illness and disability in fiction

The next Reader’s Advisory Roundtable meeting will be on Zoom on Wednesday, December 9th at 9am to discuss cookbooks. Our usual potluck coffee and snack meeting will be sorely missed!

Be on the lookout for a survey about the recent Staff Appreciation Week (SAW).  Please do share your thoughts and opinions with the JCPLA Executive Council.  We’ll likely be doing virtual/remote staff training for a while yet, so let us know what you’d like to see/hear and how you’d like to receive that content in the future. 

The JCPLA is in the initial stages of sharing our SAW content with the Alabama Library Association to benefit librarianship statewide!

No one volunteered or nominated another candidate for moderator, so Holley will continue as Reader’s Advisory Roundtable moderator for the 2020-2021 year. Meetings will continue on Zoom until further notice. 

The dates and topics for 2021 meetings are as follows:

February 10 – Religious/Inspirational Fiction
April 14 – Podcasts and Other Not-a-Book Recommendations
June 9 – LGBTQ Fiction & Nonfiction
August 11 – #ownvoices
October 13 – Bookclub Possibilities
December 8 – Award Winners

 

We met this week, Wednesday October 14th, on Zoom to talk about disability and mental health/illness in fiction.

11 in attendance:

Holley, O’Neal Library
Nicole, Tarrant Library
Shawn, Pinson Library
Nisha, Hoover/O’Neal libraries
Maura, Trussville Library
Laura, Homewood Library
Riana, Pinson Library
Alisha, Birmingham Public Library
Michelle, Irondale Library
Joi, Vestavia Library
Marsha, I did not record the location

 

The titles we discussed:

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. 

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. 

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the smart, warm, and uplifting story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes. . .the only way to survive is to open your heart. 

Holley, O’Neal Library
Michelle, Irondale Library

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019
NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2019 BY WOMAN’S DAY, NEWSDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BUSTLE, AND BOOK RIOT!

Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Americanah in this disarmingly honest, boldly political, and truly inclusive novel that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth. As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

With “fresh and honest” (Jojo Moyes) prose, Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.

Shawn, Pinson Library

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, anonymous creator of a popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. With millions of followers and fans throughout the world, Eliza’s persona is popular. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community.

Then Wallace Warland transfers to her school and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart.

With pages from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl. 

Riana, Pinson Library

The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical movie-going, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother's death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can't protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in  her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati's arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn's surging power to make it back to the one person she can't risk losing.

Riana, Pinson Library

What Comes After by Steve Watkins

After her veterinarian dad dies, sixteen-year-old Iris Wight must leave her beloved Maine to live on a North Carolina farm with her hardbitten aunt and a cousin she barely knows. Iris, a vegetarian and animal lover, immediately clashes with Aunt Sue, who mistreats the livestock, spends Iris’s small inheritance, and thinks nothing of striking Iris for the smallest offense.

Things come to a head when Iris sets two young goats free to save them from slaughter, and an enraged Aunt Sue orders her brutish son, Book, to beat Iris senseless - a horrific act that lands Book and his mother in jail. Sent to live with an offbeat foster family and their "dooking" ferrets, Iris must find a way to take care of the animals back at the farm, even if it means confronting Aunt Sue. Powerful and deeply moving, this compelling novel affirms the redemptive power of animals and the resilience of the human spirit.

Holley, O’Neal Library

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist,and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
Now being developed as a television series with Eva Longoria and ABC!
*An O, The Oprah Magazine's Best Nonfiction Book of 2019*  
*A People Magazine Book of the Week*
*An Apple Best Books Pick for April*
*An April IndieNext Pick*
*A Book of the Month Club Selection*
*A Publishers Marketplace Buzz Book*
*A Newsday, Apple iBooks, Thrive Global, Refinery29, 
and Book Riot Most Anticipated Book of 2019*

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 Library

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye by Rachel Joyce

Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn’t seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye.
 
Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage at the heart of Rachel Joyce’s remarkable debut. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live.
 
Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one fascinating character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him—allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years. And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy.
 
A novel of unsentimental charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise—and utterly irresistible—storyteller.

Michelle, Irondale Library

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

Shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award
Longlisted for the Believer Book Award
Longlisted for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller

The English-language debut of one of Japan’s most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life.

In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Managers come and go, but Keiko stays at the store for eighteen years. It’s almost hard to tell where the store ends and she begins. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action…

A brilliant depiction of an unusual psyche and a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

Nicole, Tarrant Library
Joi, Vestavia Library

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce

In this poignant parallel story to Harold’s saga, acclaimed author Rachel Joyce brings Queenie Hennessy’s voice into sharp focus. Setting pen to paper, Queenie makes a journey of her own, a journey that is even bigger than Harold’s; one word after another, she promises to confess long-buried truths—about her modest childhood, her studies at Oxford, the heartbreak that brought her to Kingsbridge and to loving Harold, her friendship with his son, the solace she has found in a garden by the sea. And, finally, the devastating secret she has kept from Harold for all these years.

A wise, tender, layered novel that gathers tremendous emotional force, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy underscores the resilience of the human spirit, beautifully illuminating the small yet pivotal moments that can change a person’s life.
Michelle, Irondale Library

All the Greys on Greene Street by Laura Tucker

SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist--and in her neighborhood, that's normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye. Then everything falls apart.

Ollie's dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she's not getting up. Apollo is hiding something, Alex is acting strange, and Richard has questions about the mysterious stranger he saw outside. And someone keeps calling, looking for a missing piece of art. . . Olympia knows her dad is the key--but first, she has to find him, and time is running out.

Laura, Homewood Library

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan

A stunning, heartbreaking debut novel about grief, love, and family, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson and Celeste Ng.

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

Nisha, Hoover/O’Neal libraries

Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman (and podcast)

A close friendship is one of the most influential and important relationships a human life can contain. Anyone will tell you that! But for all the rosy sentiments surrounding friendship, most people don’t talk much about what it really takes to stay close for the long haul.

Now two friends, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman, tell the story of their equally messy and life-affirming Big Friendship in this honest and hilarious book that chronicles their first decade in one another’s lives. As the hosts of the hit podcast Call Your Girlfriend, they’ve become known for frank and intimate conversations. In this book, they bring that energy to their own friendship—its joys and its pitfalls.

Aminatou and Ann define Big Friendship as a strong, significant bond that transcends life phases, geographical locations, and emotional shifts. And they should know: the two have had moments of charmed bliss and deep frustration, of profound connection and gut-wrenching alienation. They have weathered life-threatening health scares, getting fired from their dream jobs, and one unfortunate Thanksgiving dinner eaten in a car in a parking lot in Rancho Cucamonga. Through interviews with friends and experts, they have come to understand that their struggles are not unique. And that the most important part of a Big Friendship is making the decision to invest in one another again and again.

An inspiring and entertaining testament to the power of society’s most underappreciated relationship, Big Friendship will invite you to think about how your own bonds are formed, challenged, and preserved. It is a call to value your friendships in all of their complexity. Actively choose them. And, sometimes, fight for them.

Laura, Homewood Library

Aminatou and Ann have a podcast called Call Your Girlfriend, described as “a podcast for long distance besties everywhere.” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/call-your-girlfriend/id881487725

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position...

Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...

Shawn, Pinson Library

The Bride Test by Helen Kwang

Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he's defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.

As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection. With Esme's time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he's been wrong all along. And there's more than one way to love.

Joi, Vestavia Library

A Child Called It: One Child’s Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer

This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it."

Dave's bed was an old army cot in the basement, and his clothes were torn and raunchy. When his mother allowed him the luxury of food, it was nothing more than spoiled scraps that even the dogs refused to eat. The outside world knew nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing or no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive--dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son.

Shawn, Pinson Library

Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Talia Hibbert, one of contemporary romance’s brightest new stars, delivers a witty, hilarious romantic comedy about a woman who’s tired of being “boring” and recruits her mysterious, sexy neighbor to help her experience new things - perfect for fans of Sally Thorne, Jasmine Guillory, and Helen Hoang!

Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost - but not quite - dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

Enjoy a drunken night out.
Ride a motorcycle.
Go camping.
Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
And...do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job. Redford "Red" Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than 10,000 Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior.... 

Joi, Vestavia Library

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert

One of Oprah Magazine's 21 Romance Novels That Are Set to Be the Best of 2020

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits - someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.

When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it's an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae - and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse? Dani's plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf is secretly a hopeless romantic - and he's determined to corrupt Dani's stone-cold realism. Before long, he's tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his...um, thighs.

The easy lay Dani dreamed of is now more complex than her thesis. Has her wish backfired? Is her focus being tested? Or is the universe just waiting for her to take a hint?

Joi, Vestavia Library

self help

 

The next JPCLA Reader’s Advisory Roundtable (RART) meeting will be on Zoom on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 at 9am and we’ll be discussing mental illness and disability in fiction.

Due to the recent internet outage the cooperative is experiencing this morning, the voting agenda for topics and moderator (should any one else have a wish to run) for 2021-22 has been pushed back to the October meeting.

Keep your email eyes peeled for the upcoming JCPLA Staff Appreciation Week the end of September.  Your executive committee is hard at work crafting quality content for you! If you or your library offers online form-based reader’s advisory, or any other virtual RA, do let me know at hwesley@oneallibrary.org.

This morning, RART met on Zoom for a discussion of self-help titles. All blurbs pulled from amazon.com unless otherwise noted.

Thirteen in attendance:

Holley W, O’Neal
Paul C, BPL Southside
Loretta J, BPL Powderly
Tamiko N, BPL North Birmingham
Lynn H, BPL Central
Beth L, BPL Central Southern History
Nicole L, Tarrant
Erika W, BPL Smithfield
Jiemin F, BPL Central Circulation
Shawn C, Pinson
Leigh W, BPL North Birmingham
I did not catch a library name for Jackie N and Lawana R. 

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney

One of the world's most esteemed and influential psychologists, Roy F. Baumeister, teams with New York Times science writer John Tierney to reveal the secrets of self-control and how to master it.

Holley, O’Neal Library

The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll

New York Times bestseller! A powerful goal-setting and time-management system for anyone trying to organize their lives by the founder of the enormously popular Bullet Journal® planner.

Lynn, BPL Central

What a Time to Be Alone: The Slumflower’s Guide to Why You Are Already Enough by Chidera Eggerue

Peppered with insightful Igbo proverbs from Chidera's Nigerian mother and full of her own original artwork, What A Time To Be Alone will help you navigate the modern world. We can all decide our own fates and Chidera shows us how, using a three part approach filled with sass, wisdom, and charm.

Shawn, Pinson

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature.

Shawn, Pinson

Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

In the New York Times bestseller, Boundaries, Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend help you learn when to say yes and know how to say no in order to take control of your life and set healthy, biblical boundaries with your spouse, children, friends, parents, co-workers, and even yourself.

Shawn, Pinson

Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattie

With instructive life stories, personal reflections, exercises, and self-tests, Codependent No More is a simple, straightforward, readable map of the perplexing world of codependency--charting the path to freedom and a lifetime of healing, hope, and happiness.

Shawn, Pinson

Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun

Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too is the illustrated story of a lonely alien sent to observe Earth, only to meet all sorts of creatures with all sorts of perspectives on life, love, and happiness, all while learning to feel a little better about being an alien—based on the enormously popular Twitter account, @jonnysun.

Holley, O’Neal Library

On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

One of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century, On Death and Dying grew out of Dr. Kübler-Ross’s famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this remarkable book, Dr. Kübler-Ross first explored the now-famous five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Through sample interviews and conversations, she gives readers a better understanding of how imminent death affects the patient, the professionals who serve that patient, and the patient's family, bringing hope to all who are involved.

Leigh, BPL North Birmingham

The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott Peck

Written in a voice that is timeless in its message of understanding, The Road Less Traveled continues to help us explore the very nature of loving relationships and leads us toward a new serenity and fullness of life. It helps us learn how to distinguish dependency from love; how to become a more sensitive parent; and ultimately how to become one’s own true self.

Holley, O’Neal Library

Safe People: How to Find Relationships that are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend offer solid guidance for making safe choices in relationships, from family to friendship, romance, and work. 

Loretta, BPL Powderly

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing I the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

Holley, O’Neal Library

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis

Rachel is real and talks about real issues. More than that, she reveals the specific practical strategies that helped her move past them. In the process, she encourages, entertains, and even kicks a little butt, all to convince you to do whatever it takes to get real and become the joyous, confident woman you were meant to be. Because you really can live with passion and hustle – and give yourself grace without giving up.

Shawn, Pinson

Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis

With a challenge to women everywhere to stop talking themselves out of their dreams, Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself.

Shawn, Pinson

The 50th Law by 50 Cent and Robert Greene (not available in the JCLC system)

In The 50th Law, hip hop and pop culture icon 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson) joins forces with Robert Greene, best-selling author of The 48 Laws of Power, to write a "bible" for success in life and work, based on a single principle: fear nothing. This deeply inspirational book is perfect for entrepreneurs as well as anyone interested in the extraordinary life of Curtis Jackson.

 

Shawn, Pinson

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

In The Four Agreements, bestselling author don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

Jiemin, BPL Central Circuation

The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships by Esther & Jerry Hicks

This book uncovers a myriad of false premises that are at the heart of every uncomfortable relationship issue, and guides you to a clear understanding of the powerful creative Vortex that has already assembled the relationships that you have desired. 

Jiemin, BPL Central Circulation

What Color is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard N. Bolles

With more than 10 million copies sold in 28 countries, the world's most popular job-search book is updated each year, tailoring Richard Bolles's long-trusted guidance with up-to-the-minute information and advice for today's job-hunters and career-changers.

Leigh, BPL North Birmingham

 

GENERAL DISCUSSION:

Books coauthored by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

Brene Brown’s work

Those expletives books:

The Badass series of books by Jen Sincero

Unfu*k Yourself series of books by Gary John Bishop

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

steampunk

The next Reader’s Advisory Roundtable meeting will be Wednesday, August 12th at 9am and the topic up for discussion is the self-help collection. Feel free to choose whatever you’d like: nonfiction, documentary, audiobook, fiction…the format is up to you!

The original plan was for meeting at the Trussville Library but, of course, I have no way of predicting whether we will meet at Trussville, have the meeting on Zoom, or a combination of both.  I will go ahead and promise that if we have an in-person meeting, I will also broadcast it via Zoom as well.

Today we discussed steampunk.  It was a small, yet lively group!

Total attendance: 13

Holley W, Emmet O’Neal
Elizabeth W, BPL Southern History
Mary Anne E, BPL Southern History
Lynn H, BPL Central Info/Circ
Jiemin F, BPL Central Circ
Stephanie B, Hoover Fiction Dept
Krysten G, Hoover Fiction Dept
Leigh W, BPL North Birmingham
William D, BPL East Lake
Paul C, BPL Southside

and 3 anonymous 😊

Annotations are pulled from amazon.com unless otherwise noted.

The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature by Jeff VanderMeer and S.J. Chambers

Steampunk—a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture—is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.
Mary Anne, BPL Southern History

Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy (fabulous in audiobook!)
Leviathan
Behemoth
Goliath

Prince Aleksander, would-be heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battletorn war machine and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She’s a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered. With World War I brewing, Alek and Deryn’s paths cross in the most unexpected ways, taking them on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure that will change both their lives forever.

Holley, Emmet O’Neal

Clockwork Century series by Cherie Priest

Boneshaker
Dreadnought
Ganymede
The Inexplicables
Fiddlehead
Jacaranda

In 2011, this book was optioned by Hammer Films (of Hammer House of Horror fame). IMDB shows it is still optioned, but I find nothing else definitive about the possibility of film (htw).

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska's ice. Thus was Dr. Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue's widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.
Holley, Emmet O’Neal

Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger
Soulless
Changeless
Blameless
Heartless
Timeless

Five books chronicling the exploits of Alexia Tarabotti, a lady of considerable assets including a large Scottish werewolf, a battle-parasol, and treacle tart. Oh, and she has no soul.
Stephanie, Hoover

The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark

In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air -- in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.

Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.
Riana, Pinson

Monstress graphic novel series by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda

Steampunk meets Kaiju in this original fantasy epic for mature readers, as young Maika risks everything to control her psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, placing her in the center of a devastating war between human and otherworldly forces.
Riana, Pinson

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo trilogy by Alan Moore, illustrated by Kevin O’Neill
Nemo: Heart of Ice
Nemo: The Roses of Berlin
Nemo: River of Ghosts

It's 1925, fifteen long years since Janni Dakkar first tried to escape the legacy of her dying science-pirate father, only to accept her destiny as the new Nemo, captain of the legendary Nautilus. Now, tired of her unending spree of plunder and destruction, Janni launches a grand expedition to surpass her father's greatest failure: the exploration of Antarctica. Hot on her frozen trail are a trio of genius inventors, hired by an influential publishing tycoon to retrieve the plundered valuables of an African queen. It's a deadly race to the bottom of the world -- an uncharted land of wonder and horror where time is broken and the mountains bring madness. Jules Verne meets H.P. Lovecraft in the unforgettable final showdown, lost in the living, beating and appallingly inhuman HEART OF ICE.
Jon, Avondale

Joe Golem and the Drowning City by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

In 1925, earthquakes and a rising sea level left Lower Manhattan submerged under more than thirty feet of water, so that its residents began to call it the Drowning City. Those unwilling to abandon their homes created a new life on streets turned to canals and in buildings whose first three stories were underwater. Fifty years have passed since then, and the Drowning City is full of scavengers and water rats, poor people trying to eke out an existence, and those too proud or stubborn to be defeated by circumstance. 

Among them are fourteen-year-old Molly McHugh and her friend and employer, Felix Orlov. Once upon a time Orlov the Conjuror was a celebrated stage magician, but now he is an old man, a psychic medium, contacting the spirits of the departed for the grieving loved ones left behind. When a seance goes horribly wrong, Felix Orlov is abducted by strange men wearing gas masks and rubber suits, and Molly soon finds herself on the run. Her flight will lead her into the company of a mysterious man, and his stalwart sidekick, Joe Golem, whose own past is a mystery to him, but who walks his own dreams as a man of stone and clay, brought to life for the sole purpose of hunting witches. 

Jon, Avondale

A Red Sun Also Rises by Mark Hodder (not available in the JCLC system)

Transported to the alien world of Ptallaya by a strange and terrifying ritual, Victorian missionary Aiden Fleischer and his brilliant but damaged assistant Clarissa Stark are stranded.

Befriended by the Yatsill, a race of bizarre telepathic alien mimics, the travellers watch in amazement as the society around them transforms into a parody of London.

But as the dual yellow suns of this new world slowly set, a red sun is also rising, and with it come the Blood Gods, an ancient and indestructible evil...
Jon, Avondale

The Doctor and the Kid by Mike Resnick

Welcome to a West like you've never seen before! With the O. K. Corral and the battle with the thing that used to be Johnny Ringo behind him, the consumptive Doc Holliday makes his way to Deadwood, Colorado. But when a gambling loss drains his bankroll, Doc aims for quick cash as a bounty hunter. The biggest reward? Young, 20-year-old desperado known as Billy the Kid. With a steampunk twist on these classic characters, nothing can be as simple as it seems.
Jon, Avondale

Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare
Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
Clockwork Princess

The series follows Tessa Gray, an orphaned teenage girl who discovers she has the power to shape-shift, but doesn't bear a mark that shows she is a warlock. She is forced to learn how to control this newly established power and navigate the new world she was forcefully introduced into.
Kristen, Hoover

Steampunk Chronicles series by Kady Cross
The Girl in the Steel Corset
The Girl in the Clockwork Collar
The Girl with the Iron Touch
The Girl with the Windup Heart

When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no normal Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch. Only Griffin King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of them. The orphaned duke takes her in from the gaslit streets, against the wishes of his band of misfits. And Finley thinks she might finally be a part of something, finally fit in—until a criminal mastermind known as the Machinist threatens to tear the group apart….
Leigh, North Birmingham

Custard Protocol series by Gail Carriger
Prudence
Imprudence
Competence
Reticence

Rue and her crew of miscreants charge about in their high-tech dirigible trying to fix the British Empire - mainly with tea. A four book series that explores how the supernatural evolved throughout the Parasolverse.

Lynn, BPL Central Info/Circ

GENERAL DISCUSSION AND MOVIES: (film annotations pulled from rottentomatoes.com unless otherwise noted):

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman (2003)

Allan Quatermain, the world's greatest adventurer, leads a legion of superheroes the likes of which the world has never seen. Quatermain's extraordinary League is comprised of Captain Nemo, Dracula vampiress Mina Harker, an invisible man Rodney Skinner, American secret service agent Sawyer, Dorian Gray, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde and M--the League's enigmatic recruiter. The League members are staunch individualists, outcasts in fact, with checkered pasts and singular gifts that have been both blessing and curse. Now they must learn to trust each other and work as a team for the very hope of civilization. With little preparation and no time to lose, they will be transported via Captain Nemo's extraordinary submarine, the Nautilus, to the frontline of defense: Venice, Italy. There, a masked madman known as the Fantom plans to sabotage a conference of world leaders by setting off a domino chain of explosions, sinking the entire city. The threat is catastrophic, the risks are staggering. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has 96 hours to save the world.

Hugo (2011)

Throughout his extraordinary career, Academy Award-wining director Martin Scorsese has brought his unique vision and dazzling gifts to life in a series of unforgettable films. This holiday season the legendary storyteller invites you to join him on a thrilling journey to a magical world with his first-ever 3-D film, based on Brian Selznick's award-winning, imaginative New York Times best-seller, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform Hugo and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home. -- (C) Paramount

The Time Machine

A progressive scientist builds a machine that allows him time travel in this adaptation of the classic from H.G. Wells.

The Prestige (2006)

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in a darkened salon during the course of a fraudulent seance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and exposure, secrets and revelations, as they feud to outwit and destroy one another. Their rivalry takes them both to the peak of their careers, but with terrible consequences.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

This 1954 Disney version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea represented the studio's costliest and most elaborate American-filmed effort to date. Kirk Douglas plays a trouble-shooting 19th century seaman, trying to discover why so many whaling ships have been disappearing of late. Teaming with scientist Paul Lukas and diver Peter Lorre, Douglas sets sail to investigate--and is promptly captured by the megalomaniac Captain Nemo (James Mason), who skippers a lavish, scientifically advanced submarine. The film's special effects, including a giant squid, were impressive enough in 1954 to win an Academy Award. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Castle in the Sky

(Disney.com) Pazu, an engineer's apprentice, finds a young girl, Sheeta, floating down from the sky, and discovers they are both searching for a legendary floating castle, Laputa. Together, they embark on a daring quest and encounter greedy pirates, secret agents and astounding obstacles that keep them from the truth - and from each other.

Stardust

The sleepy English village of Wall is so named for the cobblestone wall that has, for eons, kept the villagers safely apart form the supernatural parallel universe that lies just on the other side. It is here that young Tristan Thorne makes a wild-eyed promise to the prettiest girl in the village, whose heart he hopes to win: that he will bring her back a fallen star. Now, in order to make good on his promise, Tristan will have to cross the forbidden wall, and enter a mysterious kingdom lit by unending magic and unfolding legends. In this fantastical realm known as Stormhold, Tristan discovers that the fallen star is not at all what he expected but a spirited young woman injured by her cosmic tumble. Now, she is in terrible danger--sought after by colossal powers including the King's scheming sons for whom only she can secure the throne; and a chillingly powerful witch desperate to use the star to achieve eternal youth and beauty. As Tristan sets out to protect the star and bring her back to his beloved on the other side of the wall, he encounters with a pirate captain and a shady trader, among other surprises. But if he can survive, Tristan will also uncover the secret key to his own identity and a fate beyond his wildest dreams.

Doctor Who episode: The Next Doctor (2008 Christmas special, not sure if it’s in here or not!)

(imdb.com) The Doctor arrives in London on Christmas Eve in 1851 where he encounters the Cybermen and a man who claims he's a Time Lord called the Doctor.

Tv show “Hidden Killers”

Dr. Suzannah Lipscomb reveals the hidden killers that lurk in every room across the ages. From the Victorian (this is the episode I watched!) to the Post War era, we discover the lethal inventions and the ‘safe’ domestic home life of households from the past. Episodes available on Amazon Prime Video and streaming freely on Tubi TV.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Cora is a young slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack: A Burton & Swinburne Adventure by Mark Hodder

London, 1861. Sir Richard Francis Burton - explorer, linguist, scholar, and swordsman; his reputation tarnished; his career in tatters; his former partner missing and probably dead. Algernon Charles Swinburne - unsuccessful poet and follower of de Sade, for whom pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin! They stand at a crossroads in their lives and are caught in the epicenter of an empire torn by conflicting forces: Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier, and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labor; Libertines oppose repressive laws and demand a society based on beauty and creativity; while the Rakes push the boundaries of human behavior to the limits with magic, drugs, and anarchy. The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End. Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn't exist at all!

National Superhero Day

For more information about Smithfield Library's National Superhero Day activities, contact Erika White at Smithfield Library at erika.white@cobpl.org.

Hoopla is a great resource for graphic novels and comics.  During the meeting, here are the great resources discussed!

Titles mentioned in the Program:

March:

Book One: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11342501

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2820726

Book Two: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11939397

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3151692

Book Three: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11939415

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3151694

They Called Us Enemy https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12579768

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb3269350

Magneto: Testament: https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2852753

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2544845

Giant Days: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12134734

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2965138

The Umbrella Academy: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11438649

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2516437

Locke & Key: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11342561

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2499093

Related Titles Available on Hoopla:

Ultimate Spider-Man: Volume 01: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12650867

Spider-Verse: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12003685

Spider-Man Noir: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/13295407

Edge of the Spider-Verse: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12205516

Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-Verse Prelude: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12021011

Spider-Man: Spider-Verse - Spider-Gwen:  https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12404091

Spider-Man: Spider-Verse - Spider-Men:  https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12404094

Spider-Man: Spider-Verse - Fearsome Foes: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12404082

Spider-Man: Spider-Verse - Miles Morales:  https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12404054

Spider-Man/Spider-Gwen: Sitting In A Tree: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12650800

Ultimate Spider-Man: Spider-Verse: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12404087 (tie-in)

Spider-Men: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12003779

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Soundtrack: https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12323912

Related Titles Not Available on Digitally

Ultimate Spider-Man: The Death of Spider-Man

https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2709811

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man https://encore.bham.lib.al.us/iii/encore/record/C__Rb2697546

digital waitlists

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens, we talked about readalikes this week.  Stay with us all the way to the end of the post for some suggestions for everyone (me included!) obsessed with Tiger King!

The meeting focused on some heavily waitlisted ebooks and audiobooks on Overdrive.  My hope for this meeting was to provide some titles to give to your patrons who may be impatient that long list since it’s very likely many people are placing holds on just a few titles.

Total attendance: 21

Holley W – Emmet O’Neal
Samuel R – Springville Road
Mary Anne E – BPL Southern History
Judith W – Homewood
Heather C – Homewood
Laura T – Homewood
Erika W – Smithfield
Maura D – Trussville
Polly E – Hoover
Katie Jane M – Hoover
Samantha H – Hoover
Tamiko N – North Birmigham
Jiemin F – BPL Central
Shakera S – BPL Central
Lynn H – BPL Central
Shannon H – Hoover
Reba – sorry, I remember seeing you but not your library
and 4 anonymous people I can’t list because I forgot to save the Zoom chat! Sorry, folx! Email me if you want to be not-anonymous!

The top ebook holdlists:

1) The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK
USA Today's top 100 books to read while stuck at home social distancing
“I’ve been a huge Jojo Moyes fan. Her characters are so compelling. . . It’s such a great narrative about personal strength and really captures how books bring communities together.” –Reese Witherspoon

From the author of Me Before You, set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond. Based on a true story rooted in America’s past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic--a richly rewarding novel of women’s friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond. 

Readalike suggestions:

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything - everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler. 

The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips

In a small Alabama coal-mining town during the summer of 1931, nine-year-old Tess Moore sits on her back porch and watches a woman toss a baby into her family’s well without a word. This shocking act of violence sets in motion a chain of events that forces Tess and her older sister Virgie to look beyond their own door and learn the value of kindness and lending a helping hand.

Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott

A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice--inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century: Doctor Zhivago.

Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile

Stirring in its storytelling of one woman against the odds and intimate in its exploration of the complexities of contemporary southern life, Queen Sugar is an unforgettable tale of endurance and hope.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Heather C. from Homewood compiled this list: 

Books Like Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

Call Your Daughter Home by Deb Spera (June 2019)

Three very different women are united against injustice in poverty-stricken 1924 South Carolina in this atmospheric, compelling, character driven novel.

Cherokee America by Margaret Verble (February 2019)

This intricately plotted, descriptive, historical novel features a strong, intelligent half-Cherokee woman raising her five children as white during a time of conflict between Native Americans and whites in the post-Civil War West.

Reliance, Illinois by Mary Volmer (May 2016)

This lyrical, atmospheric, historical novel focuses on 13-year-old Maddy. Born illegitimate with a birthmark covering half of her face, the neglected Maddy leaves to be employed by a wealthy feminist.

2)Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottleib

Now being developed as a television series with Eva Longoria and ABC!
"An irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition." (Kirkus, starred review)
"Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing." (Katie Couric)
"Wise, warm, smart, and funny. You must read this book." (Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet)

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world - where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).  

Readalike suggestions:

Authors like Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown, Kelly Corrigan, and Jenny Lawson

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with 12 children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You by Jen Hatmaker

No more hiding or people-pleasing up in here, sisters. No more being sidelined in your own life. It is time for us to be brave, to claim our gifts and quirks and emotions. You are set free and set up and set on fire.

The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer

Part manifesto, part revelation, this is the story of an artist struggling with the new rules of exchange in the twenty-first century, both on and off the Internet. The Art of Asking will inspire readers to rethink their own ideas about asking, giving, art, and love.

3) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (see the audiobook section below for more readalikes for this title)

Already being hailed as "a Grapes of Wrath for our times" and "a new American classic," Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt is a rare exploration into the inner hearts of people willing to sacrifice everything for a glimmer of hope. (Information on the current controversy surrounding this title may be found by clicking here.) 

 Afterlife (Hoopla) by Julia Alvarez (also in the Libby catalog here)

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

4) The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.

Readalike suggestions:

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (siblings)

First published in 1993, The Virgin Suicides announced the arrival of a major new American novelist. In a quiet suburb of Detroit, the five Lisbon sisters—beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the neighborhood boys—commit suicide one by one over the course of a single year. As the boys observe them from afar, transfixed, they piece together the mystery of the family's fatal melancholy, in this hypnotic and unforgettable novel of adolescent love, disquiet, and death.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

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.

All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to - maybe, hopefully - break free.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Filled with Kevin Wilson's endless creativity, vibrant prose, sharp humor, and keen sense of the complex performances that unfold in the relationships of people who love one another, The Family Fang is a masterfully executed tale that is as bizarre as it is touching.

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

“Altogether unpredictable.” (Karin Slaughter, New York Times best-selling author)

Propulsive and addictive, and perfect for fans of You, The Other Mrs. is the twisty new psychological thriller from Mary Kubica, the New York Times best-selling author of The Good Girl.

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks (the narrator of the audiobook for The Dutch House)

A collection of 17 wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. 

5) Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

From the best-selling author of Everything I Never Told You, a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. 

Readalike suggestions:

Devotion by Madeline Stevens

A captivating debut novel about a woman who falls into an overwhelming mutual obsession with the Upper East Side mother who hires her as a nanny.

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Big Little Lies is a brilliant take on ex-husbands and second wives, mothers and daughters, schoolyard scandal, and the little lies that can turn lethal. 

A Secret History by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: She must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful 13-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims - a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story - and survive this homecoming.

Little Fires Everywhere is currently a hit TV show on Hulu.  Running on a broad theme of books that have become successful TV shows:

The Virgin River series by Robyn Carr (her Sullivan’s Crossing series has been optioned), the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, The Magicians series by Lev Grossman, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

The top audiobook holdlists:

1) The Guardians by John Grisham

Cullen Post travels the country fighting wrongful convictions and taking on clients forgotten by the system. With Quincy Miller, though, he gets far more than he bargained for. Powerful, ruthless people murdered Keith Russo, and they do not want Quincy Miller exonerated. They killed one lawyer 22 years ago, and they will kill another without a second thought. 

Readalike suggestions:

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, the novel is at its center a profound–and profoundly moving–exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom On Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton

With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

In a twist of the topic, this podcast explores wrongful non-imprisonment for a crime that should have been punished: the White Lies podcast.  Listen by clicking here. 

2) American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins (see description in ebook section above)

Readalike suggestions:

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

A fiercely imaginative new novel about a family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the southwestern border--an indelible journey told with breathtaking imagery, spare lyricism, and profound humanity.

Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli

Structured around the forty questions volunteer worker Valeria Luiselli translates from a court system form and asks undocumented Latin American children facing deportation, Tell Me How It Ends humanizes these young migrants and highlights the contradiction between the idea of America as a fiction for immigrants and the reality of racism and fear—here and back home.

The Leavers by Lisa Ko

Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging. It's the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away - and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past.

3) Open Book by Jessica Simpson

Jessica reveals for the first time her inner monologue and most intimate struggles. Guided by the journals she's kept since age 15, and brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity, Open Book is as inspiring as it is entertaining.

Readalike suggestions:

Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny by Holly Madison

The shocking, never-before-told story of the bizarre world inside the legendary Playboy Mansion - and finally the secret truth about the man who holds the key - from one of the few people who truly knows: Hef's former number-one girlfriend and star of The Girls Next Door.

Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini

The outspoken actress, talk show host, and reality television star offers up a no-holds-barred memoir, including an eye-opening insider account of her tumultuous and heart-wrenching 30-year-plus association with the Church of Scientology.

Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello

Costello chronicles his musical apprenticeship, a child's view of his father Ross MacManus' career on radio and in the dancehall; his own initial almost comical steps in folk clubs and cellar dive before his first sessions for Stiff Record, the formation of the Attractions, and his frenetic and ultimately notorious third U.S. tour. He takes readers behind the scenes of Top of the Pops and Saturday Night Live, and his own show, Spectacle. The idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is destined to be a classic.

My Lucky Stars: A Hollywood Memoir by Shirley MacLaine (other audiobooks on Hoopla)

In My Lucky Stars Shirley MacLaine talks candidly and personally about her four decades in Hollywood, especially about the men and women—her “lucky stars”—who touched and challenged her life.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Samantha H. from Hoover compiled this list of resources:

Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz

BossyPants by Tina Fey

The Long Hard Road out of Hell by Marilyn Manson

I Swear I'll Make it Up to You by Mishka Shubaly (Recovery theme)

The Way I Am by Eminem

Recovery: Freedom From Our Addictions by Russell Brand

My Booky Wook by Russell Brand

Booky Wook 2 by Russell Brand

Revolution by Russell Brand

Assholes Finish First by Tucker Max

Hilarity Ensues by Tucker Max

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Waylon: An Autobiography by Waylon Jennings

Cash: The Autobiography by Johnny Cash

Heavier than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles Cross

My Cross to Bear by Gregg Allman

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis

It's a Long Story: My Life by Willie Nelson

I Lived to Tell it All by George Jones

4) Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.

Readalike suggestions:

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6’4”,African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comic by W. Kamau Bell

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell is a humorous, well-informed take on the world today, tackling a wide range of issues, such as race relations; fatherhood; the state of law enforcement today; comedians and superheroes; right-wing politics; left-wing politics; failure; his interracial marriage; white men; his upbringing by very strong-willed, race-conscious, yet ideologically opposite parents; his early days struggling to find his comedic voice, then his later days struggling to find his comedic voice; why he never seemed to fit in with the black comedy scene...or the white comedy scene; how he was a black nerd way before that became a thing; how it took his wife and an East Bay lesbian to teach him that racism and sexism often walk hand in hand; and much, much more.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, and the power of forgiveness.

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion - and doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

5) a tie between Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng and The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Little Fires Everywhere has been covered extensively in the ebook section above. Refer to that for readalike suggestions.  The ones listed below are for The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.

The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband - and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive. Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening, her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face and then never speaks another word.  

Readalike suggestions:

Try authors like B.A. Paris, Ruth Ware, Fiona Barton, Laura Lippman, and Karin Slaughter

An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks

When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking...and what she’s hiding. 

The Whisper Man by Alex North

In this dark, suspenseful thriller, Alex North weaves a multi-generational tale of a father and son caught in the crosshairs of an investigation to catch a serial killer preying on a small town.

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney

In the tradition of The Girl on the Train, The Silent Wife, and Gone Girl comes an enthralling psychological thriller that spins one woman's seemingly good fortune and another woman's mysterious fate through a kaleidoscope of duplicity, death, and deception.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

Could ten days at a health resort really change you forever? In Liane Moriarty’s latest page-turner, nine perfect strangers are about to find out...

The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house.

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas". As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived, and famously testified that her 15-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who've long forgotten her. The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details, proof they hope may free Ben, Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history.

On a lighter note, we haven’t left the kiddos with nothing!  Here are some readalikes for popular children’s books, compiled by Katie Jane M. at the Hoover Library.

Dog Man read-alikes on Hoopla

Wedgie & Gizmo series by Suzanne Selfors
Stick Dog series and Stick Cat series by Tom Watson
Binky series by Ashley Spires
Inspector Flytrap series by Tom Angleberger
Two Dogs in a Trenchcoat series by Julie Falatko
Ruff vs Fluff series by Spencer Quinn
Drew & Jot: Dueling Doodles by Art Baltazar
Lupin Leaps In by Georgia Dunn

Babysitters Club graphic novel read-alikes on Hoopla

Invisible Emmie series by Terri Libenson
The Sisters series by William Murray
Dance Class series by Beka

Riordan read-alikes on Hoopla (which are also good for this year's SRP theme)

Aru Shah series by Roshani Chokshi
Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Storm Runner series by J.C. Cervantes
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia

Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull

Into the Land of the Unicorns series by Bruce Coville

Janitors series by Tyler Whitesides

The Serpent's Secret series by Sayantani DasGupta

The Twelve by Cindy Lin
Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley

Adventurers Wanted series by M.L. Forman

Love Sugar Magic series by Anna Meriano
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

There seems to be a lot of chatter out there about spring cleaning while quarantined at home, so we brainstormed some similar (and some different!) offerings like Marie Kondo’s books.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo

Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo

Project 333: The Minimalist Fashion Challenge That Proves Less Really is So Much More by Courtney Carver

The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family From a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson

Hoopla has a curated list for spring cleaning.  Click below to access them.

https://www.hoopladigital.com/collection/1442 (audiobooks)

https://www.hoopladigital.com/collection/4133 (ebooks)

If you don’t want to clean, organize, and declutter, you may enjoy:

Tidy the F*ck Up: The American Art of Organizing your Sh*t by Messie Condo

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do by Sarah Knight

This is the first entry in the Simon Brett’s exciting new Decluttering mystery series, The Clutter Corpse!

Ellen Curtis runs her own business helping people who are running out of space. As a declutterer, she is used to encountering all sorts of weird and wonderful objects in the course of her work. What she has never before encountered is a dead body…until now. Discovering a link between the victim and her own past, Ellen sets out to uncover the truth.

And now, for the event you’ve really been waiting for, Tiger King companion reading/listening!

If you’ve not yet listened to the S-Town podcast, now is the perfect time.  Tune in here. 

NONFICTION

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: And Other East African Adventures by J. H. Patterson

No Beast So Fierce: The Terrifying True Story of the Champawat Tiger, the Deadliest Man-Eater in History by Dane Huckelbridge
Ebook on Libby
Audiobook on Hoopla

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession by Susan Orlean

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century by Kirk Wallace Johnson

The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Search for the Perfect Bird by Joshua Hammer

The Lizard King: The True Crimes and Passions of the World’s Greatest Reptile Smugglers by Bryan Christy

We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Change Their Lives Forever by Benjamin Mee

Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French

The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World by David Boyd

100 Heartbeats: The Race to Save Earth’s Most Endangered Species by Jeff Corwin

Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West to Investigate My Attempted Murder and Solve the Riddle of Myself by Terri Jentz

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse

Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls

FICTION

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

No one wants to be a victim, but most find the event too hypnotic to ignore. In order to save their traveling carnival from bankruptcy, the Binewskis are creating their own brood of sideshow freaks. Under Al's careful direction, the pregnant Lil ingests radioisotopes, insecticides, and arsenic to make her babies "special". As the oldest daughter, albino dwarf Olympia, puts listeners in the ring-side seat, her family's incredible drama erupts and spills over into the "normal" world. Not for the squeamish or faint of heart, this brilliantly daring novel is shocking and delightful. 

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Against a backdrop of hauntingly fecund plant life animated by ancient lizards and lawless hungers, Karen Russell has written an utterly singular novel about a family’s struggle to stay afloat in a world that is inexorably sinking. An arrestingly beautiful and inventive work from a vibrant new voice in fiction.

My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent

Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero—and in the process, becomes ours as well.

Tooth and Claw by T. Coraghessan Boyle

The title of this short-story collection tells you everything you need to know: Marriages are threatened by a batty neighborhood biologist; another man’s paradise in Florida is hit by waves of plagues. And yes, exotic animals do make an appearance — one character’s bedroom is sprayed with raw meat thanks to an African lynx. 

Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen

Andrew Yancy—late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff’s office—has a human arm in his freezer. There’s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it’s not called the roach patrol for nothing).

Lastly, Emmet O'Neal Library published a similar list.  There is some crossover, but there are different titles there too: https://eolib.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-wait.html