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Swift River / by Chambers, Essie,author.;
It's the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that's not the only reason Diamond stands out: she's teased relentlessly about her weight, and since Pop's been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on. But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she's never met, key elements of Pop's life are uncovered, and she is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, whose lives span the 20th century and reveal a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion. As pieces of their shared past become clearer, Diamond gains a sense of her place in the world and in her family. But how will what she's learned of the past change her future? A story of first friendships, family secrets, and finding the courage to let go, Swift River is a sensational debut about how history shapes us and heralds the arrival of a major new literary talent.
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Novels.; African American women; Family secrets; Missing persons; Race relations; Racially mixed families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Horse crazy : the story of a woman and a world in love with an animal / by Nir, Sarah Maslin,1983-author.;
"In the bestselling tradition of works by such authors as Susan Orlean and Mary Roach, a New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist explores why so many people--including herself--are obsessed with horses. It may surprise you to learn that there are over seven million horses in America--even more than when they were the only means of transportation--and nearly two million horse owners. Acclaimed journalist and avid equestrian Sarah Maslin Nir is one of them; she began riding horses when she was just two years old and hasn't stopped since. Horse Crazy is a fascinating, funny, and moving love letter to these graceful animals and the people who--like her--are obsessed with them. It is also a coming-of-age story of Nir growing up an outsider within the world's most elite inner circles, and finding her true north in horses. Nir takes us into the lesser-known corners of the riding world and profiles some of its most captivating figures. We meet Monty Roberts, the California trainer whose prowess earned him the nickname "the man who listens to horses"; George and Ann Blair, the African-American husband and wife who run a riding academy for inner city youth on a tiny island in the middle of Manhattan's East River; and Francesca Kelly, a wealthy London socialite whose love for an Indian nobleman shaped her life's mission: to rescue an endangered Indian breed of horse and bring them--illegally--to America. Woven into these compelling character studies, Nir shares her own moving personal narrative. She details her father's harrowing tale of surviving the Holocaust, and describes an enchanted but deeply lonely upbringing in Manhattan, where horses became her family. She found them even in the middle of the city, in a stable disguised in an old townhouse and in Central Park, when she chased down truants as an auxiliary mounted patrol officer. And she speaks candidly of how horses have helped her overcome heartbreak and loss. Infused with heart and wit, and with each chapter named after a horse Nir has loved, Horse Crazy is an unforgettable blend of beautifully written memoir and first-rate reporting"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Nir, Sarah Maslin, 1983-; Horse owners; Horsemen and horsewomen; Human-animal relationships.; Women journalists; Horsemanship;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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True biz : a novel / by Nović, Sara,1987-author.;
"True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history final, and have doctors, politicians, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both at the same time. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another-and changed forever. This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, cochlear implants and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Domestic fiction.; Novels.; American Sign Language; Boarding schools; Deaf children; Deaf; Deaf; Friendship;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 2
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The Nickel boys : a novel / by Whitehead, Colson,1969-author.;
In this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men." In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Historical fiction.; Reformatories; African American teenagers; Racism;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Beach read / by Henry, Emily,author.;
"A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast. They're polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block. Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. But as the summer stretches on, January discovers a gaping plot hole in the story she's been telling herself about her own life, and begins to wonder what other things she might have gotten wrong, including her ideas about the man next door"--
Subjects: Romance fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Authors; Neighbors;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 2
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One jump at a time : my story / by Chen, Nathan,1999-author.; Park, Alice,author.; Wang, Vera,writer of foreword.;
"In this exhilarating memoir, three-time World Champion and Olympic gold-medalist Nathan Chen tells the story of his remarkable journey to success, reflecting on his life as a Chinese American figure skater and the joys and challenges he has experienced-including the tremendous sacrifices he and his family made, and the physical and emotional pain he endured. When three-year-old Nathan Chen tried on his first pair of figure skates, magic happened. But the odds of this young boy-one of five children born to Chinese immigrants-competing and making it into the top echelons of figure skating were daunting. Chen's family didn't have the resources or access to pay for expensive coaches, rink time, and equipment. But Nathan's mother, Hetty Wang, refused to fail her child. Recognizing his tremendous talent and passion, she stepped up as his coach, making enormous sacrifices to give Nathan the opportunity to compete in this exclusive world. That dedication eventually paid off at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, where Chen-reverently known as the "Quad King"-won gold, becoming the first Asian-American man to stand at the highest podium in figure skating. In this moving and inspiring memoir Chen opens up for the first time, chronicling everything it took to pursue his dreams. Bolstered by his unwavering passion and his family's unconditional support, Chen reveals the most difficult times he endured, and how he overcame each obstacle-from his disappointment at the 2018 Olympic Games, to competing during a global pandemic, to the extreme physical and mental toll the sport demands. Pulling back the curtain on the figure skating world and the Olympics, Chen reveals what it was really like at the Beijing Games and competing on the US team in the same city his parents had left-and his grandmother still lived. Poignant and unfiltered, told in his own words, One Jump at a Time is the story of one extraordinary young man-and a testament to the love of a family and the power of persistence, grit, and passion"-Publisher description.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Chen, Nathan, 1999-; Chinese American figure skaters; Figure skaters;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Rebel Cinderella : from rags to riches to radical, the epic journey of Rose Pastor Stokes / by Hochschild, Adam,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."From the bestselling author of King Leopold's Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts comes the astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismatic radical leaders of her time"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Stokes, Rose Pastor, 1879-1933.; Feminists; Jewish refugees; Women immigrants; Women political activists; Women socialists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Blacktop wasteland / by Cosby, S. A.,author.;
"A gritty, voice-driven thriller about a former getaway driver who thought he had escaped the criminal life who is pulled back in by race, poverty, and his own former life of crime. Beauregard "Bug" Montage is a man with many different titles: husband, father, friend, honest car mechanic. But before he gave it up, Bug used to be known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best Wheel Man on the East Coast. After a series of financial calamities, Bug feels he has no choice but to take one final job as the getaway driver for a daring diamond heist that could solve all his money troubles and allow him to go straight once and for all. Like "Ocean's Eleven" meets "Drive" (but with a mostly black cast of characters), Blacktop Wasteland is a searing, operatic story of sons living up (or down) to their fathers; of a heist gone sideways; of a man ground down by economic desperation; of fast cars and daring chases and identity and love."--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Automobile mechanics; Criminal behavior; Jewel thieves; African Americans;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Real Americans A novel [electronic resource] : by Khong, Rachel.aut; cloudLibrary;
READ WITH JENNA’S MAY BOOK CLUB PICK • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?  "Mesmerizing"—Brit Bennett • "A page turner.”—Ha Jin • “Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft"—Andrew Sean Greer • "Traverses time with verve and feeling."—Raven Leilani Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers. In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home. Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?
Subjects: Electronic books.; Cultural Heritage; Asian American; Family Life;
© 2024., Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group,
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You are not alone : the NAMI guide to navigating mental health--with advice from experts and wisdom from real people and families / by Duckworth, Ken,author.; National Alliance on Mental Illness.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Written with authority and compassion, this is the essential resource for individuals and families seeking expert guidance on diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, featuring inspiring, true stories from real people in their own words. Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness every year, and the Covid-19 pandemic only further exposed the shortcomings of the American mental health system. Too many are confused, afraid, and overwhelmed, with many asking themselves the same questions: What does it mean when different doctors give me different diagnoses? What if my insurance won't cover my treatment? Will I ever feel better? Families and friends are often left in the dark about how best to help their loved ones, from dealing with financial and logistical issues, to handling the emotional challenges of loving someone who is suffering. You Are Not Alone is here to offer help. Written by Dr. Ken Duckworth with the wisdom of a psychiatrist and the vulnerability of a peer, this comprehensive guide centers the poignant lived experiences of over 125 individuals from across the country whose first-person stories illustrate the diversity of mental health journeys. This singular resource -- the first book from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and with all sales proceeds going back to the NAMI community -- is a powerful reminder that help is here, and you are never alone."--Amazon.com.
Subjects: Mental health.; Psychology, Pathological.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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