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Monthly Archives: September 2016

Blankets: an Illustrated Novel by Craig Thompson

26 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Graphic novel

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brothers, coming of age, families, first loves, sibling rivalry, teenage artists, teenage boys, winter, Wisconsin

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This lengthy but fast-moving graphic novel is a contemporary coming-of-age story set in the rural mid-west. The story centers on Craig, a lonely, sensitive boy growing up with his younger brother Phil in a Christian fundamentalist family. Craig’s childhood centers on home, school and church, and all are austere and forbidding places for him.  Cowed by his father’s harsh discipline, the strict teachings of his church and the bullies at school who target him because of his small frame and family’s modest circumstances, he matures into young adulthood undaunted by circumstance, drawing strength from his artistic talent and a first love.  Loosely based on the author’s life.

In telling his story, which includes beautifully rendered memories of the small brutalities that parents inflict upon their children and siblings upon each other, Thompson describes the ecstasy and ache of obsession (with a lover, with God) and is unafraid to suggest the ways that obsession can consume itself and evaporate. — The New York Times

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The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal ; translated from the French by Sam Taylor

21 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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organ donors, patients, psychological fiction, surfing, transplantation

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An immediate best seller in France for all of 2014!  And now the gift of an excellent translator has made it possible for us to experience the gorgeous prose and gripping story that takes place over just 24 hours.  After a fatal accident, the heart of 17 year old surfer, Simon Limbres, begins its own journey. The author unflinchingly presents us with the moral questions and the hour by hour complexity of life and death.  It is a memorable read that lingers long after the final page.

“I read The Heart in a single sitting. It is a gripping, deceptively simple tale―a death, a life resurrected―in which you follow along as everyone touched by the events is made to reveal what matters most to them in their lives. I was completely absorbed.” ―Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

“I’ve seldom read a more moving book . . . De Kerangal is a master of momentum, to the extent that when the book ends, the reader feels bereft. She shows that narratives around illness and pain can energize the nobler angels of our nature and make for profoundly lovely art. One longs for more.” ―Lydia Kiesling, The Guardian

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Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase by Louise Walters

12 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, mystery

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grandmothers, history, mystery, personal belongings, war stories, World War 1939-1945

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A well-read patron recommended this book to me.  I am glad she did!  Roberta, a used book shop sorter of books, has kept a collection of those peculiar things that fall out of donated books.  Then a letter to her own grandmother falls from a suitcase full of books left off by her father that puzzles her completely – dates, names, places all see very different from what she had always grown up knowing about her grandmother.  What did happen during those war years that no one living seems to recall?  Guaranteed: an unpredictable ending!

“A breathtaking, beautifully crafted tale of loves that survive secrets.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)

“Musty books, unrequited love, and old family secrets combine to create a crackling multigenerational saga infused with passion, pathos, and evocative WWII-era historical detail. Plenty of book-club and cinematic potential in this irresistible page-turner.” — Booklist

“A solid debut . . . [that] may appeal to those who have also liked bookishly romantic stories such as Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or Gabrielle Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.” – Library Journal

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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

07 Wednesday Sep 2016

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Future

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actors, adventure, time travel

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I still think about this book several months after reading it. The novel opens as a disease quickly spreads around the world and society collapses, then skips ahead twenty years to show the aftermath and the people that have survived. Focusing on a handful of characters, this is a powerful, beautifully written story.

“Soul-quaking. . . . Mandel displays the impressive skill of evoking both terror and empathy.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

 “Station Eleven is so compelling, so fearlessly imagined, that I wouldn’t have put it down for anything.”
— Ann Patchett

“A superb novel . . . [that] leaves us not fearful for the end of the word but appreciative of the grace of everyday existence.” —San Francisco Chronicle 

“Mandel delivers a beautifully observed walk through her book’s 21st century world…. I kept putting the book down, looking around me, and thinking, ‘Everything is a miracle.’”—Matt Thompson, NPR

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