The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Adult Fiction
“The Life List of Adrian Mandrick,” by Chris White
Adrian Mandrick seems to have his life in perfect order with an excellent job in a Colorado hospital, a wife, two young children and a serious passion for birding. His life list of birds comprises 863 species correctly identified and cataloged. It is, in fact, the third longest list in the North American region. But Adrian holds secrets about his childhood that threaten to consume him after he’s contacted by his estranged mother, and subsequently relapses into an addiction to painkillers. In the midst of his downward spiral, the legendary birder with the region’s second-longest life list dies suddenly, and Adrian receives an anonymous tip that could propel him to the very top: the extremely rare ivory-billed woodpecker, spotted deep in the swamplands of Florida’s Panhandle.
Adult Nonfiction
“The Displaced: Refugee Writers Living Refugee Lives,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
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Today the world faces an enormous refugee crisis: 68.5 million people fleeing persecution and conflict from Myanmar to South Sudan and Syria. Yet in countries with the means to welcome refugees, anti-immigration politics and fear seem poised to shut the door. Even for readers seeking to help, the sheer scale of the problem renders the experience of refugees hard to comprehend. Author Viet Nguyen brings together writers originally from Mexico, Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan, Soviet Ukraine, Hungary, Chile and Ethiopia to make their stories heard. They are MacArthur Genius grant recipients, National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalists, filmmakers, speakers, lawyers and professors, and they are all refugees, many arriving as children. Their contributions are as diverse as their lives but have many themes in common. Reyna Grande questions the line between “official” refugee and “illegal” immigrant; Fatima Bhutto visits an artist’s virtual reality border crossing art installation “Flesh and Sand”; David Bezmozgis writes about uncovering new details about his past and attending a hearing for a new refugee; and writer Kao Kalia Yang recalls the courage of children in a camp in Thailand. These essays reveal moments of uncertainty and resilience in the face of trauma and form a compelling look at what it means to be a refugee.
