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Jun 8 2020
By
EVPL Staff
In many ways, it’s a different world than it was a few months ago. Although Indiana is gradually re-opening restaurants, stores, and other businesses, there’s a vague sense of change in the air as everyone decides how to best respond to the circumstances. Organizations like EVPL are providing personal protective equipment (PPE) to employees and strategizing how to minimize contact while still maintaining standards of service. A myriad of complexities must be considered as updated information prompts repeated reevaluation.
As we all adjust to this “new normal,” enjoy some stories of people whose worlds have changed in front of their eyes—some for the better, some for the worse. All of these titles are available on Overdrive or Hoopla!
Books
 | "The Passage" by Justin Cronin | A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling experiment. A night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear--of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse. |
 | "Tallgrass" by Sandra Dallas | During World War II, a family finds life turned upside down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes (and suspicions) turn to the newcomers. A riveting exploration of the darkest—and best—parts of the human heart. |
 | "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Timothy Egan | The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. While capturing the drama of catastrophe, Egan offers a cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature. |
 | "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams | Seconds before the Earth is demolished, Arthur is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford, an alien researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together this dynamic pair begins a hilarious journey through space with a galaxy-full of fellow travelers. |
 | "Dry" by Neal Shusterman | When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival. Her quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation as neighbors and families turn against each other on the hunt for water. |
 | "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson | In this beautifully written masterwork, Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. |
 | "Blindness" by José Saramago | A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but the criminal element wreaks havoc. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides her charges through the barren streets, and their procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. A powerful vision of the human spirit that's bound both by weakness and exhilarating strength. |
 | "Pax" by Sara Pennypacker | Pax was only a kit when his family was killed, and “his boy” Peter rescued him from certain death. Now the war front approaches, and when Peter’s father enlists, Peter has to move in with his grandpa and Pax can’t come. Peter’s father abandons the young fox in the woods. But regret and duty spur Peter to action; he packs for a trek to get his best friend back and sneaks into the night… |
 | "The Last Policeman" by Ben H. Waters | In a portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States, civilization crumbles as an asteroid hurtles toward earth. The economy spirals while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Detective Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares. |
 | "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe | A classic narrative about Africa’s cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior in the late 1800s, it explores one man’s futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the new order. |
Movies
 | "How I Live Now" | An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her. |
 | "Adopt a Highway" | Russ Millings has been released from prison after serving 21 years for drug possession, but is struggling to adapt to a world he no longer recognizes. One night, he finds an abandoned baby in a dumpster and realizes this could be his chance at redemption. |
 | "Patema Inverted" | A young girl, from a civilization that resides in deep underground tunnels, finds herself trapped in an inverted world and teams up with a resident to escape and return home. |
 | "The Ticket" | A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial. |
 | "Into the Forest" | After a worldwide power outage, two sisters must work together in order to survive in their increasingly treacherous new world while fighting intruders, disease, loneliness, and starvation. |
 | "Kate & Leopold" | An English Duke from 1876 inadvertently time-travels to modern day New York where he falls for a plucky advertising executive. |
 | "Train to Busan" | While a zombie virus breaks out in South Korea, passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan. |
 | "The Great San Francisco Earthquake" | With newly restored footage, this documentary looks at the destruction of San Francisco by the 1906 earthquake and fire, and the survivors’ determination to rebuild their city and their lives. |
 | "The Flowers of War" | During the 1937 Japanese invasion of China, an American mortician finds refuge in a church with a group of school girls and prostitutes. Unwillingly cast in the role of protector, he attempts to lead the women to safety and discovers the meaning of sacrifice. |
 | "Force Majeure" | This wickedly funny psychodrama tells the story of a model Swedish family on a skiing holiday in the French Alps. When an avalanche suddenly bears down and people flee in all directions, the father makes a decision that will shake his marriage and family to its core. |
