Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate)

Recommended by Wilma Feliciano, Professor of Spanish
Call Number: PQ7298.15.S638 C66 1993


Set during the Mexican Revolution, Tita, the protagonist, starts a revolution for women's rights from the kitchen, heart and soul of the family. Her culinary wizardry unleashes uncontrollable forces with a mix of magical realism and quixotic characters. Intoxicating flavors of fantastic lust, grief, jealousy and passion permeate this sensual fanciful, earthy and sublime story that decries the limited options open to Mexican women. Poignant conclusion: Tita breaks tradition for herself and future generations with an ironic weapon: dishes that are sensual, ancestral and explosive.

Little Otik [videorecording]

Recommended by: Valerie Mittenberg, Librarian
Call Number: Media/Video PN1997 .O74 2002

From the city that brought us the Golem, comes another frightful tale of monstrous progeny. A childless couple and their nosey neighbors dwell in a cramped old apartment building in a city that could be Prague before the opening of the iron curtain. Oppressed by his wife’s obsessive maternal longing, the husband unearths a tree stump and presents it to her as a surrogate baby. The wife receives the stump with mad glee, and soon nurses it to life. Written and directed by surrealist Jan Svankmajer, Little Otik is an un-sanitized fairy tale that will fascinate and horrify you.

Bless Me Ultima / Bendíceme, última

Recommended by: Heather Whalen Smith, Librarian
Call Number: Stacks: PS3551.N27 B58 1972
Audio Book: Media/Audio: PS3551.N27 B58 2004c

In Spanish
Bendíceme, última
Call Number: Stacks: PS3551.N27 B5818 1994

Bless Me Ultima is the coming of age story of a six year old Chicano boy, Antonio Luna y Marez, growing up in New Mexico during and directly after World War II. The story starts with the arrival of Ultima, a curandera, to the Luna Marez household. Throughout the book, Antonio is faced with a number of tragedies, experiences the conflicting hopes of his parents and wrestles with issues of faith and doubt.

Not so quiet: stepdaughters of war by Helen Zenna Smith

Recommended by: Matt L., Student
Call Number: Stacks PR6031.R45 N6 1989

This novel, originally published in 1930, tells the story of Nellie Smith and her fellow ambulance drivers in the Volunteer Aid Detachment during the First World War as they transport wounded soldiers from the French battlefield, as well as find a way to cope with the agony, filth, exhaustion, and brutality of war they witness on a daily basis. At the same time, Nellie, the story's narrator, struggles with her family and their peers back home, who are extremely enthusiastic about the young women and their participation for the war effort. Anyone looking for a compelling war story should definitely check it out.

Orsinian Tales by Ursula K Le Guin

Recommended by: Jill S., student
Call Number: PS3562.E42 O7

While Ursula K Le Guin is well known for her science fiction writing (particularly Earthsea). This, however, is a collection of short stories that take place in the fictional eastern European nation, Orsinia. Each story follows an every day working person from the middle ages up to the 1960s. Her writing reminds me of Kafka or Anton Chekhov. It is a book that is probably overlooked by Earthsea fans since it is not science fiction or fantasy and also overlooked by those that don't like science fiction or fantasy since it is written by Ursula K. Le Guin, but both groups should read it!

Evening in the palace of reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James R. Gaines

Recommended by: Stephan Macaluso, STL Librarian
Call Number: Stacks ML410 .B1 G28 2005

The legend is told in nearly every music appreciation class: King Frederick II (“The Great”) of Prussia—himself an amateur composer and flautist—practically falls over himself upon hearing that the great J.S. Bach has arrived to pay Frederick a visit. Gaines paints this meeting in much darker tones. History reveals Frederick to be a substantially more brutish, if not brutal, character. And so his challenge to Bach (that he compose a counterpoint to an unmelodic theme of Frederick’s) can be seen less as pleasurable Enlightenment discourse, and more as a stare-down. Bach’s response: The Musical Offering, a complete set of canons and fugues on the seemingly-impossible theme.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Recommended by Colleen Lougen, STL Librarian
Call number: Stacks PS3563.C337 R63 2006

Wonder what the world would be like after a nuclear winter? McCarthy skillfully creates a post-apocalyptic wasteland where a father and son are left to scavenge in a dark and barren land. Transcends any book that I have read in awhile. It will haunt you for many months to come.. Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Garbage land: on the secret trail of trash by Elizabeth Royte

Recommended by: Alex Wojcik, Student Recycling Coordinator
Call Number: Stacks: HD4484.N7 R68 2005

You are what you throw away. Upon completion of Elizabeth Royte’s 'Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash,' the reader finds his or herself desperately sorting recyclables from the trash bin, and grocery shopping with an increasingly discerning eye. Royte’s beautifully written investigation of America’s trash can begins in her own kitchen and ends in the realization that our daily decisions regarding consumption and waste remain with us, even after dragging our trash bags out to the dumpster.

The omnivore’s dilemma: a natural history of four meals by Michael Pollan

Recommended by: Jeff Pollard, Institute for International Business
Call number: Stacks GT2850 .P65 2006

It is well written and really makes you think about our food industry -
and the ramifications it has on our environment and our bodies. Don't
read it unless you want to learn more about - and likely change the way
you approach your shopping and eating experience - join a CSA to help
eat local!

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 by David Peterson

Recommended by: Jennifer Torres
Call number: Stacks PN6727.P4682 M684 2007

What is lovely about this book is that it is deceptively child concept of a mouse civilization and its defenders. Rather its a fantasy for adults, in which the heroes face betrayals, intrigue, and predators in fierce life or death struggles. The art is lush and detailed, making the fantasy all the more vivid. All in all a beautifully crafted book and a fine story

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander

Recommended by: Phyllis Freeman, Professor of Psychology
Call number: Stacks PS3555.N424 F67 1999

I just finished For Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander, a wonderful first volume of short stories. The volume opens with a story of the last night in prison of 26 celebrated Yiddish writers arrested during Stalin's purge and an unpublished loner picked up by mistake with them. He composes a work during their last evening on earth and recites this to the others. Another lighter story is about a rabbi who unhappily plays Santa each year at a department store. My favorite story is about a group of villagers who board the "wrong" passenger train instead of the cattle car to the concentration camp and then disguise themselves as circus performers. The book is wise, powerful, brilliantly ironic, and a must read. The stories and the issues they raise have stayed with me. The book earned him a PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
I decided to read the short stories after finishing his deeply satisfying first novel (which the Library should purchase) The Ministry of Special Cases, about the "disappeared" in Argentina. Unforgettable characters and heartbreaking situations very reminiscent of the best of Gogol, Kafka, and Singer.

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything by Steven Levitt

Recommended by: Dan G., student
Call number: Stacks HB74.P8 L479 2005

At just over 200 pages, Freakonomics is a quick read into the often overlooked gap between what conventional wisdom says is the case and what actually IS the case. With an easy writing style and incongruous teasers for chapter titles, like "What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" and "How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?", the authors easily trap you into reading the entirety in one sitting.

Baudolino by Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver)

Recommended by: Stephan Macaluso, STL Librarian
Call number: Stacks PQ 4865.C6 B3813 2002

I’m a big Umberto Eco fan, and this is really Eco at his best: a multilingual, atmospheric adventure that blends fantasy with historical detail. In 12th Italy, young Baudolino begins a quest that takes him through warring barbarians to a rediscovered Eden (so he thinks). Along the way he meets the most fantastic creatures. A memorable read.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Recommended by: David Agnardo, Community Member
Call Number Stacks: DP269 .O74 1955

I first read this book 30 years ago, but not until recently did I realize
or understand the divisions in Spain between the Catalan and the
Castilian languages. This book gives a small insight into these cultural and linguistic divisions.

No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Recommended by: Susan Kraat, STL Librarian
Call Number: Media/Audio Computer Disk PR6063 .C326 N6 2003

Perfect leisure reading, Alexander McCall Smith's series about Precious Ramotswe's sleuthing in Botswana, entertains as it informs. The audio versions are the way to go here, because narrator Lisette Lecat brings words to life which are enigmatic on the printed page (Mma, Rra...). These audio books can be addictive, and there seem to be more of them each year. Here are the original four titles, probably best read in this order.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency [sound recording]
Tears of the giraffe [sound recording]
The Kalahari typing school for men [sound recording]
Morality for beautiful girls [sound recording]

Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Recommended by: Colleen, STL Librarian
Library owns the book and the audiobook.
Stacks PG5039.21.U6 N413 2004

A "novel of ideas" set in Czechoslovakia during the 1968 Soviet invasion. Very dreamlike and well written, it follows the lives of Tomas & Tereza and Sabina & Franz. In sum, this book is a political, metaphysical love story with a little bit of Nietzsche thrown in. Great book.

A prayer for the city by H.G. Bissinger

Recommended by: Andy Perry, Librarian

Call Number: Stacks F158.54.R46 B57 1997

The book is about Ed Rendell's term as mayor of Philadelphia but in a largersense is about the city itself. Ed Rendell is now the PA governor. The author is a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer who was "embedded" with the mayor's office. The book is
very powerful, funny, and also sad. You can't put it down and you won't forget it.

The legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods by Julia Butterfly Hill

Recommended by: Megan, STL Librarian
Call Number: Stacks: SD129.H53 A3 2000

Julia Butterfly Hill lived in a California Redwood tree named Luna for 2 years. Hill
wanted to save Luna from being cut down by the Pacific Lumber Company. This is her
amazing and inspirational story. I recommend it to all especially
those interested in the daily life of a tree hugger.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Recommended by Heather C. Whalen, STL Librarian
Call Number: Stacks PR6057.A319 F73 2006

This book is a series of short stories and poems written by famed fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman. As a series of short stories, it is easy to pick up and read on and off throughout the semesters.

Interested in Reading Short Stories?

Here are a few other short stories owned by the Sojourner Truth Library that may interest you.

Interested Reading Fantasy?

For more choices of Fantasy Fiction at the Sojourner Truth Library, Go Here.

Interested in Reading Mystery?

For more mystery novels available at the Sojourner Truth Library, go here.