[Michlib-l] Book Recommendations from MLA Reader's Advisory Group

[Brian Johnston]

Hello Everyone,


Here are some books for adults, recommended by the MLA Adult Reader's Advisory Group.


Adult Fiction:


Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This is an amazing story of the round up of the Jews in Paris 1942 who are then sent to Auschwitz. The story is told through two voices: Sarah, who as she is leaving the house locks her brother in a closet and promises to be back soon, and Julia, a present day American journalist living in Paris, who is asked to write about the event on it's 60th anniversary. The author does a wonderful job of describing both characters and their lives in such vibrant detail!


The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan

McClanahan has been a small press, indie fav for a number of years, but The Sarah Book is his breakout novel. The Sarah Book contains many of the tropes of what one may call the "New/Contemporary Southern Gothic," poverty, violence, drugs, alcohol, WalMart, but it's written with a luscious, poetic voice. The central focus of the novel is the divorce of the narrator Scott, an alcoholic, community college writing instructor, and his wife, the titular Sarah. The book is often profane and unsettling, but the reader can't help but be mesmerized by McClanahan's writing.


Animals Eat Each Other by Elle Nash

Animals Eat Each Other is the debut novel by Elle Nash, who has been published widely online and in print literary journals. This short novel (121 pages) is about a young woman, who the reader comes to know as Lilith, who enters into a polyamorous relationship with Matt, a Satanist tattoo artist, and his wife, a new mom named Frances. As the relationship between these three progresses, Lilith becomes more drawn to Matt, until she recognizes the darkness and tension that's bubbling beneath the surface of their fraught affair. This is a short, quick, fearless book (starred review in Publisher's Weekly), but I wouldn't call it an easy read. However, the right audience will devour it.


There There by Tommy Orange

There There is Tommy Orange's highly-anticipated debut novel. Early reviews compare it to Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine, due to it also being a novel written in multiple Native American points of view, by a Native American author, but this is a book set in contemporary Oakland, California, in the days leading up to the "Big Oakland Pow Wow," and a moment of devastating violence. This novel is equal parts fierce and violent, as well as gorgeous and poetic. It feels essential. Potential trigger warning (and spoiler): the novel involves a mass shooting, and it does not shy away from the terror of this.


The Washington Decree by Jussi Adler-Olson

A political thriller, begins 16 years in the past where a US Senator leads a delegation to China, where members of their party are assassinated including the senator's wife. The surviving members stay in touch. To present day, on the night the same senator is elected President of the US, his 2nd wife and their unborn child are killed. What follows is an administration gone mad, where guns are allowed but ammunition is outlawed, where anyone who questions the administration either ends of missing or dead. An amazing story with terrifying correlations to our current times.



Adult Nonfiction:


Playing Hurt by John Saunders

This is a memoir by the late ESPN reporter who battled depression throughout his life.


Poisoned City by Anna Clark

Poisoned City offers a thorough and comprehensive look at the Flint water crisis. Anna Clark offers a great deal of insight into the question of how there could be such a monumental failure to protect the public's health and safety. Well researched and highly readable.


Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover’s story of growing up with in a religious, survivalist family is both amazing and awful. Tara’s father is a religious zealot who is extreme in his belief in self-reliance. The government is not to be trusted, nor are medical doctors, educational institutions, or really anyone not part of the family. In the world of the Westover family, birth certificates and driver’s licenses are not necessary; neither are seatbelts or schooling. Tara’s upbringing (and that of her 6 siblings) is so foreign to most of us living in the United States that at times it almost reads like fiction. Tara manages to get accepted to college at age 17 despite her lack of schooling, but struggles with formalized education along with relating to the other students. Her account of how she eventually completes college and even goes on to get a PhD is remarkable, though at times very hard to read.


Secret Empires by Peter Schweizer

A must read expose of the way our country's politicians and leaders have exploited our democracy. Chilling!


Grown-up Anger by Daniel Wolff

>From the flap (I can't say it any better!): "In this tour-de-force of storytelling, Daniel Wolff braids together three disparate strands - Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and a labor strike in Southern Michigan - to create a devastating revisionist history of twentieth-century America."


Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna

Room to Dream is the exhaustive new biography of filmmaker and artist David Lynch. The book covers the entirety of Lynch's life and work, up until and through the recent Return to Twin Peaks, and if you're a fan of Lynch, this is a must read. The concept of the book is that each chapter was researched and written by McKenna, focusing on a specific time of Lynch's life, or a specific film or project, and then each chapter is followed by a section of reflection penned by Lynch. The real meat of the book covers the span of his career from Eraserhead through Inland Empire, but there are no shortage of entertaining insights from his early life and more recent works. I felt the book slogged a little in the final chapters, and if you haven't watched Return to Twin Peaks, there are some spoilers within, but the majority of the book is fantastic.


Thanks,


Brian R. Johnston
Head of Public Services
Lincoln Township Public Library
2099 W. John Beers Road
Stevensville, MI 49127
(269) 429-9575
bjohnston at lincolnlib.org
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