Browse New Materials-- March 1, 2023

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A monthly selection from our shelves curated by your favorite SPL librarians!


For the week of March, 2023:  Fiction | Nonfiction | Graphic Novels | Movies/TV, Music & More


Fiction

Witcha Gonna Do? Witcha Gonna Do? by Avery Flynn

This spicy enemies to lovers romance pits notoriously unlucky Tilda Sherwood against Indiana Jones doppelganger Gil Connolly when he’s assigned to investigate whether her family’s legacy of witchy powers skipped over Tilda, or if she’s keeping her magic under wraps. Meanwhile, Gil’s harboring secrets of his own that could impact the magical world as they know it.

Flint and Mirror Flint and Mirror by John Crowley

Flint and Mirror recounts the life of Hugh O’Neill, a historical sixteenth-century Irish earl forever torn between his native land and the English colonizers. For most of his life, O’Neill carries two talismans of his conflicted loyalty: a piece of flint received from an Irish barrow, and a mirror given to him by John Dee. Like Crowley’s other works, Flint and Mirror puts a layer of the mystical over the mundane, weaving the two together effortlessly.

Bless Me, Ultima; Tortuga; Alburquerque Bless Me, Ultima; Tortuga; Alburquerque by Rudolfo Anaya

Three masterworks by one of the fathers of Hispanic-American literature that capture the complexity of identity and community in the Southwest.

River Spirit: A Novel River Spirit: A Novel by Leila Aboulela

Set in the 19th century when Sudan was part of the Ottomon Empire, this character-driven and atmospheric novel features people maintaining independence under colonialism. The author is a Sudanese national born in Cairo living in Scotland.

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Nonfiction

Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty Getting Me Cheap: How Low-Wage Work Traps Women and Girls in Poverty by Amanda Freeman and Lisa Dodson

An examination of the economic and human costs of the low-wage jobs that make middle class life possible.

Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community it Created Africatown: America's Last Slave Ship and the Community it Created by Nick Tabor

Chronicle of the Africans on the last slave ship to America and the Alabaman community they created.

Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers by Dave Hoekstra

In Beacons in the Darkness, award-winning journalist Dave Hoekstra interviews the people trying to keep the lights on at community newspapers across the country amid buyouts, declining revenues, fake news, and a pandemic. This book is not another account of the death of local journalism—but rather a celebration of the community ties, perseverance, and empathy that’s demonstrated in community newsrooms from Hillsboro, Illinois, to Charleston, South Carolina, to Marfa, Texas.

Ghost: Why Perfect Women Shrink Ghost: Why Perfect Women Shrink by Iona Holloway

This part-memoir, part-poetry, and part-self help book written by Cambridge, MA based coach, speaker, and author, Iona Holloway, deftly explores the impossible traps women become ensnared in – perfect body, perfect image, perfect life – and offers the key to freedom from shame, fear, and the self-sabotage.

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Graphic Novels

Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century Last on His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century by art by Youssef Daoudi ; poetics by Adrian Matejka

While focused on the Johnson's defeat of "The Great White Hope" in 1910, this weighty bio in literal black and white intersperses flashbacks to how this self-educated son of formerly enslaved parents rose to the top of a world which wanted him down.

The 500 years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book The 500 years of Indigenous Resistance Comic Book by Gord Hill

Colorful and vividly violent, this thin yet large format history is accessible and informative. 

Sins of the Black Flamingo Sins of the Black Flamingo by Andrew Wheeler

This tropically colored mystery/horror features queer and supernatural themes with a protagonist who steals from the Miami rich.

BTTM FDRS BTTM FDRS by Ezra Claytan Daniels

Racism, gentrification, and cultural appropriation are personified satirically in bright monochromes. 

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Movies/TV, Music & More

Movies/TV

Easter Sunday Easter Sunday directed by Jay Chandrasekhar
Format: DVD

When stand-up comic Joe drives home for Easter Sunday with his teenage son in tow, he’s prepared for the standard drama of his Filipino family gatherings. But this time, the antics are more wild than ever. Starring Joe Koy with support from Lou Diamond Phillips, Jimmy O. Yang, and Tiffany Haddish, this family comedy is sure to make you laugh out loud.

Official Competition Official Competition directed by Mariano Cohn
Format:DVD

Official Competition (Spanish: Competencia oficial) is a 2021 Spanish-Argentine black comedy-drama film directed by Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn, from a screenplay by Duprat, Cohn and Andrés Duprat. It stars Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez. An aging multi-millionaire decided to finance an Award-bait film to enshrine his legacy. Cue clashes between a power tripping director, a grandiose stage actor, and a self-obsessed Hollywood star as everything spirals into chaos.

Sibel Sibel directed by Guillaume Giovanetti
Format:DVD

"25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey's Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area. Rejected by her fellow villagers, she relentlessly hunts down a wolf that is said to be prowling in the neighbouring forest, sparking off fears and fantasies among the village women. There she crosses path with a fugitive. Injured, threatening and vulnerable, he is the first one to take a fresh look at her." -- Provided by publisher.

Music

Diamonds & Rhinestones: The Greatest Hits Collection Diamonds & Rhinestones: The Greatest Hits Collection by Dolly Parton
Format: CD

A career-spanning, cross-label anthology featuring 23 essential recordings from 1971-2020 for the first time on one album. Diamonds & Rhinestones: The Greatest Hits Collection includes liner notes penned by Robert K. Oermann, who collaborated with Dolly on her 2020 autobiography, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.

The Essential Weird Al Yankovic The Essential Weird Al Yankovic by Weird Al Yankovic
Format: CD

From "Another One Rides the Bus" to "White and Nerdy," this CD showcases the funniest works of an American original.

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