Book Discussion Groups: An Introductory Guide: Suggested Reads
A guide to joining, starting, and running a book group.
Introduction to Suggested Reads
Need some help choosing books that will lead to a good discussion? Never fear, these booklists and resources can help!
BPL Booklists & Other Resources - See what some of our librarian led book groups are reading and what's winning awards across all genres. Other online resources included!
Fiction to Make You Think - A list of general fiction great for book discussions.
Nonfiction to Make You Think - A list of general nonfiction great for book discussions.
Top Banned Books - The American Library Association’s list of top banned books from 2010-2019.
Local Interest Titles - Includes fiction and nonfiction about Boston and New England in general.
Diverse Voices - Fiction and nonfiction written by and about diverse identities.
Bestsellers - These titles have been very popular at the library and were bestsellers.
Biographies & Memoirs - Includes a wide variety of topics including politics, immigration, science, trauma, neglect, LGBTQ rights, and more.
BPL Booklists & Other Resources
Librarian created booklists
These lists have been put together by the librarians throughout the Boston Public Library system. If you'd like to see more lists by a particular librarian, just click on their name in the upper right corner of each list.
BPL's Annually Published Booklists - Every year our librarians compile booklists that celebrate the diversity of our world, starting with Black Is..., the very first list published in 1973, to honor Black History Month. Visit your local branch to pick up the latest booklist or view the digitized lists at this link where you'll find a great selection of fiction and nonfiction for your book groups!
BPL Staff Picks - Every month staff from the Boston Public Library recommend their favorite books, from adult fiction and nonfiction to graphic novels, children’s picture books, and everything in between.
Librarian Created Booklists on All Topics and Genres - These lists cover everything from fiction and nonfiction to everything in between and were put together by librarians all over the Boston Public Library system for all ages.
Fantastic Books Book Group Reads - This Boston Public Library book group reads a wide variety of fiction and some nonfiction. See what they've been reading here!
Simultaneous Use eBooks for Book Clubs - If you don't have time to browse through all of Hoopla's offerings, here is a long list of suggestions from Reader Services for your digital book clubs!
Online resources from the BPL
Browse award winners in the BPL catalog - Major award winners in a variety of genres are listed here. Once you click on the link, scroll down to view the list of awards.
Hoopla Book Club Hub - Each quarter, Hoopla releases a Spotlight title as well as eight additional titles for added diversity. They also link to a discussion guide and an exclusive author interview for each Spotlight title. Hoopla eBooks are free with your library card. The BPL does not offer eAudibooks through Hoopla at this time.
NoveList Plus - A large database of reading recommendations that includes a Book Club Resources page (found in the Quick Links drop down menu) with book discussion guides and articles by librarians and book club experts on the challenges of running a discussion group. Access NoveList at home by logging in with your library card number and PIN, or you can come into the library and access it without needing to log in.
Reader's Corner - Librarians from the Reader Services department of the Boston Public Library have put together this reading guide for all your reading needs!
Other online booklist resources
Book Riot's Must-Read Archives - These booklists range in variety from 50 Must-Read Books Recommended by Roxanne Gay to 50 Must-Read Poetry Books and so much more. Plus, you can explore other booklists by clicking on the genre links at the top of the page.
Goodreads - A free online social reading site, to find any information about books you might need to know as well as community reviews. This link takes you to a list that users on Goodreads have voted to be the best books for book clubs.
New York Times Best Sellers - Authoritatively ranked lists of books sold in the United States, sorted by format and genre. Find the NYT Best Sellers in our catalog.
Project Gutenberg - There are many classic books that are now out of copyright and are available at websites like Project Gutenberg! As there is an overwhelming number of books to choose from you may want to go through their list of top 100 downloaded books, where you’ll find many recognizable classics. Project Gutenberg books can be downloaded in a variety of formats and should be compatible with eReader apps such as Books (for iOS devices) and Kindle (platform agnostic).
Reading Group Choices - Recommends discussible books for reading groups. They partner with publishers, independent bookstores, public libraries, and authors to develop resources to enhance the shared reading group experience.
Award lists
Here are links to a handful of book award websites where you can learn more about each award and see current and past winners.
Audie Awards - The Audio Publishers Association chooses the best titles in audio publishing.
Bram Stoker Awards - A prestigious award in horror fiction.
Edgar Awards - Esteemed awards in the mystery genre, including novels, debut novels, television episodes, crime writing for children, teens, and adults.
Hugo Awards - A distinguished award in science fiction.
Lambda Literary Awards - A wide variety of literature, including plays, poetry, biographies, general fiction, romance, and mysteries for adults teens and children, are judged principally on literary merit and content relevant to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer lives.
The Booker Prizes - The Booker Prize is awarded annually to the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK or Ireland, while the International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
National Book Award - Honors the best Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature published each year.
National Book Critics Circle Award - Awards the best Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism published in English every year.
Nebula Awards - The best novel, novella, novelette, and short story in science fiction and fantasy.
Nobel Prize in Literature - Looks for "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."
PEN/Faulkner Awards - A national prize that honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year.
Pulitzer Prize - There are 22 categories across journalism, books, drama and music.
Vivian Contest - The Vivian recognizes excellence in romance writing and showcases author talent and creativity. We celebrate the power of the romance genre with its central message of hope--because happily ever afters are for everyone.
Women's Prize for Fiction - Inspired by the Booker Prize of 1991 when no women authors were shortlisted, this prize works hard to recognize the work of women in fiction.
Fiction
Americanah by ISBN: 9780307455925Publication Date: 2014-03-04Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Ifemelu must learn what it means to be black for the first time while Obinze discovers that post 9/11 America is closed to him.
The Book Thief by ISBN: 9781101934180Publication Date: 2016-03-08Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by ISBN: 9780062645128Publication Date: 2017-06-13Nikki has spent most of her life distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community. After her father's death she takes a job teaching a creative writing course in the heart of the Punjabi community. When one of the women students brings a book of erotica to class, Nicki use it as the basis for helping these modest women unleash creativity by telling their own stories.
Everything I Never Told You by ISBN: 9780143127550Publication Date: 2015-05-12Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos.
Flowers for Algernon by ISBN: 9780156030083Publication Date: 2004-06-14When brain surgery makes a mouse into a genius, dull-witted Charlie Gordon wonders if it might also work for him. In poignant diary entries, Charlie tells how a brain operation increases his IQ and changes his life. As the experimental procedure takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment seems to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon begins his sudden, unexpected deterioration.
The Golem and the Jinni by ISBN: 9780062110831Publication Date: 2013-04-23Chava, a golem brought to life by a disgraced rabbi, and Ahmad, a jinni made of fire, form an unlikely friendship on the streets of 1900s New York until a fateful choice changes everything.
The Island of Sea Women by ISBN: 9781501154850Publication Date: 2019-03-05Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their villages all-female diving collective, led by Young-sooks mother. Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, and she will forever be marked by this association. Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mothers position leading the divers in their village. Little do the two friends know that after surviving hundreds of dives and developing the closest of bonds for many years, forces outside their control will push their friendship to the breaking point.
The Kite Runner by ISBN: 9781594631931Publication Date: 2013-03-05An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present day.
Love in the Time of Cholera by ISBN: 9780140281644Publication Date: 1999-02-01Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall hopelessly in love in their youth. When Fermina marries a wealthy doctor instead, Florentino is anything but dissuaded and spends a lifetime waiting for her, hoping he can win her back after the eventual death of her husband.
Parable of the Sower by ISBN: 9781538732182Publication Date: 2019-04-30When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others’ emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith--and a startling vision of human destiny.
The Power by ISBN: 9780316547611Publication Date: 2017-10-10All over the world women and girls are discovering they have the power. With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain, and even death. And with this small twist of nature, everything changes drastically.
The Sentence by ISBN: 9780062671127Publication Date: 2021-11-09A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
The Shadow of the Wind by ISBN: 0143126393Publication Date: 2014-09-24Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by ISBN: 9781501126062Publication Date: 2017-09-05Living with his grandparents and toddler sister on a Gulf Coast farm, Jojo navigates the challenges of his mother's addictions and his grandmother's terminal cancer before the release of his father from prison prompts a road trip.
State of Wonder by ISBN: 9780062049803Publication Date: 2011-06-07As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.
The Sympathizer by ISBN: 9780802123459Publication Date: 2015-04-07The narrator, a communist double agent, is a "man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by ISBN: 9780060838676Publication Date: 2013-03-19Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
To Kill a Mockingbird by ISBN: 9780060935467Publication Date: 2005-07-05Scout Finch, the young daughter of a local attorney in the Deep South during the 1930s, tells of her father's defense of an African-American man charged with the rape of a white girl.
Under the Udala Trees by ISBN: 0544811798Publication Date: 2016-09-20Ijeoma, a young Nigerian girl displaced during her country's civil war, begins a powerful love affair with another refugee girl from a different ethnic community. When the pair are discovered, she must learn the cost of living a lie amidst taboos and prejudices. Even as her nation contends with and recovers from the effects of war and division, Ijeoma seeks a glimmer of hope for a future where a woman might just be able to shape her life around truth and love.
Year of Wonders by ISBN: 9781417627530Publication Date: 2002-05-01When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. In 1666 Anna and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.
Nonfiction
Between the World and Me by ISBN: 9780812993547Publication Date: 2015-07-14Coates takes readers on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings--moments when he discovered a new truth about our long, tangled history of race, whether through his myth-busting professors at Howard University, a trip to a Civil War battlefield with a rogue historian, a journey to Chicago's South Side to visit aging survivors of America's 'long war on black people,' or a visit with the mother of a friend who was shot down by the police.
The Book of Joy by ISBN: 9780399185045Publication Date: 2016-09-20Two leading spiritual masters, Dali Lama XIV and Desmond Tutu, share their wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity, sharing personal stories and teachings about the science of profound happiness and the daily practices that anchor their emotional and spiritual lives.
Born a Crime by ISBN: 9780399588174Publication Date: 2016-11-15Noah's path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of the Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. With an incisive wit and unflinching honesty, Noah weaves together a moving yet funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time.
The Boys in the Boat by ISBN: 9780143125471Publication Date: 2014-05-27This is the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
Citizen by ISBN: 9781555976903Publication Date: 2014-10-07In essays, images, and poetry, Citizen recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media.
Dark Tide by ISBN: 9780807078006Publication Date: 2019-01-15Around noon on January 15, 1919 a 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour.
Evicted by ISBN: 9780553447439Publication Date: 2016-03-01Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare; today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary. Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge: all are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind. Desmond transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem.
Guns Germs and Steel by ISBN: 9780393061314Publication Date: 2005-07-17Diamond answers the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. He then dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences and assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery.
Hunger by ISBN: 9780062362599Publication Date: 2017-06-13Roxane Gay addresses the experience of living in a body that she calls 'wildly undisciplined.' She casts an insightful and critical eye over her childhood, teens, and twenties -- including the devastating act of violence that was a turning point at age 12 -- and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With candor, vulnerability, and authority, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by ISBN: 9781400052189Publication Date: 2011-03-08Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping.
Into Thin Air by ISBN: 9780385494786Publication Date: 1999-10-19Reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion, Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996. He hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds...
Just Mercy by ISBN: 9780812994520Publication Date: 2014-10-21The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice.
Killers of the Flower Moon by ISBN: 9780307742483Publication Date: 2018-04-03In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. Anyone who dared to investigate the killings was murdered. The newly created F.B.I. then took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations.
The Latehomecomer by ISBN: 9781566894784Publication Date: 2017-04-11In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America. Driven to tell her family’s story after her grandmother’s death, The Latehomecomer is Kao Kalia Yang’s tribute to the remarkable woman whose spirit held them all together. It is also an eloquent, firsthand account of a people who have worked hard to make their voices heard.
Lost in Shangri-La by ISBN: 9780061988356Publication Date: 2012-04-24Award-winning former Boston Globe reporter Mitchell Zuckoff unleashes the exhilarating, untold story of an extraordinary World War II rescue mission, where a plane crash in the South Pacific plunged a trio of U.S. military personnel into the jungle-clad land of New Guinea.
Outliers by ISBN: 9780316017930Publication Date: 2011-06-07Identifies the qualities of successful people, maintaining that culture, family, and idiosyncratic factors can have a decisive impact on shaping high achievers.
Reading Revolution by ISBN: 9781608462728Publication Date: 2014-10-14The prison authorities on apartheid South Africa's Robben Island strictly censored the reading materials inmates received from the outside world. Yet, managing to smuggle things in, the works of Shakespeare resonated deepest among the inmates for their anti-colonial and anti-apartheid inspirations, as much as for the power and beauty of their words. Through the memories and biographical accounts written by former political inmates including Nelson Mandela, Reading Revolution evocatively depicts the power of these great works.
Sapiens by ISBN: 9780062316097Publication Date: 2015-02-10One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one--homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago with the appearance of modern cognition.
Tribe by ISBN: 9781455566389Publication Date: 2016-05-24Draws on history, psychology, and anthropology to discuss how the tribal connection--the instinct to belong to small groups with a clear purpose and common understanding--can satisfy the human quest for meaning and belonging.
Waiting for Snow in Havana by ISBN: 9780743246415Publication Date: 2004-01-13In 1962, at the age of eleven, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba, his parents left behind. His life until then is the subject of Waiting for Snow in Havana, a wry, heartbreaking, intoxicatingly beautiful memoir of growing up in a privileged Havana household -- and of being exiled from his own childhood by the Cuban revolution.
The Warmth of Other Suns by ISBN: 9780679763888Publication Date: 2011-10-04From 1915 to 1970, the exodus of almost six million black people from the south to the north changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
When Breath Becomes Air by ISBN: 9780812988406Publication Date: 2016-01-12At the age of 36, on the verge of a completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. His book approaches the questions raised by facing mortality from the dual perspective of the neurosurgeon who spent a decade meeting patients in the twilight between life and death, and the terminally ill patient who suddenly found himself living in that liminality.
Top Banned Books
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiled this list of the most banned and challenged books from 2010-2019. To see lists of newer banned books, check out the Top Ten Most Challenged Books Archive. Below are only a select few books from these extensive lists.
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by ISBN: 9780316280372Publication Date: 2007This is the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by ISBN: 9780141334844Publication Date: 2010-09-30A nineteenth-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt who mistakes him for Tom.
All Boys Aren't Blue by ISBN: 9780374312718Publication Date: 2020-04-28In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys. Both a primer for teens eager to be allies as well as a reassuring testimony for young queer men of color, All Boys Aren't Blue covers topics such as gender identity, toxic masculinity, brotherhood, family, structural marginalization, consent, and Black joy.
The Bluest Eye by ISBN: 9780452287068Publication Date: 2005-09-06Set in the author's girlhood hometown of Lorain, Ohio, it tells the story of black, eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove. Pecola prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America. In the autumn of 1941, the year the marigolds in the Breedloves' garden do not bloom, Pecola's life does change- in painful, devastating ways.
Brave New World by ISBN: 9780375712364Publication Date: 2013-09-24Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order--all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls.
A Child Called It by ISBN: 9781558743663Publication Date: 1995-09-01This is the true story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it." The outside world knew nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing or no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive--dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son.
A Clockwork Orange by ISBN: 9780393312836Publication Date: 1995-04-17A vicious fifteen-year-old droog is the central character of this 1963 classic. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. And when the state undertakes to reform Alex to "redeem" him, the novel asks, "At what cost?"
The Color Purple by ISBN: 9780143135692Publication Date: 2019-12-10Depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia, breaking the silence around domestic and sexual abuse. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experiences.
Crank by ISBN: 9781442471818Publication Date: 2013-08-06Written in verse, Crank chronicles the turbulent and often disturbing relationship between Kristina, a character based on her own daughter, and the "monster," the highly addictive drug crystal meth, or "crank." Kristina is introduced to the drug while visiting her largely absent and ne'er-do-well father. While under the influence of the monster, Kristina discovers her sexy alter-ego, Bree: "there is no perfect daughter, / no gifted high school junior, / no Kristina Georgia Snow. / There is only Bree." Bree will do all the things good girl Kristina won't, including attracting the attention of dangerous boys who can provide her with a steady flow of crank.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by ISBN: 9781408173350Publication Date: 2012-07-24My name is Christopher John Francis Boone. I know all the countries of the world and the capital cities. And every prime number up to 7507. Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears's dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an extraordinary brain and is exceptional at maths, but he is ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But Christopher's detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that turns his world upside-down.
The Diary of a Young Girl by ISBN: 9780307594006Publication Date: 2010-10-19In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexe” of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period.
Dreaming in Cuban by ISBN: 9780345381439Publication Date: 1993-02-10Here is the dreamy and bittersweet story of a family divided by politics and geography by the Cuban revolution. It is the family story of Celia del Pino, and her husband, daughter and grandchildren, from the mid-1930s to 1980. Celia's story mirrors the magical realism of Cuba itself, a country of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption.
Feed by ISBN: 9780763662622Publication Date: 2012-07-17For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its ever-present ability to categorize human thoughts and desires.
Fun Home by ISBN: 9780618871711Publication Date: 2007-06-05In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the "Fun Home." It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.
Gender Queer: a Memoir by ISBN: 9781549304002Publication Date: 2019-05-28Maia Kobabe, who identifies as asexual and nonbinary and uses e/em/eir pronouns, created an intensely cathartic autobiography that charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
The Giver by ISBN: 9781328471222Publication Date: 2018-10-02The haunting story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community.
The Glass Castle by ISBN: 9781439156964Publication Date: 2009-10-06Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." The dysfunction of the family escalated when the money ran out and Jeannette and her siblings had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home.
The House of the Spirits by ISBN: 9781501117015Publication Date: 2015-12-15Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by ISBN: 9780812980028Publication Date: 2009-04-21Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors ("I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare") will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Monster by ISBN: 9780064407311Publication Date: 2019-03-05Sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon is on trial for murder. A Harlem drugstore owner was shot and killed in his store, and the word is that Steve served as the lookout. Guilty or innocent, Steve becomes a pawn in the hands of "the system," cluttered with cynical authority figures and unscrupulous inmates, who will turn in anyone to shorten their own sentences. For the first time, Steve is forced to think about who he is as he faces prison, where he may spend all the tomorrows of his life. As a way of coping with the horrific events that entangle him, Steve, an amateur filmmaker, decides to transcribe his trial into a script, just like in the movies.
Nickel and Dimed by ISBN: 9780312626686Publication Date: 2011-08-02Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6-$7 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, taking the cheapest lodgings available and accepting work as a waitress, hotel maid, house cleaner, nursing home aide, and Wal-Mart salesperson. She soon discovered that even the "lowliest" occupations require exhausting mental and physical efforts. And one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors.
Nineteen Minutes by ISBN: 9780743496735Publication Date: 2008-02-05Nothing ever happens in Sterling, New Hampshire until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.
Of Mice and Men by ISBN: 9781907590337Publication Date: 2011-09-01Drifters in search of work, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie have nothing in the world except each other and a dream -- a dream that one day they will have some land of their own. Eventually they find work on a ranch in California’s Salinas Valley, but their hopes are doomed as Lennie, struggling against extreme cruelty, misunderstanding and feelings of jealousy, becomes a victim of his own strength.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by ISBN: 9781451696196Publication Date: 2012-08-14This is the story of what it's like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite.
Persepolis by ISBN: 9780375714573Publication Date: 2004-06-01Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.
Speak by ISBN: 9780312674397Publication Date: 2011-05-10"Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say." Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and it is only through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.
The Things They Carried by ISBN: 9780547391175Publication Date: 2010-03-22Presents a collection of interconnected short stories that explore the Vietnam War experiences of the men of Alpha Company, beginning with a meditation on the things carried by each soldier, practical and personal, as they make their way through the theater of war.
Thirteen Reasons Why by ISBN: 9781595147882Publication Date: 2016-12-27Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.- To Kill a Mockingbird by ISBN: 9780060935467Publication Date: 2005-07-05'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.' Atticus Finch gives this advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this classic novel - a black man charged with attacking a white girl. Through the eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Lee explores the issues of race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s with compassion and humour. She also creates one of the great heroes of literature in their father, whose lone struggle for justice pricks the conscience of a town steeped in prejudice and hypocrisy.
Local Interest Titles
All Souls by ISBN: 0807072133Publication Date: 2007-11-01All Souls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie, the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration of white poverty in America. The anti-busing riots of 1974 forever changed Southie, Boston's working class Irish community, branding it as a violent, racist enclave. MacDonald lost four of his siblings to violence and poverty. All Souls is heart-breaking testimony to lives lost too early, and the story of how a place so filled with pain could still be "the best place in the world."
The Art Forger by ISBN: 9781616203184Publication Date: 2013-05-21Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum--still the largest unsolved art theft in history--one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece--the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years--may itself be a forgery.
The Bell Jar by ISBN: 9780060174903Publication Date: 2013-06-11The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under - maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
The Boston Girl by ISBN: 9781439199350Publication Date: 2014-12-09Addie Baum is The Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents who were unprepared for and suspicious of America and its effect on their three daughters. Growing up in the North End, then a teeming multicultural neighborhood, Addie's intelligence and curiosity take her to a world her parents can't imagine--a world of short skirts, movies, celebrity culture, and new opportunities for women.
Boy, Snow, Bird by ISBN: 9781594631399Publication Date: 2014-03-06In the winter of 1953, Boy Novak arrives by chance in a small town in Massachusetts looking, she believes, for beauty--the opposite of the life she's left behind in New York. She marries Arturo Whitman, a local widower, and becomes stepmother to his winsome daughter, Snow. A wicked stepmother is a creature Boy never imagined she'd become, but elements of the familiar tale of aesthetic obsession begin to play themselves out when the birth of Boy's daughter, Bird, who is dark-skinned, exposes the Whitmans as light-skinned African-Americans passing for white.
Bunker Hill by ISBN: 9780670025442Publication Date: 2013-04-30In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
Common Ground by ISBN: 0394746163Publication Date: 1986-08-12The story of the busing crisis in 1970’s Boston as told through the experiences of three families.
The Daring Ladies of Lowell by ISBN: 9780385536493Publication Date: 2014-02-25Eager to escape life on her family's farm, Alice Barrow moves to Lowell in 1832 and throws herself into the hard work demanded of "the mill girls." In spite of the long hours, she discovers a vibrant new life and a true friend--a saucy, strong-willed girl name Lovey Cornell. But conditions at the factory become increasingly dangerous, and Alice finds the courage to represent the workers and their grievances. Although mill owner, Hiram Fiske, pays no heed, Alice attracts the attention of his eldest son, the handsome and reserved Samuel Fiske. When Lovey is found strangled to death a sensational trial follows and Alice finds herself torn between her commitment to the girls in the mill and her blossoming relationship with Samuel.- Dark Tide by ISBN: 9780807078006Publication Date: 2019-01-15Around noon on January 15, 1919, a group of firefighters were playing cards in Boston's North End when they heard a tremendous crash. It was like roaring surf, one of them said later. Like a runaway two-horse team smashing through a fence, said another. A third firefighter jumped up from his chair to look out a window--"Oh my God!" he shouted to the other men, "Run!" A 50-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses had just collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a 15-foot-high wave of molasses that at its outset traveled at 35 miles an hour. It demolished wooden homes, even the brick fire station. The number of dead wasn't known for days.
Fenway 1912 by ISBN: 0547195621Publication Date: 2011-10-11Fenway 1912 tells the incredible story of Fenway, from the unorthodox blueprint that underlies the park's notorious quirks, to the long winter when locals poured concrete and erected history, to the notorious fixers who then ruled the game, to the ragtag team who delivered a world championship, Fenway's first. For all that has been written in tribute to the great Fenway Park, no one has ever really told the behind-the-scenes true story of its tumultuous yet glorious first year. Drawing on extensive new research, the esteemed baseball historian Glenn Stout delivers an extraordinary tale of innovation, desperation, and perspiration - capturing Fenway as never before.
A Hundred Summers by ISBN: 9780399162169Publication Date: 2013-05-30Memorial Day, 1938: New York socialite Lily Dane has just returned with her family to the idyllic oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island, expecting another placid summer season. Nick and Budgie Greenwald are an unwelcome specter from Lily’s past: her former best friend and her former fiancé, now recently married. Under the scorching summer sun, the unexpected truth of Budgie and Nick’s marriage bubbles to the surface, and as a cataclysmic hurricane barrels unseen up the Atlantic and into New England, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional cyclone of their own, which will change their worlds forever.
I Know This Much Is True by ISBN: 0061469084Publication Date: 2008-04-08Dominick Birdsey, a forty-year-old housepainter living in Three Rivers, Connecticut, finds his subdued life greatly disturbed when his identical twin brother Thomas, a paranoid schizophrenic, commits a shocking act of self-mutilation. Dominick is forced to care for his brother as well as confront dark secrets and pain he has buried deep within himself--a journey of the soul that takes him beyond his blue-collar New England town to Sicily's Mount Etna, the birthplace of his grandfather and namesake. Coming to terms with his life and lineage, Dominick struggles to find forgiveness and finally rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his troubled twin.
The Last Policeman by ISBN: 1594745765Publication Date: 2012-07-10The Last Policeman presents a portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job--but not Hank Palace. He's investigating a death by hanging in a city (Concord, NH) that sees a dozen suicides every week--except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.
Marriage of a Thousand Lies by ISBN: 9781616957902Publication Date: 2017-06-13Lakshmi, called Lucky, is an unemployed millennial programmer. She likes to dance, to have a drink or two, and she makes art on commission. Lucky's husband, Krishna, is an editor for a greeting card company. Both are secretly gay. They present their conservative Sri Lankan-American families with a heterosexual front, while each dates on the side. When Lucky's grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her mother's home to act as caretaker and unexpectedly reconnects with her childhood best friend and first lover, Nisha.
Mystic River by ISBN: 9780060584757Publication Date: 2003-07-22When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car pulled up to their street. One boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. Twenty-five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex-con who owns a corner store. And Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay -- demons that urge him to do terrible things. When Jimmy's daughter is found murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice.
The Namesake by ISBN: 9780358062684Publication Date: 2019-06-04Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals in Cambridge, MA from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world--conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
Night of the Living Rez by ISBN: 9781953534187Publication Date: 2022-07-05Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy. In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty--with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight--breathes life into tales of family and a community as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family's unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's projects the past onto her grandson; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.
Olive Kitteridge by ISBN: 9780812987638Publication Date: 2014-10-28At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama-desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love. At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
Out of Line by ISBN: 9781476795461Publication Date: 2017-04-11Celebrated chef Barbara Lynch--named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2017--credits the defiant spirit of her upbringing in tough, poor "Southie," a neighborhood ruled by the notorious Whitey Bulger gang, with helping her bluff her way into her first professional cooking jobs; develop a distinct culinary style through instinct and sheer moxie; then dare to found an empire of restaurants ranging from a casual but elegant "clam shack" to Boston's epitome of modern haute cuisine.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by ISBN: 9780062204097Publication Date: 2012-04-03In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary.
Second Glance by ISBN: 0743454510Publication Date: 2004-03-02In a small Vermont town, an old man puts a piece of land up for sale, igniting a firestorm of protest from the local Abenaki Indians, who insist it is an ancient burial ground. To appease them the developer looking to buy the property hires a ghost hunter, Ross Wakeman. Ross is a suicidal drifter desperate to cross paths again with his fiancee, who died in a car crash eight years earlier. But after several late nights all Ross can lay claim to discovering is Lia Beaumont, a skittish, mysterious woman who, like Ross, is on a search for something beyond the boundary separating life and death.
The Witches by ISBN: 9780316200608Publication Date: 2015-10-27It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic.
Zodiac by ISBN: 9780802198570Publication Date: 2007-12-01Meet Sangamon Taylor, a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil--all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor's house is bombed, his every move followed, he's adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI's most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roommate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party.
Diverse Voices
Being Heumann by ISBN: 9780807019290Publication Date: 2020-02-25A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism—from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington—Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society.
The Book of Unknown Americans by ISBN: 9780385350846Publication Date: 2014-06-03After their daughter Maribel suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras leave México and come to America. But upon settling at Redwood Apartments, a two-story cinderblock complex just off a highway in Delaware, they discover that Maribel's recovery--the piece of the American Dream on which they've pinned all their hopes--will not be easy. Every task seems to confront them with language, racial, and cultural obstacles.
Bury Me When I'm Dead by ISBN: 9781612940670Publication Date: 2016-08-02Charlene “Charlie” Mack runs one of the most respected private investigation firms in Detroit—not bad for a smart and savvy black woman struggling with her sexual orientation and a mother with early-onset Alzheimer’s. When Charlie and her crack team of investigators head to Birmingham, Alabama in search of a missing person, what should be a routine investigation turns into a complex chase for answers. They come across a double murder, shady locals, and a southern patriarch with dark secrets dating back forty years. And when Charlie is attacked on a quiet neighborhood street, the case suddenly becomes personal and potentially deadly. It seems like everyone has a secret to hide, including Charlie.- Citizen by ISBN: 9781555976903Publication Date: 2014-10-07Rankine recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.
- Fun Home by ISBN: 9780618871711Publication Date: 2007-06-05In this graphic memoir, Alison Bechdel charts her fraught relationship with her late father. Distant and exacting, Bruce Bechdel was an English teacher and director of the town funeral home, which Alison and her family referred to as the Fun Home. It was not until college that Alison, who had recently come out as a lesbian, discovered that her father was also gay. A few weeks after this revelation, he was dead, leaving a legacy of mystery for his daughter to resolve.
Gender Queer: a Memoir by ISBN: 1549304003Publication Date: 2019-05-28(Maia Kobabe uses e/em/eir pronouns.) Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
Heart Berries by ISBN: 9781619024236Publication Date: 2018-02-18Heart Berries is a poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a notebook and begins to write her way out of trauma. The triumphant result is Heart Berries, a memorial for Mailhot's mother, a social worker and activist who had a thing for prisoners; a story of reconciliation with her father―an abusive drunk and a brilliant artist―who was murdered under mysterious circumstances; and an elegy on how difficult it is to love someone while dragging the long shadows of shame.
Homegoing by ISBN: 9781101971062Publication Date: 2017-05-02Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery.- The House of the Spirits by ISBN: 9781501117015Publication Date: 2015-12-15Isabel Allende weaves a luminous tapestry of three generations of the Trueba family, revealing both triumphs and tragedies. Here is patriarch Esteban, whose wild desires and political machinations are tempered only by his love for his ethereal wife, Clara, a woman touched by an otherworldly hand. Their daughter, Blanca, whose forbidden love for a man Esteban has deemed unworthy infuriates her father, yet will produce his greatest joy: his granddaughter Alba, a beautiful, ambitious girl who will lead the family and their country into a revolutionary future.
The Inheritance of Loss by ISBN: 9780802142818Publication Date: 2006-08-29In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another.
In the Time of the Butterflies by ISBN: 9781565129764Publication Date: 2010-01-12From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered.
Jonny Appleseed by ISBN: 9781551527253Publication Date: 2018-05-15Off the reserve and trying to find ways to live and love in the big city, Jonny becomes a cybersex worker who fetishizes himself in order to make a living. Self-ordained as an NDN glitter princess, Jonny has one week before he must return to the "rez"--and his former life--to attend the funeral of his stepfather. The seven days that follow are like a fevered dream: stories of love, trauma, sex, kinship, ambition, and the heartbreaking recollection of his beloved kokum (grandmother). Jonny's life is a series of breakages, appendages, and linkages--and as he goes through the motions of preparing to return home, he learns how to put together the pieces of his life.
The Kiss Quotient by ISBN: 9780451490803Publication Date: 2018-06-05Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases — a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice — with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan.- The Latehomecomer by ISBN: 9781566894784Publication Date: 2017-04-11Beginning in the 1970s, as the Hmong were being massacred for their collaboration with the United States during the Vietnam War, Yang recounts the harrowing story of her family’s captivity, the daring rescue undertaken by her father and uncles, and their narrow escape into Thailand where Yang was born in the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. When she was six years old, Yang’s family immigrated to America, and she evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Through her words, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by an entire community have finally found a voice.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by ISBN: 9780060883287Publication Date: 2006-02-21One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendiá family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad and alive with unforgettable men and women—brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul—this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
The Poppy War by ISBN: 9780008239848Publication Date: 2018-05-01When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.
The Pretty One by ISBN: 9781982100544Publication Date: 2019-08-06From the disability rights advocate and creator of the #DisabledAndCute viral campaign, a thoughtful, inspiring, and charming collection of essays exploring what it means to be black and disabled in a mostly able-bodied white America.
The Secret Life of a Black Aspie by ISBN: 9781602233218Publication Date: 2017-02-15Anand Prahlad was born on a former plantation in Virginia in 1954. For the first four years of his life, Prahlad didn't speak. But his silence didn't stop him from communicating--or communing--with the strange, numinous world he found around him. Ordinary household objects came to life; the spirits of long-dead slave children were his best friends. In his magical interior world, sensory experiences blurred, time disappeared, and memory was fluid. Ever so slowly, he emerged, learning to talk and evolving into an artist and educator.
There There by ISBN: 9780525436140Publication Date: 2019-05-07Follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.- Under the Udala Trees by ISBN: 0544811798Publication Date: 2016-09-20Ijeoma comes of age as her nation does. Born before independence, she is eleven when civil war breaks out in the young republic of Nigeria. Sent away to safety, she meets another displaced child and they, star-crossed, fall in love. They are from different ethnic communities. They are also both girls. But when their love is discovered, Ijeoma learns that she will have to hide this part of herself--and there is a cost to living inside a lie.
The White Tiger by ISBN: 9781416562603Publication Date: 2008-10-14The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China's impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.
Year of the Tiger by ISBN: 0593315391Publication Date: 2022-09-06Drawing on a collection of original essays, previously published work, conversations, graphics, photos, commissioned art by disabled and Asian American artists, and more, Alice uses her unique talent to share an impressionistic scrapbook of her life as an Asian American disabled activist, community organizer, media maker, and dreamer. From her love of food and pop culture to her unwavering commitment to dismantling systemic ableism, Alice shares her thoughts on creativity, access, power, care, the pandemic, mortality, and the future. As a self-described disabled oracle, Alice traces her origins, tells her story, and creates a space for disabled people to be in conversation with one another and the world.
Biographies & Memoirs
Angela's Ashes by ISBN: 068484267XPublication Date: 1999-05-25"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland.
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by ISBN: 081297932XPublication Date: 2014-04-08As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi's "most-everything girl," might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.
The Best We Could Do by ISBN: 9781613129302Publication Date: 2017-03-07Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family in this graphic novel memoir, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
Educated by ISBN: 9780399590504Publication Date: 2018-02-20Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her 'head-for-the-hills bag.' As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
First They Killed My Father by ISBN: 0060856262Publication Date: 2006-04-04From a childhood survivor of the Camdodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit. One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.
The Glass Castle by ISBN: 074324754XPublication Date: 2006-01-17When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family. The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.
How We Fight for Our Lives by ISBN: 9781501132759Publication Date: 2019-10-08Haunted and haunting, How We Fight for Our Lives is a stunning coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves.
Know My Name by ISBN: 9780735223707Publication Date: 2019-09-24She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words.
Lab Girl by ISBN: 9781101874936Publication Date: 2016-04-05Acclaimed scientist Hope Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Here, she tells many stories: about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom's labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and learned to perform lab work done "with both the heart and the hands"; and about the inevitable disappointments, but also the triumphs and exhilarating discoveries, of scientific work. Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with a brilliant, wounded man named Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend.
The Mayor of Castro Street by ISBN: 0312560850Publication Date: 2008-10-14Known as "The Mayor of Castro Street" even before he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the 1970s, Harvey Milk's personal and political life is a story full of personal tragedies and political intrigues, assassinations at City Hall, massive riots in the streets, the miscarriage of justice, and the consolidation of gay power and gay hope.
Men We Reaped by ISBN: 9781608195213Publication Date: 2013-09-17In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life--to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth--and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships.
My Beloved World by ISBN: 9780307962164Publication Date: 2013-01-13The first Latinx (Puerto Rican) and third woman appointed to the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.
No Friend But the Mountains by ISBN: 9781487006846Publication Date: 2018-07-31From 2013 to 2019, Kurdish journalist Behrouz Boochani was illegally detained on Manus Island. This book, laboriously tapped out on a mobile phone and translated from the Farsi, is the result. It is a voice of witness, an act of survival. A lyric first-hand account. A cry of resistance. A vivid portrait through five years of incarceration and exile.
Notorious RBG by ISBN: 9780062415820Publication Date: 2015-10-27As the nation mourns the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discover the story of a remarkable woman and learn how to carry on her legacy. It draws on intimate access to Ginsburg's family members, close friends, colleagues, and clerks, as well as an interview with the Justice herself. An original hybrid of reported narrative, annotated dissents, rare archival photos and documents, and illustrations, the book tells a never-before-told story of an unusual and transformative woman who transcended divides and changed the world forever.
Once a Warrior by ISBN: 9780593189351Publication Date: 2020-11-10When Jake Wood arrived in the States after two grueling tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he watched his unit lose more men to suicide than to enemy hands overseas. Reeling, Jake looked for a way to direct their restlessness towards a new mission. In this raw, adrenaline-filled narrative, Jake recounts, how, over the past 10 years, he's built the disaster response organization Team Rubicon, and seen the work provide a lifeline back to purpose for the heroes among us. Not only do these intrepid volunteers race against the clock to aid communities after earthquakes, hurricanes, COVID-19, and hundreds of other disasters; they also fight for something just as important--each other.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by ISBN: 0375504907Publication Date: 2003-03-25For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every week to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading—Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita—their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran.
Shoe Dog by ISBN: 9781501135927Publication Date: 2018-05-01Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight's Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. In Shoe Dog, he tells his story at last. He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers--as well as his many thrilling triumphs.
Sissy by ISBN: 9780735218826Publication Date: 2019-03-05Through revisiting their childhood and calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, Jacob Tobia invites us to rethink what we know about gender and offers a blueprint for a world free from gender-based trauma. Sissy takes you on a gender odyssey you won't soon forget. Writing with the fierce honesty, wildly irreverent humour, and wrenching vulnerability that have made them a media sensation, Jacob shatters the long-held notion that people are easily sortable into men and women and guarantees that you'll never think about gender - both other people's and your own - the same way again.
This Will Be My Undoing by ISBN: 9780062666161Publication Date: 2018-01-30What does it mean to "be"--to live as, to exist as--a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it's necessary reading for all Americans. Doubly disenfranchised by race and gender, often deprived of a place within the mostly white mainstream feminist movement, black women are objectified, silenced, and marginalized with devastating consequences, in ways both obvious and subtle, that are rarely acknowledged in our country's larger discussion about inequality.
We Have Always Been Here by ISBN: 9780735235007Publication Date: 2019-06-04As an Ahmadi Muslim growing up in Pakistan, Habib faced regular threats from Islamic extremists. From her parents, she internalized the lesson that revealing her identity was dangerious. When her family came to Canada as refugees, Samra encountered bullies, racism, the threat of poverty, and an arranged marriage. Backed into a corner, her need for a safe space-in which to grow and nurture her creative, feminist spirit-became dire. The men in her life wanted to police her, the women in her life had only shown her the example of pious obedience, and her body was a problem to be solved. So begins an exploration of faith, art, love, and queer sexuality.
What We Carry by ISBN: 9780525512394Publication Date: 2020-04-28How much can you judge another woman's choices? What if that woman is your mother? Maya Shanbhag Lang grew up idolizing her brilliant mother, an accomplished physician who immigrated to the United States from India and completed her residency, all while raising her children and keeping a traditional Indian home. She had always been a source of support-until Maya became a mother herself. Then, the parent who had once been so capable and attentive turned unavailable and distant. Struggling to understand this abrupt change while raising her own young child, Maya searches for answers and soon learns that her mother is living with Alzheimer's.
When I Was Puerto Rican by ISBN: 0306814528Publication Date: 2006-02-28In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity.
The Year of Magical Thinking by ISBN: 9781400043149Publication Date: 2005-10-04Several days before Christmas 2003, John Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year’s Eve–John Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This memoir is Didion’s attempt to make sense of it all.
