The Library is closed today, dear patrons, but that is no reason not to get all excited about the neat books that have made it on to our shelves this past week, and make plans to come and scoop them (and plenty of others) up when the time is right. Just a reminder that we’ll be closed on Sunday, as well, so plan your book-, movie-, audio-spree accordingly!
Peace Keeping: Mischa Berlinski’s debut novel, Fieldwork, garnered rave reviews from critics, readers, and other authors in spades, and his second novel seems just as ambitious, imaginative, and moving. Set in Haiti, this story features Terry White, a former deputy sheriff and a failed politician, who loses his life savings in the 2008 Financial Meltdown, and, with no other prospects, takes a job with the UN to train the Haitian police force. Stationed in Jérémie, White finds a world he could never have imagined in all its corrupt, transient, and still somehow wondrous glory; but, as he gets closer and closer to his Haitian neighbors, and falls ever and ever harder for the wife of a local judge, White begins to see his world collapsing around him all over again. Booklist gave the book a starred review, saying “Berlinski follows his National Book Award-nominated debut with a compelling tale that again immerses readers in the intrigues of an enthralling locale . . . The Haiti [he] describes is one in which there are always multiple versions of the truth, some we can bear to tell ourselves, and others we cannot.”
Jane Steele: So….picture Jane Eyre. Now, picture Jane Eyre as a serial killer. With a wicked sense of humor. And a thirst for revenge. I am super, super serious. Lyndsay Faye has take the plot of Charlotte Bronte’s classic (more or less) and re-imaged Jane as a totally new kind of heroine. I don’t really even know how much more I can say about this book without taking some of the shock, and surprising delight, out of it for you. So I’ll simply point out that Jane Eyre is by far and away one of my favorite books of all times, and I went into this one very hesitantly–and am delighted to report that I really appreciated Jane Steele, her wholly justified rage and take-no-prisoners feminist approach to life, and her complicated relationship with the enigmatic and wholly captivating Mr. Thornfield. Against all my assumptions, I’m sold. So to were our friends at Book Riot, who declared “This book scratched all my favorite itches: Victoriana, feminist rage, and excellent, gut-punch sentences. You’ll love this Jane just as much as you love the original.”
Rightful Heritage : Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America: Professor Douglas Brinkley continues his study of environmental history and the American presidency with this analysis of Franklin Roosevelt’s efforts in creating Civilian Conservation Corps, and building up the American State Parks Service in order to preserve some of the most famous natural wonders in the country. Though Brinkley adds a good deal of insight into Roosevelt’s personality and presidency through this work, it is primarily a testament to his conservatism and determination to save America, not just economically, but environmentally by designating parks, planting 2 billion trees, enforcing pollution control, and restoring lands ravaged by the dust bowl. Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Megan Marshall called Brinkley’s latest work “Stunningly researched and compellingly written…In our search for compassionate and clear-headed leaders to guide us through the environmental crisis, Brinkley’s vividly detailed account of Roosevelt’s pioneering preservationism serves as a much-needed beacon and bible.”
Forbidden: Beverly Jenkins is a superstar in the world of historical romance, and one of the few bestselling authors to focus on African Americans. Her newest release is set in the Old West, but still focuses on issues of identity and race, without losing track of the relationship at the book’s center. Rhine Fontaine is finally living the life he always wanted–a life that is dependent on his passing as white. But when he rescues a young, headstrong Black woman from the desert, he finds himself willing to lose everything to keep her by his side. Eddy Carmichael is focused solely on making enough money to leave Nevada forever and make a life for herself in California. Any kind of dalliance with a man like Rhine would be catastrophic to them both…or it might be the very thing that sets them both free. Jenkins’ work is always beautifully researched, intensely sympathetic, wonderfully steamy, and all around sensational reads, and RT Book Reviews agrees, cheering that this book “delivers a thrilling, sensual novel that brims over with history, passion and, most of all, her signature wit and unforgettable characters.”
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Helen Oyeyemi has forged her stellar career in fiction by turning readers’ expectations on their heads, and delivering stories that challenge, enthrall, chill, and delight in equal measure. This book of intertwined short stories all feature keys of some kind, be they metaphorical or physical–from a student’s heart to a locked diary, from a garden gate to a mysterious house, and each is full of Oyeyemi’s trademark wit and brilliant insight. Her gift for magical realism is on full display here, prompting the New York Times Review of Books to write of this work, ““Oyeyemi so expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal, we have to ask if the line between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ is murkier than we imagined—or to what extent a line exists at all. . . The deeper one descends into the fabulist warrens of these stories, the more mystery and menace abound, and with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being utterly surprised.”
And so, until next week, beloved patrons–Happy Reading!