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Monthly Archives: April 2025

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

30 Wednesday Apr 2025

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Science fiction, United States

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authorship, fame, families, movement disorders, Nigerian Americans, Robots in literature, Science fiction, women with disabilities

Nnedi Okorafor is a prolific science fiction author whose books often incorporate her Nigerian heritage. This was my first time reading her, and I can see why she is an acclaimed, award-winning writer. Death of the Author is the story of Zelu, who achieves success after publishing a novel about robots (a book we also read throughout this story). Unable to walk from a childhood fall, Zelu begins to incorporate futuristic technology into her own life. A hard book to describe, but well worth the read! 

“There’s more vivid imagination in a page of Nnedi Okorafor’s work than in whole volumes.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

“Okorafor’s book bounces between the novel (about the writer) and the novel-within-the novel (about the robots), and the result is an ambitious blend of genres.” — NPR

“Nnedi Okorafor is so ferociously talented that we are starting to see she cannot be boxed into any category or genre. Her new novel, Death of the Author, is a deeply felt dazzle. A blaze. It is true deep to the bones.” — Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels

“A captivating Möbius strip of literary SF.” — Library Journal (starred review)

“[Her work is] irresistible to readers. Her nearly two dozen works of fiction have earned Okorafor a slew of honors—four Hugos, a Nebula, a World Fantasy Award. And a new generation of American storytellers who explicitly use their African heritage, history and mythology to inspire their work have followed in her wake, including Tomi Adeyemi, Ayana Gray, Jordan Ifueko and Namina Forna. . . . Connection is the heartbeat of Okorafor’s work.” — New York Times, 12 African Artists Leading a Culture Renaissance Around the World

“Okorafor explores what it means to be human. . . . All-out Okorafor – her best yet.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Death of the Author explores . . . conservationism, Africanfuturism, and what a world without humans could look like. The focus on the near future and the issues that Zelu faces give the postapocalyptic Rusted Robots a greater urgency. Her desire to live life on her own terms will engage readers who love to watch protagonists grow. Highly recommended for fans of Octavia Butler, Nicky Drayden, and Tade Thompson. . . . [Okarofor’s] latest book-within-a-book will attract genre and literary fiction fans alike.” — Booklist(starred review)

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Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis

23 Wednesday Apr 2025

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Federal Bureau of Investigation, Non-fiction, United States

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Bureau of Labor Statistics, civil service, Department of Justice, Department of Labor, essays, Food and Drug Administration, Internal Revenue Service, NASA, National Archives, National Cemetery Administration

Don’t let the bland cover fool you.  This was a fascinating read.  My favorite chapters were the cybercrime/bitcoin stellar work of the IRS career man, the coal mine inventor working for the Labor Department, and the jet propulsion researcher at NASA. But not one chapter disappointed. A+ read!

“Perhaps never before has there been a book better timed or more urgent.” —Washington Post

“Michael Lewis has this incredible ability to zoom in on one person’s story, and from there reveals something much bigger about our culture. His books leave you seeing the world differently, and his books about federal workers are no exception.” —Katie Couric

“A spirited rebuttal to the canard that federal civil servants are nest-featherers up to no good. . . .

All the contributions. . . press the point that the government’s work is useful—and no one else but government workers are likely to do it. Compelling arguments against ideologues bent on dismantling the government.” —Kirkus Reviews

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Going Home by Ted Lamont

14 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in England, Fiction, Humor

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death, families, fatherhood, Jews, London (England), toddlers

Not often do we find a book that nails male friendship…..spot on….and so funny!  

“Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men—all of whom are completely ill-suited for fatherhood—take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss” –  Amazon

“A trio of unlikely British men are tasked with unexpected fatherhood duties in the care of a delightfully inquisitive 4-year-old named Joel. The novel’s unforgettable characters and emphasis on caregiving and friendship spread a poignant and joyful message.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“There is so much to love about this book, foremost the poignantly, sometimes painfully detailed portrait of 30-something guys….Joel himself—his way of speaking, his tantrums, his predilections, his memory—is one of the most vivid fictional children since Jack in Room….Their synagogue has a new rabbi, a woman named Sibyl Challis, who is also the best rabbi character in recent memory….A great premise, a great story, but most of all, great characters.”—Kirkus (starred review)

“Funny and poignant, bittersweet and moving…. Going Home made me cry on more than one occasion, and laugh out loud many more times. It’s a terrific reminder that what binds us to our loved ones isn’t blood but the care we take to keep them close, and our ability to show up for them when we screw it up on the first go-round.”—Isaac Fitzgerald, The New York Times

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From Here to the Great Unknown: a Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

07 Monday Apr 2025

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, memoir, Non-fiction, United States

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autobiographies, biography, Lisa Marie Presley 1968-2023, mother's death, mothers and daughters, Riley Keough 1989-, singers, United States

Before she died, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter Riley Keough to help write her autobiography. After Lisa Marie passed, Riley used hours of her mother’s recordings to complete the book. Without knowing much about the Presley family before reading this, I was moved by Lisa’s story and her family bonds. I recommend the audiobook.

“Instead of tap dancing around the hard parts, we’re drilling into the bedrock. We hear less from Presley and more from Keough, who comes across as level headed, valiant and kind. . . . Keough approaches the episode with respectful levity, the best tool available to members of a dysfunctional family. . . . Presley still gets a word in here and there, and these passages show how determined she was to stand up to her demons.”—The New York Times

“When her actor daughter, Riley Keough, writes that she wants Lisa Marie to emerge from the pages of the memoir as a ‘three-dimensional character’, she’s not kidding . . . it’s clear that Presley was nothing if not radically honest. It’s also striking how Keough seems to almost plead with the reader to understand and love her mother as much as she does. Ultimately, this is a book built on grief: Lisa Marie Presley’s for her father and son, but also a daughter’s for her mother.”—The Guardian

“The book is of two minds: It’s an unadorned, conversational memoir that’s more matter of fact than gossipy, little interested in preserving what her father’s biographer Peter Guralnick once called ‘the dreary bondage of myth.’ And it’s a frank, almost unbearably heavy meditation on grief. . . . Stunningly candid . . . Both women write gracefully about the unbearable, immovable heaviness of grief. Keough’s portrait of her mother in her final months is especially indelible. ‘I had mistakenly thought she was so strong-minded that nothing could ever truly hobble her,’ she writes. ‘But of course it could. Enough pain can hobble anyone.’”—The Washington Post

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