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Feeling Blue for the Blue Covered Book

by LibraryLiz

So, again - this one time at the library...there was that book you saw on a shelf, with a blue cover, that caught your eye. But, once again, you had to pass it by. Well, if you find yourself in need of that long lost spark of interest, I maybe, perhaps, might have the book for you! I've found it important to the readers and long-lost book interests to create a second list of books that have, or have had, blue covers - whether or not their most recent editions have blue covers now, they did at some point! Plus, this list is welcome to all kinds of blue covers...

Whether it be a deep blue of the world-wide sensation Outlander, a sky-blue, with clouds included, of the book A Long Way Down, or perhaps a blue-grey of the best-seller turned film All the Light We Cannot See, all blues are welcome on this compilation list. But this list isn't just for the adults on the interwebs! There's also a wide age range available for the younger reader feeling blue...

Be it from the Teen section like Stargirl, King's Cage, or maybe Stormbreaker this list has many blue bindings that you might have left on the shelf for a later date. Even the youth may have left an enchanting book resting on it's display, such as The Warden's Daughter or Ready, Set, Build!. This list also provides you with options from every genre in the library...

Maybe you were passing by the express shelf and snuck a peek at A Great Reckoning or Here's To Us? Maybe browsing through the fantasy section to find A Discovery of Witches? Could have been possibly perusing Mystery and seen The Big Overnight on the shelf? What about the non-fiction readers, who may have strolled through the stacks seeing covers that advertised self improvement or a conservation crisis!

This list has ALL THE THINGS (or would like to have) and is growing each day!!! Please feel free to take a look, and make comments of other blue-covered books you think others may be searching for, so the list can continue to grow! Just think: someone out there could be looking for a blue book jacket that you've read before - maybe you have the answer they've been looking for as the search the numerous volumes of AADL. Or perhaps you yourself have been searching, and the book is in this list already!!! Only one way to find out!

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #643 Spotlight on Speculative Fiction

by muffy

Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death on July 18, The Jane Austen Project * by Kathleen Flynn asks: "Given the chance, what would one give up so that Jane could live?"

Carefully selected and rigorously trained by The Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics, 2 time-travelers from the future arrive in 1815 London with specific goals - to find Austen's rumored unfinished novel The Watsons; and to determine the cause of her death in 1817, without altering the course of history.

Rachel Katzman, a disaster-relief physician and Liam Finucane, an actor-turned-scholar pose as Dr. William Ravenswood and his sister Mary, wealthy plantation owners just arrived from the West Indies and successfully insinuate themselves into the lives of the Austen clan by charming Henry, Jane's favorite brother.

As Rachel's friendship with Jane deepens over the course of the year and the unpublished manuscript is within reach, Rachel and Liam struggle with their directive to leave history intact, exactly as they found it. With the portal to return to the future about to close, Rachel must make difficult choices - including whether she would allow Jane's fatal illness to remain undiagnosed.

(Debut novelist and New York Times editor) "Flynn skillfully delves into the later years of Austen's life in a way that is sure to please admirers of the 19th-century novelist, as well as providing a fascinating dollop of plot invention and a heartbreaking romance between the two protagonists." (Library Journal)

Fans of time-travel and romance would enjoy the series by Julie McElwain that opens with A Murder in Time; and All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai.

Fans of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2014) and Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars (2012) would find much to like in The Space Between the Stars, Anne Corlett's debut.

Veterinarian researcher Jamie Allenby survives a virus that nearly wiped out humanity throughout the galaxy to find herself alone in a distant planet called Soltaire. Jamie soon meets up with other survivors, and together this ragtag group is rescued by a passing ship, heading back to Earth, and to Daniel, her estranged boyfriend whom Jamie believes, might have survived the virus as well.

However, once back on Earth, some of the fellow survivors reveal themselves to be not as they seem. Secret agendas and deadly intents if unconstrained, will have serious repercussions for the future of mankind. Jamie must take matters into her own hand.

"Corlett offers a thoughtful examination of how individuals find meaning and fulfillment in the face of an apocalyptic event then wraps up with a thrilleresque ending." (Boolist)

* = starred review

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #642, Spotlight on Women's Fiction

by muffy

The Garden of Small Beginnings * by Abbi Waxman is a story of loss but also the joy of second chances.

It has been three year since Lilian watched her husband died in a car accident 50 feet from her front door. After a breakdown and hospitalization, she is back at her job as a textbook illustrator in a small LA publishing house, and making a life with her two young daughters, Annabel and Clare.

With the industry downturn, she could save the company by branching out to illustrate a new series on vegetable gardening. Having agreed to take a 6-weeks Saturday morning gardening class with the author, Edward Bloem, "(m)any life lessons are learned in the garden, and not just by Lilian."

"The plot is straightforward, but it is Waxman’s skill at characterization that lifts this novel far above being just another "widow finds love” story. Clearly an observer, Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue as well. Characters ring true right down to Lilian’s two daughters, who often steal the show." (Kirkus Review)

For readers who are charmed by such titles as Good Grief, Heat Wave; Lost Lake, and recent debuts like Happy People Read & Drink Coffee and Angelina's Bachelors.

Gail Honeyman's debut Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine * is a "smart, warm, uplifting" story about a young woman's journey toward wholeness.

Scarred inside and out, 29 year-old Eleanor aspires to be unremarkable and normal all her adult life. An accounting clerk at a small Glasgow graphic design firm, her lack of social skills makes her the butt of office jokes. She finds comfort in strict routines, solitude, copious amount of vodka on the weekends, and will insist to all who care to inquire that she is "completely fine".

Almost simultaneously Eleanor falls for a gorgeous, out-of-her-league bar singer and begins an almost frenzied (and hilarious) self-improvement program, while striking up a tentative friendship with Raymond, the slovenly IT guy after they saved Sammy, an elderly retired postal clerk on the street. The three become the kind of friends who rescue each other from the lives of isolation, and it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

"Walking in Eleanor’s practical black Velcro shoes is delightfully amusing, her prudish observations leavened with a privately puckish humor. But readers will also be drawn in by her tragic backstory, which slowly reveals how she came to be so entirely Eleanor. Witty, charming, and heartwarming." (Booklist)

For readers of Jojo Moyes and Helen Simonson.

* = Starred review

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Seeing Red...Or Saw it Once...

by LibraryLiz

This one time at the library...there was that book you saw on a shelf, with a red cover, that piqued your interest - but, for whatever reason, you had to pass it by. Well now! If you find yourself hankering for that long lost spark of interest, I may have the book for you! I've recently been compelled to create a list of books that have, or have had, red covers - whether or not their most recent editions have red covers now, they did at some point! Plus, this list is welcome to all kinds of red covers...

Whether it be a fire-engine red of the debut novel Push, a pinkish-red hue of the biography Georgia, or perhaps an orange-red of the best-seller turned film The Circle, all reds are welcome on this compilation list. But this list isn't just for the adults on the internets! There's also a wide age range available for the younger reader seeing red...

Be it from the Teen section like Ruby Red, The Burning Bridge, or maybe Eldest this list has many red hot reads that you might have left on the shelf for a later date. Even the youth may have left an enchanting book resting on it's display, such as The Battle of the Labyrinth. This list also provides you with options from every genre in the library...

Maybe you were browsing through Science Fiction and found Red Rising or Ready Player One? Could have been possibly perusing Mystery and seen False Picture on the shelf? What about the non-fiction readers, who may have browsed through the stacks seeing covers that advertised career development or scientific marvels!

This list has ALL THE THINGS (or would like to have) and is growing each day!!! Please feel free to take a look, and make comments of other red-covered books you think others may be searching for, so the list can continue to grow! Just think: someone out there could be looking for a red-covered jacket that you've read before - maybe you have the answer they've been looking for as the search the numerous volumes we have here at AADL. Or perhaps you yourself have been searching, and the book is in this list already!!! Only one way to find out!

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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #640 Love in Any Language

by muffy

Winner of the prestigious Prix Renaudot in 1988 and available for the first time in English (translated from the French by Kaiama L. Glover), Hadriana in All My Dreams * * * by Rene Depestre, combines magic, fantasy, eroticism, and delirious humor to explore universal questions of race and sexuality.

Set in the coastal town of Jacmel (the author's hometown) during the carnival season of 1938, when Hadriana Siloé, a sensuous pale-skinned Creole woman, collapses at her wedding altar. Two days later, when her corpse goes missing from her grave, zombification is suspected and it is feared that she had earlier taken a mysterious potion. Before we could hear directly from Hadriana herself, this traumatic event is observed from different angles - the locals are convinced a local villain, Balthazar Granchire is to blame, having been turned into an ugly butterfly by his sorcerer father, for his relentless lechery. Patrick, one of Hadriana’s many young admirers, narrates much of the novel, acting as a surrogate for the now-90-year-old Depestre, showing himself throughout to be a true savant on all things zombie.

"The truth of Hadriana’s fate proves more poignant than horrifying, but in Depestre’s hands, this incident is a touchstone of a culture in which distinctions between the empirical and spiritual are obscured, and whose traditional celebrations and beliefs introduce an element of the mythic into the everyday. Eroticism and humor course through his narrative." (Publishers Weekly)

Season of Crimson Blossoms * by writer and journalist Abubaker Adam Ibrahim, won the 2016 NLNG Prize for Literature, one of the world's richest ($100,000) literary prizes. Set in Northern Nigeria, it is the story of an illicit affair between a devout widow and a young gang leader.

55 year-old Binta Zubairu, a devout Muslim, a widow and grandmother met the 25 year-old Hassan Reza, a street gang leader when he scaled her fence and robbed her at knife point. Mysteriously, most of the stolen goods were returned, and when Reza appeared to apologize, the two were overcome by their inexplicable desire and began an illicit romance that brought on disastrous consequences.

"A powerful and compelling debut. The taboo subject of an older woman's sexuality, portrayed with courage, skill and delicacy, is explored in the context of the criminal underworld and the corrupt politics that exploits it. This is a novel to be savoured. " ~ Zoe Wicomb

* * * = 3 starred reviews

* = starred review

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Pulitzer Prize Winners 2017

by lucroe

The esteemed Pulitzer Prizes have been awarded for 2017 and they should all be required reading. Here is the list:

Fiction: Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: picking up numerous awards besides the Pulitzer, including the National Book Award & the Carnegie Medal. At the top of many best book of the year lists for 2016. Whitehead chronicles two runaway slave's trials as they attempt to allude their captors with allegories that resound into the present day.

General Nonfiction: Evicted by Matthew Desmond: additional honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Carnegie Medal, & PEN award. Desmond followed 8 families in Milwaukee struggling with poverty.

History: Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson: another that picked up numerous accolades and awards for telling the incredible story of the uprisings as well as the aftermath

Bio/Autobiography: The return by Hisham Matar: a deeply moving portrait of the author's continued hope of finding his father alive after his mysterious disappearance in Libya

Poetry: by Tyehimba Jess: Multiple award winning poet and Detroit native, Jess, deserves an even bigger following with this fascinating collection of poetry and narrative

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The Unlikelies

by potterbee

Soon to hit the shelves this June is a story to start the summer about five diverse teens who form an unlikely alliance.

With her best friend headed of to camp and college, high school senior Sadie is bracing herself for a long, lonely, and boring summer. Things take an unexpected turn when she rescues a baby in distress and a video of her good deed goes viral. Suddenly internet-famous, Sadie's summer changes for the better when she's introduced to other "hometown heroes." These very different teens work together to right local wrongs and do good in their community.

This second and anticipated book from Carrie Firestone delves into issues that impact teens daily lives from bullying, body shaming, cyber group behaviors, and addressing the horrors and destruction of heroin addiction. The story maintains positive themes while dealing with such serious issues and is regarded as similar to stories like The Breakfast Club and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. Firestone weaves a rich story using humor and romance in a style consistent with her first novel adored by readers, The Loose Ends List.

A captivating read for fans of Young Adult fiction, readers will find plenty to relate and aspire to as the kids attempt to better the world and confront their own struggles with love, loyalty, and friendship.

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Saints for All Occasions

by Lucy S

In a review in The Washington Post, Ron Charles says, “In a simple style that never commits a flutter of extravagance, Sullivan draws us into the lives of the Raffertys and, in the rare miracle of fiction, makes us care about them as if they were our own family.”

Though the plot of her new book, Saints for All Occasions, takes place over the course of only a few days, J. Courtney Sullivan carries us back and forth through time with the story of two sisters, Nora and Theresa, as they emigrate from Ireland to Boston in the 1950s, and the separate paths they follow once they arrive. Once in Boston, Theresa becomes pregnant and Nora and her husband raise the child as their own. This deception creates a rift between the sisters and lays the ground work for many more secrets within multiple generations of their family.

It is Nora’s story that lies at the heart of this book, even as she only ever seems to know who she is in relation to others, a wife to her husband, a mother to her children, and most challengingly, a sister to Theresa. Nora would like life to follow a plan, with her at it’s helm, but people are messy and they disappoint and confound her, remaining unknowable to her. Nora conveniently seems to forget parts of her life that don’t fit into her imagined order and thus becomes mired in deceit. As the mother of four children, Nora must manage how much she actually wants to know about the people she has raised. “This, then, was the hardest part of being a parent. Your children had their private worlds, where you could never protect them. They were yours and yet not yours.”

Nora’s sister, Theresa, ends up in a convent in Vermont and becomes Mother Cecilia. She initially goes there to escape, but what she finds in herself as a nun gives her more happiness than Nora will ever know. “To sit alone with your thoughts in silence for so long, you had no choice but to confront them. The calm came not from slipping a habit over one’s head but from facing down all that plagued you and coming out the other side.”

Sullivan delves into weighty issues such as religion, birth-control, family, love, loss, and addiction, without ever getting too heavy-handed or sentimental. She carries us along through the strength of her characters, so that they will stick with us, even after the last page.

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Ramona Blue

by potterbee

Julie Murphy is back with a new novel, Ramona Blue, a story about a strong, marginalized teen doing her best to make sense of who she is.

Ramona Leroux is a 6 foot 3, blue-haired, gay teen who lives in a FEMA trailer with her dad and sister, Hattie, in Eulogy, Mississippi. Things aren't looking so stellar for Ramona after her dreamy summer romance comes to an end, and her grand plans to leave Eulogy don't look quite as likely when her family suddenly needs her more than ever. But when her childhood friend, Freddie, moves back to town, their reconnection brings more than either of them ever expected.

Author of Dumplin’, Murphy is familiar with navigating the world of girls on the brink of self-discovery. In Ramona Blue, she addresses how we use labels and identity markers for defining the relationships we engage in. With coming of age to adulthood labels change and it's challenging to redefine who were and who we are now. Heartfelt, humorous, fun and sure to be a must-read for teens and fans of YA fiction.

A recent interview with the author can be found in current issue of Book Pages.

An exquisite, thoughtful exploration of the ties that bind and the fluidity of relationships, sexuality, and life.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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More Than an Audiobook

by Lucy S

Narrated by George Saunders, Nick Offerman, David Sedaris and various others
7 Hours and 30 Minutes

Lincoln in the Bardo might well be on your hold list already. George Saunders’, first novel has received much publicity and praise, rightly so. But have you considered listening to the audio version? Even if you aren’t normally drawn to books on CD, this one is more theatrical production than novel. Read by a cast of some 166 people, many famous voices among them, George Saunders’ story brings to mind Our Town, A Christmas Carol, and As I Lay Dying. The cast does a stellar job in delivering a beautifully read, moving, intelligent, and highly entertaining performance.

Two main plot lines run through Lincoln in the Bardo. Both are suffused with sadness, though there is much humor in the narrations of certain characters from beyond the grave. Many of the voices in this book are residents of The Oak Hill Cemetery, where President Lincoln has interred his son, Willie. They reside in a kind of limbo, “the bardo,” with unfinished business on earth, unaware that they are dead. The chapters alternate between the “action” in the bardo, and the story of the what is happening on the night of Willie Lincoln’s death, as told by Hans Vollman (Nick Offerman), Roger Bevins III (David Sedaris), and the Reverend Everly Thomas (George Saunders). Interspersed with their escapades are chapters focused on the raw grief of a father and his newly departed son. This most poignant story of a man struggling to say goodbye, and his son’s difficulty in letting go of the earth, is particularly moving. Listeners get an inside point of view from Abraham Lincoln himself, burdened with his country’s present agony as well as his own personal bereavement, as "narrated by hans vollman in the body of a. lincoln...
“He is just one.
And the weight of it is about to kill me.
Have exported this grief. Some three thousand times. So far. To date. A mountain. Of boys. Someone’s boys. Must keep on with it. May not have the heart for it. One thing to pull the lever when blind to the result. But here lies one dear example of what I accomplish by the orders I …
What to do. Call a halt? Toss down the loss-hole those three thousand? Sue for peace? Become great course-reversing fool, king of indecision, laughing-stock for ages, waffling hick, slim Mr. Turnabout?
...What am I doing.
What am I doing here.
Lord, what is this? All of this walking about, trying, smiling, bowing, joking? This sitting-down-at-table, pressing-of-shirts, tying-of-ties, shining-of-shoes, planning-of-trips, singing-of-songs-in-the-bath?
When he is to be left out here?
Is a person to nod, dance, reason, walk, discuss?
As before?...
Was he dear or not?
Then let me be happy no more."

There are stand-out performances by many, most notably, David Sedaris, Nick Offerman, Julianne Moore as Jane Ellis, Kirby Heyborne as Willie Lincoln, Bill Hader as Eddie Baron and Megan Mullally as Betsy Baron
See more at: Penguin Random House Audio.

After two full run throughs, I had to return Lincoln in the Bardo for the next listener’s wonderment, but I miss the voices of Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins III, the Reverend Thomas Everly, and 163 others.