Dr. No : a novel

by Everett, Percival

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

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

Studio 54

by Schrager, Ian, 1946-

January 24, 2023

Call Number: 793.15 S377 folio

These days when we think about the 1970s, we’re assaulted with memories of the energy crisis, the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon’s resignation as President of the United States after the Watergate scandal, and, of course, disco. Many of us equate disco with the 1970s, a genre of dance music that emerged from nightlife scenes and subcultures in the United States.  Disco was a kind of reaction to the dominance of rock music in the 1960s, when dance music was stigmatized.  And thus, band names like Earth Wind & Fire, the Bee Gees, ABBA, KC and the Sunshine Band - just to... Read Full Review

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

by Kuang, R. F.

January 9, 2023

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution is the story of a young man, who is named Robin Swift by the English guardian who refuses to let him use his birth name. Robin was taken from Canton and raised by his guardian, a cold and exacting Oxford Don, specifically for the purpose of obtaining an Oxford education in magic, and using that magic to ensure Britain's power over its colonies in an alternate 1830s England. 

This book has so many things that are enticing about a dark world, academia, books,... Read Full Review

Gallant

by Schwab, Victoria

December 27, 2022

Call Number: YA

Olivia Prior has lived at Merilance since she was two years old. While Merilance calls itself a school, the truth is that it is closer to an asylum, a prison. It is a place where girls and young women who are not wanted are sent when they have nowhere else to go. They are supposed to be cared for, but they are not. They are supposed to be educated, but they are not. The children in residence at Merilance are supposed to be prepared for life after they leave the school, but they are not. As terrible as Merilance is, the outside world is worse, and the girls that leave, fleeing... Read Full Review