Library Research: My Perfect Read: Ginger Hawkins

Ginger Hawkins

Ginger Hawkins reading while enjoying her latte.

Book recommendations are a tough business. At its heart reading is a truly personal experience, and what I like often isn’t what you like. So let’s find common ground. Here’s what I love—literary fiction that says something new or jars you with its perspective: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders; There, There by Tommy Orange; The Dinner Party and Other Stories by Joshua Ferris; and The Nix by Nathan Hill. Liked any of these? Want to know more about them? Let’s make a match!

What else do I like? Memoirs—I grew up terribly out of place in small-town rural Texas, curious about the larger outside world. I think that explains why I’ve always enjoyed reading accounts of other peoples’ lives. I Was Told To Come Alone by Souad Mekhennet; I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell; Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro.

How quickly can I persuade you to read one of these? These kinds of books often pull me in faster than any fiction can. Curious yourself? Love a good turn of phrase? Read these books now and others I can recommend, please. You won’t be sorry.

Genres of Interest:

Literary Fiction
Memoir

Literary Fiction

There, There by Tommy Orange
The Need by Helen Phillips
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
The Nix by Nathan Hill
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Memoir

Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
Heartland: A Memoir or Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh
Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Other Nonfiction

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice by Bill Browder
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

American War by Omar El Akkad
ISBN: 9780451493583
Publication Date: 2017-04-04
Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike.
The Nix by Nathan Hill
ISBN: 9781101946619
Publication Date: 2016-08-30
It's 2011, and Samuel Andresen-Anderson--college professor, stalled writer--has a Nix of his own: his mother, Faye. He hasn't seen her in decades, not since she abandoned the family when he was a boy. Now she's re-appeared, having committed an absurd crime that electrifies the nightly news, beguiles the internet, and inflames a politically divided country. The media paints Faye as a radical hippie with a sordid past, but as far as Samuel knows, his mother was an ordinary girl who married her high-school sweetheart. Which version of his mother is true? Two facts are certain: she's facing some serious charges, and she needs Samuel's help.
To save her, Samuel will have to embark on his own journey, uncovering long-buried secrets about the woman he thought he knew, secrets that stretch across generations and have their origin all the way back in Norway, home of the mysterious Nix. As he does so, Samuel will confront not only Faye's losses but also his own lost love, and will relearn everything he thought he knew about his mother, and himself.
I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O'Farrell
ISBN: 9780525520221
Publication Date: 2018-02-06
We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter -- for whom this book was written -- from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers. Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.
No One Cares about Crazy People by Ron Powers
ISBN: 9780316341172
Publication Date: 2017-03-21
New York Times bestselling author Ron Powers offers a searching, richly researched narrative of the social history of mental illness in America paired with the deeply personal story of his two sons' battles with schizophrenia. From the centuries of torture of "lunatiks" at Bedlam Asylum to the infamous eugenics era to the follies of the anti-psychiatry movement to the current landscape in which too many families struggle alone to manage afflicted love ones, Powers limns our fears and myths about mental illness and the fractured public policies that have resulted. Braided with that history is the moving story of Powers's beloved son Kevin--spirited, endearing, and gifted--who triumphed even while suffering from schizophrenia until finally he did not, and the story of his courageous surviving son Dean, who is also schizophrenic. A blend of history, biography, memoir, and current affairs ending with a consideration of where we might go from here, this is a thought-provoking look at a dreaded illness that has long been misunderstood.

As a part-time Library Information Assistant my schedule varies week to week. So send me a note, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I can’t wait to get you started on books I think you’ll enjoy!

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