When documentary filmmaker Rob flies back to New York from a shoot in South Africa to salvage his relationship with his lover Caroline, he unexpectedly finds himself called back to his former boarding school following a heartbreaking tragedy. Despite having long ago buried the memories of the brutal year he spent at the elite Fenton School as a postgraduate rower, Carrey finds that those days now return to haunt him. The Fenton School Boat Club’s top rowing team, called the God Four, is legendary. But the price that they pay for a shot at glory will scar each member of Carrey’s team far into adulthood. Colin, the Massachusetts blue-blood; Jumbo, the good natured giant; John, the preppy lawyer-to-be; Ruth, the Yale-bound coxswain; and Rob , the scholarship athlete from — all of them are forever bound to one another by the terrible cost of victory. Over one tumultuous week, Rob Carrey will learn that he cannot leave the past in his wake. Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin delves into the dynamics of prep school, the power of teammates, the testing of one's physical limits, and the agony of loss.
A Novel Of Competitive Rowing
When documentary filmmaker Rob flies back to New York from a shoot in South Africa to salvage his relationship with his lover Caroline, he unexpectedly finds himself called back to his former boarding school following a heartbreaking tragedy. Despite having long ago buried the memories of the brutal year he spent at the elite Fenton School as a postgraduate rower, Carrey finds that those days now return to haunt him. The Fenton School Boat Club’s top rowing team, called the God Four, is legendary. But the price that they pay for a shot at glory will scar each member of Carrey’s team far into adulthood. Colin, the Massachusetts blue-blood; Jumbo, the good natured giant; John, the preppy lawyer-to-be; Ruth, the Yale-bound coxswain; and Rob , the scholarship athlete from — all of them are forever bound to one another by the terrible cost of victory. Over one tumultuous week, Rob Carrey will learn that he cannot leave the past in his wake. Flat Water Tuesday by Ron Irwin delves into the dynamics of prep school, the power of teammates, the testing of one's physical limits, and the agony of loss.
New Novel By Stephen King's Lesser Known Son
Many people have heard of Stephen King's son, Joe Hill, who is a respected author in his own right. Not so many people have heard of King's other son, Owen. Owen's new book, Double Feature, tells the story of Sam Dolan, a young man coming to terms with his life in the process and aftermath of making his first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth—a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Sam’s dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Sam’s eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Unraveling the tumultuous, decades-spanning story of the Dolan family’s friends, lovers, and adversaries, Double Feature is about letting go of everything—regret, resentment, dignity, moving pictures, the dead—and taking it again from the top. Check out this ambitious novel at your Community Library today!
Man Booker Prize Awarded
Dark Parental Humor
In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who’s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers’ communication skills (“they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news”), to the eating habits of four year olds (“there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor”). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby’s Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
Fairy Tale Romance
May Is Short Story Month
Celebrate with these great collections available at your Community Library!
Different Seasons by Stephen King: Four mesmerizing novellas, including the inspirations for the movies The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and Stand By Me.
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger: In this benchmark story collection, WWII hangs over these wry stories of loss and occasionally unsuppressed rage.
The House At Belle Fontaine by Lily Tuck: This new collection from a master, winner of the PEN Faulkner for Siam and the National Book Award for The News from Paraguay spans the globe, with poetic and absorbing stories set in Paris and provincial France, Bangkok, Lima, Long Island, and en route to Antarctica.
Suspenseful Historical Fiction
Confused and disoriented, Georgina awakens in a small room in Tregannon House, a private asylum in remote England. She has no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor, Maynard Straker, tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy the day before, then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle, who replies that Georgina is at home with him in London: “Your patient must be an imposter.” Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncle’s house? And what has become of her two most precious possessions, a dragonfly pin left to her by her mother and a writing case containing her journal, the only record of those missing weeks? Georgina’s quest to free herself takes us from a cliff side cottage to the secret passages of Tregannon House and into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival depends. The Asylum is a brilliant Gothic thriller from John Harwood.
Surprising Celebrity Novels
Modelland by Tyra Banks: Tookie De La Crème is snatched out of relative obscurity courtesy of a well-placed talisman and thrown into a sort of post-apocalyptic model factory, complete with a Thigh-High Boot Camp where De La Crème tries to run the Catwalk Corridor gauntlet to become an Intoxibella (a supermodel).
Playground by 50 Cent: Like most hip-hop superstars, 50 Cent has parlayed his success on the charts into a corporate empire. Unlike most superstars, he also wrote a YA novel about bullying. Playground was his first solo venture, about a pudgy young man named Butterball whose conflicted emotions about his mother’s lesbianism leads him to violence.
New Harry Hole Thriller
One freezing night in Oslo Christmas shoppers gather to listen to a Salvation Army street concert. An explosion cuts through the music, and a man in uniform falls to the ground, shot in the head at point-blank range. Harry Hole and his team have little to work with: no immediate suspect, no weapon and no motive. But when the assassin discovers he has shot the wrong man, Harry Hole's troubles have only just begun. After some exceptionally shrewd detective work, the team begins to close in on a suspected hit man, monitoring his credit card, false passport and the line to his employer. With no money, only six bullets and no place to stay in the bitter cold, the hit man becomes increasingly desperate. He will stop at nothing to eliminate his target. Moving at a breathless pace, The Redeemer is Jo Nesbo's most gripping thriller yet!
New Novel Of The Civil War
Continuing the series that began with A Blaze Of Glory, bestselling author, Jeff Shaara returns with A Chain Of Thunder. In May 1863, after months of hard and bitter combat, Union troops under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant at long last successfully cross the Mississippi River. They force the remnants of Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton’s army to retreat to Vicksburg, burning the bridges over the Big Black River in its path. But after sustaining heavy casualties in two failed assaults against the rebels, Union soldiers are losing confidence and morale is low. Grant reluctantly decides to lay siege to the city, trapping soldiers and civilians alike inside an iron ring of Federal entrenchments. Six weeks later, the starving and destitute Southerners finally surrender, yielding command of the Mississippi River to the Union forces on July 4—Independence Day—and marking a crucial turning point in the Civil War. Check out this exciting historical fiction novel at your Community Library today!
Powerful Debut Novel
It is summer in France, and Pea and her little sister Margot spend their days running free, inventing games in the meadow behind their house. But Pea has worries beyond her five and a half years. Her father has died in an accident, and her mother has just lost a baby. Maman is English, already isolated in this small, foreign village, and in her compounded grief, she has retreated even further. Pea and Margot stay out of her way and try to make things better, but they can’t make Maman happy again. When Pea befriends Claude, a man who seems to love the meadow as she does, she wonders if he could be a new papa. But why do the other villagers view Claude with suspicion, and what secrets does his large empty house hold? Beautifully written, haunting, and full of surprises, The Night Rainbow by Claire King is a novel about innocence and experience, grief and compassion, and the blessings and perils of imagination.
An Extraordinary Journey Of Healing And Hope
Dave Liniger had it all: four children, a lifetime filled with adventure, and a company he’d founded, RE/MAX, that became one of the most prominent real estate brands in the world. He served in the Vietnam War, parachuted out of planes, raced cars, and once even attempted to circumnavigate the world in a balloon. And then overnight his life almost came to an abrupt end. Doctors discovered he had a horrific staph infection along his spine that left him paralyzed from the neck down and in excruciating pain. My Next Step chronicles how Dave found reserves of strength to fight through his pain. His guiding light was the mantra, “Just 10 steps.” If he could take 10 steps, he could take 20. If he could take 20, he could walk a mile. After three critical surgeries and six grueling months in the hospital, Dave finally returned home. He continues to heal, but is back running the company he loves and getting stronger every day. My Next Step will inspire those facing tragedy to find the courage to accept their situation and do what’s necessary to take the next step toward a meaningful life.
New Memoir From Deepak Chopra
In Brotherhood, Deepak and Sanjiv Chopra reveal the story of their personal struggles and triumphs as doctors, immigrants, and brothers. They were born in liberated India after 1947, as an age-old culture reinvented its future. For the young, this meant looking to the West. The Chopra brothers were among the most eager and ambitious of the new generation. In the 1970s, they each emigrated to America to make a new life. Both faced tough obstacles: While Deepak encountered resistance from Western-trained doctors over what he called the mind-body connection, Sanjiv struggled to reconcile the beliefs of his birthplace with those of his new home. Eventually, each brother became convinced that America was the right place to build a life, and the Chopras went on to great achievements--Deepak as a global spiritual teacher and best-selling author, Sanjiv as a world-renowned medical expert and professor at Harvard Medical School. Brotherhood will fascinate and inspire those who still believe in America's capacity to foster achievement and reward hard work.
Buried Family Secrets
Back home in Argentina to attend to his ill father, a young writer discovers the file his father kept on a recent disappearance and probable murder in his hometown. As he goes through the file, the son discovers not only the sordid details of the crime, but also its victim’s connections to Argentina’s Dirty War. When the writer—a stand-in for the author—realizes that his journalist father was actively involved in the politics of that era, he recalls his childhood, filled with lots of hiding and precautions. The more the son learns, the more he remembers. In My Father's Ghost Is Climbing In The Rain, Patricio Pron has stitched the experiences of the activists, their survivors, and those who came later into a narrative that ties the individual to collective memory and a family’s history to a nation’s.
Read Alert: Jodi Arias Book
Beaufort Books has acquired a book about Jodi Arias, who was convicted of the murder of her boyfriend, Wednesday, in an Arizona court. Arias's trial--she was charged with killing Travis Alexander in 2008-- began five months ago and the Beaufort's book, Killer Girlfriend, by AP reporters Brian Skoloff and Josh Hoffner, will be, the publisher promised "the first definitive and comprehensive account to be published on the entire case." Skoloff and Hoffner, covered the trial for the AP and their book was originally released earlier this month by Waterfront Digital Press (which was founded by literary agent William Gladstone). The Beaufort paperback edition, which is set for June 10, will feature a new final chapter that addresses the verdict. Look for it at your Community Library this summer!James Beard Award Goes To....
The 2013 James Beard Award for Best Cookbook has been awarded to Maricel Presilla's Gran Cocina Latina: The Food Of Latin America. The book, which contains over 500 recipes photographed in full color, gives home cooks, armchair travelers, and curious chefs a definitive resource for food from Mexico to Argentina and all of the Spanish speaking countries in the Caribbean. This one of a kind cookbook, which is meant to be savored and read, it available now at your Community Library!
Final Book In The Liberation Trilogy
In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted how the American-led coalition fought through North Africa and Italy to victory in World War II. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle for Western Europe in The Guns At Last Light. D-Day marked the commencement of the final campaign of the European war, and this riveting account sets the pace for the narrative that follows. From the brutal fight in Normandy to the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all these historic events and more come alive with a wealth of new material and a mesmerizing cast of characters. With this final volume of his monumental trilogy, Atkinson has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that unshackled a continent and preserved freedom in the West.New Werewolf Fantasy
They live among us. They are our neighbors, our mothers, our lovers. They change. When government agents kick down Claire Forrester’s front door and murder her parents, Claire realizes just how different she is. Patrick Gamble was nothing special until the day he got on a plane and hours later stepped off it, the only passenger left alive, a hero. Chase Williams has sworn to protect the people of the United States from the menace in their midst, but he is becoming the very thing he has promised to destroy. So far, the threat has been controlled by laws and violence and drugs. But the night of the red moon is coming, when an unrecognizable world will emerge…and the battle for humanity will begin. Benjamin Percy's Red Moon is a terrifically detailed new werewolf fantasy!
The Truth About the Hatfields and McCoys
For more than a century, the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys has been a legendarily fierce-and far-reaching-clash in the heart of Appalachia. Drawing upon original research, including the discovery of lost and ignored documents and interviews with relatives of both families, bestselling author Dean King finally gives us the full tale, one vastly more enthralling than the myth. Filled with bitter quarrels, reckless affairs, treacherous betrayals, relentless mercenaries, and courageous detectives, The Feud is the riveting story of two frontier families struggling for survival within the narrow confines of an unforgiving land. It is a formative American tale, and in it, we see the reflection of our own family bonds and the lengths to which we might go in order to defend our honor, our loyalties, and our livelihood.
Creepy Novel About Good and Evil
Vic has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it’s across Massachusetts or across the country. Vic doesn’t tell anyone about her unusual ability because she knows that no one would believe her. She has trouble understanding it herself. And she knows it isn’t free. Each time she makes a trip across that bridge, a piece of herself is lost. But Vic isn’t the only one with a special gift. Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing playground of amusements he calls Christmasland. Mile by mile, their journey across the highway of Charlie’s twisted imagination transforms his precious passengers, leaving them as terrifying and unstoppable as their benefactor. Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble-and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now, the only kid to ever escape his unmitigated evil is all grown up and desperate to forget. But the end of one nightmare is just the beginning of another . . . because Manx hasn’t stopped thinking about the exceptional Vic. He’s on the road again and he’s picked up a new passenger: Vic’s own son. In a life-and-death battle of wills-her magic pitted against his-Vic McQueen is going to get her son back and destroy Manx once and for all. Or she’ll die trying. With NOS4A2, Joe Hill, Stephen King's son, has captured the "King of Horror" title from his father once and for all!A Rich Tapestry of Nigerian and American Life
Chimamanda Adichie, author of 2006's Half of a Yellow Sun, which took readers inside Nigeria's civil war, gives a voice to characters that many Westerners haven't heard in Americanah. The story follows childhood sweethearts Ifemulu and Obinze from their early years in Nigeria to their search for better lives in the U.S. and England. Ifemulu notices that students at her American college expect her to talk about ''the black experience,'' even though that would mean speaking on behalf of Jamaicans and African-Americans who have nothing in common with her. She argues with her Senegalese hairdresser about whether ''natural'' hair shows pride or laziness. She wonders if black women love Obama just because he married a dark-skinned woman. And she rants about these experiences on her blog, laying waste to political correctness, getting her friends to weigh in. Their opinions might surprise you. Your own might too — if this book doesn't make you rethink them!
Haunting Novel of Hope and Humanity
Stegner Fellow and Whiting Award winner Anthony Marra transports us to a snow-covered village in Chechnya, where eight-year-old Havaa watches as Russian soldiers abduct her father, accusing him of aiding Chechen rebels. Across the road their lifelong neighbor and friend Akhmed has also been watching, fearing the worst when the soldiers set fire to Havaa’s house. But when he finds her hiding in the forest with a strange suitcase, he makes a decision that will change their lives. He will seek refuge at the abandoned hospital where the sole doctor, Sonja treats the wounded. For Sonja, the arrival of Akhmed and Havaa is an unwelcome surprise. And she has a deeply personal reason for caution: harboring these refugees could easily jeopardize the return of her missing sister. But over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja’s world will shift. A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth, profound compassion, and lasting significance.
Meet Riffle
Wendy Williams Speaks
As host of popular radio and television programs, Wendy Williams is well versed and dispensing hard-hitting, practical advice to those in need of ridding their lives of pesky drama. In her new book, Ask Wendy, Williams continues her campaign of straight talk. No question is off-limits and no situation is too outrageous for her to take on. Filled with fun personality quizzes, Wendy's laugh-out-loud anecdotes, and tons of spot-on advice, Ask Wendy will help readers to end the drama in their lives.
Chilling New Thriller
From New York Times bestselling author, Steven Coonts comes an exciting new thriller, Pirate Alley. A luxurious cruise to the exotic locales of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden turns into a nightmare for passengers and crew when their ship is suddenly attacked and captured by a band of Somali pirates. An initial rescue mission ends in failure. Unless they are paid a ransom of $200 million dollars within seven days, the pirates threaten to execute all their hostages. But information gleaned from a captured operative indicates that there is a more dangerous conspiracy afoot. Once the ransom is paid, militants intend to swoop in and slaughter the passengers in an orgy of terror, hoping to provoke a massive American military response that will set the world aflame. Jake Grafton is assigned to negotiate with the brutal pirate chief while his right hand man, Tommy Carmellini, and a team of CIA and Navy SEAL operatives mount an undercover operation to save the hostages and keep the U.S. from being maneuvered into a murderous war. Check out this exciting new thriller available at your Community Library today!
Live By Night Wins Edgar Award
Book Trailer: A Delicate Truth
Nearly five decades ago, John le Carré became an international sensation. He returns now with A Delicate Truth. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. Summoned by Sir Christopher (“Kit”) Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit’s beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
Big Titles This Month
Inferno by Dan Brown: Inferno is Dan Brown's next Robert Langdon thriller, following The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol.
Dead After After by Charlaine Harris: The thirteenth and last installment in Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series is set for release this month. Dead Ever After will close the series that started with Dead Until Dark and inspired the hit HBO series True Blood.
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