigrant teenagers throughout the course of the 2015-2016 schoolyear as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado, in an English Language Acquisition class created specifically for them. Speaking no English, unfamiliar with American culture, their stories are poignant and remarkable as they face the enormous challenge of adapting. These newcomers, from 14-19 years old, come from nations convulsed by drought or famine or war. Many come directly from refugee camps. Some arrive alone, having left or lost every other member of their original family. At the center of the story is Mr. Williams, the dedicated and endlessly resourceful teacher of South’s very beginner English Language Acquisition class. If Mr. Williams does his job right, the newcomers will leave his class at the end of the school year with basic English skills and new confidence. With the US at a political crossroads around questions of immigration, multiculturalism, and America’s role on the global stage, Helen Thorpe presents a fresh and nuanced perspective. (416 pages)

FFFINDING MMMAGIC BYBYBY SSSALLY QQQUINN (((PICKED BYBYBY SLHSLHSLH ))) Sally Quinn yearned to understand what truly made the world--and her life--tick. The author, journalist, television reporter, and longtime Washington insider reflects on the spiritual quest that has brought deeper meaning to her life--and kept her grounded within the high-powered political world of Washington, D.C.'s elite--her renowned writing career, her celebrity marriage, and her legendary role as doyenne of the capital's social scene. Quinn speaks frankly about her varied, provocative spiritual experiences and her growing fascination with religious issues. This fascination led to her pioneering work in creating the most visited religious site on the web, OnFaith.co, where she reports on the unseen driving force of American life. Throughout this memoir, Quinn reveals how "it's all magic"--the many forms of what draws us together and provides meaning to all we do. (432 pages)

PPPRAIRIE FFFIRES BYBYBY CCCAROLINE FFFRASER [BIO] (P ICKED BYBYBY SHSHSH ))) The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters. Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day. (640 pages)

New Castle County Libraries | Department of Community Services | Matthew Meyer, County Executive STAFF PICKS NONNONNON-NON ---FICTIONFICTION

EEEATATAT WWWHATHATHAT YYYOUOUOU WWWATCH BYBYBY AAANDREW RRRENENEN (((PICKED BYBYBY SLHSLHSLH ) Many of our favorite movies come with a side of iconic food moments: the elaborate timpano from Big Night , Charlie Chaplin's dancing dinner rolls in The Gold Rush , the orgasmic deli fare from When Harry Met Sally , or the redemptive birthday cake from Sixteen Candles . In this cookbook, author Andrew Rea recreates these iconic food scenes and many more. With recipes from more than 40 classic and cult films, Eat What You Watch is the perfect gift for both movie buffs and home cooks who want to add some cinematic flair to their cooking repertoire. (150 pages) BBBALANCE BYBYBY CCCAROL SSSVECVECVEC (((PICKED BYBYBY SLSSLSSLS ))) You are more prone to trip when you think someone is watching you. A breakthrough in improving balance as we age might just come through the study of the Achilles tendon. A person gets “falling down drunk” due to a tiny structure in the inner ear that floats when it becomes soaked in alcohol. These and other surprising and useful nuggets of information can be found in this lively exploration of our body’s most intricate sense—balance. Readers follow award- winning science and health writer Carol Svec through various facilities as she talks with leading scientists doing state-of-the-art balance research. Svec translates their most fascinating findings for the layperson in a way that is highly entertaining and broadly accessible. Along the way she cites case studies of people whose lives are affected by balance dysfunction; explains how balance research is being applied today to help those who are ill, elderly, disabled, or simply prone to motion sickness; and provides a glimpse at what ingenious, potentially life-changing advances may be coming down the road. (288 pages) BBBROLLIOLOGY BYBYBY MMMARION RRRANKINE (((PICKED BYBYBY SLSSLSSLS ) Humans have been making, using, perfecting, and decorating umbrellas for millennia--holding them over the heads of rulers, signaling class distinctions, and exploring their full imaginative potential in folk tales and novels. Brolliology is a beautifully illustrated tour through literature and history. It surprises us with the crucial role that the oft-overlooked umbrella has played over centuries--and not just in keeping us dry. As Rankine points out, many others have tried. Derrida sought to find the meaning (or lack thereof) behind an umbrella mentioned in Nietzsche's notes, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote essays on the handy object, and Dickens used umbrellas as a narrative device for just about everything. Rankine tackles the gender, class, and social connotations of carrying an umbrella and helps us realize our deep connection to this most forgettable everyday object--which we only think of when we don't have one. (193 pages) OOOBAMA : ANANAN INTIMATE PORTRAIT BYBYBY PPPETEETEETE SSSOUZA [BIO] ( PICKED BYBYBY BMC ))) This is the definitive visual biography of 's presidency, captured in intimate, unprecedented detail by his official White House photographer. Pete Souza began photographing President Obama on his first day as a U.S. senator, in January 2005, and served as the chief official White House photographer for the President's full two terms. Souza was with President Obama more often, and at more crucial moments, than any friend or staff member, or even the First Lady--and he photographed it all. Souza captured nearly 2 million photographs of Obama, in moments ranging from classified to disarmingly candid. This book presents more than 300 of Souza's favorite and most iconic images from these historic years. The photographs are paired with captions and stories providing behind-the-scenes context for each. (368 pages) TTTHEHEHE WWWORLD OFOFOF LLLOREOREORE . M. M ONSTROUS CCCREATURES BYBYBY AAAARON MMMAHNKE (((PICKED BYBYBY SLHSLHSLH ))) No matter how wary and jaded we have become a part of us remains vulnerable to: werewolves, poltergeists, vampires, and vengeful spirits. The host of the hit podcast Lore serves as a guide on a fascinating journey through the history of these terrifying creatures, exploring not only the legends but what they tell us about ourselves. Aaron Mahnke invites us to the desolate Pine Barrens of New Jersey, where the notorious winged, red-eyed Jersey Devil dwells. He delves into harrowing accounts of cannibalism. He visits the dimly lit rooms where seances take place, even Key West, Florida, home of a haunted doll named Robert. The monsters of folklore have become both a part of our language and a part of our collective psyche. We know, on some level, that not every mystery has been explained and that the unknown still holds the power to strike fear deep in our hearts and souls. As Aaron Mahnke reminds us, sometimes the truth is even scarier than the lore. (320 pages)

Reviews excerpted from amazon.com and goodreads.com