A biweekly selection from our shelves, as curated by your favorite SPL librarians!
For the week of April 12, 2022: Fiction | Nonfiction | Graphic Novels | Movies/TV, Music & More
Fiction
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All Day Is a Long Time by David Sanchez
For fans of Denis Johnson and Ocean Vuong: A captivating, searing, and ultimately redemptive debut novel about coming of age on Florida's drug-riddled Gulf Coast and the enigmatic connection between memory and self. |
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Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black
On his deathbed, a dying black man writes a letter to his estranged, gay son and shares with him the truth that lives in his heart and tries to create a place where the pair can find peace. |
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Hot and Sour Suspects: A Noodle Shop Mystery by Vivien Chien
Lana Lee returns for another delectable cozy set in a Chinese restaurant in Vivien Chien's Hot and Sour Suspects. |
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The Last Suspicious Holdout by Ladee Hubbard
A collection of short stories captures powerful and poignant moments in everyday lives of African American families, friends, and neighbors in the years spanning from the beginning of the Clinton presidency to the eve of Barack Obama's election. |
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The Wind Whistling in the Cranes by Lídia Jorge
Exquisitely translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Annie McDermott, The Wind Whistling in the Cranes tells the story of the landlords and tenants of a derelict canning factory outside of Lisbon: the wealthy, always-scheming Leandros, and the warm Matas from Cape Verde, who have made a new home amongst machinery untouched since the Carnation Revolution. |
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The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper
Sold by her impoverished mother. Enslaved in an infamous brothel in Pompeii. Determined to fight for her freedom at all costs. . . . Enter into the Wolf Den. |
Nonfiction
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The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir by Karen Cheung
A boldly rendered-and deeply intimate-account of Hong Kong today, from a resilient young woman whose stories explore what it means to survive in a city teeming with broken promises. |
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My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World's Deadliest Migration Route by Sally Hayden
The Western world has turned its back on migrants, leaving them to cope with one of the most devastating humanitarian crises in history. |
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The 9. 9 Percent: The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture by Matthew Stewart
A trenchant analysis of how the wealthiest 9.9 percent of Americans -- those just below the tip of the wealth pyramid -- have exacerbated the growing inequality in our country and distorted our social values. |
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Toxic Positivity: Keeping It Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy by Whitney Goodman
A powerful guide to owning our emotions--even the difficult ones--in order to show up authentically in the world, from the popular therapist behind the Instagram account @sitwithwhit. |
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We Are the Land: A History of Native California by Damon B. Akins and William J. Bauer, Jr.
Before there was such a thing as "California," there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. We Are the Land is the first and most comprehensive text of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. |
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You Will Get Through This Night by Daniel Howell
A practical guide to taking control of your mental health for today, tomorrow, and the days after, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and beloved entertainer. |
Graphic Novels
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Fine: A Comic about Gender by Rhea Ewing
Graphic artist Rhea Ewing celebrates the incredible diversity of experiences within the transgender community with this vibrant and revealing debut. For fans of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and Meg-John Barker's Queer, Fine is an essential graphic memoir about the intricacies of gender identity and expression. |
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Heaven No Hell by Michael DeForge
Heaven No Hell collects DeForge's best work yet. His ability to dig into a subject and break it down with beautiful drawings and sharp writing makes him one of the finest short story writers of the past decade, in comics or beyond. Heaven No Hell is always funny, sometimes sad, and continuously innovative in its deconstruction of society. |
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Iranian Love Stories by Jane Deuxard
A series of vignettes, in graphic novel format, that explore the lives of ten young Iranian men and women from diverse backgrounds. |
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Made in Korea by Jeremy Holt
A Korean nine-year-old named Jesse is adopted and sent to live with a lovely couple in America. Equipped with a seemingly encyclopedic brain but socially awkward, the young girl's journey through the complexities of race, gender, and identity hits a fork in the road when she discovers she's not entirely human...yet. Adolescence just got a lot more emotional for the world's first true A.I. system. |
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The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V.
Humanity is on the verge of discovering immortality. The avatar of Death is cast down to Earth to live a mortal life in Mumbai as twenty-something Laila Starr. Will Laila take her chance to stop mankind from permanently altering the cycle of life? |
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The Silver Coin, Volume 1
The story starts with a failing rock band whosefortune changes overnight when they find the mysterious silver coin. Next, ithelps handle some mean girls at sleep-away camp. Follow the curious token as itchanges hands over centuries--from Puritan New England to the scavengedjunklands of 2467--and discover how much pain a cursed coin can purchase. |
Movies/TV, Music & More
Movies/TV
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Kevin Can F... Himself. Season 1 by Anna Dokoza and Oz Rodriguez Format: DVD Allison McRoberts' life feels like a sitcom when her self-centered husband, Kevin, is around -- he never considers the consequences of his actions and most of the people in his life let him be the center of their universe. When Allison learns that the better future she envisioned is impossible, she makes a plan to take back control of her life. |
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One Night in Miami by Regina King Format: Blu-Ray A fictional account of one amazing night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their roles in the Civil Rights Movement and cultural turmoil of the '60s. |
Music
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The Complete Piano Concertos by Stewart Goodyear Format: CD Following the success of his previous Orchid Classics albums, Stewart Goodyear returns with his spirited, insightful interpretation of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos, recorded with Andrew Constantine conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for a release that coincides with Beethovens 250th anniversary year. |
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The Horses and the Hounds by James McMurtry Format: CD The acclaimed songwriter backs personal narratives with effortless elegance and endless energy. This first collection in seven years spotlights a seasoned tunesmith in peak form as he turns toward reflection and revelation. |
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New Standards by Kenny G Format: CD With 2021's elegant New Standards, saxophonist Kenny G wryly inserts himself into the pantheon of American Popular Songbook composers performing and writing songs that feel as if they were written during the heyday of traditional pop in the '50s and '60s. |
& More
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Dava Shastri's Last Day by Kirthana Ramisetti Format: Spoken CD After receiving a brain cancer diagnosis, wealthy Dava Shastri leaks news of her death early so she can examine her legacy--a decision that horrifies her children and exposes a lifetime of secrets. |