Wheaton Public Library: Grow with Us!
You probably won’t be surprised to hear this, but most of the staff at the Wheaton Public Library LOVE to read. Knowing this, we’ve wanted to get a staff blog off the ground for awhile now, and the pandemic has Read more
Michael Lewis’ classic sports book holds up almost twenty years later. Scott Brick does a fantastic job narrating Moneyball (2003), keeping the pace moving and the subject engaging. Baseball statistics doesn’t sound like the most interesting of topics and yet, Read more
I picked up Strange Weather by Joe Hill because I often turn to collections of short (horror) stories when I need a little pick me up. Something to take the edge off put the edge on. I’m sure Joe Hill Read more
Although novelist Mary Beth Keane received strong reviews for her previous publications, The Walking People (2009) and Fever (2013), her third, most recent novel, Ask Again, Yes (2019), is considered by many to be her breakout book, having received high Read more
An immigrant memoir that will pull at your heart strings, House of Sticks is an eye-opening tale of suffering and survival. Author Ly Tran and her family flee from the aftereffects of the Vietnam war and relocate to New York in the early 90s. Struggling with poverty, racism, health issues, cultural differences and Read more
The stories shared by comedian Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar are hilarious and heartbreaking, unbelievable and yet unsurprising. Their personal and professional experiences and those of their parents demonstrate systemic racism experienced from Omaha to Chicago and New Read more
Rosemary Harper, the main character of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, takes a job as a file clerk on a rundown spaceship called the Wayfarer in order to escape her painful past. When the Wayfarer is hired Read more
In My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017), New York Times best-selling author and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem explores, according to the publisher, “the damage caused by racism in America from the Read more
Mo Rocca expands on his podcast of the same name in this engaging and wryly humorous collection of biographies. In Mobituaries (2019), Rocca writes obituaries for those who were not appropriately celebrated upon their death—or whose actions have been forgotten Read more
Richard Osman’s debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, came to me as a recommendation from a friend who hadn’t read it, yet heard about it and thought of me. I’d take recommendations from a dirty shoe, so I went for Read more
Written as an oral history of a fictional punk rock duo in the 70’s, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev draws a lot of comparisons to Daisy Jones and the Six. I loved both books, but this is a grittier story incorporating some of the problematic racial history Read more