Staff Recommendations
Pages
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Upright Women Wanted
by Gailey, Sarah
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJune 1, 2020
Esther just watched her best friend die. Beatriz was found to be in possession of “inappropriate” materials, and for that she was hanged in the town square. Esther’s father spoke from the podium about the dangers of “deviance” all the while keeping his eyes locked on Esther.
Beatriz’s death was a warning to Esther, and so she ran. She stowed away in the Librarians’ supply wagon. Luckily for Esther that they were in town supplying the other residents with materials that support “correct education” and Approved Materials to read, watch and listen to.... Read Full Review
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Disturbance: surviving Charlie Hebdo
by Lançon, Philippe
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionMay 26, 2020
Call Number: 363.3259074436 L251
On January 7, 2015, two gunmen forced their way into the Paris offices of the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The newspaper was known for its criticism of individuals, organizations, governments and countries. The staff were egalitarian about whom and what they stridently satirized in images and writing, and because of this drew the attention and anger from many religious, political and ethnic groups. Their office had been attacked before, and was relocated to an unmarked building, with armed guards. With guns firing, the two... Read Full Review
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Five days gone : the mystery of my mother's disappearance as a child
by Cumming, Laura
Reviewed by: Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction DepartmentMay 18, 2020
Call Number: 362.70942 C971
It was a crisp autumn day in 1929 when Veda Elston took three-year-old Betty to the beach to play with her new pail and shovel in the seaside Lincolnshire village of Chapel St. Leonards on England’s east coast, just a short walk from their home. After turning her attention from the little girl for a few seconds, Veda looked up from her knitting to find that Betty had disappeared from view. Knowing that there hadn’t been time for her to wade into the water, Veda began a search of the area, soon enlisting neighbors and summoning her husband, George, back from his work as a traveling salesman... Read Full Review
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Oona Out of Order
by Montimore, Margarita
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryMay 11, 2020
Imagine it is New Year’s Eve, 1982. Oona is 18 years old and will be 19 at midnight as the year changes to 1983. She has her whole life ahead of her, including the type of life altering “big decisions” that face everyone at that age. But, when Oona opens her eyes after the clock strikes 12:00 midnight, she’s not 19 (at least on the outside) but 51. The year is not 1983 but 2015, and she’s in a completely different location. And so begins Oona’s less than linear life in Margarita Montimore’s Oona Out of Order.
In her debut novel, Margarita Montimore explores not only how... Read Full Review
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Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays
by Didion, Joan.
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionMay 5, 2020
Call Number: 973.92 D556 2008
During this century, Joan Didion has become somewhat better known for personal tragedies, which she wrote about in The Year of Magical Thinking. When it was published, I could not finish reading it, and still have not. Long ago, in the last century, the first book of hers that I read was Slouching Towards Bethlehem, a collection of essays. It may have been assigned in a high school English class, or I found it in... Read Full Review
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The beneficiary : fortune, misfortune, and the story of my father
by Scott, Janny
Reviewed by: Robert Anderson, Librarian, Literature & Fiction DepartmentApril 28, 2020
Call Number: 709.2 S428Sc
We hear a lot these days about “the 1%” -- those Americans who are wealthier than 99% of the nation’s population. Janny Scott, a New York Times reporter, who has also written a biography of Barack Obama’s mother, knows about this group from the inside, because she grew up in a family that was definitely part of the 1%--the Montgomery/Scott clan of Villanova, Pennsylvania, in the posh Philadelphia suburbs known as the Main Line.
In 1909, Janny’s great-grandfather, Col. R. L. Montgomery, an investment banker, purchased about 800 acres of land along... Read Full Review
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Heart of Junk
by Geddes, Luke
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryApril 20, 2020
Hmm, what could the following all have in common: an aging antique mall in Wichita, Kansas, where well established and novice sellers are struggling to keep the doors open in the age of online shopping; a child beauty pageant queen who has mysteriously vanished; and the hosts of a phenomenally popular television show about buying and selling antiques. While seemingly unrelated, all of these individuals and events will collide in surprising and hilarious ways in Luke Geddes’ debut novel Heart of Junk.
Geddes, author of the short story collection ... Read Full Review
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News of the World
by Jiles, Paulette
Reviewed by: Holly Z., LibrarianApril 14, 2020
News of the World was a 2016 National Book Award finalist. This historical novel has well developed characters, and is set in the early 1870s in the wild west of Texas. 71-year-old Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd takes up the mission to bring a 10-year-old girl, recently returned from capture by the Kiowa tribe, to her aunt and uncle in southern Texas.
Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd has had a long and interesting life as a former soldier, printer and father of two grown daughters. He had been a 16-year-old soldier in the Battle of New Orleans, and much... Read Full Review
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The big goodbye : Chinatown and the last years of Hollywood
by Wasson, Sam
Reviewed by: Nicholas Beyelia, Librarian, History and Genealogy DepartmentApril 6, 2020
Call Number: 791.1 C539Wa
Sam Wasson, a Los Angeles writer specializing in film and theater, has written a book that examines the making of Roman Polanski’s film, Chinatown. This book stands as the most comprehensive examination of the film’s production, and will please cinephiles, as well as others. Wasson focuses on four men, who were pivotal to the development of the film: writer Robert Towne; producer Robert Evans; actor Jack Nicholson; and director Roman Polanski. Wasson contends that these four men shaped the creative and intellectual life of the film, constructing one of the... Read Full Review
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The future of another timeline
by Newitz, Annalee, 1969-
Reviewed by: Andrea Borchert, Librarian, Koreatown Media LabMarch 31, 2020
Call Number: SF
There are lots of time travel books out there, but The Future of Another Timeline is in a class of its own. It has punks! It has academics! It has academic, punk feminists who travel backwards and forwards in time, protecting our future and our past (hopefully while wearing combat boots). It has the strangeness of wandering around Orange County parking lots at midnight as a teenager, because what else are you going to do? Go home?
Time travel stories tend towards either intensely personal stories or vast sweeping epics. But this novel weaves successfully... Read Full Review
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Eight Perfect Murders: A Novel
by Swanson, Peter
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryMarch 23, 2020
The owner of a Boston bookshop specializing in mysteries posts a list of books on the store’s blog. It is entitled “Eight Perfect Murders” and it lists the novels he feels have described unsolvable murders. These are murders in which the killers cannot be connected with their crimes. Years later, he is contacted by an FBI agent. She believes that a series of unsolved murders in the area surrounding Boston are being committed to mimic the deaths in the books on the “Eight Perfect Murders” blog post. As bookshop owner is the person who created the list, she needs his help to... Read Full Review
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The widow Clicquot : the story of a champagne empire and the woman who ruled it
by Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionMarch 16, 2020
Call Number: 663.2092 C636Ma
This biography of a woman and a wine, takes place in the early 1800s, in France, at a time when women did not conduct business, let alone take over their husband's business. However Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin was no oridnary woman. She had witnessed the French Revolution, lived through the Napoleonic Wars, national banking disasters, and the death of her husband, possibly from typhus or by suicide. Monsieur Clicquot had a dream of making a superior champagne, which his young widow was determined to make a reality. With determination, innate savviness, and advice from her own... Read Full Review