Reading the Oscars | Washoe County Library System

1) "I heard you paint houses": Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran and closing the case on Jimmy Hoffa

Author

Formats:

Description

Provides an account of the life and activities of late Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran, based on taped interviews with Sheeran, one of only two non-Italians to appear on the FBI's La Cosa Nostra list, discussing his childhood, World War II service, and work as a hustler, hitman, and head of the Teamsters local in Wilmington, Delaware. ""I Heard You Paint Houses" is an account of a dark side of American history. The book's title comes from the first...

2) Go like hell: Ford, Ferrari, and their battle for speed and glory at Le Mans

Author

Baime, A. J

Description

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By the early 1960s, the Ford Motor Company was falling behind. Young Henry Ford II, who had taken the reins with little business experience, had to do something to shake things up. Baby boomers were taking to the road in droves, looking for speed not safety, style not comfort. Meanwhile, Enzo Ferrari, whose cars epitomized style, was crafting beautiful sports cars, "science fiction on wheels," but was also called "the Assassin" because so many drivers...

3) Caging skies: a novel

Author

Leunens, Christine

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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"An avid member of the Hitler Youth in 1940s Vienna, Johannes Betzler discovers his parents are hiding a Jewish girl named Elsa behind a false wall in their home. His initial horror turns to interest -- then love and obsession. After his parents disappear, Johannes is the only one aware of Elsa's existence in the house and the only one responsible for her survival. By turns disturbing and blackly comic, haunting and cleverly satirical."--Publisher....

4) Little women

Author

Alcott, Louisa May

Series

Little Women series volume 1

Formats:

Book, Book (Paperback), CD Book

Description

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This story of a wife and her four daughters living outside Boston during the Civil War has captivated readers for decades. Louisa May Alcott's classic heroines offer something with which every reader can identify. Jo's independence, Meg's resourcefulness, Beth's sweetness, and Amy's impetuousness see the girls through countless adventures and the everyday struggles of life during the Civil War.

5) The shape of water

Author

Toro, Guillermo del

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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The most celebrated movie of the year is now the must-read novel of 2018. "[A] phenomenally enrapturing and reverberating work of art in its own right...[that] vividly illuminates the minds of the characters, greatly enhancing our understanding of their temperaments and predicaments and providing more expansive and involving story lines." Booklist. Visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro and celebrated author Daniel Kraus combine their estimable...

6) Twelve years a slave

Author

Northup, Solomon

Formats:

Book, CD Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published...

7) Driving while black: African American travel and the road to civil rights

Author

Sorin, Gretchen Sullivan

Notes

"Green Book" (2019)

Description

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"How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life-the true history beyond the Best Picture-winning movie. The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has shaped this country from the moment the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford's assembly line. Yet cars have always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to...

8) Argo: how the CIA and Hollywood pulled off the most audacious rescue in history

Author

Mendez, Antonio J

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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Relates the true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from Iran. Armed with foreign film visas, Antonio Mendez and a team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders, directors, producers and actors traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect scenery and backdrops, the team succeeded in contacting the escapees and smuggling them out of Iran without a single shot...

9) Slumdog Millionaire: Originally published as Q & A

Author

Swarup, Vikas

Description

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Former tiffin boy Ram Mohammad Thomas has correctly answered twelve questions on a television quiz show to win a cool one billion rupees. But he is brutally slung in prison on suspicion of cheating-for how else could a poor, uneducated orphan know so much: the name of the smallest planet, global capitals, and diplomatic policy? In the order of the questions on the show, Ram tells us which amazing adventures in his street-kid life gave him the answers.

From

...

10) No country for old men

Author

McCarthy, Cormac

Formats:

Book, Book (Paperback), eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope near the Texas/Mexico border when he stumbles upon several dead men, a big stash of heroin, and more than two million dollars in cash. He takes off with the money--and the hunter becomes the hunted. A drug cartel hires a former Special Forces agent to track down the loot, and a ruthless killer joins the chase as well. Also looking for Moss is the aging Sheriff Bell, a World War II veteran who may be Moss' only hope...

11) The fellowship of the ring

Author

Tolkien, J. R. R

Series

Lord of the rings volume 1

Formats:

Book, CD Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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After discovering the true nature of the one ring, Bilbo Baggins entrusts it to the care of his young cousin, Frodo, who is charged with bringing about its destruction and thus foiling the plans of the Dark Lord. "Begin your journey into Middle-earth. A New Legend Begins on Prime Video, in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The Fellowship of the Ring is the first part of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings. One Ring to...

12) The two towers: being the second part of The Lord of the rings

Author

Tolkien, J.R.R

Series

Lord of the rings volume 2

Formats:

Book, CD Book, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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After losing Gandalf and being divided from their other companions during an Orc attack, Frodo and Sam continue towards Mordor, Land of the Enemy, to destroy the Ring, accompanied only by a mysterious figure that follows them.

13) The Return of the King

Author

Tolkien, J.R.R

Series

Lord of the rings volume 3

Formats:

eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Begin your journey into Middle-earth.

The inspiration for the upcoming original series on Prime Video, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

The Return of the King is the third part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

The Dark Lord has risen,

...

14) Romeo and Juliet

Author

Shakespeare, William

Series

Shakespeare made easy

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Presents the original text of Shakespeare's play side by side with a modern version, discusses the author and the theater of his time, and provides quizzes and other study activities.

15) The English patient

Author

Ondaatje, Michael

Formats:

Book, Book (Paperback), eAudiobook, Large Print

Description

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The Booker Prize-winning novel, now a critically acclaimed major motion picture, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe and Kristin Scott Thomas. With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by...

16) Forrest Gump: a novel

Author

Groom, Winston

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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The modern classic that inspired the beloved movie starring Tom Hanks. Six foot six, 242 pounds, and possessed of a scant IQ of 70, Forrest Gump is the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero of this classic comic tale. His early life may seem inauspicious, but when the University of Alabamas football team drafts Forrest and makes him a star, it sets him on an unbelievable path that will transform him from Vietnam hero to world-class Ping-Pong player, from...

17) Schindler's list

Author

Keneally, Thomas

Formats:

Book, CD Book, eAudiobook

Description

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Recreates the remarkable activities and courage of Oskar Schindler, a Catholic German industrialist who gambled everything to save as many Jews as possible from the Nazi death camps. In remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the Nazi concentration camps, this award-winning, best-selling work of Holocaust fiction, inspiration for the classic film and “masterful account of the growth of the human soul” (Los Angeles...

18) The silence of the lambs

Author

Harris, Thomas

Series

Hannibal Lecter novels volume 3

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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Listen to the silence...
An instant classic novel of chilling psychological suspense...a critically-acclaimed audio production of unforgettable intensity...From the tormenting words of the homicidal maniac Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the flesh-rending depravity of an elusive killer to the sheer courage of a young F.B.I. novice, who risks her life to track him down and stop the bloodshed, experience the ultimate terror of an audio masterpiece......

19) Dances with wolves

Author

Blake, Michael

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization. Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever.

20) Out of Africa

Author

Dinesen, Isak

Series

[The Modern library of the world's best books]

Description

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In this book, the author of Seven Gothic Tales gives a true account of her life on her plantation in Kenya. She tells with classic simplicity of the ways of the country and the natives: of the beauty of the Ngong Hills and coffee trees in blossom: of her guests, from the Prince of Wales to Knudsen, the old charcoal burner, who visited her: of primitive festivals: of big game that were her near neighbors--lions, rhinos, elephants, zebras, buffaloes--and...