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| Speak No Evil by Uzodinma IwealaStar athlete Niru is bound for the Ivy League...until his loving but traditional Nigerian parents discover that he's gay. The repercussions are violent and far-reaching. Coping with troubles of her own, Niru's non-judgmental best friend Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed. |
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| Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha RaoGirls Burn Brighter features motherless Poornima and penniless Savitha, whose deep friendship sustains them in their rural Indian town. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face ruthless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within. |
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The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth Few of Essie’s friends know her secret shame: that in a moment of maternal despair, she once walked away from her newborn, asleep in her carriage in a park. Disaster was avoided and Essie got better, but she still fears what lurks inside her, even as her daughter gets older and she has a second baby. When a new woman named Isabelle moves in next door to Essie, she is an immediate object of curiosity in the neighborhood. Why single, when everyone else is married with children? What mysterious job does she have? And why is she so fascinated with Essie? As the two women grow closer and Essie’s friends voice their disapproval, it starts to become clear that Isabelle’s choice of neighborhood was no accident. And that her presence threatens to bring shocking secrets to light.
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Self-Portrait with Boyby Rachel LyonA struggling young photographer who works three jobs to pay for her crumbling warehouse home and care for her aging father accidentally captures on film a boy falling past her window to his death, an unexpectedly evocative image. But the decision to show the photograph is not easy. The boy is her neighbors’ son, and the tragedy brings all the building’s residents together. It especially unites Lu with his beautiful grieving mother, Kate. As the two forge an intense bond based on sympathy, loneliness, and budding attraction, Lu feels increasingly unsettled and guilty, torn between equally fierce desires: to use the photograph to advance her career, and to protect a woman she has come to love.
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Rosie Colored Glassesby Brianna WolfsonJust as opposites attract, they can also cause friction, and no one feels that friction more than Rex and Rosie’s daughter, Willow. Rex is serious and unsentimental and tapes checklists of chores on Willow’s bedroom door. Rosie is sparkling and enchanting and meets Willow in their treehouse in the middle of the night to feast on candy. After Rex and Rosie’s divorce, Willow finds herself navigating their two different worlds. She is clearly under the spell of her exciting, fun-loving mother. But as Rosie’s behavior becomes more turbulent, the darker underpinnings of her manic love are revealed. Rex had removed his Rosie colored glasses long ago, but will Willow do the same?
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The Music Shopby Rachel JoyceThe owner of a 1988 music shop in a down-at-heel suburban community uses his talent for connecting customers to the music they seek and resists a chance at an intimate relationship with a beautiful young woman, Ilse. Terrified of real closeness, Frank feels compelled to turn and run, yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with eyes as black as vinyl. But Ilse is not what she seems, and Frank has old wounds that threaten to reopen, as well as a past it seems he will never leave behind. The journey that these two quirky, wonderful characters make in order to overcome their emotional baggage speaks to the healing power of music—and love—in this poignant, ultimately joyful work of fiction.
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Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance by Bill McKibbenWhat if Vermont were to secede from the U.S., relying on a barter economy and the fruits of local labor? That's exactly what radio personality Vern Barclay aims to find out, as his attempts to sidestep big box stores and Coors beer in favor of shopping local and Vermont's microbreweries gets more and more out of hand. Branded a terrorist after a piece of mischief goes south, Vern goes underground, attracting a motley crew of revolutionaries. Offbeat and yet playfully provocative, this debut novel wrestles with questions of ethics and morality.
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Happiness for Humans by P. Z. ReizinWorking to humanize a sophisticated AI, a London software company employee falls for an equally lonely aspiring writer in Connecticut before discovering that their match has been arranged by her AI charge, a situation that is further complicated by a hostile adversary. A thoroughly modern love story that will appeal to fans of The Rosie Project and Sleepless in Seattle, Happiness for Humans considers what exactly makes people fall in love. And whether it's possible for a very artificially intelligent machine to discover the true secret of real human happiness.
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Wednesday, April 25 Learn to Preserve Your Family's History with iBiographer 7:00 p.m. Created and presented by Cranbury resident Sofia Milner, iBiographer is designed for you to preserve your family's history, stories, memories and documents all in one safe place for you to share with the whole family. You write their stories, record their lives, preserve information, and share updates from all over the country and globe. And it's free! Enroll online or at the library!
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Friday, May 4 The Chopsticks-Fork Principle 7:00 p.m. Cathy Bao Bean wrote a memoir and manual of how she and her husband, artist Bennett Bean, raised their son to be bicultural. Cathy will speak about her experience as an immigrant from China figuring out how to be herself as well as raise a son. As she attempts to satisfy disparate cultural norms, she provides us with a unique window into the experience of a bicultural family. Enroll online or at the library! Wednesday, May 9 David Brainerd in Cranbury 6:30 p.m. Dr. Lou Mitchell discusses this early missionary and his work in Cranbury and the surrounding area.
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Cranbury Public Library
23 North Main Street ~
Cranbury, NJ 08512 ~ Phone: 609-655-0555 ~ Contact Us
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