The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Staff Pick

 Hiram Walker, the son of a black woman and her white master, is born a slave nonetheless in this imaginative rendering of life in antebellum Virginia. But it is the strength of his memories that kindles a special inner gift, the magic of conduction. In the much-anticipated first novel from Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hiram’s talent is used by agents of the Underground Railroad to bring runaway slaves north, and also to help bring families whole once again. This searing and ultimately uplifting story explores the constructs of family, real or artificial, and the power of memory to bind people together from afar.

 

 

 

 

The Water Dancer: A Novel By Ta-Nehisi Coates Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9780399590597
Availability: Not On Our Shelves—Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: One World - September 24th, 2019

Manhattan Beach - Jennifer Egan

Staff Pick

Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach (Scribner, $28) captures a time and place on the verge of momentous change. Set in Brooklyn in the 1940s, the novel tells the story of Anna Kerrigan, a young woman who has dropped out of Brooklyn College to contribute what she can to the American war effort. Unsatisfied with her job of inspecting and measuring machine parts, she attempts to enter the male-only world of deep-sea diving. Manhattan Beach is rich and atmospheric, highlighting a period when gangs controlled the waterfront, jazz streamed from the doors of nightclubs, and the future for everyone was far from certain.

Manhattan Beach: A Novel By Jennifer Egan Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9781476716732
Availability: Special Order—Subject to Availability
Published: Scribner - October 3rd, 2017

Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

Staff Pick

Shaker Heights is a perfectly planned town full of people with seemingly perfectly planned lives, but when Mia and her daughter Pearl move in they start a series of little fires, small rebellions, that shake the community to its core. Celeste Ng brilliantly explores the nature of art, family, and identity in her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (Penguin Press, $27). The writing is beautifully elegant and layered, and you’ll find yourself immediately swept up in the lives of the characters. At the heart of the story are four mothers: one whose carefully planned family was nearly derailed by a high-risk pregnancy and who watches her youngest daughter so carefully that she forgets to show her love; one who leaves her child at a firehouse to save her life in a hopeless moment; one who longs for a child and fears her chance will be snatched away before she can experience the wonder of motherhood; and one who made a dangerous choice to raise her child on her terms. Whether you are a mother or a child, the story of these women and their families will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Little Fires Everywhere By Celeste Ng Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9780735224292
Availability: Not On Our Shelves—Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Penguin Press - September 12th, 2017

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