{"id":3170,"date":"2024-10-01T10:00:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/?p=3170"},"modified":"2024-09-06T11:44:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T18:44:08","slug":"ppl140-2016-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/adult_services\/2024\/ppl140-2016-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"PPL140: 2016-2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ocean\/beach<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Cover<\/a>The Underground Railroad<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Colson Whitehead, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood–where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned–Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.<\/p>\n

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor–engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.<\/p>\n

Like the protagonist of\u00a0Gulliver’s Travels,<\/i>\u00a0Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey–hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.\u00a0The Underground Railroad<\/i>\u00a0is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0Washington Black<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Esi Edugyan<\/strong> (2018)<\/p>\n

Washington<\/span> Black<\/span> is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master’s eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or “Titch, ” is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist. He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash’s head, Titch abandons everything to save him. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Exit West<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Mohsin Hamid, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet — sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors — doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. Exit<\/span> West<\/span><\/em> follows the couple as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0The End We Start From<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Megan Hunter\u00a0<\/strong>(2017)<\/p>\n

As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. Their journey traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.<\/p>\n

The End We Start From\u00a0is an indelible and elemental first book–a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of ungovernable change.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Where the Crawdads Sing<\/a><\/em> by Delia Owens, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, rumors of the<\/span> “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the<\/span> North Carolina coast. She’s barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the<\/span> locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what the<\/span>y say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the<\/span> marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the<\/span> land, learning from the<\/span> false signals of fireflies the<\/span> real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the<\/span> time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world — until the<\/span> unthinkable happens.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0The Women of Pearl Island<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Polly Crosby\u00a0<\/strong>(2021)<\/p>\n

When Tartelin answers an ad for a personal assistant, she doesn’t know what to expect from her new employer, Marianne, an eccentric elderly woman. Marianne lives on a remote island<\/span> that her family has owned for generations, and for decades her only companions have been butterflies and tightly held memories of<\/span> her family. But the<\/span>re are some memories Marianne would rather forget, such as when the<\/span> island<\/span> was commandeered by the<\/span> British government during WWII. Now, if Marianne can trust Tartelin with her family’s story, she might finally be able to face the<\/span> long-buried secrets of<\/span> her past that have kept her isolated for far too long.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous<\/em><\/a> by Ocean Vuong, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

On<\/span> Earth<\/span> We’re<\/span> Briefly<\/span> Gorgeous<\/span><\/em> is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot re<\/span>ad. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable re<\/span>velation. At on<\/span>ce a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0Eddie Signwriter<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Adam Schwartzman\u00a0<\/strong>(2010)<\/p>\n

Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa–Eddie<\/span> Signwriter<\/span> to his clients–is a twenty-year-old painter of murals and billboards in the city of Accra, Ghana, who is buffeted by forces beyond his control and understanding as he is swept up by the passions and machinations of others. Struggling with a forbidden relationship, banished from school, held responsible for the death of a notable woman in the community, Eddie<\/span> flees overland to Senegal and then, illegally, to France, determined to find a new life for himself among the immigrant communities of Paris.<\/p>\n

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\"Cover<\/a>Klara and the Sun<\/a><\/em> by Kazuo Ishiguro, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

From her place in the<\/span> store that sells artificial friends, Klara<\/span>–an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities–watches carefully the<\/span> behavior of those who come in to browse, and<\/span> of those who pass in the<\/span> street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the<\/span> possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara<\/span> is warned not to invest too much in the<\/span> promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara<\/span> and<\/span> the<\/span> Sun<\/span><\/em>, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the<\/span> eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0Plum Rains<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Andromeda Romano-Lax\u00a0<\/strong>(2018)<\/p>\n

2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia–as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short. In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object–one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own–and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore. In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction.<\/p>\n

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\"Cover<\/a>The School for Good Mothers<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Jessamine Chan, 2022<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgment lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.<\/p>\n

A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love,\u00a0The School for Good Mothers<\/i>\u00a0introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0Home Reading Service<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Fabio Mor\u00e1bito <\/strong>(2021)<\/p>\n

In the English-language debut novel of one of Mexico’s most poignant writers, a man guilty of a minor offense finds himself caught between the tedium of his temperate city and the growing menace of crime there. After an accident-or “the misfortune,” as his cancer-ridden father’s caretaker calls it-Eduardo is sentenced to a year of community service<\/span> reading<\/span> to the elderly and infirm. Stripped of his driver’s license and feeling impotent as he nears thirty-five, he performs his duties without comprehending what he reads, and walks the city of Cuernavaca. Once a quiet town known for its lush gardens and swimming pools, the “City of Eternal Spring” is now plagued by robberies, kidnappings, and the other myriad forms of violence bred by drug trafficking. As he enters into the home<\/span>s and lives of his listeners, Eduardo becomes entangled in a series of sinister events that will place him unexpectedly at the center of this complex community of people who occupy so much of his time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>The Covenant of Water<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Abraham Verghese, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977,\u00a0The Covenant of Water<\/i>\u00a0is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning\u2014and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl\u2014and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi\u2014will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.<\/p>\n

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself,\u00a0The Covenant of Water<\/i>\u00a0is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0The Old Drif<\/a>t<\/em> by Namwali Serpell,\u00a0<\/strong>(2019)<\/p>\n

1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives–their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes–emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.<\/p>\n

From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines, this gripping, unforgettable novel is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>The Morningside<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0by T\u00e9a Obreht, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.<\/i><\/p>\n

After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family’s past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia’s lonely and impoverished reality.<\/p>\n

Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell–and the stories we refuse to tell–to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a>Read Along:\u00a0The Glass House<\/em><\/a> by Beatrice Colin\u00a0<\/strong>(2020)<\/p>\n

Scotland, 1912. Antonia McCulloch’s life hasn’t gone the way she planned. She and her husband, Malcolm, have drifted apart; her burgeoning art career came to nothing; and when she looks in the mirror, she sees disappointment. But at least she will always have Balmarra, her family’s grand Scottish estate, and its exquisite glass house, filled with exotic plants that can take her far away.<\/p>\n

When her estranged brother’s wife, Cicely Pick, arrives unannounced, with her young daughter and enough trunks to last the summer, Antonia is instantly suspicious. What besides an inheritance dispute could have brought her glamorous sister-in-law all the way from India? Still, Cicely introduces excitement and intrigue into Antonia’s life, and, as they get to know one another, Antonia realizes that Cicely has her own burdens to bear. Slowly, a fragile friendship grows between them. But when the secrets each are keeping become too explosive to conceal, the truth threatens their uneasy balance and the course of their entire lives.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bestselling Fiction in the U.S. 2016-2024<\/h3>\n

Me Before You\u00a0<\/i><\/a>by Jojo Moyes<\/p>\n

Camino Island<\/a>\u00a0<\/i>by John Grisham<\/p>\n

The Great Alone <\/i><\/a>by Kristin Hannah<\/p>\n

Where the Crawdads Sing<\/i><\/a> by Delia Owens<\/p>\n

The Four Winds <\/i><\/a>by Kristin Hannah<\/p>\n

It Ends with Us<\/i><\/a> by Colleen Hoover<\/p>\n

It Starts with Us<\/i><\/a> by Colleen Hoover<\/p>\n

The Women<\/em><\/a> by Kristin Hannah<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Descriptions and overviews from BookBrowse, The Gale Literature Resource Center, NoveList Plus, <\/em>and publisher content.<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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