Book Buzz 2018 Fiction - Wilmette Public Library
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Book Buzz 2018
Fiction
Facing his erstwhile boyfriend’s
In ten stories, Sittenfeld upends
wedding to another man, his 50th
assumptions about class,
birthday, and his publisher’s
relationships, and gender roles in a
rejection of his latest manuscript, a
nation that feels both adrift and
miserable midlist novelist heads
viscerally divided. They pinpoint the
for the airport. A love story, a satire
questionable decisions, missed
of the American abroad, a
connections, and sometimes
rumination on time and the human
extraordinary coincidences that
heart.
make up a life.
Nina Browning is living the good As an Indian wedding gathers a
life after marrying into Nashville’s family back together, parents Rafiq
elite. Her son has just been and Layla must reckon with the
accepted into Princeton. Then, one choices their children have
photograph, snapped in a drunken made. The story takes the reader
moment at a party, changes back to the beginning of this family’s
everything. In the fallout, two life: from the bonds that bring them
families struggle to keep their lives together, to the differences that pull
from falling apart. them apart.
Willa Drake can count on one hand It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower
the defining moments of her life. East Side, and word has spread of
Then, one day, she receives a the arrival of a traveling psychic who
startling phone call from a claims to be able to tell anyone the
stranger. Without fully day they will die. The Gold
understanding why, she flies across children—four adolescents on the
the country to look after a young cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to
woman she’s never met, her nine- hear their fortunes. Only time will
year-old daughter, and their dog, tell if her predictions are accurate.
Airplane.
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are
A retelling of ancient Greek lore
ripped apart by circumstances
gives exhilarating voice to Circe, a
neither could have imagined when
powerful witch banished by Zeus to
Roy is arrested and sentenced for a
a deserted island. Circe must
crime Celestial knows he didn’t
summon all her strength and
commit. An intimate look deep into
choose, once and for all, whether
the souls of people who must reckon
she belongs with the gods she is
with the past while somehow moving
born from, or the mortals she has
forward into the future.
come to love.
1
Non Fiction
Born to survivalists in the
mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover The haunting true story of the elusive
was seventeen the first time she set serial rapist turned murderer who
foot in a classroom. After a lifetime terrorized California during the 70s
of isolation, she began to educated and 80s, and of the gifted journalist
herself. Her quest for knowledge who died tragically while
transformed her. Only then would investigating the case. It has been
hailed as a modern true crime classic.
she wonder if she’d traveled too
far and if there was still a way
home.
Mokhtar Alkhanshali is working as a
Liliane Bettencourt, heiress to the doorman when he discovers the
L’Oréal fortune, was the world’s astonishing history of coffee and
richest woman. But her gilded life Yemen’s central place in it. He leaves
took a dark yet fascinating turn in San Francisco and travels deep into his
the past decade, when she became homeland to meet beleaguered but
embroiled in a scandal, uncovering determined farmers. But when war
L’Oréal’s shadowy corporate engulfs the country, Mokhtar has to
history and buried World War II find a way out of Yemen without
secrets. sacrificing his dreams or abandoning
his people.
For three years Tessa Fontaine Seventeen discrete encounters at
lived in a constant state of different ages, in different locations,
emergency as her mother battled reveal a whole life in a series of
stroke after stroke. But hospitals, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that
wheelchairs, and loss of language vibrates with electricity and restrained
couldn’t hold back such a woman. emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils
Thus Fontaine became free to running just beneath the surface, and
follow her own piper and joined the illuminates the preciousness, beauty,
last traveling American sideshow. and mysteries of life itself.
Our current climate of partisan fury
America’s opioid crisis. From
is not new, and Meacham shows us
distressed small communities in
how what Abraham Lincoln called
Central Appalachia to wealthy
the “better angels of our nature” have
suburbs; from disparate cities to
repeatedly won the day. Painting
once-idyllic farm towns; it's a
surprising portraits of Lincoln and
heartbreaking trajectory that
other presidents, and illuminating
illustrates how this national crisis
the courage of influential citizen
has persisted for so long and
activists, Meacham brings vividly to
become so firmly entrenched.
life turning points in American
history.
2
Titles Flying Under the Radar
Fiction
We’ve all been asked to name people, How far will you go to achieve a
living or dead, with whom we’d like dream? That's the question a coach
to have dinner. What if that dinner poses to Katie and Eric Knox after
was to actually happen? When he sees their daughter Devon, a
Sabrina arrives at her thirtieth gymnastics prodigy, compete. For
birthday dinner she finds at the table the Knoxes there are no limits--
not just her best friend, but also three until a violent death rocks their
significant people from her past, and close-knit gymnastics community
well, Audrey Hepburn. and everything they have worked so
hard for is suddenly at risk.
Thinking she signed up to teach This debut novel gives a riveting
creative writing, a miscommunication look into the high-stakes, cutthroat
leaves Nikki, a cosmopolitan world of musicians, and of lives
Londoner, with a class of Punjabi made in concert. After the Van
widows expecting to learn basic Ness Quartet’s youthful, rocky
English. Eager to liberate these start, they experience devastating
modest women, she teaches them how failure and wild success, heartbreak
to express their untold stories, and marriage, triumph and loss,
unleashing creativity of the most betrayal and enduring loyalty.
unexpected—and exciting—kind.
New mother Rebecca Stone is beyond In late 1969, when handsome
relieved when Priscilla agrees to be Chase Andrews is found dead, the
nanny to her newborn son. Rebecca is locals immediately suspect Kya
white, and Priscilla is black and for the Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But
first time, she confronts the blind spots Kya is not what they say. Sensitive
of her privilege. When Priscilla dies and intelligent, she has survived for
unexpectedly in childbirth, Rebecca years alone in the marsh. When
steps forward to adopt the baby. But two young men from town become
she is unprepared for what it means to intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya
be a white mother with a black son. opens herself to a new life--until
the unthinkable happens.
Non Fiction
In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great- Many people are genuinely fearful of
great-great-uncle bought the patent the prospect of solitude, but time
to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. alone can be both rich and restorative,
The generations that followed especially when travelling.
enjoyed immense privilege - but they Rosenbloom considers how being
were also haunted by suicides, alone as a traveler is conducive to
cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious becoming acutely aware of the sensual
ailments. A gripping examination of details of the world--patterns,
the dark side of an iconic American textures, colors, tastes, sounds--in
product. ways that are difficult to do in the
company of others.
3
Librarian’s Favorites
Fiction
Eleanor knows she's a mess. But
The story of twelve Urban Indians
living in Oakland, California. As we today, she will tackle the little
things. But before she can put her
learn the reasons that each person is
attending the Big Oakland Powwow- modest plan into action-life
happens. Just when it seems like
some generous, some fearful, some
joyful, some violent-momentum things can't go more awry, an
encounter with a former colleague
builds toward a shocking yet
produces a graphic memoir whose
inevitable conclusion that changes
everything. dramatic tale threatens to reveal a
buried family secret.
The story of Alice, a young American Our narrator should be happy. She's
editor, and her relationship with the young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia
famous and much older writer Ezra graduate. But there is a dark and
Blazer contrasts with Amar, an Iraqi- vacuous hole in her heart. Through
American man who, on his way to the story of a year spent under the
visit his brother in Kurdistan, is influence of a truly mad combination
detained by immigration officers. of drugs designed to heal our heroine
These two seemingly disparate from her alienation from this world,
stories gain resonance as their Moshfegh shows us how reasonable,
perspectives interact and overlap. even necessary, alienation can be.
In this entrancing novel “that speaks This beautiful, illuminating tale of
to the Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth hope and courage is based on
Taylor in us all” a legendary film interviews that were conducted
actress reflects on her relentless rise with Holocaust survivor and
to the top and the risks she took, the Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist
loves she lost, and the long-held Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov—an
secrets the public could never unforgettable love story in the
imagine. midst of atrocity.
Non Fiction
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from James Abram Garfield was one of
apartheid South Africa to the desk the most extraordinary men ever
of The Daily Show began with a elected president. But four months
criminal act: his birth. Trevor was after his inauguration in 1881, he
born to a white Swiss father and a was shot in the back by a deranged
black Xhosa mother at a time when office-seeker named Charles
such a union was illegal. Finally Guiteau. Garfield survived the
liberated by the end of South Africa’s attack, but became the object of
tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles
mother began embracing the for power—over his administration,
opportunities won by a centuries- over the nation's future, and,
long struggle. hauntingly, over his medical care.
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