Staff Recommendations
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Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”
by Hurston, Zora Neale
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionFebruary 26, 2019
Call Number: 326.09 H966
Zora Neale Hurston is well known for her novels, especially for Their eyes were watching God. Her educational background and training were in cultural anthropology, ethnography and folklore. A prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, this book would not be published in her lifetime because there were quesions about her methodology, and possible plagiarism. In the foreword, Alice Walker points out that black scholars and intellectuals also had issues with... Read Full Review
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Sweet Home Cafe cookbook : a celebration of African American cooking
by Lukas, Albert, 1968-
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionFebruary 20, 2019
Call Number: 641.5973 L9535
September 24, 2016 was the dedication and opening day for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which included the Sweet Home Cafe.
This cookbook has the cafe's recipes, which represent the extensive diaspora of African Americans and encompass culinary traditions from Africa, the Caribbean, Native Americans, Europeans, Latinos, plus influences from recent African immigrants. There is a historical introduction and overview of African American cooking, cooks, eateries, The Green Book, and information about permanent exhibits at the museum... Read Full Review
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The last Neanderthal : a novel
by Cameron, Claire, 1973-
Reviewed by: Julia G, Young Adult Librarian, Robertson Branch LibraryFebruary 11, 2019
The year is 40,000 BC, give or take a few millennia, and only a handful of Neanderthal families are left on earth. Girl, who has just come of age, is determined to find a mate and start a family at the annual fish run. But with the Neanderthals’ numbers so diminished, everything from hunting bison to breaking a taboo is potentially deadly, and Girl soon finds herself the sole caretaker of her strange adopted brother, Runt, who looks and behaves like no human she’s ever seen.
Skip forward to modern day France. Rosamund Gale, a paleoarchaeologist, has discovered a... Read Full Review
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Holy Lands: A Novel
by Sthers, Amanda, 1978- author, translator.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryFebruary 4, 2019
Harry Rosenmerck, a successful Jewish Cardiologist, just walked away. He walked away from his family, his career, his life, and everything he knew and loved to start a pig farm in Israel. This sounds like the set-up for a potentially insensitive joke, but it isn’t. Harry is deadly serious, as he explains to Rabbi Moshe Cattan. But Rabbi Cattan isn’t the only person demanding explanations. Monique Rosenmerck, Harry’s recently divorced ex-wife, wants to know why he left and why he won’t install a telephone so they can talk. His son David, a successful playwright, also wants to know why Harry... Read Full Review
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On a Sunbeam
by Walden, Tillie
Reviewed by: Andrea Borchert, Librarian, Koreatown Media LabJanuary 28, 2019
Call Number: 740.9999 W162-2
On a Sunbeam is a tender and surreal graphic novel about growing up, first love, lost love, friendship, finding your family, and about enormous, flying, space fish. On a Sunbeam manages to be both a science fiction romp about a crew of misfits, and a boarding school drama about first love. Both parts of the story involve flying space fish, and the space fish are gorgeous. Everything about the book is gorgeous: the color palette, the line art, the Gothic architecture, and the riotous starscapes.
Mia, the main character, is a young woman in... Read Full Review
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An elderly lady is up to no good : stories
by Tursten, Helene, 1954-
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionJanuary 23, 2019
An appropriate subtitle for this book might be: don’t mess with Maud, all she wants is peace and quiet. Mystery writer Helene Tursten, best known for the Detective Inspector Huss series, was asked to write a short story for Christmas, and so she did: “An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime”.
88-year-old Maud is a combination of Charles Bronson’s character in the movie,... Read Full Review
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The white darkness
by Grann, David,
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionJanuary 16, 2019
Call Number: 998.5 G759
Antarctica, which contains the South Pole, is a large land mass (5,400,000 square miles) located in the Southern Hemisphere. It is, " ... on average, the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents," and has a limited amount of animal and vegetative life. It is a place that has evoked rich hypothetical and mythological ideas about its origins. For those who want to journey on foot between certain geographical spots, there are seemingly limitless areas of white glacial plains, peaks and creavasses.
Henry... Read Full Review
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The Only Woman in the Room
by Benedict, Marie,
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryJanuary 7, 2019
Hedy Lamarr was one of the most beautiful people to ever grace the silver screen - but that beauty was a double edged sword. While it opened doors and made her a movie star, it was often the only thing people saw. Lamarr’s beauty was so striking that people often assumed that there was no more to the young woman they saw, but they were wrong. Lamarr was sophisticated, intelligent and gifted with a keen and creative understanding of science. In fact, she co-created a weapon that could have saved countless lives in WWII, if only the military brass of the day had been capable of seeing the... Read Full Review
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A Gentleman's Murder
by Huang, Christopher.
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryAugust 27, 2018
Call Number: M
In Great Britain, the years immediately following WWI were a period of great change. New technologies were finding their way into people’s everyday lives. Women began to voice their dissatisfaction with being essentially second-class citizens and unable to vote. And the men who survived serving in WWI returned to their homes scarred from the experience, both physically and psychologically. It is during this tumultuous time that debut author Christopher Huang sets his compelling new mystery: A Gentleman’s Murder.
The year is 1924, six years after Armistice Day and the end of... Read Full Review
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Identical strangers : a memoir of twins separated and reunited
by Schein, Elyse, 1968-
August 6, 2018
Call Number: 392.3 S319
Identical twins have been a source of endless fascination for millennia. Two people who seem to share a mind, with the exact same DNA, can occupy different bodies. Many twins have such an intimate bond that they seem to read other’s thoughts and communicate in a special language. Their bond is much stronger than other siblings, having spent nine months together before birth. As identical twins age, they tend to have similar IQs, heights, and tastes. However, they may develop different skin conditions and allergies as a response to variable environmental factors. In rare cases, identical... Read Full Review
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Natural causes : an epidemic of wellness, the certainty of dying, and killing ourselves to live longer
by Ehrenreich, Barbara,
May 14, 2018
Call Number: 393 E33
Barbara Ehrenreich has spent much of her journalistic career as a social gadfly, with her contrarian takes on the “American Dream,” positive thinking, and masculinity. Natural Causes is her most controversial polemic to date. She strongly advocates against unnecessary medical exams, corporate mandated weight loss programs, fitness regimes, extreme diets, mindfulness meditation sessions, and wellness lifestyle gurus. Ehrenreich bemoans the attention paid to healthy choices, which she feels will only postpone the inevitable. Her own background in microbiology, in addition to her... Read Full Review
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Darkest hour : how Churchill brought England back from the brink
by McCarten, Anthony, 1961-
January 22, 2018
Call Number: 940.532 M123
Darkest hour is a thrilling companion piece to the movie of the same name. In early May 1940, Winston Churchill was an unlikely figure to be asked to become Prime Minister by King George VI. Derided as a turncoat by his fellow Conservatives for his former membership in the Liberal Party, and pegged as an imperialist by his Labour Party foes, Churchill was a compromise choice to head up a fragile coalition government during wartime. Churchill’s previous failure as a military leader during the First World War was overlooked because he had by far the most wartime experience of any... Read Full Review