Librarian’s Pick: The Dakota Winters – Tom Barbash
” Anton has just returned home from the Peace Corps to heal from a case of malaria. Inadvertently joining his father’s attempt to re-enter the late-night game, Anton serves as Buddy’s “second brain” as he begins to prepare new material for an upcoming show. This role validates Anton professionally and troubles him personally, fueling a line of questions that will lead him to step into adulthood outside his father’s exuberant shadow.”
Librarian’s Pick: One Day in December – Josie Silver
“While waiting to depart for holiday travel, 22-year-old Laurie stares through the window from her seat on a London bus and glimpses the face of a stranger standing outside in the crowd. Their eyes meet, but the doors swing shut and the bus pulls away. Over the next year, perhaps lured into that age-old trap of wanting the impossible, Laurie, aided and abetted by best friend Sarah, searches everywhere to try and locate her elusive “bus boy,” but to no avail.
Fast-forward to the next holiday season, when in an ironic turn of fate, Sarah introduces Laurie to her new boyfriend. This is how Jack, the bus boy, reappears in Laurie’s life, though neither Laurie nor Jack thinks the other remembers the bus encounter, and both pretend this is their first meeting. Time passes, and there’s a marriage or two, along with deceptions and revelations that alter all of their lives.
What sounds like a garden-variety romance takes shape as an impeccably written novel. The charm’s in the telling as Laurie and Jack struggle with their private thoughts and yearnings . . . and there’s that accidental late-night kiss. Each will have to decide how—or if—they’ll be able to square their dreams with reality.”
Librarian’s Pick: Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners – Gretchen Anthony
“Violet needs structure, certainty and, above all, advance plans. But what’s a deeply loving and controlling mother to do when her daughter, Cerise—happily partnered up with a woman named Barb—becomes pregnant? The father’s name is known only to Cerise and Barb, and they’re not telling.
This is hard to take for Violet, whose controlling arm is long. However, leave it to this determined lady to find a way to return order to her world. She’s used to micromanaging events at home and at the Faithful Redeemer Church holiday fair, as well as the ongoing issues in her friend Eldris’ life, so what could go wrong here? What’s a little fraud, some missing eyeglasses, an early labor, an unfinished family tree and a food fight with roast lamb, among friends?
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners is a charming, often hilarious story about people whose sticky jealousies, insecurities and small joys are remarkably similar to the ones that mark our own lives. Anthony offers readers a chance to savor and appreciate the joys of the commonplace as well as that strange but remarkable pride we have in our own family bonds.”
Librarian’s Pick: Museum of Modern Love – Heather Rose
“Arky Levin, a 50-year-old film score composer, has reached a strange moment in his life. Recently separated from his wife under disconcerting circumstances and estranged from his only child, Arky finds himself alone in a new apartment in New York and purposefully cut off from friends. This should provide the silence he craves to write his latest film score, but instead he just feels lost. In this frame of mind, he visits the Museum of Modern Art and discovers a performance piece called The Artist Is Present, based on a real 2010 performance by renowned artist Marina Abramović. In this piece, Abramović sits for 75 days at a table as throngs of visitors stand for hours to take turns sitting across from her, still and silent.
Using Abramović’s seven steps for creative projects—awareness, resistance, submission, work, reflection, courage and the gift—as an organizational device for her novel, author Heather Rose details the performance’s almost mystical effect on Arky and an array of other characters as they return to the piece day after day. Other characters include Abramović herself, a young Ph.D. student from Amsterdam, a recent widow from the South, a radio personality and even Abramović’s late mother, each of whom brings his or her own unique experiences and responses to the piece.”
FREE Student Webinars with Tutor.com
Tutor.com is presenting a free new webinar series for students!
Dimensional Analysis
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
4:00 PM EST
Click here to register for “Dimensional Analysis”.
Strategies for Writing Success
Thursday, December 6, 2018
4:00 PM EST
Click here to register for “Strategies for Writing Success”.
Don’t forget to check out Tutor.com for online tutoring, homework help, and test preparation.
Librarian’s Pick: My Sister, The Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite
“Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead.
Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.
Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.”