Below I will be sharing some of the new nonfiction titles that will be released in October. All the titles are available to put on hold from our catalog and will also be made available on the library’s Overdrive account on the day of publication. For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month check our online catalog.
Top Picks
“Golem Girl: A Memoir” by Riva Lehrer (Oct 6)
What do we sacrifice in the pursuit of normalcy? And what becomes possible when we embrace monstrosity? Can we envision a world that sees impossible creatures? In 1958, amongst the children born with spina bifida is Riva Lehrer. At the time, most such children are not expected to survive. Her parents and doctors are determined to “fix” her, sending the message over and over again that she is broken. That she will never have a job, a romantic relationship, or an independent life. Enduring countless medical interventions, Riva tries her best to be a good girl and a good patient in the quest to be cured. Everything changes when, as an adult, Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture. Their work is daring, edgy, funny, and dark — it rejects tropes that define disabled people as pathetic, frightening, or worthless. They insist that disability is an opportunity for creativity and resistance. Emboldened, Riva asks if she can paint their portraits — inventing an intimate and collaborative process that will transform the way she sees herself, others, and the world. Each portrait story begins to transform the myths she’s been told her whole life about her body, her sexuality, and other measures of normal. Written with the vivid, cinematic prose of a visual artist, and the love and playfulness that defines all of Riva’s work, “Golem Girl” is an extraordinary story of tenacity and creativity. With the author’s magnificent portraits featured throughout, this memoir invites us to stretch ourselves toward a world where bodies flow between all possible forms of what it is to be human. Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: October 2020”
Posted on Friday, September 25, 2020 by Abbey Rimel
Inside the Metropol, a Life is Lived. Inside your Library, a World Awaits.
This series of blog posts explores the rooms of the Hotel Metropol, setting of this year’s One Read title, and recommends books and films related to each scene. For a true admirer of the written word, one book is never the end of the story.
Music in the Air
Throughout the Metropol, you will find all manner of music, from the band in the Piazza to the jazz ensemble in the Shalyapin. Below are some samplings.
A gift from Richard Vanderwhile
At the end of a very distressing day, the count returns to his quarters in the belfry and sheds “the tears of the luckiest man in all of Russia.” He finds a portable phonograph, compliments of his new American friend, Richard Vanderwhile. Among the records included, he finds and plays Vladimir Horowitz’ performance of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto.
Posted on Monday, September 21, 2020 by Abbey Rimel
Inside the Metropol, a Life is Lived. Inside your Library, a World Awaits.
This series of blog posts explores the rooms of the Hotel Metropol, setting of this year’s One Read title, and recommends books and films related to each scene. For a true admirer of the written word, one book is never the end of the story.
At the Shalyapin with Audrius
When a German patron at the bar asks the Count to name other Russian contributions to Western culture besides vodka, he has the perfect response … Chekhov and Tolstoy, “the alpha and omega of narrative.”
Posted on Friday, September 18, 2020 by Abbey Rimel
Inside the Metropol, a Life is Lived. Inside your Library, a World Awaits.
This series of blog posts explores the rooms of the Hotel Metropol, setting of this year’s One Read title, and recommends books and films related to each scene. For a true admirer of the written word, one book is never the end of the story.
At the Piazza with Nina
In which the Count enjoys lunch and an engaging conversation with a certain young lady who has a penchant for the color yellow. They discuss mustaches, princesses and duels “with pistols at thirty-two paces.” (Just as an aside, his excellent marksmanship, knowledge of duels and more specifically, the location of dueling pistols hidden somewhere within the walls of the Hotel Metropol, will later serve the Count well.)Continue reading “The One Read List: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Part Two”
“Game Shelf” by 427 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
How many puzzles does it take to make it through quarantine?For my family, apparently 10 1,000 piece puzzles, four 3-D puzzles and counting. One puzzle was so difficult we may jokingly frame it (gasp!) with the caption being “The worst puzzle of Quarantine 2020.” And let’s not forget about the many board and card games we played to increase our pastime possibilities.
I have never been much of a game player, but even I succumbed during the boredom of quarantine. It made me wonder about the pastimes of people before modern technology made games so affordable and easy to obtain. Archaeologists continue to unearth many types of games; recently a 1,700 year-old Roman game was found in a burial ground. It is thought to be an ancient version of backgammon. I decided to do my own dig through the library’s collection and I found many books on the history and rules of games past and present. Continue reading “Literary Links: How Many Puzzles Does It Take to Make It Through Quarantine?”
Posted on Wednesday, September 9, 2020 by Abbey Rimel
Inside the Hotel Metropol, a Life is Lived. Inside your Library, a World Awaits
This series of blog posts explores the rooms of the Hotel Metropol, setting of this year’s One Read title, and recommends books and films related to these scenes. For a true admirer of the written word, one book is never the end of the story.Continue reading “The One Read List, Part One”
Below I will be sharing some of the new nonfiction titles that will be released in September. All the titles are available to put on hold from our catalog and will also be made available on the library’s Overdrive account on the day of publication. For a more extensive list of new nonfiction books coming out this month check our online catalog.
Top Picks
“Love, Zac: Small-Town Football and the Life and Death of an American Boy” by Reid Forgrave (Sep 8)
“I just can’t live with this pain anymore,” were among the final words in the diary of Zac Easter, a young man from small-town Iowa. In December 2015, Zac decided to take his own life rather than continue his losing battle against the traumatic brain injuries he had sustained as a no-holds-barred high school football player. In this deeply reported and powerfully moving true story, award-winning sportswriter Reid Forgrave speaks to Zac’s family, friends and coaches; he explores Zac’s tightly knit, football-obsessed Midwestern community; he interviews cutting-edge brain scientists, psychologists, and sports historians; and he takes a deep dive into the triumphs and sins of the sports entertainment industry. Forgrave shows us how football mirrors America, from the fighting spirit it has helped inscribe in our national character to the problematic side effects of traditional notions of manhood that it affirms. But, above all, this is a story of how one young man’s obsession with football led him and many of those entrusted with his care to ignore the warning signs of CTE until it was too late. What do Zac’s life and death mean for a society addicted to a sport that can be thrilling and character forming but also dangerous and sometimes tragic for those who play it? Continue reading “Nonfiction Roundup: September 2020”
Here are just a few of the exciting debut adult fiction titles coming to bookshelves near you this month! To see a longer list of debuts, please visit our catalog.
2084: Global warming has proven worse than even the direst predictions scientists had made at the turn of the century. No country and no one has remained unscathed. Through interviews with scientists, political leaders, and citizens around the globe, this riveting oral history describes in graphic detail the irreversible effects the Great Warming has had on humankind and the planet.
In short chapters about topics like sea level rise, drought, migration, war, and more, this novel brings global warming to life, revealing a new reality in which Rotterdam doesn’t exist, Phoenix has no electricity and Canada is part of the United States. From wars over limited resources to the en masse migrations of entire countries and the rising suicide rate, the characters describe other issues they are confronting in the world they share with the next two generations. Simultaneously fascinating and frightening, “The 2084 Report“ will inspire you to start conversations and take action.
Posted on Wednesday, September 2, 2020 by Decimal Diver
Elisha Wells Stroupe is a Mid-Missouri author who recently came out with her debut book, “Desperate Farmwives.” She is the creator and author of a blog of the same name, which features humorous real-life tales of her and her family living on a farm near Armstrong, Missouri. Her book is a collection of selected blog entries, along with some new (and reportedly exaggerated) stories as well. I recently emailed some interview questions to her, and she was kind enough to take time out of her schedule to write back some answers. Continue reading “Author Interview: Elisha Wells Stroupe”
Of all the Read Harder blog posts I signed up to write, I have put this one off the longest. The last thing I want to think about right now is that we have another imminent threat to humanity’s survival which is totally overcomeable but our ability to do so is dependent on our capability of taking in the research offered by credible scientific sources and working together to adjust our lifestyles in mildly inconvenient ways to help ourselves as a collective human species.
Unprecedented times indeed.
I will admit that I have had to set down and walk away from every book I tried to read for this task because I got so angry and frustrated with the state of things.
