Axie Oh's retelling of "The Tale of Shim Cheong" explores what happens when love of family changes the trajectory of those involved in the Sea God's search for a hundredth, and final, bride.
(Image credit: Feiwel & Friends)
NoViolet Bulawayo's book expresses a people's frustration, terror, resilience, uprising, and hope in a way that can be applied to a multitude of nations and political realities around the globe.
(Image credit: Viking)
The question overshadowing Amy Bloom's memoir is how far you'd be willing to go for the one you love. Would you agree to help your beloved end his life when he receives a hopeless diagnosis?
(Image credit: Random House)
Humans walk around feeling like they know what reality is, but the message at the core of Dr. Guy Leschziner's book is that all sensory information we receive is intrinsically ambiguous.
(Image credit: St. Martin's Press)
In One Damn Thing After Another, Bill Barr alternates between castigating and exonerating. He catalogs Trump's offenses yet casts him as the latest victim of dishonest media and "the radical Left."
(Image credit: Shuran Huang/For NPR)
A feature writer at The New York Times, author Elizabeth Williamson is a compassionate storyteller and a thorough reporter who never loses sight of the larger issues Newtown presents.
(Image credit: Dutton )
UnCovered review by Frank Tomasello, ACLS Mays Landing Branch
The Atrocity Archives is the first in the Laundry Files Series by English author Charles Stross. “Capitol Laundry Service” is the alias for a super-secret British agency who “cleans up messy situations.” There is so much going on in Stross’ writing that it is nearly impossible to put a label on his works.
The story centers on reluctant hero, corporate IT guy, Bob Howard. Picture James Bond, a frat boy crossed with bored cubicle dweller a la Dilbert; who is also a trained computer geek, who has the ability to master unseen technology at a glance; who is reluctantly tasked to save humanity by fighting inter-universe evil creatures; escaped Nazi occultists and garden variety terrestrial terrorists, simultaneously, all the while being haunted by mid-level bureaucrats at his “day job” seeking his response to the paper clip audit, and you get just an idea of what Stross’ Bob Howard is like.
The plot develops methodically as Bob progresses from minor acts of theft for the people he works for (presumably as an alternative to the mind-numbing boredom of his job) until he is tasked to rescue a female science professor in California and bring her to England where the Laundry is headquartered. In the parlance of “Laundryspeak,” the mission quickly goes “pear shaped” and Bob is forced to become a full-blown agent for the Laundry. It turns out that he has stumbled into Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi terrorists who accidentally created an occult opening to a parallel universe controlled by H.P. Lovecraft-type entities out to rob our universe of all of its energy. It turns out that the Nazi SS Anenerbe had sought refuge with these creatures trying to escape their downfall after World War II, thus putting our universe on these creatures’ radar. Bob must quickly master ancient mystical traditions, ultra-modern whiz bang technology, vast amounts of historical counter espionage, save the world and be able to justify his expense account in the end. It is a fascinatingly entertaining page turner.
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