Reader's Corner

Esi Edugyan is the author of the book, Washington Black. The novel won the prestigious Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The paperback edition of the book is out now.

Overground Railroad, by Candacy Taylor, explores the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book , a travel guide for black motorists. Deeply researched through extensive travel and photography – shown in 150 color and black and white illustrations -- Overground Railroad is an account of the Green Book’s important role during the years that Jim Crow laws were in place across much of America. Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was a resourceful and innovative solution to a

Author and journalist David Daley, is considered one of the nation’s leading experts on gerrymandering. His first book charted the troubling evolution of gerrymandering and voter manipulation in the United States.

Daniel Okrent’s The Guarded Gate tells the chilling story of how anti-immigration activists of the early twentieth century — most of them well-born, many of them progressives — used the bogus science of eugenics to justify closing the immigration door in 1924.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez's most recent novel is The Shape of the Ruins . When a man is arrested at a museum for attempting to steal the bullet-ridden suit of a murdered Colombian politician, few notice. But soon this thwarted theft takes on greater meaning as it becomes a thread in a widening web of popular fixations with conspiracy theories, assassinations, and historical secrets.

This is an encore presentation.

A Long Petal of the Sea , is an epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents that follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home . In the late 1930s, when General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee. Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning, and over the course of their lives they will face trial after trial, destined to witness the

Beijing Payback, a debut thriller, was named one of 5 books not to miss by USA Today and garnered favorable reviews by NPR, the New York Times, the LA Review of Books, and others. The story takes place in Southern California and China. A Chinese American college basketball player named Victor Li learns that his father was murdered — and that perhaps his father was not quite the person he was thought to be.

This is an encore presentation.

Emily Nemen’s The Cactus League, as the title tells us, is set in the Arizona desert, around Scottsdale, during spring training for major league baseball. The novel is narrated by a sportscaster and while nominally the story of Jason Goodyear, the star outfielder for the fictional Los Angeles Lions, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with the stories of other richly drawn characters -- the batting coach, aging sports agent, the players, owners, ballpark staff and the hangers on.