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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
Jabari Asim was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. For eleven years, he was an editor at The Washington Post, where he also wrote a syndicated column on politics, popular culture, and social issues, and he served for ten years as the editor in chief of The Crisis, the NAACP's flagship journal of politics, culture, and ideas.
This is a novel about the stories we tell about ourselves, about the people we love and how what we think we know may not match the actuality. Which leads to the ultimate question: would we even want to know?
Ellie Kemper is funny, upbeat, and the type of person who immediately replies to emails and types out HAHAHAs instead of using LOLs. She writes in all caps and generously uses exclamation points. She is not afraid of emotion. I appreciate this! I like to type out HAHAHAs, too! (See what I did there with the capitalization and exclamation points?!?!).
Winter might be knocking on the door, but November is one of the hottest months for new releases. On to the highlights:
--One of the most anticipated memoirs of recent times finally hits shelves November 13. Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming, part of a reported $65 million dollar deal that also includes a memoir by the former President (no word yet on a release date for his book). Given the challenge of recouping such a huge advance, expect to see this hyped just about everywhere.
Colin Cotterill has been on and off my mystery radar over the years. I'd read his first book The Coroner's Lunch a while ago and came back to Cotterill every now and then. But much as I enjoy Laotian coroner Dr. Siri Paiboun, somehow Cotterill just never stuck as a must-read author for me. That may have changed with my discovery of another of his series featuring Thai journalist Jimm Juree.
In an age when dire problems like the Flint water crisis and the California drought bring ever more attention to the indispensability of safe, clean, easily available freshwater, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan has written an urgent and powerful wake-up call.
Reader reviews on Goodreads for this title seem to be either in the "love it or hate it" category - not many in between. I fell on the love it side of things, but can definitely understand why some might not agree. The protagonist, Rebecca Stone, in whose head we spend the majority of time, is not exactly likable. She's not really unlikable either, at least to my mind. She's an educated white woman in 1980s Washington DC with a pretty narrow range of experiences and has no realization of just how limited her worldview is.
The Festival is almost here!
The four-day festival will take place October 11-14, 2018, in and around Madison Public Library’s Central Library in downtown Madison, Wisconsin.
We all have grumpy days, and sometimes we don't even know why we are grumpy! This short book shares some good calming ways to get through a grumpy spell, and the grumpy underpants page is sure to be a hilarious hit. Practice counting and breathing and snuggling up to help you feel better, and pair with Hooray for hat! for a great discussion about grumpiness.
Fall is almost here and there is a new batch of mysteries that I am "dying" to read. I have some old characters that I want to reconnect with and some new that I want to meet.
Cold Bayou by Barbara Hambly [9/1]
character: freedman Benjamin January
setting: 1839 New Orleans
