Throughout November and December, this question has been posted in the Library's staff area. I thought the responses deserved to be shared :). This will my reading list for the winter reading program! What great books!
Update: More books have been added (to the board and to this list.) I think this list will take me a lot longer than winter!
The books of Earthsea : the complete illustrated edition
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-2018, author.
SCIENCE FICTION Leguin Ursula
"Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the timeless and beloved A Wizard of Earthsea --"...reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago," (David Mitchell)--comes this complete omnibus edition of the entire Earthsea chronicles, including over fifty illustrations illuminating Le Guin's vision of her classic saga. Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels are some of the most acclaimed and awarded works in literature--they have received prestigious accolades such as the National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, the Nebula Award, and many more honors, commemorating their enduring place in the hearts and minds of readers and the literary world alike. Now for the first time ever, they're all together in one volume--including the early short stories, Le Guin's "Earthsea Revisioned" Oxford lecture, and a new Earthsea story, never before printed. With a new introduction by Le Guin herself, this essential edition will also include fifty illustrations by renowned artist Charles Vess, specially commissioned and selected by Le Guin, to bring her refined vision of Earthsea and its people to life in a totally new way. [Stories include: "A Wizard of Earthsea", "The Tombs of Atuan", "The Farthest Shore", "Tehanu", "Tales From Earthsea", "The Other Wind", "The Rule of Names", "The Word of Unbinding", "The Daughter of Odren", and "Earthsea Revisioned: A Lecture at Oxford University".] With stories as perennial and universally beloved as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of The Rings--but also unlike anything but themselves--this edition is perfect for those new to the world of Earthsea, as well as those who are well-acquainted with its enchanting magic: to know Earthsea is to love it"--
The book thief
Zusak, Markus. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n00031669 http://viaf.org/viaf/238968 http://isni.org/isni/0000000109468572
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Zusak, Markus
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.
The cat in the hat
Seuss, Dr.
jREADER Seuss
Two children sitting at home on a rainy day are visited by the Cat in the Hat who shows them some tricks and games.
Circe : a novel
Miller, Madeline, author.
FICTION Miller Madeline
Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.
Educated : a memoir
Westover, Tara, author.
BIOGRAPHY Westover, Tara
"Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Tara Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes, and the will to change it."--Provided by publisher.
The hobbit, or, There and back again
Tolkien, J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel), 1892-1973, author.
SCIENCE FICTION Tolkien, J. R. R.
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return.
Holes
Sachar, Louis, 1954-
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Sachar, Louis
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.
Homegoing
Gyasi, Yaa, author.
FICTION Gyasi Yaa
"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath Effia in the Castle's women's dungeon, and then shipped off on a boat bound for America, where she will be sold into slavery. Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and--with outstanding economy and force--captures the troubled spirit of our own nation"--
The incarnations
Barker, Susan, 1978-
FICTION Barker Susan
"Hailed as "China's Midnight's Children," a gripping new novel about a Beijing taxi driver whose past incarnations haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate"--
Know my name : a memoir
Miller, Chanel, author.
364.1532 /Miller
"She was know to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford's campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral--viewed by almost eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways--there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life. "Know My Name" will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic." -- summary from book jacket.
The little prince
Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, 1900-1944.
jFICTION Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de
An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life.
Love in the time of cholera
García Márquez, Gabriel
FICTION Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs--yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.
The ministry for the future
Robinson, Kim Stanley, author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n84002790 http://viaf.org/viaf/44318934 http://isni.org/isni/0000000120248706
SCIENCE FICTION Robinson Kim
"From legendary science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Kim Stanley Robinson is one of contemporary science fiction's most acclaimed writers, and with this new novel, he once again turns his eye to themes of climate change, technology, politics, and the human behaviors that drive these forces. But his setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world--rather, he imagines a more hopeful future, one where humanity has managed to overcome our challenges and thrive. It is a novel both immediate and impactful, perfect for his many fans and for readers who crave powerful and thought-provoking sci-fi stories"--
The monster at the end of this book
Stone, Jon.
jE Sesame
Grover worries page by page about meeting the monster at the end of this book.
Nature poem
Pico, Tommy, author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2016159728 http://viaf.org/viaf/159148207808700341328
811.6 /Pico
"Nature Poem follows Teebs--a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet--who can't bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He'd slap a tree across the face. He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he's adamant--bratty, even--about his distaste for the word "natural," over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the "natural world," he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice."--Amazon.com.
The night circus
Morgenstern, Erin.
SCIENCE FICTION Morgenstern, Erin
Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.
On earth we're briefly gorgeous : a novel
Vuong, Ocean, 1988- author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2015067141 http://viaf.org/viaf/17145003693061340818 http://isni.org/isni/0000000453013913
FICTION Vuong Ocean
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"--
Pedro Páramo
Rulfo, Juan, author.
SPANISH FICTION Rulfo
"Vine a Comala porque me dijeron que acá vivía mi padre, un tal Pedro Páramo. Mi madre me lo dijo. Y yo le prometí que vendría a verlo en cuanto ella muriera". Obra maestra del universo literario en español, esta portentosa novela mexicana narra la historia de Pedro Páramo, un caudillo local de quien dependen la vida y la muerte de un pueblo, Comala, y del hijo que va a buscarlo porque así se lo prometió a su madre moribunda. El narrador, Juan Preciado, llega a un pueblo deshabitado pero lleno de susurros, y a través de estos conoce la destrucción que trajo la convulsa pasión de Pedro Páramo hacia Susana San Juan. Publicada en 1955 y aclamada por el público y la crítica, Pedro Páramo representa un cambio radical con la novela realista de la época. "No vayas a pedirle nada. Exígele lo nuestro. Lo que estuvo obligado a darme y nunca me dio ... El olvido en que nos tuvo, mi hijo, cóbraselo caro."--Back cover.
The library also has this book in English translation:/ La biblioteca también tiene este libro en traducción al inglés: https://search.icpl.org/Record/1305705?sid=12300209
- Hanna
A people's history of the United States
Zinn, Howard, 1922-2010, author.
973 /Zinn
"With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools--with its emphasis on great men in high places-- to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles--the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality--were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history."--
Prodigal summer
Kingsolver, Barbara. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n87839639 http://viaf.org/viaf/79097759 http://isni.org/isni/0000000121410517
FICTION Kingsolver, Barbara
The radium girls : the dark story of America's shining women
Moore, Kate (Writer and editor), author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2016062720 http://viaf.org/viaf/2050149198287274940004 http://isni.org/isni/0000000483376344
363.1799 /Moore
As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously ill. As the fatal poison of the radium took hold, they found themselves embroiled in one of America's biggest scandals and a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights. The Radium Girls explores the strength of extraordinary women in the face of almost impossible circumstances and the astonishing legacy they left behind.
Sister outsider : essays and speeches
Lorde, Audre, author.
814.54 /Lorde
Sister Outsider presents essential writings of black poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, an influential voice in 20th century literature. In this varied collection of essays, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, offering a message of struggle but also of hope. This commemorative edition is, in Lorde's own words, a call to "never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is. . . ."
Station eleven : a novel
Mandel, Emily St. John, 1979-
FICTION Mandel Emily
"An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, from the author of three highly acclaimed previous novels. One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it"--
There there : a novel
Orange, Tommy, 1982- author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2017063987 http://viaf.org/viaf/1150940090326602893 http://isni.org/isni/0000000476442614
FICTION Orange Tommy
Twelve Native Americans came to the Big Oakland Powwow for different reasons. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions--intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. Tommy Orange delivers a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. A multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people.
Three women
Taddeo, Lisa, author. http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/aut http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2018058126 http://viaf.org/viaf/4153953176905561293 http://isni.org/isni/0000000493392196
306.7082 /Taddeo
"We begin in suburban Indiana with Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. She passes her days cooking and cleaning for a man who refuses to kiss her on the mouth, protesting that "the sensation offends" him. To Lina's horror, even her marriage counselor says her husband's position is valid. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks. When she reconnects with an old flame through social media, she embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who finds a confidant in her handsome, married English teacher. By Maggie's account, supportive nightly texts and phone calls evolve into a clandestine physical relationship, with plans to skip school on her eighteenth birthday and make love all day; instead, he breaks up with her on the morning he turns thirty. A few years later, Maggie has no degree, no career, and no dreams to live for. When she learns that this man has been named North Dakota's Teacher of the Year, she steps forward with her story -- and is met with disbelief by former schoolmates and the jury that hears her case. The trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane -- a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner -- who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. He picks out partners for her alone or for a threesome, and she ensures that everyone's needs are satisfied. For years, Sloane has been asking herself where her husband's desire ends and hers begins. One day, they invite a new man into their bed, but he brings a secret with him that will finally force Sloane to confront the uneven power dynamics that fuel their lifestyle. Based on years of immersive reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today's America, exposing the fragility, complexity, and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power."--Dust jacket.
Whipping girl : a transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity
Serano, Julia, author.
306.768 /Serano
"In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl, Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist, shares her powerful experiences and observations -- both pre- and post-transition -- to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole. Serano's well-honed arguments stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. In this provocative manifesto, she exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this "feminine" weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire. In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activists must work to embrace and empower femininity -- in all of its wondrous forms."--provided by Amazon.com.
The library also has this book in the original Spanish./ La biblioteca también tiene este libro en el Español original.: https://search.icpl.org/Record/1796055?sid=12300209
- Hanna