“This Southern noir crime novel creeps right over the line into horror as the sheriff of a small Southern town hunts for a serial killer who is targeting adolescent black children. Titus, the Sheriff, has his hands full while trying to identify the murderer and deal with the secrets and sins of his hometown. As the mystery deepens, and the murders become more horrific, it’s a wild, wild ride!”
The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide
With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.
At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban M Thuột and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San Jos . But there is violence hidden behind the sunny fa ade of what he calls AMERICATM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the S iG n Mới, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening.
Profound in its emotions and brilliant in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life story of one of the most original and important writers working today.
Starling House is a gorgeously modern gothic fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I dream sometimes about a house I’ve never seen….
Opal is a lot of things—orphan, high school dropout, full-time cynic and part-time cashier—but above all, she’s determined to find a better life for her younger brother Jasper. One that gets them out of Eden, Kentucky, a town remarkable for only two things: bad luck and E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth century author of The Underland, who disappeared over a hundred years ago.
All she left behind were dark rumors—and her home. Everyone agrees that it’s best to ignore the uncanny mansion and its misanthropic heir, Arthur. Almost everyone, anyway.
I should be scared, but in the dream I don’t hesitate.
Opal has been obsessed with The Underland since she was a child. When she gets the chance to step inside Starling House—and make some extra cash for her brother’s escape fund—she can’t resist.
But sinister forces are digging deeper into the buried secrets of Starling House, and Arthur’s own nightmares have become far too real. As Eden itself seems to be drowning in its own ghosts, Opal realizes that she might finally have found a reason to stick around.
The long-awaited memoir from iconic, beloved actor and living legend Sir Patrick Stewart!
From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, Making It So, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England, to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.
The most profound book yet from the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, a darkly funny novel about grief that becomes a desert survival story.
In Melissa Broder’s astounding new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thanks to a receptionist who recommends a nearby hike.
Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant.
This is Melissa Broder at her most imaginative, most universal, and finest. This is Death Valley.
In this hilariously revealing debut memoir, comedian Sarah Cooper charts her rise from lip-synching in church to lip-synching the president, and all the dad issues she collected along the way.
As the youngest of four in a tight-knit Jamaican family, Cooper cut her teeth in the mean cornfields of suburban Maryland. Soon she became a charmingly neurotic woman trying to break her worst patterns and reclaim her linen closet. From an early obsession with hair bands to her struggle to escape the immigrant-to-basic-bitch pipeline to her use of the Internet as a marriage counselor (after being fired by two real ones) and the curse of her TED Talk vibe, Cooper invites us to share in her triumphs and humiliations as she tries (and fails) to balance her own dreams with the American dream.
With determination and wit, Cooper mines a lifetime of oppressive perfectionism for your laughter and enjoyment, as she moves from tech to comedy, marriage to divorce, smart to foolish, while proving once and for all that being foolish is actually the smartest thing you can do.
Mark Helprin, the #1 New York Times, bestselling author of Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, presents a fast-paced, beautifully written novel about the majesty of the sea; a life dedicated to duty, honor, and country; and the gift of falling in love.
A Navy captain near the end of a decorated career, Stephen Rensselaer is disciplined, intelligent, and determined to always do what’s right. In defending the development of a new variant of warship, he makes an enemy of the president of the United States, who assigns him to command the doomed line’s only prototype––Athena, Patrol Coastal 15––with the intent to humiliate a man who should have been an admiral.
Rather than resign, Rensselaer takes the new assignment in stride, and while supervising Athena’s fitting out in New Orleans, encounters a brilliant lawyer, Katy Farrar, with whom he falls in last-chance love. Soon thereafter, he is deployed on a mission that subjects his integrity, morality, and skill to the ultimate test, and ensures that Athena will live forever in the annals of the Navy.
As in the Odyssey, Katy is the force that keeps him alive and the beacon that lights the way home through seven battles, mutiny, and court martial. In classic literary form, an enthralling new novel that extolls the virtues of living by the laws of conscience, decency, and sacrifice, The Oceans and the Stars is nothing short of a masterpiece.
“Both of Bechdel’s memoirs, this and Are You My Mother? are darkly funny and ultimately touching stories of trying to love and understand your parents to love and understand yourself.” – Robin (staff)
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED, NATIONAL BESTSELLER Time Magazine #1 Book of the Year • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • Winner of the Stonewall Book Award • Double finalist for the Lambda Book Award • Nominated for the GLAAD Media Award Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking, bestselling graphic memoir that 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.
In her hands, personal history becomes a work of amazing subtlety and power, written with controlled force and enlivened with humor, rich literary allusion, and heartbreaking detail.
Banned Books Week celebrates the resilience of literature, the fact that often the same books that are challenged and banned are, in other circumstances, recommended, proudly displayed, and most importantly, read and enjoyed.
Not every book is for every reader, but look closely at those who think they should get to decide across-the-board what’s appropriate for everyone. Increased book banning efforts, and new legislation have created an atmosphere that chills. Make no mistake. This is about control – control over what young people can read, learn, and even think. (Although no one can ban thoughts – yet.)
Until recently most book challenges were brought by parents or community members concerned about specific books, but in the last few years book bans have become a state-sponsored agenda in which multiple titles are being challenged at the same time, often cavalierly.
“These efforts to chill speech are part of the ongoing nationwide ‘Ed Scare’ — a campaign to foment anxiety and anger with the goal of suppressing free expression in public education,” write the authors of PEN America’s Banned in the USAreport. “As book bans escalate, coupled with the proliferation of legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities, the freedom to read, learn, and think continues to be undermined for students.”
Book banning is also happening in public libraries. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documents a record number in the more than 20 years they have been tracking book banning efforts. “ALA recognizes all of the brave authors whose work challenges readers with stories that disrupt the status quo and offer fresh perspectives on tough issues,” said the president of ALA. “Closing our eyes to the reality portrayed in these stories will not make life’s challenges disappear.”
Last year over 40% of all book bans occurred in school districts in Florida. But if you aren’t a K-12 student looking for The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, I Am Ruby Bridges, a picture book about Ruby’s life, or any one of thousands of other titles, you might not believe book bans happen here.
They do.
And always, kids are the real losers. The very child who may need a book to find a character just like them, to know they’re not alone, loses that chance. They lose the chance to read widely. They lose the chance to discover, to find out, to question.
What about the teachers and librarians whose jobs are threatened, who can lose their pensions? How do we protect them? The fear is palpable. “I’ve worked 35 years to bring books and young readers together,” a visiting school librarian from another district told us. “And now I can lose my pension if I don’t comply. Well, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to keep standing up for the kids. It’ll be hard if I lose my job and pension but I’ll figure out another way to earn a living.” Another told us, “I just close my classroom door and continue teaching the way I always have, by bringing in the best books I can. And if the day comes when I can’t teach that way, I’ll quit. I hate to lose my pension. I’ve worked long and hard for that. But I’m not going to give in to this craziness.”
But how many can afford to say that?
What about here in Key West?
Key West is not Florida. This is commonly heard among those of us living in the Keys, especially in Key West. We feel isolated not only geographically but also politically from anything we find alarming on the mainland. Life can be good in the Key West bubble but it’s important to not lose track of what’s happening in our own back yard.
We understand that during the past summer recess, media specialists in the district were required to go through their school libraries to determine that all materials were in compliance with new, and stricter, state and district guidelines. The outcome of that process is unclear. We have had sharply conflicting reports from parents, teachers and administrators. We doubt that we have seen an end to this process. But whatever is happening, this is exactly why we all should be paying attention. Don’t rest on the assumption that book bans aren’t happening where you live.
Here’s what you can do:
If you have a child in a public school ask them what they’re reading in school and if they get to visit the media center regularly.
Check out the online catalogs of schools in your district (most are posted publicly on the school’s website. In Florida they’re required to make media center catalogs open to the community). If a book from a banned books list appears available don’t stop there. Do what you can to make sure it’s actually on the shelf and available to students.
Check to make sure new books are available. Counties are able to “ban by omission.” Though books may not have been pulled, ask about titles they’re choosing not to include in the school library.
Teachers and media specialists need and deserve our support in standing up for their students and their right to read, even those books that make some uncomfortable. Any one book could be the key that saves a young person’s life. The threats to these educators have escalated – their jobs are at stake, their pensions could be lost, and felony charges can be brought against them. It’s a nightmare, as one teacher said.
Many of the things we are doing in store for Banned Books Week are fun – we’ll have Banned Books Bingo cards, a special bookmark, stickers, and interesting and informative displays – but we also hope you’ll think about what would be missing in your life if you couldn’t pick up and read the books of your choice.
So speak out! You’re not alone. There are groups and organizations who can help you whether you’re a teacher, librarian, parent, student, or a reader who cares about others having free access to books and learning. You’re busy. We know that. But if you read just one of these websites and if you can become a member, you’re helping.
UniteAgainstBooksBans.org: This grassroots anti-censorship campaign has social media tools to show your support, background information, and resources on how to oppose book banning locally.
Banned Books Week is an opportunity to think about the importance of access to a wide range of ideas and representation in books across many sectors of society, including schools and public libraries. It is also an opportunity to read great books that you might not have otherwise picked up.
Here are some recommendations from the store staff of books that have been on various banned and challenged lists.
Robin loved Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love. “The art for this book is beautiful, and wonderfully complements the story of an imaginative little boy getting to do something he loves.”
Riona recommends The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab, which features a rash deal with the devil that unfolds in surprising and moving ways.
Lori says The Color Purple by Alice Walker will have you rooting for Celie, Shug, Sofia and Nettie, rejoicing in their triumphs.
