Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
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Barn Gothic: Three Generations and the Death of the Family Dairy Farm by Ryan Dennis
When Ryan Dennis’s father was crushed by heavy machinery on their New York dairy farm, both men accepted the accident as a risk of agricultural life. But it was harder to comprehend being crushed by low milk prices, big banks, and the policies that destroyed America’s family farms.
Even though Ryan grew up watching his father and grandfather struggle to survive, he always thought he would follow in their footsteps and take over the family farm. But as he milked cows and fed calves, the world outside the barn was changing. Between 2003 and 2020, 40,000 dairy farms went out of business in the United States.
Barn Gothic is an elegy for family farmers and an intimate portrait of three generations laboring to be fathers and sons while their livelihood falls apart. Beautifully told with a farmer’s restraint and a poet’s grace, it is a story of personal loss amid corporate corruption and of finding a way forward when everything you know disappears.
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Dey: A Novel by Edwidge Danticat
“Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?” These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami. When she hears gunfire while at a shopping mall, she takes shelter in a nearby restaurant, cowering with fellow shoppers and diners. Once she’s safely home, Magnolia keeps this traumatic event from everyone. But given her life back, she begins to see everything clearly: her extraordinary bond with her daughter, Zoë; her nearly broken relationship with Zoë’s father; the challenges of her mentally troubled mother, whose unraveling patterns Magnolia worries she’s spiraling toward herself; and her father’s affair with a woman who has borne him a child. While struggling through the labyrinth of her past, Magnolia must also come to terms with the losses sustained that life-altering day, and nearly every day by her parents and sibling in Haiti.
Can love or family protect us from harm? Does optimism or fear win out in one’s heart? Which side will prevail for Magnolia? Pulled between these questions, each of which involves a high-stakes choice—Miami or Haiti, single or married, mortal or ghost, before or after—Magnolia is a narrator who is “yon pati koukouy, part firefly”: flitting and shimmering between different worlds.
Taking as its title a Haitian Kreyòl word for mourning, Dèy is a profoundly warm and moving novel about the importance not only of sharing grief but also of inseverable family ties. Brave and striking, Dèy is one of Danticat’s most powerful and deeply affecting works yet, told with her signature “unfaltering voice and evocative beauty” (The Boston Globe).
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The Night Hunter by Natalie Moss
Dani and Grace grew up on a game preserve in South Africa, where their mother dedicated her life to her anti-poaching foundation. After a childhood accident leaves Grace permanently disfigured, Dani flees with their father to London. She and Grace become increasingly distant, especially after their mother remarries. When their mother dies, the girls reluctantly agree to honor her by undertaking a safari with friends–a trip that will take them through their mother’s preserve to their old home. But from the moment the safari begins, things go wrong. The group’s vehicle is destroyed, meaning they must trek on foot through the unforgiving African terrain; there are threats from both humans and animals; and murder and violence abound. In this gripping and turbulent saga, the suspense, uncertainty, and danger increase to a heart-palpitating intensity until the end, which brings reconciliation when the two sisters discover their mother’s darkest secrets. Gory, gruesome, terrifying, and action-packed, this book is not for the fainthearted, but those interested in South Africa, wild animals, illegal poaching, and family trauma will relish Moss’ adventure story. – Booklist Review
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There’s Only One Sin In Hollywood: A Novel by Rasheed Newson
Newson’s second captivating novel, following My Government Means to Kill Me (2022), is about a closeted Black fixer’s quest to reveal the truth behind the untimely demise of a queer movie star. As the story unfolds, the author explores Hollywood and queer Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s. Aaron Touissant fell in love with movies as a boy and eventually landed a job as a handler for Skyline Studios’ Black talent. His biggest assignment is rising star Xavier C. Barlow, the studio’s answer to Sidney Poitier and a man willing to take risks for his beliefs. The tension rises as Xavier is cast in a biopic close to Aaron’s heart, and he decides to take over the project. Newson weaves an engrossing story of sex, race, power, and ambition, showcasing a who’s who of Black Hollywood and dropping readers into the midst of pre-Stonewall raids on gay bars and erotic encounters in bathrooms and city parks. Ultimately, this is a tale of how far the powerful will go to protect themselves and whose stories end up on the cutting-room floor. – Booklist Review
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Under an Afghan Sky by Melissa Fung
In October 2008, Mellissa Fung, a long-time reporter for CBC’s The National, was leaving a refugee camp outside of Kabul. Suddenly, she was grabbed by armed men claiming to be Taliban, stabbed, stuffed into the back of a car and driven off into the desert. When the group finally reached a village in the middle of nowhere, her kidnappers pushed her towards a hole in the ground. For twenty-eight days, Mellissa Fung lived in that hole, which was barely big enough to stand up or lie down in, nursing her injuries, praying, writing in her notebook and, as a veteran journalist, interrogating her own captors. Under an Afghan Sky is the gripping tale of Fung’s days in captivity, and a powerful book about survival and the indomitable spirit of one woman in the most perilous of circumstances.
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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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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 