The Book Rescuer: How a Mensch from Massachusetts Saved Yiddish Literature for Generations to Come. by Sue Macy
School Library Journal Gr 1–4—Aaron Lansky could not forget what his grandmother told him as a child. At the age of 16, she immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. In his twenties, Lansky decided to find out more about his grandmother's stories, which set him on a journey to learn how to speak and read Yiddish and to also locate Yiddish books. The result is the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA. Lansky's story is a fascin...More
Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez Neal
School Library Journal PreS-Gr 2-It's said there's a story behind every name and Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela is surely a moniker worthy of six tales. After complaining that her name is so long that it "never fits," Alma's father shares stories with the girl about the people she's been named after, including a book lover, an artist, and a deeply spiritual woman, among others. Martinez-Neal, the recipient of the 2018 Pur...More
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by Kadir Nelson
Publishers Weekly As in We Are the Ship, Nelson knits together the nation's proudest moments with its most shameful, taking on the whole of African-American history, from Revolutionary-era slavery up to the election of President Obama. He handles this vast subject with easy grace, aided by the voice of a grandmotherly figure who's an amalgam of voices from Nelson's own family. She does not gloss over the sadness and outrage of her family...More
Library Journal It's post-World War II, and Alaska has become the homeland for the Jews (as Franklin D. Roosevelt actually proposed). There, the murder of a former chess prodigy sends Det. Meyer Landsman on a hunt that leads back to the formidable Rebbe Gold. Chabon's first full-length adult novel since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; with a ten-city tour. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Book list *Starred Review* Pynchon's debut novel, V., appeared 50 years ago, and ever since he's been tracking dubious covert actions and the arc and consequences of technology in novels of labyrinthine complexity, impish wit, and open-armed compassion. Of late, his inquiry has taken the form of rambunctious and penetrating crime novels. Inherent Vice (2009), currently being adapted for film, is set in 1960s Los Angeles and features a pothead PI a...More
Publishers Weekly In this doorstopper biography, Moser (Why This: A Biography of Clarice Lispector), for whom Susan Sontag was "America's last great literary star," exhaustively and sometimes exhaustingly chronicles his subject's life. Between recounting Sontag's birth to a prosperous Manhattan couple in 1933 and her death from cancer in 2004, Moser fully details her prolific career as an author of novels, plays, films, and, most not...More
Book list In his latest novel, Crace (author of Quarantine, 1998) archly explores life and death and the effect of chance upon the two. From the very beginning we learn that Celice and Joseph, two married, middle-aged zoologists, are murder victims. From there the book moves backward and forward in time, changing points of view along the way, to show why they came to be where they were when they were murdered and what happened after their deaths. Thus, we...More
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