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Nobody's magic / by Birdsong, Destiny O.,1981-author.;
"In this glittering triptych novel, Suzette, Maple and Agnes, three Black women with albinism, call Shreveport, Louisiana, home. At the bustling intersection of the American South and Southwest, these three women find themselves at the crossroads of their own lives. Suzette, a pampered twenty-year-old, has been sheltered from the outside world since a dangerous childhood encounter. Now, a budding romance with a sweet mechanic allows Suzette to seek independence, which unleashes dark reactions in those closest to her. In discovering her autonomy, Suzette is forced to decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to make her own way in the world. Maple is reeling from the unsolved murder of her free-spirited mother. She flees the media circus and her judgmental grandmother by shutting herself off from the world in a spare room of the motel where she works. One night, Maple connects with Chad, someone who may understand her pain more than she realizes, and discovers that the key to her mother's death may be within her reach. Agnes is far from home, working yet another mind-numbing job. She attracts the interest of a lonely security guard and army veteran who's looking for a traditional life for himself and his young son. He's convinced that she wields a certain "magic," but Agnes soon unleashes a power within herself that will shock them both and send her on a trip to confront not only her family and her past, but also herself. This novel, told in three parts, is a searing meditation on grief, female strength, and self-discovery set against a backdrop of complicated social and racial histories. Nobody's Magic is a testament to the power of family-the ones you're born in and the ones you choose. And in these three narratives, among the yearning and loss, each of these women may find a seed of hope for the future"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Psychological fiction.; African American women; Albinos and albinism; Man-woman relationships; Self-actualization (Psychology) in women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Bird summons / by Aboulela, Leila,1964-author.;
"When Salma, Moni, and Iman-- friends and active members of their local Muslim Women's group-- decide to take a road trip together to the Scottish Highlands, they leave behind lives often dominated by obligation, frustrated desire, and dull predictability. Each wants something more out of life, but fears the cost of taking it. Salma is successful and happily married, but tempted to risk it all when she's contacted by her first love back in Egypt; Moni gave up a career in banking to care for her disabled son without the help of her indifferent husband; and Iman, in her twenties and already on her third marriage, longs for the freedom and autonomy she's never known. When the women are visited by the Hoopoe, a sacred bird from Muslim and Celtic literature, they are compelled to question their relationships to faith and femininity, love, loyalty, and sacrifice"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Magic realist fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Automobile travel; Friendship; Muslim women; Muslims; Self-realization;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Drive your plow over the bones of the dead / by Tokarczuk, Olga,1962-author.; Lloyd-Jones, Antonia,translator.; translation of:Tokarczuk, Olga,1962-Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych.English.;
In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind. A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Psychological fiction.; Recluses; Eccentrics and eccentricities; Murder;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The violence : a novel / by Dawson, Delilah S.,author.;
"A mysterious plague that causes random bouts of violence is sweeping the nation. Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope. Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home. But Chelsea's husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter's actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is--then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation. Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity--and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Domestic fiction.; Psychological fiction.; Spousal abuse; Violence; Wife abuse; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Entitled : how male privilege hurts women / by Manne, Kate,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."An urgent exploration of men's entitlement and how it serves to police and punish women, from the acclaimed author of Down Girl, which Rebecca Traister called "jaw-droppingly brilliant." In this bold and stylish critique, Cornell philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. Ranging widely across the culture, from the Kavanaugh hearings and "Cat Person" to Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Warren, Manne shows how privileged men's sense of entitlement--to sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, medical care, bodily autonomy, knowledge, and power--is a pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences. In clear, lucid prose, she argues that male entitlement can explain a wide array of phenomena, from mansplaining and the undertreatment of women's pain to mass shootings by incels and the seemingly intractable notion that women are "unelectable." Moreover, Manne implicates each of us in toxic masculinity: It's not just a product of a few bad actors; it's something we all perpetuate, conditioned as we are by the social and cultural currents of our time. The only way to combat it, she says, is to expose the flaws in our default modes of thought, while enabling women to take up space, say their piece, and muster resistance to the entitled attitudes of the men around them. With wit and intellectual fierceness, Manne sheds new light on gender and power and offers a vision of a world in which women are just as entitled as men to our collective care and concern"--
Subjects: Entitlement attitudes.; Male domination (Social structure); Misogyny.; Privilege (Social psychology); Sex role.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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War and punishment : Putin, Zelinsky, and the path to Russia's invasion of Ukraine / by Zygar, Mikhail,1981-author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-405) and index."In his time as a journalist, prominent independent Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar has interviewed President Zelensky and had access to many of the major players--from politicians to oligarchs. As an expert on Putin's moods and behavior, he has spent years studying the Kremlin's plan regarding Ukraine, and here, in clear, chronological order he explains how we got here. In 1996 to 2004, Ukraine became an independent post-Soviet country where everyone was connected to the former empire at all levels, financially, culturally, psychologically. However, the elite anticipated that the empire would be back and punish them. From 2004 to 2018, there were many states inside one state, each with its own rulers/oligarchs and its own interests--some of them directly connected with Russia. In 2018, a new generation of Ukrainians arrive, and having grown in an independent country, they do not consider themselves to be part of Russia--and that was the moment when the war began, as Putin could not tolerate losing Ukraine forever. Authoritative, timely, and vitally important, this is an unprecedented overview of the war that affects us all and continues to threaten the future of the entire world as we know it"--
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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End of the rope : mountains, marriage and motherhood / by Redford, Jan,author.;
"In the tradition of Cheryl Strayed's Wild comes the story of a young climber's struggle to make her own way in the mountains and in life. As a fourteen-year-old tomboy languishing in small-town Ontario in an alcohol-afflicted family, Jan is thirsting for adventure and freedom. After climbing a hundred-foot rock face, alone and without any equipment, she decides she will be a mountain climber when she grows up. Though it's a highly improbable goal, by twenty she's a cocky, nomadic, tobacco-chewing climber with a magnetic attraction to the wrong men and misadventures. She gradually develops as a climber, with the intention of becoming one of a few female mountain guides. After a series of doomed romances, Jan falls in love with an affable, hardcore Banff climber, Dan. Dreaming of a life together, maybe even kids, she enrolls in university with plans to become a teacher. But her world falls apart when Dan is killed in an avalanche. Two days after Dan's memorial, she grieves in the arms of another extreme alpinist, Grant. Not long after, she discovers she's pregnant. Terrified of being alone, she accepts a grudging offer of marriage and abandons her education and climbing. In spite of paralyzing unhappiness, they buy a house in the mountains, have a second baby, and slip into their parents' rigid roles: Grant, the provider, working in the bush as a logger; Jan, the housewife and mother. While she clings to her dream of university and autonomy, he pursues his dream of scaling mountains--dreams that pit them against each other. As her marriage unravels, Jan realizes she has to transform herself into the kind of person who can seize her dream, just like she transformed herself into a climber. It takes years and many small acts of courage, but finally, her need to grow surpasses her need to feel safe. She packs up her young children and drives off to the city, for perhaps the biggest adventure of her life: university and single motherhood. Combining driving narrative and sardonic humour with white-knuckled descriptions of life and death in the mountains, Jan Redford is paving the way for a new breed of memoir writers. She shows the immense determination required to follow your dream, even when your world is crumbling around you, and the bravery it takes to lead, not follow--in the mountains and in life."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Redford, Jan; Redford, Jan; Redford, Jan.; Self-actualization (Psychology); Women mountaineers; Women authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Why we drive : toward a philosophy of the open road / by Crawford, Matthew B.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.From the author of the landmark Shop Class as Soulcraft, a brilliant, first-of-its-kind celebration of driving as a unique pathway of human freedom, one now critically threatened by automation. Once we were drivers, the open road alive with autonomy, adventure, danger, trust, and speed. Today we are as likely to be in the back seat of an Uber as behind the wheel ourselves. Tech giants are hurling us toward a shiny, happy "self-driving" future, selling utopia but equally keen to advertise to a captive audience strapped into another expensive device. Are we destined, then, to become passengers, not drivers? Why We Drive reveals that much more may be at stake than we might think. Ten years ago, in the New York Times-bestselling Shop Class as Soulcraft, philosopher-mechanic Matthew B. Crawford--a University of Chicago PhD who owned his own motorcycle shop--made a revolutionary case for manual labor, one that ran headlong against the pretentions of white-collar office work. Now, using driving as a window through which to view the broader changes wrought by technology on all aspects of contemporary life, Crawford investigates the driver's seat as one of the few remaining domains of skill, exploration, play--and freedom. Blending philosophy and hands-on storytelling, Crawford grounds the narrative in his own experience in the garage and behind the wheel, recounting his decade-long restoration of a vintage Volkswagen as well as his journeys to thriving automotive subcultures across the country. Crawford leads us on an irreverent but deeply considered inquiry into the power of faceless bureaucracies, the importance of questioning mindless rules, and the battle for democratic self-determination against the surveillance capitalists. A meditation on the competence of ordinary people, Why We Drive explores the genius of our everyday practices on the road, the rewards of "folk engineering," and the existential value of occasionally being scared shitless. Witty and ingenious throughout, Why We Drive is a rebellious and daring celebration of the irrepressible human spirit.
Subjects: Crawford, Matthew B.; Automated vehicles; Technological innovations; Automobile driving;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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