Have you read it? Have you seen it?
Uncategorized

Have you read it? Have you seen it?

Welcome back! As many know, AAPLD opened to the public on July 20. It’s been great to have patrons in the building once more and to see familiar faces. Yes, things look a bit different and we’re not yet offering all of our services, though public computers are coming! To make browsing a little easier, and help our grab-and-go visitors, […]

BLM: Community Read, Week 4
Uncategorized

BLM: Community Read, Week 4

The final selection for the Libby/Overdrive Black Lives Matter: Community Read is So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijomea Oluo. “This breakout book explores the complex reality of today’s racial landscape–from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter movement–offering straightforward clarity that readers need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial […]

Nite Readers

Nite Readers (08/20/2020): Widows of Malabar Hill

“Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women’s legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? The Farid widows live in full purdah–in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder.”– Provided by publisher. […]

Book Clubs

Enjoying the Classics (08/19/2020): Man with the Golden Arm

A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems. The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm “Algren’s defense of the individual,” while Carl Sandburg wrote of its “strange midnight dignity.” A literary tour de force, here is a novel unlike any other, one in which drug addiction, poverty, and human failure somehow suggest a defense of human dignity and a reason for hope. […]

Black Lives Matter: Community Read, Week 3
Uncategorized

Black Lives Matter: Community Read, Week 3

This week’s selection for the Overdrive/Libby Black Lives Matter Community Read is a fiction title, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Published in 2017, The Hate U Give is eerily relevant to the May 25 death of George Floyd, and the national protests that followed. Black teen Starr Carter is caught between two worlds; the mostly-white suburban college prep […]

Book Clubs

Forever Young (08/10/2020): Lovely War

“In the perilous days of World Wars I and II, the gods hold the fates– and the hearts– of four mortals in their hands. They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect-turned-soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it’s no match for the transcendent power of Love”–Adapted from jacket. […]

BLM Community Read, Week 2
Uncategorized

BLM Community Read, Week 2

The Black Lives Matter: Community Read continues this week with The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. “The New Jim Crow is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly […]

Book Clubs

Stranger than Fiction (08/04/2020): Running the Books: the Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian

Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from Yeshiva to Harvard, he has only a senior thesis essay on Bugs Bunny to show for his effort. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, he remains stuck at a crossroads, unable to meet the lofty expectations of his Orthodox Jewish upbringing. And his romantic existence as a freelance obituary writer just isn’t cutting it. Seeking direction—and dental insurance—Steinberg takes a job as a librarian in a tough Boston prison.

The prison library counter, his new post, attracts con men, minor prophets, ghosts, and an assortment of quirky regulars searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. There’s an anxious pimp who solicits Steinberg’s help in writing a memoir. A passionate gangster who dreams of hosting a cooking show titled Thug Sizzle. A disgruntled officer who instigates a major feud over a Post-it note. A doomed ex-stripper who asks Steinberg to orchestrate a reunion with her estranged son, himself an inmate. Over time, Steinberg is drawn into the accidental community of outcasts that has formed among his bookshelves — a drama he recounts with heartbreak and humor. But when the struggles of the prison library — between life and death, love and loyalty — become personal, Steinberg is forced to take sides.

Running the Books is a trenchant exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world while trying not to get fired in the process. […]

Continuing The Conversation
Uncategorized

Continuing The Conversation

While the protests following George Floyd’s death have paused, our country is just beginning the process of addressing systemic racism. An important role of the library is to provide access to materials that help patrons learn about important issues. AAPLD is part of a network of libraries in the northern suburbs that will be participating in the Black Lives Matter […]

Book Clubs

Spinecrackers (08/07/2020): Circe

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child — not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power — the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. […]