fiction winners
TITLE: The Nickel Boys
AUTHOR: Colson Whitehead WHERE TO FIND IT IN THE LIBRARY: FIC Whi - HISTORICAL SUMMARY: Follows the experiences of two African-American teenagers at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. |
TITLE: Less
AUTHOR: Andrew Sean Greer WHERE TO FIND IT IN THE LIBRARY: FIC Gre - HUMOR SUMMARY: Receiving an invitation to his ex-boyfriend's wedding, Arthur, a failed novelist on the eve of his 50th birthday, embarks on an international journey that finds him falling in love, risking his life, reinventing himself and making connections with the past. |
TITLE: The Underground Railroad
AUTHOR: Colson Whitehead CALL NUMBER: FIC Whi - HISTORICAL SUMMARY: After Cora, a slave in pre-Civil War Georgia, escapes with another slave, Caesar, they seek the help of the Underground Railroad as they flee from state to state and try to evade a slave catcher, Ridgeway, who is determined to return them to the South. |
TITLE: The Sympathizer
AUTHOR: Viet Thanh Nguyen CALL NUMBER: FIC Ngu - HISTORICAL SUMMARY: Follows a Viet Cong agent as he spies on a South Vietnamese army general and his compatriots as they start a new life in 1975 Los Angeles. |
TITLE: All the Light We Cannot See
AUTHOR: Anthony Doerr CALL NUMBER: FIC Doe - HISTORICAL SUMMARY: A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. |
TITLE: The Goldfinch
AUTHOR: Donna Tartt CALL NUMBER: FIC Tar - NOVELS SUMMARY: A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother, a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld. |
TITLE: The Orphan Master's Son
AUTHOR: Adam Johnson CALL NUMBER: FIC Joh - NOVELS SUMMARY: Son of an influential father, Pak Jun Do rises through the ranks in North Korea to a life of espionage, kidnapping, and torture, and eventually falls for the dictator's favorite actress. |
TITLE: A Visit from the Good Squad
AUTHOR: Jennifer Egan CALL NUMBER: FIC Ega - NOVELS SUMMARY: Bennie Salazar, who put aside his days as a punk rocker to be a record executive, reminisces about his younger years and how his adulthood came to be while he remains naïve to the inner workings of Sasha, the mid-thirties woman who works with Bennie and harbors a penchant for stealing. |
nonfiction and POetry winners
TITLE: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom
AUTHOR: David W. Blight CALL NUMBER: 921 Dou SUMMARY: A biography of nineteenth century African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who became a great orator and leading writer of his era. |
TITLE: Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
AUTHOR: James Forman CALL NUMBER: 364.9 For SUMMARY: Recounts the tragic role that some African Americans--as judges, prosecutors, politicians, police officers, and voters--played in escalating the war on crime. |
TITLE: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
AUTHOR: Matthew Desmond CALL NUMBER: 339.4 Des SUMMARY: Examines the fates of eight families struggling to pay their rent in the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, discussing the human cost of America's vast inequality. |
TITLE: Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS
AUTHOR: Joby Warrick CALL NUMBER: 956.9104 War SUMMARY: Traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose under the leadership of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and spread through the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama. |
TITLE: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
AUTHOR: William Finnegan CALL NUMBER: 921 Fin SUMMARY: The memoirs of journalist William Finnegan, detailing his obsession with surfing and adventures chasing waves all over the world. |
TITLE: Life on Mars
AUTHOR: Tracy K. Smith CALL NUMBER: 811 Smi SUMMARY: A collection of poems in which Tracy K. Smith examines the discoveries, failures, and oddities of humans. |