Staff Choices

Math + family who moves to NY + bad behavior + more bad behavior + strained relationships + life + coming of age = Divide Me By Zero.

This is not a happy book that Lara Vapnyar has written but it does have humorous viewpoints in situations we all recognize and heartening moments. Told with un-sugarcoated honesty from a first-person point of view and interspersed with real photos to illustrate a point - this book made me wonder if it is fiction or an autobiography or a talented novelist toying with me, the reader. I am always impressed with authors from another culture grasping the nuances and vocabulary of the English language so thoroughly and so much better than I ever can. Readers who enjoy Gary Shteyngart's works may also enjoy Divide Me By Zero.

In Malcolm Gladwell's Talking To Strangers, he cites examples of government spies, law enforcement officials, wrongful incarceration, the college campus culture of drinking and date rape, Ponzi schemes and political enemies – real life stories that have been in the news and in history books. How is it that we can be so deceived and for so long that, in hindsight, it defies reason?  Gladwell refers to a theory called "default to truth" which prevents most of us from being able to readily detect deception. People are inherently very trusting. We may have doubts about a person or a situation, but we do not have enough doubts to make us change our opinion to outright suspicion and then action, for example, Bernie Madoff.

While the book does not have definite resolutions or a recipe to follow, it does provide something to seriously consider, reminding us to be cautious, even vigilant, while crossing the divide of talking to strangers but retaining our humanity.

Listening to the audiobook version enhanced the book for me. When available, Gladwell includes audio from actual interviews with key players or has actors reading testimony from transcripts.

Janelle Monae's "Hell You Talmbout" soundtrack often plays in background - a song I had to locate, listen and watch it performed – very memorable.

This is a hybrid of a novel, part murder mystery, part family drama. A young police woman, Mickey, becomes involved in the hunt for a serial killer, while meantime patrolling a neighborhood in Philadelphia that is all but destroyed by drugs. Sadly, her sister Kacey is one among many that have fallen prey to addiction. While I felt the story may have gotten a bit bogged down in the hunt for the killer, the rest of this novel soars... brutal in its depiction of the impact of the Opioid crisis on families and once vibrant neighborhoods. There is also gentle beauty in the relationships between sisters and mother/child. Not to mention a kicker of a plot twist that I truly didn't see coming. This one is worth the buzz..highly recommend.

You Were There Too, by Colleen Oakley is a masterfully composed novel that included a heart-pounding ending with flawless precision. 

Mia loves her husband Harrison. However, she has recurring dreams of another man...one that she has never met.

Until, one day, when she comes face to face with the stranger in her dreams and discovers that his name is Oliver, and more importantly, he has been dreaming about her too.

How can this be? What does this mean? Why have they finally met?

I am not a strong believer of psychic premonitions or interpretation of dreams, but the joy of a well-written novel allows me to suspend disbelief and enables the story to takes me beyond my beliefs.

This engrossing story is a reflection on marriage, grief and fate.  Do not expect a seamlessly arranged ending tied up with a bow. This original and very moving novel should be on your must-read list.

May Attaway is turning 40 and has realized her life might be lacking. As a gardener at a local university, she finds herself more comfortable with trees than people. Living with her father in her childhood home, May starts to wonder how she got to such a place of separateness. “I don’t have a daughter and I don’t know if I ever will. But if I do we will not carry this sadness forward. I’m tired of holding it.”

An unexpected reward of time off has May deciding she will spend the time reconnecting with those who knew her at a different time as she begins to cobble together the pieces. Thinking about a reverse Odyssey “What if Penelope had left?” or a friendless Beowulf, May packs Emily Post’s book on etiquette, a suitcase she has named Grendel and heads out. Each visit reflects on her past, as well as the observation that life is generally complicated.

In Rules for Visiting, Jessica Francis Kane gives us a thoughtful and touching story, and a character you will find yourself rooting for.

Jac Jemc’s latest work, False Bingo, is an unnerving collection of stories where the mundane and ordinary ride upon a wave of anxiety.  Building on the hallucinatory strangeness of her previous novel, The Grip of It, Jemc’s writing is spare and beautiful.  There are elements of Shirley Jackson in this volume, but Jemc’s voice is unique and original.

Creepiness pervades stories like “Hunt and Catch” where a woman commuting home from work believes a garbage truck driver is following her.  In the story “Don’t Lets,” a woman recovering from an abusive relationship vacations at a southern plantation and is visited by a boo hag, a creature from folklore that steals the breath of its victims.

Despite these themes, False Bingo is not merely a collection of horror stories.  The psychological tension Jemc evokes takes the reader into the realm of dread, suspense, and the absurd; demonstrating that it is undeniably creepier to wonder than it is to know. 

This is the debut novel by Blake Crouch, who since has written over 10 books. The book  begins quickly when a horror writer finds a letter in his home ." Greetings. There is a body buried on your property, covered in your blood". Andrew is told if he doesn't do as asked, the evidence will be sent to local police. The next Andrew remembers is waking up in a motel outside of Denver, drugged and locked in a small room where he meets his captor, Orson, his twin brother.

Orson, who had disappeared many years ago, has been quite busy as a serial killer, Orson forces Andrew to join him in killing three victims, implicating him further in his twisted life. Andrew is released and seeks  revenge. This is the first of a trilogy and is a page turner. This book is quite gory and not for the squeamish but an interesting look at the mind of a serial killer. I will be reading the next one soon, in the daytime.

Not everyone knows who Valerie Solanas was, although her assassination attempt of Andy Warhol may be her greatest claim of infamy.

Swedish feminist and author Sara Stridsberg attempts to piece together this complex, radical feminist through a series of reminisces about important places and times in her life in Valerie. We visit her troubled childhood, and the courtroom that delivered her conviction, and through an omniscient narrator, we visit her in the hotel where she spends the final moments of her complicated life.

Stridsberg’s prose is glorious, evoking an abundance of responses from the reader. More importantly, this serves as a reminder that we are the sum of our experiences. To look at one event in a life is to ignore everything else that may have shaped someone’s existence.

Indecent is a play about a play, or more precisely, about a response to that play based on fear. On Broadway, in 1923, the play God of Vengeance by Sholem Asch debuted. It had played to many audiences already, but on this night, the police arrested the company on charges of indecency stemming from the intimate, joyous love scene between two women.

Indecent chronicles the development and implementation of this play, and the desire by Asch to display the diversity within the Jewish population and dispel xenophobic views. Sadly, this conflict maintains current relevancy.

Playwright Paula Vogel pulls all the emotion and intention possible from her characters, and we find ourselves breathing the same air they do. Indecent, nominated for the Best Tony in 2017, does what theater does best: perpetuate the relentless pursuit of truth in art.

Agnes, by Swiss writer Peter Stamm, begins with a startling revelation. The narrator tells us, “Agnes is dead. Killed by a story.” I am a sucker for a great opening line, and that one did it for me. In this brilliant short novel, Stamm explores the relationship between reality, and the reality we would like to create with our words.

We are all guilty of telling stories that do not accurately mirror the authenticity of actual events. But if the narrative imagines future events, to what extent can we shape the direction of our lives? Agnes and the narrator meet in the Chicago Public Library and begin a curious relationship. She wants to be remembered, so she asks her lover to chronicle their experiences. But the line between fact and fiction begins to blur, and life begins to imitate art.

Stamm ponders an intriguing subject here. Can we control our own destiny, and can we shape it with our words? Can we script life as we would like it? Interesting characters, a suspenseful plot, and perfectly controlled prose make this an excellent addition to your fall reading list.