23 Wednesday Jan 2019
Posted in Fiction
This spy novel, which has just been adapted as a miniseries on AMC, follows a young English actress who is recruited in 1983 to spy for Israel. The story offers some thought-provoking ideas on identity, along with a plot full of twists.
“A work of enormous power and artistry; no mere ‘entertainment’…but fiction on a grand scale.”—The Washington Post
“An irresistible book…Charlie is the ultimate double agent.”—The New York Times
12 Saturday Jan 2019
Posted in 20th century, Non-fiction
The Library Book by Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief, on the surface is a whodunnit. Who set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library on April 28, 1986? Why did he/she do it? What was the outcome? Orlean chronicles the investigation into the fire that reached 2000 degrees and destroyed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more. In addition, the author also tells the broader story of libraries and librarians as well as a fascinating social history of California.
Orlean has written a detective story that is a love letter not just to the Los Angeles Public Library, but to all public libraries and what they represent in a democratic society – a place for free access to information. Public libraries are a combination of a people’s university, a community hub, and an information base, happily partnered with the Internet rather than in competition with it. Public libraries are a government entity that is nonjudgmental, inclusive and fundamentally kind.
A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution—and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries—from the bestselling author hailed as a “national treasure” by TheWashington Post.
A WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
“A constant pleasure to read…Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book.” —The Washington Post
“CAPTIVATING…DELIGHTFUL.” —Christian Science Monitor * “EXQUISITELY WRITTEN, CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING.” —The New York Times * “MESMERIZING…RIVETING.” —Booklist (starred review)
04 Friday Jan 2019
Posted in 20th century, Biography, memoir, Non-fiction, United States
Tags
Brennan-Lisa Jobs (1978 - ), children of single parents, father and daughters, mothers and daughters, Northern California, Santa Clara Valley (CA), single parent families, social life and customs, Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
A tender coming of age story about a young girl trying to reconcile two very different lifestyles between her mother and father….. who just happens to be Steve Jobs. This is not a celebrity biography. She is true to her young voice throughout plus you will fall in love with her snapshots of 1970’s-80’s northern California.
“Entrancing… Brennan-Jobs is a deeply gifted writer… Her inner landscape is depicted in such exquisitely granular detail that it feels as if no one else could have possibly written it. Indeed, it has that defining aspect of a literary work: the stamp of a singular sensibility… Beautiful, literary, and devastating.”―New York Times Book Review
“Brennan-Jobs skillfully relays her past without judgement… staying true to her younger self. It is a testament to her fine writing and journalistic approach that her memoir never turns maudlin or gossipy. Rather than a celebrity biography, this is Brennan-Jobs’s authentic story of growing up in two very different environments, neither of which felt quite like home.”―Booklist (starred review)
“Brennan-Jobs’s narrative is tinged with awe, yearning, and disappointment… Bringing the reader into the heart of the child who admired Jobs’s genius, craved his love, and feared his unpredictability.”―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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