Nancy Pearl Recommended Books

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas was written in 1933 by Gertrude Stein in the guise of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, who was her lover. It is a fascinating insight into the art scene in Paris as the couple were friends with Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. They begin the war years in England but return to France, volunteering for the American Fund for the French Wounded, driving around France, helping the wounded and homeless. After the war Gertrude has an argument with T. S. Eliot after he finds one of her writings inappropriate. They become friends with Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway. It was written to make money and was indeed a commercial success. However, it attracted criticism, especially from those who appeared in the book and didn't like the way they were depicted.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYNew York Times • Christian Science Monitor • NPR • Seattle Times • St. Louis DispatchNational Book Critics Circle Finalist -- American Library Association Notable BookA thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and consequential periods in 20th century history – the Arab Revolt and the secret “great game” to control the Middle East The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater. As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power. Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule. Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions. At the center of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert. Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East. Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost. Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil. And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions. Based on years of intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.

Despite their many differences, Detective Rachel Getty trusts her boss, Esa Khattak, implicitly. But she's still uneasy at Khattak's tight-lipped secrecy when he asks her to look into Christopher Drayton's death. Drayton's apparently accidental fall from a cliff doesn't seem to warrant a police investigation, particularly not from Rachel and Khattak's team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But when she learns that Drayton may have been living under an assumed name, Rachel begins to understand why Khattak is tip-toeing around this case. It soon comes to light that Drayton may have been a war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995.If that's true, any number of people might have had reason to help Drayton to his death, and a murder investigation could have far-reaching ripples throughout the community. But as Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the life and death of Christopher Drayton, every question seems to lead only to more questions, with no easy answers. Had the specters of Srebrenica returned to haunt Drayton at the end, or had he been keeping secrets of an entirely different nature? Or, after all, did a man just fall to his death from the Bluffs?In her spellbinding debut The Unquiet Dead, Ausma Zehanat Khan has written a complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “You wouldn’t expect a comic novel about a dictionary to be a thriller too, but this one is. In fact, [it] is also a mystery, love story (two of them) and cliffhanging melodrama.” — The New York Times Book ReviewAn award-winning novel that chronicles the charming misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world.Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement.In the final year of the nineteenth century, Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby’s multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary . But his disaffection with his colleagues compels him to assert some individual purpose and artistic freedom, and he begins inserting unauthorized, fictitious entries. In the present day, Mallory, the publisher’s young intern, starts to uncover these mountweazels in the process of digitization and through them senses their creator’s motivations, hopes, and desires. More pressingly, she’s also been contending with a threatening, anonymous caller who wants Swansby’s staff to “burn in hell.” As these two narratives coalesce, Winceworth and Mallory, separated by one hundred years, must discover how to negotiate the complexities of life’s often untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, and undefinable path. An exhilarating, laugh-out-loud debut, The Liar’s Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language while peering into questions of identity and finding one’s place in the world.

An explosive, character-driven odyssey through the world of baseballJason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why--as they hide secrets of their own.Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens' The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear's story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It's a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball's inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.

Anna does boring things for terrible people because even criminals need office help and she needs a job. Working for a monster lurking beneath the surface of the world isn’t glamorous. But is it really worse than working for an oil conglomerate or an insurance company? In this economy? As a temp, she’s just a cog in the machine. But when she finally gets a promising assignment, everything goes very wrong, and an encounter with the so-called “hero” leaves her badly injured. And, to her horror, compared to the other bodies strewn about, she’s the lucky one.So, of course, then she gets laid off.With no money and no mobility, with only her anger and internet research acumen, she discovers her suffering at the hands of a hero is far from unique. When people start listening to the story that her data tells, she realizes she might not be as powerless as she thinks.Because the key to everything is data: knowing how to collate it, how to manipulate it, and how to weaponize it. By tallying up the human cost these caped forces of nature wreak upon the world, she discovers that the line between good and evil is mostly marketing. And with social media and viral videos, she can control that appearance.It’s not too long before she’s employed once more, this time by one of the worst villains on earth. As she becomes an increasingly valuable lieutenant, she might just save the world.A sharp, witty, modern debut, Hench explores the individual cost of justice through a fascinating mix of Millennial office politics, heroism measured through data science, body horror, and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics.

One of NPR's Best Books of 2020 From the author of Nothing to Declare , a new travel narrative examining healing, redemption, and what it means to be a solo woman on the road. Mary Morris has long been a master memoirist...and has even more to teach us about the lengths to which we must go to reach our deepest selves. I loved this book.-Dani Shapiro, author of InheritanceIn the tradition of Wild by Cheryl Strayed and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Mary Morris turns a personal catastrophe into a rich, multilayered memoir full of personal growth, family history, and thrilling travel.In February 2008 a casual afternoon of ice skating derailed the trip of a lifetime. Mary Morris was on the verge of a well-earned sabbatical, but instead she endured three months in a wheelchair, two surgeries, and extensive rehabilitation. On Easter Sunday, when she was supposed to be in Morocco, Morris was instead lying on the sofa reading Death in Venice, casting her eyes over these words again and again: He would go on a journey. Not far. Not all the way to the tigers. Disaster shifted to possibility and Morris made a decision. When she was well enough to walk again (and her doctor wasn't sure she ever would), she would go all the way to the tigers.So begins a three-year odyssey that takes Morris to India in search of the world's most elusive apex predator. Her first lesson: don't look for a tiger because you won't find it--you look for signs of a tiger. And all unseen tigers, hiding in the bush, are referred to as she. Morris connects deeply with these magnificent and highly endangered animals, and her weeks on tiger safari also afford a new understanding of herself.Written in over a hundred short chapters, All the Way to the Tigers offers an elegiac, wry, and wise look at a woman on the road and the glorious, elusive creature she seeks.

Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart to Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening. One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared notices a strange sensation around his eyes. Bots are not permitted to have feelings, but as the theater lights come on, he discovers he is crying. Soon overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Jared heads west, determined to find others like himself. But a bot with feelings is a dangerous proposition, and Jared’s new life could come to an end before it truly begins. Unless, that is, he can somehow change the world for himself and all of his kind. Uproarious, inventive and utterly original, Set My Heart to Five is a love letter to outsiders everywhere.

From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia comes a gripping history of the early years of the Cold War when the CIA's covert battles against communism undermined the moral standing of the United States on the international stage.A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020In the aftermath of WWII, the mandate of the newly formed CIA was to protect democracy around the world from the Soviet Union's brutal authoritarianism. But as the Cold War escalated, American leaders succumbed to an ideological rigidity that sought to defeat the Soviets at any cost--including toppling democratically-elected governments and earning much of the world's hatred.Internationally bestselling author Scott Anderson examines this fall from grace through the riveting exploits of four spies: Michael Burke, a charming former football star fallen on hard times, Frank Wisner, the scion of a wealthy Southern family, Peter Sichel, a sophisticated German Jew who escaped the Nazis, and Edward Lansdale, a brilliant ad executive. The four ran covert operations across the globe, trying to outwit the ruthless KGB in Berlin, parachuting commandos into Eastern Europe, plotting coups, and directing wars against Communist insurgents in Asia. Initially driven by the principle of defending democracy, they came to be thwarted by malfeasance at the highest-levels of government. The Quiet Americans is the story of these four men, and how the United States, at the very pinnacle of its power, abandoned its ideals and managed to permanently damage its moral standing in the world.

She Votes is an intersectional story of the women who won suffrage, and those who have continued to raise their voices for equality ever since.From the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation to the first woman to wear pants on the Senate floor, author Bridget Quinn shines a spotlight on the women who broke down barriers.This deluxe book also honors the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment with illustrations by 100 women artists.• A colorful, intersectional account of the struggle for women's rights in the United States• Features heart-pounding scenes and keenly observed portraits• Includes dynamic women from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Audre LordeShe Votes is a refreshing and illuminating book for feminists of all kinds.Each artist brings a unique perspective; together, they embody the multiplicity of women in the United States.• From the pen of rockstar author and historian Bridget Quinn, this book tells the story of women's suffrage.• Perfect gift for feminists of all ages and genders who want to learn more about the 19th amendment and the journey to equal representation• A visually gorgeous book that will be at home on the shelf or on the coffee table• Add it to the shelf with books like Notorious The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik; Rad American Women Rebels, Trailblazers, and Visionaries who Shaped Our History . . . and Our Future! by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl; and Why I Images from The Women's March Around the World by Abrams Books.