Night of Many Dreams by Gail Tsukiyama

Recommended by JoAnn
FIC Tsukiyama

This coming of age story is set in Hong Kong, 1940-65, and spans the years that two sisters are growing up. Joan Lew pursues an acting career and sister, Emma, loves travel and the artistic life in San Francisco; their sophisticated mother disapproves. Gail beautifully shows the strength of family ties in this historic novel.

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Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow

Recommended by JoAnn

FIC Doctorow

Based on the lives of the real Collyer brothers, famous recluses found dead in their Fifth Avenue , N.Y. brownstone in 1947, this imaginative story is brilliantly conceived and executed by Doctorow. Homer is blind, but we "see" everything through him: a house cluttered to capacity, an intuitive and loyal brother, interesting personalities coming and going in the house, and their struggle to survive and find meaning in their lives.

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"Our Crowd": The Great Jewish Families of New York by Stephen Birmingham

Recommended by JoAnn
301.452 BIR
A detailed history of New York's great Jewish banking families, including the Strauses, Seligman's, Goldman's, Guggenheims, Loebs and Schiffs. They formed their own "crowd", more often due to being excluded from the elite of their time, and married within that circle, carrying on a tradition of power, philanthropy and wealth.
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Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Recommended by JoAnn

FIC Lahiri
Five short stories by Pulitzer Prize winning author detail the gulf between Bengali-American children and their immigrant parents. Lahiri's talent lies in emotional links to her characters and significant detailed descriptions, and in her portrayal of assimilation and generational differences.
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Two Rivers by T. Greenwood

Recommended by Irene
FIC Greenwood

A haunting story within a story, Two Rivers by T. Greenwood, is a sensitive handling of young love, life altering sorrow, and deadening guilt. Harper Montgomery struggles to raise his daughter after his wife dies in a senseless accident. He's called to the scene of a tragic train derailment and is approached by a pregnant young black girl, who needs a place to stay. Why him, why her, what are the secrets that they both keep? The author was awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation to write this novel. The grants were certainly justified. A very fine work of literature.
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The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley

Recommended by Susan

155.935 RIP

Subtitled “Who survives when disaster strikes – and why,” The Unthinkable is a strangely empowering read on a horrific subject. Journalist Ripley explores every imaginable catastrophe, natural and man-made, and the nuances of human behavior that have determined individual survival. She interviews experts and survivors, detailing evolutionary responses which can help or hinder us, and training that has saved lives. The extraordinary value of reading the airplane escape route card, and the number of additional auto deaths occurring after 9-11 when people were afraid to fly are just two fascinating facts she unearths. Her main conclusion is that individual knowledge, attention, and preparedness are more immediately valuable than any public action. Public, and most corporate, policies tend to marginalize the public, when fully informing us would produce better results.

While the level of detail borders on overwhelming, this is nonetheless a fascinating read. In our heavily populated world with increasingly erratic weather patterns, the cautionary lessons are both striking and valuable.

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The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talarigo

Recommended by Donna

FIC Talarigo

A young Japanese girl makes her living as a pearl diver until leprosy sends her to a desolate island. She is forced to take a new identity so as not to bring shame to her family. "Miss Fuji" now cares for the sick and dying, and the bond she shares with them is quite touching. Eventually she gets brave enough to dive just for the love of it, and that, in some small way, breaks the isolation she feels living on the leper's island.

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Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen

Recommended by JoAnn
977.456 NGU

A Vietnamese immigrant who left Saigon in 1975 to settle in Michigan wrote this memoir "as an homage to childhood, suburbia, and all the bad food, fashion, music and hair of the deep 1980s. It is also about an immigrant's dilemma to blend in or remain apart." She longs to be a "real" American and craves the junk food of that time to fit in. This vibrant view of one immigrant's experience is worth reading.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Recommended by Megan
YA SF Collins

The first installment in a fantastic sci-fi trilogy, Hunger Games follows Katniss, a young hunter, as she is forced to participate in a government sponsored reality show that pits 24 teens against each other in an arena and allows only one victor to come out alive. A novel that is both action packed and thought-provoking, great for adults and teens alike.
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The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Recommended by JoAnn
958.1 SEI

Norwegian journalist Seierstad spends three months living with a bookseller and his family after the Taliban's fall in Kabul, Afghanistan. They are middle class and literate, unlike most, and yet their living conditions and daily lives are miserable. The utter hopelessness of life is especially painful for the women. An international bestseller worth reading.
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An Inconvenient Wife by Megan Chance

Recommended by Heather
FIC Chance

Set in the 1800s, a woman named Lucy is brought to numerous doctors to try and cure her hysteria. After many failures, a new doctor that practices hypnosis is given a chance to heal her. Soon the mysterious doctor uncovers the deep passions that Lucy was unaware she had, much to the disappointment of her husband.
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Philistines at the Hedgerow: Passion and property in the Hamptons by Steven Gaines

Recommended by Felicia
974.7 GAI

A bizarre account of the unique history of the homes and colorful people of The Hamptons, Long Island, NY. Interesting and fun summer reading!
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The Rabbit Factory by Marshall Karp

Recommended by Irene
FIC Karp

Marshall Karp is a screenwriter and playwright. This is his first novel. He has created two LAPD cops, Mike Lomax and his partner Terry Biggs, who are smart, drop-dead funny (especially Terry), and as irreverent as two guys can be. Karp has also written a ripping good story, not counting on buddy-cop banter to carry the day.
The setting of much of the action is "Familyland," a Disneyland clone, conceived of by the late Dean Lamaar, who, like Disney, started out as an animator. Someone is killing off employees and it's escalating. Don't be put off by the size of this book. It's a quick read and there are two more books in the series already out.
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What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

Recommended by Irene
658.4012 JAR

Jeff Jarvis, columnist and blogger about media, presents his ideas for surviving in the Internet age. Enlightening for those to whom this is new information; a fascinating encounter with the new rules of success so different from what we've always believed.


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A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley

Recommended by Donna
FIC Riley

Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in the 14th century, she is illiterate. Finally, she finds "Brother Gregory" to write for her. She tells of the Black Plague and her time as a midwife, but most astonishing of all her "vision of light" that endows her with the gift of healing.
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The Red Scarf by Kate Furnivall

Recommended by Donna
FIC Furnivall

This is historical fiction at its best! Two women befriend each other while confined in a Russian labor camp. One escapes to find the childhood love of the other and convince him to rescue her. When he is found and his secret past revealed, the woman is heartbroken but keeps her promise to her friend, which leads to a daring rescue.

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Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Recommended by Sue

FIC Lippman

Author Laura Lippman continues to transcend her mystery-writer roots with another fine single title, Life Sentences. Cassandra Fallows is a successful author of very revealing memoirs, whose recent venture into fiction was poorly received. A chance snippet on CNN reminds her of the fate of a former classmate, Callie Jenkins, who went to jail rather than reveal anything about the disappearance of her infant son. As Cassandra searches for Callie - literally and metaphorically - she learns that the way she remembers events does not always mesh with how other players do. Cassandra faces different sorts of danger thant Lippman's wonderful PI, Tess Monaghan, but the secretive, small-town nature of Baltimore, their mutual city makes, as always, a lively character in itself.

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Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron

Recommended by Sue

636.8092 MYR

I was afraid this best-selling story of a kitten abandoned in an Iowa library drop one frigid night would be a maudlin one-note wonder. Not at all! The tiny, starving ball of fur grew into Dewey Readmore Books, a gentle monarch who charmed library users of all ages. The town itself, Spencer, suffered many small-town setbacks - local farms being sold to conglomerates, jobs moving offshore - but the library always tried to help people with transitions. Dewey helped, too, with his cat radar for who needed a warm heartbeat on his or her lap to get through a hard day. The fact that he was the living image of my neighbor's cat, a less-gentle but equally sensitive autocrat who has helped me through some tough days, made the book even more fun! Check out his appearance on Iowa public television at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jGpvvLmwbs .

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Life Sentences by Laura Lippman

Recommended by Irene

FIC Lippman

Laura Lippman writes delightful mysteries set in Baltimore with a winning character, Tess Monaghan. Lippman has branched out with stand alone novels of great depth and character. Life Sentences is her latest.

Author Cassandra Fallows has achieved remarkable success by baring her life on the page. Her two widely popular memoirs continue to sell briskly, however, her new fiction offering has fallen flat. Seeking another runaway subject, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction.

When Cassandra was a girl, growing up in a racially diverse middle-class neighborhood in Baltimore, her best friends were all black. One of the girls, a shy, quiet, unobtrusive child named Calliope Jenkins - who, years later, would be accused of killing her infant son, hung in the edge of the group of girls. For seven years, Calliope refused to speak and the court was finally forced to let her go. Cassandra believes this still unsolved real-life mystery, largely unknown outside Baltimore, could be her next bestseller.

As Cassandra digs deeply into the mystery, she discovers disturbing truths about herself, her family and her friends, shaking to the very core all that she believed true.

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Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Recommended by Jean

A really interesting take on married life in the 1950s. The book examines closely the marriage of one suburban couple , as well as taking a hard look at women's rights in that era. Worth reading.

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The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

Recommended by Irene

FIC Baker

This novel grabs you from the beginning. Truly is a very large baby, destined to be an enormous grown woman. Her mother dies giving birth, and her father dies when she is twelve, leaving her and her petite sister to be taken in by local families. Their divergent lives further deepen the gap between them and Truly forges an existence on a run down farm as her sister marries the doctor's son.

A story of great cruelty, and great fortitude, it is difficult to get it out of your head.

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Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Recommended by Irene

FIC Ford

This debut novel set in Seattle, tells the story of two youngsters, a Chinese American boy, and a Japanese American girl who meet in 1942 and suffer the disapproval of his family and the internment of her's during those dark days of World War II in this country. Forty years later, Henry Lee searches from traces of his first love in a recently discovered cache of left behind belongings found in the basement of a Japanese American hotel.

Having visited Manzanar several years ago, and read Farewell to Manzanar, I found the subject matter engaging and poignant.

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The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood

Recommended by JoAnn

966.6203 COO

New York Times' diplomatic correspondent Cooper writes of her priveleged childhood in Liberia, filled with warm and fuzzy memories of family, friends and community. Her world turned upside down in 1980 when a bloody coup threatened and attacked her family, forcing it to scatter for survival. As she travelled the world as a journalist, Iraq included, her desire for closure brought her back to Liberia.
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Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Recommended by Jean

FIC Jordan

A first novel for this author, the story covers the lives of black and white farm families in post World War II Mississippi, and is narrated by each character. The relationship between husband and wife is examined, as well as racism in the rural South of the 1940s. Highly recommended.
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The Coffee Trader by David Liss

Recommended by JoAnn

FIC Liss

It is 1659 in Amsterdam, the world's first commodities exchange, and Portuguese Jew Miguel Lienzo has lost his fortune in the sugar market. He schemes to regain it with a daring plan to import a strange new drink called "coffee". The plot twists and turns as money, power, reputation, and the pressures of the Jewish community spiral into betrayal and moral corruption in this historical fiction.
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Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrand

Recommended by Donna

FIC Hilderbrand

This is the story of three women who spend the summer in Nantucket. Each one is going through a crisis in her life. They come together to help each other through the bad times and find themselves strengths they never knew they had. A great story of love and friendship.
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Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

Recommended by Donna

FIC Franklin

Adelia is a 12th century coroner who is called to England by King Henry II to solve a mystery. Who is killing the children of the village? The Jews are being blamed, but Adelia knows better. See how she gathers the evidence and unravels the mystery. This novel is full of suspense and a little love too!
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