NCW Libraries

"A deeply personal work about identity and belonging in a nation coming apart at the seams, Homeland Elegies blends fact and fiction to tell an epic story of longing and dispossession in the world that 9/11 made. Part family drama, part social essay, part picaresque novel, at its heart it is the story of a father, a son, and the country they both call home. Ayad Akhtar forges a new narrative voice to capture a country in which debt has ruined countless...

"Roland Dahwen's debut feature tells the story of an immigrant family in Oregon whose life is disrupted when it's revealed that the father has a second family. Reeling from this news, his wife Leonora must choose to either leave her husband, her dying mother, and her son, who has a mysterious illness--or to move on, and let her husband take responsibility for the family he's destroyed. Haunted by memories, Leonora now struggles between her desires...

"It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants"--ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star seems set to rise when he stumbles across a sensational scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents beloved across the neighborhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and "bad apples": the...

From the author of Daughter of Australia comes a sweeping, heartfelt historical novel that follows a family of German immigrants who trade city living for the harsh realities of Pennsylvania farm life. In 1914, Andrew Houghton's family is one of hundreds eking out an existence in the coal mines of southwestern Pennsylvania. Though he longs to be a veterinarian, he's fated for a life underground, picking rock alongside his father. That destiny changes...

"A hilarious debut novel about a wealthy but fractured Chinese immigrant family that had it all, only to lose every last cent--and about the road trip they take across America that binds them back together. Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go...

"Compelling and perceptive, Tomb Sweeping probes the loyalties we hold: to relatives, to strangers, and to ourselves. In stories set across the US and Asia, Alexandra Chang immerses us in the lives of immigrant families, grocery store employees, expecting parents, and guileless lab assistants. A woman known only to her neighbors as "the Asian recycling lady" collects bottles from the streets she calls home. A young college grad ponders the void left...

"It is 1995, and Anvar Faris is a restless, rebellious, and sharp-tongued boy doing his best to grow up in Karachi, Pakistan. As fundamentalism takes root within the social order and the zealots next door attempt to make Islam great again, his family decides, not quite unanimously, to start life over in California. Ironically, Anvar's deeply devout mother and his model-Muslim brother adjust easily to life in America, while his fun-loving father can't...

The misadventures of a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store.

The misadventures of a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store.

"A candid portrait of the realities, challenges, and joys many contemporary immigrants confront while raising a new generation of Americans"-- Rumer paints a realistic and compassionate picture of what it's like for immigrant parents raising a child in America while honoring their cultural identities. She incorporates a diverse collection of voices and experiences, giving readers an intimate look at the lives of many different immigrant families...