In October, our staff picks fantastic fiction and nonfiction
from the library for their journeys through fall…
Nora’s Pick
“… and all the while the leaves will be letting go of their branches and falling down on you like blessings.”
So Margaret Renkl beckons in “the most splendid day of October” in her recent memoir Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, published by the ever-wonderful Milkweed Editions. The book is composed of short poetic essays reflecting on Renkl’s family—her life with them, her loss of them, and the stories she inherited—interspersed with artwork by her brother Billy and her own verbal images of the flora, fauna, and creatures that have populated her life in Alabama. Late Migrations is a narrative that leaps gracefully through time, from what it means to be a child of two loving parents to what it means to still be their adult child after they are gone. After each short piece, I had to stop reading and just hold the volume, my hands pressed to the nature-imbued silhouette on the cover. That love and loss walk hand in hand is the current that flows through, as Renkl writes,
“There are things you cannot keep safe, that you have already failed forever to keep safe, but you must remember to protect this one card written in your grandmother’s hand and saved in your mother’s recipe box. There’s a child in your house who won’t eat icing, and today is his birthday, and he will not always be a child, and you will not always keep him safe.”
If there could be a book worthy of splendid October, let it be this one, this beautiful book that recognizes what we can love but cannot keep, that emits a steady keen even when the winds of change shush it, that feels the cold start seeping in but keeps the fire stoked in the kitchen, a cake baking warm in the oven.
Emily’s Picks
My October staff picks are inspired by Indigenous Peoples’ Day: here are three excellent children’s and teen books for you and your family to share. These books emphasize the fact that Indigenous peoples are here, present, and making stories to read and learn from today.
Traci Sorrel’s We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga explores the concept of Otsaliheliga, or the idea of expressing gratitude, centered around a Cherokee community’s year-round celebrations and experiences. It is written in English and Cherokee, with the Cherokee written both in Cherokee syllabary and transliterated for reading out loud. For those looking to hear Cherokee speakers sharing the story, I encourage you to request the audiobook companion to the book — it’s an excellent way to hear the story told with correct pronunciations, complete with subtle sounds of wildlife and quiet community conversations. Sorrel’s new picture book, At the Mountain’s Base, looks as if it will be another family favorite.
I am eager to read I Can Make This Promise, a new middle grade novel written by Christine Day. It’s inspired by the author’s family history: a young girl uncovers secrets her family has been hiding and discovers her own identity. It’s a highly recommended mystery that touches upon the ideas of cultural identity, adoption, and family separation of Native children, an ongoing crisis.
Finally, I’m learning a great deal as I read Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza’s young people’s adaptation of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, written by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. I turn to Reese as an expert in Indigenous representation in children’s literature, and was delighted when I heard she and Mendoza have made the academic history more accessible for younger readers. The authors do an excellent job and will help any reader re-frame their understanding of history and how it continues to impact the present.
Hazel’s Picks
I can’t resist a good polar exploration saga, and In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides did not disappoint in the least. It really takes a skillful writer to alchemize the unimaginably dreary, monotonous landscape of Arctic survivalism into 400 pages of devourable narrative. Sides situates the titular story within the greater context of Gilded Age America–and especially the nationalist mania to solve the mysteries of the uncharted world–and the result is truly fascinating.
How to Be an Antiracist is the newest work from National Book Award winner Ibram X. Kendi. The book is not really, as the title suggests, a step-by-step guide or how-to manual. It is partially a memoir, in that the author self-critically returns to his own learning experiences as illustrative examples of the myriad ways that racism manifests. Using chapters structured around intersecting themes (e.g., racism/antiracism and gender, color, or class), Kendi defines antiracism by exhaustively examining all the ugly realities of its opposite.
Finally, I am looking forward to Find Me, André Aciman’s sequel to Call Me by Your Name, the acclaimed achy-breaky love story that utterly wrecked me in both book and movie form. Find Me, set decades after Elio and Oliver’s first summer, is out October 29th, so you still have plenty of time to stock up on tissues.
Eileen M’s picks
In August 1969, I was eyeing my new plaid pleated skirt and navy blue blazer, breast pocket embroidered with a Latin motto.
At 13, I was too young, too conventional and too focused on starting my freshman year in high school to be paying much attention to the historic cultural event playing out in upstate New York. At the same time, I was too old to be utterly oblivious to the perilous state of the world I lived in. The recent past, an unavoidable emotional wallop even if you were just a kid in junior high school, included assassinations, riots, protests both bloody and peaceful. The present wasn’t much cheerier, but I was all about the first day of high school where a sudden and unlikely transformation to coolness was my aim. Now, still uncool but okay with it, I can catch up on what I missed then with the 50th anniversary edition of Woodstock: Three Days that Rocked the World edited by Mike Evans and Paul Kingsbury.
Tons of photos anchor this story of the monumental Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Or maybe it’s the other way ‘round, the story holding the photos in comprehensible order. Either way, it is a cavalcade of traffic jams, mud, drugs, music, communal caregiving, loaves-and-fishes catering, sartorially minimalist romps, rain, more mud, idealism, bellbottoms, always more music. Amazing to think about, really, and more amazing still as you see it unfold page by page, expanding to fill the iconic space that has become the Woodstock of memory and legend.
Included is a post-Woodstock timeline (1969-1975) that caught my attention: my contextual entry into nominal adulthood outlined in sometimes grim synopsis. Is it any wonder that so many cling to the Edenesque sense of brother-and-sisterhood that is the best of what Woodstock-as-social-statement represents? I guess we just want to get ourselves back to the garden.
If you are open to toting the retrospective weight of the Woodstock volume home, maybe you’d care to summon what’s left of your upper body strength for more recent recollections with the oversize photographic reflections of Obama: An Intimate Portrait as photographed by former chief official White House photographer Pete Souza. Much is camera-caught: the hard work of smart grownups, sober consideration of next steps; celebrations of art, family, world community…what I continue to hope for in our leaders.
Words and pictures as time travel to the past and, keep a good thought, maybe to the future. Back to the garden.
Hannah’s Pick
My October Staff Pick is the novel The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J.Ryan Stradal.
Stradal’s debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, was one of the warmest, most heart-filled novels I have ever read. As a born-and-raised New Englander who has married into a Kansas family, I have a deep love and admiration for the self-mythology Midwesterners have and the stories they tell about the places that made them who they are, and TLQoM has already made me smile in recognition and joy multiple times in the first two pages, so I can’t wait to read further.
It also promises—like KotGM—to have some beautiful and evocative food writing and some incredibly funny dialogue between family members, neighbors, and rival beer-brewers or pie-bakers. I feel like this book will give me exactly the cast of lovable characters I need to get me through October and I’m so excited to sit with it on the couch with several layers of sweaters on and a (let’s be honest, pumpkin-flavored) beer.
Joanna’s Picks
Hello friends! I just returned from my honeymoon in Hawaii. You may imagine a newlywed librarian reading classic novels on the beach in the sun, however, when rainy weather made my husband and me stay indoors for a majority of the break: electronic media was very much a happiness-saver.
After seeing that a new season of Veronica Mars was being dropped on Hulu right around the time of my nuptials, my husband was appalled to discover I’d never seen the series (seasons 1-3 are available at our library). He set out to get me up to speed and we ended up watching the entire series plus the movie. The jury is out on whether he enjoyed the new season as much as the old ones, however, I enjoyed them all! It reminded me of a gritty Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the campy/fantasy elements.
I also played Overcooked (available on PS4 and Xbox-One in our Teen Library collection) for many hours. I especially enjoy playing the panda-chef. The graphics are adorable, the cooperative element is super fun, and where else can you find yourself yelling “I need lettuce on a plate!” Your character is a food-line worker who is trying to save the city by working with other players to complete meals for hungry customers before they become upset and leave. It would be simple enough, except every level adds a new element, for example: a conveyor belt on which you pass food to the other player to put in the oven and send back on the belt for the original player to deliver. If the food stays on the oven too long, it can burn. If you accidentally place the fire extinguisher onto the conveyor belt heading in the wrong direction (like I did): the whole kitchen can go up in flames.
I also began reading Mark Twain’s Letters From Hawaii while on my honeymoon, but was unable to finish it while standing in the stacks of the bookstore. I am putting it on hold for later perusal. It was interesting to see how many quotes from this collection appeared around Hawaii on different signs and in pamphlets. Jokes about the sulfurous smells around the volcanoes and other witticisms were very fun to read—I’m looking forward to reading more.
Becca’s Picks
As I dutifully wait my turn in the queue for Trick Mirror (no, librarians can’t cut the line!), I’ve been inspired to read some dense nonfiction to pass the time. Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 left a necessary weight in my gut. Admittedly, I was nervous about revisiting the day; for 18 years, I’ve carried only blurry memories of rumors and the tears from my tenth grade Long Island classroom. Mitchell Zuckoff thoroughly retraces the steps of the lost and the traumatized at all three attack sites, calling upon first-person accounts, primary sources, and the 9/11 Commission Report. If you are looking for a book to help you process bearing witness – or, if you are a young adult looking to learn about what happened that day – this is the book for you.
As I recover from having the wind knocked out of me by my nonfiction pick, I await another library hold for some much-needed levity: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Kiddos solving crimes in post-WWII Britain? Yes, please! I can’t wait to devour this beloved series.
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As always, thanks for reading! If you are looking for more reading ideas, try filling out a Your Next (Great!) Read form to get a personalized list of reading suggestions from our Reader’s Advisory Staff, or check out our Staff Picks page for scary and magical booklists.
“Downeast Maine, where I live, is for me the most beautiful place on earth, even in February, even on a dark day in a sharp wind.” -from Seaweed Chronicles by Susan Hand Shetterly
Every day at Portland Public Library, you can find readers of all ages curled up with books, lost in words and in other lands.
Many of us on the library staff wholeheartedly, unblinkingly believe every earnest thing said about books and stories: they can transport you to other worlds, help you figure out the world around you, expand your horizons, lighten your heart. They really can. Delving into books with our community is probably the best work there is, and we at the Reader’s Advisory desk are always curious about new ways to share the books around us.
The Book of the Week project kicked off last October just before U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith visited Maine: we posted a picture of her new anthology American Journal: Fifty Poems For Our Time. Then 52 weeks flew by (!) with a new book in the spotlight every Monday. It’s October again: the leaves are turning. Writer and musician Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation is the new Poet Laureate of the U.S. And we’ll soon have new books to share. But first, here’s a brief look at the last year in reading…
“We would often wake before there was light in the sky and make coffee and let our minds rattle our tongues…It was a forty-year conversation.”-from Our World, with photographs by Molly Malone Cook and text by Mary Oliver
Book-of-the-Week Perks: Joyous Readers and Authors
One of the really sort of lovely and unexpected things that’s come from Book of Week is feedback—from readers who had enjoyed a book we shared, and from authors who were happy their books were being read in Maine (sometimes sharing hearts, sometimes shocked, Munch-scream emojis). British writer Robert Macfarlane, whose book Underland we did call “grimly beautiful,” responded, “Grimly beautiful. I’ll gladly take that. Thanks so much for this post, folks. I love Portland!”
“They were stunned by the sand dunes, the vast life of them…the lighthouse rose before them…Cheese sandwiches and salami for dinner around the campfire. The thrill of lighting the wood, keeping it burning. Laughter spiked their conversation, and when it lulled, the silence had a glow to it, crackled by flames. They were happy. They were not used to being happy. The strange feeling kept them up too late together, giddy with victory and amazement.” -from Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis
How Can Readers Explore More Books at PPL?
- Explore new titles on order…Try signing into your library account at our website, then click on “Explore” and “New Titles.” This will lead you to a page showing you all of the books (DVDs, CDs, etc) that have newly arrived, and all of the books that are on order. As soon as the librarians order a book, you can place a hold on it.
- Get a list of reading ideas from our staff…If you would like your own personalized list of reading ideas from our staff based on your interests, fill out a “Your Next (Great!) Read” form here and we’ll be in touch.
“Now you can have a party. Invite everyone you know who / loves and supports you. Keep room for those who have no / place else to go. / Make a giveaway, and remember, keep the speeches short. / Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way / through the dark.” -from Conflict Resolutions for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo
Congrats, reader, you made it to October 2019! Can you spot any spots in the library where pictures were taken? Have you read any of the books of the week? Do you have a favorite quotation to share?
We’d be glad to hear from you. Be in touch anytime with bookish questions and requests at readersadvisory@portlib.org, or call 871-1700 ext. 705.
Thank you for reading.
Find Books of the Week Here:
It’s September, season of change, and the library is full of new arrivals. The great Toni Morrison unwaveringly looks out at us from the poster for Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, the 2019 documentary about her life and the abiding power of her words, newly out on DVD. We’re also days away from the release of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, and Stephen King’s The Institute just hit the shelves.
Our staff shares their picks of this month’s favorite library materials—time to place your holds in summer for autumn days of books, movies, e-Books, audiobooks, and more…
Emily’s Picks
Our family is getting ready to send our first kid into Kindergarten, and we’re all feeling that familiar feeling of excitement mixed with wariness. One book that’s helped all of us? The King of Kindergarten by Derrik D. Barnes. The bright, cheerful illustrations and sweet story show a new Kindergartener having a great first day of school, with happy parents to cheer him on. It’s sure to boost the confidence of any new school kids in your home, too.
For my own reading, I have a growing list of books I can’t wait to read — here are some new books to look out for, come and join me on the hold lists!
Frankly in Love by David Yoon
Frank Li and Joy Song are two high schoolers with the same problem: both are dating people their Korean-American parents will never approve of. A fake dating scheme sounds perfect — what could go wrong?
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
A young girl growing up in a house full of artifacts feels more and more like a prize hoarded away. When she discovers a book that describes doors as portals to other worlds, she discovers thrilling secrets about herself, and a way to escape her narrow world.
The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth by Phillip Pullman
For those of us who loved reading The Golden Compass trilogy, last year’s The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage was a delight. I can’t wait to listen to the next in the new series to find out more about Lyra’s adventures. (And yes, I will definitely be seeking this one out on audio, narrated once again by the talented Michael Sheen).
Carrie’s Pick
As summer wraps up in Maine, sigh, and most children head back indoors, SIGH, we begin to get questions about internet screen and media addiction. Many families struggle with the balance of screen time vs. family time.
Jonathan R. Werner, the Library and Instructional Technology Specialist at the Cape Elizabeth Middle School Library & Learning Commons, presented his free talk and slideshow, Resisting the Irresistible: Understanding and Combating Addictive Technology this past fall at Lincoln Middle School in Portland. Most compelling was Mr. Werner’s own story of finally coming to terms with his media addiction while on the shores of a gorgeous Canadian lake with his family. All of his materials are available free online, and he encourages people to not only share his slides, but also to contact him if they would like him to present free of charge to their school or community group.
Happily, you can also stop by the Children’s room for inspiring books, periodicals, and audio to take home, or come for a visit with your child and play a board game, build with Legos, play in the Early Literacy room, and curl up with a great book.
Marie’s Pick
“On your marks, get set, bake!”
My pick for September is The Great British Baking Show. I usually read pretty severe nonfiction, but everyone needs a break from time to time, and this show has been the perfect escape. It stands out among other reality competition shows: you won’t find any huge cash prizes, product placement, snarky backstabbing between contestants, or nasty judges. Instead you’ll find a group of average people baking various breads and pastries for the simple reward of a job well done and the title of Star Baker.
The contestants are sincerely kind and supportive of each other; the judges are constructive and root for everyone. This cotton candy content has potential to be boring, but TGBBS is compelling viewing thanks to clever editing, a dramatic musical score, and quips from the comedienne hosts. Some of the competitions are real nail biters. Will Martha’s custard finish baking in time? Will Norman burn his ciabatta?
If you haven’t already discovered this gem of a show, check it out: PPL has the first five seasons on DVD.
Becca’s Pick
What if our dystopian nightmare began tomorrow? Would we even notice? Ling Ma’s Severance follows Candace, a recent wayward college graduate who designs Bibles for a publishing conglomerate. When Shen Fever – an illness dooming civilization to death by nostalgia – hits New York, Candace and a group of survivors plan their next move.
Ling Ma plucks topics from our subconscious dread – globalization, pandemic illness, and the commodification of creativity – and places them together into a quietly terrifying landscape. Severance is like Colson Whitehead’s Zone One with less intensity and Shaun of the Dead with less slapstick. I also suggest listening to the audiobook on CloudLibrary, narrated by Nancy Wu with some much-needed droll levity.
Sarah’s Pick
September means only one thing in my book world – the release of The Testaments, the much-anticipated sequel to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I was left with so many questions at the end of Handmaid’s Tale. What happened to Offred? What the heck was going on in Gilead? Did all handmaids use butter for moisturizer? So. Many. Questions. The Testaments picks up fifteen years after Offred’s story ends and Atwood promises:
“Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” —Margaret Atwood
Sequels are sometimes risky, and I’ve been burned before (ahem, Go Set a Watchman), but I have faith in Atwood and feel really good about this one. If you need me September 10th, I’ll be totally unavailable.
Elizabeth’s Picks
Today I’m hoping all the good books I’ve lugged home-and-to-the-library-again lately are signs of a fall of further gems. Fingers crossed, and thank you, books, for all you do…
De’Shawn Charles Winslow’s new novel, In West Mills, is a page-turning tale full of life, heart, worry and wisdom, and most of all, characters to laugh with, cry with, and root for. A great book to dive into on these still-summer days.
Memory and loss, vanished ferries and missing birds, burning libraries…a woman on an unnamed island struggles to hold on to the world she remembers. The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is entrancing new fantastical fiction (translated by Stephen Snyder).
In New Nonfictionland, “Explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers” (as well as physicists, miners, and more!) populate the grimly beautiful depths of Robert Macfarlane’s Underland. You’ll be on the edge of your seat whether he’s describing dark matter, underground rivers, a wild drive many miles beneath the sea, or a harrowing journey through a boulder ruckle.
What’s a ruckle, you ask? Pick up Underland and shine a light—but be warned: Macfarlane is keen to tell you “what lies underground, why you should not disturb this place, and what may happen if you do.”
Eileen’s Picks
If someone wanted to take stock of what’s on my mind, a quick scan of our coffee table tells the story. That is where library books land when I unload my backpack. A selective survey shows that chosen cookbooks lean toward plant-based these days, with Timothy Pakron’s Mississippi Vegan forming the base of my precarious reading material pyramid. Some fiction of the fluff variety makes an appearance or two, sweet glue that keeps me happily unchallenged. Aspiration takes hold with the next few volumes: Being Bold with Watercolor by Annette Kane, Learn Watercolor Quickly by Hazel Soan, and, just to balance the craft of it with some history and unbeatable modeling, Masters of Color and Light: Homer, Sargent, and the American Watercolor Movement by Linda S Ferber.
Let me briefly sidetrack my biblio-train of thought to encourage you to take advantage of the library’s free pass to the Portland Museum of Art. I did just that earlier this summer and it was a real treat… so lovely that since then I, she of the tight wallet, have purchased a membership. Now I can walk down Congress Street during my lunch break to soak in the quiet and brilliance of it all, smack in the middle of my work day. Sublime. Each visit makes my fingers itch for my recently acquired ultra-cheap watercolors, and I imagine unearthing my inner Wyeth. So far, whichever Wyeth I think is buried deep within has proved elusive, but, more important, my inner Eileen has come closer to the surface and she is having a grand time seeing light and playing with color in whole new ways. So go to the museum. Then give in to the urge to create something.
But back to my stack: Hopes and dreams take a lofty leap with A Pretty Good Person: What It Takes to Live with Courage, Gratitude, and Integrity, Or, When Pretty Good Is As Good As You Can Be by Lewis B. Smedes. Similarly remote heights loom with How to Retire Happy by Sam Hinden. Both seem equally far off in the unreachable mists, but if I have a dilletante’s nerve to slosh around with watercolors and see what comes of it, I surely can indulge in a fantasy of good personhood and a happy retirement. Surely that.
My stack is far higher than that brief list, much wider than I am likely to conquer, and inevitably some of the books will make their way back to the library without being tapped. When I saw them, I had to hold them, call them mine for a few weeks, spend time finding if what they offered would fit the spaces curiosity creates. My teetering heap of books seems random at times, but it follows my heart whether I know it or not as I pluck each volume from the shelf. And what is going on in my heart is what’s on my mind.
What’s on your coffee table?
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As ever, thanks for reading.
(You can explore more new library materials here. And if you’re looking for more ideas of books to add to your reading list, check in with our Reader’s Advisory crew at readersadvisory@portlib.org or fill out a Your Next (Great!) Read form to get a personalized list of reading suggestions).
