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| Universal Harvester by John DarnielleIn this intricate, disturbing novel, small town Iowa reveals its darker side when video store customers start complaining about creepy footage spliced into their VHS rentals (it's the late 1990s). Jeremy Heldt, working the counter while he waits for something better to come along, reluctantly starts looking into the footage, which draws him into a local, decades-old story of tragedy and loss. But plot isn't the important thing about Universal Harvester -- you'll want to read it for its strong sense of place, its compelling turns of phrase (author John Darnielle is a singer/songwriter), its menacing atmosphere, and for the way it explores the emotional consequences of loss. |
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| Things We Have in Common by Tasha KavanaghLonely, overweight Yasmin Doner is a high school outcast who desperately wants to fit in but lacks the social skills to do so. Shunned at school and criticized at home, she's built an elaborate fantasy life, which revolves around the most popular girl at school, Alice. After noticing a man lurking near their school, she constructs a new fantasy -- one in which Yasmin becomes a hero after saving Alice from abduction by this man. So Yasmin starts following the stranger, eventually forming a friendship with him. And then Alice actually does disappear. Combining the creep factor and unreliable narrator of classic psychological suspense with the desperately lonely adolescence of a YA novel, this dark tale is a good choice for fans of Sebastian Faulks' Engleby. |
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Lincoln in the Bardo : a novel
by George Saunders
A long-awaited first novel by the National Book Award-nominated, New York Times best-selling author of Tenth of December traces a night of solitary mourning and reflection as experienced by the 16th President after the death of his 11-year-old son at the dawn of the Civil War.
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| The Refugees by Viet Thanh NguyenAuthor Viet Thanh Nguyen's debut novel The Sympathizer won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal, among other accolades; readers hungry for more will appreciate the eight stories collected here, written before The Sympathizer was published. While the stories, mostly set in the Vietnamese community in California, represent Vietnamese refugee experiences in the U.S., the topics they explore -- relationships, grief, the desire for fulfillment -- "transcend ethnic boundaries to speak to human universals" (Kirkus Reviews). Check them out if you're interested in sympathetic characters, cultural dislocation, or the experiences of refugees. |
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| The Animators: A Novel by Kayla Rae WhitakerIn this much-anticipated debut, two women who met in a college art class (and instantly became best friends), try to make a go of it as animated cartoonists. Sharon, who narrates, has always been the calming presence, while Mel, charismatic, confident, and openly gay, is a creative whirlwind. Ten years after they graduate, the consequences of their success nearly destroy their partnership (frequently drunk or high, Mel flames out spectacularly, while Sharon suffers a debilitating stroke). With realistic characters you'll empathize with even as they make calamitous decisions, The Animators is alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming, passionate and funny as it documents how artists create art out of pain. |
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Norse mythology
by Neil Gaiman
The New York Times best-selling author of A View From the Cheap Seats presents a bravura rendering of the major Norse pantheon that traces the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and the exploits of its characters, illuminating the characters and natures of iconic figures Odin, Thor and Loki.
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Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
In early 1900s Korea, prized daughter Sunja finds herself pregnant and alone, bringing shame on her family until a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan, in the saga of one family bound together as their faith and identity are called into question. Reading-group guide available. By a national best-selling author. 150,000 first printing.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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