Happy August! If I’m being honest, not a lot of creativity running through my head for this intro so just kind of winging it. As always, would love if you wanted to join along and read these with me or if you have read these, please let me know your thoughts. What are you looking to read this month? Happy Reading!
1. The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore
Mirielle West’s life quickly goes downhill when she is sent to quarantine at the Carville Lepers Home. An institution in Louisiana where thousands were sent, stripped of civil rights, labeled as lepers and forced to quarantine for an entire century. For Mirielle West, it is a complete shift from her glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. She hopes her exile will be brief but she is more prisoner than patient for a disease that has no cure. She must redefine who she is and find her new path behind these walls.
2. We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union
A collection of essays by the incredible Gabrielle Union. After a scandal shakes Hollywood, Union voices her opinion and becomes the face and voice that Hollywood has desperately been awaiting. She shares stories of her rise to stardom in the 90s and early 2000s, life with Dwayne Wade, being a sexual assault survivor and living in white California suburbia when being from a predominate black neighborhood back in Nebraska. She shares heartbreaks and laughter and the power for us to support those around us.
3. The Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali
Roya is your typical teen except for when her world changes completely due to the political tension in her home city of Tehran, Iran. She finds sanction in her neighborhood Stationary Shop amongst the books and ink. She finds love in this stationary shop with someone who may love this place as much as she does. On a date night right before their marriage, chaos ensures and their life is changed forever. Her fiancé never shows and Roya sets off on an adventure to figure out where he has gone. After years of searching, she finds herself in New England with a new life but a chance encounter with her old fiancé leaves her with many questions. What happened all those years ago?
4. Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight
Phil Knight talks about the early days of Nike in this moving memoir and the evolutionary of becoming one of the most profitable companies in the world. Knight talks about starting the company with a $50 loan from his father and growing it into what is now a $30 Billion worth company. How the now iconic swoosh came to be. Though Nike itself is a very public company, Knight himself has remained in the shadows over the years. This memoir is finally for him to be able to put all his thoughts into paper over these past years. Building a brand that would change everything .
5. The Boys’ Club by Erica Katz
Alex Vogel has always been the golden child. Harvard law grad, star student and all American athlete. When she accepts a job at the exclusive Klasko & Fitch Law Firm in Manhattan, she promises her boyfriend that nothing will change because of this. Oh how she was wrong. The job is incredibly hard but definitely has its perks. The corporate world isn’t black and white, but is Alex up for breaking some rules to get her to the top?
6. The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
Driven from a passion that was formed during her childhood, Jennifer Doudna would become the scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA. What became as a childhood interest would grow to become a tool that can edit DNA, the CRISPR, which would open an entire world of miracle medicine creation and enabling longevity. Combing digital coding and genetic code, we are heading towards a whole new innovation of life-science revolution.
7. Above the Bay of Angels by Rhys Bowen
When Isabella Waverly comes across a dying woman in the street, all she wants to do is offer some comfort in her final moments. Instead, the woman places a sheet of paper in her hand for an offer of employment in the kitchen of Buckingham Palace. Walking into the kitchen as Helen Barton, she is thrust into the world of cooking for royalty. Cooking for Queen Victoria. When one of the queen’s inner circle is found dead after eating a meal that Isabella prepared, she is the lead suspect and an investigation is sure to follow. Because somebody knows her secret, that she is not who she says is on her papers, and is willing to kill for all to be exposed.
8. The Light of Days: The Untold Story of Women Resistance Fighters in Hitler’s Ghetto by Judy Batalion
A group of unknown Jewish women in Poland, came together to form Jewish youth groups into resistance fighters during WWII. This is their untold story. They helped pay off some of the Ghetto guards to help smuggle revolvers in the food they would bring as well as building the underground bunker system. They weren’t afraid to kill German soldiers if it came to. Anything for the resistance. Anything to defeat the odds against them.
Until Next Time, The Library Abroad
The Library Abroad 
Leave a comment