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Must-Read Books April 2024
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| American Spirits by Russell BanksThe last book by the late great Russell Banks offers three gritty, character-driven tales set in rural Sam Dent, New York, where his acclaimed novel The Sweet Hereafter took place. The elegiac stories explore a kidnapping, the loss of family land, and problems with new neighbors. Read-alikes: Richard Russo's novels; Mariana Enriquez's Things We Lost in the Fire. |
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| Paper Cage by Tom BaragwanathLorraine Henry, a white policeman's widow, works as a police records clerk in a small New Zealand town rife with drugs and racial tension. When a part-Māori relative is one of three Indigenous children who go missing and the cops aren't all that concerned, Lorraine investigates. First published in New Zealand in 2022, this gritty, suspenseful debut novel has "a truly crackling mystery" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl GonzalezIn the 1980s, up-and-coming artist Anita de Monte is married to Jack, an established white artist, when she dies after a suspicious fall. In the 1990s, Brown University student Raquel Toro researches a project on Jack while starting her own relationship with a wealthy white man. This Reese's Book Club pick presents a witty, thought-provoking look at art, race, class, and gender. Read-alike: Hernan Diaz's Trust. |
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Help wanted : a novel
by Adelle Waldman
A group of misfit, big-box store employees working the overnight shift in a small upstate New York town vie for the stability, salary and possibility of a new job when their store manager announces he is leaving.
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After Annie : a novel
by Anna Quindlen
After Annie Brown dies suddenly, her family and her best friend struggle to maintain their lives and eventually discover that they are able to grow, change and become stronger due to their memories and the lasting power of love.
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Red string theory : a novel
by Lauren Kung Jessen
"Just a date . . . or a twist of fate? When it comes to love and art, Rooney Gao believes in signs. Most of all, she believes in the Chinese legend that everyone is tied to their one true love by the red string of fate. And that belief has inspired her career as an artist, as well as the large art installations she makes with (obviously) red string. That is until artist's block strikes and Rooney begins to question everything. But then fate leads her to the perfect guy . . . Jack Liu is perfect. He's absurdly smart, successful, handsome, and after one enchanting New York night-under icy February skies and fueled by fried dumplings-all signs point to destiny. Only Jack doesn't believe. And after their magical date, it looks like they might be lost to eachother forever . . . until they're given one more chance to reconnect. But can Rooney convince a reluctant skeptic to take a leap of fate?"
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Finlay Donovan rolls the dice
by Elle Cosimano
Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, arrive in Atlantic City and must find the location of Vero's kidnapped crush and a stolen car.
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| There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif AbdurraqibIn his lyrical and engaging latest, MacArthur Fellow and Carnegie Medal winner Hanif Abdurraqib (A Little Devil in America) explores his relationship to basketball and the role it has played throughout his life -- including having a front-row seat to the rise of LeBron James. For fans of: Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated by Shea Serrano. |
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The counterfeit countess : the Jewish woman who rescued thousands of Poles during the Holocaust
by Elizabeth B. White
"The astonishing story of Dr. Josephine Janina Mehlberg--a Jewish mathematician who saved thousands of lives in Nazi-occupied Poland by masquerading as a Polish aristocrat--drawing on Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir. World War II and the Holocaust havegiven rise to many stories of resistance and rescue, but The Counterfeit Countess is unique. It tells the remarkable, unknown story of "Countess Janina Suchodolska," a Jewish woman who rescued more than 10,000 Poles imprisoned by Poland's Nazi occupiers.Mehlberg operated in Lublin, Poland, headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, the SS operation that murdered 1.7 million Jews in occupied Poland. Using the identity papers of a Polish aristocrat, she worked as a welfare official while also serving in the Polish resistance. With guile, cajolery, and steely persistence, the "Countess" persuaded SS officials to release thousands of Poles from the Majdanek concentration camp. She won permission to deliver food and medicine--even decorated Christmas trees--for thousands more of the camp's prisoners. At the same time, she personally smuggled supplies and messages to resistance fighters imprisoned at Majdanek, where 63,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers and shooting pits. Incredibly, she eluded detection, and ultimately survived the war and emigrated to the US. Drawing on the manuscript of Mehlberg's own unpublished memoir, supplemented with prodigious research, Elizabeth White and Joanna Sliwa, professional historians and Holocaust experts, have uncovered the fullstory of this remarkable woman. They interweave Mehlberg's sometimes harrowing personal testimony with broader historical narrative. Like The Light of Days, Schindler's List, and Irena's Children, The Counterfeit Countess is an unforgettable account of inspiring courage in the face of unspeakable cruelty"
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Legacy : a black physician reckons with racism in medicine
by Uchâe Blackstock
Part searing indictment of our healthcare system, part generational family memoir, part call to action, a physician and thought leader on bias and racism in healthcare recounts her journey to finally seizing her own power as a health equity advocate against the backdrop of the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. Illustrations.
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| Grief Is For People by Sloane CrosleyNovelist and essayist Sloane Crosley's (Cult Classic) moving and darkly humorous memoir chronicles how she navigated the grief of losing her best friend to suicide in 2019. Try this next: Molly by Blake Butler. |
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Madness : race and insanity in a Jim Crow asylum
by Antonia Hylton
Tracing the legacy of slavery to the treatment of Black people's bodies and minds in our current healthcare system, a Peabody and Emmy award-winning journalist tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville Hospital, one of the nation's last segregated asylums. Illustrations.
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| Whiskey Tender: A Memoir by Deborah Jackson TaffaIn her thought-provoking debut named a Most Anticipated Book by Elle, The New York Times, and San Francisco Chronicle, Deborah Jackson Taffa, a member of the Quechan (Yuma) and Laguna Pueblo, recounts her fraught coming of age in the 1980s as a "Native girl in a northwestern New Mexico town where cowboys still hated Indians." Try this next: Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen. |
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| A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah FaizalDespite humble beginnings, Arthie Casimir gained power collecting the secrets of influential humans and vampires frequenting her teahouse. Arthie's scheme to infiltrate vampire society and overthrow the colonizing monarchy will thrill fans of heist novels and found family. This fast-paced fantasy opens a duology. |
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| You're Going to Love This Book! by Jory John; illustrated by Olivier TallecUnabashed verve overflows from this picture book as it announces its supposed appeals: Bedtimes! Dentists! Brussels sprouts! Plus chores -- ah yeahhh! With exuberant artwork, enthusiastic interjections, and a twist ending, this book is sure to elicit heaps of giggles. YEAHHH! |
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| The Lumbering Giants of Windy Pines by Mo NetzShortly after they move to Windy Pines, Georgia, 11-year-old Jerry’s mom disappears. Determined to find her, Jerry -- along with new friend Chapel and Yiddish-speaking imaginary dragon Paul -- ventures into the eerie woods, discovering her mom’s secrets (and the advantages to demon-slaying in a wheelchair). |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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New Carlisle-Olive Township Public Library 408 S. Bray St. New Carlisle, Indiana 46552 (574) 654-3046ncpl.lib.in.us |
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