Washoe County Library System

"Evie Porter has everything a nice, Southern girl could want: a perfect, doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence and a garden, a fancy group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn't exist. The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she's given a name and location by her mysterious boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle...

"One of our leading public intellectuals traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America-and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals"-- "One of our leading public intellectuals traces the origin of a set of ideas about identity and social justice that is rapidly transforming America—and explains why it will fail to accomplish its noble goals. For much of history, societies...

"What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self―a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she...

"Peabody Award–winning journalist Michele Norris offers a transformative dialogue on race and identity in America, unearthed through her decade-long work at The Race Card Project. The prompt seemed simple: Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send. The answers, though, have been challenging and complicated. In the twelve years since award-winning journalist Michele Norris first posed that question, over half a million people have submitted their...

Taking readers on a stunning photographic tour of her restored English homes, the founder of the U.K. brand White & Faded provides insights into both the literal and metaphorical aspects of white and faded, along with restoration tips, decorative ideas, inspiration and the author’s own remarkable story of trauma, love and rediscovered identity.

"A life-changing guide to reclaiming your relationship with your body and yourself Have you ever thought that if only you could change something about the way you looked, your life would be better? But the truth is that even if you were to magically attain the "perfect" body right now, your problems wouldn't be solved. Because body image issues are never just about the body. Body image issues are always about something deeper, and they always serve...

"Set in New York and China over three decades, Paper Names explores what it means to be American from three different perspectives. There's Tony, a Chinese-born engineer turned Manhattan doorman, who immigrated to the United States to give his family a better life. His daughter, Tammy, who we meet at age nine and follow through adulthood, and who grapples with the expectations of a first generation American and her own personal desires. Finally, there's...

''Winner of the BBC Ukrainian Book of the Year Award Winner of the Usedom Literature Prize "The first novel originally written in Ukrainian to be published by a major U.S. trade house . . . the novel itself pushes back against despair, simply by virtue of existing . . . haunted and haunting." ―Judith Shulevitz, Atlantic From one of Ukraine’s most prolific contemporary authors comes this profound novel of belonging and uprootedness, as understood...

Winnie Nash, who has been keeping her sexual orientation a secret, spends the summer with her grandma in New Jersey as she struggles with her family's expectations while yearning to embrace her true self and attend the Pride Parade in New York City. "In this powerful novel by an award-winning author, 12-year-old Winnie Nash is forced to live with her grandma for the summer and finds herself torn between her family's secrets and the joy of celebrating...

New York Times best-selling author of The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan brings us her latest novel: a sweeping, evocative epic of two women's intertwined fates and their search for identity - from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned,...