| | | Rozzie Bound is Becoming a Co-operative! | We are excited to announce that Rozzie Bound is in the process of incorporating as a multi-stakeholder cooperative owned by worker-owners, who will run the business day-to-day, and consumer owners, who help steer the overall direction of the enterprise. We believe that if we pull together, we can build an exciting community-owned bookstore that will serve as a vital new gathering space for years to come. There are many benefits of becoming a consumer owner and we hope you will consider purchasing a share for $100. Tangible Benefits Consumer Owner Appreciation Days Book Buyback Program (Owners Only) Invitations to Special Events Discounts on Workshops/Classes Participate in Annual Shareholders Meeting Elect Three Members to our Board of Directors
Intangible Benefits Take pride in owning a bookstore deeply rooted in community Help create a vital community gathering and co-learning space Support great nonprofits such as the Friends of the Roslindale Branch Library, Greening Rozzie, Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and many more. Strengthen Roslindale’s local economy Join a growing movement for a more democratic and equitable economy
We will share more information on this process in the coming weeks! | | March + April Roslindale Book Ambassador! | | Jennifer Haigh’s new critically acclaimed novel, Mercy Street, is set at an embattled women’s health clinic during Boston’s Snowpocalypse, the unforgettable winter of 2015. Her earlier books include the novels Heat and Light, Faith, The Condition, Baker Towers and Mrs. Kimble, and the short-story collection News From Heaven (all available on our Local Author shelf). Her work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been published in 18 languages. As the Roslindale Book Ambassador for March and April 2022, Ms. Haigh has shared some of her most cherished books with us on her virtual bookshelf. This program is a joint effort of Rozzie Bound and Friends of the Roslindale Branch Library. |
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| | Support Our Local Authors!Two of our previous Roslindale book ambassadors had books come out this week. Buy them today! | | Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia When Neema Avashia tells people where she's from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving "There are Indian people in West Virginia?" A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles. Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia's identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, Another Appalachia mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions. |
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| | | | Private Way by Ladette Randolph In 2015, when cyberbullies disrupt her life in Southern California, Vivi Marx decides to cut her cord with the internet and take her life offline for a year. She flees to the one place where she felt safe as a child--with her grandmother in Lincoln, Nebraska. Nevermind that her grandmother is long dead and she doesn't know anyone else in the state. Even before she meets her new neighbors on Fieldcrest Drive, Vivi knows she's made a terrible mistake, but every plan she makes to leave is foiled. Despite her efforts to outrun it, trouble follows her to Nebraska, just not in the ways she'd feared. With the help of her neighbors, Willa Cather's novels, and her own imagination, Vivi finds something she hadn't known she was searching for. |
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| | | Understanding The Ukrainian Crisis | | The Russian Invasion of Ukraine last week has spike an interest in learning more about the history of the region. Henrikas Bliudzius, a Russian book buyer for Waterstones bookstore in London, is also a writer and historian who specializes in modern Eastern European history and Cold War politics. He recommends the following books to learn more about Ukraine: You can see his full comprehensive list of book recommendations on Ukraine and Russia in his article on the topic. |
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| | Join Our Banned Book Club! | | Across the country, we are witnessing a steep rise in book banning by school committees advocating for censorship in the name of parental rights. In Texas alone, 850 books have been banned in schools and libraries. Many authors of color and queer authors are being especially targeted as well as books that explore themes of racism and homophobia. We created a special bookshelf with critically acclaimed literary masterpieces that, ironically, seek to expose systems of oppression, censorship, and thought control. At Rozzie Bound, we are troubled by this trend and have decided to start our own Banned Book Club, inspired by similar clubs started by teens around the country like the high school students in Kutztown, PA. If you would like to join or learn more about our Banned Book Club, please complete this brief Google Form. |
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| | Women’s History: Women At WorkIn honor of Women’s History Month, we are highlighting books about women in the workplace. While there have been many advancements, much more is needed to achieve gender equity. You can also find a wider variety of feminist classics and women’s history books in our virtual bookshelves for adults and young readers. | | Come Fly The World By Julia Cooke Required to have a college degree, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3″ and 5′9", between 105 and 140 pounds, and under twenty-six years old at the time of hire. Cooke's intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from small-town girl Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few Black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life. Cooke brings to light the story of Pan Am stewardesses' role in the Vietnam War and Operation Babylift--the dramatic evacuation of two thousand children during the fall of Saigon--the book's special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage. |
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| | | | You Don’t Belong Here by Elizabeth Becker Kate Webb, an Australian iconoclast, Catherine Leroy, a French dare devil photographer, and Frances FitzGerald, a blue-blood American intellectual, arrived in Vietnam with starkly different life experiences but one shared purpose: to report on the most consequential story of the decade. At a time when women were considered unfit to be foreign reporters, Frankie, Catherine and Kate paid their own way to war, arrived without jobs, challenged the rules imposed on them by the military, ignored the belittlement and resentment of their male peers and found new ways to explain the war through the people who lived through it. In You Don't Belong Here, Elizabeth Becker uses these women's work and lives to illuminate the Vietnam War from the 1965 American buildup, through the Tet Offensive, the expansion into Cambodia, the American defeat and its aftermath. Arriving herself in the last years of the war, Elizabeth writes as an historian and a witness to what these women accomplished. |
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| | | | Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith & Juno Mac Do you have to endorse prostitution in order to support sex worker rights? Should clients be criminalized, and can the police deliver justice? In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, they make it clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement. |
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| | | | The Secret History of Home Economics by Danielle Dreilinger The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken muffins. But common conception obscures the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists, and businesspeople. And it has something to teach us today. In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women--and they were mostly women--became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. |
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| | | | Where You Are Is Not Who You Are by Ursula Burns In 2009, when she was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation, Ursula Burns shattered the glass ceiling by becoming the first Black woman to head a Fortune 500 company. Candid and outspoken, Ursula offers a remarkable look inside the c-suites of corporate America through the eyes of a Black woman--someone who puts humanity over greed and justice over power. She compares the impact of the pandemic to the financial crisis of 2007, condemns how corporate culture is destroying the spirit of democracy, and worries about the workers whose lives are being upended by technology. Empathetic and dedicated, idealistic and pragmatic, Ursula demonstrates that, no matter your circumstances, hard work, grit and a bit of help along the way can change your life--and the world. |
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| | | Worker-Owner RecommendationsBelow are some book recommendations from our worker-owners. Click on their shelves to see more recommendations and learn about our staff. | | From Roy Karp’s Shelf A haunting fable of art, family, and fate from the author of the Outline trilogy. A woman invites a famous artist to use her guesthouse in the remote coastal landscape where she lives with her family. Powerfully drawn to his paintings, she believes his vision might penetrate the mystery at the center of her life. But as a long, dry summer sets in, his provocative presence itself becomes an enigma--and disrupts the calm of her secluded household. Second Place, Rachel Cusk's electrifying new novel, is a study of female fate and male privilege, the geometries of human relationships, and the moral questions that animate our lives. It reminds us of art's capacity to uplift--and to destroy. |
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| | | | From Judy McClure’s Shelf A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched cultural observers of her generation. In these funny and insightful essays, Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better, coming from one of our most interesting and important cultural critics. |
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| | | | From Ana Crowley-Noordzij’s Shelf Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it's got good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. Parents in the town are involved in their children's lives, and often in other children's lives, too--coaching sports, driving carpool, focusing on enriching experiences. Ruth Ramsey is the high school human sexuality teacher whose openness is not appreciated by all her students--or their parents. Her daughter's soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim's introduction of Christianity on the playing field horrifies Ruth, while his evangelical church sees a useful target in the loose-lipped sex ed teacher. But when these two adversaries in a small-town culture war actually talk to each other, a surprising friendship begins to develop. |
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| | | | From Talia Whyte’s Shelf Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the "New World." Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the African continent. |
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| | | | From Kim Patch’s Shelf For years, rumors of the Marsh Girl have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens. Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps. |
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| | | Looking for more book ideas? | | You may also want to check out some of our themed shelves such as: We also have tons of 500 and 1000 piece Jigsaw puzzles, which are a fun relaxing pastime and also make for great gifts for the puzzlers in your life. You can also find tons more by clicking the “Games & Puzzles” link at the top of our Bookshop site. |
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| To purchase a Rozzie Bound Gift Card, which can be sent to any valid email address, please click here. Libros en español aquí. | | | |
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