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Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor HendersonTen Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Set at the end of the 1980s, Henderson's first novel limns the way a tragic loss brings three people together in unexpected ways. When 16-year-old Jude Keffy-Horn's best friend, Teddy, dies of a drug overdose after a night of heavy partying, Jude blames himself, not knowing that Eliza, the daughter of Jude's father's girlfriend, gave Teddy cocaine the evening of his death. Eliza also slept with Teddy, and she soon discovers she's pregnant with his child. Both Jude and Eliza find themselves drawn into the orbit of Teddy's magnetic older half-brother, Johnny, a punk-rock tattoo artist who ostensibly abstains from drugs, alcohol, and sex. But Johnny's clean living masks the secret he's trying to hide from the world, a secret that threatens to unravel Jude and Eliza's plans to leave childhood behind and jump straight into what they believe will be their exciting adult lives. The magic of Henderson's debut lies in the way she so completely captures the experience of coming-of-age in the turbulent and exciting era that was the 1980s.  (Booklist Reviews)




Join the Book Discussion

 People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Join the Community Library's book club on August 20th (between 2PM and 4PM) for a lively discussion of People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks!

Registration is open, click here to reserve your seat today! 

With an ingenuity equal to that standing behind her Pulitzer Prize–winning March (2005), Brooks now fictionalizes the history of an actual book, the Hebrew codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah, an extremely precious illuminated manuscript originally from medieval Spain.  Australian book conservator Hanna Heath is called to restore the famous Sarajevo Haggadah. The condition of the manuscript leads her on a search for answers to where the Haggadah has been all its life. This, of course, leads Brooks on a marvelously evocative journey backward in time, to periods of major religious strife and persecution, from the 1940 German occupation of Yugoslavia, to 1894 Vienna, to 1609 Venice, to 1492 Barcelona, and, finally, 1480 Seville. Like a flower growing through a crack in a slab of concrete, the exquisitely beautiful Sarajevo Haggadah remained an artistic treasure throughout the centuries despite always seeming to be caught between opposing sides in skirmishes of greed, intolerance, and bloodlust. (Booklist Starred Review)

The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch

The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch
In this daring novel, Yuknavitch takes a provocative look at the intimate relationship among love, art, and sex in a group of emotionally scarred artists who want to save one of their own. The Small Backs of Children is written in the voices of characters without first names—photographer, writer, poet, performance artist, playwright, filmmaker, and painter—the novel begins in modern Eastern Europe (likely Lithuania), occupied by an unseen force, where a photojournalist captures an award-winning shot: a young girl running from her exploding home, in which the rest of her family dies. The girl escapes into the woods, making her way to a widow's home; the widow teaches her about art, and the girl begins to paint. Meanwhile, an American writer who is friends with the photographer, is hospitalized with severe depression. The writer's best friend, a poet, believes she can help the writer; she enters the war zone to bring the orphaned girl to the United States. Yuknavitch's novel is disturbing and challenging, but undoubtedly leaves its mark. (Publisher Weekly Reviews)

Spotlight on Biography

Born Survivors by Wendy Holden
Born Survivors by Wendy Holden
In the closing weeks of WWII, three Jewish women who had concealed their pregnancies in a fight for survival under the Nazis brought their babies into an uncertain future, an act of remarkable bravery and defiance. Those babies, now grown, note in their introduction to this incredible book that they are destined to become some of the last survivors of the Holocaust. That they survived at all is a miracle, but their story and that of their mothers is filled with many chance moments that, had they gone differently, would have eradicated them from the world in a moment. With remarkable detail gleaned from a wealth of research, journalist and author Holden relates the three women's unforgettable journey from their imprisonment in ghettos to their arrival at Auschwitz, where the feared Dr. Josef Mengele inspected each woman to find out who was pregnant, through their forced labor at munitions factories and the final hellish transport to the Nazi concentration camp at Mauthausen. Seeing the war through their eyes reveals not only the unimaginable cruelties that humans are capable of inflicting, but also the kindness and courage with which some of us are able to rise to meet adversity. Though these women's suffering was intense, their story reverberates with the power of hope, and, like their babies, will live on. An astonishing and deeply moving work. (Booklist Starred Review)

Spectacle by Pamela Newkirk
Spectacle by Pamela Newkirk
In 1904, at a time when African Americans were beginning major campaigns for civil rights, Ota Benga, a young Congolese man, was displayed at the St. Louis World's Fair as an example of the "pygmy" people of West Africa. Two years later, Benga was exhibited at the New York Zoological Garden in the Monkey House, along with an orangutan, drawing enormous crowds. The 4-foot-11-inch man had been brought to America by Samuel Phillips Verner, a failed missionary who was in the process of remaking himself as a scholar of African culture. It was a time of racial turmoil across the U.S. and pseudoscientific justification of the exploitation of Africa and oppression of those of African descent. Newkirk details Verner's arduous journeys, lies, and manipulations, covered by the veneer of science even as he sought to secure financial interests in the Congo under the rapacious rule of King Leopold of Belgium. Benga's extraordinary journey from West Africa to St. Louis, New York, and eventually to Virginia sparked controversy as the nation and the world struggled with issues of race and exploitation. Uncovering this shameful chapter of U.S. history, Newkirk challenges Verner's reputation as a hero who rescued Benga from cannibals and highlights those who helped Benga live the remaining years of his life with dignity. (Booklist Starred Review)

Eye on the Struggle by James McGrath Morris
Eye on the Struggle by James McGrath Morris
Morris is the first to tell barrier-breaking journalist Ethel Payne's complete story in Eye on the Struggle. Among this biography's many disclosures is the crucial role this book-loving daughter of a Pullman porter—and constant patron of her South Side Chicago public library branch—played in the success of the Chicago Defender, a tremendously influential African American newspaper distributed in the Jim Crow South by Pullman porters. Harassed on her way to high school when she passed through a white neighborhood, Payne was encouraged to write by her English teacher, who had also taught Ernest Hemingway. Payne had stories published in a Defender spinoff, Abbott's Monthly, while she attended the Chicago Public Library Training School and became a junior library assistant. After qualifying for a government-documents librarian post at the U.S. Department of Justice, she was turned away because of her race. In a neat turnaround, Payne signed on as an assistant service club director, shipping out to an army post in Japan in 1948. There, intrepid, ever-curious, and truth-seeking, Payne investigated the plight of the stigmatized children of black GIs and Japanese women. She lost her military job when the Chicago Defender published her exposé but was hired by the paper. Morris' straight-ahead chronicle of Payne's extraordinary front-line life reveals how invincible and incisive she was as she forthrightly "combined journalism with advocacy" and made the most of the "box seat on history" she fought so ardently and courageously to occupy. (Booklist Starred Review)

Hissing Cousins by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer
Hissing Cousins by Marc Peyser and Timothy Dwyer
It's hard not to like Alice Roosevelt Longworth, though Peyser and Dwyer give many reasons why we shouldn't; for one, at 85, Alice did her impersonation of Eleanor Roosevelt's speech (and jutting jaw) for 60 Minutes. She also slapped on a checkerboard mask at 82 and attended Truman Capote's infamous black-and-white ball. In short, she said—and did—what she wanted, consequences be damned. But marvelous Eleanor, the authors note, will be the one remembered. The two women were cousins, but, as the book's title aptly points out, they weren't altogether close. Alice was a Republican and Teddy's cherished daughter, the much-watched and -quoted princess of the White House. Eleanor was a Democrat and later helped her husband get into the White House himself. Alice was funny, caustic, and somewhat of a pill. Eleanor devoted her life to good works and true causes (women's rights, segregation, and so much more). The lives these women lived weren't easy (tossed by death and illness), the times were turbulent (from wars to Teapot Dome to Tricky Dick), and the two cousins were almost, the authors note, "reverse role models for each other, examples of how not to live." Peyser and Dwyer's detailed and witty double biography is hard to put down, a fascinating look at an era and two exceptionally strong, intelligent women. (Booklist Starred Review)

Listening to Stone by Hayden Herrera
Listening to Stone by Hayden Herrera
The phenomenally gifted and versatile sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–88), the American-born son of an Irish American mother and a Japanese father, felt like an outsider wherever he went. Leonie Gilmour met poet Yone Noguchi via a newspaper ad. She was looking for work. He needed help with his English. Not only didn't Yone marry Leonie, he returned to Japan while she was pregnant, and when Leonie followed several years later, she discovered that he had another family. Young Noguchi, a nature-loving prodigy, thrived nonetheless. Sent back to the States alone at age 13, as tenacious as he was talented, Noguchi endured extreme hardships until attaining success and social standing, first with portraiture, then by creating an eloquent form of modernism that fused tradition and innovation, East and West. A passionate stone carver and a constant traveler with a notoriously complicated love life, Noguchi constructed, with tremendous vision, skill, and turmoil, dynamic outdoor installations all around the world. But as Herrera so sensitively illuminates and assiduously documents, his mixed heritage and illegitimate birth caused him endless anguish, including time in a WWII Japanese American internment camp. Herrera tells Noguchi's astounding, story of "unstoppable creative energy," fame, and perpetual alienation with thrilling narrative drive and deep perception and reinvigorates appreciation for Noguchi's searching and evocative art. (Booklist Starred Review)

Michelle Obama by Peter Slevin
Michelle Obama by Peter Slevin
A descendant of slaves, Michelle Obama has a lineage and a life history most unlikely for a First Lady. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago in a working-class black family, she has lived her life against the backdrop of major developments in black America. When she became First Lady in 2008, she changed the trajectory of American history. Journalist Slevin explores Michelle's family history and struggle to rise above racial limitations, her marriage, and her close friendships. He details the unerringly strong, well-balanced sense of self she has taken with her from Chicago to Princeton to Harvard Law School to corporate America and eventually to the White House. In her undergraduate thesis on straddling the racial and economic divides, Michelle explored themes that continued to challenge her and her husband as they advanced in their careers and even as the nation's first family. Slevin chronicles Michelle's evolution from very reluctant candidate's wife to engaging First Lady and protective first mother. She has focused on supporting military families, encouraging better nutrition and exercise for youth, and urging urban youth, in particular, to get an education. Like all First Ladies, she has sparked affection, criticism, and controversy, often with a racial tinge aimed directly at the first African American First Lady. (Booklist Starred Review)

On His Own Terms by Richard Norton Smith
On His Own Terms by Richard Norton Smith
A nightmare for political handlers, the man who claimed "a Democratic heart with a Republican head" poses no small challenge for a biographer. But after a decade of exhaustive research, Smith delivers a compelling portrait of a man who defied the simplifying ideologies of his age. Born to privilege but schooled as a social progressive by his philanthropist parents, Nelson Rockefeller traveled an improbable trajectory, serving as both a Roosevelt New Dealer and an Eisenhower Cold Warrior, repeatedly demonstrating exceptional leadership and unflagging energy. In-depth research illuminates Rockefeller's exceptional record as a governor of New York, expanding welfare benefits, protecting the environment, and subsidizing the arts, only to alienate the state's liberals with his forceful handling of the Attica Prison riots. But Rockefeller's maverick impulses emerge most clearly in Smith's account of why the governor clashed with Barry Goldwater over the future of the GOP. Readers see how Rockefeller's liberal sympathies repeatedly doomed his presidential aspirations as conservative intraparty foes frustrated his hopes, refusing even to recognize his loyal service as Gerald Ford's vice president. And though Smith focuses on Rockefeller's public service, he does delve into the tangled marital and family life behind that service. Complete and balanced, a biography of exceptional substance. (Booklist Starred Review)

Respect by David Ritz
Respect by David Ritz
With an outsize musical talent and a troubled family life, Franklin has worked to keep her painful history hidden and has poured everything into her singing. She was the gospel prodigy of the charismatic Baptist preacher C. L. Franklin; her mother separated from the family and died at an early age. Franklin started her career singing in the gospel circuit, one every bit as steeped in earthly temptations as any other genre, before moving into R & B. She was a legend—and a young mother—by her teens, eventually earning for herself the title of Queen of Soul, and she struggled to hold on to it through changes in popular music and challenges by younger singers. Despite tumultuous marriages, bouts with alcoholism and depression, and a reputation as a demanding diva, Franklin has maintained her stature on the strength of her talent and her support for civil rights. She has also been steadfast in protecting her image and her secrets, even in her biography, From These Roots (1999), ghostwritten by Ritz. Some 15 years later, this is his unauthorized attempt to get at the elusive Franklin, the one who so skillfully hid her pain in her music. Drawing on previous work and interviews with those close to Franklin, Ritz offers a portrait of a woman for whom faith and respect are essential. (Booklist Starred Review)

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Fairly or not, Orville and Wilbur Wright will always be best remembered by the general public for December 17, 1903, the day at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, when the brothers flew, for the first time, a heavier-than-air vehicle. Of course, the brothers had accomplishments and interesting lives that both preceded and followed that triumphant day, as this fine biography by esteemed historian McCullough shows. McCullough offers an interesting portrait of their youth in Dayton, Ohio, that also serves as an examination of daily life in post–Civil War Middle America. Neither boy had a formal education beyond high school, although Wilbur's plan to attend Yale was thwarted by an injury. Yet both displayed keen intelligence and strong interest in various mechanical devices. That interest led to their ownership of both print and bicycle shops, but their interest in the possibility of human flight soon became an obsession for them. McCullough illustrates their creative geniuses as well as their physical courage leading up to the initial flight. He also pays tribute to an unsung hero, their sister Katherine, who played a prominent role in their achievements. This is an outstanding saga of the lives of two men who left such a giant footprint on our modern age.High-Demand Backstory: This author's countless previous bestsellers demand that public libraries have his latest book in their shelves. (Booklist Starred Review)

Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa by James Neff

Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa by James Neff
From 1957 to 1964, Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa channeled nearly all of their considerable powers into destroying each other. Kennedy's battle with Hoffa burst into the public consciousness with the 1957 Senate Rackets Committee hearings and intensified when his brother named him attorney general in 1961. RFK put together a "Get Hoffa" squad within the Justice Department, devoted to destroying one man. But Hoffa, with nearly unlimited Teamster funds, was not about to roll over.

Drawing upon a treasure trove of previously secret and undisclosed documents, Vendetta by James Neff has crafted a brilliant, heart-pounding epic of crime and punishment, a saga of venom and relentlessness and two men willing to do anything to demolish each other. (Publisher Summary)

The white-hot courtroom battles between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert F. Kennedy gripped the United States during some of the bleakest days of the Cold War. Neff captures the tension and hatred between the men in this impressively researched page-turner. (Library Journal Reviews)

The Secrets Men Keep by Mark Sampson

The Secrets Men Keep by Mark Sampson
The Secrets Men Keep offers sly comic pokes and affable satire, this memorable collection of 13 stories frequently highlights the significant gap between the empire-building ambitions of men and their humdrum and hemmed-in middle-management realities. An astute but not particularly harsh or misanthropic observer, Sampson (Sad Peninsula) dwells in fruitful and intriguing ways on the concessions, compromises, and "good enoughs" of adult heterosexual masculinity. In "The Man Room," a circle of stoop-shouldered suburban dads take a stand in the name of manhood by capturing a rapist, and in the delightful title story, the narrator recalls a trip with his immediate family to Michigan to attend the funeral of an uncle whose decades of stealthy alcoholism impress him. The stories "Invasion Complex" and "Itaewon" offer searing portraits of young guys spreading "the global contagion of English," whose relations with Korean women are befuddled at best and predatory at worst. Even when Sampson delves into the criminal spheres of cybercrime and organized crime in "Malware" and "In the Middle," respectively, he illustrates how commonplace fantasies of alpha-male conquest can go awry and the usual nine-to-five grind.

The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo


The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo
Cuban American author Acevedo makes a significant contribution to contemporary literature with The Distant Marvels. The elderly Maria Sirena has lived through and, as a young girl, participated in the Cuban war for independence; now, in 1963, at the dawn of Castro's new Cuba, with Hurricane Flora on the way, she is evacuated with other women to a historic mansion being used as a shelter. A former cigar-factory lector (a reader-out-loud of fiction into which she surreptitiously weaves her own stories), Maria Sirena entertains her fellow refugees with personal and richly imagined stories that will remind delighted readers of everything from Chaucer to García Márquez. Her life story and that of her mother, including their time spent with the insurgents and in a reconcentrado during the 1890s, becomes a stunning confession. This extraordinary narrative tells, from these women's perspectives, how war brings lovers together and tears families apart. This is a major, uniquely powerful, and startlingly beautiful novel that should bring Acevedo's name to the top echelon of this generation's writers. (Booklist Starred Review)

Patron Recommended:

 The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

With The Nightingale, Hannah departs from the contemporary novels she's known for with this engrossing tale of two sisters' bravery in occupied France during WWII. Viann and Isabelle Rossignol took very different paths after their mother's death devastated their family and war turned their father into a distant and withdrawn parent. Older sister Viann sought comfort in the arms of a schoolmate, getting pregnant and marrying at just 16. Rebellious Isabelle gets herself kicked out of multiple boarding schools. Then the Germans conquer France, and the sisters' lives change drastically. When her husband is captured and detained as a prisoner of war in Germany, Viann is forced to take in a German captain. Soon she finds herself relying on him to ensure there is food on the table for her daughter. Isabelle joins the Resistance, boldly leading fallen airmen fighting for the liberation of France over the mountains to Spain to safety. Hannah's latest is a page-turner that will no doubt have readers reaching for tissues. This moving, emotional tribute to the brave women who fought behind enemy lines during the war is bound to gain the already immensely popular Hannah an even wider audience. (Booklist Starred Review)

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman


The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
In The Marriage of Opposites, Hoffman offers a rare look at nineteenth-century Jewish life in the Caribbean and discloses the dramatic family history of a seminal French painter. 

Young, headstrong, yet dreamy Rachel Pomié embodies two evocative traits shared by many of Hoffman's irresistible women characters. She is awestruck by nature, reveling in and revering the island's vital, lush beauty, and she is mystically attuned to mysterious forces, especially the spirits of the dead. She is also a true original. Because her Jewish family has roots in France, that country becomes her imagination's polestar as she memorizes maps of Paris and reads voraciously in her father's extensive library. Ardently independent and sharp-tongued, she refuses to abide by racial or gender restrictions, cleaving to her best friend, Jestine, the daughter of their African cook, and turning away all suitors until her family's finances plunge, and her panicked father arranges her marriage to Isaac, a much older widower with three young children. Rachel doesn't love her husband, but she adores his children, and she and Isaac have four more together. Then he dies, leaving Rachel without a home or livelihood. She is perfectly capable of running their shop, but legally, she must defer to her husband's family, waiting for a representative to arrive from Paris to take charge of her and her children's futures. 

Rachel could easily have remained the focus of this beguiling novel, but as Hoffman begins to write from the point of view of the color-bedazzled, sly, rebellious, and charming boy who will become the renowned painter Camille Pissarro, a leader and mentor among the impressionists, we see the world afresh as a perpetual dance of radiance and darkness, form and space.  Hoffman is at her resplendent best in this trenchant and revelatory tale of a heroic woman and her world-altering artist son. (Booklist Starred Review)

Suffolk County's top 10 circulating books in June were:

The Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins
The Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins

Melding the voyeurism of Rear Window with the unreliable narration of Gone Girl (2012), Hawkins delivers a riveting thriller. (Booklist Starred Review) Obsessively watching a breakfasting couple every day to escape the pain of her losses, Rachel witnesses a shocking event that inextricably entangles her in the lives of strangers. (Publisher Summary)

NYPD Red 3 by James Patterson
NYPD Red 3 by James Patterson

When a billionaire's chauffeur is brutally murdered and his son is abducted, NYPD Red Detective Zach Jordan and his ex-girlfriend partner, Kylie MacDonald, realize that their own lives are becoming more threatened as they get closer to solving the case. (Publisher Summary)


14th Deadly Sin by James Patterson
14th Deadly Sin by James Patterson

Gathering for a birthday celebration that is interrupted by a gruesome killing in public, the Women's Murder Club friends discover video evidence of a deadly plot against the city of San Francisco. (Publisher Summary)



Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille
Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille

Taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group after a showdown with "The Panther," Corey realizes that America has unknowingly entered a second Cold War era with a newly resurgent Russia. By the best-selling author of The Gold Coast. (Publisher Summary)


Memory Man by David Baldacci
Memory Man by David Baldacci

The latest thriller by Baldacci introduces the character of Amos Decker, whose hyperthymesia causes him to remember everything. More than a year after the most tragic event in Amos Decker's life, a man confesses to murdering his family and Amos, called to help with the investigation, struggles with the memories.(Publisher Summary)

The Stranger by Harlan Coben
The Stranger by Harlan Coben

A well-placed lie can help build a wonderful life- and a secret has the same explosive power to destroy it. The Stranger appears out of nowhere. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. (Publisher Summary)

Private Vegas by James Patterson
Private Vegas by James Patterson

Private Jack Morgan spends most of his time in Los Angeles, where his top investigation firm has its headquarters. But a hunt for two criminals leads him to the city of sin--and to a murder ring that is more seductively threatening than anything he's witnessed before.(Publisher Summary)


Miracle at Augusta by James Patterson
Miracle at Augusta by James Patterson

After his unexpected PGA win catapults him to fame, Travis struggles with feelings of inadequacy in the face of personal setbacks. A shot at redemption arrives in an unexpected form: a teenage outcast with troubles of his own - and a natural golf swing. (Publisher Summary)


The Liar by Nora Roberts
The Liar by Nora Roberts

Devastated to learn that her unfaithful husband had actually married her using an alias, Shelby returns with her young daughter to her Tennessee hometown and pursues a new relationship before her husband's past poses dangerous threats.(Publisher Summary)


The Escape by David Baldacci
The Escape by David Baldacci

A latest entry in the popular series that began with Zero Day and The Forgotten continues the adventures of military investigator, John Puller. When his older brother escapes a military prison, Puller finds himself part of the manhunt for him and discovers troubling details about the case. (Publisher Summary)

There is still time to dip into Summer Reading

 There is Still Plenty of Summer Left to Win Some Great Prizes!
Log into our Summer Reading Club at www.communitylibrary.org/src
and tell us about the hero of your favorite story!

What I Remember Most by Cathy LambFrench Coast by Anita HughesImaginary Things by Andrea Lochen


What I Remember Most by Cathy Lamb

Grenadine Scotch Wild has only vague memories of the parents she last saw when she was six years old. But she's never forgotten their final, panicked words to her, urging Grenadine to run. The mystery of their disappearance is just one more frayed strand in a life that has lately begun to unravel completely. One year into her rocky marriage to Covey, a well known investor, he's arrested for fraud and embezzlement. And Grenadine, now a successful collage artist and painter, is facing jail time despite her innocence. With Covey refusing to exonerate her unless she comes back to him, Grenadine once again takes the advice given to her so long ago: she runs.  But even far from everything she knew, Grenadine is granted a rare chance, as potentially liberating as it is terrifying--to face down her past, her fears, and live a life as beautiful and colorful as one of her paintings. (Publisher Summary)


French Coast by Anita Hughes

Serena lives a life of luxury. Everything is perfect, from the bows in her hair right down to the Gucci pumps on her feet. This perfect life includes her dream job at Vogue's San Francisco office and her boyfriend, a polished politician. When offered a writing assignment in Cannes interviewing the legendary former French Vogue editor, Yvette Renault, she cannot believe her good fortune. Ready to spend a month on the French beaches, she arrives only to discover that her good luck may be running out. With a family drama unfolding back home and emotions running high, Serena does her best to cope with changing circumstances. Thanks to the help of her new friend, Zoe, Serena also embarks on a new journey of self-discovery and learns what love and loyalty really mean. (Booklist Reviews)

Imaginary Things by Andrea Lochen

Andrea Lochen's Imaginary Things, as ethereal as it is familiar, explores the spaces between the known and the imagined, where enchantment sometimes takes hold. It's an intriguing story about a harried young mother who retreats to the safety of home, only to be confronted with the forgotten, mysterious forces that lurked at the edge of her childhood. (ForeWord Magazine Reviews) Twenty-two-year-old single mother Anna Jennings moves to her grandparents’ home for the summer with her four-year-old son, David. The sudden appearance of shadowy dinosaurs forces Anna to admit that she can see her son’s active imagination. Frightened for David’s safety, Anna struggles to learn the rules of this bizarre phenomenon, but what she uncovers along the way is completely unexpected: revelations about what her son’s imagination truly represents and dark secrets about her own childhood. (Publisher Summary) 


If you like Heroic Librarians

The Historian by Elizabeth KostovaThe Ice Queen by Alice HoffmanThe Camel Bookmobile by Masha HamiltonDue for Discard by Sharon St. George

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Readers who think the legend of Dracula has become a trite staple of schlock fiction will find this atmospheric page-turner by first-time author Kostova a bloodthirsty delight. A teenage American girl, living in1972 Amsterdam, comes across an ancient book in the library of her widower father, a former historian and now a diplomat. The book, blank save for an illustration of a dragon and the word Drakulya, contains a cache of faded letters all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate reader." Thus begins a search for the truth behind the myth of Dracula, a search that crosses continents as well as generations. Told through narratives, flashbacks, and letters, the plot unfolds at a rapid pace but never gives away too many clues at once. The cast of colorful characters even includes a creepy librarian who takes on the Renfield role of crazed vampire groupie. Both literary and scary, this one is guaranteed to keep one reading into the wee hours--preferably sitting in a brightly lit room and wearing a garlic necklace. Highly recommended for all collections and just in time to enthrall the summer-vacation crowd. (Booklist Starred Review)

The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

Over the course of writing her 18 beguiling novels, Hoffman has perfected her niche and vivifying blend of romance, magic, and redemption, a mode of storytelling she uses with great panache to link the workings of nature with the spectrum of human emotions. Here she draws on her key inspiration, fairy tales, and her fascination with how chaos theory makes the connection between, let's say, the flapping of a bat's wings and a young girl's anger at her mother. Ever since she was eight years old, Hoffman's narrator, a devoted reference librarian, has believed that her temper tantrum caused her mother's death. Her guilt turned her solitary, stoic, and somewhat misanthropic, and she envisions herself as an ice queen. Even after she is struck by lightning. As her damaged narrator reluctantly joins a lightning-strike-survivor support group, Hoffman dramatizes the bizarre effects experienced by real-life lightning strike survivors, and orchestrates a highly erotic and risky romance between the ice queen and a fellow survivor known as Lazarus, whose breath ignites paper. As Hoffman's spellbinding and wonderfully insightful tale unfurls, she pays charming tribute to librarians, revels in metaphors of hot and cold, and poetically explores the meaning of trust, the chemistry of healing, and the reach of love. (Booklist Reviews)

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton

Yes, there really is such a thing as a camel bookmobile, and the image of unwieldy beasts laden with book-filled boxes provided inspiration for novelist Hamilton to compose a lush celebration of the productive--and destructive--power of the written word. Languishing in a dead-end job in a Brooklyn library, Fiona Sweeney, 36, feels time is passing her by. So when the opportunity arises to travel to Africa to manage an unorthodox mobile library, Fi jumps at the chance to influence a culture of nomadic people whose existence is dependent upon more basic human requirements, such as water, food, and shelter. With everything from Seuss to Shakespeare, Fi's regular deliveries of books elate the village women and children but intimidate tribal elders, who fear change and anticipate the loss of their ancient ways. When the bookmobile's one intractable rule is broken, the village turns on the emotionally and physically scarred teenager whose act of rebellion jeopardizes everything Fi has worked for. With a heartfelt appreciation for the potential of literature to transcend cultural divides, Hamilton has created a poignant, ennobling, and buoyant tale of risks and rewards, surrender and sacrifice. (Booklist Starred Review)

Due for Discard by Sharon St. George

Aimee Machado is thrilled to be starting her first job as a forensic librarian at the medical center in the town of Timbergate, north of Sacramento, California. Her ebullient mood is somewhat dampened by her recent breakup with her former live-in boyfriend, Nick Alexander. And then there's a little matter of murder: on Aimee's first day on the job, a body is found in a nearby dumpster and soon identified as her supervisor's wife, Bonnie Beardsley. (Publisher Summary)

Late Night Thrillers

The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon
The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon

Once a thriving attraction, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Margot. The three played there as girls until the day that their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel's past, something that ruined their friendship forever. Now adult, Piper and Margot lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused. As Margot and Piper investigate, a cleverly woven plot unfolds—revealing the story of Sylvie and Rose, two other sisters who lived at the motel during the 1950s. Each believed the other to be something truly monstrous, but only one carries the secret that would haunt generations to come. (Publisher Summary)


Finders Keepers by Stephen King
Finders Keepers by Stephen King

What would you do if you found buried treasure? Thirteen-year-old Peter  asks himself this very question when he finds an old trunk buried under a tree. His family has fallen on hard times. Aside from a relatively small amount of money in the chest, there are over 100 handwritten notebooks. Peter realizes that they were penned by John Rothstein, a renowned novelist who was murdered long before Peter was born by an obsessed fan Named Morris Bellamy. He's in prison for a different crime, and about to be paroled. Now the protagonists King introduced in Mr. Mercedes—Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson—are charged with protecting Peter and his family from Bellamy. (Library Journal Reviews)


Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille
Radiant Angel by Nelson DeMille

When Vasily Petrov, a colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service posing as a diplomat with the Russian U.N. Mission, mysteriously disappears from a Russian oligarch's party in Southampton, it's up to Corey to track him down. What are the Russians up to and why? Is there a possible nuclear threat, a so-called radiant angel? Will Corey find Petrov and put a stop to whatever he has planned before it's too late? Or will Corey finally be outrun and outsmarted, with America facing the prospect of a crippling attack unlike anything it's ever seen before? (Publisher Summary)




The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child
The Forgotten Room by Lincoln Child

Jeremy Logan, the "enigmalogist" who has starred in three previous novels, is asked to look into the apparent suicide of a noted researcher who worked at America's oldest think tank. Logan soon discovers evidence that the man didn't kill himself, including a mysterious, boarded-up room that the dead man apparently went to great lengths to conceal. Although Logan is known professionally as an investigator of the supernatural, the story here is more of a scientific mystery, with a decades-old think-tank project apparently linked to strange goings-on in the present day. (Booklist Reviews)



I, Ripper by Stephen Hunter
I, Ripper by Stephen Hunter

Hunter propels readers back in time to the horrific Whitechapel murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. Written in the first-person perspectives of "Jack" himself, an unwary prostitute, and an up-and-coming newspaper journalist, this absolutely riveting account of the killings, the hysteria, and an insider's attempt to expose the Ripper brings a fresh eye to an old and well-examined unsolved mystery. Not for the weak-stomached, this killer's view of serial murders is the stuff of nightmares. (Booklist Reviews)




Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates
Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates

Where is the line between genius and madness?
A model family man and good citizen of his upscale New Jersey town, Andrew J. Rush has sold millions of copies worldwide of his 28 tastefully elegant mysteries. You'd think he wouldn't be caught dead reading the dark and lurid series penned by the pseudonymous Jack of Spades. But in fact he is the Jack of Spades, and when he's accused of plagiarism, upright Andrew starts thinking more like nasty Jack. (Library Journal Reviews)




Truth or Die by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
Truth or Die by James Patterson and Howard Roughan

When his journalist girlfriend's latest scoop leads to a violent confrontation,Trevor's newly peaceful life is shattered. Chasing Claire's leads, Trevor unearths evidence of a shocking secret that-if it actually exists-every government and terrorist organization around the world would do anything to possess. Suddenly it's up to Trevor, along with a teenage genius who gives new meaning to the phrase "too smart for his own good," to make sure that secret doesn't fall into the wrong hands. But Trevor is about to discover that good and evil can look a lot alike, and nothing is ever black and white: not even the truth. (Publisher Summary)


The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato
The Ghost Network by Catie Disabato

Victims in Chicago are little more than statistics for the rest of the country. When famous, ostentatious pop star Molly Metropolis, or "Metro," goes missing, however, the world takes notice. Journalist Cyrus Archer finds links between Molly's disappearance and that of another young woman, Caitlin Taer, and subsequently vanishes himself. He sends all of his journals, interviews, and research to former student Catie Disabato who then continues Archer's. Disabato includes footnotes to detail her own opinions as she polishes and produces Archer's complete research. Betrayal, lust, violence, and conspiracy enshroud the disappearances, but will the question be answered: Where is Molly Metropolis? (Library Journal Reviews)

Book to Movie Alert!

Did you like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn?

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Try Dark Places, The next novel by Gillian Flynn to be brought to the big screen.

Libby Day's mother and two younger sisters were viciously slaughtered when she was seven, and her brother, Ben, against whom she testified, has been incarcerated ever since. Twenty-five years later, Libby is still suffering from the aftereffects of the notorious murders. Although it sometimes takes her days to work up the psychic energy to wash her hair, she is not quite the timorous victim the press makes her out to be. When she finds out that the trust fund set up in her name is about to run out of money (the do-gooders have long since moved on to fresh tragedies), she starts gouging money from members of the Kill Club, a group of true-crime fans obsessed with the Day murders. Greedily pricing family memorabilia, wondering how much the Kill Club creeps will pony up for an old birthday card, she learns that none of them believes her brother committed the crime. As she starts investigating, the narrative returns to the day of the murders, intercutting Libby s current-day hunt with the actual events of the day. Despite the fact that the ending is known from the get-go, Flynn injects these chapters with unbearable tension. And unlovable Libby, mean-spirited and greedy, shows her true colors and her deep courage. A gritty, riveting thriller with a one-of-a-kind, tart-tongued heroine. (Booklist Starred Review)


This Day in History: Ford Motor Company Takes its First Order for a Two-Cylindar Model A, July 15th 1903

I Invented the Modern Age by Richard Snow"On this day in 1903, the newly formed Ford Motor Company takes its first order from Chicago dentist Ernst Pfenning: an $850 two-cylinder Model A automobile with a tonneau (or backseat). The car, produced at Ford’s plant on Mack Street (now Mack Avenue) in Detroit, was delivered to Dr. Pfenning just over a week later." (http://www.history.com)

I Invented the Modern Age by Richard Snow

A lively account of Henry Ford's invention of the Model-T places his innovations against a backdrop of a steam-powered world and offers insight into his innate mechanical talents and pioneering work in internal combustion, describing his indelible impact on American culture and the perplexing subsequent changes in his personality. (Publisher Summary)


The Life of the Automobile: the Complete History of the Motor Car by Steven ParissienModel T (DVD) presented by The History Channel The Classic Car Book: the Essential Guide to Buying, Owning, Enjoying and Maintaining a Classic Car by Andrew NoakesAutomotive / Car Repair Databases

Hitting Bookshelves Today! Go Set a Watchman, the lost novel of Harper Lee

Go Set a Watchman, the lost novel of Harper Lee
The mockingbird sings again


It’s one of America’s most iconic pieces of literature, and now, 55 years after its publication, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee has a companion.

In February, seemingly out of nowhere, HarperCollins Publishers announced on behalf of Harper Lee, 89, that her second book, Go Set a Watchman, would be published on July 14.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird has never been out of print since it was published in 1960, and it is one of the most enduring, beloved American novels ever written. Told from the perspective of 6-year-old Scout Finch, the novel follows the rape trial of Tom Robinson, an innocent black man; his lawyer and Scout’s father, Atticus; and the trial’s effect on Scout and the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama. Go Set a Watchman unfolds 20 years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird and focuses on the adult Scout as she returns home to visit her father. Upon her return, she struggles with her feelings toward her hometown’s residents and its past, as well as her changing relationship with her father and his beliefs. (BookPage Reviews, July 2015)


(https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/beyond-to-kill-a-mockingbird-the-lost-novel-of-123555389873.html)

Most Anticipated Poetry Books of 2015

From the New World by Jorie GrahmLast Two Seconds by Mary BangStation Zed by Tom SleighOne Thousand Things Worth Knowing by Paul Muldoon

From the New World by Jorie Grahm

From the early poems set in Tennessee and Kentucky, to the expansive embrace of the poet's childhood Rome or the Normandy of the Second World War, to the explorations of myth, art, faith, technology, and ultimately the fate of the planet itself—whose imperiled beauty and intricate complexity few poets have so powerfully confronted and celebrated—the book brings us face to face with our "New World." Our unprecedented historical, social, and ecological crises, reshaping life as we have known it, both in our persons and on the globe, rise in all their terror and deep mystery from these pages. How are we to be responsible, the book asks; how attend to drastic disappearance and still love? Graham's deeply sensual description, intellectually bold lyric action, and her ever-evolving musical and formal inventiveness have for decades now brought us an urgent report from a dazzlingly charted world—now ecstatic, now sober, always electric. (Publisher Summary)

Last Two Seconds by Mary Bang

In poems that are tidy and efficient, with brief lines that are notable for their lack of extravagance, Hirshfield celebrates the status quo—“the steady effort of the world to stay the world”—and imbues the homely, plain or pedestrian with wonderful significance. The mundane, everyday items that fall in her way present fresh opportunities for poetic moments. In “A Common Cold,” she makes a common ailment seem cosmopolitan: “A common cold, we say— / common, though it has encircled the globe / seven times now handed traveler to traveler . . . common, though it is infinite and surely immortal . . . ” Now, at the age of 60, Hirshfield also reflects upon her own meandering timeline in a series of equally rewarding and astounding “My” poems. Poetry is embedded in the world, and—fortunately for the reader—her ability to recognize it seems inexhaustible. (BookPage Reviews)

Station Zed by Tom Sleigh

In his ninth book of poems, Sleigh's poetry is more chiseled and solid, yet it also possesses emotional depth and lyrical freedom. War and the classics continue to be important presences in his work, as he digs into centuries of inquiry about the human condition. Sleigh doesn't avoid vitriol or the hard questions but, instead, dives into the waters of contradiction to create, with patience and a deft, clean style, new approaches to old tales of wounds and recovery. The 29 poems gathered here in four sections are varied in theme and settings, from communism and the Cold War to overseas cafés and animals. The standout is "Homage to Basho," which includes first-person prose in introductions to smaller, introspective, lightning-rod lyrics such as "Villanelle on Going to Baghdad." As prose and poem flow together, all of it is good, all of it is more than interesting. Sleigh has created a worldly collection, richly thematic and strikingly precise in word and thought. (Booklist Reviews)


If this masterful, multifarious collection does have a theme, it is watchfulness. "War is to wealth as performance is to appraisal," he warns in "Recalculating." And "Source is to leak as Ireland is to debt." Heedful, hard-won, head-turning, heartfelt, these poems attempt to bring scrutiny to bear on everything, including scrutiny itself.One Thousand Things Worth Knowing confirms Nick Laird's assessment, in The New York Review of Books, that Muldoon is "the most formally ambitious and technically innovative of modern poets," an experimenter and craftsman who "writes poems like no one else." (Publisher Summary)