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Your Recommendations

Would you like us to feature a particular book, film, or other piece of media in a future ‘Leisure Reads’ post and/or in a Library Lobby display? Use our 'MSJ Picks' form to submit your recommendations!

MSJ Picks (for Leisure Reads)

National Native American Heritage Month 2025

This month’s “Leisure Reads” celebrates National Native American Heritage Month with novels, short fiction, songs, poems, speeches, and works of history telling the story of peoples indigenous to the United States. All items available for requesting and borrowing.

Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology by Brian Swann, editor
“In this carefully chosen collection, encompassing traditional songs and contemporary Native American poetry…selections range from the beautiful, traditional Seminole ‘Song for Bringing a Child into the World’ to the cynical, knowing ‘How to Write the Great American Indian Novel….’ Taken together, these poems offer an intimate, revealing record of the Native American response to the world, from time-honored chants and songs to the musings of urban Indian poets coming to grips with twentieth-century America.” – Publisher’s Summary
Great Speeches by Native Americans by Robert Blaisdell, editor
“Beginning with a 1540 refusal by a Timucua chief to parley with Hernando de Soto (‘With such a people I want no peace’), the collection extends to the 20th-century address of activist Russell Means to the United Nations affiliates and members of the Human Rights Commission (‘We are people who live in the belly of the monster’). Other memorable orations include Powhatan's ‘Why should you destroy us, who have provided you with food?’ (1609); Red Jacket's ‘We like our religion, and do not want another’ (1811); Osceola's ‘I love my home, and will not go from it’ (1834); Red Cloud's ‘The Great Spirit made us both’ (1870); Chief Joseph's ‘I will fight no more forever’ (1877); Sitting Bull's ‘The life my people want is a life of freedom’ (1882); and many more. Other notable speakers represented here include Tecumseh, Seattle, Geronimo, and Crazy Horse, as well as many lesser-known leaders.”
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
“The received idea of Native American history—as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee—has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well. Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear—and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence—the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention. In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.” – Publisher’s Summary
A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger
“In this breathtaking work of Indigenous futurism, Darcie Little Badger weaves an unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She’s always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories. Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he’s been cast from home. He's found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake. Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli’s best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven’t been in centuries. And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.” – Publisher’s Summary
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
“The stunning first novel in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, Love Medicine tells the story of two families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. Written in Erdrich's uniquely poetic, powerful style, it is a multi-generational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable drama of anger, desire, and the healing power that is love medicine.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
“Sherman Alexie’s celebrated first collection, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, established its author as one of America’s most important and provocative voices. The basis for the award-winning movie Smoke Signals, it remains one of his best loved and widely praised books… Vividly weaving memory, fantasy, and stark reality to paint a portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian reservation, this book introduces some of Alexie’s most beloved characters, including Thomas Builds-the-Fire, the storyteller who no one seems to listen to, and his compatriot, Victor, the sports hero who turned into a recovering alcoholic. …[T]hese twenty-four tales are narrated by characters raised on humiliation and government-issue cheese, and yet they are filled with passion and affection, myth and charm. Against a backdrop of addiction, car accidents, laughter, and basketball, Alexie depicts the distances between men and women, Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, and, most poetically, modern Indians and the traditions of the past.” – Publisher’s Summary
Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle
“The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the ‘Principle People’ residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the ‘trail where they cried.’ The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Grass Dancer by Susan Power
“Inspired by the lore of her Sioux heritage, this ‘captivating’ (New York Times Book Review) critically-acclaimed novel from Mona Susan Power weaves the stories of the old and the young, of broken families, romantic rivals, men and women in love and at war.... Set on a North Dakota reservation, The Grass Dancer reveals the harsh price of unfulfilled longings and the healing power of mystery and hope. Rich with drama and infused with the magic of the everyday, it takes readers on a journey through both past and present—in a tale as resonant and haunting as an ancestor's memory, and as promising as a child's dream.” – Publisher’s Summary

Halloween 2025

This year’s Halloween “Leisure Reads” features fiction dealing with ghosts, spirits, and the supernatural. Read with the lights on!

Missing Angel Juan by Francesca Lia Block
“A tangly-haired, purple-eyed girl named Witch Baby lives in glitzy L.A. She loves a guy named Angel Juan. When he leaves for New York she knows she must find him. So she heads for the city of glittery buildings and garbage and Chinese food and drug dealers and subways and kids playing hip-hopscotch. Her clues are an empty tree house in the park, a postcard on the street, a mannequin in a diner. Angel Juan is in danger, and only Witch Baby's heart-magic can make him safe. When Angel Juan leaves L. A.—and Witch Baby—to play his music and find himself in New York, Witch Baby, wild and restless without him, follows. The story that ensues "is an engagingly eccentric mix of fantasy and reality, enhanced—this time—by mystery and suspense. It is also magical, moving and mischievous, and—literally—marvelous.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Ghost of Windy Hill by Clyde Robert Bulla
“Some people think the house on Windy Hill is haunted. Lorna and Jamie aren't so sure they believe in ghosts. So how can they explain the mysterious sounds of knocking, running steps, and tinkling bells?” – Publisher’s Summary
The Monster and the Tailor by Paul Galdone
“A poor tailor is ordered by the Grand Duke to make a pair of trousers, but he has to make them in a graveyard where a spooky monster lives.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
“When a baby escapes a murderer intent on killing the entire family, who would have thought it would find safety and security in the local graveyard? Brought up by the resident ghosts, ghouls and specters, Bod has an eccentric childhood learning about life from the dead. But for Bod there is also the danger of the murderer still looking for him—after all, he is the last remaining member of the family. A stunningly original novel deftly constructed over eight chapters, featuring every second year of Bod's life, from babyhood to adolescence. Will Bod survive to be a man?” – Publisher’s Summary
A Guide to the Other Side by Robert Imfeld
“Thirteen-year-old Baylor Bosco does not like ghosts, but as a medium he sees them—Including his twin sister Kristina—everywhere… Kristina disappears after a strange ghost shows up and Baylor must try to find her on his own.” – Publisher’s Summary.
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
“Four years after the sudden death of his wife, bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls 'Sara Laughs,' Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie’s and Kyra’s struggle—and as he falls in love with both of them—he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs…now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here—and just what do they want of Mike Noonan?” – Publisher’s Summary
The Bake Shop Ghost by Jacqueline K. Ogburn
“Cora Lee Merriweather baked the best pies and cakes for miles—fluffy meringue pies, flaky strudels, layer cakes, sheet cakes, and cakes with frosting finer than Irish lace. But now Cora Lee haunts the shop she used to own. When new bakers arrive to take over her empty bake shop, Cora Lee scares them away, each and every one. Then Annie Washington comes to town . . .” – Publisher’s Summary
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
“A wonderful collection of tales about eerie horror and dark revenge designed to captivate and enthrall readers for hours. There is a story here for every reader—tales of lovers who come back from the dead, skeletons with torn and tangled flesh who roam the earth, and people who stand on graves to be grabbed by death.” – Publisher’s Summary
More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
“Is it possible to die—and not know it? What happens when someone is buried, but isn’t really dead? Can a thief get away with robbing a corpse? Here are over two dozen scary stories. Some are funny, some macabre, and some just plain spooky. All of them are perfect for telling aloud in the dark or for reading alone… IF YOU DARE!” – Publisher’s Summary
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
“When the four Stanley children meet Amanda, their new stepsister, they're amazed to learn that she studies witchcraft. They're stunned to see her dressed in a strange costume, carrying a pet crow and surrounded by a pile of books about the supernatural. It's not long before Amanda promises to give witchcraft lessons to David, Jamie and the twins. But that's when strange things start happening in their old house. David suspects Amanda of causing mischief, until they learn that the house really was haunted long ago. Legend has it that a ghost cut the head off of a wooden cupid on the stairway. Has the ghost returned to strike again?” – Publisher’s Summary
Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
“Catrina and her family are moving to the coast of Northern California because her little sister, Maya, is sick. Cat isn't happy about leaving her friends for Bahía de la Luna, but Maya has cystic fibrosis and will benefit from the cool, salty air that blows in from the sea. As the girls explore their new home, a neighbor lets them in on a secret: there are ghosts in Bahía de la Luna. Maya is determined to meet one, but Cat wants nothing to do with them. As the time of year when ghosts reunite with their loved ones approaches, Cat must figure out how to put aside her fears for her sister's sake—and her own.” – Publisher’s Summary
Great Ghost Stories
Included in this volume are Algernon Blackwood, E. F. Benson, Bram Stoker, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and J. S. LeFanu.
“A midnight caller keeps his solemn promise… a couple on their honeymoon visit the torture chamber of a strange old castle… a triple murder is avenged—by the murderer’s own victims! These are just a few of the tales of terror in this chilling collection by some of the very best writers of the supernatural.” – Publisher’s Summary

NHAH Month - Sept. 2025

September's “Leisure Reads” celebrates National Hispanic American Heritage Month, which is observed in the United States from September 15-October 15. Below is a diverse mix of fiction and nonfiction, including Isabelle Allende’s novel, The Infinite Plan; Junot Díaz’s picture book, Islandborn; and Javier Zamora’s memoir of emigration, Solito.

The Eighth Continent & Other Stories by Alba N. Ambert
“This powerful and enriching collection of nine stories explores and illuminates the fusion of intimate and public dramas. Focusing on the persistence of personal memory amid political and historical upheaval, the tales in The Eighth Continent portray the impact of broad political and historical events on individual lives, success in the face of low expectations and the humor that redeems everyday struggles. In rich evocative language, award-winning author Alba Ambert invokes strong characters and demonstrates the cool detachment of modern life. Populating the stories are engrossing individuals: underground revolutionaries faced with fear of betrayal; a woman who looks back at a massacre she witnessed as a child and the wrenching consequences of this event on her life; a linguist who makes a dangerous trip to a tropical island and finds a language on the verge of extinction; and a young woman in a mental hospital who challenges our perception of truth and lies, sanity and insanity.” – Publisher’s Summary
Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States by Felipe Fernández-Armesto
“This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores who planted Spain’s first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Southwest. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain’s expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies, and charting the Pacific coast. During the nineteenth century Anglo-America expands west under the banner of 'Manifest Destiny' and consolidates control through war with Mexico. In the Hispanic resurgence that follows, it is the peoples of Latin America who overspread the continent, from the Hispanic heartland in the West to major cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston. The United States clearly has a Hispanic present and future.” – Publisher’s Summary
Solito by Javier Zamora
“When Javier Zamora was nine, he traveled unaccompanied by bus, boat, and foot from El Salvador to the United States to reunite with his parents. This is his memoir of that dangerous journey, a nine-week odyssey that nearly ended in calamity on multiple occasions. It's a miracle that Javier survived the crossing, and a miracle that he has the talent to now tell his story so masterfully. While Solito is Javier's story, it's also the story of millions of others who have risked so much to come to this country. A memoir that reads like a novel, rooted in precise and authentic detail, this story is destined to be a classic of the immigration experience.” – Publisher’s Summary
Famous All over Town by Danny Santiago
“The scene is Los Angeles—but not the LA of sun-drenched beaches or glamorous Hollywood. This is the Los Angeles of the Chicano barrio, where everything in life is stacked against the teenaged hero, Chato Medina, his beleaguered, disintegrating family, his defiant and doomed friends, and the future he may not make it far enough to enjoy. Chato, however, is out to beat all those odds—in his own indefatigable, inimitable way.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Circuit by Francisco Jiménez
“After dark in a Mexican border town, a father holds open a hole in a wire fence as his wife and two small boys crawl through. So begins life in the United States for many people every day. And so begins this collection of twelve autobiographical stories by Santa Clara University professor Francisco Jiménez, who at the age of four illegally crossed the border with his family in 1947. "The Circuit," the story of young Panchito and his trumpet, is one of the most widely anthologized stories in Chicano literature. At long last, Jiménez offers more about the wise, sensitive little boy who has grown into a role model for subsequent generations of immigrants. These independent but intertwined stories follow the family through their circuit, from picking cotton and strawberries to topping carrots—and back again—over a number of years. As it moves from one labor camp to the next, the little family of four grows into ten. Impermanence and poverty define their lives. But with faith, hope, and back-breaking work, the family endures.” – Publisher’s Summary
Columbus, Cortés: And Other Essays by Ramón Iglesia
“Ramón Iglesia was not a dilettante historian—his work was always thoroughly grounded on the hard facts of the past. But he preferred to write, and always with grace and good judgment, about the facts of history, rather than simply to list them in some sort of chronological order. His essay on Hernán Cortés is perhaps the best short account of the Conqueror’s life in any language. He uses Cortés’ famous letters to good effect, extracting from them (in Cortés’ own words) the essence of the man. Iglesia is equally successful with Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, and Christopher Columbus.” – Robert E. Quirk, Hispanic American Historical Review
Women Writers of Latin America by Trudy Balch (Translator); Karen Parker Lears (Illustrator)
“What does it take for a woman to succeed as a writer? In these revealing interviews, first published in 1988 as Historias íntimas, ten of Latin America's most important women writers explore this question with scholar Magdalena García Pinto, discussing the personal, social, and political factors that have shaped their writing careers. The authors interviewed are Isabel Allende, Albalucía Angel, Rosario Ferré, Margo Glantz, Sylvia Molloy, Elvira Orphée, Elena Poniatowska, Marta Traba, Luisa Valenzuela, and Ida Vitale. In intimate dialogues with each author, García Pinto draws out the formative experiences of her youth, tracing the pilgrimage that led each to a distinguished writing career. The writers also reflect on their published writings, discussing the creative process in general and the motivating force behind individual works. They candidly discuss the problems they have faced in writing and the strategies that enabled them to reach their goals. While obviously of interest to readers of Latin American literature, this book has important insights for students of women's literature and cultural studies, as well as for aspiring writers.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende; Margaret Sayers Peden (Translator)
“Born in the Hispanic barrio of Los Angeles, Gregory Reeves grew up in poverty, survived the killing fields of Vietnam, and is now a lawyer in San Francisco. Though he has successfully survived this hard journey, Gregory’s life has suddenly gone off the rails thanks to an illusory and wrongheaded quest that has left him feeling lost and listless. To find what he is missing and what his heart truly wants, he must return to his roots. Only by excavating the past can he see the way to his future.” – Publisher’s Summary
Islandborn by Junot Díaz; Leo Espinosa (Illustrator)
“Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else. Hers was a school of faraway places. So when Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember The Island—she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories—joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening—Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: ‘Just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you.’ Gloriously illustrated and lyrically written, Islandborn is a celebration of creativity, diversity, and our imagination's boundless ability to connect us—to our families, to our past and to ourselves.”-- Publisher's Summary
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
“Luz ‘Little Light’ Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.” – Publisher’s Summary
El Niño by Pam Muñoz Ryan; Joe Cepeda (Illustrator)
“Kai Sosa is so passionate about swimming he is practically a fish. This summer, he’s determined to become the athlete he once was on an elite swim team. But something invisible holds him back. His race times are off. Dreams of his sister Cali haunt him. And he hasn’t found her missing gold cuff, her last request. Mom is still talking about grief, even though it’s been two years since she disappeared. He’s fine now, isn’t he? When Kai discovers a library book Cali had checked out multiple times―about an underwater realm and a mysterious place called the Library of Despair and Sorrow―details from the story begin to appear in his own life: dolphin pods, imposing rock towers, unusual sea creatures, and even Cali’s beloved bracelet. As myth and reality collide, El Niño unleashes its fury, and Kai is swept up in a storm of events that will change his understanding of love, death, grief, and how best to honor those we’ve lost.” – Publisher’s Summary
El Niño (Edicion en Español) by Pam Muñoz Ryan; Joe Cepeda (Illustrator)
"Una apasionante aventura acuática llena de misterio y realismo mágico de la querida autora de Esperanza renace y Eco, en la lista de libros más vendidos del New York Times. Perfecta para los fans de Kate DiCamillo, Tae Keller, Jacqueline Woodson y Meg Medina. Kai Sosa espera demostrar su destreza como nadador en su famoso equipo de natación durante un verano en el que se dan las condiciones climáticas del fenómeno El Niño. El que fuera un atleta prometedor, está decidido a mantener el legado familiar en una competencia contra los infames Lobos Marinos, a pesar de ser el eslabón más débil del equipo. Sin embargo, recientemente ha tenido sueños desconcertantes en los que ve a Cali, su hermana desaparecida, nadando en el océano Pacífico con delfines y, cuando despierta, le resulta difícil acallar la sensación que ha estado tratando de contener con tanto esfuerzo. Kai está convencido de que Cali le está enviando un mensaje sobre su último deseo: encontrar su apreciado brazalete de oro desaparecido." -- Publisher's Summary
The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo
“In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falklands War thanks to their development of ‘psychopigments.’ Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness). Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.” – Publisher’s Summary
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez; Megan McDowell (Translator); Pablo Gerardo Camacho (Illustrator)
“A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality. For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar’s father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate? Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina’s military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America’s most original novelists, ‘a mesmerizing writer,’ says Dave Eggers, who demands to be read.’” – Publisher’s Summary
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
“Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed. But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?” – Publisher’s Summary

Coming of Age - August 2025

This month’s “Leisure Reads” explores a variety of coming-of-age (bildungsroman) experiences in literature. While many novels on this theme are intended for a juvenile or young adult audience, they allow the older adult reader to reminiscence and reflect on their own experiences growing up—both good and bad—in order to make sense of them. Below you will find stories (in print and ebook formats) by Truman Capote, Toni Morrison, Chaim Potok, and others.

Print books:

Wringer by Jerry Spinelli
“In Palmer LaRue's hometown of Waymer, turning ten is the biggest event of a boy's life. But for Palmer, his tenth birthday is not something to look forward to but something to dread. Then one day, a visitor appears on his windowsill, and Palmer knows that this, more than anything else, is a sign that his time is up. Somehow, he must learn how to stop being afraid and stand up for what he believes in. Wringer is an unforgettable tour de force from Newbery Medal winner Jerry Spinelli.” – Publisher’s Summary
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
“Truman Capote’s first novel is a story of almost supernatural intensity and inventiveness, an audacious foray into the mind of a sensitive boy as he seeks out the grown-up enigmas of love and death in the ghostly landscape of the Deep South. At the age of twelve, Joel Knox is summoned to meet the father who abandoned him at birth. But when Joel arrives at the decaying mansion in Skully’s Landing, his father is nowhere in sight. What he finds instead is a sullen stepmother who delights in killing birds; an uncle with the face—and heart—of a debauched child; and a fearsome little girl named Idabel who may offer him the closest thing he has ever known to love.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
“In Morrison’s acclaimed first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Here, Morrison’s writing is ‘so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry’ (The New York Times).” – Publisher’s Summary
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
“It’s the spring of 1944 and fifteen-year-olds Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have lived five blocks apart all their lives. But they’ve never met, not until the day an accident at a softball game sparks an unlikely friendship. Soon these two boys—one expected to become a Hasidic rebbe, the other at ease with secular America—are drawn into one another’s worlds despite a father’s strong opposition. Set against the backdrop of World War II and the creation of the state of Israel, The Chosen is a poignant novel about transformation and tradition, growing up and growing wise, and finding yourself—even if it might mean disappointing those you love.” – Publisher’s Summary
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
“It’s 1936, in Flint, Michigan. Times may be hard, and ten-year-old Bud may be a motherless boy on the run, but Bud’s got a few things going for him:

1. He has his own suitcase full of special things.
2. He’s the author of Bud Caldwell’s Rules and Things for Having a Funner Life and Making a Better Liar Out of Yourself
3. His momma never told him who his father was, but she left a clue: flyers advertising Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression!!!!!!

Bud’s got an idea that those flyers will lead him to his father. Once he decides to hit the road to find this mystery man, nothing can stop him—not hunger, not fear, not vampires, not even Herman E. Calloway himself.” – Publisher’s Summary

Ebooks:

Nilda by Nicholasa Mohr
“It's the summer of 1941, and all ten-year-old Nilda wants to do is enjoy the cool water with her friends. But the policemen's curses end their fun, and their animosity is played out repeatedly in Nilda's life. She is constantly treated with contempt by adults in positions of authority: teachers, nurses and social workers. At home she is surrounded by a large and loving family that supports her artistic abilities as they experience financial hardship, the onset of World War II and the death of loved ones. Named an "Outstanding Book of the Year" by The New York Times and one of the "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association in 1973 when it was first published, Nicholasa Mohr's classic novel about life as an immigrant in New York City offers a poignant look at one young girl's experiences. Issues of race, religion and machismo are realistically depicted in this groundbreaking novel that was one of the first by a Latina author to be hailed by the mainstream media.” – Publisher’s Summary
Ten is the Age of Darkness: The Black Bildungsroman by Geta LeSeur
“In Ten Is the Age of Darkness, Geta LeSeur explores how black authors of the United States and English-speaking Caribbean have taken a European literary tradition and adapted it to fit their own needs for self-expression. LeSeur begins by defining the structure and models of the European genre of the bildungsroman, then proceeds to show how the circumstances of colonialism, oppression, race, class, and gender make the maturing experiences of selected young black protagonists different from those of their white counterparts.... LeSeur's readings of African American novels provide new insights into the work of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, and Richard Wright, among others. When read as examples of the bildungsroman rather than simply as chronicles of black experiences, these works reveal an even deeper significance and have a more powerful impact....” – Publisher’s Summary
The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington by Booth Tarkington
“A familiar midwestern novel in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis, The Turmoil was the best-selling novel of 1915. It is set in a small, quiet city—never named but closely resembling the author’s hometown of Indianapolis—that is quickly being transformed into a bustling, money-making nest of competitors more or less overrun by ‘the worshippers of Bigness.’ ‘There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke,’ begins The Turmoil, the first volume of Pulitzer Prize-winner Booth Tarkington’s Growth trilogy. A narrative of loss and change, a love story, and a warning about the potential evils of materialism, the book chronicles two midwestern families trying to cope with the onset of industrialization. The Turmoil, the first great success of [Tarkington’s] career, tells the intertwined stories of two families: the Sheridans, whose integrity wanes as their wealth increases, and the Vertrees, who remain noble but impoverished. Linked by the romance between a Sheridan son and a Vertrees daughter, the story of the two families provides a dramatic view of what America was like on the verge of a new order.” – Publisher’s Summary
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
“Set in English Society before the 1832 Reform Bill, Wives and Daughters centers on the story of youthful Molly Gibson, brought up from childhood by her father. When he remarries, a new step-sister enters Molly's quiet life—loveable, but worldly and troubling, Cynthia. The narrative traces the development of the two girls into womanhood within the gossiping and watchful society of Hollingford. Wives and Daughters is far more than a nostalgic evocation of village life; it offers an ironic critique of mid-Victorian society.” – Publisher’s Summary

American Revolutionary Era - July 2025

July 2025’s Leisure Reads focuses on resources related to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary Era. Read online primary documents from the National Archives, browse print books on display in the MSJ Library Lobby, and consider numerous ebooks from our collections.

Primary Sources

Declaration of Independence
From the National Archives, an online transcription of the original document.
America’s Founding Documents. Charters of Freedom: Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights
From the National Archives, presents transcripts of the original documents: "These three documents, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, have secured the rights of the American people for more than two and a quarter centuries and are considered instrumental to the founding and philosophy of the United States."

Print Books

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
“The #1 New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton! ....Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow’s biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today’s America is the result of Hamilton’s countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time.... Chernow here recounts Hamilton’s turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington’s aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Historians have long told the story of America’s birth as the triumph of Jefferson’s democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power.” – Publisher’s Summary
Weathering the Storm: Women of the American Revolution by Elizabeth Evans
“This book tells the stories of fourteen women who played a role in the American Revolution. These women ranged in age from twelve to ninety-one, and all had different reasons for fighting for their country. Some were motivated by patriotism, others by anger at the British, and still others by a desire for independence. Despite their differences, all of these women shared one common trait—they were willing to weather the storm. Evans eloquently tells their stories, painting a vivid picture of life during the war years and the challenges these women faced. Weathering the Storm is an excellent resource for students interested in the American Revolution, and it is sure to inspire readers to continue the fight for freedom.” – Publisher’s Summary
Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom by Jack Fruchtman
“The leading Thomas Paine expert in the U.S. presents both a biography of the controversial Founding Father and an analysis of his works. Known as 'the Voice of the Revolution,' Paine was a truly original thinker, a man whose magnificent, freedom-loving spirit is richly captured in this major biography.” – Publisher’s Summary
Washington’s Circle: The Creation of the President by D.S. & J.T. Heidler
“In 1789, as George Washington became the first president of the United States, the world was all but certain that the American experiment in liberty and representative government would founder. More than a few Americans feared that the world was right. In Washington’s Circle, we see how Washington and his trusted advisers, close friends, and devoted family defied the doomsayers to lay the foundation for an enduring constitutional republic. This is a fresh look at an aloof man whose service in the Revolutionary War had already earned him the acclaim of fellow citizens.... David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler reveal Washington’s character through his relationship with his inner circle, showing how this unlikely group created the office of the presidency. Here is a story of cooperation, confrontation, triumph, and disappointment, as the president, Congress, and the courts sorted out the limits of executive power, quarreled over funding the government, coped with domestic strife, and faced a world at war while trying to keep their country at peace....” – Publisher’s Summary
1776 by David G. McCullough
“In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence—when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King’s men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.” – Publisher’s Summary
John Adams by David G. McCullough
“In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as ‘out of his senses;’ and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history. This is history on a grand scale—a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship, and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Unknown American Revolution by Gary B. Nash
“In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today.” – Publisher’s Summary
Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation by Cokie Roberts
“In this eye-opening companion volume to her acclaimed history Founding Mothers, number-one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator Cokie Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Recounted with insight and humor, and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources, many of them previously unpublished, here are the fascinating and inspiring true stories of first ladies and freethinkers, educators and explorers. Featuring an exceptional group of women—including Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, Rebecca Gratz, Louise Livingston, Sacagawea, and others— Ladies of Liberty sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation, finally giving these extraordinary ladies the recognition they so greatly deserve.” – Publisher’s Summary
Black writers of the founding era, 1760-1800 by James G. Basker, Annette Gordon-Reed, Nicole Seary
"The writings gathered here reveal the complexity and dynamism of African American life and culture in the period and show how the principles of the American Revolution were seized upon and enlarged by Black Americans from the very beginning. Here are writers both enslaved and free, loyalist and patriot, women and men, Northern and Southern: soldiers, seamen, and veterans; painters, poets, and preachers; cooks, hairdressers, farmers, and many more. Alongside such better known works as Phillis Wheatley's poems and Benjamin Banneker's mathematical and scientific puzzles are dozens of first-person narratives offering a variety of Black perspectives on the political events of the times. These bold and eloquent contributions to public debate about the meanings of the Revolution and the republican values that gave rise to it dramatize the many ways in which protest and activism have always been integral for Black Americans. Intimate diaries and letters, many never before published, tell more private stories, indelibly altering our understanding of the lived experience of this crucial time in our history." -- Publisher's summary
The Whiskey Rebellion by Thomas P. Slaughter
“When President George Washington ordered an army of 13,000 men to march west in 1794 to crush a tax rebellion among frontier farmers, he established a range of precedents that continues to define federal authority over localities today. The 'Whiskey Rebellion' marked the first large-scale resistance to a law of the U.S. government under the Constitution. This classic confrontation between champions of liberty and defenders of order was long considered the most significant event in the first quarter-century of the new nation. Thomas P. Slaughter recaptures the historical drama and significance of this violent episode in which frontier West and cosmopolitan East battled over the meaning of the American Revolution.” – Publisher’s Summary
A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution by Page Smith
“In this comprehensive, incisive narrative of the American Revolution, Page Smith shows how the American people were able to achieve the most remarkable movement from subordination to self-government in history, a model that has fascinated revolutionaries and politicians ever since. A New Age Now Begins depicts the Revolution as a people's rebellion and a stirring human drama. Smith covers every aspect of the struggle: the Congress, the states, the British Parliament and British public opinion, the actions and feelings of the colonists, soldiers, Tories, women, blacks, and native Americans. Rich in original interpretation, filled with stories and anecdotes drawn from letters, diaries, and official documents, A New Age Now Begins offers revealing insights into the development of a nation and a people.” – Publisher’s Summary
Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding by Darren Staloff
“American historian Darren Staloff delves into the political and intellectual lives of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson to reveal how they embodied the collision of Europe’s grand Enlightenment project with the birth of a young nation. These three very different men each governed their public lives by Enlightenment principles. And the struggle for American independence would forever change their relationships to the politics of Enlightenment.” – Publisher’s Summary

Ebooks

The American Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J. Allison
“Here is a brisk, accessible, and vivid introduction to arguably the most important event in the history of the United States—the American Revolution.” – Publisher’s Summary
American History: A Very Short Introduction by Paul S. Boyer
“In a miracle of concision, Paul S. Boyer provides a wide-ranging and authoritative history of America, capturing in a compact space the full story of our nation. Ranging from the earliest Native American settlers to the presidency of Barack Obama, this Very Short Introduction offers an illuminating account of politics, diplomacy, and war as well as the full spectrum of social, cultural, and scientific developments that shaped our country.” – Publisher’s Summary
Slavery, Propaganda, and the American Revolution by Patricia Bradley
“Under the leadership of Samuel Adams, patriot propagandists deliberately and conscientiously kept the issue of slavery off the agenda as goals for freedom were set for the American Revolution. By comparing coverage in the publications of the patriot press with those of the moderate colonial press, this book finds that the patriots avoided, misinterpreted, or distorted news reports on blacks and slaves, even in the face of a vigorous antislavery movement.... Since propaganda on behalf of the Revolution reached a high level of sophistication, and since Boston can be considered the foundry of Revolutionary propaganda, the author writes that the omission of abolition from its agenda cannot be considered as accidental but as intentional. By the time the Revolution began, white attitudes toward blacks were firmly fixed, and these persisted long after American independence had been achieved.... Although the leaders of the Revolution did not articulate a national vision on abolition, the colonial anti-slavery movement was able to achieve a degree of success, but only in drives through the individual colonies.” – Publisher’s Summary
Common Sense by Thomas Paine; introd. by Diana Gabaldon
“In 1776, America was a hotbed of enlightenment and revolution. Thomas Paine not only spurred his fellow Americans to action but soon came to symbolize the spirit of the Revolution. His elegantly persuasive pieces spoke to the hearts and minds of those fighting for freedom. He was later outlawed in Britain, jailed in France, and finally labeled an atheist upon his return to America. ‘No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style; in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple unassuming language.’ – Thomas Jefferson” – Publisher’s Summary
Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton et al.
“Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers explain the complexities of a constitutional government—its political structure and principles based on the inherent rights of man. Scholars have long regarded this work as a milestone in political science and a classic of American political theory.” – Publisher’s Summary
Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood
“The half century extending from the imperial crisis between Britain and its colonies in the 1760s to the early decades of the new republic of the United States was the greatest and most creative era of constitutionalism in American history, and perhaps in the world. During these decades, Americans explored and debated all aspects of politics and constitutionalism—the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, the division of authority between different spheres of government, sovereignty, judicial authority, and written constitutions. The results of these issues produced institutions that have lasted for over two centuries. In this new book, eminent historian Gordon S. Wood distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. In concise form, he illuminates critical events in the nation's founding, ranging from the imperial debate that led to the Declaration of Independence to the revolutionary state constitution making in 1776 and the creation of the Federal Constitution in 1787. Among other topics, he discusses slavery and constitutionalism, the emergence of the judiciary as one of the major tripartite institutions of government, the demarcation between public and private, and the formation of states' rights....” – Publisher’s Summary

Oscar Wilde -- June 2025

This month’s “Leisure Reads” celebrates Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the legendary playwright, novelist, and wit whose life was cut short by prejudice. Below you will find plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest, collections of fairy tales such as A House of Pomegranates, and, of course, The Picture of Dorian Gray—Wilde’s only novel.

Print Books:

The Best Known Works of Oscar Wilde: including the poems, novels, plays, essays and fairy tales by Oscar Wilde
This anthology includes poetry, plays, and fairy tales of Wilde, as well as his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Selected here are important poems such as The Ballad of Reading Gaol, “Charmides,” and The Sphinx; the plays Lady Windermere’s Fan, Salomé, A Woman of No Importance, and The Importance of Being Earnest; and the tales “The Happy Prince,” “The Nightingale and the Rose,” and “The Selfish Giant.”
The Happy Prince & Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
“The Happy Prince and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde, first published in 1888. The book contains five fairy tales, each infused with Wilde’s signature wit, rich imagery, and deep moral lessons. The stories are often melancholic, highlighting themes of sacrifice, love, and the contrast between wealth and poverty.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
“Here is Oscar Wilde's most brilliant tour de force, a witty and buoyant comedy of manners that has delighted millions in countless productions since its first performance in London's St. James' Theatre on February 14, 1895. The Importance of Being Earnest is celebrated not only for the lighthearted ingenuity of its plot, but for its inspired dialogue, rich with scintillating epigrams still savored by all who enjoy artful conversation. From the play's effervescent beginnings in Algernon Moncrieff's London flat to its hilarious denouement in the drawing room of Jack Worthing's country manor in Hertfordshire, this comic masterpiece keeps audiences breathlessly anticipating a new bon mot or a fresh twist of plot moment to moment.” – Publisher’s Summary
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
“In this celebrated work, his only novel, Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.” – Publisher’s Summary
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
“Bankrupt and with his reputation in ruins, Oscar Wilde wrote the astonishing letter “De Profundis” to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, while in prison. Editor Colm Toibin, the acclaimed author of The Blackwater Lightship, The Master, and Brooklyn, describes it as Wilde’s ‘greatest piece of prose writing....’” – Publisher’s Summary

Ebooks from Internet Archive

A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde
“The walls were hung with rich tapestries representing the Triumph of Beauty. A large press, inlaid with agate and lapis-lazuli, filled one corner, and facing the window stood a curiously wrought cabinet with lacquer panels of powdered and mosaiced gold, on which were placed some delicate goblets of Venetian glass, and a cup of dark-veined onyx. Pale poppies were broidered on the silk coverlet of the bed, as though they had fallen from the tired hands of sleep, and tall reeds of fluted ivory bare up the velvet canopy, from which great tufts of ostrich plumes sprang, like white foam, to the pallid silver of the fretted ceiling. A laughing Narcissus in green bronze held a polished mirror above its head. On the table stood a flat bowl of amethyst.” – from “The Young King,” in A House of Pomegranates
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
“An Ideal Husband revolves around a blackmail scheme that forces a married couple to reexamine their moral standards—providing, along the way, a wry commentary on the rarity of politicians who can claim to be ethically pure. A supporting cast of young lovers, society matrons, an overbearing father, and a formidable femme fatale continually exchange sparkling repartee, keeping the play moving at a lively pace.” – Publisher’s Summary
Intentions by Oscar Wilde
“‘My own experience is that the more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition. Nature has good intentions, of course, but, as Aristotle once said, she cannot carry them out. When I look at a landscape I cannot help seeing all its defects. It is fortunate for us, however, that Nature is so imperfect, as otherwise we should have had no art at all. Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature her proper place. As for the infinite variety of Nature, that is a pure myth. It is not to be found in Nature herself. It resides in the imagination, or fancy, or cultivated blindness of the man who looks at her.’” – from “The Decay of Lying,” in Intentions
Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
“Beautiful, aristocratic, an adored wife and young mother, Lady Windermere is ‘a fascinating puritan’ whose severe moral code leads her to the brink of social suicide. The only one who can save her is the mysterious Mrs. Erlynne whose scandalous relationship with Lord Windermere has prompted her fatal impulse. And Mrs. Erlynne has a secret—a secret Lady Windermere must never know if she is to retain her peace of mind.” – Publisher’s Summary
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, The Portrait of Mr. W. H., & Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
“‘Well, he is not a bit like a cheiromantist [palm-reader]. I mean he is not mysterious, or esoteric, or romantic-looking. He is a little, stout man, with a funny, bald head, and great gold-rimmed spectacles; something between a family doctor and a country attorney. I’m really very sorry, but it is not my fault. People are so annoying. All my pianists look exactly like poets, and all my poets look exactly like pianists; and I remember last season asking a most dreadful conspirator to dinner, a man who had blown up ever so many people, and always wore a coat of mail, and carried a dagger up his shirt-sleeve; and do you know that when he came he looked just like a nice old clergyman, and cracked jokes all the evening? Of course, he was very amusing, and all that, but I was awfully disappointed; and when I asked him about the coat of mail, he only laughed, and said it was far too cold to wear in England. Ah, here is Mr. Podgers! Now, Mr. Podgers, I want you to tell the Duchess of Paisley's hand. Duchess, you must take your glove off. No, not the left hand, the other.’ / ‘Dear Gladys, I really don't think it is quite right,’ said the Duchess, feebly unbuttoning a rather soiled kid glove. / ‘Nothing interesting ever is,’ said Lady Windermere...” – from “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”
Poems by Oscar Wilde
“This volume of Wilde's powerful poetry follows as closely as possible the chronological order of composition, highlighting autobiographical elements including the young Wilde's conflicting attitudes to Greece and Rome, pagan and Christian, and his fluctuating attraction to Roman Catholicism.... The poems reveal unexpected aspects of a literary chameleon usually identified with sparkling wit and social comedy.” – Publisher’s Summary
Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act by Oscar Wilde
“‘Thou wouldst have none of me, Jokanaan. Thou didst reject me. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thou didst treat me as a harlot, as a wanton, me, Salomé, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa! Well, Jokanaan, I still live, but thou, thou art dead, and thy head belongs to me. I can do with it what I will.” – from Salomé
In this short play originally written in French with Sarah Bernhardt in mind for the titular role, Oscar Wilde retells and expands the famous biblical story of the untimely end of John the Baptist (in the play called “Jokanaan”). In ornate and poetical—almost Symbolist and certainly Orientalist—dramatic prose, we are told of Salomé making advances towards Jokanaan, only to be brutally rebuffed—and of her revenge: in exchange for a sensual performance of the “Dance of the Seven Veils,” she asks King Herod for Jokanaan’s head on a silver platter. Famously, Wilde’s play could not be performed publicly in England, as biblical subject matter was at that time banned from the stage. In his preface to the English translation of Salomé (made by Lord Alfred Douglas), Robert Ross assures us that prior to its debut private performance in England in 1905, “[t]he obscure drama...had become for five years past part of the literature of Europe. It is performed regularly or intermittently in Holland, Sweden, Italy, France, and Russia, and it has been translated into every European language, including the Czech. It forms part of the repertoire of the German stage, where it is performed more often than any play by any English writer except Shakespeare.” Today, the strange and wonderful illustrations Aubrey Beardsley executed for the play’s publication are probably more famous than the text itself (see particularly “The Peacock Skirt”).
A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde
“A house party is in full swing at Lady Hunstanton’s stately country home. One of the guests is Gerard Arbuthnot, an earnest, upright young man whose prospects are limited, so he is overjoyed when the suave Lord Illingworth offers him employment as his secretary. His mother, however, implores him to refuse this brilliant entrée into sophisticated society. Should she reveal the shameful secret that she has kept hidden for twenty years and possibly destroy her beloved son’s happiness forever? How can she show Gerard that, contrary to appearances, Lord Illingworth is ‘a man of no importance’?” – Publisher’s Summary

Japanese American Writers – May 2025

In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, this month’s “Leisure Reads” presents works by and about Japanese American writers in a variety of genres, mostly revolving around the Japanese American experience of being detained in internment camps, as well as the generations growing up in the decades following that collective trauma. Below you will find a graphic novel by George Takei about his experiences as a child detained in internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II; an anthology of literary works produced by Japanese Americans while detained in those camps; and John Okada’s novel about the young men who famously said no twice: first to serving in the U.S. military during World War II, and second to pledging loyalty to the government that had interned their families.

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
“That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira-kira because its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the same reason. And so are people's eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare. And it's Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering—kira-kira—in the future.” – Publisher’s Summary
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
“George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his magnetic performances, sharp wit, and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's—and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future. In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten ‘relocation centers,’ hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the terrors and small joys of childhood in the shadow of legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's tested faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins cowriters Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.” – Publisher’s Summary
City Girls by Valerie J. Matsumoto
“Even before internment, Japanese largely lived in separate cultural communities from their West Coast neighbors. The first-generation American children, the Nisei, were American citizens, spoke English, and were integrated in public schools, yet were also socially isolated in many ways from their peers and subject to racism. Their daughters especially found rapport in a flourishing network of ethnocultural youth organizations. Until now, these groups have remained hidden from the historical record, both because they were girls' groups and because evidence of them was considered largely ephemeral. In her second book, Valerie Matsumoto has recreated this hidden world of female friendship and comradery, tracing it from the Jazz Age through internment to the postwar period. Matsumoto argues that these groups were more than just social outlets for Nisei teenage girls. Rather, she shows how they were critical networks during the wartime upheavals of Japanese Americans. Young Nisei women helped their families navigate internment and, more importantly, recreated communities when they returned to their homes in the immediate postwar period. This book will be a considerable contribution to our understanding of Japanese life in America, youth culture, ethnic history, urban history, and Western history. Matsumoto has interviewed and gained the trust of many (now old) women who were part of these girls' clubs." – Publisher’s Summary
No-No Boy by John Okada
“‘No-No Boy has the honor of being among the first of what has become an entire literary canon of Asian American literature,’ writes novelist Ruth Ozeki in her new foreword. First published in 1957, No-No Boy was virtually ignored by a public eager to put World War II and the Japanese internment behind them. It was not until the mid-1970s that a new generation of Japanese American writers and scholars recognized the novel’s importance and popularized it as one of literature’s most powerful testaments to the Asian American experience. No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life ‘no-no boys.’ Yamada answered ‘no’ twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle. As Ozeki writes, Ichiro’s ‘obsessive, tormented’ voice subverts Japanese postwar ‘model-minority’ stereotypes, showing a fractured community and one man’s ‘threnody of guilt, rage, and blame as he tries to negotiate his reentry into a shattered world.’” – Publisher’s Summary
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories by Hisaye Yamamoto; King-Kok Cheung (Introduction by)
“In the foothills of Pasadena, Mas Arai is just another Japanese American gardener, his lawn mower blades clean and sharp, his truck carefully tuned. But while Mas keeps lawns neatly trimmed, his own life has gone to seed. His wife is dead. And his livelihood is falling into the hands of the men he once hired by the day. For Mas, a life of sin is catching up to him. And now Bachi—the spirit of retribution—is knocking on his door. It begins when a stranger comes around, asking questions about a nurseryman who once lived in Hiroshima, a man known as Joji Haneda. By the end of the summer, Joji will be dead and Mas's own life will be in danger. For while Mas was building a life on the edge of the American dream, he has kept powerful secrets: about three friends long ago, about two lives entwined, and about what really happened when the bomb fell on Hiroshima in August 1945.” – Publisher’s Summary
That damned fence : the literature of the Japanese American prison camps by Heather Hathaway
“That Damned Fence paints a haunting and intimate portrait of the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Drawing on fiction, journalism, poetry and art produced by the internees themselves, the book explores how factors such as the camps' physical settings; the class, gender and generational composition of their populations; and the attitudes of camp administrators toward the enterprise shaped the experiences of the detained. In so doing, it reveals the sorry and the humor, the despair and resilience with which Japanese Americans faced the injustice of their wartime incarcerations.” – Publisher’s Summary
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
“Julia Otsuka’s quietly disturbing novel opens with a woman reading a sign in a post office window. It is Berkeley, California, the spring of 1942. Pearl Harbor has been attacked, the war is on, and though the precise message on the sign is not revealed, its impact on the woman who reads it is immediate and profound. It is, in many ways she cannot yet foresee, a sign of things to come. She readies herself and her two young children for a journey that will take them to the high desert plains of Utah and into a world that will shatter their illusions forever. They travel by train and gradually the reader discovers that all on board are Japanese American, that the shades must be pulled down at night so as not to invite rock-throwing, and that their destination is an internment camp where they will be imprisoned ‘for their own safety’ until the war is over. With stark clarity and an unflinching gaze, Otsuka explores the inner lives of her main characters–the mother, daughter, and son–as they struggle to understand their fate and long for the father who they have not seen since he was whisked away, in slippers and handcuffs, on the evening of Pearl Harbor. Moving between dreams, memories, and sharply emblematic moments.” – Publisher’s Summary

Appalachian Fiction & Non-Fiction 2024

The July "Leisure Reads" features a diverse range of fiction & nonfiction print and ebooks on Appalachia! Featured authors include bell hooks, Lee Smith, Harriette Arnow, Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, J.D.Vance, & James Still. Titles are requestable from the MSJ Library and OhioLINK.

American Hollow (print) by Rory Kennedy, et al
An oral and visual history of the Bowling clan of Kentucky. It is a rare experience: a sympathetic and strength-giving portrait of love and kinship in the face of hard times. Photos from Bowling family albums, historical Life and National Geographic images from the 1960s, and pictures of the Bowlings of today lend depth and texture to the story of this North American family.
Any Other Place (print) by Michael Croley
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

"There is not a wasted word in these thirteen taut and thrilling stories of grief, exile, and devotion." --Silas House, author of Southernmost A Korean woman in rural Kentucky clings to the love found in her new marriage as the mountain above her washes away. A dutiful daughter struggles to help her father navigate their shared grief--and the sudden release of dangerous, exotic animals. A new father driven by his pride confronts Japanese soldiers in a harrowing raid on his home. In his debut collection, Michael Croley takes us from the Appalachian regions of rural Kentucky and Ohio to a village in South Korea in thirteen engaging stories in which characters find themselves, wherever they are, in states of displacement. In these settings, Croley guides his characters to some semblance of home, where they circle each other's pain, struggle to find belonging, and make sense of the mistakes and bad breaks that have brought them there. Croley uses his absorbing prose to uncover his characters' hidden disquiet and to bring us a remarkable and unique collection that expands the scope of modern American literature.
Appalachia (print) by Mike E. Maloney
Appalachia: Social Context, Past and Present, Fifth Edition, provides a new perspective on Appalachia. The essays reflect thoughtful definitions and analyses by scholars, activists, service providers, and community leaders who have joined the growing public dialogue about the region. It also contains sophisticated theoretical analyses of the region and of similar places worldwide that have emerged from that public discourse. These essays show not an isolated region and insular people, but rather Appalachia as a part of the global order. This widely used reader is now available in a fifth edition featuring new entries in the areas of migration, politics, health, poverty, welfare reform, and participatory research. The new edition continues a tradition of presenting "a new look at an old region" and is designed to serve as a textbook for Appalachian studies courses.
Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place (print) by bell hooks
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

Author, activist, feminist, teacher, and artist bell hooks is celebrated as one of the nation's leading intellectuals. Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, hooks drew her unique pseudonym from the name of her grandmother, an intelligent and strong-willed African American woman who inspired her to stand up against a dominating and repressive society. Her poetry, novels, memoirs, and children's books reflect her Appalachian upbringing and feature her struggles with racially integrated schools and unwelcome authority figures. In Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks continues her work as an imagist of life's harsh realities in a collection of poems inspired by her childhood in the isolated hills and hidden hollows of Kentucky. At once meditative, confessional, and political, this poignant volume draws the reader deep into the experience of living in Appalachia. Touching on such topics as the marginalization of its people and the environmental degradation it has suffered over the years, hooks's poetry quietly elegizes the slow loss of an identity while also celebrating that which is constant, firmly rooted in a place that is no longer whole.
Appalachian Reckoning: a region responds to Hillbilly Elegy (print) by Anthony Harkins and Meredith McCarroll (Editors)
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

With hundreds of thousands of copies sold, a Ron Howard movie, and the rise of its author as a media personality, J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis has defined Appalachia for much of the nation. What about Hillbilly Elegy accounts for this explosion of interest during this period of political turmoil? Why have its ideas raised so much controversy? And how can debates about the book catalyze new, more inclusive political agendas for the region's future? Appalachian Reckoning is a retort, at turns rigorous, critical, angry, and hopeful, to the long shadow Hillbilly Elegy has cast over the region and its imagining. But it also moves beyond Hillbilly Elegy to allow Appalachians from varied backgrounds to tell their own diverse and complex stories through an imaginative blend of scholarship, prose, poetry, and photography. The essays and creative work collected in Appalachian Reckoning provide a deeply personal portrait of a place that is at once culturally rich and economically distressed, unique and typically American. Complicating simplistic visions that associate the region almost exclusively with death and decay, Appalachian Reckoning makes clear Appalachia's intellectual vitality, spiritual richness, and progressive possibilities.
Hillbilly Elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis (print) by J. D. Vance
From a former marine and Yale Law School graduate, an account of growing up in a poor Rust Belt town that offers a look at the struggles of America's white working-class. Vance’s memoir tells the story of a social, regional, and class decline. It begins with the Vance family story in postwar America when Vance's grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. A memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy, is the story of how upward mobility feels, and it is a meditation on the loss of the American dream.
What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia (print) by Elizabeth Catte
In 2016, headlines declared Appalachia ground zero for America's "forgotten tribe" of white working class voters. Journalists flocked to the region to extract sympathetic profiles of families devastated by poverty, abandoned by establishment politics, and eager to consume cheap campaign promises. What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is a frank assessment of America's recent fascination with the people and problems of the region. The book analyzes trends in contemporary writing on Appalachia, presents a brief history of Appalachia with an eye toward unpacking Appalachian stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians as opposed to for Appalachians. The book offers a must-needed insider's perspective on the region.
The Appalachians: America's first and last frontier (print) by Mari-Lynn Evans, et al
In a time when the world has become a global village and America a global nation, there is one place where things are largely as they used to be. Protected by mountains, largely ignored by modern industry and developers, Appalachia is America’s first and last frontier. Encom-passing more than 195,000 square miles in thirteen states, it possesses the least understood and most underappreciated culture in the United States. A beautifully produced companion volume to the PBS documentary narrated by Naomi Judd, The Appalachians fills the void in information about the region, offering a rich portrait of its history and its legacy in music, literature, and film. The text includes essays by some of Appalachia’s most respected scholars and journalists; excerpts from never-before-published diaries and journals; firsthand recollections from native Appalachians including Loretta Lynn, Ricky Skaggs, and Ralph Stanley; indigenous song lyrics and poetry; and oral histories from common folk whose roots run strong and deep. The book also includes more than one hundred illustrations, both archival and newly created. Here is a wondrous book celebrating a unique and invaluable cultural heritage.
Black Mountain Breakdown (print) by Lee Smith
Crystal Spangler lives in rural Appalachia. She's the apple of her mother's eye -- not yet beautiful, but she will be. She's the most popular girl at Black Rock High. She makes cheerleader, gets good grades, and is elected beauty queen. Crystal discovers God, goes to college, and falls in love. When she comes home, she's disheveled and confused. Crystal becomes a wealthy politician's wife. But there's something calling her, drawing her back to where it all began, in the shadow of Black Mountain.
The Dollmaker (print) by Harriette Arnow
The Dollmaker was originally published in 1954 to immediate success and critical acclaim. In unadorned and powerful prose, Harriette Arnow tells the unforgettable and heartbreaking story of the Nevels family and their quest to preserve their deep-rooted values amidst the turmoil of war and industrialization. When Gertie Nevels, a strong and self-reliant matriarch, follows her husband to Detroit from their countryside home in Kentucky, she learns she will have to fight desperately to keep her family together. A sprawling book full of vividly drawn characters and masterful scenes, The Dollmaker is a passionate tribute to a woman's love for her children and the land.
Even As We Breathe (print) by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. The experience introduces him to the beautiful and enigmatic Essie Stamper--a young Cherokee woman who is also working at the inn and dreaming of a better life. With World War II raging in Europe, the resort is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. A secret room becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world of the inn and imagine their futures free of the shadows of their families' pasts. Outside of this refuge, however, racism and prejudice are never far behind, and when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing, Cowney finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. Betrayed by the friends he trusted, he begins to unearth deeper mysteries as he works to prove his innocence and clear his name. This richly written debut novel explores the immutable nature of the human spirit and the idea that physical existence, with all its strife and injustice, will not be humanity's lasting legacy.
River of Earth (print) by James Still
First published in 1940, James Still's masterful novel has become a classic. It is the story, seen through the eyes of a boy, of three years in the life of his family and their kin. He sees his parents pulled between the meager farm with its sense of independence and the mining camp with its uncertain promise of material prosperity. In his world privation, violence, and death are part of everyday life, accepted and endured. Yet it is a world of dignity, love, and humor, of natural beauty which Still evokes in sharp, poetic images. No writer has caught more effectively the vividness of mountain speech or shown more honestly the trials and joys of mountain life.
The Foxfire 40th Anniversary Book (print) by Foxfire Fund, Inc.
An anthology of Appalachian crafts, culture, and wisdom of simple living. In 1966, an English teacher and students in Northeast Georgia founded a quarterly magazine, not only as a vehicle to learn the required English curriculum, but also to teach others about the customs, crafts, traditions, and lifestyle of their Appalachian culture. Named Foxfire after a local phosphorescent lichen, the magazine became one of the most beloved publications in American culture. For four decades, Foxfire has brought the philosophy of simple living to readers, teaching creative self-sufficiency, home crafts, and the art of natural remedies, and preserving the stories of Appalachia. This anniversary edition brings us generations of voices and lessons about the three essential Appalachian values of faith, family, and the land. We listen to elders share their own memories of how things used to be, and to the new generations eager to preserve traditional values in a more complicated world. There are descriptions of old church services, of popular Appalachian games and pastimes, and of family recipes. Rich with memories and useful lessons, this is a fitting tribute to this inspiring and practical publication that has become a classic American institution.
From Mountain to Metropolis: Appalachian migrants in American cities (print) by Kathryn M. Borman; Phillip Obermiller
This volume focuses on Appalachians as a case study of internal migration in developed countries. Since World War II, Appalachian miners have left the coal towns of their mountain region for the car towns of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Migrations have ebbed and flowed with economic expansion and recession. Some descendants who are several generations removed from the migration experience do not identify with their mountainous background, but many urban Appalachians have maintained their cultural ties to the region and its values. This collection of essays is the fourth in a series of studies of Appalachian society in relation to mainstream America. While earlier works have concentrated on the migration process, jobs, housing, and ethnic group formation in urban settings, this volume addresses the important issues of health, environment, and education in the urban Appalachian context. As such, it is the only resource available for educators and health and human service professionals involved with this social sector.
The Harlan Renaissance (ebook) by William H. Turner
Weatherford Award Winner, Nonfiction A personal remembrance from the preeminent chronicler of Black life in Appalachia. The Harlan Renaissance is an intimate remembrance of kinship and community in eastern Kentucky's coal towns written by one of the luminaries of Appalachian studies, William Turner. Turner reconstructs Black life in the company towns in and around Harlan County during coal's final postwar boom years, which built toward an enduring bust as the children of Black miners, like the author, left the region in search of better opportunities. The Harlan Renaissance invites readers into what might be an unfamiliar Appalachia: one studded by large and vibrant Black communities, where families took the pulse of the nation through magazines like Jet and Ebony and through the news that traveled within Black churches, schools, and restaurants. Difficult choices for the future were made as parents considered the unpredictable nature of Appalachia's economic realities alongside the unpredictable nature of a national movement toward civil rights. Unfolding through layers of sociological insight and oral history, The Harlan Renaissance centers the sympathetic perspectives and critical eye of a master narrator of Black life.
High Mountains Rising: Appalachia in time and place (print) by Richard A. Straw and H. Tyler Blethen
This collection is the first comprehensive, cohesive volume to unite Appalachian history with its culture. Richard A. Straw and H. Tyler Blethen's High Mountains Rising provides a clear, systematic, and engaging overview of the Appalachian timeline, its people, and the most significant aspects of life in the region. The first half of the fourteen essays deal with historical issues including Native Americans, pioneer settlement, slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, industrialization, the Great Depression, migration, and finally, modernization. The remaining essays take a more cultural focus, addressing stereotypes, music, folklife, language, literature, and religion. Bringing together many of the most prestigious scholars in Appalachian studies, this volume has been designed for general and classroom use, and includes suggestions for further reading.
Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia (print) by Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson (Editors)
Listen Here: Women Writing in Appalachia is a landmark anthology that brings together the work of 105 Appalachian women writers, including Dorothy Allison, Harriette Simpson Arnow, Annie Dillard, Nikki Giovanni, Denise Giardina, Barbara Kingsolver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Janice Holt Giles, George Ella Lyon, Sharyn McCrumb, and Lee Smith. Editors Sandra L. Ballard and Patricia L. Hudson offer a diverse sampling of time periods and genres, established authors and emerging voices. From regional favorites to national bestsellers, this unprecedented gathering of Appalachian voices displays the remarkable talent of the region's women writers who've made their mark at home and across the globe.
Making Our Future: visionary folklore and everyday culture in Appalachia (ebook) by Emily Hilliard
Drawing from her work as state folklorist, Emily Hilliard explores contemporary folklife in West Virginia and challenges the common perception of both folklore and Appalachian culture as static, antiquated forms, offering instead the concept of "visionary folklore" as a future-focused, materialist, and collaborative approach to cultural work. With chapters on the expressive culture of the West Virginia teachers' strike, the cultural significance of the West Virginia hot dog, the tradition of independent pro wrestling in Appalachia, the practice of nonprofessional women songwriters, the collective counternarrative of a multiracial coal camp community, the invisible landscape of writer Breece D'J Pancake's hometown, the foodways of an Appalachian Swiss community, the postapocalyptic vision presented in the video game Fallout 76, and more, the book centers the collective nature of folklife and examines the role of the public folklorist in collaborative engagements with communities and culture. Hilliard argues that folklore is a unifying concept that puts diverse cultural forms in conversation, as well as a framework that helps us reckon with the past, understand the present, and collectively shape the future.
The Prettiest Star (print) by Carter Sickels
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

The story of Brian's return to small-town Ohio is told in a chorus of voices: Brian's mother Sharon; his fourteen-year-old sister, Jess, as she grapples with her brother's mysterious return; and the video diaries Brian makes to document his final summer. Written in prose that seeks "to answer without flinching away from ugliness and without demonizing the ignorant" (Salon), The Prettiest Star offers an urgent portrait of a family in the center of a national crisis, in order to tell a unique story about the politics and fragility of the body, and to explore the bounds of family and redemption.
Yesterday's People: life in contemporary Appalachia (print) by Jack E. Weller
The distinctive way of life of the Southern Appalachian people has often been criticized, romanticized or derided, but rarely has it been understood. Yesterday's People, the fruit of many years' labor in the mountains, reveals the fears, anxieties, and hopes that underlie the mountaineers' way of thinking and acting, and thereby shape their relationships in family and community. First published in 1965, this book has been an indispensable guide for all who seek to study, work or live within the Appalachian culture.
A Handbook to Appalachia: an introduction to the region (print) by Grace Toney Edwards, et al
Scholars who teach, write, or speak on the history and culture of the Appalachian region are frequently asked by students, administrators, or colleagues to recommend a relatively short, comprehensive book about Appalachia. Until now, there has been no interdisciplinary introductory text in Appalachian studies.A Handbook to Appalachia comprises a collection of concise, accessible overviews of the region written by top academics in a variety of fields, all directed at a general audience. Accompanied by dozens of inviting photographs, the essays offer information to those becoming acquainted with Appalachia for the first time as well as to more experienced observers of the region. The essays are arranged to show how various features of Appalachia are related. Each essay is followed by a list of suggested readings for further study.
Thread That Runs So True (print) by Jesse Stuart
First published in 1949, Jesse Stuart's now classic personal account of his twenty years of teaching in the mountain region of Kentucky has enchanted and inspired generations of students and teachers. With eloquence and wit, Stuart traces his twenty-year career in education, which began, when he was only seventeen years old, with teaching grades one through eight in a one-room schoolhouse. Before long Stuart was on a path that made him principal and finally superintendent of city and county schools. The road was not smooth, however, and Stuart faced many challenges, from students who were considerably older--and bigger--than he to well-meaning but distrustful parents, uncooperative administrators and, most daunting, his own fear of failure. Through it all, Stuart never lost his abiding faith in the power of education. A graceful ode to what he considered the greatest profession there is, Jesse Stuart's The Thread That Runs So True is timeless proof that "good teaching is forever and the teacher is immortal."
Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945 (print) by Ronald D. Eller
Appalachia has played a complex and often contradictory role in the unfolding of American history. Created by urban journalists in the years following the Civil War, the idea of Appalachia provided a counterpoint to emerging definitions of progress. Early-twentieth-century critics of modernity saw the region as a remnant of frontier life, a reflection of simpler times that should be preserved and protected. However, supporters of development and of the growth of material production, consumption, and technology decried what they perceived as the isolation and backwardness of the place and sought to "uplift" the mountain people through education and industrialization. Ronald D Eller has worked with local leaders, state policymakers, and national planners to translate the lessons of private industrial-development history into public policy affecting the region. In Uneven Ground: Appalachia since 1945, Eller examines the politics of development in Appalachia since World War II with an eye toward exploring the idea of progress as it has evolved in modern America. Appalachia's struggle to overcome poverty, to live in harmony with the land, and to respect the diversity of cultures and the value of community is also an American story. In the end, Eller concludes, "Appalachia was not different from the rest of America; it was in fact a mirror of what the nation was becoming."
Doubly Erased: LGBTQ literature in Appalachia (print) by Allison E. Carey
Call Number: Request from OhioLINK

The first book of its kind, Doubly Erased is a comprehensive study of the rich tradition of LGBTQ themes and characters in Appalachian novels, memoirs, poetry, drama, and film. Appalachia has long been seen as homogenous and tradition-bound. Allison E. Carey helps to remedy this misunderstanding, arguing that it has led to LGBTQ Appalachian authors being doubly erased--routinely overlooked both within United States literature because they are Appalachian and within the Appalachian literary tradition because they are queer. In exploring motifs of visibility, silence, storytelling, home, food, and more, Carey brings the full significance and range of LGBTQ Appalachian literature into relief. Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina and Alison Bechdel's Fun Home are considered alongside works by Maggie Anderson, doris davenport, Jeff Mann, Lisa Alther, Julia Watts, Fenton Johnson, and Silas House, as well as filmmaker Beth Stephens. While primarily focused on 1976 to 2020, Doubly Erased also looks back to the region's literary "elders," thoughtfully mapping the place of sexuality in the lives and works of George Scarbrough, Byron Herbert Reece, and James Still.
Another Appalachia: coming up queer and Indian in a mountain place (ebook) by Neema Avashia
When Neema Avashia tells people where she's from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving "There are Indian people in West Virginia?" A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles. Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia's identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, Another Appalachia mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions.
Belonging: a culture of place (print) by bell hooks
What does it mean to call a place home? Who is allowed to become a member of a community? When can we say that we truly belong? These are some of the questions of place and belonging that renowned cultural critic bell hooks examines in her new book, Belonging: A Culture of Place. Traversing past and present, Belonging charts a cyclical journey in which hooks moves from place to place, from country to city and back again, only to end where she began--her old Kentucky home. hooks has written provocatively about race, gender, and class; and in this book she turns her attention to focus on issues of land and land ownership. Reflecting on the fact that 90% of all black people lived in the agrarian South before mass migration to northern cities in the early 1900s, she writes about black farmers, about black folks who have been committed both in the past and in the present to local food production, to being organic, and to finding solace in nature. Naturally, it would be impossible to contemplate these issues without thinking about the politics of race and class. Reflecting on the racism that continues to find expression in the world of real estate, she writes about segregation in housing and economic racialized zoning. In these critical essays, hooks finds surprising connections that link of the environment and sustainability to the politics of race and class that reach far beyond Kentucky. With characteristic insight and honesty, Belonging offers a remarkable vision of a world where all people--wherever they may call home--can live fully and well, where everyone can belong.