audiobooks

In attendance at today’s Zoom meeting (15 total):

Holley W. (mod)  – Emmet O’Neal
Kristen G.  – Hoover
Nicole – Tarrant/Hoover
Samantha B. – Hoover
Erika W. – Smithfield
Samuel R. – Springville Road
Lutheria J. – Springville Road
Judith W. – Homewood
Mary Anne E. – Central Southern History
Maura D. – Trussville
Polly E. – Hoover
Heather M. – Smithfield
Katie Jane M. – Hoover
Reba – Smithfield
Michelle H. – Irondale

The next meeting of the JCPLA Reader’s Advisory Roundtable will be Wednesday, June 10th.  Right now, it is scheduled for 9am at the Avondale Library.  In this evolving situation, we may or may not have an in-person meeting. It may be a Zoom meeting or a combination of the two.  Thank you for your flexibility and patience with scheduling. 

The only information of a permanent nature that I can share is that we will be reading and discussing steampunk fiction! A very broad definition from Merriam-Webster: “science fiction dealing with 19th century societies dominated by historical or imagined steam-powered technology.”  Feel free to Google around and see what broader definitions you can find.

For your convenience, I did an Encore search limited to ebooks, downloadable audiobooks, and streaming movies.  You may peruse the results by clicking here.

This morning we discussed audiobooks and I will link all titles discussed to digital resources, where available.  Any titles/series that are not digitally available will be at the bottom of the list. All annotations were pulled from Amazon unless otherwise noted.

Happy reading and listening!  Feel free to share your favorites in the comments.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson, narrated by Katie Schorr

Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one woman's belief that books can carry us anywhere - even back home.

Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis by Patti Callahan Henry, narrated by Lauren Woodward

"Patti Callahan seems to have found the story she was born to tell in this tale of unlikely friendship turned true love between Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis, that tests the bounds of faith and radically alters both of their lives." (Paula McLain, New York Times best-selling author of The Paris Wife)

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan, narrated by Roxana Ortega

(Grades 3-7) This timeless tale of struggle, hope, and the search for tomorrow has much to offer today about compassion and our shared humanity.

Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan, narrated by Mark Bramhall, David de Vries, Andrews MacLeod, and Rebecca Soler

(Grades 5-8) Music, magic, and a real-life miracle meld in this virtuosic, genre-defying tour de force from storytelling maestro Pam Muñoz Ryan.

The Street by Ann Petry, narrated by Shayna Small

As much a historical document as it is a novel, this 1946 winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award is the poignant and unblinkingly honest story of Lutie Johnson, a young black woman, and her spirited struggle to live and raise her son by herself amid the violence, poverty, and racial dissonance of Harlem in the late 1940s.

Lady Pirate by Lynsay Sands, narrated by Lorna Bennett

Valoree no longer has to masquerade as her murdered brother and scour the oceans as Captain Red. She has been named heir to Ainsley Castle. But no executor would ever hand over the estate to an unmarried pirate wench and her infamous crew and the will distinctly states that in order to inherit, Valoree must be married to a nobleman...and pregnant.

The Bloody Jack Adventures by L.A. Meyer, narrated by Katherine Kellgren
There are 12 in this series, click here for a link
(Grades 7-12) 

1) Bloody Jack - Life as a ship's boy aboard HMS Dolphin is a dream come true for Jacky Faber. Gone are the days of scavenging for food and fighting for survival on the streets of 18th-century London. Instead, Jacky is becoming a skilled and respected sailor as the crew pursues pirates on the high seas. There's only one problem: Jacky is a girl. 

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah, narrated by the author

Noah's virtuoso embodiment of all the characters from his childhood, and his ability to perform accents and dialects effortlessly in English, Xhosa, and Zulu, garnered the Audie Award for Best Male Narrator in 2018. Nevertheless, Noah's devoted and uncompromising mother-as voiced by her son-steals the show. 

Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma, narrated by the author

Haben takes listeners through a thrilling game of blind hide-and-seek in Louisiana, a treacherous climb up an iceberg in Alaska, and a magical moment with President Obama at the White House. Warm, funny, thoughtful, and uplifting, this captivating memoir is a testament to one woman's determination to find the keys to connection. 

Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, the War They Fought, the Peace They Forged by William C. Davis, narrated by Traber Burns

Exploring their personalities, their character, and their ethical, moral, political, and military worlds, William C. Davis finds surprising similarities between the two men as well as new perspectives on how their lives prepared them for the war they fought and influenced how they fought it.

Poet X by Elizabeth Acevado, narrated by the author

(Grades 7 and up) Fans of Jacqueline Woodson, Meg Medina, and Jason Reynolds will fall hard for this astonishing #ownvoices novel-in-verse by an award-winning slam poet, about an Afro-Latina heroine who tells her story with blazing words and powerful truth.

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, narrated by Carrington MacDuffie

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley.

Love & Ruin by Paula McLain, narrated by January LaVoy

The best-selling author of The Paris Wife returns to the subject of Ernest Hemingway in a novel about his passionate, stormy marriage to Martha Gellhorn - a fiercely independent, ambitious woman ahead of her time who would become one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, narrated by Joyce Bean

In 1903, Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her husband, Edwin, commission the renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman, narrated by the author

(Grades 3-7 and anyone else young-at-heart) In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it's different...

The All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness

A Discovery of Witches

Shadow of Night
The Book of Life

Deborah Harkness' sparkling debut, narrated by Jennifer Ikeda, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix, narrated by Tim Curry

Sabriel
Lirael
Abhorsen
Clariel
Goldenhand

(Ages 12 and older) Ever since she was a tiny child, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the random power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who won't stay dead. But now her father, the Mage Abhorsen, is missing, and to find him Sabriel must cross back into that world. A tale of dark secrets, deep love and dangerous magic, Sabriel introduces Garth Nix as an exceptional new talent.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, narrated by Cathleen McCarron

"Beautifully written and incredibly funny, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is about the importance of friendship and human connection. I fell in love with Eleanor, an eccentric and regimented loner whose life beautifully unfolds after a chance encounter with a stranger; I think you will fall in love, too!" (Reese Witherspoon)

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara, narrated by Gabra Zackman with introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by Patton Oswalt

I'll Be Gone in the Dark - the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death - offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic.

Carrie by Stephen King, narrated by Sissy Spacek

An unpopular teenage girl, whose mother is a religious fanatic, is tormented and teased to the breaking point by her more popular schoolmates.

The Shining by Stephen King, narrated by Campbell Scott

Jack Torrance's new job at the Overlook Hotel is the perfect chance for a fresh start. But as the harsh winter weather sets in, the idyllic location feels ever more remote...and more sinister. And the only one to notice the strange and terrible forces gathering around the Overlook is Danny Torrance, a uniquely gifted five-year-old.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Past the rusted gates and untrimmed hedges, Hill House broods and waits. Four seekers have come to the ugly, abandoned old mansion. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable noises and self-closing doors, but Hill House is gathering its powers and will soon choose one of them to make its own.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson, narrated by Bernadette Dunne

Six years after four family members died of arsenic poisoning, the three remaining Blackwoods live together in pleasant isolation. But one day a stranger arrives and manages to penetrate their carefully shielded lives. Unable to drive him away by either polite or occult means, Merricat adopts more desperate methods, resulting in crisis, tragedy, and the revelation of a terrible secret.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, narrated by Ruby Dee

An American classic, this luminous and haunting novel is about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.

The Harper Hall trilogy by Anne McCaffrey, narrated by Sally Darling
Dragonsong
Dragonsinger
Dragondrums (not available digitally)

(often considered YA) All her life, Menolly has longed to learn the ancient secrets of the Harpers, the master musicians of Harper Hall. When her stern father denies her the chance to make her dream come true, Menolly runs away from home. Hiding in a cave by the sea, she finds nine magical fire lizards who join her on a breathtaking journey to Harper Hall.

The Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, narrated by Alan Cumming
Leviathan
Behemoth
Goliath

(Grades 7-9) It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. The Leviathan is a living airship, the most formidable airbeast in the skies of Europe.

The Wings of Fire series by Tui T. Sutherland, narrated by Shannon McManus
There are 13 in the series, click here for a list
(Grades 3-7)

1)The Dragonet Prophecy - The seven dragon tribes have been at war for generations, locked in an endless battle over an ancient, lost treasure. A secret movement called the Talons of Peace is determined to bring an end to the fighting, with the help of a prophecy - a foretelling that calls for great sacrifice.

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, narrated by Denis O’Hare

There are 6 in this series, click here for a list
(Grades 6-9)

1) The Alchemyst - Nicholas Flamel is the greatest Alchemyst to ever live. The records show that he died in 1418, but what if he's actually been making the elixir of life for centuries and is currently running a bookstore in San Francisco?

The Iron Druids Chronicles series by Kevin Hearne, narrated by Luke Daniels
There are 9 in this series, click here for a list

1) Hounded - Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old - when in actuality, he's twenty-one centuries old.

Notable titles, but not available digitally from JCLC:


The Diary of Samuel Pepys, narrated by Kenneth Branagh
Ebook available via National Emergency Library

Enter the life and remarkable times of Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps"). Born in London in 1633, the son of a tailor, he began keeping a diary on January 1, 1660, and continued for nine years, faithfully recording the rich and varied details of seventeenth-century London life.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning by Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi, narrated by the authors

(YA) Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente, narrated by Heath Miller

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets Eurovision in an over-the-top galactic science fiction spectacle from best-selling author Catherynne Valente where sentient races compete for glory in a universe-wide musical contest - where the stakes are as high as the fate of planet Earth.


The MurderBot Diaries by Martha Wells, narrated by Kevin R. Free
There are 5 in this series, click here for a list

1) All Systems Red - The main character is a deadly security droid that has bucked its restrictive programming and is balanced between contemplative self-discovery and an idle instinct to kill all humans.

urban fiction

Reader’s Advisory Roundtable

February 12, 2020

Homewood Library

Urban Fiction

Mark your calendar for our next meeting on Wednesday, April 8th at 9am at the Irondale Library for a discussion of audiobooks.

Attendance:

Holley W – Emmet O’Neal Library

Samuel R – BPL Springville Road Library

Mary Anne E – BPL Central/Southern History 

Veronica C – Homewood Library

Laura T – Homewood Library

Judith W – Homewood Library

Leslie W – Homewood Library

Riana M – Pinson Library

Handout:
Leon, Aya de. “It's Time for Urban Fiction to Get Some Literary Respect.” CrimeReads, 3 July 2019, crimereads.com/its-time-for-urban-fiction-to-get-some-literary-respect/.

Uptown Thief (Justice Hustlers series) by Aya de León

In this sexy, heart-stopping tale, one smart, sizzling mami robs the rich and protects the exploited--until one heist too many puts everything at stake. . .

Marisol Rivera barely survived being abused with nowhere to turn. So there's nothing she won't do to keep her Lower East Side women's health clinic open and give disadvantaged women new lives. Running an exclusive escort service for New York City's rich and powerful 1% is the perfect way to bankroll her business--not to mention the perfect cover for robbing corrupt CEOs. And when times get even tougher, pulling a heist on a mega-billionaire will secure the clinic's future--and her gorgeous crew's--for good. . .

There's just one problem: Marisol didn't anticipate bad news even more dangerous than her curves. A seductive ex-cop who's too close for comfort, and a powerful thug with a score to settle, are turning Marisol's precise planning and seductive fail-safes into insidious traps. Now this beautiful modern-day Robin Hood will have to play some lethal wild cards without rules or limits to save those she loves--and live to steal another day. . .

Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library

The Heist 2 by Kiki Swinson and De’nesha Diamond

The Last Heist
 KIKI SWINSON
Shannon Marshall gambled that betraying her husband’s biggest heist ever was her way out of the game for good.  Losing that bet put her in lockdown—and at the top of Todd Marshall’s revenge-fueled hit list. Now she’ll work every seductive move and lethal play to survive. ’Cause when it comes to wreaking her own vengeance, this devious beauty isn’t taking any prisoners …

Caked Up
DE’NESHA DIAMOND
Harlem Banks already has twenty-five million reasons to break out of the federal pen. But saving his desperately ill daughter is at the top of his list, even as he’s racing his ex-partner-in-crime to his stashed loot … while U.S. Marshals are hot on his trail. His only chance is the one woman he can’t stop loving—even if she’s the one endgame he’ll never escape …

Samuel, Springville Road Library

The Demise of Alexis Vancamp by Karen Williams

Twenty-four-year-old Alexis Vancamp has the world at her feet. She is young, beautiful, educated and adored by her family, fiancé and friends.  Just when she thinks her life is set, in walks sexy, thugged-out Santana. A dangerous man with a dark secret, a past and a plan: To get Alexis under his thumb.  Despite the warnings from the people around her, Alexis finds herself drawn to this man, who is no good for her and leads her down a destructive path. To have him means to lose everything. None of this bothers Alexis as long as she has him in her world.  Santana turns her away from her family and friends. Alexis's sheltered life dissipates as she finds herself wrapped up in deceit, violence, lies and trouble with the law.  Despite losing almost everything, Alexis refuses to let Santana go.  A secret is revealed that will blow Alexis away. But will she let him go before it's too late?

Samuel, Springville Road Library

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Renowned hip-hop artist, political activist, and bestselling author Sister Souljah brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel.

I came busting into the world during one of New York's worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn't want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top.

Riana, Pinson Library

Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles

An Indie Next List Pick!

In his first contemporary teen novel, critically acclaimed author and two-time Edgar Award finalist Lamar Giles spotlights the consequences of societal pressure, confronts toxic masculinity, and explores the complexity of what it means to be a “real man.”

Del has had a crush on Kiera Westing since kindergarten. And now, during their junior year, she’s finally available. So when Kiera volunteers for an opportunity at their church, Del’s right behind her. Though he quickly realizes he’s inadvertently signed up for a Purity Pledge.

His dad thinks his wires are crossed, and his best friend, Qwan, doesn’t believe any girl is worth the long game. But Del’s not about to lose his dream girl, and that’s where fellow pledger Jameer comes in. He can put in the good word. In exchange, Del just has to get answers to the Pledgers’ questions…about sex ed.

With other boys circling Kiera like sharks, Del needs to make his move fast. But as he plots and plans, he neglects to ask the most important question: What does Kiera want? He can’t think about that too much, though, because once he gets the girl, it’ll all sort itself out. Right?

Holley, Emmet O’Neal

POPULAR AUTHORS

Ashley (Antoinette) & JaQuavis (Coleman)

Zane

Sister Souljah

K’wan

Teri Woods

Wahida Clark

Nikki Turner

Carl Weber

Vickie Stringer

Omar Tyree

Deja King

Tracy Brown

Shannon Holmes

Eric Jerome Dickey

Treasure Hernandez

Keisha Ervin

Niobia Bryant

Toy Styles

Iceberg Slim

Mary B. Morrison

Sapphire

Roy Glenn

La Jill Hunt

Kimberla Lawson Roby

Coe Booth

Eric Pete

Nisa Santiago

Treasure E. Blue

Kashamba Williams

Mz Lady P

T. N. Baker

Relentless Aaron

Brenda Hampton

Earl Sewell

R.M. Johnson

Sharon G. Flake

Noire

Allison Hobbs

Jessica N. Watkins

Daaimah S. Poole

Erick S. Gray

social science

Thanks to everyone who braved the snarled traffic this morning to make the RA Roundtable meeting AND to the fine folks at Central Birmingham Public Library’s Southern History Department for hosting!

For those interested in rare books, documents, maps, and manuscripts, mark this Sunday, December 15th at 3pm on your calendar.  There will be a guest lecturer in BPL’s auditorium to talk about one of the Rare Book Room’s most prized possessions, the royal first edition of the Atlas Maior published by Johann Blaeu in 1662.

During our most recent meeting, the topic was all things social science.  I brought 2 handouts featuring Lit Hub and Publishers Weekly’s top 2019 social science books.  Those titles will be featured at the bottom of the post after our participants’ selections.

Don’t forget to register for the ALLA Public Library Division midwinter conference taking place on Friday, January 31, 2020 at the Homewood Library.  Register at https://bit.ly/2RFnuwJ.

The next Reader’s Advisory Roundtable meeting will be February 12, 2020 at the Homewood Library and the topic up for discussion is urban fiction. 

In attendance today:

Holley, Emmet O’Neal Library
Mary Anne, Central BPL Southern History
Jon, Avondale
Lynn, Central BPL
Michelle, Irondale
Maura, Trussville

The Conscious Closet: The Revolutionary Guide to Looking Good While Doing Good by Elizabeth Cline

(amazon) From journalist, fashionista, and clothing resale expert Elizabeth L. Cline, “the Michael Pollan of fashion,”* comes the definitive guide to building an ethical, sustainable wardrobe you'll love.

Clothing is one of the most personal expressions of who we are. In her landmark investigation Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, Elizabeth L. Cline first revealed fast fashion’s hidden toll on the environment, garment workers, and even our own satisfaction with our clothes. The Conscious Closet shows exactly what we can do about it.

Whether your goal is to build an effortless capsule wardrobe, keep up with trends without harming the environment, buy better quality, seek out ethical brands, or all of the above, The Conscious Closet is packed with the vital tools you need. Elizabeth delves into fresh research on fashion’s impacts and shows how we can leverage our everyday fashion choices to change the world through style. Inspired by her own revelatory journey getting off the fast-fashion treadmill, Elizabeth shares exactly how to build a more ethical wardrobe, starting with a mindful closet clean-out and donating, swapping, or selling the clothes you don't love to make way for the closet of your dreams.

The Conscious Closet is not just a style guide. It is a call to action to transform one of the most polluting industries on earth—fashion—into a force for good. Readers will learn where our clothes are made and how they’re made, before connecting to a global and impassioned community of stylish fashion revolutionaries. In The Conscious Closet, Elizabeth shows us how we can start to truly love and understand our clothes again—without sacrificing the environment, our morals, or our style in the process.

Mary Anne, Central BPL Southern History

Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World by John Halpern

(amazon) From a psychiatrist on the frontlines of addiction medicine and an expert on the history of drug use, comes the "authoritative, engaging, and accessible" (Booklist) history of the flower that helped to build -- and now threatens -- modern society.

Opioid addiction is fast becoming the most deadly crisis in American history. In 2018, it claimed nearly fifty thousand lives -- more than gunshots and car crashes combined, and almost as many Americans as were killed in the entire Vietnam War. But even as the overdose crisis ravages our nation -- straining our prison system, dividing families, and defying virtually every legislative solution to treat it -- few understand how it came to be.

Opium tells the "fascinating" (Lit Hub) and at times harrowing tale of how we arrived at today's crisis, "mak[ing] timely and startling connections among painkillers, politics, finance, and society" (Laurence Bergreen). The story begins with the discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia, and goes on to explore how Greek physicians and obscure chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power, how colonial empires marketed it around the world, and eventually how international drug companies developed a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an epidemic of addiction.

Throughout, Dr. John Halpern and David Blistein reveal the fascinating role that opium has played in building our modern world, from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies. Most importantly, they disentangle how crucial misjudgments, patterns of greed, and racial stereotypes served to transform one of nature's most effective painkillers into a source of unspeakable pain -- and how, using the insights of history, state-of-the-art science, and a compassionate approach to the illness of addiction, we can overcome today's overdose epidemic.

This urgent and masterfully woven narrative tells an epic story of how one beautiful flower became the fascination of leaders, tycoons, and nations through the centuries and in their hands exposed the fragility of our civilization.

Mary Anne, Central BPL Southern History

One for a Man, Two for a Horse: A Pictorial History, Grave and Comic, of Patent Medicines by Gerald Carson

(from the book jacket) Recalling in words and pictures the fads, follies and foibles of self-doctoring in grandpa's day. Hundreds of rare, old pictures, posters, photographs, almanacs and advertisements.

Mary Anne, Central BPL Southern History

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Patients, Her Therapist, and Life's Essential Questions by Lori Gottlieb

(amazon) One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of­fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.

As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.

With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev­olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per­sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal­ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.

Michelle, Irondale

The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing by Merve Emre

(amazon) The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is the most popular personality test in the world. It is used regularly by Fortune 500 companies, universities, hospitals, churches, and the military. Its language of personality types--extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuiting, thinking and feeling, judging and perceiving--has inspired television shows, online dating platforms, and Buzzfeed quizzes. Yet despite the test's widespread adoption, experts in the field of psychometric testing, a $2 billion industry, have struggled to validate its results--no less account for its success. How did Myers-Briggs, a homegrown multiple choice questionnaire, infiltrate our workplaces, our relationships, our Internet, our lives?

First conceived in the 1920s by the mother-daughter team of Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a pair of devoted homemakers, novelists, and amateur psychoanalysts, Myers-Briggs was designed to bring the gospel of Carl Jung to the masses. But it would take on a life entirely its own, reaching from the smoke-filled boardrooms of mid-century New York to Berkeley, California, where it was administered to some of the twentieth century's greatest creative minds. It would travel across the world to London, Zurich, Cape Town, Melbourne, and Tokyo, until it could be found just as easily in elementary schools, nunneries, and wellness retreats as in shadowy political consultancies and on social networks.

Drawing from original reporting and never-before-published documents, The Personality Brokers takes a critical look at the personality indicator that became a cultural icon. Along the way it examines nothing less than the definition of the self--our attempts to grasp, categorize, and quantify our personalities. Surprising and absorbing, the book, like the test at its heart, considers the timeless question: What makes you, you?

Michelle, Irondale

Alabama Rivers: A Celebration & Challenge by William Deutsch

(alabamariversbook.org) This book invites you to travel down rivers and through time to encounter the rich human history and natural wonders that have defined Alabama. Along the way, you will celebrate an array of magnificent rivers filled with unique plants and animals, shaped over the ages by a remarkably diverse geology. You will appreciate how rivers have served people from the first Paleo-Indian settlements to the present. Accept the challenge to restore and protect our rivers for their economic, cultural, and ecological benefits, but most of all because it is the right thing to do.

Jon, Avondale

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough

(amazon) As part of the Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain recognized the new United States of America, Britain ceded the land that comprised the immense Northwest Territory, a wilderness empire northwest of the Ohio River containing the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. A Massachusetts minister named Manasseh Cutler was instrumental in opening this vast territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War and their families for settlement. Included in the Northwest Ordinance were three remarkable conditions: freedom of religion, free universal education, and most importantly, the prohibition of slavery. In 1788 the first band of pioneers set out from New England for the Northwest Territory under the leadership of Revolutionary War veteran General Rufus Putnam. They settled in what is now Marietta on the banks of the Ohio River.

McCullough tells the story through five major characters: Cutler and Putnam; Cutler’s son Ephraim; and two other men, one a carpenter turned architect, and the other a physician who became a prominent pioneer in American science. They and their families created a town in a primeval wilderness, while coping with such frontier realities as floods, fires, wolves and bears, no roads or bridges, no guarantees of any sort, all the while negotiating a contentious and sometimes hostile relationship with the native people. Like so many of McCullough’s subjects, they let no obstacle deter or defeat them.

Drawn in great part from a rare and all-but-unknown collection of diaries and letters by the key figures, The Pioneers is a uniquely American story of people whose ambition and courage led them to remarkable accomplishments. This is a revelatory and quintessentially American story, written with David McCullough’s signature narrative energy.

Jon, Avondale

The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz

(amazon) Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary, a man's home has never been his castle, the "male breadwinner marriage" is the least traditional family in history, and rape and sexual assault were far higher in the 1970s than they are today. In The Way We Never Were, acclaimed historian Stephanie Coontz examines two centuries of the American family, sweeping away misconceptions about the past that cloud current debates about domestic life. The 1950s do not present a workable model of how to conduct our personal lives today, Coontz argues, and neither does any other era from our cultural past. This revised edition includes a new introduction and epilogue, exploring how the clash between growing gender equality and rising economic inequality is reshaping family life, marriage, and male-female relationships in our modern era.

More relevant than ever, The Way We Never Were is a potent corrective to dangerous nostalgia for an American tradition that never really existed.

Holley, Emmet O’Neal

Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate

(amazon) From the 1920s to 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents—hiding the fact that many weren’t orphans at all, but stolen sons and daughters of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity wards that their babies had died.

The publication of Lisa Wingate’s novel Before We Were Yours brought new awareness of Tann’s lucrative career in child trafficking. Adoptees who knew little about their pasts gained insight into the startling facts behind their family histories. Encouraged by their contact with Wingate and award-winning journalist Judy Christie, who documented the stories of fifteen adoptees in this book, many determined Tann survivors set out to trace their roots and find their birth families.

Before and After includes moving and sometimes shocking accounts of the ways in which adoptees were separated from their first families. Often raised as only children, many have joyfully reunited with siblings in the final decades of their lives. Christie and Wingate tell of first meetings that are all the sweeter and more intense for time missed and of families from very different social backgrounds reaching out to embrace better-late-than-never brothers, sisters, and cousins. In a poignant culmination of art meeting life, many of the long-silent victims of the tragically corrupt system return to Memphis with the authors to reclaim their stories at a Tennessee Children’s Home Society reunion . . . with extraordinary results.

Lynn, Central BPL

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer

(amazon) FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Named a best book of 2019 by The New York Times, TIME, The Washington Post, NPR, Hudson Booksellers, The New York Public Library, The Dallas Morning News, and Library Journal.

The received idea of Native American history--as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee--has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.

Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear--and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence--the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.

Maura, Trussville

HANDOUTS FROM THE MEETING

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST SOCIAL SCIENCE BOOKS 2019

Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration by Emily Bazelon

Combining personal narratives with legal and political history, Bazelon writes a necessary overview of America’s criminal justice system and the unchecked power of prosecutors.

Parkland: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen

In this engaging read, Cullen tells the stories of the students who attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and launched March for Our Lives. A human portrayal of the ongoing toll of school shootings and the demand for change.

A Good Provider is One Who Leaves: One Family and Migration in the 21st Century by Jason DeParle

DeParle puts a human touch on international migration by profiling three generations f a Manila family, as his subjects work in hospitals, hotels, and cruise ships, in search of stable wages. An unforgettable story of sacrifice and separation.

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

In this hard-hitting expose, Farrow sheds light on systems of power and abuse, and how both have shaped our current media and political landscape where people on the margins are often ignored or silenced.

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Keefe turns a dark subject into a riveting page-turner, blending threads of espionage, murder mystery, and political history as he tells the story of the conflict known as the Troubles.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

National Book Award winner Kendi uses his own journey as a focal point for self-examination, exploring not only the history of racism and racist ideas past and present, but also how we can challenge ourselves to develop a more equitable society.

Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America by Christopher Leonard

Leonard writes an extensive, far-reaching history of the privately-owned Koch Industries, including how the company has influenced environmental and public policy, often through deceitful and dishonest practices.

Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram by Isha Sesay

The powerful work movingly relays how the kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014 continues to impact families who have yet to be reunited.

No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder

With this searing investigation into domestic violence in America, Snyder uses personal recollections in order to show how families cope when they lose someone to intimate partner violence, and the lasting effects on children.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present by David Treuer

Blending history, reporting, and memoir, Ojibwe historian Treuer creates a sweeping account of Native North America, before and after Wounded Knee, showing how tribes persevered despite oppression and persecution.

LIT HUB’S FALL 2019 NONFICTION PREVIEW: SOCIAL SCIENCE

The Witches are Coming by Lindy West

With her signature mix of incisive wit and sharp culture criticism, West’s new book promises to untangle the systems of power that have allowed American culture to disempower women and people of color while propping up misogyny, racism, and other forces that propelled our current president to the White House.

White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation by Lauren Michele Jackson

Lauren Michele Jackson is one of those critics who has her eyes on everything from digital jukeboxes and memes to contemporary pop music and black aesthetics. In her book debut, a mélange of scholarly critique and narrative prose, Jackson takes on cultural appropriation. Her argument isn’t simply that a white woman wearing cornrows is poor form, to use one example; the issue is the way in which mainstream visibility is inextricably joined with racial inequality, in this case white profit at the expense of black cultural gatekeepers.

For the Love of Men: A New Vision for Mindful Masculinity by Liz Plank

Liz Plank looks for alternative ways to be a man in a society that is paying new attention to abuses perpetuated by men, but still punishes those who fail to live up to a “traditional” version of masculinity. In our recent history, she writes, “We updated what it means to be a woman, but we didn’t update what it means to be a man.” This book offers a one kind of blueprint for how to do exactly that.

Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell

We haven’t seen a book from Gladwell since 2013’s David and Goliath. Gladwell’s eclectic, pop psychological approach aims for new heights as he turns his attention to strangers: How can we bridge the gap between ourselves and people we don’t know? It’s the question that is perhaps at the root of the present partisan alienation felt keenly in the US, and Gladwell proposes answers in case studies: Sandra Bland, Bernie Madoff, Sylvia Plath, Amanda Knox, and more—people who most of us will only ever know based on the stories other people have told about them.

Living in a World that Can’t Be Fixed: Reimagining Counterculture Today by Curtis White

The idea of “counterculture” doesn’t need to be confined to the social movements of the 60s and 70s, Curtis White argues in this book, which calls for a revitalized counterculture—one that actually challenges who is in power today.

She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story that Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s reporting on Harvey Weinstein brought down an empire of abuse and brought forth a worldwide chorus of voices calling for those in power to believe women. With She Said, the tell the story of how that reporting reached the public, and the process that followed, as their initial reporting spurred dozens of other investigations of violence, sexual harassment, and abuses of power.

Alta California: From San Diego to San Francisco, A Journey on Foot to Rediscover the Golden State by Nick Neely

Two-hundred -and-fifty years ago, a Spanish expedition led by Gaspar de Portola traveled along the coast of what is now California. Walking 650 miles on foot, Nick Neely retraces those steps over the course of 12 weeks, along the way discussing the history of indigenous cultures, colonization, and industry that formed California’s identity.

The Queering of Corporate America: How Big Business Went from LGBTQ Adversary to Ally by Carlos A. Ball

The role of corporate conglomerates in queer culture has long been a point of controversy, from the overt—including companies who advertise rainbow logos while donating to anti-LGBTQ politicians—to more complex conversations about who actually benefits and who is harmed when capitalist logic and corporate power come to bear on the LGBTQ community. Carlos A. Ball argues in favor of using that power for social reform (to the extent such a thing is possible), and in the process looks at the history that brought us here.

The Season: A Social History of the Debutante by Kristen Richardson

From England to the American South, Kristen Richardson follows the long history of a bizarre social custom as an efficient way to present young women for marriage. Her experience with the topic is personal—after refusing to take part in her own debutante ball, she began researching their history. “I had been taught these dances since I was in the fifth grade, and clearly this event was meant to be some sort of culmination of that training,” she wrote for Rookie. “But I still didn’t understand why we were there, or what this ritual was about.” Her book promises some answers to that.

Beyond Aesthetics: Use, Abuse, and Dissonance in African Art Traditions by Wole Soyinka

At times anecdotal, describing encounters with muses and deities, and at times political and theoretical, Beyond Aesthetics steps behind the curtain of art collection. In exploring these like that of identity, tradition, and originality, Soyinka reveals how curators and collectors alike hold the power to aleter or even suppress Africa’s artistic traditions. A propoenent of collecting as a meqans of reclaiming tradition, Soyinka makes a passionate case for understanding and ingaging with Africa’s rich cultural history.