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Reviews

Reviews

by Huma Abedin - Memoir, Nonfiction

The daughter of Indian and Pakistani intellectuals and advocates, Huma Abedin grew up in the United States and Saudi Arabia and traveled widely. BOTH/AND grapples with family, legacy, identity, faith, marriage, motherhood and work. Abedin launched full steam into a college internship in the office of the First Lady in 1996, never imagining that her work at the White House would blossom into a career in public service, nor that her career would become an all-consuming way of life. Her relationship with Hillary Clinton has seen both women through extraordinary personal and professional highs, as well as unimaginable lows. Here, for the first time, is a deeply personal account of Clinton as mentor, confidante and role model.

by Elif Shafak - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof that bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings, and eventually to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love.

by Jeanette Winterson - Essays, Nonfiction

In 12 BYTES, the New York Times bestselling author of WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN BE NORMAL? draws on her years of thinking and reading about artificial intelligence in all its bewildering manifestations. In her brilliant, laser-focused, uniquely pointed and witty style of storytelling, Jeanette Winterson looks to history, religion, myth, literature, the politics of race and gender, and computer science to help us understand the radical changes to the way we live and love that are happening now.

by Alan Cumming - Memoir, Nonfiction

Much of BAGGAGE chronicles my life in Hollywood and how, since I recovered from a nervous breakdown at 28, work has repeatedly whisked me away from personal calamities to sets and stages around the world. It is also about marriage(s): starting with the break-up of my first (to a woman) and ending with the ascension to my second (to a man) with many kissed toads in between! But in everything, each failed relationship or encounter with a legend (Liza! X-Men! Gore Vidal! Kubrick! Spice Girls!), in every bad decision or moment of sensual joy I have endeavored to show what I have learned and how I’ve become who I am today: a happy, flawed, vulnerable, fearless middle-aged man, with a lot of baggage.

by Alice Hoffman - Fiction, Magical Realism

For over 300 years, a curse has kept the Owens family from love --- but all of that is about to change. The novel begins in a library, the best place for a story to be conjured, when beloved aunt Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Jet is not the only one in danger --- the curse is already at work. A frantic attempt to save a young man’s life spurs three generations of the Owens women, and one long-lost brother, to use their unusual gifts to break the curse as they travel from Paris to London to the English countryside where their ancestor Maria Owens first practiced the Unnamed Art. The younger generation discovers secrets that have been hidden from them in matters of both magic and love by Sally, their fiercely protective mother.

by Joshua Ferris - Fiction

Someone is telling the story of the life of Charlie Barnes, and it doesn't appear to be going well. Too often divorced, discontent with life's compromises and in a house he hates, this lifelong schemer and eternal romantic would like out of his present circumstances and into the American dream. But when the twin calamities of the Great Recession and a cancer scare come along to compound his troubles, his dreams dwindle further, and an infinite past full of forking paths quickly tapers to a black dot. Then, against all odds, something goes right for a change: Charlie is granted a second act. With help from his storyteller son, he surveys the facts of his life and finds his true calling where he least expects it.

by TJ Klune - Fantasy, Fiction

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead. And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he’s definitely dead. But even in death, he’s not ready to abandon the life he barely lived. So when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

by Joyce Carol Oates - Fiction

A married couple from Cambridge, MA takes residency at a distinguished academic institute. When the husband is stricken with a mysterious illness, misdiagnosed at first, their lives are uprooted and husband and wife each embarks upon a nightmare journey. At 37, Michaela faces the terrifying prospect of widowhood --- and the loss of Gerard, whose identity has greatly shaped her own. She cares desperately for him in his final days as she comes to realize that her love for her husband, however fierce and selfless, is not enough to save him and that his death is beyond her comprehension. A love that refuses to be surrendered at death --- is this the blessing of a unique married love, or a curse that must be exorcized?

written by Simone de Beauvoir, translated by Sandra Smith - Fiction

From the moment Sylvie and Andrée meet in their Parisian day school, they see in each other an accomplice with whom to confront the mysteries of girlhood. For the next 10 years, the two are the closest of friends and confidantes as they explore life in a post-World War I France, and as Andrée becomes increasingly reckless and rebellious, edging closer to peril. Sylvie sees a France of clashing ideals and religious hypocrisy --- and at an early age is determined to form her own opinions. Andrée is inclined to melodrama and romance. Despite their different natures, they rely on each other to safeguard their secrets while entering adulthood in a world that did not pay much attention to the wills and desires of young women.

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers - Fiction

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’ words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans --- the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great-grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers --- Ailey carries Du Bois’ Problem on her shoulders. To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors --- Indigenous, Black and white --- in the deep South.