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Staff Recommendations

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  • Book cover for Catching the light

    Catching the light

    by Harjo, Joy

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    April 18, 2023

    Call Number: 811 H2816H-3

    From 2019 to 2022 Joy Harjo was the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States, and was the first Native American in that position. She is a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation that is geographically located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harjo is clear in affirming that the Muscogee Creek Nation Reservation is “at the border of three Native nations that also include the Osage and Cherokee. We honor and acknowledge those original keepers, past, present, and future, who care for these lands. We acknowledge the source of... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for The motion picture teller

    The Motion Picture Teller

    by Cotterill, Colin

    April 12, 2023

    Supot Yongjaiyut knows he is not living his best life. The year is 1996 and Supot lives in Bangkok. During the day, he works for the Royal Thai Mail Service, a job he loathes and for which he knows he has no aptitude. When he’s not at work, he spends his evenings watching movies with his best friend Ali. Ali owns a video store and shares a love of movies, all movies, with Supot. Another thing both men share is the belief that they are waiting for “something big” to happen to them. And that when that something big happens, they will both begin to live their lives the way they were... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for Visual thinking : the hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns, and abstractions

    Visual thinking : the hidden gifts of people who think in pictures, patterns, and abstractions

    by Grandin, Temple

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    April 5, 2023

    Call Number: 152.1 G753

    Temple Grandin did not start to speak until she was two years old and was diagnosed with brain damage. Her parents were advised to place her in an institution.  She was born in 1947 and Temple says, “I was exhibiting most of the behaviors now fully associated with autism, including lack of eye contact, temper tantrums, lack of social contact, sensitivity to touch, and the appearance of deafness ... the medical profession had not started applying an autism diagnosis to children like me."  However at the time Temple was diagnosed with brain damage it was her... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for The exceptions : Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science

    The exceptions : Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the fight for women in science

    by Zernike, Kate

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    March 29, 2023

    Call Number: 509.73 Z58

    When she was a reporter for the Boston Globe Kate Zernike wrote the breaking story that the esteemed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had discriminated against women faculty, at all levels.  Based on meticulous research this book is an in-depth analysis of what took place and how sixteen women, each of whom thought they were the exception to unfair treatment, came together to realize that each of them had been treated unfairly. Over four years Zernike conducted interviews, used archival material that included letters, university reports, oral... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for I'll build a stairway to paradise : a life of Bunny Mellon

    I'll build a stairway to paradise : a life of Bunny Mellon

    by Griswold, Mac K.

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    March 20, 2023

    Call Number: 712.092 M527Gr

    When she died in 2014, 103 years old, it could be said that Rachel Lambert Mellon had lived a very full life, not only for her longevity but for all that she accomplished. She was born into a family of wealth and property, and she twice married men of wealth and property. Her husband Paul Mellon was one of the richest men in the United States  For a woman of her time, born in 1910, not much was expected of her other than to marry well, produce children, and take care of her husband, their family, and home. However, there was a great deal more to this woman who was known as... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for Stone Blind

    Stone Blind

    by Haynes, Natalie

    March 13, 2023

    "I only see them for an instant. Then they're gone. But it's enough. Enough to know that the hero isn't the one who's kind or brave or loyal. Sometimes -- not always, but sometimes -- he is monstrous. And the monster? Who is she? She is what happens when someone cannot be saved. This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, She is the one you should fear. She is the monster.

    We'll see about that."

     In Stone Blind, Natalie Haynes retells the story of Medusa, one of the three Gorgon... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for Superspy Science: Science, Death and Tech in the World of James Bond

    Superspy Science: Science, Death and Tech in the World of James Bond

    by Harkup, Kathryn

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    March 6, 2023

    Call Number: 823 F597Ha

    "Bond's the name, Jame Bond," is how he introduces himself. In the books and films we learn that he has a license to kill, which he uses to get any number of baddies who stand in his way of eliminating super villains. He is helped in this endeavor with an arsenal of quirky, powerful weapons, gadgets, cars, planes and other paraphernalia that are beyond belief. Over the years the franchise, both book and film, has expanded and readers and viewers know they will be in for lots of thrills with Bond always the cool, calm hero. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, said that in some... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for The essential Dick Gregory

    The essential Dick Gregory

    by Gregory, Dick

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    February 28, 2023

    Call Number: 812.092 G822-3

    According to producer and director Andrew Gaines (The One and Only Dick Gregory), “For me, the personal experiences of Dick Gregory were like listening to a walking history lesson. It took only a few hours into my journey to make this film for me to realize that Dick Gregory was one of a kind, and I became totally consumed.” According to Christian Claxton Gregory, editor of his father's thoughts, “What a life, what a blessing. Dick Gregory... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for Dr. No : a novel

    Dr. No : a novel

    by Everett, Percival

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    February 21, 2023

    If you are a fan of Percival Everett, his most recent novel is for you. If you love satire then this novel is for you. It is satire on fire, by way of Everett’s genius and ingenuity to riff on various subjects: the competitive, snooty know-it-all attitude among professionals who work in subject areas and subdivisions of physics, mathematics, philosophy, and in public and private agencies. Add to this a narrative that is rich with double entendres and quadruple entendres about names, words, sentences, ideas, complex theories and novels. Percival Everett plays this like a master... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for The wind at my back : resilience, grace, and other gifts from my mentor, Raven Wilkinson

    The wind at my back : resilience, grace, and other gifts from my mentor, Raven Wilkinson

    by Copeland, Misty

    Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & Fiction

    February 14, 2023

    Call Number: 793.324 C782-2

    Ballerina Misty Copeland was the first Black ballerina to become a principal ballerina in the American Ballet Theatre. In her autobiography, Life in motion: an unlikely ballerina, she wrote about her early life and how she became involved in ballet, and was accepted into American Ballet Theatre. In itself, her early life was one of struggle, but in ballet she found her calling.  She has written many other books about her life and about what it... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for The family Chao : a novel

    The Family Chao

    by Chang, Lan Samantha

    February 6, 2023

    Somewhere towards the end of Lan Samantha Chang’s third novel, The Family Chao, I kept thinking about the first story in Maxine Hong Kingston’s seminal work The Woman Warrior, where a woman takes her own life by jumping into the family well, just hours after giving birth in a pigsty.  She was Kingston’s aunt back in China, during the Warlord Era in the 1920s, when the country splintered into regions controlled by local leaders,... Read Full Review

  • Book cover for How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain

    How to Take Over the World: Practical Schemes and Scientific Solutions for the Aspiring Supervillain

    by North, Ryan

    January 30, 2023

    Call Number: 500 N866

    In How to Take Over the World, Ryan North, an award winning comics and science writer and computer scientist, provides a primer for those considering supervillainy as a career. He provides step by step instructions, beginning with where to build a secret lair (no matter what you see in movies, television, or comics, do NOT build a lair in an active volcano – North explains why!), potentially villainous schemes to pursue, along with explorations of the existing, or soon to exist, science, including physics, mathematics, biology, history, genetics, along with political... Read Full Review

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