Staff Picks
Quick Reads
- Morgan R.
- Thursday, November 30, 2023
Collection
Love to read but short on time? Trying to complete a yearly reading goal like the #BroaderBookshelf Reading Challenge? In a reading slump? Check out one of these quick reads to get you back on track and feel accomplished! Need more inspiration? Try our Personalized Reading Recommendations.
On Girlhood
15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library
Published in 2021
"Glory Edim launches her Well-Read Black Girl Library with this vital anthology celebrating stories from such luminaries as Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Since founding the Well-Read Black Girl Book Club in 2015, Glory Edim's profile has skyrocketed. From her roots in a Brooklyn-based community to a massive online following, she has been heralded as the literary tastemaker for a new generation. With On Girlhood, Edim has beautifully curated a canonical work centering around the voices of young Black characters as they contend with innocence, belonging, love, and self-discovery. From the timeless lessons in Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" ("this is how you smile to someone you like completely") to those in Dana Johnson's "Melvin in the Sixth Grade" ("this is how kids start fights"), these short stories illuminate the power and the precariousness of Black girlhood. Highlighting both iconic and lesser-known authors-Edwidge Danticat, Amina Gautier, Dorothy West, Paule Marshall, Shay Youngblood, and more-this is an indispensable compendium that will instill readers with "the nerve to walk [their] own way" (Zora Neale Hurston)"-- Provided by publisher.
The Soul of a Woman
On Impatient Love, Long Life, and Good Witches
Published in 2021
The author describes her lifelong commitment to feminism in a meditation on what it means to be a woman, discussing progress within the movement in her lifetime, what remains to be done, and how to move forward in the future.
That Hair
Published in 2020
""The story of my curly hair," says Mila, the narrator of Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida's autobiographically inspired tragicomedy, "intersects with the story of at least two countries and, by extension, the indirect story of the relations among several continents: a geopolitics." Mila is the Luanda-born daughter of a black Angolan mother and a white Portuguese father. She arrives in Lisbon at the tender age of three, and feels like an outsider from the jump. Through the lens of young Mila's indomitably curly hair, her story interweaves memories of childhood and adolescence, family lore spanning four generations, and present-day reflections on the internal and external tensions of a European and African identity. In layered, intricately constructed prose, That Hair enriches and deepens a global conversation, challenging in necessary ways our understanding of racism, feminism, and the double inheritance of colonialism, not yet fifty years removed from Angola's independence. It's the story of coming of age as a black woman in a nation at the edge of Europe that is also rapidly changing, of being considered an outsider in one's own country, and the impossibility of "returning" to a homeland one doesn't in fact know"-- Provided by publisher.
Nothing Personal
Published in 2021
"Baldwin's critique of American society at the height of the civil rights movement brings his prescient thoughts on social isolation, race, and police brutality to a new generation of readers"-- Provided by publisher.
The Scourge Between Stars
Published in 2023
"A tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend set aboard a doomed generation ship harboring something terrible within its walls. As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears' failed colony on a distant planet. Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn's crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship's Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion. Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the ship's unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive"-- Provided by publisher.
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
Published in 2022
""Tender and healing... I'm prescribing a preorder to anyone who has ever felt lost. Stunning, kind, necessary." -Sarah Gailey on book 1: A Psalm for the Wild-Built A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is a story of kindness and love from one of the foremost practitioners of hopeful SF. After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. They hope to find the answers they seek, while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe. Becky Chambers's new series continues to ask: in a world where people have what they want, does having more even matter?"-- Provided by publisher.
A Psalm for the Wild-built
Published in 2021
"In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk & Robot series gives us hope for the future. It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend. One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They're going to need to ask it a lot. Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?"-- Provided by publisher.
Finna
Published in 2020
When an elderly customer at a Swedish big box furniture store -- but not that one -- slips through a portal to another dimension, it's up to two minimum-wage employees to track her across the multiverse and protect their company's bottom line. Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but those two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago. To find the missing granny, Ava and Jules will brave carnivorous furniture, swarms of identical furniture spokespeople, and the deep resentment simmering between them. Can friendship blossom from the ashes of their relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.
Collective Gravities
Published in 2020
In Collective Gravities, something magical is always just beneath the surface--the zombie apocalypse happens, but the world stays relatively the same; a woman begins to feel the earth moving beneath her feet. In this fantastical, genre-bending collection, Chloe N. Clark launches readers from Iowa, to outer space, and back again. Lyrical, funny, and full of transcendent beauty, Collective Gravities is a cause for celebration: an astronomically gifted writer, who, in twenty-six stories, shows us an entire world (and beyond) full of heartbreak, hope, redemption, and wonder.
The Last White Man
Published in 2022
"From the internationally bestselling author of Exit West, a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change. One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders's skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them.Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders's father and Oona's mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance at a kind of rebirth--an opportunity to see ourselves, face to face, anew. In Mohsin Hamid's "lyrical and urgent" prose (O Magazine), The Last White Man uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence it allows, a migration of consciousness powerfully enacted by the novel itself"-- Provided by publisher.
A Spindle Splintered
Published in 2021
"USA Today bestselling author Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered brings her patented charm to a new version of a classic story. Featuring Arthur Rackham's original illustrations for The Sleeping Beauty, fractured and reimagined. "A vivid, subversive and feminist reimagining of Sleeping Beauty, where implacable destiny is no match for courage, sisterhood, stubbornness and a good working knowledge of fairy tales." -Katherine Arden It's Zinnia Gray's twenty-first birthday, which is extra-special because it's the last birthday she'll ever have. When she was young, an industrial accident left Zinnia with a rare condition. Not much is known about her illness, just that no-one has lived past twenty-one. Her best friend Charm is intent on making Zinnia's last birthday special with a full sleeping beauty experience, complete with a tower and a spinning wheel. But when Zinnia pricks her finger, something strange and unexpected happens, and she finds herself falling through worlds, with another sleeping beauty, just as desperate to escape her fate"-- Provided by publisher.
Broken Fevers
Published in 2021
"From humor to horror, the speculative fiction in Broken Fevers has a gleaming edge. This new collection by award winner Tenea D. Johnson features 14 tales. Though many are dark, they pull one through the light, if only for a moment, to visit the next vista, a new world, or this one recast in an uncertain future. Whether it be the lengths a woman will go to for performance art or how best to communicate the Middle Passage's horrors to the privileged, darkness has room to breathe here and bring wonder. Social commentary and genetic adaptation exist alongside fairy crises, alien liminalities, and the responsibilities of those holding up the world and those who communicate with the next. Broken Fevers shares the heart in the hurt, the courage in a cataclysm, and the connections that we make wherever we find ourselves."--back cover.
Celebrity Nation
How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers
Published in 2023
"A former People magazine editor reveals how our cult of celebrity has shaped our politics, our culture, and our personal lives-for better or worse"-- Provided by publisher.
The Salt Grows Heavy
Published in 2023
"You may think you know how the fairytale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three "saints" who control them. The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive"-- Provided by publisher.
Conditional Citizens
On Belonging in America
Published in 2020
"The acclaimed, award-winning novelist--author of The Moor's Account and The Other Americans--now gives us a bracingly personal work of nonfiction that is concerned with the experiences of "conditional citizens." What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of the rights, liberties, and protections that are traditionally associated with American citizenship. Tapping into history, politics, and literature, she elucidates how accidents of birth--such as national origin, race, or gender--that once determined the boundaries of Americanness still cast their shadows today. Throughout the book, she poignantly illustrates how white supremacy survives through adaptation and legislation, with the result that a caste system is maintained, keeping the modern equivalent of white male landowners at the top of the social hierarchy. Conditional citizens, she argues, are all the people whom America embraces with one arm, and pushes away with the other. Brilliantly argued and deeply personal, Conditional Citizens weaves together the author's own experiences with explorations of the place of nonwhites in the broader American culture"-- Provided by publisher.
A Million Aunties
A Novel
Published in 2020
After a personal tragedy upends his world, American-born artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland in the Caribbean hoping to find some peace and tranquility. He plans to spend his time painting in solitude and coming to terms with his recent loss and his fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated 'family,' with their own startling stories, including a love triangle. The people he meets help him to heal, even as he supports them in unexpected ways, through his art. Told from different points of view, this is a compelling novel about unlikely love, friendship, and community, with several surprises along the way.
Only the Cat Knows
Inspired by a True Event in a Single Spring, 1970s, China
Published in 2022
"This harrowing and extraordinary story, based on a true event, is part of a series of tales illuminating the microcosm of all humanity contained in a typical Chinese "worker village." Here, an exploited young factory worker has nothing to live for beyond a frail chance of a pay raise. When it never happens, he feels trapped between his family and official greed, indifference, and corruption. He then loses a ten-yuan note in a grain shop and turns desperately manic. While burgling the home of his sister, he is caught and accused by his little niece. Horrorstruck, he performs the action that will seal his fate forever"-- Provided by publisher.
Francisco
Published in 2023
"Alison Mills Newman's innovative, genre-bending novel has long been out of print and impossible to find. A 'fluently funky mix of standard and nonstandard English,' as the poet and scholar Harryette Mullen once put it, Francisco is the first-person account of a young actress and musician and her growing disillusionment with her success in Hollywood. Her wildly original and vivid voice chronicles a free-spirited life with her filmmaker lover, visiting friends and family up and down California, as well as her involvement in the 1970s Black Arts Movement. Love and friendship, long, meaningful conversations, parties and dancing-Francisco celebrates, as she improvises in the book, 'the workins of a positive alive life that is good value, quality, carin, truth ... the gift of art for the survival of the human heart'"-- Provided by publisher.
Three Fires
Published in 2023
Reimaging the “Bonfire of the Vanities” through a series of fires lit throughout Florence at the end of the fifteenth century, this modern take on a fascinating historical story follows Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar who, railing against the vice and avarice of the ruling Medici family, was instrumental in their removal from power.
Colorful
A Novel
Published in 2021
"The soul of the deceased narrator, cleansed of all its memories of its past life, is heading toward the darkness when it suddenly encounters an angel. 'Congratulations!' the angel exclaims. 'You're the winner of our lottery! You're being given a second chance!' The next thing it knows, the soul is back on earth, occupying the body of fifteen-year-old Makoto who is planning to poison himself. Makoto is friendless, and his family shows him little love. Unable to feel affection for the people around him, he spends his time drawing or playing cards with the angel. But when it comes to discussions of which high school he should go to, Makoto is surprised to realize that his family and his teachers genuinely care about him. He has words with the angel: 'I want to give back Makoto's family the real Makoto.' The angel agrees, but on one condition: the soul has to remember his original mistake. 'Look around you,' adds the angel. 'There are clues everywhere.' Eventually, the soul remembers: he killed someone. And the person he killed? Himself, which is to say, Makoto Kobayashi.."-- Provided by publisher.
Recitatif
A Story
Published in 2022
In this 1983 short story about race and the relationships that shape us through life, Twyla and Roberta, friends since childhood who are seemingly at opposite ends of every problem as they grow older, cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience hasforged between them.
The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die
A Novel
Published in 2020
"ONIX Retailer Description A laugh-out-loud, tug-at-your-heartstrings tale of love, family, and freedom centered around three generations of Bengali women. Somlata has just married into the dynastic but declining Mitra family. At eighteen, she expects to settle into her role as a devout wife in this traditional, multi-generational family. But then Somlata, wandering the halls of the grand, decaying Mitra mansion, stumbles upon the body of her great aunt-in-law, Pishima. A child bride widowed at twelve, Pishima has finally passed away at the ripe old age of seventy. But she isn't letting go just yet. Pishima has long harbored a grudge against the Mitras for keeping her in perpetual widowhood, never allowed to fall in love.. Now, her ghost intends to meddle in their lives, making as much mischief as possible. Pishima gives Somlata the keys to her mysterious box of gold to keep it out of the Mitras' hands. However, the selfless Somlata, witnessing her new family waste away their wealth to the brink of bankruptcy, has her own ideas. Boshon is a book-loving, scooter-riding, rebellious teenager who wants nothing to do with the many suitors that ask for her hand. She yearns for freedom and wants to go to college. But when her poor neighbor returns from America she finds herself falling in love. Perhaps Pishima's yearning spirit lives on in her own her heart? The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die is a frenetic, funny, and fresh novel about three generations of Mitra women who are surprising at every turn and defy all expectations. They may be guarding a box of gold, but they are the true treasures in this gem of a novel"-- Provided by publisher.
The Cat Who Saved Books
A Novel
Published in 2021
"Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he has inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. However, one day, a talking cat named Tiger appears and asks Rintaro to save books with him. Of course, "ask" is putting it politely -- Tiger is demanding Rintaro's help. The world is full of lonely books, left unread and unloved, and only Tiger and Rintaro can liberate them from their neglectful owners. And so, the odd couple begin an amazing journey, entering different mazes to set books free. Through their travels, Tiger and Rintaro meet a man who leaves his books to rot on his bookshelf, a book torturer who cuts books to clips to help people read as fast as they can, and a publishing drone who only wants to create bestsellers. And then, the last maze that awaits leads Rintaro down a realm only the bravest readers would dare enter... Books, cats, first love, fantasy -- THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS is a story for those who know books are so much more than words on paper."-- Provided by publisher.
Prayer for the Living
Stories
Published in 2021
"Okri's new collection of short stories blur parallel realities and walk the line between darkness and magic. Is what you see all there is? Look again. 0Playful, frightening, even shocking - the stories in this collection blur the lines between illusion and reality. This is a writer at the height of his power, making the reader think, making them laugh, and sometimes making them want to look away while holding their gaze. Stories here are set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, in a printer's shop in Spain. The characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, two little boys, a prison door, and the author himself. There are twenty-three stories in all. Each one will make you wonder if what you see in the world is all there is ..."--Publisher.
Even Though I Knew the End
Published in 2022
"C. L. Polk turns their considerable powers to a fantastical noir with Even Though I Knew the End. "Stylish supernatural noir with a heart and a thrumming pulse. I devoured it."-Laini Taylor A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago's divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. This sapphic period piece will dazzle anyone looking for mystery, intrigue, romance, magic, or all of the above. An exiled augur who sold her soul to save her brother's life is offered one last job before serving an eternity in hell. When she turns it down, her client sweetens the pot by offering up the one payment she can't resist-the chance to have a future where she grows old with the woman she loves. To succeed, she is given three days to track down the White City Vampire, Chicago's most notorious serial killer. If she fails, only hell and heartbreak await"-- Provided by publisher.
The Seep
Published in 2020
"Trina Goldberg-Oneka is a fifty-year-old trans woman whose life is irreversibly altered in the wake of a gentle-but nonetheless world-changing-invasion by an alien entity called The Seep. Through The Seep, everything is connected. Capitalism falls, hierarchies and barriers are broken down; if something can be imagined, it is possible. Trina and her wife, Deeba, live blissfully under The Seep's utopian influence-until Deeba begins to imagine what it might be like to be reborn as a baby, which will give her the chance at an even better life. Using Seeptech to make this dream a reality, Deeba moves on to a new existence, leaving Trina devastated. Heartbroken and deep into an alcoholic binge, Trina follows a lost boy she encounters, embarking on an unexpected quest. In her attempt to save him from The Seep, she will confront not only one of its most avid devotees, but the terrifying void that Deeba has left behind. A strange new elegy of love and loss, The Seep explores grief, alienation, and the ache of moving on"-- Provided by publisher.
The Bitch
Published in 2020
"In Colombia’s brutal jungle, childless Damaris develops an intense and ultimately doomed relationship with an orphaned puppy. Colombia’s Pacific coast, where everyday life entails warding off the brutal forces of nature. In this constant struggle, nothing is taken for granted. Damaris lives with her fisherman husband in a shack on a bluff overlooking the sea. Childless and at that age 'when women dry up', as her uncle puts it, she is eager to adopt an orphaned puppy. But this act may bring more than just affection into her home. The Bitch is written in a prose as terse as the villagers, with storms―both meteorological and emotional―lurking around each corner. Beauty and dread live side by side in this poignant exploration of the many meanings of motherhood and love."--Provided by publisher.
Flowers for the Sea
Published in 2021
"Survivors from a flooded kingdom struggle alone on an ark. Resources are scant, and ravenous sea beasts circle. Their fangs are sharp. Among the refugees is Iraxi: ostracized, despised, and a commoner who refused a prince, she's pregnant with a child who might be more than human, Her fate may be darker and more powerful than she can imagine."--Page 4 of cover.
Letters to My White Male Friends
Published in 2021
"In A Letter to My White Male Friends, Dax-Devlon Ross speaks directly to the millions of middle-aged white men who are suddenly awakening to race and racism. Finally, white men are realizing that simply not being racist isn't enough to end racism. These men want deeper insight not only into how racism has harmed black people, but, for the first time, into how it has harmed them. They are beginning to see that racism warps us all. A Letter to My White Male Friends promises to help the millions of white men who have said they are committed to change and develop the capacity to see, feel and sustain that commitment so they can help secure racial justice for us all. In part 1, Dax-Devlon Ross helps readers understand what it meant to be America's first generation raised after the civil rights era. He explains how we were all educated with colorblind narratives and symbols that typically, albeit implicitly, privileged whiteness and denigrated blackness. He provides the context and color of his own experiences in white schools so that white men can revisit moments in their lives where racism was in the room even when they didn't see it enter. In part 2, Ross shows how learning to see the harm that racism did to him, and forgiving himself, gave him the empathy to see the harm it does to white people as well. In part 3, he offers white men direction so that they can take just action in their workplace, community, family, and, most importantly, in themselves, especially in the future when race is no longer in the spotlight"-- Provided by publisher.
Two Women in One
Published in 2020
Two Women in One is the story of Bahiah Shaheen, an 18-year-old medical student and daughter of a prominent Egyptian public official. She finds the male students in her class rough, coarse and alien. Her father, too, seems to belong to a race apart, and the young woman has long ceased to be surprised at not being her real self in his presence. But what, she wonders, is this real self? Of one thing she is certain: it is not the hard-working, well-behaved medical student from the comfortable middle-class background familiar to all who know her. One day, while looking at a painting in an exhibition, a stranger engages her in conversation. This proves to be the beginning of Bahiah Shaheen's road to self-discovery and the start of her realization that fulfillment in life is indeed possible. Two Women in One is, in fact, the story of countless women in the Third World, and speaks to their quest for emancipation and dignity. It is a reminder to women everywhere that hope must never yield to despair, that the future can hold brighter promise.
The Emperor's Soul
Published in 2022
'When Shai is caught replacing the Moon Scepter with her nearly flawless forgery, she must bargain for her life. An assassin has left the Emperor Ashraven without conciousness, a circumstance concealed only by the death of his wife. If the emperor does not emerge after his hundred-day mourning period, the rule of the Heritage Faction will be forgeit and the empire will fall into chaos. Shai is given an impossible task: to create--to Forge--a new soul for an emperor in fewer than one hundred days. But her soul-Forgery is considered an abomination by her captors. She is confined to a tiny, dirty chamber, guarded by a man who haters her, spied upon by politicians, and trapped behind a door sealed in her own blood. Shai's only possible ally is the emperor's most loyal councillor, Gaotona, who struggles to understand her true talent. Time is running out for Shai. Forging, while deducing the motivations of her captors, she needs a perfect plan to escape...
Against Technoableism
Rethinking Who Needs Improvement
Published in 2023
A manifesto exploding what we think we know about disability, and arguing that disabled people are the real experts when it comes to technology and disability. When bioethicist and professor Ashley Shew became a self-described "hard-of-hearing chemo-brained amputee with Crohn's disease and tinnitus," there was no returning to "normal." Suddenly well-meaning people called her an "inspiration" while grocery shopping, or viewed her as a needy recipient of technological wizardry. Most disabled people don't want what the abled assume they want-nor are they generally asked. Why do abled people frame disability as an individual problem that calls for technological solutions, rather than a social one? In a warm, feisty, opinionated voice and vibrant prose, Shew shows how we can create better narratives and more accessible futures by drawing from the insights of the cross-disability community. For the future is surely disabled-whether through changing climate, new diseases, or even through space travel. It's time we looked closely at how we all think about disability technologies and learn to envision disabilities not as liabilities, but as skill sets enabling all of us to navigate a challenging world.
In the Company of Men
Published in 2021
"Drawing on real accounts of the Ebola outbreak that devastated West Africa, this poignant, timely fable reflects on both the strength and the fragility of life and humanity's place in the world. Two boys venture from their village to hunt in a nearby forest, where they shoot down bats with glee, and cook their prey over an open fire. Within a month, they are dead, bodies ravaged by an insidious disease that neither the local healer's potions nor the medical team's treatments could cure. Compounding the family's grief, experts warn against touching the sick. But this caution comes too late: the virus spreads rapidly, and the boys' father is barely able to send his eldest daughter away for a chance at survival. In a series of moving snapshots, Véronique Tadjo illustrates the terrible extent of the Ebola epidemic, through the eyes of those affected in myriad ways: the doctor who tirelessly treats patients day after day in a sweltering tent, protected from the virus only by a plastic suit; the student who volunteers to work as a gravedigger while universities are closed, helping the teams overwhelmed by the sheer number of bodies; the grandmother who agrees to take in an orphaned boy cast out of his village for fear of infection. And watching over them all is the ancient and wise Baobab tree, mourning the dire state of the earth yet providing a sense of hope for the future. Acutely relevant to our times in light of the coronavirus pandemic, In the Company of Men explores critical questions about how we cope with a global crisis and how we can combat fear and prejudice"-- Provided by publisher.
Tokyo Ueno Station
Published in 2020
"A surreal, devastating story of a homeless ghost who haunts one of Tokyo's busiest train stations. Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo. Kazu's life in the city began and ended in that park; he arrived there to work as a laborer in the preparations for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and ended his days living in the vast homeless village in the park, traumatized by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and shattered by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics. Through Kazu's eyes, we see daily life in Tokyo buzz around him and learn the intimate details of his personal story, how loss and society's inequalities and constrictions spiraled towards this ghostly fate, with moments of beauty and grace just out of reach. A powerful masterwork from one of Japan's most brilliant outsider writers, Tokyo Ueno Station is a book for our times and a look into a marginalized existence in a shiny global megapolis"-- Provided by publisher.