1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - RC265.6 .L24 S55 2010B - 2011 Audie Award winner for Nonfiction. This is the true story of a black woman whose cancer cells, taken from her in 1951 for research, are still alive today.
2. Half Broke Horses - PS3623 .A3644 H35 2009 - 2010 Audie Award nominee for Narration by the Author(s). Jeannette Walls writes about her rollicking grandmother in Texas and Arizona in the early 1900s. This is a prequel of sorts to Walls' memoir The Glass Castle.
3. Shanghai Girls - PS3569 .E3334 S53 2009 - Historical fiction set in Shanghai and California from 1937 to 1957, sisters Pearl and May escape China shortly after the Japanese invade, into arranged marriages with Chinese emigrants in Los Angeles. Lisa See's meticulous research paints a moving portrait of immigration and sisterhood.
4. A Confederacy of Dunces - PS3570 .O54 C66 1997 - Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981, this hilarious tale of an overeducated and underemployed misfit in New Orleans is full of wacky characters and funny subplots.
5. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - PS3606 .O737 H68 2009B - Set in Seattle, in 1942 and 1986, Chinese-American Henry remembers in flashbacks his Japanese-American classmate Keiko, whose family was interred during World War II. The book was inspired by the finding of belongings of interees in the basement of Seattle's Panama Hotel.
6. The Falls - PS3565 .A8 F355 2004B - A multi-generational family saga set in Niagara Falls, beginning in the 1950s, continuing through the early 1960s and the mythical precursor to the real Love Canal case, then jumping ahead to the late 1970s.
7. Cutting for Stone - PS3622 .E744 C87 2009B - Orphaned by their mother, an Indian nun, and abandoned by their father, a British surgeon, twin brothers in Ethiopia grow up to be doctors and are later torn apart by their love for the same woman and one's flight to America. Author Abraham Verghese is an Ethiopian doctor now living and working in the United States.
8. Bellwether - PS3573 .I45652 B45 2009 - 2010 Audie Award for Science Fiction - Pop culture, chaos theory, and matters of the heart collide in this nominee for Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1997 by multiple Nebula and Hugo Award winner Connie Willis.
9. Darling Jim - PS3613 .O34 D37 2009B - 2010 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense - In Dublin, a young postman named Niall finds a diary written by one of two sisters whose corpses, along with their aunt's, have recently been found. Entries in the diary concern a storyteller named Jim, Irish myth and magic, a tragic love story, and a murder mystery.
10. Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales - PZ8.1 .N28 2009 - This audiobook won two Audie Awards in 2010, Audiobook of the Year and Multi-Voiced Performance, and was a nominee for Distinguished Achievement in Production. The Distinguished Achievement in Production Award is presented to an audiobook that demonstrates excellence in all areas of production, while the Audiobook of the Year recognizes the audiobook that, through quality, innovation, marketing and sales, has had the most significant impact on the audio industry. Narrators for the folktales include Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Jackman, Whoopi Goldberg, and Alan Rickman.
1 comment:
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