Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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Mrs. Lilienblum’s Cloud Factory: A Novel by Iddo Gefen
The precipitous rise of an Israeli tech startup dedicated to making rain in the desert. In a fitting follow-up to his debut story collection, Jerusalem Beach (2021), winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, Gefen explores a speculative premise in a mordantly comic tone. As it opens, the middle-aged inventor Sarai Lilienblum is sighted drinking a martini in the Israeli desert after disappearing from her home for several days. One of the reasons this captures media attention is because “home” is a semi-cooperative tourist lodge atop a cliff overlooking a desert crater which primarily draws visitors interested in the case of a long-disappeared Irish hiker named McMurphy. But Mrs. Lilienblum is not out there looking for McMurphy. She’s testing her latest invention–an unplugged vacuum cleaner that sucks up sand and emits a cloud, which forthwith dissolves into rain. As they say at the press conference for Cloudies, the startup her children, Eli and Naomi, co-found to promote their mother’s invention, “Everyone in this room knows that when Ben-Gurion spoke about making the desert bloom, it was the Cliff he had in mind.” The plot gets most of its energy from the siblings’ pursuit of various funding schemes. After a wealthy neighbor’s offer to underwrite the company falls through, Eli and Naomi pursue a very funny, subtly devised phishing scam under the persona of General Luciano Rodriguez Ancelotti III. Meanwhile, a billionaire named Ben Gould has posted online: “If in four months this device brings down rain on an entire town, I’ll make an offer. No lower than twenty million.” And so, things kick into high gear. The biggest shortcoming of Gefen’s high-spirited fable is character development, often gestured at but never achieved. For example, Sarai Lilienblum often tells her son that they’re “made from the same stuff.” He wonders if this could be true. So does the reader. No shortage of promising premises. – Kirkus Review
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Poems & Prayers by Matthew McConaughey
From the Academy Award–winning actor and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Greenlights comes an inspiring, faith-filled, and often hilarious collection of personal poetry and prayers about navigating the rodeo of life and chasing down the original dream, belief.
My prayers are my poems are my prayers.
I’ve always relied on logic to make sense of myself and the world.
A prescriptionist at heart, I’ve always looked to reason to find the rhyme, the practical to get to the mystical, the choreography to find the dance, the proof to get to the truth, and reality to get to the dream.
I’ve been finding that tougher to do lately. It’s more than hard to know what to believe in; it’s hard to believe.
But I don’t want to quit believing, and I don’t want to stop believing in . . . humanity, you, myself, our potential.
I think it’s time for us to flip the script on what’s historically been our means of making sense, and instead open our aperture to enchantment and look to faith, belief, and dreams for our reality.
Let’s sing more than we might make sense, believe in more than the world can conclude, get more impressed with the wow instead of the how, let inspiration interrupt our appointments, dream our way to reality, serve some soul food to our hungry heads, put proof on the shelf for a season, and rhyme our way to reason.
Forget logic, certainty, owning, or making a start-up company of it; let’s go beyond what we can merely imagine, and believe, in the poetry of life.
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Sisters of Fortune: A Novel by Esther Chehebar
Fortune’s wedding day is fast approaching, and she’s doing her best be the perfect daughter to her family and her future in-laws in their tight-knit Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, her sister Nina, who, by community standards, is a spinster at 26, is struggling to reconcile her desire to push back against the patriarchy and the weight of tradition. Their youngest sister, Lucy, seems to be living the dream, having landed a wealthy doctor, but will community pressure threaten the relationship? Sisters of Fortune is part coming-of-age story, part slice-of-life exploration of conservative Syrian Jewish life in America. The family dynamics are compelling, with each character offering a different perspective: from grandmother Sitto, who immigrated from Aleppo; to Sally, their mother who wasn’t raised in the community; to the three sisters, each navigating the tension between tradition and modern American values. This debut is fun and engaging, featuring alternating points of view among the sisters. It will especially appeal to readers interested in culture, family, and Jewish traditions. – Booklist Review
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Softly, as I Leave You: Life After Elvis by Priscilla Presley
This engaging memoir finds Presley just as her first marriage is ending, the new mother and heartbroken 27-year-old terrified of striking out on her own after devoting half of her life to Elvis. Two things become apparent as this multifaceted and accomplished woman, now 80, shares important milestones from the five decades since that time. First, Priscilla will always be a person thrust into unimaginable fame and relentless public scrutiny, and second, she remains fiercely loyal to Elvis and his continuing legacy. She expresses endless gratitude to members of the Presley family and to the many mentors who helped her realize her business enterprises, charities, acting career, and her successful efforts to save Graceland from financial ruin. These warm sentiments turn dark only when she talks about mean-spirited people who wronged her loved ones (she’s especially vocal about Michael Jackson exploiting her daughter, Lisa Marie). Priscilla sets the record straight on many of the seemingly never-ending tabloid stories, candidly discussing her relationships with her kids and grandchildren plus marriages, divorces, substance abuse, Scientology rumors, money squabbles, and legal wranglings. She also weighs in on the depictions of her in recent movies. The King and all things Elvis remain as popular as ever, so expect lots of demand.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It’s been 40 years since the release of Presley’s best-selling Elvis and Me. Especially on the heels of Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keogh’s blockbuster, From Here to the Great Unknown, readers are primed and ready to hear from Priscilla again. – Booklist Review
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The Summer War by Naomi Novik
Sorceress Celia is the youngest of her father’s children. Her beloved eldest brother, Argent, has decided to leave home, to leave her, and with immature rage and new power, Celia curses him to live a life without love. Immediately knowing that she has made a horrible mistake, Celia attempts to undo the curse, all the while mending her relationship with her rejected middle brother, Roric. Meanwhile, the king pursues the young sorceress as a bride for his son, Crown Prince Gorthan. When her wedding day with Gorthan arrives, Celia finds herself caught in the middle of a centuries-old battle between her people and the summerlings, immortal beings who despise their human neighbors, especially the prince to whom she is now married. Then Argent returns, determined to fight for his sister’s freedom, no matter the cost, but Celia knows it’s up to her to save her brother, her people, and herself.
VERDICT This delightful novella is an immersive fairy tale highlighted by Novik’s (The Golden Enclaves) vivid prose, with a sharp woman protagonist. Fans of Amal El-Mohtar’s The River Has Roots looking for their next read will find this book enjoyable. – Starred Library Journal Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
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Information on the four library catalogs
The Digital Catalog aka Libby: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. 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 companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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Kanopy Catalog: https://www.kanopy.com/en
The Kanopy Catalog features thousands of streaming videos available on demand.
The Kanopy Catalog is available for all Southern Tier Library System member library card holders, including all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders!
You can access the Kanopy Catalog through a web browser, or download the app to your phone, tablet or media streaming player (i.e. Roku, Google or Fire TV).
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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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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 