Library Staff Directory
Posted Nov 18, 2024
On Saturday, November 16th, the Friends of the Shorewood Public Library hosted their annual Holiday Book Talk with Boswell Book Company proprietor, Daniel Goldin. Daniel shared three dozen of his new favorite fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books. He also shared his insider’s knowledge of authors and the publishing world.
Below are Daniel's recommendations. All title summaries are adapted from COUNTYCAT. Head over to Boswell Book Company if you're looking to make a purchase, or check one out from the library!
ADULT FICTION
James by Percival EverettFrom Percival Everett comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place , Jim's agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a "cult literary icon", and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime, James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.
The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez
It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history, but first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection. Ada Bunting is a bold sixteen-year-old from Barbados who arrives in Panama as a stowaway alongside thousands of other West Indians seeking work. Alone and with no resources, she is determined to find a job that will earn enough money for her ailing sister's surgery. When she sees a young man, Omar, who has collapsed after a grueling shift, she is the only one who rushes to his aid. John Oswald has dedicated his life to scientific research and has journeyed to Panama in single-minded pursuit of one goal: eliminating malaria. But now, his wife, Marian, has fallen ill herself, and when he witnesses Ada's bravery and compassion, he hires her on the spot as a caregiver. This fateful decision sets in motion a sweeping tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.
The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry
October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich in copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen is soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces and the tragic impact of big business.
The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming "lion women." But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls' high school in Iran, Ellie's memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives. Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.
The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza
Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie's death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara's great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn't die of illness as family lore has it - she was murdered. Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and prove her birthright. Flashing back to the past, we meet Serafina, a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly it isn't long before a woman challenging the status quo finds herself in danger. As Sara discovers more about Serafina she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother. At once an immersive multigenerational mystery and an ode to the undaunted heroism of everyday women, The Sicilian Inheritance is an atmospheric, page-turning delight.
Sandwich by Catherine NewmanFrom the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go. For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family's yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and - thanks to the cottage's ancient plumbing - septic, too. This year's vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past except, perhaps, for Rocky's hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing, and her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers. It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family's history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things. She's unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor's edge. Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life - exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships - how they grow, change, and sometimes end - Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.
Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger
Lila Peirera is a force to be reckoned with. Raised in 1970s Detroit by her abusive father and stern Bubbe after her mother Zelda's early death, Lila escaped the poverty of her childhood to reach stratospheric heights as editor-in-chief of The Washington Globe. There, she exposes political scandals and establishes a reputation as a no-nonsense, straight-talker. At home, she's just as tough, leaving the raising of her three daughters to her kind and loyal husband. Having always craved more of her mother's attention - and having long questioned the circumstances surrounding her grandmother Zelda's death - Lila's youngest daughter, Grace, writes an autobiographical novel. In her book, Grace speculates that Zelda never died, rather, she abandoned her children, forcing Lila to become the hard-edged, dispassionate woman Grace grew up with. Grace's book is her attempt to make sense of her mother, but she could never have imagined that Lila would die shortly after its publication. Lila leaves Grace a posthumous directive: find out the truth about what really happened to Zelda. Zigzagging between Washington, D.C., Detroit, and New York City, and probing the truths that all families attempt to hide between generations, Like Mother, Like Mother is a smart, lively, and deeply moving novel about the inescapability of genetic inheritance.
Real Americans by Rachel KongReal Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao's Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. Amid the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by physical beauty, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy's private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake. I Cheerfully Refuse epitomizes the "musical, sometimes magical and deeply satisfying kind of storytelling" for which Leif Enger is cherished. A rollicking narrative in the most evocative of settings, this latest novel is a symphony against despair and a rallying cry for the future.
Five-Star Stranger by Kat Tang
In an age where online ratings are all-powerful, Five-Star Stranger follows the adventures of a top-rated man on the "Rental Stranger" app - a place where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients. When a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life. Five-Star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about the commodification of relationships in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. This is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.
The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working as a "bridge:" living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin's doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he's a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as "washing machines," Spotify, and "the collapse of the British Empire." But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts. Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry's project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how and whether she believes what she does next can change the future. An exquisitely original and feverishly fun fusion of genres and ideas, The Ministry of Time asks: What does it mean to defy history, when history is living in your house? Kaliane Bradley's answer is a blazing, unforgettable testament to what we owe each other in a changing world.
Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin by Dan KoisOn a cold winter's evening in 1987, six middle-school paperboys wander an unfamiliar Milwaukee neighborhood, selling newspaper subscriptions, fueled by their stupid manager Kevin's promises of cash bonuses and dinner at Burger King. But the freaks come out at night in Hampton Heights. Sent out into the neighborhood in pairs, the boys will encounter a host of primordial monsters and triumph over them. Sigmone, who is bussed to a white school, is stuck with Joel, a white kid who idolizes Black culture. Mark, who's wrestling with his sexuality, joins his secret crush, Ryan who has a crush of his own. Nishu and Al are outsiders; one is a second-generation immigrant, the other a poor kid in a rich school. Over the course of one eventful evening, the three pairs will encounter the wild things of Hampton Heights - werewolves, witches with a centuries-old story to tell, and a creepy, ancient monster who feeds on memories. Meanwhile, Kevin is having an adventure of his own, seducing a beautiful woman in the neighborhood's tavern, but there's something weird about her fingernails... Funny, thrilling, outrageous, and sneakily beautiful, Dan Kois's Hampton Heights captures without sentimentality the dreams and fears of teenage boys in a tender horror-comedy about camaraderie, bravery, vulnerability, and the terrifying prospect of growing up.
Sipsworth by Simon Van BooyFollowing the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to her hometown in England after living abroad for sixty years. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss, and she retreats from the world into a life of dull routine. Then one winter night, a chance encounter with a mouse sets Helen on a surprising journey.
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn't yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland - Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman - their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways. How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
CHILDREN'S BOOKS
A sweet and silly buffalo who tries to bluff and fluff his way into being bigger than he really is.
Bear's Lost Glasses by Leo Timmers
Bear has lost his glasses and walks to his friend Giraffe's house, where he thinks he left them.
Little Shrew by Akiko Miyakoshi
This collection of three interconnected stories follows the life of Little Shrew as he goes about his everyday activities of commuting to work to reflecting on his hopes and dreams to welcoming his friends for a visit.
A father and son, living apart, spend time together making a model plane, and as they reminisce over warm memories, the child feels his father's enduring love despite their circumstances.
The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure by Barb Rosenstock
A picture book about the five largest lakes in North America - how they formed, the importance of these waters, and how they've become a national treasure.
The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys
Remember, you are bound by the Official Secrets Act... Summer, 1940. Nineteen-year-old Jakob Novis and his quirky younger sister Lizzie share a love of riddles and puzzles. And now they're living inside of one. The quarrelsome siblings find themselves amidst one of the greatest secrets of World War II - Britain's eccentric codebreaking factory at Bletchley Park. As Jakob joins Bletchley's top minds to crack the Nazi's Enigma cipher, fourteen-year-old Lizzie embarks on a mission to solve the mysterious disappearance of their mother. The Battle of Britain rages and Hitler's invasion creeps closer. And at the same time, baffling messages and codes arrive on their doorstep while a menacing inspector lurks outside the gates of the Bletchley mansion. Are the messages truly for them, or are they a trap? Could the riddles of Enigma and their mother's disappearance be somehow connected? Jakob and Lizzie must find a way to work together as they race to decipher clues which unravel a shocking puzzle that presents the ultimate challenge: How long must a secret be kept?
A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall by Jasmine Warga
A painting has been stolen! When Rami sees a floating girl in the museum, he knows he has seen her somewhere before. Then he realizes: she looks just like the girl in the painting that has gone missing, but how does her appearance connect to the theft? Agatha the turtle knows - she has been watching from the garden, but she can't exactly tell anyone, can she? Will Rami, with the help of his classmate, Veda, be able to solve the mystery? The clues are all around them, but they'll have to be brave enough to really look.
Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody by Patrick Ness
When Principal Wombat makes monitor lizards Zeke, Daniel, and Alicia hall monitors, Zeke gives up on popularity at his new school. Brought in as part of a district blending program, the monitor lizards were mostly ignored before. Reptiles aren't bullied any more than other students, but they do stick out among zebras, ostriches, and elk. Why would Principal Wombat make them hall monitors? Alicia explains that it's because mammals are afraid of being yelled (hissed) at by reptiles. The principal's just a good general, deploying her resources. Zeke balks, until he gets on the wrong side of Pelicarnassus. More than a bully, the pelican is a famed international supervillain-at least when his mother isn't looking. Maybe the halls are a war zone, and the school needs a hero. Too bad it isn't . . . Zeke. Smart, relatable, and densely illustrated in black and white for graphic appeal, this middle-grade series debut by a revered author returns to his themes of grief, bullying, and negotiating differences-but with zeal and comic relief to spare.
ADULT NON-FICTION
Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir by Ina Garten
For the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina's gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable, she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose. From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you'll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm GladwellIn this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena. Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world's most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell's most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It's time we took tipping points seriously.
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind NarayananIn this book, Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor explain the major strains of AI in use today: generative AI, predictive AI, and AI for content moderation. They show readers how to differentiate between them and, importantly, make a cogent argument for which types of AI can work well and which can never work, because of their inherent limitations. AI in this latter category, the authors argue, is AI snake oil: it does not and cannot work. More precisely, generative AI is imperfect but can be used for good once we learn how to apply it appropriately, whereas predictive AI can never work - in spite of the fact that it's being sold and marketed today in products - because we have never been able to accurately predict human behavior.
John Lewis: A Life by David Greenberg
Greenberg's biography traces Lewis's life through the post-Civil Rights years, when he headed the Voter Education Project, which enrolled millions of African American voters across the South. The book reveals the little-known story of his political ascent first locally in Atlanta, and then as a member of Congress. Tapped to be a part of the Democratic leadership in Congress, he earned respect on both sides of the aisle for the sacrifices he had made on behalf of nonviolent integration in the South and came to be known as the "conscience of the Congress." Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, Greenberg's biography captures John Lewis's influential career through documents from dozens of archives, interviews with hundreds of people who knew Lewis, and long-lost footage of Lewis himself speaking to reporters from his hospital bed following his severe beating on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma. With new details about his personal and professional relationships, John Lewis: A Life is the definitive biography of a man whose heroism during the Civil Rights movement helped to bring America a new birth of freedom.
Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania by Kathryn Hughes
In Catland, Kathryn Hughes chronicles the cat craze of the early twentieth century through the life and career of Louis Wain. Wain's anthropomorphic drawings of cats in top hats falling in love, sipping champagne, golfing, driving cars, and piloting planes are some of the most instantly recognizable images from the era. His round-faced fluffy characters established the prototype for the modern cat, which cat "fanciers" were busily trying to achieve using their newfound knowledge of the latest scientific breeding techniques. Despite being a household name, Wain endured multiple bankruptcies and mental breakdowns, spending his last fifteen years in an asylum, drawing abstract and multicolored felines. But it was his ubiquitous anthropomorphic cats that helped usher the formerly reviled creatures into homes across Europe.
Look Away: A True Story of Murders, Bombings, and a Far-Right Campaign to Rid Germany of Immigrants by Jacob KushnerNot long after the Berlin Wall came down, three teenagers - a woman and two men - became friends in the East German town of Jena. It was a time of excitement, but also of economic crisis: some four million East Germans found themselves out of a job. At first, the three friends spent their nights lingering in train stations, smoking, drinking, and looking for trouble. Then, they began attending far-right rallies with people called themselves National Socialists: Nazis. Like the Hitler-led Nazis before them, these Neo-Nazis - also known as the National Socialist Underground - blamed minorities for their ills: working-class men and women from countries like Turkey, Vietnam, and Greece who had been brought over as "guest workers" to fill jobs in Germanys' factories and mines. And so, from 2000 to 2011, the NSU began to kill them and their descendants one by one. It became the most horrific string of white nationalist killings since the Holocaust. Inside family homes, police and intelligence agencies, and a Munich courtroom, which would witness Germany's most sensational trial since Nuremburg. Look Away follows Beate Zschäpe and her two accomplices - and sometimes lovers - as they radicalized within Germany's far-right scene, escaped into hiding, and carried out their anti-immigrant killing spree. It also follows Katharina König, an Antifa punk who, sickened and frightened by the rise of Neo-Nazis in her hometown in the 1990s, began secretly tracking the NSU, later exposing them to the world. This is the definitive account of how a group of young Germans carried out a shocking spree of white supremacist violence, and how a nation and its government looked the other way until it was too late.
Guilty Creatures: Sex, God, and Murder in Tallahassee, Florida by Mikita Brottman
From the critically-acclaimed author and psychoanalyst Mikita Brottman comes the murky retelling of the murder of Mike Williams committed under the haze of faith and devotion. Perfect for true-crime and literary fiction fans alike.
Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer
For many kids growing up in the 2000s, there was no cultural touchstone more powerful than Disney Channel, the most-watched cable channel in primetime at its peak. Today, it might best be known for introducing the world to talents like Hilary Duff, Raven-Symoné, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, and Zendaya. It wasn't always destined for greatness: when The Disney Channel launched in 1983, it was a forgotten stepchild within the Walt Disney Company, forever in the shadow of Disney's more profitable movies and theme parks. But after letting the stars of their Mickey Mouse Club revival - among them Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Ryan Gosling - slip through their fingers, Disney Channel reinvented itself as a powerhouse tween network. In the new millennium, it churned out billions of dollars in original content and triple-threat stars whose careers were almost entirely controlled by the corporation. Suddenly, everyone wanted a piece of the pie, and there were constant clashes between the studio, network, labels, and creatives as Disney Channel became a pressure cooker of perfection for its stars. From private feuds and on-set disasters, to fanfare that swept the nation and the realities of child stardom, culture journalist Ashley Spencer offers the inside story of the heyday of TV's House of Mouse, featuring hundreds of exclusive new interviews with former Disney executives, creatives, and celebrities to explore the highs, lows, and everything in between.
When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow
From the award-winning author of The Plaza: The Secret Life of America's Most Famous Hotel, a glittering, glamorous portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them.
The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss
Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost. Evan Friss's history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, catalogs, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many-not just as a merchant, but as a gathering place for likeminded people who cherish books. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin's first bookstore in Philadelphia, and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago's Marshall Field & Co., Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries-including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field's in 1944. The Bookshop is a book every bookstore will want to carry, as there has never been a more affectionate and engaging celebration of this beloved institution.
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