A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York by Liana Finck

With an influx of Eastern Europeans, particularly Jews, immigrating to the United States in the early 1900s, New York City became a melting pot of language, culture, and tradition. For the ever-growing population of Eastern European Jews, whose language was predominantly Yiddish (a mix of German and Hebrew), The Jewish Daily Forward became their lifeline to the world. Published in Yiddish, this paper focused on politics, social issues, and even had an advice column.

Long before Dear Abby's column, The Jewish Daily Forward anonymously published readers' letters asking for advice on topics ranging from marriage to family to religion as these new immigrants assimilated in the United States. These letters were featured in a portion of the paper referred to as the bintel brief, or a bundle of letters.

A Bintel Brief by Liana Finck is a graphic novel retelling of actual letters submitted to the Jewish Daily Forward. From a concerned woman who believes her neighbor stole her watch to a more acculturated woman who is ashamed of her recently immigrated husband, Finck does a wonderful job creating the dialogue and illustrations. Following the brief explanation of the letter is an abbreviated version of the advice offered in the paper upon publication.

With a throw back to nostalgia, Finck's graphic novel is enough to transport you back to a simpler time.

Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown

Rose and Dottie Krasinsky a Jewish mother and daughter living in 1930s New York happen to find themselves pregnant at the same time. Needless to say, neither one is necessarily thrilled about their unwanted pregnancy. Rose, an Eastern European immigrant who clings to her traditions, is in her 40s, already has five children, and is longing to return to a more socially active role as the world is on the brink of war. Dottie is nineteen, working as a bookkeeper for an insurance company in Manhattan, has a steady boyfriend, and embraces all that the early 1930s has to offer women. When she learns that she's pregnant and her longtime boyfriend isn't the father, Dottie's life is bound change right along with her mother's.

Told in alternating viewpoints, from the perspectives of Rose and Dottie, Modern Girls weaves together social issues, feminism, and history peppered with Yiddish phrases and Jewish traditions.

Rules of Civility by Amore Towles

In the late 1930s, New York City could be an exciting or desperate place to live, depending on your income and background. Katey Kontent, daughter of a Russian immigrant, and Eve Ross, a Midwestern transplant, were in the desperate group. But they were enterprising young women and knew how to stretch their limited resources: by sharing a room at a boarding house, sharing wardrobes, sneaking into movie theaters and stretching three dollars at a jazz club on Saturday night. When they met Tinker Grey, a handsome young banker with classy clothes and an apartment in the high rent district, they were able to expand their social life to include many well-to-do young people and fancier establishments. Unfortunately, an automobile accident disrupted their lives and their outlook on life changed. Eve, badly injured, eventually went her own way. Tinker, feeling guilty, came and went in Katey's life. But Katey, smart, capable and sensible, succeeded on her own, finding better jobs and expanding her circle of friends and acquaintances. Rules of Civility by Amor Towles paints an intriguing picture of depression-era New York City and its residents of all social classes.

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

It first resembles some sort of reality television show: 7 people living in a house on a beautiful 

island off the coast of Spain for two weeks. But it turns out that we're really being invited along on a family vacation of sorts. Seven very different people come together for a chance to relax, swim, and eat glorious food and we soon realize that each has their own hopes, fears, and issues.

Jim: father of the Post family is "a cool 60" years old and finds himself faced with the void of retirement forced upon him once it came to light that he had an affair with a 23-year-old intern (sorry, editorial assistant) at work.

Franny: matriarch, freelance food writer and woman coming to terms with herself due to the shock of her husband's infidelity this trip also marks their 35th wedding anniversary.

Sylvia: their 18-year-old daughter who has just graduated high school and is hoping to lose her virginity before learning for Brown in the fall.

Bobby: the Post's oldest child. Struggling Miami real estate agent and ambivalent gym rat.

Carmen: Bobby's long-time athletic trainer girlfriend who Franny and Jim have always felt was "too old" for their son.

Charles: Franny's best friend for almost 40 years and artist.

Lawrence: Charles' husband and accountant for movie productions. Wants more than anything to adopt a baby and become a father with Charles.

Throw all of these people and their separate and shared histories together and you've got...an interesting two weeks ahead. Break-ups, blowups, possible adoptions--all bubbling under the surface of this seemingly ideal vacation. Straub's characters are fully formed and the reader gobbles up page after page trying to see what will happen next. Will Bobby dump Carmen? Will Franny just divorce Jim already? This seemingly light-hearted beach novel packs a realistic punch for readers. Be sure to check out a copy of The Vacationers today.

Meternity by Meghann Foye

Liz Buckley is a thirtysomething, single young woman, living in New York City, working as an editor at the it baby magazine Paddy Cakes. She's spent years pulling long nights and covering for her co-workers with children, so one day when her boss sees Liz nauseated in the morning, the rumor begins to float around that Liz is pregnant...which couldn't be farther from the truth. Impulsively Liz fakes a pregnancy, baby bump and all, and is looking forward to her "meternity" leave or the me time she'll have when she "gives birth" to figure out her life--work, dating and relationships, and the like. But just how long can Liz pull off this charade without getting caught?

Foye, who doesn't have children, has recently received criticism for her articles about mothers and maternity leave. While much of Meternity is centered around Liz and her often ridiculous, fabricated pregnancy, Foye does not shy away from addressing real issues, such as infertility, IVF, and surrogacy, that many women face.

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

As a teenager, TifAni FaNelli is a student at the prestigious, private Bradley School. Desperate to be friends with the popular crowd, TifAni will do just about anything to fit in. She begs her mom to buy her clothes from Banana Republic, gets her hair done, and is even a bit ashamed that she doesn't come from the money that her fellow private school classmates do. All of her pretending works, and suddenly TifAni fits in. That's until she's sexually assaulted and raped by a group of the school's most popular boys.

Desperate to escape the humiliation that happened in high school, Ani FaNelli has reinvented herself. She's an editor at a top magazine, living in New York, dressed in the most expensive wardrobe, and has landed herself a wealthy fiancé from a good family. Ani is a new person, who has buried the traumatic experience of high school, until she's asked to be part of a documentary about her time at Bradley School.

With all of those memories resurfacing, Ani begins to take down the walls that she put up so long ago. But will everything she's worked for crumble with walls as Ani begins to let her guard down? Jessica Knoll's Luckiest Girl Alive is an interesting look at what life is like for teenage girls as they grow into young women, and are destined to want it all.

The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor

From the author of Margot, comes a new historical fiction book set in New York from 1947-1953. In The Hours Count, Cantor begins to weave the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Millie Stein together. Millie, her Russian immigrant husband Ed, and toddler son David, who doesn't speak, have just moved to the more upscale Knickerbocker Village apartments. Ed pays no attention to Millie or David as he's gone to work all day and comes home to drown his sorrows with vodka. Feeling completely alone and in desperate need for a friend, Millie meets her neighbor Ethel Rosenberg, and they bond over motherhood.

With World War II just over and the Soviet Union becoming more powerful, the United States is on the brink of the Cold War. With Communism, Joe McCarthy's Communist hunt, espionage, and the threat of an atomic bomb on the horizon, much of America is on high alert. When Millie meets Jake, a psychotherapist, at a party held by the Rosenbergs, she begins to question everything about her life. Is Ed really who he says he is? Could he be a KBG spy? As Jake works with David on his speech issues, it's clear to see that Jake isn't necessarily who he says he is either. Millie and Ethel's friendship winds together even more as the FBI begins to close in the Rosenbergs. As she sees her friend's life begin to unravel, Millie begins to realize that her life isn't what she once she thought either.

Paying close attention to detail, Cantor paints a clear picture of the hysteria that ensued surrounding McCarthy's Communist witch hunt. Although Millie is a fictional character, Cantor has researched the Rosenbergs and told an interesting story of a dark time in American history.

Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew

These days, you’re most likely to recognize longtime actress Kate Mulgrew from her role as “Red” Reznikov on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.  But Mulgrew has a varied acting history that spans decades.

 In her new memoir, Mulgrew talks in detail about many of the stages of her life.  She details her upbringing in a large, Catholic family on a beautiful Iowa farm, going to New York to study acting with Stella Adler and the death of her younger sister.  A young Kate has to make a decision to work on not one, but two prestigious projects while quitting her training.

She has several intense romantic relationships and as a young woman, becomes pregnant and gives the baby up for adoption with no knowledge of the child’s whereabouts.   This painful decision colors much of her future and mental health but Mulgrew continues working at a staggering pace.  She eventually marries and has two sons with artistic director Robert Egan. By the end of the book, the reader sees two of the actress’s biggest life events: the search for her biological daughter and her role as Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager. 

The actress who plays colorful roles on the stage and screen is no less vibrant in real life.  Mulgrew’s memoir is written with honesty, wit, and beautiful language.  Check out Born With Teeth from the library today!

Everybody Rise by Stephanie Clifford

It is spring in 2006.  Evelyn Beegan is 26 and is treading the same waters that most recent college grads have to brave: the first real job.  Evelyn is the newly minted director of membership for People Like Us, a new social networking site.  Think Facebook for the society set complete with invite-only membership.  As a teen, Evelyn attended Sheffield Academy- an exclusive eastern boarding school.  Now, we find our main character returned to her alma mater for the annual Sheffield-Enfield lacrosse match in order to do a little networking.  The book begins with Evelyn’s obsession to sign up all of the “right” people for the website but before we know it, she is desperately attempting to sprint to the top of New York City’s social hierarchy. 

Several reviews have likened Clifford’s Everybody Rise to an Edith Wharton novel set in the 21^st century.  This is an apt description, but Evelyn’s evolution throughout the book seems a much more positive one than any of Wharton’s female characters.  Evelyn must learn how to be a self-sufficient adult in a world outside that which her parents have always wanted her to find.  And more than that, to find a purpose in life.

Everybody Rise is available August 18^th.  Check out a copy now.

Ellis Island by Kate Kerrigan

The first in this historical fiction trilogy by Kate Kerrigan follows young Ellie Hogan as she comes of age, goes to boarding school, and marries her first love. Set in the 1920s, Ellis Island tells the tale of a young couple, so in love, trying to live their lives amid war torn Ireland as the Irish battle the British for Hole Rule (or the right to rule Ireland by the Irish). When Ellie's husband is injured in battle, and times get exceptionally tough, Ellie receives a letter from a friend in New York offering her a job as a lady's maid for a wealthy woman.

Promising to send money back to Ireland to pay for her husband's medical care, Ellie takes the job, setting sail for New York. After seeing the beckoning Statue of Liberty and making it through Ellis Island, Ellie realized just how different New York is. Having never been this far away from home before, Ellie starts to miss home, her "normal" life, and her husband, John.

Once she's finally settled into life in New York, this book follows the story of what it was like to be a young woman in the 1920s. Filled with 1920s fashion and cultural references, read along as Ellie encounters all of the new, exciting, and often overwhelming things that are changing in her life. While she starts to assimilate in New York, she can't help but feel like a piece of who she is was left behind in Ireland.

Kate Kerrigan writes this book in a way that makes you feel as if you're living in lush, green Ireland and traveling aboard the crowded RMS Celtic with Ellie. When she finally makes it to New York you can't help but relate to the awe-inspiring sight of  Statue of Liberty and the great hall of Ellis Island (especially if you've been there to see such an amazing, humbling historical sight). Be sure to read Ellis Island and the other books in this trilogy.

Check out Ellis Island @ the library today!

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

On August 7, 1974, a tightrope walker, Philippe Petit, walked across a high wire rigged between the newly-built Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, 1350 feet above the ground. The stunt was unauthorized and a surprise to all who saw it.  In Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann uses this event to unite the stories of various New Yorkers: prostitutes and the Irish priest who ministers to them; the priest’s brother who works as a bartender; a group of mothers who have lost sons in the Vietnam War; a judge and his wife; an immigrant nurse; two artists visiting from upstate and various other New Yorkers whose lives intersect in surprising ways. This is a character driven novel. More than ten different voices tell the story of strangers drawn together by a trial, an automobile accident, and a death. Lurking in the background are the defining anxieties of the early 1970’s: the Vietnam War and the resignation of President Nixon. Petit kept his balance while walking between the towers. The same could not be said of some who watched him from New York’s streets. Lives fell apart. People died. “NOBODY FALLS HALFWAY,” read a sign Petit kept on his wall.  This was as true of the ordinary people in the book as of the acrobat. And those who kept their balance throughout life put their own sorrows aside and stepped up to help friends and strangers deal with theirs. A book that celebrates the generosity of the human spirit, Let the Great World Spin a heartfelt look at a city and its citizens.

Check out Let the Great World Spin @ the library!

My Mother Was Nuts by Penny Marshall

Celebrity memoirs fall into two categories for this reader: those who you feel you could be best friends with, and those who live lives so differently from you, it's best to admire them from afar. Penny Marshall spans both of these categories in her memoir My Mother Was Nuts. From her childhood in the Bronx to her days starring on Laverne and Shirley to her directing days Penny Marshall gives snippets of many parts of her life.

Famous friends pop up in just about every chapter, and she is frank about her family, past marriages and health issues.Whether you are a fan of Laverne and Shirley or a League of Her Own, behind the scenes stories will have you turning the pages. Reading the book was like having a long conversation about life with Penny Marshall, and it is easy to assume the the audio book read by the author would be an amazing listen.

Check out My Mother Was Nuts @ the library!

Humans of New York by Brandon Staton

New York City has a population of over eight million people. Photographer Brandon Stanton has been photographing many of these people since 2010 and now in his book, Humans of New York, he has compiled four hundred of his pictures. Since his aim is to create a photographic census, he has included a wide swath of New Yorkers: wealthy, poor and middle class; young and old; native born and immigrant; the beautiful and not so beautiful; the eccentrically dressed and the elegantly dressed; introverts and extroverts; people doing well and people who are down and out; musicians, dancers, athletes, intellectuals, models and ordinary working people. There are pictures of feet, hands, mustaches, hair and tattoos and lots of dogs. As a reader, you can choose to flip through the book randomly or examine each photograph carefully. Just be sure to find the “Sultan of Wisconsin.”

Check out Humans of New  York @ the library!

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Rose Baker is a young woman in the typing pool of the New York City Police Department during Prohibition. She is plain, quiet and prudish about life.  However, she is also lonely. So when Odalie, a glamorous flapper with bobbed hair and expensive clothes and jewelry, joins the clerical staff and reaches out to Rose for friendship, Rose is intrigued. Like a moth to a flame, Rose is drawn into Odalie’s dangerous life, becoming her roommate, sharing her clothing and jewelry, accompanying her to speakeasies and parties and running spurious errands on her behalf.  Odalie is mysterious, with more than one version of where she and her wealth came from: perhaps prostitution, bootlegging or a family inheritance.  Whatever the source, she lives well and is generous in sharing her comfortable life with Rose. But she also exacts payment for her generosity, expecting Rose to blindly do her bidding. And Rose, having been drawn in by Odalie and unable to return to her old life, cannot deny her.  How much will Odalie ask of Rose? How far will Rose be willing to go on Odalie’s behalf? Tension builds throughout the entire book and these questions are not answered until the last page. 

Check out The Other Typist @ the Library!

A Thousand Pardons by Jonathan Dee

Ben and Helen’s marriage is falling apart. A weekly visit to a marriage counselor only makes things worse.  When Ben, filled with despair, makes a series of reckless decisions, he disgraces himself and destroys his family’s comfortable upper middle class life. Ben disappears into rehab and jail, leaving Helen to deal with the resulting shame and financial problems. She puts their house on the market and moves with her pre-teen daughter to New York City. Despite little work experience, she lands a job with a small public relations firm and proves to be gifted at crisis management.  Her advice, no matter who the client is or what offense has been committed or even if the accusation is true or false, is to make a sincere apology. This strategy always works and the reputation of the restaurant, politician, or grocery store is salvaged. Helen parlays this success into a job with a larger, more prestigious firm. Her job becomes a career but, as the job becomes more demanding, her relationship with her daughter deteriorates. Ben meanwhile returns to the home he had rejected. He secretly reconnects with his daughter through text messaging and hopes to build a semblance of the life he had once so thoroughly rejected. However, the sincere apology does not work as well on Helen as an insincere one does on the general public. She is too angry, the hurt is too personal. Unless she can overcome her resentment, the family will remain torn. A Thousand Pardons demonstrates that it can be harder to accept an apology than make one. 

Those following the Ryan Braun case/ situation may find this to be an interesting spin on apologies and public relations. Check out A Thousand Pardons at the library!

Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham

Franny Banks has always wanted to be an actor.  After college, she packed up her things and moved to New York; giving herself three years to make significant strides in her acting career.  Now it's 1995 and the three year mark is looming. But it's taken Franny practically that long to get a decent waitressing gig at a comedy club and to get into a top-notch acting class. All she has to show for her hard work is a terrible commercial for Christmas sweaters and a contact at an agency who only sends her to auditions for commercials.  Franny's best hope is the showcase that her acting class is putting together.  There will be real agents in attendance and Franny hopes that if she does really well, this will be the big break she has been hoping for.  But then she falls in the middle of a monologue and, worse yet, maybe flashes the audience.  However, when Franny goes to Stavros afterwards for notes, he tells her that two different people were interested in her.  Two!  Franny immediately calls the prospective agents and sets up meetings.  

Barney Sparks of the Sparks Agency is a nice, if not older, agent running a one man talent agency.  He and Franny hit it off right away but Franny decides that she should at least meet the other agent before signing any official paperwork.  Then Franny arrives at Absolute Agency- one of the best groups in town.  She is immediately impressed by the big, shiny offices and the rather official Joe Melville. When Melville casually suggests that Franny go around the corner to a casting session, all thoughts of poor Barney immediately vanish.  

Franny learns a lot about acting during the course of the book.  Graham really pits her against a lot of different types of actors and you can see that though Franny is very talented, she is constantly floundering because she feels that she is missing something that everyone else has.  She has to work herself through many no's before she gets any yes's.  She has to decide what is most important about acting and what the craft means to her.  For example: will she appear topless for a few mere seconds in order to land a movie role?  Will she read each script as she thinks the casting directors want to hear it or will she take chances to let her own abilities shine through?  

Someday, Someday, Maybe was a delightful book.  That is not to say that it was fluffy and light, but the book itself made me feel warm and satisfied after reading it.  Lauren Graham has created a joyful romp through the life of an actress during the mid-90s and it is obvious that she had a lot of fun doing it.  And yes.  This is the very same Lauren Graham who starred in Gilmore Girls, Parenthood and Bad Santa.  Graham has a BA in English from Barnard College and clearly put her skills to use in a new way with her first novel.

Someday, Someday, Maybe will be published this coming Tuesday, April 30th.  The library received its advanced reader's copy from the publisher.  Place it on hold in CountyCat today!

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Oskar Schell is nine years old, and his dad, Thomas Schell, died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11.  Awkward, smart, sad, funny, gregarious and determined, Oskar is on a quest to find the one lock in New York City that the key he found in a vase in his dad's closet will unlock, a key he is sure his dad left for him as one more puzzle to solve.  And since, by his calculations, there are approximately 162 million locks in New York, that's a lot of locks to try. Fortunately, the key was in an envelope with the word Black written on it.  Oskar deduces that Black is name, not a color, so the obvious solution is to talk to every person named Black in the city until he finds the one who knew his father - and has the lock that the key will open.

But the mystery of the lock is not the only mystery Oskar will investigate along the way.  There is also the question of what became of his grandfather, who left and disappeared before his dad was born.  And who the silent tenant is renting his grandma's spare bedroom - if he even exists, because no one has ever actually seen him.  Or why his mom thinks it's okay to fall in love again when Oskar still has such heavy boots about his dad.  And why it is that Oskar believes that finding the lock will let him find his dad again.  As Oskar meets more and more Blacks, more stories unfold and intertwine almost as quickly as the mysteries pile up.  Will Oskar find the lock?  What will he find when he does?  Or, perhaps more importantly, who will he find when he finds the answers?

If you're like me, you have rules about movies and books - namely, that the book must must must be read before you see the movie!  This one's been on my list for ages, and I'm so very glad I read it - so glad, I'm not sure how I feel about seeing the movie.  I think I would like Oskar and his family to stay in my heart just as I have them in my head.  Hilarious and heartbreaking, I loved the way the characters' stories unfold and connect in alternating voices, revealing the truth even as more questions arise.  Told with images, color, letters and voicemails, Oskar's journey across the five boroughs of New York and through his own heart will touch yours as you laugh and cry your way through this amazing novel.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Nick and Amy were young journalists who met, fell in love and married. They lived a New York City dream life until the Great Recession, when they both lost their jobs. For economic and other reasons, they moved to Nick’s childhood hometown in Missouri. This was a difficult adjustment for Amy who was New York born and bred. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy went missing and the house showed signs of a violent struggle.  Gone Girl is the story of the search for Amy. It is told in two voices: Nick’s report of what is happening as the search goes on, alternating with entries from Amy’s diaries, beginning with the night she first met Nick.

Enough said! No spoilers here and the less the reader knows about this book, the more enjoyable it will be. This is a suspense story worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Readers will change their theories of what happened after every chapter: She’s dead! She’s alive! He’s guilty! He’s innocent! They’re in cahoots! He’s a jerk! He’s a liar! He’s misunderstood! She’s spoiled! She’s a pain! She’s a saint!  Gone Girl is a page-turner that will keep you reading late into the night.

The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig

On the eve of the 21st century, Clementine Evans's life is falling apart.  Her engagement has just been broken off, her very proper and conventional mother is horrified, her step-cousin, the irksome Jon, is back in town, she's a slave to her law firm in a desperate race to make partner, and her beloved Granny Addie is seriously ill.  When Addie confusedly calls Clemmie by the name Bea, a whole closet full of skeletons and dark family secrets is cracked open.

In 1926 Africa, Addie is taking the train to see her once-favorite cousin Bea at her coffee farm in Kenya.  Engaged to be engaged, Addie isn't even sure why she has come all the way to the sun-soaked African savanna from the foggy streets of London to see Bea, who she hasn't seen or spoken to in years.  Cut off from the aristocratic family that took her in as an orphaned, poor cousin after the epic scandal of Bea's marriage to Frederick Desborough, Addie knows she must see the woman who was once her best friend before she marries the scholarly (and, quite frankly, boring) David.  And, even though she has quite firmly told herself otherwise, she knows she has really come to see Frederick again - Frederick, who once held all her hopes and her heart, and is now her cousin's husband.

From the author of the Pink Carnation spy novels comes this lavish period drama that fans of Downton Abbey will love to while away a weekend with!  Clemmie and Addie's stories are a tangled web of secrets, lies, and family drama that unfold in chapters alternating between 1999 New York and London and the champagne-soaked 1920s London and colonial Kenya.  With a dash of humor and quick wit, star-crossed romance that's absolutely worth the wait, and a generous dose of crazy family, anyone who loves a good generational saga will want to add The Ashford Affair to their spring reading list!

The Ashford Affair will be published on April 9, 2013.  The library received its advanced reader's copy from the publisher.  Watch CountyCat for this great read to be added so you can place a hold!

Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye

New York City in the 1840’s was a crowded and lawless place. Refugees from the Great Famine in Ireland were flooding in, crowding the already crowded slums. Nativist New Yorkers resented the immigrants, feared their poverty, hated their religion and expressed these feelings through physical violence. Responding to this violence, city leaders created a police force, an organization which was hated by nearly all. Under these circumstances, Timothy Wilde, a young man in need of employment, reluctantly accepts a position on the force offered to him by his brother. Unwillingly, he becomes a skilled and dedicated officer, particularly after he discovers a young girl wandering the streets, covered in blood, muttering about another child being ripped apart.  Eventually, he discovers a mass grave containing nineteen mutilated skeletons in varying degrees of decomposition. Spurred on by a sense of duty and outrage, Timothy’s investigation takes him to all parts of old New York City and he meets all manner of its citizens, men and women, rich and poor, immigrant and nativist. Pre-Civil War New York is vividly described in this book and the combination of fictional and historical figures makes the gruesome plot of Gods of Gotham plausible.