leaving home

The next Books & Beyond (BAB) meeting will be Tuesday, February 27 at 6:30pm.  The Friends of the O’Neal Library Booksale is the weekend before and they’ll be using the Conference Room so our meeting location within the library will be different but I’ll let you know well ahead of time!  

The topic up for discussion will be westerns. There is a selection of novels and films out at the 2nd floor Reference Desk and you can also peruse that selection online at https://oneallibrary.org/adults---reading-recommendations (scroll down to the purple-colored banner).  If you would like to attend via Zoom, register with your email address here, otherwise feel free to drop in!  https://emmetoneal.libnet.info/event/8810332

This week, BAB met to discuss books about immigration/emigration.  Grammarly describes the difference between these two terms this way:

Immigrate vs. emigrate: What’s the difference? Although related, immigrate and emigrate are not alternative spellings of the same word. They each have their own meaning. Immigrate means to live in a country that is not your country of origin. It is often used with “to.” Emigrate means to leave your country of origin and live someplace else. It is often used with “from.”

Here are the items we discussed:

Wade in the Water: Poems by Tracy K. Smith

Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize
Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection
The extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States

Hidden Species series by Louisa Masters
Indulge in all the shenanigans at CSG in one volume! Hellhounds declaring a glitter fight? Vampires at war with accounting? It's another day at the Community of Species Government.
Demons Do It Better
Naughty Neil
One Bite with a Vampire
Hijinks with a Hellhound
Sorcerers Always Satisfy

Here Be Dragons series by Louisa Masters
After more than nine thousand years, there are dragons on Earth again... ready for life, love, and adventure!
Dragon Ever After
The Professor’s Dragon
The Dragon Experiment
Conspiracy of Dragons

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb

Stonewall Book Award Winner
Sydney Taylor Award Winner
Michael L. Printz Honor Book
National Jewish Book Award Finalist
AudioFile Earphones Award Winner
BEST OF THE YEAR nod from NPR · New York Public Library · Kirkus
For fans of “Good Omens”—a queer immigrant fairytale about individual purpose, the fluid nature of identity, and the power of love to change and endure.

Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Wong

Eddie Huang is the 30-year-old proprietor of Baohaus - the hot East Village hangout where foodies, stoners, and students come to stuff their faces with delicious Taiwanese street food late into the night - and one of the food world’s brightest and most controversial young stars. But before he created the perfect home for himself in a small patch of downtown New York, Eddie wandered the American wilderness looking for a place to call his own. Wong's story has also been adapted to a hit TV show also called Fresh Off the Boat.

Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other HelpfulRecommendations on How to Become American by Wajahat Ali

This is just one of the many warm, lovely, and helpful tips that Wajahat Ali and other children of immigrants receive on a daily basis. Go back where, exactly? Fremont, California, where he grew up, but is now an unaffordable place to live? Or Pakistan, the country his parents left behind a half-century ago? Now a middle-aged dad, Ali has become one of the foremost and funniest public intellectuals in America. In Go Back to Where You Came From, he tackles the dangers of Islamophobia, white supremacy, and chocolate hummus, peppering personal stories with astute insights into national security, immigration, and pop culture.

Domestic Crusaders, a play by Wajahat Ali

What does it mean to be Muslim in a post 9/11 America? Six members of a Pakistani-American Muslim family, spanning three generations, reunite at the family home to celebrate the youngest son’s 21st birthday. As the day unfolds, they spar about everything from Biryani to racism and from airport security checks to Middle Eastern politics. Much of it is what you would expect of the immigrant experience. But 9/11 has changed this Muslim family’s “American dream” forever. The Domestic Crusaders has been staged Off-Broadway, at Berkeley Rep and at numerous other theatres across the United States and the world, garnering generous praise along the way.  Watch a snippet of the play here: https://www.bayareadrama.company/the-domestic-crusaders

Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey toReunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario (a "young readers" version is also available)

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, this page-turner about the power of family is a popular text in classrooms and a touchstone for communities across the country to engage in meaningful discussions about this essential American subject.

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

A gripping tale of adventure and searing reality, Lucky Boy gives voice to two mothers bound together by their love for one lucky boy.

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. 

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough

The #1 bestseller that tells the remarkable story of the generations of American artists, writers, and doctors who traveled to Paris, fell in love with the city and its people, and changed America through what they learned, told by America’s master historian.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

When the Bergson family leave their home in Sweden to travel to the United States in search of a better life, they, like many immigrants, are awed by the beautiful harshness of their new life in Nebraska. A spirited celebration of the immigrants who have shaped the United States, O Pioneers! is a masterpiece by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. 

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.

The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee

In the glittering city of Hong Kong, expats arrive daily for myriad reasons—to find or lose themselves in a foreign place, and to forget or remake themselves far from home. Amidst this hothouse atmosphere, a tragic incident causes three American women’s lives to collide in ways that will rewrite every assumption of their privileged world.

The Expats (streaming on Amazon Prime Video, view the trailer)

Set against the complex tapestry of Hong Kong residents, Expats depicts a multifaceted group of women after a single encounter sets off a chain of life-altering events that leaves everyone navigating the intricate balance between blame and accountability.

The Arab of the Future 2: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985 by Riad Sattouf
Not available in the Jefferson County Library Cooperative, request from Interlibrary Loan.

In The Arab of the Future: Volume 1, cartoonist Riad Sattouf tells of the first years of his childhood as his family shuttles back and forth between France and the Middle East. In Volume 2, Riad, now settled in his father’s hometown of Homs, gets to go to school, where he dedicates himself to becoming a true Syrian in the country of the dictator Hafez Al-Assad. 

Artists of all stripes often immigrate/emigrate:

Salvador Dalí
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Salvador-Dali

Martín Prechtell
https://floweringmountain.com/ 

If you'd like to join us for the next Books & Beyond meeting, drop in!  If you'd like to attend on line, register your email here: https://emmetoneal.libnet.info/event/8810332