Friday, February 4, 2022

Fault Lines: A Novel by Emily Itami

Combining the incisive intimacy of Sally Rooney with the sharp wit of Helen Fielding, a compulsively readable and astonishingly relatable debut novel about marriage, motherhood, love, self and the vibrant, surprising city that is modern Tokyo

Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.

Then, one rainy night, she meets Kiyoshi, a successful restaurateur. In him, she rediscovers freedom, friendship and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she is living two lives --- and in the end, we can choose only one.

Funny, provocative and startlingly honest, Fault Lines is for anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and asked, Who am I, and how did I get here? A bittersweet love story and a piercing portrait of female identity, it introduces Emily Itami as a debut novelist with astounding resonance and wit.

216 pages (September 2021)

 
 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Bookclubs IG Live Interview with Emily Itami:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami; The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee; My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki; Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen; Good Company by Cynthia D'aprix Sweeney; Want by Lynn Steger Strong; Regrets Only by Erin Duffy; Trying by Emily Phillips; No Regrets by Tabitha Webb; Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum; The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton; The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams; and We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride.

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Yale needs women: how the first group of girls rewrote the rules of an Ivy League giant by Anne Gardiner Perkins

"If Yale was going to keep its standing as one of the top two or three colleges in the nation, the availability of women was an amenity it could no longer do without."

In the summer of 1969, from big cities to small towns, young women across the country sent in applications to Yale University for the first time. The Ivy League institution dedicated to graduating "one thousand male leaders" each year had finally decided to open its doors to the nation's top female students. The landmark decision was a huge step forward for women's equality in education.

Or was it?

The experience the first undergraduate women found when they stepped onto Yale's imposing campus was not the same one their male peers enjoyed. Isolated from one another, singled out as oddities and sexual objects, and barred from many of the privileges an elite education was supposed to offer, many of the first girls found themselves immersed in an overwhelmingly male culture they were unprepared to face. Yale Needs Women is the story of how these young women fought against the backward-leaning traditions of a centuries-old institution and created the opportunities that would carry them into the future. Anne Gardiner Perkins's unflinching account of a group of young women striving for change is an inspiring story of strength, resilience, and courage that continues to resonate today.

373 pages (September 2019)

 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Yale Needs Women | Intro For Book Clubs (SourcebooksInc):

Anne Gardiner Perkins of Yale Needs Women reflects 50 years after the university went coed (WTNH News8):

Title Read-alikes: The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever by Kent Garrett; Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni; Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey J. Selingo; Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus by Jennifer S. Hirsch & Shamus Khan; Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves A Second Chance at Education by Mike (Michael Anthony) Rose; Game On: Why College Admission Is Rigged and How You Can Beat the System by Susan F. Paterno; The College Dropout Scandal by David L. Kirp; Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins; Won’t Lose This Dream: How an Upstart Urban University Rewrote the Rules of a Broken System by Andrew Gumbel; Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine by Olivia Campbell; The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs; The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahawy; and The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore.

Monday, January 31, 2022

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian--who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white--her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go--for the protection of her family and her legacy--to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

341 pages (June 2021)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
Review from npr
 

Authors of 'The Personal Librarian' talk about their new novel (Good Morning America):

The Belle Greene–Bernard Berenson Letters Project (The Morgan Library & Museum):

This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene's Journey from Prejudice to Privilege by Heidi Ardizzone; The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe; The Great Mrs. Elias by Barbara Chase-Ribould; Josephine Baker's Last Dance by Sherry Jones; Passing by Nella Larsen; The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett; Black Girls Must Die Exhausted: A Novel for Grown Ups by Jayne Allen; The Muralist by Barbara A. Shapiro; The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin; The Paris Library by Janet Skelien Charles; Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian; The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles; and The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis.

Friday, January 28, 2022

Braiding Sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. She brings these frameworks of understanding together in original ways, taking "us on a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

382 pages (October 2013)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Gifts of the Land | A Guided Tour with Robin Wall Kimmerer:


This title is available for download as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.
 
Title Read-alikes: A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered that Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants by Ruth Kassinger; Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World by Stephen Kellert; Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees by William Bryant Logan; Full Ecology: Repairing Our Relationship with the Natural World by Mary M. Clare & Gary Ferguson; World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Seeds of Hope: Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants by Jane Goodall; Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes by Curt Stager; Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery; The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate by Peter Wohlleben; The Overstory by Richard Powers; An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: and Entangled Life; How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris

Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing.

Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she's thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust.

Then the notes begin to appear on Nella's desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW.

It's hard to believe Hazel is behind these hostile messages. But as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there's a lot more at stake than just her career.

A whip-smart and dynamic thriller and sly social commentary that is perfect for anyone who has ever felt manipulated, threatened, or overlooked in the workplace, The Other Black Girl will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last twist.

357 pages (June 2021)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
Review from npr
 

Book Trailer:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Sophia of Silicon Valley by Anna Yen; When No One Is Watching: a thriller by Alyssa Cole; Black Buck by Maleo Askaripour; The Sellout by Paul Beatty; Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang; Surburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza; The Whisper Network by Chandler Baker; Luster by Raven Leilani; A Burning by Megha Majumdar; Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid; Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam; The Plot by Jean Haniff; and Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi.

Monday, January 24, 2022

This Is Chance!: The Great Alaska Earthquake, Genie Chance, and the Shattered City She Held Together by John Mooallem

The thrilling, cinematic story of a community shattered by disaster—and the extraordinary woman who helped pull it back together.

In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis—the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world.

Slowly, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a familiar woman’s voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who would play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster, helping to put her fractured community back together. Her tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide—but only briefly. That Easter weekend in Anchorage, Genie and a cast of endearingly eccentric characters—from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town—were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together, they would make a home in it again.

Drawing on thousands of pages of unpublished documents, interviews with survivors, and original broadcast recordings, This Is Chance! is the hopeful, gorgeously told story of a single catastrophic weekend and proof of our collective strength in a turbulent world.

There are moments when reality instantly changes—when the life we assume is stable gets upended by pure chance. This Is Chance! is an electrifying and lavishly empathetic portrayal of one community rising above the randomness, a real-life fable of human connection withstanding chaos.

336 pages (March 2020)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

1964 Quake| The Great Alaska Earthquake (USGS):

 
Jon Mooallem on This is Chance! (with Jazmine Hughes from GreenlightBookstore):


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain; Gunflint Burning: Fire in the Boundary Waters by Cary J. Griffith; Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson; Strong in the rain: surviving Japan's earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear disaster by Lucy Birmingham; On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It by Kyle Dickman; Ruthless Tide: The Heroes and Villains of the Johnstown Flood, America’s Astonishing Gilded Age Disaster by Al Rocker; Megafire: The Race to Extinguish a Deadly Epidemic of Flame by Michael Kodas; Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894 by Daniel James Brown; The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us and What We Can Do about Them by Lucile M. Jones; One Day: The Extraordinary Story of an Ordinary 24 Hours in America by Gene Weingarten; Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad; Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles; and Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson.

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford

A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal - one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency.

Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or "Cures"—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. Ada, a being both more and less than human, is mostly uninterested in the Cures, until she meets a man named Samson. When they strike up an affair, to the displeasure of her father and Samson's widowed, pregnant sister, Ada is torn between her old way of life and new possibilities with her lover—and eventually comes to a decision that will forever change Samson, the town, and the Ground itself.

Follow Me to Ground is fascinating and frightening, urgent and propulsive. In Ada, award-winning author Sue Rainsford has created an utterly bewitching heroine, one who challenges conventional ideas of womanhood and the secrets of the body. Slim but authoritative, Follow Me to Ground lingers long after its final page, pulling the reader into a dream between fairy tale and nightmare, desire and delusion, folktale and warning.

199 pages (January 2020)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 
 

Spoiler Free Review from BookswithBridget:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward; The Bone Fire by Gyorgy Dragoman; What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine; Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield; The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman; The Dark Dark: stories by Samantha Hunt; We Can Only Save Ourselves by Alison Wisdom; Sisters by Daisy Johnson; Northwood by Maryse Meijer; The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave; Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas; Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar; and The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams.