Evelyn S. Field Library Blog

New Popular Books!

February 7, 2017

Nonfiction

Hidden figures: the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race / Margot Lee Shetterly.  QA27.5.L44 2016b

"Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the space race, [this book] follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA's greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades as they faced challenges, forged alliances, and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country's future"--Back cover.

In the great green room: the brilliant and bold life of Margaret Wise Brown / Amy Gary.  PS3503.R82184 Z65 2017

Captures the exceptional life, imagination, and passion of the author of "Goodnight Moon," drawing on unpublished manuscripts, songs, personal letters, and diaries that the author discovered in the attic of Margaret Wise Brown's sister.

Sneakers: fashion, gender, and subculture / Yuniya Kawamura.  GV749.S64 R38 2016

"This is the first academic study of sneakers and the subculture that surrounds them. Since the 1980s, members of American sneaker subcultures, popularly known as "sneakerheads" or "sneakerholics", have created a distinctive identity for themselves, while sneaker manufacturers such as Reebok, Puma and Nike have become global fashion brands. How have sneakers come to gain this status and what makes them attractive? In what ways are sneaker subcultures bound up with gender identity and why are sneakerholics mostly men? Based on the author's own ethnographic fieldwork in New York, where sneaker subculture is said to have originated, this unique study traces the transformation of sneakers from sportswear to fashion symbol. Sneakers explores the obsessions and idiosyncrasies surrounding the sneaker phenomenon, from competitive subcultures to sneaker painting and artwork. It is a valuable contribution to the growing study of footwear in fashion studies and will appeal to students of fashion theory, gender studies, sociology and popular culture"-- Provided by publisher.

Spaceman: an astronaut's unlikely journey to unlock the secrets of the universe / Mike Massimino.  TL789.85.M324 A3 2016 

"A memoir by an unlikely astronaut who helped save the Hubble telescope describes his early attempts to gain admission into NASA, his first spacewalks, the loss of his fellow astronauts in the Columbia disaster, his decision not to return to space and his ongoing support of future space-travel ventures, "--NoveList.

Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad / M.T. Anderson.  ML3930.S49 A53 2015

In September 1941, Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western history -- almost three years of bombardment and starvation that culminated in the harsh winter of 1943-1944. More than a million citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to bury them. Residents burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep warm. They ate family pets and -- eventually -- one another to stay alive. Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens -- the Leningrad Symphony, which came to occupy a surprising place of prominence in the eventual Allied victory. This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the power and layered meaning of music in beleaguered lives.

Fiction

The animals: a novel / Christian Kiefer.  PS3611.I443 A85 2016

Bill Reed manages a wildlife sanctuary in rural Idaho, caring for injured animals unable to survive in the wild--raptors, a wolf, and his beloved bear, Majer, among them. He hopes to marry the local vet and live out a quiet life, until a childhood friend is released from prison and threatens to reveal Bill's darkest secrets. Suddenly forced to confront his criminal past, Bill battles fiercely to preserve both the shelter and his hard-won new identity. Alternating between the past and the present, The Animals builds powerfully toward the revelation of Bill's defining betrayal--and the drastic lengths he'll go to in order to escape the consequences.
 

At the edge of the orchard / Tracy Chevalier.  PS3553.H4367 A94 2016c

Settling in the swamps of early-nineteenth-century Ohio, the Goodenough family establish an apple orchard that begins a long family battle, and years later, as their youngest son wanders through Gold Rush California, his family's past makes an unexpected appearance.

Conversion / Katherine Howe.  PZ7.H83739 Co 2015 

When girls start experiencing strange tics and other mysterious symptoms at Colleen's high school, her small town of Danvers, Massachusetts, falls victim to rumors that lead to full-blown panic, and only Colleen connects their fate to the ill-fated Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago.

  Fiercombe Manor / Kate Riordan.  PR6118.I58 G57 2015

"This haunting and richly imagined dual-narrative historical novel, which will appeal to fans of Rebecca and The Little Stranger, features two women of very different eras who are united by the secrets hidden within the walls of an English manor house"-- Provided by publisher.

I'll sell you a dog / Juan Pablo Villalobos; translated by Rosalind Harvey.  PQ7298.432.I428 T4313 2016

Long before he was the taco seller whose 'Gringo Dog' recipe made him famous throughout Mexico City, our hero was an aspiring artist: an artist, that is, till his would-be girlfriend was stolen by Diego Rivera, and his dreams snuffed out by his hypochondriac mother. Now our hero is resident in a retirement home, where fending off boredom is far more grueling than making tacos. Plagued by the literary salon that bumps about his building's lobby and haunted by the self-pitying ghost of a neglected artist, Villalobos's old man can't help but misbehave: he antagonises his neighbors, tortures American missionaries with passages from Adorno, and flirts with the revolutionary greengrocer.

The life-writer / David Constantine.  PR6053.O513 L54 2016

After the death of her beloved husband, Katrin, a literary biographer, copes with the loss by writing his personal history. While researching the letters and journals he left behind, however, she comes to the devastating conclusion that his life before their marriage was far richer than the one they shared. To understand and recreate the period of his greatest happiness hitch-hiking through France as a young man, madly in love with his companion, a French girl named Monique, Katrin embarks on a heartbreaking journey to discover the man she never fully knew.

The spy: a novel / Paulo Coelho ; translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry.  PQ9698.13.O3546 E8713 2016 

"A novel of Mata Hari's final days, as written by the woman herself while accused of espionage"-- Provided by publisher.

The terranauts / T. Coraghessan Boyle.  PS3552.O932 T47 2016

Sealed inside a glass enclosure designed as a prototype for a possible off-Earth colony, eight Terranauts in the 1990s Arizona desert test their skills in five biome environments that they must protect from skeptics who would sabotage the mission.

Valiant gentlemen / Sabina Murray.  PS3563.U787 V35 2016

Humanitarian and Irish patriot Roger Casement and his closest friend Herbert Ward spent a misadventurous youth in the Congo, witnessing acts of cannibalism, among other things. Ward married Argentinian-American heiress Sarita Sanford, and they established a flourishing family life in France. Casement's covert homosexuality and nomadic lifestyle kept him floating between his work across the African continent and involvement in Irish politics. When World War I broke out, Casement and Ward's longstanding political differences finally come to a head, leading to results both tragic and riveting.

Victoria / Daisy Goodwin.  PR6107.O6625 V53 2016

Less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this young woman can rule the greatest nation in the world. Despite her age the young queen is no puppet. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously. She went on to make her mark on her nation -- and the world.

Wildlife: a novel / by Fiona Wood.  PZ7.W84925 Wi 2016

Two sixteen-year-old girls in Australia come together at an outdoor semester of school, before university--one thinking about boys and growing up, the other about death and grief, but somehow they must help each other to find themselves.