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Plot Twist: Life, Craft, and the Messy First Draft: A Memoir on Writing
by Harlan Coben
With 100 million books in print world-wide and over twenty blockbuster television and film adaptations of his work, Harlan Coben has much to teach us about the creative process. Part deeply personal memoir, part masterclass in storytelling, Plot Twist is a refreshingly honest look at the life of a writer whose stories have thrilled us for decades. Plumbing memories from his suburban childhood and his early years trying to break into publishing, Coben tells his own story for the first time, revealing the real-world inspirations for some of his most beloved characters as well as the innovative plots that drive his propulsive novels. Filled with useful tips and techniques on the creative process, Coben does away with the traditional categories of writing--characters, plot, setting, etc--and looks at the process holistically. Plot Twist is a masterclass on the act of being a writer, and everything that comes with it: the self-doubt, the hubris, the contradictions, the passion and dedication. At the end of the day, his calculus is a simple one: If it helps me produce pages, good. If it doesn't, bad. This book will help every aspiring writer produce pages. Honest, funny, insightful, and at times deeply moving, this is both a captivating memoir and an essential guide for anyone looking to master the art of storytelling from one of our most beloved authors.
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The Long Run: Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, and the Decade That Made the Marathon Cool by Martin DugardOn September 3, 1970, the New York City Marathon was run for the first time. One hundred twenty-seven runners paid a one-dollar entry fee, and only one woman competed. Fifty-four years later, nearly fifty thousand runners from all over the world finished the same race. Almost half were women. More than three times as many runners applied, and over two million spectators watched. Marathons are inclusive, fully global, and still exploding in popularity. How did we get from there to here? As Martin Dugard, longtime runner, running coach, and #1 New York Times bestselling author, explains, it was thanks to four very special runners who changed the way America, and the world, saw running. The Long Run celebrates these athletes-- Frank Shorter, Steve Prefontaine, Joan Benoit, and Grete Waitz--and many more, sharing stories of the specific races and social movements that transformed running from a niche sport to a national obsession. It follows Shorter through his early training and his triumph in Munich; Prefontaine in his legendary races, disappointing Olympics, and tragic death; and Benoit and Waitz in their eleven hardwon duels before Benoit won the first women's Olympic Marathon and Waitz broke the tape in the first of five New York City Marathon victories. It is a story with big characters, enormous moments, and a historical arc that has never been completely explored. The Long Run will reveal how the sport of running, and the race that we all know and love, became iconic--and how finishing a marathon became a top bucket-listgoal for runners and non-runners alike.
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Where There's Smoke, There's Dinner: Confessions of a Cartoonist Cook
by Jennifer Hayden
Marinating in an unconventional and aromatic blend of formats, Hayden traces the nuances of her complicated relationship to food. Anecdotal comics alternate with wryly ironic recipes, peppered with oven fires, explosions, prayers, and incantations. Along the way, all the salty judgments and bitter frustrations just might caramelize into some real wisdom and self-acceptance. In any case, it's all hand-painted in mouth-watering color as a tribute to Hayden's love of cookbooks...or at least of the illustrations inside them.
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The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright: The True Story of Mass Murder in Paradise
by Casey Sherman
The scandal. The genius. The murder that shocked America.Frank Lloyd Wright was more than the mind behind America's most iconic buildings--he was a man whose turbulent private life captivated a nation. The famous architect's stormy marriage to Kitty Wright and his infamous affair with another woman, Mamah Borthwick, ignited one of the country's first celebrity scandals, splashed across headlines from coast to coast.Then, in August 1914, scandal turned to horror. A tragedy at Taliesin, the Wisconsin home Wright built as a monument to love, shook the very foundation of Wright's life--and catapulted him back to the front pages of newspapers across the country as readers clamored for glimpses of his very darkest moments.In The Killer and Frank Lloyd Wright, New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman delves beyond the myth of Wright's genius to reveal a man of relentless ambition, consuming passion, and devastating loss. With haunting intimacy and propulsive storytelling, Sherman delivers a portrait of an artist who could not escape the shadows of his own making--and who rose, again and again, from the ashes.
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Adrift on a Painted Sea
by Tim Bird
Sue Bird was always painting: a botanical art, landscapes, still lifes, and especially the sea. She took classes, kept countless sketchbooks, and filled the house with art. From their neighborhood to their family trips, all the moments of her life were memorialized in her artwork. Throughout her life, she never sold a piece--she gave art to family and friends, and shared her work online, but never received wider recognition for her work. This graphic novel by her son, Tim Bird, explores their family life and her creative explorations through a mix of her paintings and Tim's comics, depicting their relationship and her life from teenagehood to her struggle with cancer at the height of the covid pandemic. After her death, this graphic novel at last showcases her work. At its heart a book about creativity and family relationships, Adrift on a Painted Sea tells a story about the things we overlook in the people closest to us.
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In Deep Water: A True Story of Sharks, Survival, and Courage
by Michael J. Tougias
October, 8, 2022. Three friends are fishing for red snapper when their boat, tied to an oil rig, begins taking on water and sinks 15 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. Suddenly, the three men find themselves in a struggle for their lives. Their vessel succumbs to the building seas so quickly that the fisherman are unable send out a radio Mayday call, and their cell phones have no reception. They only have time to don their life jackets and hold onto a cooler as they are swept further out to sea. They vow to stay together no matter what and must make several life or death decisions. Suffering from hypothermia and severe stings from giant jelly fish, the men desperately try to stay afloat as they realize there are circling sharks below. In Deep Water is an hour by hour account of a desperate and determined struggle for survival, as well as the Coast Guard's all-out effort to find the missing men. This fast-paced story has a number of surprising turns in both the survival ordeal and the rescue efforts. Based on interviews with the three survivors and the crew of the Jayhawk helicopter who rescue them, In Deep Water is a white-knuckle tale of bravery and brotherhood and a battle against the ocean's deadliest predators.
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Focus on: Hispanic Heritage Month
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| Devout: Losing My Faith to Find Myself by David ArchuletaBy the time David Archuleta was 17, he had become the first runner-up on American Idol and was ready to parlay his newfound fame into a singing career. Except…he experienced persistent feelings of same-sex attraction. David’s long journey toward self-acceptance involved deciding whether he wanted to come out and risk alienating his fans, his Honduran American family, and his Latter-Day Saints church -- a struggle many readers will find relatable. Read-alike: What Mattered Most by Ty Herndon. |
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Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino"
by Héctor Tobar
In Our Migrant Souls, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hector Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now. Latino is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States, and also one of the most rapidly growing. Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as Latino, Our Migrant Souls is the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity. Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of Latino as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and division--a story as old as this country itself. Tobar translates his experience as not only a journalist and novelist but also a mentor, a leader, and an educator. He interweaves his own story, and that of his parents' migration to the United States from Guatemala, into his account of his journey across the country to uncover something expansive, inspiring, true, and alive about the meaning of Latino in the twenty-first century.
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Latinoland: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority
by Marie Arana
LatinoLand is an exceptional, all-encompassing overview of Hispanic America based on personal interviews, deep research, and Marie Arana's life experience as a Latina. At present, Latinos comprise twenty percent of the US population, a number that is growing. By 2050, census reports project that one in every three Americans will claim Latino heritage. But Latinos are not a monolith. They do not represent a single group. The largest groups are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Salvadorans, and Cubans. Each has a different cultural and political background. Puerto Ricans, for example, are US citizens, whereas some Mexican Americans never immigrated because the US-Mexico border shifted after the US invasion of 1848, incorporating what is now the entire southwest of the United States. Cubans came in two great waves: those escaping communism in the early years of Castro, many of whom were professionals and wealthy, and those permitted to leave in the Mariel boat lift twenty years later, representing some of the poorest Cubans, including prisoners. As LatinoLand shows, Latinos were some of the earliest immigrants to what is now the US--some of them arriving in the 1500s. They are racially diverse--a random infusion of white, Black, indigenous, and Asian. Once overwhelmingly Catholic, they are becoming increasingly Protestant and Evangelical. They range from domestic workers and day laborers to successful artists, corporate CEOs, and US senators. Formerly solidly Democratic, they now vote Republican in growing numbers. They are as culturally varied as any immigrants from Europe or Asia. Marie Arana draws on her own experience as the daughter of an American mother and Peruvian father who came to the US at age nine, straddling two worlds, as many Latinos do.
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In the shadow of the mountain : a memoir of courage
by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
A Latinx powerhouse in the tech world of Silicon Valley returns home to Peru and turns her life around by climbing the world’s highest peaks along with other victims of childhood trauma.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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