Friday, July 18, 2008

So Many Books, So Much Eyestrain....




We have been noticing here at the Reference Desk - as we peruse Publishers Weekly and Booklist - that there are tons of exciting books being published in the near future. It gets us salivating as librarians but also as readers.
Usually I have a list of MUST READs 1 or 2 long, but lately the list is getting longer and longer. Some have already been published and some won't be released for another month or two. Here are the books I am drooling to read (in no particular order):
The Film Club by David Gilmour
Documents the author's efforts to impart key life lessons to his high-school-dropout son by showing him three movies every week, in an account that describes how such films as True Romance and Rosemary's Baby enabled father-and-son dialogues about a range of life issues, from relationships and work to drugs and culture.
Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir From an Atomic Town by Kelly McMasters
An evocative memoir of growing up in working-class Long Island describes her youth in a town known as a service town for the glamorous Hamptons, a place plagued by such disasters as a UFO, a childhood cancer cluster, and the nearby Brookhaven nuclear laboratory, which leaked nuclear and chemical waste into the aquifer from which town residents got their water.
The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran
Raised an outcast in the court of ancient Egypt after the deaths of her heretical relatives, Princess Nefertari is uncertain of her future until the heir to the throne, the future Rameses the Great, falls in love with her and offers her marriage, but his reign is beset with turmoil, in a story of Egypt's Nineteenth Dynasty. By the author of Nefertiti.
More Than It Hurts You by Darin Strauss
The lives of a family and a doctor are irrevocably changed and intertwined by a possible case of Munchausen by Proxy, a situation that forces a mother to question everything from her past and the doctor's concerns about her role in tearing a distressed family apart.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale
Traces the 1860 murder of a young child whose death launched a national obsession with detection throughout England, nearly destroyed the career of a top Scotland Yard investigator, and inspired the birth of modern detective fiction.
Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
Determined to seek her fortune in Beijing, Fenfang Wang leaves her rural farm to travel 1,800 miles to pursue her dreams in the city where, setting out to live a modern life, she lands a job as a film extra, falls under the spell of two unsuitable young men, and finally finds her true calling in an unexpected place. By the author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue
Emily "Fido" Faithfull, a spinster pioneer in the British women's movement, is distracted from her cause by the details of her friend's failing marriage and affair with a young army officer, in this drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style.

2 comments:

darinstrauss said...

Hey, thanks --

I hope you like my book, More Than It Hurts You. Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think!
-ds

Anonymous said...

The Kate Summerscale book has been on my wishlist for a while now. I'm trying really hard to wait for the paperback. I'm not sure if I'll be very successful, though.