Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
529pp.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Good for fans of: first-person fiction, LGBT issues, complex storylines, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Franzen, “The Virgin Suicides”
Why: This title has been spoken about in ways that make you wonder if the term “great American novel” doesn’t apply. Telling the tale of a family secret, this novel might remind some of John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” Of course, with exactly 50 years between the two books, there is a different American story to be told in this 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner. An immigrant Greek family as the story’s focus and an intersex narrator make this novel like nothing you have read before. It is the tale of compassion and love that can be understood by every person, regardless of gender.
Acting White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur by Ron Christie
St. Martin’s Press
Good for fans of: political topics, etymologies, African-American studies, history lessons
Why: It might seem strange that a Republican author would choose a quote by Barack Obama for the front cover of his book, but open the cover and you will see a list of chapters covering milestones since Harriet Beecher Stowe. The book examines the ideas of segregation in the time of Booker T. Washington and Plessy vs. Ferguson and black literacy and education in the times of W.E.B. Dubois and Brown vs. Board of Education. With a glance at Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, we see how America grew into a place with the first black Supreme Court justice and president of the United States. The feel of the entire book echoes the old adage: don’t judge a book by its cover, but rather by the content of its characters. This book knows that a black youth with a book isn’t “acting white” but is seeking more knowledge to grow from.
Big Plans by Bob Shea (author), Lane Smith (illustrator)
48pp
Hyperion Books
Good for fans of: young children’s books, dreamers, big illustrations, reading aloud, bedtime stories
Why: This is the book our children’s section manager has been talking about. These large, colorful pages—full of astronauts and football players—will easily keep the eyes of even the smallest scholars on the page. We love the message this story sends about childhood plans and the endless possibilities of growing up. Empowering and engaging, this book could bring out big dreams in even a small mind.
How Art Made the World: A Journey to the Origins of Human Creativity by Nigel Spivey
288pp
Basic Books
Good for fans of: artists, human history, nonfiction knowledge, PBS, beautiful pictures
Why: You may have come across the 2006 PBS documentary series of the same title sometime when you were flipping through channels. If you didn’t happen to catch it then, why not pick up the book written by the host of the series? Taking on the topic of art anthropologically with the motto “everyone is an artist,” this book shows the ways that humans make art, but also how art makes us human. Examining the themes that recur throughout history since the time of cave drawings and into the digital age, this book dares us to ask why we, as a species, have time and time again gone back to creating visual representations of the things we can see and even the things we cannot.
New at the Bookstore: Be sure to check out Midtown Scholar’s newly expanded Shakespeare section, including copies of all 37 plays and many sonnets. There’s something for everyone, no matter the amount of knowledge you already possess about the Bard of Avon. Find critical readings of his writings, biographies on the man and the myth—even humorous interpretations of his famous plotlines. These easily identifiable classics will look great in your living room.
