Hi everyone, here are our recommended reads for the week!
*More information on the three catalogs and available formats is found at the end of the list of recommended reads*
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Weekly Suggested Reading postings are published on Thursdays.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Thursday, August 24, 2023.
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Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead
(Available Formats: Print Book, Downloadable Audiobook & Hoopla Instant Checkout Audiobook)
This “wickedly funny” (The Boston Globe) New York Times Notable Book from the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys is a brisk, comic tour de force about identity, history, and the adhesive bandage industry.
The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town’s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant. And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero’s efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well.
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Ballad & Dagger by Daniel José Older
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook, Downloadable Audiobook, Hoopla Instant Checkout eBook & Audiobook)
Fifteen years after the free Caribbean island nation of San Madrigal sank into the sea during a hurricane, its peoples—pirates, Santeros, and Sefaradim—live in “what feels like a double diaspora,” Brooklyn’s neighborhood of Little Madrigal. Among them is aspiring musician Mateo Matisse, who has trouble finding his place in the community after spending years traveling with his doctor parents. During a celebration, he learns that he is an initiated child of the god Galanika, destined to channel the spirit’s healing power and—along with the initiates of the other two original spirits—help bring back the lost island. Initially resisting the role, Mateo must embrace it when Little Madrigal is rocked by violence and political infighting. Alongside quiet rabbi’s daughter Chela Hidalgo, initiate to the destroyer god Okanla, Mateo discovers San Madrigal’s buried history, and the two challenge their deepest understanding of their lost home. In this engrossing duology starter, the Riordan imprint’s first YA offering, Older (Flood City) explores themes of diaspora, colonialism, and identity via a vibrantly conceived, folklore-tinged urban fantasy that never loses sight of its immediate human elements, including a strong sense of community and blossoming attraction between its 16-year-old protagonists. – Starred Publishers Weekly Review
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I Kissed a Rogue by Shana Galen
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook, Hoopla Instant Checkout eBook & Audiobook)
When the Duke of Lennox hires Sir Brook Derring, England’s best investigator, to find his daughter, Brook intends only to rescue the lady and return to his solitary life. He deals with London’s roughest criminals every day of the week; surely he should be able to endure seeing his first love again—the perfect girl who broke his heart…
Lady Lillian-Anne Lennox has always done her best to live up to her father’s standards of perfection—at the cost of following her heart. When she’s kidnapped and her perfect life is shattered, Lila has another chance. Together, Lila and Brook navigate not only the dark and deadly side of London, but the chasm of pride and prejudice that divides them.
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Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
(Available Formats: Print Book & eBook)
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America
Set in an addicts’ halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.
Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human — and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.
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Killing Trail by Margaret Mizushima
(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, eBook, Hoopla Instant Checkout eBook & Audiobook)
Fans of K-9 mysteries and C.J. Box will love this debut police procedural that introduces Colorado’s best crime-fighting duo: Mattie Cobb and police dog, Robo.
While investigating the mysterious death of a young girl, Officer Mattie Cobb uncovers frightening secrets about her small Colorado hometown . . .
When a young girl is found dead in the mountains outside Timber Creek, life-long resident Officer Mattie Cobb and her partner, K-9 police dog Robo, are assigned to the case that has rocked the small Colorado town.
With the help of Cole Walker, local veterinarian and a single father, Mattie and Robo must track down the truth before it claims another victim. But the more Mattie investigates, the more she realizes how many secrets her hometown holds. And the key may be Cole’s daughter, who knows more than she’s saying.
The murder was just the beginning, and if Mattie isn’t careful, she and Robo could be next. Suspenseful and smart, Killing Trail is a gripping read that will have readers clamoring for more Mattie and Robo for years to come. Fans of Nevada Barr and C.J. Box will love this explosive debut.
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Mother of Strangers: A Novel by Suad Amiry
(Available Formats: Print Book & Downloadable Audiobook)
Amiry’s stirring debut novel follows the young love between two Palestinians whose families become displaced during the 1947–1948 civil war. Subhi, a 15-year-old mechanic whiz, is sent to solve an irrigation problem with the orange groves of one of the richest merchants in the port city of Jaffa. For his work, Subhi earns an elegant English suit, which he dreams of wearing at his wedding to Shams, a peasant girl whose father works for Subhi’s. Wearing the suit, Subhi visits Jaffa’s upscale cafés, coffee shops, and cinemas, and his uncle takes him to a brothel. Over the course of a monthlong summer festival, Subhi hangs around and makes his feelings known to Shams; they kiss, but their encounter is fleeting, as Subhi worries his parents wouldn’t approve. Meanwhile, Britain’s withdrawal and plans to partition the country into Jewish and Arab states grips the city with fear as hostilities escalate. Three days of shelling by the Jewish militia in 1948 decimates the city, displacing thousands, and in the chaos, Subhi is arrested and Shams and her family flee as refugees but get separated. Though the end might feel a bit rushed, the characters feel achingly alive. Amiry’s eye-opening story will keep readers turning the pages. – Publishers Weekly Review
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Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
(Available Formats: Print Book, Large Print, eBook, Hoopla Instant checkout eBook & Audiobook)
In this beautiful novel, Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times bestselling author of Demon Copperhead and The Poisonwood Bible, weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives inhabiting the forested mountains and struggling small farms of southern Appalachia.
Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes the lush countryside, this novel’s intriguing protagonists—a reclusive wildlife biologist, a young farmer’s wife marooned far from home, and a pair of elderly, feuding neighbors—face disparate predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with whom they necessarily share a place. Their discoveries are embedded inside countless intimate lessons of biology, the realities of small farming, and the final, urgent truth that humans are only one piece of life on earth.
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Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale by Jon Klassen
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook, Downloadable Audiobook, Hoopla Instant Checkout eBook & Audiobook)
A #1 New York Times bestseller!
Caldecott Medalist and New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Jon Klassen delivers a deliciously macabre treat for folktale fans.
Jon Klassen’s signature wry humor takes a turn for the ghostly in this thrilling retelling of a traditional Tyrolean folktale. In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otillahas escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both? Steeped in shadows and threaded with subtle wit—with rich, monochromatic artwork and an illuminating author’s note—The Skull is as empowering as it is mysterious and foreboding.
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Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson
(Available Formats: Print Book, Downloadable Audiobook & Hoopla Instant Checkout Audiobook)
Two sisters are suddenly sent from their home in Brooklyn to Barbados to live with their grandmother, in this stunning debut novel.
This lyrical novel of community, betrayal, and love centers on an unforgettable matriarchal family in Barbados. Two sisters, ages ten and sixteen, are exiled from Brooklyn to Bird Hill in Barbados after their mother can no longer care for them. The young Phaedra and her older sister, Dionne, live for the summer of 1989 with their grandmother Hyacinth, a midwife and practitioner of the local spiritual practice of obeah.
Dionne spends the summer in search of love, testing her grandmother’s limits, and wanting to go home. Phaedra explores Bird Hill, where her family has lived for generations, accompanies her grandmother in her role as a midwife, and investigates their mother’s mysterious life.
This tautly paced coming-of-age story builds to a crisis when the father they barely know comes to Bird Hill to reclaim his daughters, and both Phaedra and Dionne must choose between the Brooklyn they once knew and loved or the Barbados of their family.
Jackson’s Barbados and her characters are singular, especially the wise Hyacinth and the heartbreaking young Phaedra, who is coming into her own as a young woman amid the tumult of her family.
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Wolfsong by TJ Klune
(Available Formats: Print Book, eBook & Downloadable Audiobook)
Originally published in 2016, this first entry in Klune’s four-book paranormal series introduces readers to the werewolves of the fictional small town of Green Creek, Oregon. Plain human Ox, a teenager abandoned by his father years earlier, is slowly adopted by the Bennett pack at the instigation of Joe Bennett, a young boy with a horrific past. As the boys grow up, Ox learns that Joe, a future Alpha werewolf, intends to become his mate. Their blossoming romance is interrupted as the pack is targeted by the same villain who hurt Joe years earlier, resulting in an unthinkable tragedy that leaves the pack divided. Ox must embrace a leadership role he never dreamed he was capable of in order to keep his pack–werewolf and human alike–safe. Though awkwardly paced–over a third of the book and a decade of in-book time passes before the book’s primary villain makes an appearance on page–the early focus on developing characters and relationships makes the eventual conflicts more poignant. Fans of Klune’s recent best-sellers (like The House in the Cerulean Sea, 2020) will be eager to dive into his backlist.
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Have a great day!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Have questions or want to request a book?
Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.
Information on the three library catalogs
Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, Downloadable Audiobooks and digital magazines . The catalog, which allows one to download content to a PC, also has a companion app, Libby, which you can use to download content to your mobile device; so you can enjoy eBooks and Downloadable Audiobooks on the go!
The Libby app is available for Apple & Android devices.
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog/Libby.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features instant checkouts of eBooks, Downloadable Audiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV series. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla App is available for Android or Apple devices and most smart TVs & media streaming players.
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Format Note: Under each book title you’ll find a list of all the different formats that specific title is available in; including: Print Books, Large Print Books, CD Audiobooks, eBooks & Downloadable Audiobooks from the Digital Catalog (Libby app) and Hoopla eBooks & Hoopla Downloadable Audiobooks (Hoopla app).
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Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Have questions or want to request a book?
Feel free to call the library! Our telephone number is 607-936-3713.
Tech Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 