The stories here cover Anglo-America,Latin America and the Caribbean. There are over about 985 million people in the various Territories, Countries and States of the Americas.
In this series of blog posts covering Europe, Asia, African and the Americas, you can find tales of poets in Peru, dive into the crocodile infected swamps of Florida or a plain clothed policeman in a tiny Caribbean island.
You can also check out the reading list on languages,biographies or PressReader with newspapers from all around the world in OverDrive Magazines.
So, get your library card ready!
The Sound of Things Falling
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, 2012.
No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde in a seedy billiard hall in Bogotá than Antonio Yammara realises that the ex-pilot has a secret. Antonio's fascination with his new friend's life grows until the day Ricardo receives a mysterious, unmarked cassette. Shortly afterwards, he is shot dead on a street corner.
Yammara's investigation into what happened leads back to the early 1960s, marijuana smuggling and a time before the cocaine trade trapped Colombia in a living nightmare.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2014.
One of the world's most famous novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, blends the natural with the supernatural in one of the most magical reading experiences on earth. Set in the fictional town of Macondo, in the country of Colombia.
'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice'
Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.
In this series of blog posts covering Europe, Asia, African and the Americas, you can find tales of poets in Peru, dive into the crocodile infected swamps of Florida or a plain clothed policeman in a tiny Caribbean island.
You can also check out the reading list on languages,biographies or PressReader with newspapers from all around the world in OverDrive Magazines.
So, get your library card ready!
Antigua
Annie John
by Jamaica Kincaid, 2016.
The island of Antigua is a magical place: growing up there should be a sojourn in paradise for young Annie John. But, as in the basket of green figs carried on her mother's head, there is a snake hidden somewhere within. Annie John begins by adoring her beautiful mother, but inexplicably she comes to hate her. Adolescence takes this brilliant, headstrong girl into open rebellions and secret discoveries - and finally to a crisis of emotions that wrenches her away from her island home.
by Jamaica Kincaid, 2016.
The island of Antigua is a magical place: growing up there should be a sojourn in paradise for young Annie John. But, as in the basket of green figs carried on her mother's head, there is a snake hidden somewhere within. Annie John begins by adoring her beautiful mother, but inexplicably she comes to hate her. Adolescence takes this brilliant, headstrong girl into open rebellions and secret discoveries - and finally to a crisis of emotions that wrenches her away from her island home.
Jamaica
Island Songs
by Alex Wheatle, 2012.
She wondered what kind of world she had brought her two daughters into - the tedious cycle of rural Jamaican life. No chance for them to set off upon adventures and see the outside world.'
But sisters Jenny and Hortense Rodney, descendants of the fierce Maroon people, do get to see the outside world, and Island Songs is their story. Growing up in rural Claremont, working amid the hustle and bustle, lawn parties and 'houses of joy' in Trenchtown, the two sisters take a chance and move to England with their husbands, that far-off land of riches, where they settle down to motherhood among the jazz cafés and bleak streets of Brixton.
A hauntingly beautifully written evocation of twentieth-century Jamaica, its history and traditions, Island Songs is an epic of love, laughter and sorely tested family loyalties. Many stories are told, but many more secrets are never revealed.
by Alex Wheatle, 2012.
She wondered what kind of world she had brought her two daughters into - the tedious cycle of rural Jamaican life. No chance for them to set off upon adventures and see the outside world.'
But sisters Jenny and Hortense Rodney, descendants of the fierce Maroon people, do get to see the outside world, and Island Songs is their story. Growing up in rural Claremont, working amid the hustle and bustle, lawn parties and 'houses of joy' in Trenchtown, the two sisters take a chance and move to England with their husbands, that far-off land of riches, where they settle down to motherhood among the jazz cafés and bleak streets of Brixton.
A hauntingly beautifully written evocation of twentieth-century Jamaica, its history and traditions, Island Songs is an epic of love, laughter and sorely tested family loyalties. Many stories are told, but many more secrets are never revealed.
Camano Island, USA
The Bone Readers
by Jacob Ross, 2016.
Secrets can be buried, but bones can speak... When Michael (Digger) Digson is recruited into DS Chilman's new plain clothes squad in the small Caribbean island of Camaho he brings his own mission to discover who amongst a renegade police squad killed his mother in a political demonstration. Sent to London to train in forensics, Digger becomes enmeshed in Chilman's obsession with a cold case - the disappearance of a young man whose mother is sure has been murdered.
by Jacob Ross, 2016.
Secrets can be buried, but bones can speak... When Michael (Digger) Digson is recruited into DS Chilman's new plain clothes squad in the small Caribbean island of Camaho he brings his own mission to discover who amongst a renegade police squad killed his mother in a political demonstration. Sent to London to train in forensics, Digger becomes enmeshed in Chilman's obsession with a cold case - the disappearance of a young man whose mother is sure has been murdered.
New Orleans, USA
The City of Lost Fortunes
by Bryan Camp, 2018.
Jude has a talent. With a touch of his finger, he can find the things you've lost. Car keys, wallet, your dead sister.
But when Katrina hit, and everything was lost, Jude's trick became a curse, pushing him to the edge of madness. But when an old friend calls in a favour, Jude finds himself in a room full of gods playing a game he doesn't understand for the heart and soul of the Crescent City.
by Bryan Camp, 2018.
Jude has a talent. With a touch of his finger, he can find the things you've lost. Car keys, wallet, your dead sister.
But when Katrina hit, and everything was lost, Jude's trick became a curse, pushing him to the edge of madness. But when an old friend calls in a favour, Jude finds himself in a room full of gods playing a game he doesn't understand for the heart and soul of the Crescent City.
New York, USA
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara, 2015.
A Little Life follows four college classmates-broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition-as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma.
A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara's stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
by Hanya Yanagihara, 2015.
A Little Life follows four college classmates-broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition-as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma.
A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara's stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.
California, USA
There There
by Tommy Orange, 2018.
Described as the moral heir to George Saunders, Tommy Orange is writing from the urban Native American community in Oakland, California. There There takes us into this community as its characters prepare a celebration of their culture in the face of poverty, violence, addiction and lack of representation.
The story is told from the points of view of a dozen different characters involved in putting together a powwow in the city stadium. Early in the book we intuit that something terrible will happen there. Much of the novel's emotional power comes from reading against this intuition, and connecting with the unique voices - male and female, old and young - from around the community as the clock ticks down.
Like the best fiction, this is vivid and real in its setting but universal enough to be speaking about a disenfranchised community anywhere. It could not be more timely.
by Tommy Orange, 2018.
Described as the moral heir to George Saunders, Tommy Orange is writing from the urban Native American community in Oakland, California. There There takes us into this community as its characters prepare a celebration of their culture in the face of poverty, violence, addiction and lack of representation.
The story is told from the points of view of a dozen different characters involved in putting together a powwow in the city stadium. Early in the book we intuit that something terrible will happen there. Much of the novel's emotional power comes from reading against this intuition, and connecting with the unique voices - male and female, old and young - from around the community as the clock ticks down.
Like the best fiction, this is vivid and real in its setting but universal enough to be speaking about a disenfranchised community anywhere. It could not be more timely.
Copies
OverDrive eBook: There There
OverDrive eBook: There There
Florida, USA
Chomp
by Carl Hiaasen, 2012.
Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo in the Florida Everglades. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one. When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called "Expedition Survival!", Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himselfto keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's boneheaded star, before the shoot is over.
But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger seems to actually believe his PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tunaa girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her old man and needs a place to hide out. They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .It's anyone's guess who will actually survive "Expedition Survival".
by Carl Hiaasen, 2012.
Wahoo Cray lives in a zoo in the Florida Everglades. His father is an animal wrangler, so he's grown up with all manner of gators, snakes, parrots, rats, monkeys, snappers, and more in his backyard. The critters he can handle. His father is the unpredictable one. When his dad takes a job with a reality TV show called "Expedition Survival!", Wahoo figures he'll have to do a bit of wrangling himselfto keep his dad from killing Derek Badger, the show's boneheaded star, before the shoot is over.
But the job keeps getting more complicated. Derek Badger seems to actually believe his PR and insists on using wild animals for his stunts. And Wahoo's acquired a shadow named Tunaa girl who's sporting a shiner courtesy of her old man and needs a place to hide out. They've only been on location in the Everglades for a day before Derek gets bitten by a bat and goes missing in a storm. Search parties head out and promptly get lost themselves. And then Tuna's dad shows up with a gun . . .It's anyone's guess who will actually survive "Expedition Survival".
No Surrender
by Carl Hiaasen, 2014.
Typical Malley - to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard - he knows his cousin's in trouble before she does. Wild Skink - he's a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets and giant gators.
Carl Hiaasen first introduced readers to Skink more than 25 years ago in DOUBLE WHAMMY , and he quickly became Hiaasen's most iconic and beloved character, appearing in six novels to date. Both teens and adults will be thrilled to catch sight of the elusive 'captain' as he pursues his own unique brand of swamp justice. With Skink at the wheel, the search for a missing girl is both nail-bitingly tense and laugh-out-loud funny.
by Carl Hiaasen, 2014.
Typical Malley - to avoid being shipped off to boarding school, she takes off with some guy she met online. Poor Richard - he knows his cousin's in trouble before she does. Wild Skink - he's a ragged, one-eyed ex-governor of Florida, and enough of a renegade to think he can track Malley down. With Richard riding shotgun, the unlikely pair scour the state, undaunted by blinding storms, crazed pigs, flying bullets and giant gators.
Carl Hiaasen first introduced readers to Skink more than 25 years ago in DOUBLE WHAMMY , and he quickly became Hiaasen's most iconic and beloved character, appearing in six novels to date. Both teens and adults will be thrilled to catch sight of the elusive 'captain' as he pursues his own unique brand of swamp justice. With Skink at the wheel, the search for a missing girl is both nail-bitingly tense and laugh-out-loud funny.
Gaspé Peninsula, Canada
We Were the Salt of the Sea
by Roxanne Bouchard, David Warriner, 2018.
As Montrealer Catherine Day sets foot in a remote fishing village and starts asking around about her birth mother, the body of a woman dredges up in a fisherman's nets. Not just any woman, though: Marie Garant, an elusive, nomadic sailor and unbridled beauty who once tied many a man's heart in knots.
Detective Sergeant Joaquin Morales, newly drafted to the area from the suburbs of Montreal, barely has time to unpack his suitcase before he's thrown into the deep end of the investigation. On Quebec's outlying Gaspe Peninsula, the truth can be slippery, especially down on the fishermen's wharves.
by Roxanne Bouchard, David Warriner, 2018.
As Montrealer Catherine Day sets foot in a remote fishing village and starts asking around about her birth mother, the body of a woman dredges up in a fisherman's nets. Not just any woman, though: Marie Garant, an elusive, nomadic sailor and unbridled beauty who once tied many a man's heart in knots.
Detective Sergeant Joaquin Morales, newly drafted to the area from the suburbs of Montreal, barely has time to unpack his suitcase before he's thrown into the deep end of the investigation. On Quebec's outlying Gaspe Peninsula, the truth can be slippery, especially down on the fishermen's wharves.
Dawson City, Yukon
Strange Things Done
by Elle Wild, 2017.
A dark and suspenseful noir thriller, set in the Yukon.
As winter closes in and the roads snow over in Dawson City, Yukon, newly arrived journalist Jo Silver investigates the dubious suicide of a local politician and quickly discovers that not everything in the sleepy tourist town is what it seems. Before long, law enforcement begins treating the death as a possible murder and Jo is the prime suspect.
by Elle Wild, 2017.
A dark and suspenseful noir thriller, set in the Yukon.
As winter closes in and the roads snow over in Dawson City, Yukon, newly arrived journalist Jo Silver investigates the dubious suicide of a local politician and quickly discovers that not everything in the sleepy tourist town is what it seems. Before long, law enforcement begins treating the death as a possible murder and Jo is the prime suspect.
Ontario, Canada
The View From Castle Rock
by Alice Munro, 2010.
The world's finest living short story writer turns to her family for inspiration; and what follows is a fictionalised, brilliantly imagined version of the past.
From her ancestors' view from Edinburgh's Castle Rock in the eighteenth century to her parents' thwarted ambitions in Ontario, and her own awakening in 1950s Canada, Munro effortlessly weaves fact and myth to create an epic story of past and present, proving that fiction has much to tell us about life.
by Alice Munro, 2010.
The world's finest living short story writer turns to her family for inspiration; and what follows is a fictionalised, brilliantly imagined version of the past.
From her ancestors' view from Edinburgh's Castle Rock in the eighteenth century to her parents' thwarted ambitions in Ontario, and her own awakening in 1950s Canada, Munro effortlessly weaves fact and myth to create an epic story of past and present, proving that fiction has much to tell us about life.
Columbia
The Sound of Things Falling
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, 2012.
No sooner does he get to know Ricardo Laverde in a seedy billiard hall in Bogotá than Antonio Yammara realises that the ex-pilot has a secret. Antonio's fascination with his new friend's life grows until the day Ricardo receives a mysterious, unmarked cassette. Shortly afterwards, he is shot dead on a street corner.
Yammara's investigation into what happened leads back to the early 1960s, marijuana smuggling and a time before the cocaine trade trapped Colombia in a living nightmare.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2014.
One of the world's most famous novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, blends the natural with the supernatural in one of the most magical reading experiences on earth. Set in the fictional town of Macondo, in the country of Colombia.
'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice'
Gabriel García Márquez's great masterpiece is the story of seven generations of the Buendía family and of Macondo, the town they have built. Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and its miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book, and only Aureliano Buendía can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny. Blending political reality with magic realism, fantasy and comic invention, One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of the most daringly original works of the twentieth century.
Peru
Reputations
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, 2016.
A taut new novel by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling - 'one of the most original voices of Latin American literature', Mario Vargas Llosa 'An affecting, carefully paced work of psychological realism' Times Literary Supplement As Colombia's famed political cartoonist, Javier Mallarino, strolls through downtown Bogotá before a public celebration of his career in the grand Teatro Colón, he contemplates the start of his professional life; how he set down his oils and took up a pen to begin drawing caricatures for a living.
But the celebration has far-reaching consequences: as he leaves the theatre a figure from his past, now a young woman, emerges from the crowd and forces Mallarino to confront an incident that took place in his home half a lifetime ago, calling into question his reputation and the value of his life's work.
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, 2016.
A taut new novel by the award-winning author of The Sound of Things Falling - 'one of the most original voices of Latin American literature', Mario Vargas Llosa 'An affecting, carefully paced work of psychological realism' Times Literary Supplement As Colombia's famed political cartoonist, Javier Mallarino, strolls through downtown Bogotá before a public celebration of his career in the grand Teatro Colón, he contemplates the start of his professional life; how he set down his oils and took up a pen to begin drawing caricatures for a living.
But the celebration has far-reaching consequences: as he leaves the theatre a figure from his past, now a young woman, emerges from the crowd and forces Mallarino to confront an incident that took place in his home half a lifetime ago, calling into question his reputation and the value of his life's work.
The Sky Over Lima
by Juan Gómez Bárcena, 2016.
Peru, 1904. José Gálvez and Carlos Rodríguez are poets. Or, at least, they'd like to be. Sons of Lima's elite in the early twentieth century, they scribble bad verses and read all the greats, especially their idol Juan Ramón Jímenez, the Spanish Maestro. Desperate for Jímenez's latest work, unavailable in Lima, they decide to ask him for a copy.
Convinced Jímenez won't send two dilettantes his book, but he might favour a beautiful young woman, they write to him as the lovely, imaginary Georgina Hübner. Jímenez responds with a letter and a signed copy. Elated, and now the talk of their literary circle, José and Carlos write back. Their correspondence continues as the Maestro falls in love with Georgina, and the boys abandon poetry for the pages of Jímenez's life.
Set against the vibrant backdrop of bohemian taverns and social unrest in Peru at the turn of the century.
by Juan Gómez Bárcena, 2016.
Peru, 1904. José Gálvez and Carlos Rodríguez are poets. Or, at least, they'd like to be. Sons of Lima's elite in the early twentieth century, they scribble bad verses and read all the greats, especially their idol Juan Ramón Jímenez, the Spanish Maestro. Desperate for Jímenez's latest work, unavailable in Lima, they decide to ask him for a copy.
Convinced Jímenez won't send two dilettantes his book, but he might favour a beautiful young woman, they write to him as the lovely, imaginary Georgina Hübner. Jímenez responds with a letter and a signed copy. Elated, and now the talk of their literary circle, José and Carlos write back. Their correspondence continues as the Maestro falls in love with Georgina, and the boys abandon poetry for the pages of Jímenez's life.
Set against the vibrant backdrop of bohemian taverns and social unrest in Peru at the turn of the century.
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