RECOMMENDATIONS
ROCHESTER RECOMMENDS - PICKED FOR YOU, BY YOU
FICTION
The Gown
by Jennifer Robson
The Gown takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous wedding gowns in history was created, balancing behind-the-scenes details with a sweeping portrait of a society left reeling by the calamitous costs of victory. Its heroines, whose points of view alternate and intersect throughout its pages, are connected by threads of loss and love, suffering and survival, regret and redemption"-- Provided by publisher.
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women--black and white, mothers and daughters--view one another.
The Prettiest One
by James Hankins
When Caitlin Sommers finds herself alone with blood on her clothes and no memory of the past few months, it seems like one of the nightmares that have tormented her for years…but it’s real. Desperate to learn the truth about where she’s been and what has happened to her, Caitlin embarks on a search for the truth —a truth she can’t quite remember yet can’t completely forget.
The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah
Two very different sisters navigate life in WWII France in this sweeping story: Isabelle, an impetuous 18-year-old who is eager to defy the Nazis, and her much older and more traditional sister Vianne, who tries valiantly to keep home and hearth together. Reader Stone's strength lies in the emotional range she brings to her characters-not just the two sisters, but also their jaded, detached father, and even Vianne's small daughter, who grows up markedly during the war. Stone approaches the performance with an intuitive understanding of the characters' private fears, knowing that their inner lives are often quite different than their public faces, and that a good deal goes unsaid between them. She also performs an excellent French accent. But rather than trying to carry it through all of the conversations between the French characters, which would be tedious over the course of the novel, she wisely reserves it for names and places. However, the voice she employs for Captain Beck, a German officer billeted at Vianne's house, is stereotyped, and other international inflections-British, Eastern European-fall flat. A St. Martin's hardcover. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
On Basilisk Station
by David Weber
The Basilisk Station is where fools and failures end up. Commander Honor Harrington is sent to the forlorn outpost as punishment for making enemies in high places. But instead of remaining out of sight, Harrington, along with her vessel, the Fearless, will attempt to stop a foreign takeover of a major space station.
1000 White Women
by James Fergus
A fictional portrait of outcast May Dodd as she leaves the East Coast asylum to which she had been committed by her high-society family, heads west and, with the help of a government program called "Brides for Indians", ends up marrying a chief of the Cheyenne nation.
NON-FICTION
NON-FICTION
My Plain Jane
by Cynthia Hand
You may think you know the story. Penniless orphan Jane Eyre begins a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester--and, Reader, she marries him. Or does she? Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Bronte, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.
YOUNG ADULT
A Complaint Free World
by Will Bowen
Bowen is a minister with a very simple message: quit complaining. If you do, you'll be happier and healthier. Hence his Complaint-Free World challenge; the goal is to stop for 21 consecutive days. Why 21? That's how long it takes to break a habit, according to Bowen, who has appeared on Oprah and The Today Show discussing his challenge. And while there's no scientific proof his program works, he includes testimonials from people who've stopped their chronic carping and now lead more positive lives.
All the Wrong Places
by Philip Connors
"The prize-winning author of Fire Season returns with the heartrending story of his troubled years of flight. Philip Connors's Fire Season, an account of the decade he spent working in a fire-lookout tower high above the remotest part of New Mexico, won the Banff Mountain Book Grand Prize and the Reading the West Book Award, and Amazon named it the Best Nature Book of the Year. Now Connors returns with the story of what drove him up to the tower in the first place: the wilderness years he spent reeling in the wake of a family tragedy. This is an unforgettable account of grappling with a shattered sense of purpose, from his family's failing pig farm in Minnesota to a crack-addled Brooklyn neighborhood to the mountains of New Mexico, where he puts the pieces of his life back together. Like Cheryl Strayed's Wild, this is a finely wrought look back at wayward youth--and a redemptive story about discovering one's place in the world"--Provided by publisher.
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27 Hours
by Tristina Wright
Rumor Mora fears two things: hellhounds too strong for him to kill, and failure. Jude Welton has two dreams: for humans to stop killing monsters, and for his strange abilities to vanish. Nyx Llorca keeps two secrets: the moon speaks to her, and she's in love with her best friend, Dahlia. Braeden Tennant wants two things: to get out from his mother's shadow, and to unlearn his colony’s darkest secret. During one twenty-seven-hour night, these four runaways must stop the war between the colonies and the monsters from becoming a war of extinction, or the things they fear most will be all that's left.
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DVD
Game of Thrones
Television Series
Set in a world where summers span decades and winters can last a lifetime. From the scheming south and the savage eastern lands, to the frozen north and ancient Wall that protects the realm from the mysterious darkness beyond, the powerful families of the Seven Kingdoms are locked in a battle for the Iron Throne. This is a story of duplicity and treachery, nobility and honor, conquest, and triumph.
The Shape of Water
Movie
An otherworldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War-era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda discover a secret classified experiment.
Ponyo
Movie
A young boy named Sosuke rescues a goldfish named Ponyo, and they embark on a fantastic journey of friendship before Ponyo's father forces her to return to the sea. Ponyo's desire to be human upsets the balance of nature and only Ponyo's mother, a beautiful sea goddess, can restore nature's balance and make Ponyo's dreams come true.