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The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong
In the struggling town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai is saved from despair by Grazina, an elderly widow with dementia, forging an unexpected bond that reshapes their lives and reveals dynamics of love, memory, and resilience on the margins of society.
Scheduled release date: May 13, 2025 - place holds on physical copy or Libby now.
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Allegro
by Ariel Dorfman
In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood: Was Bach murdered by a famous oculist? And years later, was Handel a victim of the same doctor? Allegro follows his investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris, recreating an enthralling and turbulent time, full of rogues and brilliant composers, charlatans and presumptuous nobles. Running parallel to this search is the rise of Mozart, his knowledge and fame, his trials and losses.
Physical copy available. Also available on Libby and Hoopla.
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My Vietnam, Your Vietnam : A Dual Memoir
by Christina Vo
The divergent journeys of a Vietnamese father, who fled war on a small boat to find refuge in the United States, and his American-born daughter, who ventures to Vietnam as an adult, capturing the stark contrast between their perspectives on their shared homeland. In this dual memoir, Christina Vo and her father, Nghia M. Vo, delve into themes of identity and heritage, with intertwined stories that present a multifaceted portrayal of Vietnam and its profound influence on shaping both familial bonds and individual identities across time.
Available on Hoopla.
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Brown Boy : A Memoir
by Omer Aziz
In a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto, miles away from wealthy white downtown, Omer Aziz struggles to find his place as a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy. As he falls in love with books, and makes his way to Queen's University in Ontario, Sciences Po in Paris, Cambridge University in England, and finally Yale Law School, he continually confronts his own feelings of doubt and insecurity at being an outsider.
Physical copy available. Also available on Hoopla.
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Flesh
by David Szalay
From Booker Prize finalist David Szalay, a propulsive, hypnotic novel, about a traumatized man whose future is derailed by a series of events that he is unable to control.
Physical copy available only.
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Songs on Endless Repeat : Essays and Outtakes
by Anthony Veasna So
The late Anthony Veasna So's debut story collection, Afterparties, was a landmark publication, hailed as a "bittersweet triumph for a fresh voice silenced too soon" (Fresh Air). And he was equally known for his comic, soulful essays, published in n+1, the New Yorker, and The Millions. Songs on Endless Repeat gathers those essays together, along with previously unpublished fiction. Written with razor-sharp wit and an unflinching eye, the essays examine his youth in California, the lives of his refugee parents, his intimate friendships, loss, pop culture, and more. And in linked fiction following three Cambodian American cousins who stand to inherit their late aunt's illegitimate loan-sharking business, So explores community, grief, and longing with inimitable humor and depth.
Physical copy available. Also available on Hoopla.
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The Last Exiles
by Ann Shin
Falling in love against a backdrop of political turbulence in North Korea, two Pyongyang university students are separated when one makes a desperate choice to save his starving family.
Available on Libby and Hoopla.
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All the Broken Places
by John Boyne
An elderly London resident befriends the little boy who moves in downstairs, but his parents' fighting brings her back to her harrowing escape from Nazi Germany at age 12 and grim post-war years in France with her mother.
Physical copy available. Also available on Libby.
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Minor Feelings : An Asian American Reckoning
by Cathy Park Hong
An award-winning poet and essayist offers a ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged exploration of the psychological condition of being Asian American.
Physical copy available. Also available on Libby.
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The Best We Could Do : An Illustrated Memoir
by Thi Bui
The author describes her experiences as a young Vietnamese immigrant, highlighting her family's move from their war-torn home to the United States in graphic novel format.
Physical copy available. Also available on Libby and Hoopla.
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Riots I Have Known
by Ryan Chapman
A Sri Lankan inmate in a prison in Dutchess County, New York recounts the events that led to a prison riot that very likely was incited by a poem published in the house literary journal.
Available on Hoopla.
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Fresh Complaint : Stories
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A first collection of short stories by the Pulitzer Prize winner includes the tales of a failed poet-turned-embezzler, a young traveler seeking enlightenment, and a high schooler whose drastic decision upends a British physicist's life.
Available on Libby.
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Good Friday on the Rez : A Pine Ridge Odyssey
by David Bunnell
A magnificent mix of memoir and recent Native American history is told through a 280-mile car trip around the Pine Ridge Reservation where the author lived during and after the siege at Wounded Knee, tracking the torment and miraculous resurrection of Native American pride, spirituality and culture.
Available on Hoopla.
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The Gimmicks
by Chris McCormick
A novel set in the waning years of the Cold War follows a trio of young Armenians from the Soviet Union, across Europe, to Southern California, looking at the Armenian Genocide, whose traumatic reverberations will have unexpected consequences on all three lives.
Available on Hoopla.
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All Our Names
by Dinaw Mengestu
Coming of age during an African revolution, a brilliant university student-turned-fighter eventually flees the escalating violence of his country to resettle in America, where he is haunted by his past and the memory of a charismatic leader's devastating sacrifice.
Available on Libby and Hoopla.
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Love Like Hate
by Linh Dinh
Follows the lives of café owner Kim Lan and South Vietnamese army captain Hoang Long who marry during the Vietnam War.
Available on Hoopla.
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The Song Poet : A Memoir of My Father
by Kao Kalia Yang
The author of The Latehomecomer delivers a powerful memoir of her father, a Hmong song poet who sacrificed his gift for his children's future in America.
Available on Hoopla.
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The Year of the Runaways
by Sunjeev Sahota
A Man Booker Prize nominee follows the story of three young men and a woman who journey together from India to England to fulfill respective goals while hiding painful secrets from the past and struggling with financial limitations and the punishing realities of immigrant life.
Available on Libby and Hoopla.
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The Narrow Road to the Deep North
by Richard Flanagan
Haunted by the death of his wife while attending brutally sick and injured soldiers at a World War II Japanese POW camp, surgeon Dorrigo Evans receives a letter that irrevocably shapes the subsequent decades of his life in Australia. By the award-winning author of Gould's Book of Fish.
Physical copy available. Also available on Libby.
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We Do Not Part
by Kang Han
As Kyungha braves a treacherous snowstorm on Jeju Island to save her injured friend's pet, she unwittingly embarks on a journey that blurs reality and memory, uncovering a hidden chapter of Korean history and the enduring power of friendship amidst forgotten violence.
Waitlist - place holds on physical copy or on Libby now.
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Prospect Heights Public Library District
12 N. Elm St., Prospect Heights, Illinois 60070
847-259-3500https://www.phpl.info |
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