To find these selections and many other new titles, see the NMC library catalog.
NON-FICTION
The Jazz Standards: A Guide to the Repertoire
by Ted Gioia
Since the first edition of The Jazz Standards was published in 2012, author Ted Gioia has received almost non-stop feedback and suggestions from the passionate global community of jazz enthusiasts and performers requesting crucial additions and corrections to the book. In this second edition, Gioia expands the scope of the book to include more songs, and features new recordings by rising contemporary artists. The Jazz Standards is an essential comprehensive guide to some of the most important jazz compositions, telling the story of more than 250 key jazz songs and providing a listening guide to more than 2,000 recordings.
The Trump Effect: Disruption and Its Consequences in U.S. Politics and Government
edited by Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly
This book reveals the widespread effects of the Trump administration’s efforts to unsettle and reshape American governance. The chapters focus on the major fronts of conflict evident during Trump’s presidency: in public opinion, party politics, media coverage, Congressional relations, executive branch management, judicial appointments, foreign policy and domestic policy. The guiding focus of the chapters concerns the successes and failures of the administration’s transformative aspirations during Trump’s years in the White House.
The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales
edited and translated by Juwen Zhang
This book collects and translates more than 40 tales selected from the “Lin Lan” series, published in China from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. The pseudonym “Lin Lan” was created in 1924, when stories about the legendary Xu Wenchang (1521-1593), himself the author of many literary works still popular today, were published in a morning newspaper. The success of this first attempt encouraged the creators to publish more folk tales and fairy tales, which ultimately played a major role in the development of modern folk literature in China.
Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World
by Victoria Finlay
Author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee’s Bend, Alabama – where in the 1930s, deprived of almost everything they owned, a community of women turned quilting into an art form.
Indian Cities: Histories of Indigenous Urbanization
edited by Kent Blansett, Cathleen D. Cahill, and Andrew Needham
The authors—Native and non-Native, anthropologists and geographers as well as historians—use the term “Indian cities” to represent collective urban spaces established and regulated by a range of institutions, organizations, churches, and businesses. Some of the essays in this volume explore Native participation in everyday economic activities, whether in the commerce of colonial Charleston or in the early development of New Orleans. Other essays describe the roles local Indigenous community groups have played in building urban Native American communities, from Dallas to Winnipeg.
Bi: Bisexual, Pansexual, Fuid, and Nonbinary Youth
by Ritch C. Savin-Williams
Despite the increasing visibility of LGBTQ people in American culture, our understanding of bisexuality remains superficial, at best. Yet, five times as many people identify as bisexual than as gay or lesbian, and as much as 25 percent of the population is estimated to be bisexual. Drawing on interviews with bisexual youth from a range of racial, ethnic, and social class groups, the author reveals how bisexuals define their own sexual orientation and experiences―in their own words.
FICTION
The Bandit Queens
by Parini Shroff
In the five years since her husband’s disappearance, Geeta has become accustomed to a solitary life; you’d be surprised how difficult it is to make friends when your entire village believes you’re a witch who murdered your husband. And since she can’t convince anyone that she didn’t murder him, she figures she might as well use her fearsome reputation to protect herself as a woman on her own. But when other women in the village decide that they, too, want to rid themselves of their abusive husbands, Geeta becomes the go-to consultant. Acerbic, insightful, and full of dark humor, The Bandit Queens–with its unique combination of poignant social commentary and irreverence–is an absolutely unforgettable novel.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
by Shannon Chakraborty
After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean’s most notorious pirates, Amina al-Sirafi is set to retire peacefully with her family. But when she’s tracked down by the wealthy mother of a former crewman, she’s offered a job no bandit could refuse. To have one last adventure with her crew, do right by an old friend, and win a fortune that will secure her family’s future seems like such an obvious choice. Yet the deeper Amina dives, it becomes clear that there’s more to this job than she was led to believe.
The Shards
by Bret Easton Ellis
Seventeen-year-old Bret is a senior at the exclusive Buckley prep school when a new student arrives with a mysterious past. Robert Mallory is bright, handsome, charismatic, and shielding a secret from Bret and his friends even as he becomes a part of their tightly knit circle. Bret’s obsession with Mallory is equaled only by his preoccupation with the Trawler, a serial killer on the loose who seems to be drawing ever closer. Can he trust his friends—or his own mind—to make sense of the danger? Buffeted by unhealthy fixations, he spirals into paranoia and isolation as the relationship between the Trawler and Mallory hurtles toward a collision.
Unseelie
by Ivelisse Housman
Iselia “Seelie” Graygrove looks just like her twin, Isolde…but as an autistic changeling left in the human world by the fae as an infant, she has always known she is different. Seelie’s unpredictable magic makes it hard for her to fit in – and draws her and Isolde into the hunt for a fabled treasure. In a heist gone wrong, the sisters make some unexpected allies and find themselves unraveling a mystery that has its roots in the history of humans and fae alike. Both sisters soon discover that the secrets of the faeries may be more valuable than any pile of gold and jewels. But can Seelie harness her magic in time to protect her sister and herself? [Juvenile Fiction]
Afterlives
by Abdulrazak Gurnah
From the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, a sweeping, multi-generational saga set against the brutal colonization of east Africa. When he was a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into slavery. Hamza, too, is back from the war and seeks only steady work and safety – until he meets the beautiful Afiya. Spanning from the end of the nineteenth century, when the Europeans carved up Africa, through the decades of revolt and suppression that followed, Afterlives is a portrait of survivors refusing to sacrifice their humanity to the violent forces that assail them.
Signal fires
by Dani Shapiro
Late on a summer night in 1985, three teenagers are in a tragic car crash on the quiet, suburban Division Avenue. A girl is killed, and Theo and Sarah Wilf are left with a devastating secret that will haunt their family forever. By the time the Shenkmans move in across the street, the accident has faded into the past, but secrets haunt both families and cause them to become intimately intertwined. When Waldo Shenkman, a brilliant but lonely child, befriends Ben Wilf, who is struggling with his wife’s decline from Alzheimer’s, he once again entangles the families’ fates and sets in motion the spellbinding, unforgettable climax.
Summaries and images adapted from publishers.