Reader's Choice: Ellen Shockro How to Read a Book by Monica Wood MILS catalog record “Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: How to Read a Book"

Reader's Choice: Kendra Chubbuck The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See MILS catalog record “Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their villages’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: The Island of Sea Women"

Reader's Choice: Anneli Sundqvist Enormous Changes at the Last Minute by Grace Paley MaineCat catalog record (SPL copy on order) “In this collection of short stories, originally published in 1974, Grace Paley ‘makes the novel as a form seem virtually redundant’ (Angela Carter, London Review of Books). Her stories here capture ‘the itch of the city, love between parents … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: Enormous Changes at the Last Minute"

Reader's Choice: Pat Dobbs American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang MILS catalog record “All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds he’s the only Chinese-American student at his school. • Born to rule over all the monkeys in the world, the story of the Monkey … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: American Born Chinese"

Reader's Choice: Sally McConnell The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen MILS catalog record “The Sympathizer is a blistering, award-winning exploration of identity, politics, and America, wrought in electric prose. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain, is a man of two minds and divided loyalties, a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist sleeper agent in America after the end of the Vietnam … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: The Sympathizer"