Books newly acquired by the NHFPL in September.
A new biography of the world’s richest man. A family drama about an arranged-marriage divorce. A true story of disguise, escape, slavery, and freedom. A chemistry-to-cooking comedy that captures “the Catch-22 of early feminism.”
Those are among the 10 books newly acquired by the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL) during the month of September.
City Librarian Maria Bernhey and her staff provided that list to the Independent for a new monthly series we’ll be running that spotlights the print books and electronic resources acquired by the city’s national award-winning public library.
The series was suggested by Independent reader (and accomplished author in his own right) Mark Oppenheimer. In his research of 1970s and 80s literary culture for a book he’s working on about author Judy Blume, Oppenheimer found that local newspapers regularly gave space to local librarians to write about books newly available at the local library.
“Sometimes [these columns] were just bullet-pointed lists,” Oppenheimer told the Independent, “but sometimes the librarians added annotations smart, cheeky, snarky, or enthusiastic.
“These columns provide a fascinating snapshot into the reading habits of the not-too-distant past; they are also a reminder of how much our literary culture unites us.”
In that vein, here’s the first entry in such a series looking at which books the city’s library is adding to its collection now, and why.
See below for a full list of books acquired by the NHFPL this September, followed by an explanation from NHFPL Acquisitions and Collection Development Manager Rachael Sherwood, and NHFPL Technical Services Manager Kristin Mancini as to how the library decides which books to buy, followed by a brief writeup by Oppenheimer about why he suggested this series in the first place.
Enjoy! If you have any suggestions as to which books, new or old, you’d like to see the public library add to its collection, fill out this form on the library’s website. If you want to shout out a local library-borrowed book you’ve recently enjoyed, please leave a comment at the bottom of this article.
NHFPL's New Acquisitions, September 2023
FICTION:
Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood. Also available on Overdrive as ebook and eaudiobook here.
Late Bloomers by Deepa Varadarajan. Available on Overdrive as ebook and eaudiobook here.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Also available on Overdrive as ebook and eaudiobook here.
The Running Grave: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith.
Picture Perfect Autumn: A Novel by Shelley Noble.
NON-FICTION:
HealthyGirl Kitchen: 100+ Plant-Based Recipes to Live Your Healthiest Life by Danielle Brown.
Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence by Gavin Francis
Daughters of Latin America: An International Anthology of Writings by Latine Women by Sandra Guzman
Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. Also available on Overdrive as ebook here.
Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo.
How & Why The Library Buys, by Rachael Sherwood and Kristin Mancini
Do you ever wonder how a book is selected for the NHFPL’s collection? There are many good reasons that a particular title might be chosen. NHFPL’s dedicated librarians at all of our branch locations are always keeping up on the latest popular titles that are being talked about and on bestseller lists, as well as reviewed in publications such as Publisher’s Weekly.
We also scour vendor provided lists of titles, as well as research publications, that may be great additions to our collections – both fiction as well as nonfiction covering a wide variety of subject areas that you may be looking for to increase your knowledge or skillset or help you in your daily life.
Also, very important to us are the feedback and recommendations from you, our library users! If you see that something fabulous is missing from our collection, please feel free to let us know! Below are some of our selections on the way into our collection soon.
Reviving The Librarian's Column, by Mark Oppenheimer
The Bennington Banner, December 10, 1976.
The Beatrice Daily Sun, Aug. 5, 1972.
In researching my biography of the author Judy Blume, I have had occasion to go through thousands of newspaper articles from the 1970s through the present, using the keywords “Judy Blume.” Especially in the ’70s and ’80s, large numbers of the articles I have found were written by the town librarian, who in many towns was given a regular spot in the local newspaper, perhaps once a month, to announce new library acquisitions. Sometimes they were just bullet-pointed lists, but sometimes the librarians added annotations smart, cheeky, snarky, or enthusiastic.
These columns provide a fascinating snapshot into the reading habits of the not-too-distant past; they are also a reminder of how much our literary culture unites us. Librarians were pushing Judy Blume to children, and John Updike and Philip Roth to adults, in West Virginia as in New York City. (They were also trying to ban Judy Blume in northern states as well as in deep Dixie.) And they are a fun trip down memory lane, for those who remember The Peter Principle, the picture books of Richard Scarry, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and the ubiquity of Sidney Sheldon and Jackie Collins, before James Patterson and Malcolm Gladwell dethroned them as the go-to airplane reads.
The librarian’s column seemed worth reviving, and I am so heartened that at my urging the Independent has heeded my call. A regular librarian’s column gives a proper perch to an important civic leader (or what today we might call an “influencer”), somebody who sees what books are being made and can suggest which ones might be worth reading. And if we disagree — well, we know where to find the librarian to quarrel.