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 A prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, this book would not be published in her lifetime because there were quesions about her methodology, and possible plagiarism.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, Librarian, Frances Howard Goldwyn - Hollywood Regional 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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Dracul
by Stoker, Dacre,
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryDecember 27, 2018
“For many of us, Dracula is a formative novel. A book we pick up as children or young adults and revisit as the years pass, a constant on the bookshelf, an old friend. In fact, it might be so familiar that the question of the story itself, how it came to be, hasn’t occurred to us. Yet, like Jonathan Harker’s journey in the classic novel, the events that led to publication are ripe with mystery.” Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker state in the Author’s Note to their new novel, Dracul.
What was Bram Stoker’s inspiration for writing Dracula? As the excerpt from... Read Full Review
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The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
by Turton, Stuart,
Reviewed by: Daryl M., Librarian, West Valley Regional Branch LibraryDecember 17, 2018
Who remembers Quantum Leap? It was a television show that ran from 1989-1993 and followed Dr. Sam Beckett and his experiment in time travel, which caused him to become conscious, at the beginning of each episode, in a different body, not knowing who or where he was, or when it happened. Before the end of each episode, Sam had to correct some event in the period in which he found himself by acting as the person he inhabited. Once that was done, he would shift in time again to another person, another place, another era.
Now, imagine if the creator of Quantum Leap,... Read Full Review
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Proud : my fight for an unlikely American dream
by Muhammad, Ibtihaj, 1985-
Reviewed by: Sheryn Morris, Librarian, Literature & FictionDecember 11, 2018
Call Number: 796.34092 M952
The headline read, "the first U.S. athlete to compete in the Olympic Games wearing hijab."
Fencing is both an individual and team sport. Fencers duel in a one-on-one bout, but are members of a team. Very much like boxing and numerous martial arts, fencing has its origins in combat and/or preparation for combat. There are three categories, with different weapons and rules for each of them: foil, épée and saber.
Until recently fencing was very much an elitist sport, with predominantly white athletes who were members of private clubs. It... Read Full Review
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The real Lolita : the kidnapping of Sally Horner and the novel that scandalized the world
by Weinman, Sarah,
Reviewed by: Nicholas Beyelia, Librarian, History and Genealogy DepartmentDecember 3, 2018
Call Number: 364.92 H816We
Sarah Weinman examines the plight of 11-year old abductee, Florence “Sally” Horner, and how her predicament helped to shape Vladimir Nabokov’s infamous 1955 novel, Lolita. Weinman, a writer and journalist makes astute use of the Nabokov papers, recently made available for research by the Library of Congress, to deliver a well-researched and absorbing book that is equal parts literary analysis, history and true crime story.
Weinman’s book shifts back and forth between Sally’s story and the development of Nabokov’s novel... Read Full Review