view/request
Heartbreaking coming of age novel about a girl growing up on a ranch. Dealing with the death of a schoolmate, a depressed mother, a father trying to keep the ranch going, and a sister who has run off with her boyfriend, this story will leave you rooting for the family to overcome all the obstacles.
Tagged: Fiction
view/request
Eleanor Samuels, a lonely young woman who lives for food, finds her way toward family and love while taking care of her “Uncle” Benny. Very humorous and warm.
Tagged: Fiction
view/request
Surreal and hilariously funny, this alternate history, the debut novel of British author Fforde, will appeal to lovers of zany genre work (think Douglas Adams) and lovers of classic literature alike. Set in 1985 in an alternate London, literature is (refreshingly) so important that you can get punished for forging Byronic verses. Then someone starts kidnapping literary characters from their manuscripts. Jane Eyre’s disappearance is particularly traumatic and Special Operative Thursday Next must stop this before it’s too late.
Tagged: Fiction, Science fiction
view/request
A collection of fairy tales for adults. The title novella is on a middle-aged Englishwoman attending a writers’ conference in Turkey. She picks up an antique bottle and as she is washing it a djinn appears, offering to grant her three wishes. She is aware of the untoward consequences of hasty wish-making so after careful consideration, she asks for a younger body, then requests he make love to her. Very fun!
Tagged: Fiction, Short stories
view/request
This is a terrific novel about an autistic boy who tries to solve a mystery in his neighborhood and ends up exploring much further both geographically and emotionally. The main character is very real and also very endearing. It is available on CD too and the reader is wonderful.
Tagged: Autism spectrum, Fiction
view/request
This book offers useful insight into American hubris. Fascinating background on the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) and the intertwining of oil, religion and debt.
Tagged: Non-fiction, Politics
view/request
A humorous history of the Yiddish language from the middle ages to today traces the origins of numerous everyday terms, citing events throughout the past one thousand years that contributed to Jewish European communication practices while offering insight into Yiddish relationships with nature, sex, food, and more.
Tagged: Language, Non-fiction
view/request
Kingsley aims primarily to situate properly the spiritual teaching and practice of Parmenides and his successors in ancient Creek wisdom traditions. This fifth-century BCE philosopher is commonly described as the “father of Western metaphysics and logic” because he was the first thinker formally to discuss the nature of being. Recent archaeological discoveries indicate that this same Parmenides was a priest in the cult of Apollo the Healer. Kingsley argues that the magical and ecstatic aspects of this healing cult–incubation, meditative quieting of the mind, dream interpretation, and shamanic journeys to other worlds, all rooted in the Anatolian Apollo cult–made up the practical, experiential foundations of Parmenides’ philosophy. This book is a marvelous paradox: despite its overtly scholarly aim (20 pages of dense notes at the end), it is paced like a detective thriller; yet the central aim is to awaken the longing for self-transcendence.
Tagged: Non-fiction, Philosophy, Religion
view/request
A leading female preacher chronicles her personal odyssey of faith and the tensions of her religious life, a conflict that leads her to leave the church in order to maintain her relationship with God and that takes her on an unexpected path of belief.
Tagged: Memoir, Non-fiction, Religion
view/request
Honest, engaging and witty letters by essayist, children’s author and poet, E.B. White. Includes letters from White’s childhood until just before his death. This book of letters paints an incredibly intimate portrait of White’s relationships with his friends, family and co-workers. Farm animals, dogs, New York City and rural Maine are featured prominently as well.
Tagged: Letters, Non-fiction
view/request
If you often find yourself at odds with conventional wisdom or society this book is a worthwhile read. Hitchens offers useful advice on how to think about this condition. There is no better purveyor of erudition.
Tagged: Non-fiction
view/request
Chafing under the stifling and claustrophobic care of her liberal parents, Frederica Hatch finds her snug world transformed by Laura Lee French, a new college dorm mother and wannabe former Rockette who had once been married to Frederica’s earnest and unglamorous father.
Tagged: Fiction