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Compact Disc

Orphan Train

Cover of Orphan Train
Christina Baker
Kline
2013

A troubled teenaged girl, who is helping an old woman organize her house, learns about the woman's early life as an Irish immigrant in New York City and in Minnesota, where she was sent at the age of nine, on an orphan train.

We Need New Names

Cover of We Need New Names
NoViolet
Bulawayo
2013

In Bulawayo’s semiautobiographical novel, young Darling describes her chaotic but still happy childhood during Zimbabwe’s strife-filled Lost Decade.  In the second half of the novel, the teenage Darling reflects on the promises and failures of America after she emigrates to Destroyedmichigan (Detroit).  A work that considers what one embraces in a new culture and what can’t be left behind, We Need New Names was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Award. 

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics

Cover of The Boys in the Boat:  Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics
Daniel James
Brown
2013

The nine boys who made up the Olympic rowing team, sons of western loggers and hardworking laborers, may not have had the pedigree of the elite teams of the east, but they set out to prove themselves to the world at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  Author Brown captures the struggles, including the Great Depression, poverty, and the loss of family, of a team that showed the nation what pulling together meant.

The Burgess Boys

Cover of The Burgess Boys
Elizabeth
Strout
2013

Two brothers left their hometown in Maine to become New York City lawyers. One is now a hotshot corporate attorney, the other works for Legal Aid. When their sister in Maine needs help, both go back to assist—and secrets large and small are revealed.

Cleopatra

Cover of Cleopatra
Stacy
Schiff
2010

A woman of intelligence, cunning and ambition intent on consolidating and maximizing her power emerges against the romanticized, melodramatic vixen portrayed in Western history in this thoroughly researched biography of Cleopatra.

Me Before You

Cover of Me Before You
JoJo
Moyes
2012

A young Englishwoman, Louisa Clark finds herself unemployed when the restaurant she works in is closed.  She takes a job as caretaker for Will Traynor, a recently paralyzed man, and throws herself into trying to convince him to stay alive, despite his losses.

A Tale for the Time Being

Cover of A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth
Ozeki
2013

In Japan, a teenage girl is struggling-- and writing to a future anonymous reader about it in a diary. Ten years later the diary, along with letters in Japanese and French, wash ashore in a metal lunchbox on the coast of British Columbia. The woman who finds it sets out to identify the girl to see how she's fared in the intervening years.

The Age of Miracles

Cover of The Age of Miracles
Karen
Thompson Walker
2012

As the slowing down of the earth's rotation portends a coming apocalypse, Julia also faces adolescent struggles with friendships, first love, and family problems in this combination coming-of-age and science fiction novel.