Reader's Place: January 3, 2025
New Year, New Reads! They say nothing gets a new year started like new books at the library! Alright, maybe they don’t say that, but we do! Here are some of our latest arrivals, including some books coming out this month. Happy reading!
Rental House, by Weike Wang (Library Catalog)
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?
With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.
Definitely Better Now, Ava Robinson (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
The very last person anyone should worry about is Emma. Yes, hi, she’s an alcoholic. But she’s officially been sober for one entire year. That’s twelve months of better health. Fifty-two whole weeks of focusing on nothing but her nine-to-five office job, group meetings, and avoiding the kind of bad decisions that previously left her awash in shame and regret. It’s also been 365 days of not dating. And with her new dating profile, Emma, 26, of New York is ready to put herself back out there.
Except—was dating always this complicated? And did Emma’s mother really have to choose now to move in with her new boyfriend? Being assigned to plan her office’s holiday party feels like icing on the suddenly very overwhelming cake until her estranged father reappears with devastating news. Icing, meet cherry on top. But then there’s Ben, the charming IT guy who, despite Emma’s awkwardness and shortcomings, seems to maybe actually get her? Sobriety is turning out to be far from the flawless future Emma had once envisioned for herself, but as she allows herself to open up to Ben and confront difficult past relationships, she’s beginning to realize that taking things one day at a time might just be the perfectly imperfect path she’s meant to be on.
Bittersweet and darkly hilarious, Ava Robinson’s debut novel about navigating sobriety and complicated family dynamics is witty, heartbreaking, and profoundly relatable.
The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami (Library Catalog)
From the bestselling author of “Norwegian Wood” and “Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World” comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.
We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life. Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world—a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.
“The City and Its Uncertain Walls” is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.
Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History, by Olivia Campbell (Library Catalog, Hoopla)
The extraordinary true story of four women pioneers in physics during World War II and their daring escape out of Nazi Germany.
In the 1930s, Germany was a hotbed of scientific thought. But after the Nazis took power, Jewish and female citizens were forced out of their academic positions. Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen were eminent in their fields, but they had no choice but to flee due to their Jewish ancestry or anti-Nazi sentiments.
Their harrowing journey out of Germany became a life-and-death situation that required Herculean efforts of friends and other prominent scientists. Lise fled to Sweden, where she made a groundbreaking discovery in nuclear physics, and the others fled to the United States, where they brought advanced physics to American universities. No matter their destination, each woman revolutionized the field of physics when all odds were stacked against them, galvanizing young women to do the same.
Well-researched and written with cinematic prose, “Sisters in Science” brings these trailblazing women to life and shows us how sisterhood and scientific curiosity can transcend borders and persist—flourish, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.
All the Water in the World, by Eiren Caffall (1/7) (Library Catalog)
In the tradition of “Station Eleven,” a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.
“All the Water in the World” is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.
Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, “All the Water in the World” is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and “Parable of the Sower,” this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most – love and work, community and knowledge – will survive.
What If YOU Are the Answer?: And 26 Other Questions That Just Might Change Your Life, by Rachel Hollis (1/7) (Library Catalog)
Good questions make us think, teach us about ourselves, and if we’re honest in our replies, they can reveal the answers we’ve been searching for. In “What If YOU Are the Answer?,” Rachel Hollis shares the transformative questions that have helped her heal, grow, and thrive, even when life throws its hardest punches.
With her signature blend of vulnerability, tell-it-like-it-is humor, and hard-won wisdom, Rachel challenges and encourages you to: Confront your deepest fears: “What are you afraid to admit?” Change your circumstances: “Would you sign up for this again? Lean into success: “What’s working in your life?" Take responsibility for your own growth: “What if YOU are the problem?”
Throughout this dynamic book, as hilarious as it is wise, Rachel’s questions – and above all, her raw and all-too-real stories – will give you the clarity, courage, and inspiration to embrace your full potential and become the person you were meant to be.
Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love, by Marianne Cronin (Library Catalog)
The author of the beloved international hit “The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot” returns with a funny, uplifting story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places.
Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and he has loved, but he has never been kissed. A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love along the way. And it is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life.
When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help Eddie Winston finally find love, sparking an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie Winston to the moment he has waited for all his life.
A tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again.
The Lotus Shoes, by Jane Yang (1/7) (Library Catalog)
An empowering, uplifting tale of two women from opposite sides of society, and their extraordinary journey of sisterhood, betrayal, love and triumph.
1800s China. Tightly bound feet, or "golden lilies," are the mark of an honorable woman, eclipsing beauty, a rich dowry and even bloodline in the marriage stakes. When Little Flower is sold as a maidservant—a muizai—to Linjing, a daughter of the prominent Fong family, she clings to the hope that one day her golden lilies will lead her out of slavery.
Not only does Little Flower have bound feet, uncommon for a muizai, but she is extraordinarily gifted at embroidery, a skill associated with the highest class of a lady. Resentful of her talents, Linjing does everything in her power to thwart Little Flower's escape. But when scandal strikes the Fongs, both women are cast out to the Celibate Sisterhood, where Little Flower’s artistic prowess catches the eye of a nobleman. His attention threatens not only her improved status, but her life—the Sisterhood punishes disobedience with death. And if Linjing finds out, will she sabotage Little Flower to reclaim her power, or will she protect her?
A Sea of Unspoken Things, by Adrienne Young (1/7) (Library Catalog)
The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’s deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny, has gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that she’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life.
When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settle her brother’s affairs, she’s forced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man she’s ever loved. James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and he’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.
The Granddaughter, by Bernhard Schlink. Translated from German by Charlotte Collins (1/7) (Library Catalog)
From the bestselling author of “The Reader,” a striking exploration of the wounds of the past, told through the story of a German bookseller’s attempt to connect with his radicalized granddaughter.
It is only after the sudden death of his wife, Birgit, that Kaspar discovers the price she paid years earlier when she fled East Germany to join him: she had to abandon her baby. Shattered by grief, yet animated by a new hope, Kaspar closes up his bookshop in present day Berlin and sets off to find her lost child in the east. His search leads him to a rural community of neo-Nazis, intent on reclaiming and settling ancestral lands to the East. Among them, Kaspar encounters Svenja, a woman whose eyes, hair, and even voice remind him of Birgit. Beside her is a red-haired, slouching, fifteen-year-old girl. His granddaughter? Their worlds could not be more different— an ideological gulf of mistrust yawns between them— but he is determined to accept her as his own.
More than twenty-five years after “The Reader,” Bernhard Schlink once again offers a masterfully gripping novel that powerfully probes the past’s role in contemporary life, transporting us from the divided Germany of the 1960s to modern day Australia, and asking what unites or separates us.
Compiled by Louis Muñoz Jr.