Adult Fiction – Book Club Book: The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller
"A heartwarming tale about literature's power to transform." — People
A heartwarming reminder of why we are book lovers, this is a sweet, smart story about how books find us, change us, and connect us.
Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen...
Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy's funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor—there's not much else to do in a dying small town that's almost beyond repair.
You certainly wouldn't open a bookstore. And definitely not with the tourist in charge. You'd need a vacant storefront (Main Street is full of them), books (Amy's house is full of them), and...customers.
The bookstore might be a little quirky. Then again, so is Sara. But Broken Wheel's own story might be more eccentric and surprising than she thought.
Adult Nonfiction: Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker
My new favorite book of all time." —Bill Gates
"A terrific book...[Pinker] recounts the progress across a broad array of metrics, from health to wars, the environment to happiness, equal rights to quality of life." —The New York Times
If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.
Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature—tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking—which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.
With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.
Local Adult Fiction: The Forgotten Child by Donald Levin
Newly retired from the Ferndale Police Department, Martin Preuss passes his days quietly with his beloved son Toby. When a friend asks him to look for a boy who disappeared forty years ago, the former investigator gradually becomes consumed with finding the forgotten child. Meanwhile, ex-colleague Janey Cahill persuades him to help her locate the missing father of a troubled young girl. Juggling both cases, Preuss revisits the countercultural fervor of Detroit in the 1970s--and plunges into hidden worlds of guilty secrets and dark crimes that won't stay buried.
Donald Levin is an award-winning fiction writer and poet. In addition to the Martin Preuss mystery series, he is also the author of "The House of Grins," a novel, and two books of poetry, "In Praise of Old Photographs" and "New Year's Tangerine." He lives with his wife in Ferndale, Michigan.
Young Adult: This Is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
This #1 New York Times Bestseller chronicles the 54 harrowing minutes of a school shooting and follows four students who must confront their greatest hopes, and darkest fears, as they come face-to-face with the boy with the gun.
10:00 a.m.
The principal of Opportunity, Alabama's high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.
10:02 a.m.
The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.
10:03
The auditorium doors won't open.
10:05
Someone starts shooting.
A Buzzfeed Best YA Book
A Bustle.com Most-Anticipated YA Novel
A Goodreads YA Best Books Pick
A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist for Young Adult Fiction
Kids Indie Next List Pick
"Marieke Nijkamp's brutal, powerful fictional account of a school shooting is important in its timeliness." —Bustle.com"A gritty, emotional, and suspenseful read and although fictionalized, it reflects on a problematic and harrowing issue across the nation." —Buzzfeed
"A compelling, brutal story of an unfortunately all-too familiar situation: a school shooting. Nijkamp portrays the events thoughtfully, recounting fifty-four intense minutes of bravery, love, and loss." —BookRiot
Children: Love by Matt de la Peña
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
"[A] poetic reckoning of the importance of love in a child's life . . . eloquent and moving."—People
"Everything that can be called love — from shared joy to comfort in the darkness — is gathered in the pages of this reassuring, refreshingly honest picture book."—The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice / Staff Picks From the Book Review
“Lyrical and sensitive, ‘Love’ is the sort of book likely to leave readers of all ages a little tremulous, and brimming with feeling.”—The Wall Street Journal
From Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and bestselling illustrator Loren Long comes a story about the strongest bond there is and the diverse and powerful ways it connects us all.
"In the beginning there is light and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed and the sound of their voices is love.
...
A cab driver plays love softly on his radio while you bounce in back with the bumps of the city and everything smells new, and it smells like life."
In this heartfelt celebration of love, Newbery Medal-winning author Matt de la Peña and bestselling illustrator Loren Long depict the many ways we experience this universal bond, which carries us from the day we are born throughout the years of our childhood and beyond. With a lyrical text that's soothing and inspiring, this tender tale is a needed comfort and a new classic that will resonate with readers of every age.
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