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NOBLE Libraries Most Popular DVDs 2020

  • Once upon a time… in Hollywood
    Summary:From 1958 to 1963, American actor Rick Dalton knew the height of fame and fortune as the lead in the television series Bounty Law. Yet, Rick wasn’t satisfied with the work and used his popularity to try to become a movie star. By 1969, Rick’s career has stalled so much that he takes jobs as a guest star on various shows. He even starts wondering if the only way he can make a comeback is by acting in Italian productions. Cliff Booth, Rick’s long-time friend and stunt double, helps him see that possibilities for success still exist in the Los Angeles film industry if they work together.


  • Knives out
    Summary:A tribute to mystery mastermind Agatha Christie and a fun, modern-day murder mystery where everyone is a suspect. When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death.


  • Joker
    Summary:Warner Bros. Pictures presents Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, alongside Oscar winner Robert De Niro, and is directed, produced and co-written by Oscar nominee Todd Phillips. The film centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study but also a broader cautionary tale.


  • Parasite
    Summary:Kim Ki-teak’s family are all unemployed and living in a squalid basement. When his son gets a tutoring job at the lavish home of the Park family, the Kim family’s luck changes. One by one they gradually infiltrate the wealthy Park’s home, attempting to take over their affluent lifestyle.


  • Downton Abbey : [the motion picture]
    Summary:The beloved Crawleys and their intrepid staff prepare for the most important moment of their lives: a royal visit from the King and Queen of England. The event will unleash scandal, romance, and intrigue that will leave the future of Downton hanging in the balance.


  • Toy story 4
    Summary:Woody has always been confident about his place in the world and that his priority is taking care of his kid, whether that’s Andy or Bonnie. But when Bonnie adds a reluctant new toy called ‘Forky’ to her room, a road trip adventure alongside old and new friends will show Woody how big the world can be for a toy.


  • A beautiful day in the neighborhood
    Summary:Tom Hanks portrays Mister Rogers in a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. After a jaded magazine writer is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about kindness, love, and forgiveness from America’s most beloved neighbor.


  • Yesterday
    Summary:Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter in a tiny English seaside town whose dreams of fame are rapidly fading, despite the fierce devotion and support of his childhood best friend, Ellie. Then, after a freak bus accident during a mysterious global blackout, Jack wakes up to discover that The Beatles have never existed. And he finds himself with a very complicated problem, indeed.


  • Little women
    Summary:Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young ladies in mid-nineteenth-century New England.


  • Judy
    Summary:Thirty years after rising to global stardom in The Wizard of Oz, showbiz legend Judy Garland arrives in London to perform a five-week sold-out run at The Talk of the Town. While preparing for the shows, Garland battles with management, reminisces with friends and adoring fans, and embarks on a whirlwind romance with soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans, all while bravely struggling to overcome intensifying anxiety and physical decline.

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    NOBLE Libraries Most Popular Children’s Books 2020

  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man : lord of the fleas
    Summary:When a new bunch of baddies bust up the town, Dog Man is called into action — and this time he isn’t alone. With a cute kitten and a remarkable robot by his side, our heroes must save the day by joining forces with an unlikely ally: Petey, the World’s Most Evil Cat. But can the villainous Petey avoid vengeance and venture into virtue?


  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man : brawl of the wild
    Summary:When Dog Man is sent to the pound for a crime he did not commit, his friends work to prove his innocence.


  • Telgemeier, Raina
    Guts
    Summary:Raina wakes up one night with a terrible upset stomach. Her mom has one, too, so it’s probably just a bug. Raina eventually returns to school, where she’s dealing with the usual highs and lows: friends, not-friends, and classmates who think the school year is just one long gross-out session. It soon becomes clear that Raina’s tummy trouble isn’t going away… and it coincides with her worries about food, school, and changing friendships. What’s going on?


  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man : fetch-22
    Summary:Petey the Cat is out of jail, and he has a brand-new lease on life. While Petey’s reevaluated what matters most, Li’l Petey is struggling to find the good in the world. Can Petey and Dog Man stop fighting like cats and dogs long enough to put their paws together and work as a team? They need each other now more than ever — Li’l Petey (and the world) is counting on them!


  • Pilkey, Dav
    For whom the ball rolls
    Summary:Dog Man has been working hard to overcome his bad habits, but when his obsessions turn to fears, he finds himself the target of an all-new supervillain, while Petey the Cat, who was just released from jail, starts a new life with Li’l Petey.


  • Kinney, Jeff
    Diary of a wimpy kid. Wrecking ball
    Summary:When an unexpected inheritance gives Greg Heffley’s family a chance to make big changes to their house, they soon discover that renovations may not be worth the effort.


  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man unleashed
    Summary:Dog Man, a crimefighter with the head of a police dog and the body of a policeman, faces off against his archnemesis Petey the cat.


  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man and cat kid
    Summary:When a new sitter arrives and a movie star goes missing, Dog Man and Cat Kid investigate, but Petey, the world’s most evil cat, complicates their case.


  • Willems, Mo.
    My new friend is so fun!
    Summary:Gerald the elephant and Snake fear that Piggie and Brian Bat will have so much fun together they will no longer need their best friends.


  • Pilkey, Dav
    Dog Man
    Summary:Dog Man, a crimefighter with the head of a police dog and the body of a policeman, faces off against his archnemesis Petey the Cat.

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    NOBLE Libraries Most Popular Adult Nonfiction 2020

  • Westover, Tara
    Educated : a memoir
    Summary:Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.


  • Trump, Mary L
    Too much and never enough : how my family created the world’s most dangerous man
    Summary:In this portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man is.


  • Larson, Erik
    The splendid and the vile : a saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the blitz
    Summary:"On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally-and willing to fight to the end. Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports, Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family and the close advisers who comprised Churchill’s "Secret Circle."


  • Obama, Michelle
    Becoming
    Summary:When she was a little girl, Michelle Robinson’s world was the South Side of Chicago, where she and her brother shared a bedroom in their family’s apartment and where her parents raised her to be outspoken and unafraid. But life soon took her much further afield, from the halls of Princeton, where she learned for the first time what if felt like to be the only Black woman in a room, to the office tower where she worked as a high-powered corporate lawyer, and where a law student named Barack Obama appeared in her office and upended all her carefully made plans. In this memoir she describes the early years of her marriage as she struggles to balance her work and family with her husband’s fast-moving political career and takes us inside their private debate over whether he should make a run for the presidency, and her subsequent role as a popular but oft-criticized figure during his campaign. Narrating with grace, good humor, and uncommon candor, she provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of her family’s launch into the global limelight as well as their life inside the White House over eight years, as she comes to know her country and her country comes to know her.


  • Noah, Trevor
    Born a crime : stories from a South African childhood
    Summary:Noah’s path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. As he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist, his mother is determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. With an incisive wit and unflinching honesty, Noah weaves together a moving yet funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time.


  • Gladwell, Malcolm
    Talking to strangers : what we should know about the people we don’t know
    Summary:In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers, to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines to illustrate that people size up the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of those they don’t know both wrongly and with misplaced confidence.


  • Bryson, Bill
    The body : a guide for occupants
    Summary:As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner’s manual for everybody. Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body — how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Bryson-esque anecdotes, this book will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular.


  • Gottlieb, Lori
    Maybe you should talk to someone : a therapist, HER therapist, and our lives revealed
    Summary:Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice when a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives -— a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life if
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    NOBLE Libraries Most Popular Adult Fiction 2020

  • Owens, Delia
    Where the crawdads sing
    Summary:For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She’s barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark. But Kya is not what they say. Abandoned at age ten, she has survived on her own in the marsh that she calls home. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life lessons from the land, learning from the false signals of fireflies the real way of this world. But while she could have lived in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world — until the unthinkable happens.


  • Patchett, Ann
    The Dutch house : a novel
    Summary:At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Cyril’s son Danny and his older sister Maeve are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another.


  • Moyes, Jojo
    The giver of stars
    Summary:Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, a smart-talking, self-sufficient woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. They will be joined by three other singular women who become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. What happens to them, and to the men they love, becomes a classic drama of loyalty, justice, humanity and passion. Though they face all kinds of dangers, they’re committed to their job: bringing books to people who have never had any, sharing the gift of learning that will change their lives.


  • Ng, Celeste
    Little fires everywhere : a novel
    Summary:In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. No one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren, an enigmatic artist and single mother who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to Mia and Pearl. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past, but her obsession comes with unexpected and devastating costs.


  • Cummins, Jeanine
    American dirt : a novel
    Summary:"Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy-two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence."


  • Hilderbrand, Elin
    28 summers : a novel
    Summary:Once a year, Alice and Tom have met on Nantucket to rekindle the passionate love affair they began 28 years earlier. Each married to someone else, with busy lives and happy families, they’ve managed to keep their secret and to keep their love alive. But nothing is forever. Tom’s wife is in the national spotlight for her controversial and increasingly popular campaign for a Senate office. And Alice has received a diagnosis that puts her future in doubt. Could their 28th summer together also be their last?


  • Reid, Kiley.
    Such a fun age : a novel
    Summary:Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to
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    For Fans of Bridgerton

  • Milan, Courtney
    The duke who didn’t
    Summary:Miss Chloe Fong has plans for her life, lists for her days, and absolutely no time for nonsense. Three years ago, she told her childhood sweetheart that he could talk to her once he planned to be serious. He disappeared that very night. Except now he’s back. Jeremy Wentworth, the Duke of Lansing, has returned to the tiny village he once visited with the hope of wooing Chloe. In his defense, it took him years of attempting to be serious to realize that the endeavor was incompatible with his personality. All he has to do is convince Chloe to make room for a mischievous trickster in her life, then disclose that in all the years they’ve known each other, he’s failed to mention his real name, his title… and the minor fact that he owns her entire village. Only one thing can go wrong: Everything.


  • MacLean, Sarah.
    Wicked and the wallflower
    Summary:"When a mysterious stranger finds his way into her bedchamber and offers his help in landing a duke, Lady Felicity Faircloth agrees–on one condition. She’s seen enough of the world to believe in passion, and won’t accept a marriage without it. Bastard son of a duke and king of London’s dark streets, Devil has spent a lifetime wielding power and seizing opportunity, and the spinster wallflower is everything he needs to exact a revenge years in the making. All he must do is turn the plain little mouse into an irresistible temptress, set his trap, and destroy his enemy"–Provided by publisher.


  • Bennett, Bethany
    Any rogue will do
    Summary:"For exactly one season, Lady Charlotte Wentworth played the biddable female the ton expected–and all it got her was society’s mockery and derision. Now she’s determined to be in charge of her own future. So when an unwanted suitor tries to manipulate her into an engagement, she has a plan. He can’t claim to be her fiancé if she’s engaged to someone else. Even if it means asking for help from the last man she would ever marry. Ethan, Viscount Amesbury, made a lot of mistakes, but the one he regrets the most is ruining Lady Charlotte’s reputation. Going along with her charade is the least he can do to clean the slate and perhaps earn her forgiveness. Pretending to be in love with the woman he’s never forgotten is easy. What isn’t easy is convincing her to give him a second chance"–Back cover.


  • Riley, Vanessa
    A duke, the lady, and a baby
    Summary:"When headstrong West Indian heiress Patience Jordan questioned her English husband’s mysterious suicide, she lost everything: her newborn son, Lionel, her fortune-and her freedom. Falsely imprisoned, she risks her life to be near her child-until The Widow’s Grace gets her hired as her own son’s nanny. But working for his unsuspecting new guardian, Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington, has perils of its own. Especially when Patience discovers his military strictness belies an ex-rake of unswerving honor-and unexpected passion . . .A wounded military hero, Busick is determined to resolve his dead cousin’s dangerous financial dealings for Lionel’s sake. But his investigation is a minor skirmish compared to dealing with the forthright, courageous, and alluring Patience. Somehow, she’s breaking his rules, and sweeping past his defenses. Soon, between formidable enemies and obstacles, they form a fragile trust-but will it be enough to save the future they long to dare together?"–FantasticFiction.com.


  • Kleypas, Lisa
    Secrets of a summer night
    Summary:Desperate to save her family from ruin, Annabelle Peyton plans to use her beauty and wit to marry a wealthy aristocrat, but her plans are undermined by the intriguing Simon Hunt, who offers seduction but not marriage.


  • Waite, Olivia
    The lady’s guide to celestial mechanics
    Summary:In 1816 London, widow Catherine St. Day hires Lucy Muchelney to translate a French astronomy text and thus finish her husband’s scientific legacy, and they unexpectedly find themselves falling in love.

  • Dare, Tessa
    The wallflower wager
    Summary:Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society–and now he wants to get even. Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn’t take into her home and her heart. When her imposing–and attractive–new neighbor demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge. She will part with her precious charges, if he can find them loving homes. Done, Gabriel says. How hard can it be to find homes for a few kittens? And a two-legged dog. And a foul-mouthed parrot. And a goat, an otter, a hedgehog…Easier said than done, for a cold-blooded bastard who wouldn’t know a loving home from a workhouse. Soon he’s covered in cat hair, knee-deep in adorable, and bewitched by a shyly pretty spinster who defies his every attempt to resist. Now she’s set her mind and heart on saving him. Not if he ruins her first.

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    Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Honey, Michael K.
    To the promised land : Martin Luther King and the fight for economic justice
    Summary:Goes beyond popularized views of Martin Luther King, Jr., to explore his committed advocacy of the poor, the working class ,and unions, as well as his views about nonviolent resistance to all forms of oppression, particularly economic inequality.


  • King, Martin Luther, Jr.
    The radical King
    Summary:Every year, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is celebrated as one of the greatest orators in US history, an ambassador for nonviolence who became perhaps the most recognizable leader of the civil rights movement. But after more than forty years, few people appreciate how truly radical he was. Arranged thematically in four parts, The Radical King includes twenty-three selections, curated and introduced by Dr. Cornel West, that illustrate King’s revolutionary vision, underscoring his identification with the poor, his unapologetic opposition to the Vietnam War, and his crusade against global imperialism. As West writes, "Although much of America did not know the radical King–and too few know today–the FBI and US government did. They called him ‘the most dangerous man in America.’ This book unearths a radical King that we can no longer sanitize."


  • Sides, Hampton.
    Hellhound on his trail : the electrifying account of the largest manhunt in American history
    Summary:April, 1967: a prison escape. James Earl Ray, nondescript thief and con man, drifts through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he is galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign. February, 1968: a Memphis garbage strike. Martin Luther King joins the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march turns violent. King vows to return to Memphis in April. Historian Sides follows Ray and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the 65-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England–a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI. Drawing on previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.–From publisher description.


  • Sundquist, Eric J.
    King’s dream
    Summary:In this new exploration of the "I Have a Dream" speech, Sundquist places it in the history of American debates about racial justice and demonstrates how the speech, an exultant blend of grand poetry and powerful elocution, perfectly expresses the story of African-American freedom.


  • King, Coretta Scott
    My life, my love, my legacy
    Summary:"The life story of Coretta Scott King–wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and singular twentieth-century American civil rights activist–as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to one of her closest friends. Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising black parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose. One of the first black scholarship students recruited to Antioch College, a committed pacifist, and a civil rights activist, she was an avowed feminist–a graduate student determined to pursue her own career–when she met Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister insistent that his wife stay home with the children. But in love and devoted to shared Christian beliefs and racial justice goals, she married King, and events promptly thrust her into a maelstrom of history throughout which she was a strategic partner, a standard bearer, a marcher, a negotiator, and a crucial fundraiser in support of world-changing achievements. As a widow and single mother of four, while butting heads with the all-male African American leadership of the times, she championed gay rights and AIDS awareness, founded the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, lobbied for fifteen years to help pass a bill establishing the US national holiday in honor of her slain husband, and was a powerful international presence, serving as a UN ambassador and playing a key role in Nelson Mandela’s election. Coretta’s is a love story, a family saga, and the memoir of an independent-minded black woman in twentieth-century America, a brave leader who stood committed, proud, forgiving, nonviolent, and hopeful in the face of terrorism and violent hatred every single day of her life."–Provided by publisher.


  • King, Martin Luther, Jr.
    Martin Luther King, Jr.: The last interview : and other conversations
    Summary:"As the Black Lives Matter movement gains momentum, and books like Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me and Claudia Rankine’s Citizen swing national attention toward the racism and violence that continue to poison our communities, it’s as urgent now as ever to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., whose insistence on equality and peace defined the Civil Rights Movement and forever changed the course of American history. This collection ranges from an early 1961 interview in which King describes his reasons for joining the ministry (after considering medicine), to a 1964 conversation with Robert Penn Warren, to his last interview, which was conducted on stage at the convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, just ten days before King’s assassination. Timely, poignant, and inspiring, Martin Luther King, Jr.: the last interview is an essential addition to the Last Interview series."

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    NOBLE Libraries Most Popular Teen Books 2020

    • McManus, Karen M.
      One of us is next
      Summary:“A year after the Bayview four were cleared of Simon Kelleher’s death, a new mystery has cropped up–a game with dangerous consequences that’s targeting students at Bayview again. And if the creator isn’t found soon, dangerous could prove deadly”


    • McManus, Karen M.
      One of us is lying
      Summary:“On Thursday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High’s notorious gossip app. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom alive. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident. He died on a Thursday. But that Friday, he’d planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates. Now, all four of them are suspects in his murder. Are they guilty? Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who’s still on the loose? They all have a motive. They all have something to hide. They all have a history with Simon. And one of them is definitely lying.


    • Thomas, Angie
      The hate u give
      Summary:“Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life”


    • Telgemeier, Raina.
      Drama
      Summary:Callie rides an emotional roller coaster while serving on the stage crew for a middle school production of Moon over Mississippi as various relationships start and end, and others never quite get going.


    • Craft, Jerry
      New kid
      Summary:Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds–and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?


    • Collins, Suzanne.
      Catching fire
      Summary:Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. Nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Her longtime friend, Gale holds her at an icy distance, and Peeta has turned his back on her completely. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.


    • Telgemeier, Raina
      Guts
      Summary:Raina wakes up one night with a terrible upset stomach. Her mom has one, too, so it’s probably just a bug. Raina eventually returns to school, where she’s dealing with the usual highs and lows: friends, not-friends, and classmates who think the school year is just one long gross-out session. It soon becomes clear that Raina’s tummy trouble isn’t going away… and it coincides with her worries about food, school, and changing friendships. What’s going on?


    • Collins, Suzanne.
      The Hunger Games
      Summary:Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone fighting against you? Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death — televised for all of Panem to see. Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.


    • Collins, Suzanne
      The ballad of songbirds and snakes
      Summary:It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment
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    Gambits & Gamesmanship

      • Tevis, Walter S.
        The queen’s gambit
        Summary:Eight year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of sixteen, she’s competing for the U.S. Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.



      • Hoffman, Paul
        King’s gambit : a son, a father, and the world’s most dangerous game
        Summary:An insider’s account of the fiercely competitive world of professional chess describes the author’s experiences as a child prodigy who spent his weekends in the chess epicenter of Greenwich Village, a youth also marked by his parents’ divorce and his observations about the eccentric lives of fellow players.

      • DuBois, Jennifer
        A partial history of lost causes
        In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest: He launches a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. He knows he will not win—and that he is risking his life in the process—but a deeper conviction propels him forward.  In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison struggles for a sense of purpose. Irina is certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father wrote to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Her father asked the chess prodigy a profound question—How does one proceed in a lost cause?—but never received an adequate reply. Leaving everything behind, Irina travels to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself.


      • Klass, David.
        Grandmaster : a novel
        Summary:Invited to a parent-child weekend chess tournament, freshman Daniel discovers that his father was once one of the country’s leading young players but that the intense competition surrounding the game proved to be unhealthy, a past they are forced to confront when they meet a former rival.


      • Neville, Katherine
        The eight : a novel
        Summary: New York City, 1972.  A dabbler in mathematics and chess, Catherine Velis is also a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to a new assignment in Algeria, Cat has her palm read by a fortune-teller. The woman warns Cat of danger. Then an antiques dealer approaches Cat with a mysterious offer: He has an anonymous client who is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring the pieces back, there will be a generous reward.  The South of France, 1790.  Mireille de Remy and her cousin Valentine are young novices at the fortresslike Montglane Abbey. With France aflame in revolution, the two girls burn to rebel against constricted convent life&;and their means of escape is at hand. Buried deep within the abbey are pieces of the Montglane Chess Service, once owned by Charlemagne. Whoever reassembles the pieces can play a game of unlimited power. But to keep the Game a secret from those who would abuse it, the two young women must scatter the pieces throughout the world…


      • Reilly, Matthew
        The tournament
        Summary:When the feared sultan of the mid-16th-century Ottoman Empire issues a chess tournament challenge to European royals, a young Elizabeth I accompanies England’s champion, only to witness a brutal murder amid dangerous court machinations.



      • Bible, Michael
        Sophia : a novel
        Summary:“Reverend Maloney isn’t the world’s greatest spiritual advisor. He drinks gin out of his coffee cup and has sex dreams about the Holy Ghost. His best friend Eli isn’t perfect either, but he’s a chess genius, so Maloney sees an opportunity in traveling around the country so Eli can win major chess tournament after chess tournament (while Maloney pockets Eli’s winnings). Chased by a blind headhunter named Jack Cataract, the Reverend, his girlfriend, and Eli race across North America and around New York City, from Washington Square Park to a jetski ride to the great green gown of Lady Liberty. In this uproariously funny, unabashedly sexy, and highly-anticipated novel, Michael Bible delivers a devastating story about the American South, chess tournaments, and one debaucherous reverend’s struggle with spirituality. In the spirit of Nicholson Baker and Barry Hannah, Sophia is an adventure with a raunchy and obviously flawed cast of characters, written with enormous heart.”




      • Donoghue, John
        The Death’s Head chess club : a novel
        Summary:“A novel of the improbable friendship that arises between a Nazi officer and a Jewish chessplayer in Auschwitz SS Obersturmfuhrer Paul Meissner arrives in
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    Korean American Day is January 13th

  • Choi, Susan
    Trust exercise : a novel
    Summary:In 1982 in a southern city, David and Sarah, two freshmen at a highly competitive performing arts high school, thrive alongside their school peers in a rarified bubble, ambitiously devoting themselves to their studies ;to music, to movement, to Shakespeare and, particularly, to classes taught by the magnetic acting teacher Mr. Kingsley. It is here in these halls that David and Sarah fall innocently and powerfully into first love. And also where, as this class of students rises through the ranks of high school, the outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and the future, does not affect them–until it does.


  • Cho, Nam-ju
    Kim Jiyoung, born 1982
    Summary:"In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul, Kim Jiyoung-a millennial "everywoman"-spends her days caring for her infant daughter. Her husband, however, worries over a strange symptom that has recently appeared: Jiyoung has begun to impersonate the voices of other women-dead and alive, both known and unknown to her. Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that very person. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, Jiyoung’s concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist, who listens to her narrate her own life story-from her birth to a family who expected a son, to elementary school teachers who policed girls’ outfits, to male coworkers who installed hidden cameras in women’s restrooms and posted the photos online. But can her doctor cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?"


  • Cha, Steph
    Your house will pay : a novel
    Summary:A powerful and taut novel about racial tensions following two Los Angeles families–one Korean-American, one African American–grappling with the effects of a decades-old crime.old crime.


  • Kim, Eugenia
    The kinship of secrets
    Summary:"From the author of The Calligrapher’s Daughter comes the riveting story of two sisters, one raised in the United States, the other in South Korea, and the family that bound them together even as the Korean War kept them apart."


  • Yun, Jung
    Shelter
    Summary:"Kyung Cho is a young father burdened by a house he can’t afford. Nearby in an exclusive neighborhood, an act of violence leaves his well-to-do parents unable to stay on their own. Living under the same roof, old feelings of guilt and anger surface. This masterful debut asks what it means to provide for one’s family and answers with a story as riveting as it is profound.


  • Lee, Min Jin.
    Free food for millionaires
    Summary:"Goodbye, Columbus meets the novels of Amy Tan in this American story of class, society and identity that marks the debut of a new voice in fiction"–Provided by the publisher.


  • Kwon, R. O.
    The incendiaries : a novel
    Summary:A young Korean-American woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea and then disappears, leading a fellow student into an obsessive search for her.


  • Lee, Chang-rae.
    On such a full sea
    Summary:From the author of Native Speaker and The Surrendered, this is a highly provocative, deeply affecting story of one woman’s legendary quest to comprehend the life into which she has been born, in a shocking future America. Here the author takes his masterly storytelling, and his long-standing interests in identity, culture, work, and love, and lifts them to a new plane. He brings us into a world created from scratch, a vividly imagined future America. In a future, long-declining America, society is strictly stratified by class. Long-abandoned urban neighborhoods have been repurposed as highwalled, self-contained labor colonies. And the members of the labor class-descendants of those brought over en masse many years earlier from environmentally ruined provincial China, find purpose and identity in their work to provide pristine produce and fish to the small, elite, satellite charter villages that ring the labor settlement. In return for their contributions, the workers are protected from the violence of the wild, crime -ridden, anarchic quasi-states that exist elsewhere. In this world lives Fan, a female fish-tank diver, who leaves her home in the B-Mor settlement (once known as Baltimore), when the man she loves mysteriously disappears. Fan’s journey to find him takes her out of the safety of B-Mor, through the anarchic Open Counties, where crime is rampant with scant governmental oversight, and to a faraway charter village, in a quest that begins to call into question everything she knows about herself and her destiny, that will soon become legend to those she left behind. The novel explores the delicate balance between fate and free will, ignorance and knowledge, subjection and control, and how quickly the tide can change. It is a novel with contemporary relevance and insight into American anxieties about Chinese power and influence, and our own prospects and legacies. — Provided by publisher.


  • Chee, Alexander
    The queen of the night
    Summary:Lilliet Berne is a sensation of the Paris Opera, a legendary soprano with every accolade except an original role, every singers’ chance at immortality. When one is finally offered to her, she realizes with alarm that the libretto is based on a hidden piece of her past. Only four could have betrayed her: one is dead, one loves her, one wants to own her. And one, she hopes, never thinks of her at all. As she mines her memories for clues, she recalls her life as an orphan who left the American frontier for Europe and was swept up into the glitzy, gritty world of Second Empire Paris. In order to survive, she transformed herself from hippodrome rider to courtesan, from empress’s maid to debut singer, all the while weaving a complicated web of romance, obligation, and political intrigue.


  • Lee, Min Jin
    Pachinko
    Summary:"In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant-and that her lover is married-she refuses to be bought. Instead,
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    New Reads for the New Year

      • Hawkins, Rachel
        The Wife Upstairs
        Summary:A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda.


      • Benjamin, Melanie
        The Children’s Blizzard
        Summary:From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife comes a story of courage on the prairie, inspired by the devastating storm that struck the Great Plains in 1888.


      • Okorafor, Nnedi
        Remote control
        Summary:“The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From here on in she would be known as Sankofa–a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks-alone, except for her fox companion-searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?”–Provided by publisher


      • Cross-Smith, Leesa
        This Close to Okay
        Summary:A recently divorced therapist spots a man standing on the edge of a bridge and convinces him to join her for coffee instead of jumping and the pair spend a cathartic weekend sharing secrets and angsts.


      • Jones Jr, Robert
        The Prophets
        Summary:“A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence.”–Provided by publisher


      • Cousens, Sophie
        This time next year
        Summary:“Their lives began together, but their worlds couldn’t be more different. After thirty years of missed connections, they’re about to meet again…”


      • Hahn, Sumi
        The mermaid from Jeju : a novel
        Summary:A talented young deep-sea diver from occupied 1948 Korea’s neighboring Jeju Island visits Mt. Halla for her family’s annual trading trip before her romance with a mountain youth is upended by family tragedy and political turbulence.


      • Askaripour, Mateo
        Black Buck
        Summary:For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street–a blazing, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone black salesman at a mysterious, cultlike, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.

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