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Thought Provoking

Tenet

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Tenet
Format: DVD
Who it’s for: Adults

A CIA operative is involved in a mission at an opera house in Kyiv to extract an artifact. He is captured and tortured, but refuses to give up any information, swallowing a CIA-issued cyanide pill. But then he wakes up. He’s informed the interrogation was a test of loyalty he passed with flying colors, and he’s recruited into a new secret organization, Tenet.

He comes to learn that there is a war going on between the future and the present. In the future we’ve developed technology to invert entropy, moving people and objects backwards through time. That artifact our protagonist was attempting to extract is part of a device from the future that could end the world, and Tenet is trying to stop that from happening.

Tenet is a thought-provoking action flick, brought to you by Christopher Nolan, the auteur responsible for such films as Inception, The Prestige, and Memento, featuring excellent performances from the cast including John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh, an amazing score by Ludwig Göransson, and mind-blowing visual effects that earned the film several awards including an Oscar and a BAFTA (seriously, the film’s climatic “temporal pincer” sequence is unforgettable, trust me).

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The Power

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The Power by Naomi Alderman
Format: Book
Who’s it For: Adults

Think of what the world would be like if suddenly women acquired the power to shoot electricity out of their hands? If we assume that the patriarchal power structures almost every Earthly society is based on, some more harshly than others, is fundamentally rooted in the fact men are physically stronger than women, and then that fact was just no longer true, what would be the fall out as power – literally and figuratively – transfers to women? The Power by Naomi Alderman speculates this very event from the perspectives of the daughter of British gangster, a young woman who becomes the center of a new religious movement, an ambitious female politician, and a male journalist who seeks to record the fall and rise of regimes in the changing times as everyone adjusts to the new world order. It’s a fascinating think piece that is hard to put down. It was named one of the 10 best books by The New York Times Book Review in 2017, it was one of President Obama’s favorite reads of 2017, and Margaret Atwood has said it “will knock your socks off!” 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.

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Professional Crocodile

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Submitted by Mr. Eric!

As we go about our day, meeting the various people that come our way, we all subconsciously develop ideas about those people. The older woman on the bus with the yellow coat? She looks like she might be a mom, maybe really good at baking. That man who waved at you as you checked the mail? He clearly is sporty, probably likes to run all the time… for fun. That crocodile with the very snazzy tie who gave you a polite smile on the subway? Who knows what his job is, but it’s clearly important. Professional Crocodile by Giovanna Zoboli, and illustrated by Mariachiara Di Giorgio, is a wordless picture book that asks you to challenge those assumptions. It follows a very professional looking crocodile as he goes about his day before going into work, and what he actually does for a living may be a surprise for some readers. The beautifully detailed illustrations offer a rich view into city life, displaying a wealth of details. Professional Crocodile helps to teach us that no one is what they seem at first glance, and that everyone is much more complex than what you see on the surface. Recommended for: anyone interested in city life, anthropomorphic animals, beautiful illustrations, acts of kindness, and fancy ties. Pro-tip: When reading this book with your child, see if they can guess what the Crocodile does for a living. Is there anything hidden in the book’s illustrations that might offer a clue? See this book listed in our catalog

I Am a Story

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Submitted by Ms. Karen!

Stories are all around us, but how did they start? Who told them, and how did they tell them? We love stories because they make us feel all the feels: happy, sad, excited, even angry. I Am a Story, written and illustrated by Dan Yaccarino, tells the story of Story, told by storytellers in the dark around campfires, told in paintings on cave walls, inked with woodblocks, typed on a laptop. Story has been spoken and danced on stage, kept in all sorts of libraries private and public, even dispensed from vending machines! This book is just the right start to the history of Story for your youngest readers, with great pictures to show how stories and information lived and continue to live all around us. See this book listed in our catalog