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Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-30s, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by this most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving fluidly between works and lives --- from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks to Andy Warhol's Time Capsules, from Henry Darger's hoarding to David Wojnarowicz's AIDS activism --- Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone.

Ruth Wariner, author of The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father’s 42 children. After Ruth’s father is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where Ruth’s mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs.

John Feinstein, author of The Legends Club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an Epic College Basketball Rivalry

On March 18, 1980, the immensely powerful Duke basketball program announced the hiring of its new coach --- the man who would resurrect the team, restore glory to Duke and defeat the legendary Dean Smith, who coached down the road at UNC Chapel Hill and had turned UNC into a powerhouse. The table was set nine days later, when on March 27, Jim Valvano was hired by North Carolina State to be their new head coach. In the skillful hands of John Feinstein, this extraordinary rivalry --- and the men behind it --- come to life in a unique, intimate way.

Lisa Lutz, author of The Passenger

Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone and flees town. She meets Blue, a female bartender who offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya (now Amelia) accepts. It’s almost impossible to live off the grid today, but Amelia (now Debra) and Blue have the courage, ingenuity and desperation to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret. Can she outrun her past?

March 4, 2016 - March 18, 2016

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of March 4 - March 18.

Spring Cookbooks 2016

Will Wright

I find it refreshing to unplug from it for a while. You kind of forget how deeply you get embedded in it.

Attribution

Will Wright

Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard

March 2016

I always like Joyce Maynard’s writing and find her books to be compelling --- and memorable --- reads. In UNDER THE INFLUENCE, Helen’s life has unraveled due to her excessive drinking. Her marriage has fallen apart, and she has lost custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Her career as a photographer is on the skids like the rest of her life. Then she meets Ava and Swift Havilland, who are wealthy and connected philanthropists, and becomes swept up in their “fabulous” world. They embrace Helen and Ollie, who quickly become like extended family.

Editorial Content for Hidden Bodies

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Joe Hartlaub

HIDDEN BODIES is one of those genre-bending books that defies ready --- or even deliberate --- characterization. You may be forgiven if you picked it up thinking it was a crime or thriller novel. It certainly has elements of those genres, as well as romance and contemporary fiction. Read More

Teaser

Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past 10 years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, determined to put his past behind him. But the problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: true love. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried.

Promo

Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past 10 years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, determined to put his past behind him. But the problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: true love. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried.

About the Book

In the compulsively readable follow-up to her widely acclaimed debut novel, YOU, Caroline Kepnes weaves a tale that Booklist calls “the love child of Holden Caulfield and Patrick Bateman.”

HIDDEN BODIES marks the return of a voice that Stephen King described as original and hypnotic, and through the divisive and charmingly sociopathic character of Joe Goldberg, Kepnes satirizes and dissects our culture, blending suspense with scathing wit.

Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past ten years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, the city of second chances, determined to put his past behind him.

In Hollywood, Joe blends in effortlessly with the other young upstarts. He eats guac, works in a bookstore and flirts with a journalist neighbor. But while others seem fixated on their own reflections, Joe can’t stop looking over his shoulder. The problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: true love. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried. He doesn’t want to hurt his new girlfriend --- he wants to be with her forever. But if she ever finds out what he’s done, he may not have a choice...

Audiobook available, narrated by Santino Fontana

Editorial Content for Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

It was not America’s proudest moment, but the facts, as carefully set forth by author and senior writer for Time magazine Adam Cohen, are dolefully undeniable. One influential segment of the population was as set on ridding the nation of undesirables as were the Nazis, who used the tenets of our eugenics movement to bolster their plans to exterminate their own “mongrel races.” Read More

Teaser

Adam Cohen tells the story of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court’s decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an “imbecile.” Exposing this tremendous injustice --- which led to the sterilization of 70,000 Americans --- IMBECILES overturns cherished myths and reappraises heroic figures in its relentless pursuit of the truth.

Promo

Adam Cohen tells the story of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court’s decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an “imbecile.” Exposing this tremendous injustice --- which led to the sterilization of 70,000 Americans --- IMBECILES overturns cherished myths and reappraises heroic figures in its relentless pursuit of the truth.

About the Book

One of America’s great miscarriages of justice, the Supreme Court’s infamous 1927 Buck v. Bell ruling made government sterilization of “undesirable” citizens the law of the land.

New York Times bestselling author Adam Cohen tells the story in IMBECILES of one of the darkest moments in the American legal tradition: the Supreme Court’s decision to champion eugenic sterilization for the greater good of the country. In 1927, when the nation was caught up in eugenic fervor, the justices allowed Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck, a perfectly normal young woman, for being an “imbecile.”

It is a story with many villains, from the superintendent of the Dickensian Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded who chose Carrie for sterilization to the former Missouri agriculture professor and Nazi sympathizer who was the nation’s leading advocate for eugenic sterilization.  But the most troubling actors of all were the eight Supreme Court justices who were in the majority --- including William Howard Taft, the former president; Louis Brandeis, the legendary progressive; and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., America’s most esteemed justice, who wrote the decision urging the nation to embark on a program of mass eugenic sterilization.

Exposing this tremendous injustice --- which led to the sterilization of 70,000 Americans --- IMBECILES overturns cherished myths and reappraises heroic figures in its relentless pursuit of the truth. With the precision of a legal brief and the passion of a front-page exposé, Cohen’s IMBECILES is an unquestionable triumph of American legal and social history, an ardent accusation against these acclaimed men and our own optimistic faith in progress.

Audiobook available, narrated by Dan Woren