November 2020

Colleen W. recommends: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

From amazon.com: In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disas- ters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warn- ing, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic. Fiction -and- Paper Girls (Volumes 1-6) by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang

From amazon.com: In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood. Graphic novel

Stacy C. recommends: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

From amazon.com: Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world. Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unex- pected that even they can hardly explain what happens next. Fiction

Sara C. recommends: Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello (audiobook)

This is the autobiography of Elvis Costello and also read by him. He's one of my favorite musicians. From goodreads.com: Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Elvis Costello was raised in London and Liverpool, grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star Line and son of a jazz musician who became a successful radio dance band vocalist. Costello went into the family business and had taken the popular music world by storm be- fore he was twenty-four. Costello continues to add to one of the most intriguing and extensive songbooks of the day. His performances have taken him from a cardboard guitar in his front room to fronting a rock and roll band on your television screen and performing in the world's greatest concert halls in a wild variety of company. Unfaithful Mu- sic describes how Costello's career has somehow endured for almost four decades through a combination of dumb luck and animal cunning, even managing the occa- sional absurd episode of pop stardom. This memoir, written with the same inimitable touch as his lyrics, and including dozens of images from his personal archive, offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical rise to international success, with diversions through the previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his best known songs and the hits of tomorrow. The book contains many stories and observations about his renowned co-writers and co-conspirators, though Costello also pauses along the way for considerations on the less appealing side of infamy. Music -and- Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman

Judy never intended to start wearing the dog. But when she stumbled across her son Teddy’s old baby sling during a halfhearted basement cleaning, something in her snapped. So: the dog went into the sling, Judy felt connected to another living being, and she’s repeated the process every day since. Life hasn’t gone according to Judy’s plan. Her career as a children’s book author offered a glimpse of success before taking an embarrassing nose dive. Teddy, now a teenager, treats her with some combination of mortification and indifference. Her best friend is dying. And her husband, Gary, has become a pot-addled profes- sional “snackologist” who she can’t afford to divorce. On top of it all, she has a painfully ironic job writing articles for a self-help website—a poor fit for someone seemingly incapable of helping herself. Wickedly funny and surprisingly tender, Separation Anxiety offers a frank portrait of middle-aged limbo, examining the ebb and flow of life’s most important rela- tionships. Tapping into the insecurities and anxieties that most of us keep under wraps, and with a voice that is at once gleefully irreverent and genuinely touching, Laura Zigman has crafted a new classic for anyone taking fumbling steps toward happiness. Fiction

Alan P. recommends: “I am the Doorway” by Stephen King

Found in Night Shift, King’s first collection of stories. From goodreads.com: Never trust your heart to the New York Times bestselling master of suspense, Stephen King. Especially with an anthology that features the classic stories "Children of the Corn," "The Lawnmower Man," "Graveyard Shift," "The Mangler," and "Sometimes They Come Back"-which were all made into hit horror films. From the depths of darkness, where hideous rats defend their empire, to dizzying heights, where a beautiful girl hangs by a hair above a hellish fate, this chilling col- lection of twenty short stories will plunge readers into the subterranean labyrinth of the most spine-tingling, eerie imagination of our time. Horror

Kendra S. recommends: 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers

I recommend this book to everyone I know. It's a fantasy biography about a blue- bear named Bluebear who travels the magical continent of Zamonia. He travels with minipirates, lives inside a 2 mile tall giant Bollogg, becomes a Congladiator (a gladiator who fights with lies instead of weapons) and gets stuck as an old man in the center of a never ending tornado. And those are only 4 of his 13 1/2 lives. Fantasy

Keara B. recommends: The Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos and translat- ed by Hildegarde Serle

First three books are available. From amazon.com: A Winter's Promise—Lose yourself in the world of the arks and in the company of an unforgettable character in this French runaway hit by debut author Christelle Dabos. A Winter’s Promise, the first installment in the Mirror Visitor Quartet, intro- duces readers to a remarkable heroine and to the richly imagined universe of the arks: floating celestial islands governed by the spirits of immortal ancestors. Ophe- lia, a mix of awkward misfit and misunderstood genius, possesses two special gifts: an unrivaled talent for reading the past of objects and the ability to travel through mirrors. Her peaceful existence on the ark of Anima is interrupted when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a powerful clan from a distant ark, the cold and icy Pole. Ophelia must follow her fiancé to the towering city of Citaceleste, where nobody can be trusted. There, in the company of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world. The Missing of Clairdelune—When Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, promotes her to Vice-storyteller, Ophelia finds herself thrust into the public spotlight. Now that her powers (and the threat they present to the secretive denizens of this world) are known to all, she must uncover at her own expense the plots that have been brewing beneath the golden rafters of Citaceleste. In this ever-perilous situa- tion, Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé, may be the only person she can trust. As influen- tial courtiers keep disappearing, Ophelia once again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole’s many illu- sions, to the heart of the formidable truth. The Memory of Babel—Ophelia has been moping around on her ark of Anima for two years and seven months. Now she has to act, using what she learned reading Farouk’s Book and the scraps of information that God has divulged to her. Using a fake identity, Ophelia returns to Babel, the cosmopolitan ark, the jewel of moder- nity. Will her talents as a reader allow her to evade the ever more formidable traps set by her adversaries? Does she even have the slightest chance of finding Thorn? Young adult fantasy

Theresa P. recommends: Long Way Round (2004 television series), Long Way Down (2007), and Long Way Up (2020)

From rottentomatoes.com on Long Way Down: Actor-adventurers Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman motorcycle from Scotland to South Africa in a 10-part series covering 15,000 miles that took 85 days to complete. The series originally aired on the BBC, as did the 2004 McGregor-Boorman motorcycle adventure Long Way Round, which documented their trek eastward from London to New York. Travel

Betsey M. recommends: Elevation by Stephen King

From amazon.com: Although Scott Carey doesn’t look any different, he’s been steadily losing weight. There are a couple of other odd things, too. He weighs the same in his clothes and out of them, no matter how heavy they are. Scott doesn’t want to be poked and prodded. He mostly just wants someone else to know, and he trusts Doctor Bob Ellis. In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face—including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others. Fiction

Sandra K. recommends: Wilder Girls by Rory Powers

From goodreads.com: It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her. It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the stu- dents, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into every- thing. But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true. Young adult fiction -and- Mississippi Vegan: Recipes and Stories from a Southern Boy's Heart by Timothy Pakron

An absolutely gorgeous cookbook with amazing recipes. The recipes are not on the simple side, and they are not particularly healthy (he uses a ton of oil). From good- reads.com: Inspired by the landscape and flavors of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Timothy Pakron found his heart, soul, and calling in cooking the Cajun, Cre- ole, and southern classics of his youth. In his debut cookbook, he shares 125 plant- based recipes, all of which substitute ingredients without sacrificing depth of fla- vor and reveal the secret tradition of veganism in southern cooking. Finding ways to re-create his experiences growing up in the South--making mud pies and admiring the deep pink azaleas--on the plate, Pakron looks to history and nature as his guides to creating the richest food possible. Filled with as many evoc- ative photographs and stories as easy-to-follow recipes, Mississippi Vegan is an ode to the transporting and ethereal beauty of the food and places you love. Cookbook