A biweekly selection from our shelves, as curated by your favorite SPL librarians!
For the week of October 25, 2022: Fiction | Nonfiction | Graphic Novels | Movies/TV, Music & More
Fiction
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Brothers of the Wind by Tad Williams
Two princes of the immortal Sithi-beloved Hakatri and mercurial Ineluki-are bound by pride and love in their quest to slay the greatest of the monstrous dragons, as Ineluki has vowed to do, this traps Hakatri in a never-ending cycle of indescribable pain and prophetic dreams, while Ineluki is destroyed by guilt and self-hatred for his role in his brother's agony. |
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Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah
A moving and deeply engaging debut novel about a young Native American man finding strength in his familial identity, from a stellar new voice in fiction. |
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The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory and the Oprah's Book Club selection Bewilderment comes Richard Powers's The Echo Maker, a powerful novel about family and loss. |
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Heckin' Lewd
If you've been searching for smutty, fearless, gender diverse erotica written by affirming own-voices folks who get it, then this is the book you've been looking for! |
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Human Blues by Elisa Albert
Aviva Rosner is at a crossroads. Her fourth album is about to be released--and her manager says it's going to be big. But Aviva is focused on getting pregnant, which she can't seem to do. How far will she go to have a child? Is that what she really wants? And what about her music, and her growing obsession with Amy Winehouse? |
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Panics: Stories by Barbara Molinard
A haunting, bizarre short story collection about violence, mental illness, and the warped contradictions of the twentieth-century female experience. |
Nonfiction
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Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin
An exuberant, opinionated, stereotype-busting view of contemporary Africa in all its splendid diversity by one of its leading new writers. A lively and diverse continent of fifty-four countries, over two thousand languages, and 1.4 billion people, Africa has long been painted with a broad brush in Western literature, media, and culture, flattening it into a monolith. In Africa is Not a Country, the acclaimed journalist Dipo Faloyin boldly counters the stereotypes and highlights the realities of Africa's communities and histories. |
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Black Skinhead: Reflections on Blackness and Our Political Future by Brandi Collins-Dexter
While Black Skinhead is an outward look at Black votership and electoral politics, it is also a funny, deeply personal, and introspective look at Black culture and identity, ultimately revealing a Black America that has become deeply disillusioned with the failed promises of its country. |
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Bodies on the Line: At the Front Lines of the Fight to Protect Abortion in America by Lauren Rankin
With precision and passion, Lauren Rankin traces the history and evolution of this movement to tell a broader story of the persistent threats to safe and legal abortion access, and the power of individuals to stand up and fight back. Deeply researched, featuring interviews with clinic staff, patients, experts, and activists--plus the author's own experience as a clinic escort--Bodies on the Line reframes the "abortion wars," highlighting the power of people to effect change amid unimaginable obstacles, and the unprecedented urgency of channeling that power. |
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The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation's Golden Age by Jake S. Friedman
Using never-before-seen research from previously lost records, including conversation transcriptions from within the studio walls, author and historian Jake S. Friedman reveals the details behind the labor dispute that changed animation and Hollywood forever. |
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Esmond and Ilia: An Unreliable Memoir by Marina Warner
By one of the finest English writers of our time, a luminous memoir that travels from southern Italy to the banks of the Nile, capturing a lost past both personal and historical. |
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The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher
From preeminent LGBTQ scholar, social critic, and journalist Steven W. Thrasher comes a powerful and crucial exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our times: how viruses expose the fault lines of society. |
Graphic Novels
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Hakim's Odyssey: Book 3: From Macedonia to France by Fabien Toulmé
By turns heart-warming and heart-wrenching, this final installment in the Hakim's Odyssey trilogy follows Hakim and his son as they make their way from Macedonia to the south of France. Based on true events, it lays bare the tremendous effects that the policies of wealthy countries and the attitudes of their people have on the lives of the displaced and dispossessed. |
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Pretending Is Lying by Dominique Goblet
In a series of dazzling fragments-skipping through time, and from raw, slashing color to delicate black-and-white-Dominique Goblet examines the most important relationships in her life- with her partner, Guy Marc; with her daughter, Nikita; and with her parents. |
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She-Hulk by Rogê Antônio & Luca Maresca
Jennifer Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk, is no longer savage--and now she needs to put her life back together. She's got a legal career to rebuild, friends to reacquaint herself with (and maybe represent in a court of law), and enemies to--well, she may not want to connect with them, but they are definitely going to connect with her. And Jen is about to be sent down a road she's never traveled--one that will shake up her life--and possibly the whole Marvel Universe! |
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Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser
From writer Jamila Rowser and artist Robyn Smith comes a captivating graphic novel love letter to the beauty and endurance of Black women, their friendships, and their hair. |
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Where Black Stars Rise by Nadia Shammas
Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger's Where Black Stars Rise is an eldritch horror graphic novel that explores mental illness and diaspora, set in modern-day Brooklyn. |
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World Record Holders by Guy Delisle
World Record Holders ranges from wistful childhood nostalgia to chagrined post-fame encounters, touching on formally ambitious visual puns and gut-busting what-ifs. Delisle again and again shows how life is both exhilarating and embarrassing. |
Movies/TV, Music & More
Movies/TV
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Black Friday by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett Format: DVD On Thanksgiving night, a group of disgruntled toy store employees begrudgingly arrive for work to open the store at midnight for the busiest shopping day of the year. Meanwhile, an alien parasite crashes to Earth in a meteor. This group of misfits led by store manager Jonathan and longtime employee Ken soon finds themselves battling against hordes of holiday shoppers who have been turned into monstrous creatures hellbent on a murderous rampage on Black Friday. |
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Scream by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett Format: DVD Twenty-five years after the original series of killings in Woodsboro, a new killer has emerged to resurrect secrets from the past. |
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Settlers by Wyatt Rockefeller Format: DVD Mankind's earliest settlers on the Martian frontier, llsa and Reza inhabit a desolate farmstead with their child Remmy. They work the land and shield their daughter from the dangers of the harsh surroundings. When hostile intruders threaten to expel them from the compound the family is forced to fight to survive in this science-fiction thrill ride. |
Music
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Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album by Hasaan Ibn Ali Format: CD Record in 1965 but was never released due to the artist's arrest for drug possession. The original recording was destroyed in a fire during the 1970's but a back up copy was later found in 2017. |
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Remember Her Name by Mickey Guyton Format: CD Mickey Guyton's debut album that centers around the setbacks that the artist has expereinced over her life. |
& More
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Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone Format: Spoken CD Tautly wound and expertly crafted, Two Nights in Lisbon is a riveting thriller about a woman under pressure, and how far she will go when everything is on the line. With sparkling prose and razor-sharp insights, bestselling author Chris Pavone delivers a stunning and sophisticated international thriller that will linger long after the surprising final page. |