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The Lion in the Living Room

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The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over The World by Abigail Tucker
Who it’s for: Adults
Format: Book

What have cats ever done for humans? They don’t provide food, they aren’t pack animals, they don’t protect our homes. So why are there nearly 100 million house cats in the US alone (and almost a billion worldwide)? In this well-researched and fascinating book, Abigail Tucker explores the history of the house cat, an animal that adapted to humans and essentially domesticated itself.

Unlike dogs and other domesticated animals, house cats haven’t physically evolved over the centuries. They are built to survive outdoors on their own, but they can also survive in a small apartment if necessary. They have, however, evolved their behaviors to influence us. Cats share some facial characteristics with human babies (round heads, front-facing eyes, small nose), and they’ve learned to use familiar sounds to get our attention. Many house cats have purrs and meows that sound suspiciously like a baby’s cry.

Tucker also addresses the impact cats have on environments around the world. Cats are hypercarnivorous and they do quite a bit of damage to ecosystems. Over the centuries, cats have been transported to new environments regularly, and they often destroy them by preying on native species. Yet we continue to live side by side with them, watch videos of them online, and follow them on Instagram.

Find The Lion in the Living Room in our catalog.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

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An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults

23-year-old designer April May lives and works in New York City. Leaving work in the middle of the night, she discovers a 10-foot-tall, Transformers-like statue on the sidewalk outside a Chipotle. She calls her friend and they make a video of April interviewing the statue she names Carl. By the next morning, she’s gone viral and Carls have appeared in more than 60 other cities around the world. What follows is a treatise on the nature of celebrity in the age of social media, and a discussion of humanity in a society rife with polarizing rhetoric. April establishes herself as a brand and struggles to maintain her own humanity, while the world tries to figure out what The Carls are, why they’re here, and what they mean for humanity.

There is a science fiction element to this story. The Carls are not your average street art. You’ll want to know how they got here and what their purpose is, but the bigger questions are about today’s society and culture and how fame, the internet, and the 24-hour news cycle impact all of us and our relationships with one another. Ending in a cliffhanger, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing leaves room for a sequel, which Green is reportedly working on.

Find it in the catalog.

Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence

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Title: Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith
Format: Book
Who It’s For: Adults

Hannah Green is eleven years old and her parents are separating. Her mother is working in London and Hannah is home in Santa Cruz with her father. She misses her mother, but finds herself missing her father more as, though he is right in front of her, he seems to be lost. She goes through her daily routine – school, homework, food, bed. Her life becomes “horribly, unfeasibly mundane.” Until her father sends her to stay with her world-traveling grandfather for a while in a cabin in the Pacific Northwest and the Devil shows up. The Devil has discovered that he is no longer benefitting from the dark power usually transferred to him when humans commit bad deeds. This might have something to do with a machine Hannah’s grandfather built.

Hannah, her grandfather, the Devil, and an accident imp named Vaneclaw travel to the Behind (a version of Hell you can get to without dying) via Siberia to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Meanwhile, Hannah’s father has disappeared and a man with bad intentions sets out toward Santa Cruz to fulfill an unknown mission. All these individuals come together at a roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk where the fate of humanity will be decided.

Reminiscent of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Jasper Fforde, Smith has produced a story and characters that stick with you and leave you wanting more.

Find it in the catalog.

Norse Mythology

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Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Format: Book or Audiobook
Who it’s for: Adults, teens, and children (parents should read it first – there is violence, drinking, and other mature content)

Neil Gaiman’s works often reference mythologies (see American Gods, Anansi Boys, Sandman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and really almost anything else he’s written). In Norse Mythology, he turns his interest in mythology toward the Norse gods, but instead of creating a fictionalized world based on them, he retells the stories of Odin, Thor, Loki, and other gods and characters as we know them from the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda. Gaiman uses his witty and engaging prose to tell the story of how the gods received their treasures (including Mjollnir – Thor’s hammer), Thor’s journey to the land of the giants, the death of Balder, and more. In his capable hands, the stories — which span from the creation of everything through Ragnorak, the end of the world — are accessible and engaging, often funny and sometimes sad.

Anyone with even a passing interest in Norse mythology will enjoy this, and it’s even better in audio. Gaiman narrates the audiobook (as he does for so many of his other works) and brings an added passion and wit to the stories (and you get to hear the names pronounced, which is useful if you go back and read the printed book).

Check it out today!

Calypso

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Calypso by David Sedaris
Format: Audiobook, Book
Who it’s for: Adults

Calypso might just be David Sedaris at his best. It’s a bit darker than some of the author’s previous works (included are stories about his sister’s suicide and his mother’s alcoholism), but his wry humor comes through at every turn.  

A collection of stories dealing with middle age, family, snapping turtles, and trash collecting while wearing a Fitbit, Calypso is filled with observations and interactions that range from the mundane yet oddly humorous, to the wildly absurd. The stories take place in various locations, from the West Sussex home he shares with his partner, Hugh (and, for a time, a fox named Carol), to the family beach house on Emerald Isle nicknamed the Sea Section, to various US cities and towns visited on speaking tours (including El Paso, TX, where a doctor in the audience offers to remove the benign lipoma from his abdomen and give it to him so he can feed it to a snapping turtle).

Sedaris narrates the audiobook and it is highly recommended. For fans of Augusten Burroughs, Sarah Vowell, and Dave Eggers.

Find it in the catalog.

A Gentleman in Moscow

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A Gentleman in Moscow
By Amor Towles
Who it’s for: Adults

Count Alexander Rostov appears before a Bolshevik tribunal in 1922 Moscow and is sentenced to house arrest. He will live out the rest of his days at the luxurious Hotel Metropol. If he sets foot outside the hotel, he will be shot on sight. Moved from his luxurious suite to a former storage room at the top of the hotel, the Count notes: “If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.” And so Rostov sets about mastering his circumstances. The hotel is home to restaurants, a cocktail bar, and a barbershop, but also to a multitude of empty rooms, secret passages, and more that the Count explores with Nina, a nine year old girl living in the hotel temporarily.

Over the next 32 years, we follow the Count through his life at the hotel, including a love affair, a family life of sorts, and a new career. He maintains his aristocratic flair, but is not too proud to learn from those with whom he spends time. The novel also provides a view of the changes occurring in Russia in these years. An old friend of the Count weaves in and out of the story to describe the changing political environment, and the narrator describes physical changes happening outside the walls of the Metropol. The chilling events and atmosphere of Stalinist Russia are not the main focus of the novel, but they lurk in the background and certainly impact the Count and his friends (some more harshly than others).

Philosophical, witty, and lyrical, A Gentleman in Moscow is highly recommended. This isn’t a quick, action heavy read, but one full of memorable quotations and moments meant to be savored. Recommended for fans of Anthony Doerr, Kristin Hannah, and Muriel Barbery.

Find it in the catalog