Samurai Shiro by Danilo Beyruth
Movie: Yakuza Princess
Release Date: September 3
What the book is about: Set in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, Samurai Shirô is the story of bloody struggles for power, family honor and a violent encounter with the past, lived by modern-day samurai and the yakuza (the Japanese mafia). After a strange encounter with a man carrying a katana, Akemi suddenly finds herself on the run from the yakuza. She will need to face them, as well as her own past, to survive.
What Is Life Worth by Kenneth Feinberg
Movie: Worth
Release Date: September 3
What the book is about: Just days after September 11, 2001, Kenneth Feinberg was appointed to administer the federal 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund, a unique, unprecedented fund established by Congress to compensate families who lost a loved one on 9/11 and survivors who were physically injured in the attacks. Those who participated in the Fund were required to waive their right to sue the airlines involved in the attacks, as well as other potentially responsible entities. When the program was launched, many families criticized it as a brazen, tight-fisted attempt to protect the airlines from lawsuits. The Fund was also attacked as attempting to put insulting dollar values on the lives of lost loved ones. The families were in pain. And they were angry. Over the course of the next three years, Feinberg spent almost all of his time meeting with the families, convincing them of the generosity and compassion of the program, and calculating appropriate awards for each and every claim. The Fund proved to be a dramatic success with over 97% of eligible families participating. It also provided important lessons for Feinberg, who became the filter, the arbitrator, and the target of family suffering. Feinberg learned about the enduring power of family grief, love, fear, faith, frustration, and courage. Most importantly, he learned that no check, no matter how large, could make the families and victims of 9/11 whole again.
Cinderella by Charles Perrault
Movie: Cinderella
Release Date: September 3
What the book is about: Here are the original eight stories from the 1697 volume Contes de temps passé by the great Charles Perrault (1628–1703) in a translation that retains the charming and unsentimental simplicity that has won Perrault a permanent position in French literature. These were among the earliest versions of some of our most familiar fairy tales (“Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Tom Thumb”) and are still among the few classic re-tellings of these perennial stories.
Vintervinken by Mats Wahl
Movie: JJ+E
Release Date: September 8
What the book is about: After John, a black teen from a poor neighborhood of Alby, Sweden, rescues a young girl from an upper-class family during a boating accident he finds himself falling in love with her older sister Elisabeth. He loves Elisabeth, he hates his mother’s partner and longs for the African-American father he has never met. What is right? What is friendship? What is love? It’s about violence, sex, injustice and racism in a tough and challenging depiction of the brutal reality of metropolitan youth.
Nightbooks by J.A. White
Movie: Nightbooks
Release Date: September 15
What the book is about: A boy is imprisoned by a witch and must tell her a new scary story each night to stay alive. This thrilling contemporary fantasy from J. A. White, the acclaimed author of the Thickety series, brings to life the magic and craft of storytelling. Alex’s original hair-raising tales are the only thing keeping the witch Natacha happy, but soon he’ll run out of pages to read from and be trapped forever. He’s loved scary stories his whole life, and he knows most don’t have a happily ever after. Now that Alex is trapped in a true terrifying tale, he’s desperate for a different ending—and a way out of this twisted place.
![Cry Macho: A Novel by [N. Richard Nash]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41ouQs7t6PS.jpg)
Cry Macho by N. Richard Nash
Movie: Cry Macho
Release Date: September 17
What the book is about: Mike’s best years are behind him. There was a time when he was the best rider in the circuit, but a divorce and years of hard living have worn his body down. After an accident, his career comes to an abrupt end, but his boss gives him one last job: he must cross the border into Mexico, kidnap his boss’s son, Rafo, from his boss’s ex-wife, to be used as leverage in their ongoing divorce. Mike arrives to find the boy has already run away, and his plan is immediately exposed to the local police. When he finds Rafo living on the streets of Mexico city, supporting himself though petty crime and winnings from the occasional cockfight, Mike convinces the boy to come back to Texas. Still running from the law, the two set out on a journey northward that forges an unlikely friendship and forces both to reckon with the choices they’ve made in pursuit of being “macho.”
The Mad Women’s Ball (Le bal des folles) by Victoria Mas
Movie: The Mad Women’s Ball
Release Date: September 17
What the book is about: The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated—these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball—the Madwomen’s Ball—when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.
Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small
Movie: Birds of Paradise
Release Date: September 24
What the book is about: Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School since childhood, where they’ve formed an inseparable bond forged by respective family tragedies and a fierce love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves what they would do to win the ultimate prize: to be the one girl selected to join the Opera’s prestigious corps de ballet. Would they die? Cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic would make them shine, too? Neither girl is sure. But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition—for the prize, for the Demigod—becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.
Songs and Memories (Canciones y recuerdos) by Elisabet Benavent
Movie: Sounds Like Love (Fuimos Canciones)
Release Date: September 29
What the book is about: Macarena lives in Madrid and is an assistant to a fashion influencer. Macarena lives her life and tries to be happy. Macarena has two friends: Adriana and Jimena. Macarena keeps a secret that she secretly spells. That secret has three letters: L-E-O. Macarena does not know that Leo is in Madrid. Macarena fears, Macarena dreams, Macarena loves, Macarena flies … And in this game of destiny, try to accept that what we were cannot be what we will be … Or maybe sometimes what we were makes sense of what we really are.
After We Fell by Elisabet Benavent
Movie: After We Fell
Release Date: September 30
What the book is about: Just as Tessa makes the biggest decision of her life, everything changes. Revelations about first her family, and then Hardin’s, throw everything they knew before in doubt and makes their hard-won future together more difficult to claim. Tessa’s life begins to come unglued. Nothing is what she thought it was. Not her friends. Not her family. The one person she should be able to rely on, Hardin, is furious when he discovers the massive secret she’s been keeping. And rather than being understanding, he turns to sabotage. Tessa knows Hardin loves her and will do anything to protect her, but there’s a difference between loving someone and being able to have them in your life. This cycle of jealousy, unpredictable anger, and forgiveness is exhausting. She’s never felt so intensely for anyone, so exhilarated by someone’s kiss—but is the irrepressible heat between her and Hardin worth all the drama? Love used to be enough to hold them together. But if Tessa follows her heart now, will it be…the end?
Moline Library Adult Services 