Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: among others

"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent."

In The Just City, a planned community populated by more than 10,000 children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, its residents, consisting of gods and humans, discover that they must all learn from each other in order to survive this experiment and become their best selves. By the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Among Others.

The Just City received a starred review from Booklist: "the award-winning Walton has written a remarkable novel of ideas that demands—and repays—careful reading. It is itself an exercise in philosophy that often, courtesy of Socrates, critically examines Plato's ideas. If this sounds abstruse, it sometimes is, but the plot is always accessible and the world building and characterization are superb. In the end, the novel more than does justice to the idea of the Just City."

Here are five titles available at your Community Library from Kirkus's recently published a list of "Can't Miss Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2011." In Among Others, 15-year-old Morwenna finds escapes into scifi novels after the mysterious death of her twin. The Wise Man's Fear (a personal favorite of librarian Carolyn W.) is the sequel to Name of the Wind, and follows the adventures of Kvothe, a wise-cracking university student and jack-of-all-trades seeking answers about his parent's deaths. In Richard Matheson's Other Kingdoms, a soldier's retreat to a peaceful English village after World War I turns into something more sinister when he ignores local superstitions, while in The Quantum Thief, a criminal is broken out of a diabolical future prison in exchange for agreeing to steal a valuable artifact. Last but not least, China Mieville's literary Embassytown tells the story of how humans teach aliens how to lie, with disastrous results.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda

New Jo Walton

Can't Miss SciFi & Fantasy