Staff Selections - Sean

What I do at the Library: Coordinator of Community Planning. Adult programming, marketing and communications, some reference. 

Favorite Genre: Yes. I’m a biblio-omnivore—I usually have at least a few books going in a few genres. If it’s good, I’m good.

Currently Reading:

Non-Fiction

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush

This is a book I was wary about picking up but couldn’t put down. The stark reality of sea level rise is sad and true. Rush is a great writer and brings a lot of humanity to this overwhelming issue. Her book is a travel guide of sorts to the human and nonhuman impact of rising sea levels from the shores of America. The next chapter is to be written.

The Line Becomes A River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú

Another “dispatches” book and one that I honestly haven’t started but felt remiss to leave off the list as it’s the book our Non-Fiction book club will be discussing at our next meeting on February 6th. There’s still time for you to read and join the discussion too!

Poetry

Nightshade by Andrea Cohen

These poems are simple meditations that are far from easy. Cohen has a presence and an ear that is at once economical and a of a limitless bounty. More of this sort of questioning, observing, listening, and bearing would make our days richer.

Fiction

Boston Adventure by Jean Stafford from Library of America’s Complete Novels of Jean Stafford

I subscribe to the Library of America and recently received this volume of the complete novels of Jean Stafford—a writer was not familiar with much at all other than knowing she’s more famous for her short stories and was once married to Robert Lowell.  Boston Adventure grabbed me right away with the narrator’s difficult familial circumstances, nascent anger, and exploration of lack and desire as drivers in modern American consumer culture.  This book was a bestseller in 1944 and is still relevant. Jean Stafford deserves a wider readership. 

Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang

Fun, smart, edgy, and weird. Got this book as an Xmas present and am enjoying it. Chiang is a very smart and thoughtful writer. His short stories are like perfect little brainy dioramas that take a bit to get the bearings of, and then they lead you deeper into the unexpected.  I loved his first book of short stories: Stories of Your Life and Others. Less enthusiastic about the movie they made from the title story, Arrival, but I prefer a book to its movie adaptation about 80% of the time anyway.