OverDrive  Audiobooks
May 2020
 
"Life is a journey, and you can't carry everything with you.    
Only the usable baggage." -- Ha Jin
 
 
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
 
The Boat Rocker
by Ha Jin

Rendered famous for his explosive anti-Communist exposT, a fiercely principled Chinese expatriate reporter endures an excruciating assignment investigating his own ex-wife, an unscrupulous novelist who has become a pawn of the Chinese government. Reading-group guide available. By the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting.
Exhalation : Stories
by Ted Chiang

A long-awaited latest collection by the Arrival-inspiring author of "The Story of Your Life" explores revelatory ideas and second chances in such tales as, "In the Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," "Exhalation" and "The Lifecycle of Software Objects."
The Bride Test
by Helen Hoang

"When his difficulties with processing emotions complicate the search for his bride, a Vietnamese-American on the autism spectrum is pursued by a hopelessly smitten girl from the Ho Chi Min City slums."
A Gesture Life
by Chang-rae Lee

Franklin Hata, a Japanese man of Korean birth living in suburban New York, seems on the surface to be living a quiet and harmonious life, but actually he remains tormented by his wartime love for a Korean Comfort Woman.
Girl in Translation
by Jean Kwok

Emigrating with her mother from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, Kimberly Chang begins a secret double life as an exceptional schoolgirl during the day and sweatshop worker at night, an existence also marked by a first crush and the pressure to save her family from poverty.
 
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
 
Scratched : A Memoir of Perfectionism
by Elizabeth Tallent

The acclaimed author of Museum Pieces explores her ferocious need for perfection that caused a 22-year gap in writing after initially publishing five literary novels between the ages of 27 and 37.
Voluntary Madness : My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin
by Norah Vincent

A follow-up to Self-Made Man traces the author's commitment to a mental institution, where she embraced health and made observations about the effect of institutionalization and medication on the depressed and insane.
Hidden Valley Road : Inside the Mind of an American Family
by Robert Kolker

Tells the heartrending story of a midcentury American family with 12 children, 6 of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease.
Nothing General About it : How Love (and Lithium) Saved Me On and Off General hospital
by Maurice Benard

The Emmy Award-winning star of General Hospital chronicles his astonishing and emotional life journey in an inspiring story of success, show business and family, as well as his struggle with mental illness.
Brain on Fire : My Month of Madness
by Susannah Cahalan

An account of the author's struggle with a rare brain-attacking autoimmune disease traces how she woke up in a hospital room with no memory of baffling psychotic symptoms, describing the last-minute intervention by a doctor who identified the source of her illness.
Brother & Sister : A Memoir
by Diane Keaton

The Academy Award-winning film star and best-selling author of Then Again presents a memoir of her complicated relationship with a beloved younger brother, who transitioned from a close sibling into a troubled and reclusive alcoholic.