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"

Reader's Choice: Shannon Lindsay Starter Villain by John Scalzi MILS catalog record (SPL copy on order) “Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place. Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, … Continue reading "Reader’s Choice: Starter Villain"