Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been a colossal accident? Alma thinks she knows the answer-and that its roots lie in a dangerous love affair. Her dogged pursuit of justice makes her an outcast and causes a long-standing rift with her own son. By telling her story to her grandson, she finally gains some solace-and peace for her sister. He is advised to "Tell it. Go on and tell it"-tell the story of his family's struggles, suspicions, secrets, and triumphs. The Maid's Tale, by Daniel Woodrell, is the novelists's first book since the ultra popular Winter's Bone and is packed full of his signature storytelling.
New Novel From An American Master
Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been a colossal accident? Alma thinks she knows the answer-and that its roots lie in a dangerous love affair. Her dogged pursuit of justice makes her an outcast and causes a long-standing rift with her own son. By telling her story to her grandson, she finally gains some solace-and peace for her sister. He is advised to "Tell it. Go on and tell it"-tell the story of his family's struggles, suspicions, secrets, and triumphs. The Maid's Tale, by Daniel Woodrell, is the novelists's first book since the ultra popular Winter's Bone and is packed full of his signature storytelling.
Emotional debut
Seattle Orphan Explores His Past
Twelve-year-old William, a Chinese-American boy, has lived at Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage ever since his mother’s body was carried away from their small apartment five years ago. On his birthday—or rather, the day the nuns designate as his birthday—William and the other orphans are taken to the historical Moore Theatre, where William glimpses an actress on the silver screen who goes by the name of Willow Frost. Struck by her features, William is convinced that the movie star is his mother, Liu. Determined to find Willow, and prove his mother is still alive, William escapes from Sacred Heart with his friend Charlotte. The pair navigates the streets of Seattle, where they must not only survive, but confront the mysteries of William’s past and his connection to the exotic film star. The story of Willow Frost, however, is far more complicated than the Hollywood fantasy William sees onscreen. Shifting between the Great Depression and the 1920s, Songs of Willow Frost takes readers on an emotional journey of discovery. Jamie Ford’s sweeping book will resonate with anyone who has ever longed for the comforts of family and a place to call home.
Fantastic New Author
The Residue Years switches between the perspectives of a young man, Champ, and his mother, Grace. Grace is just out of a drug treatment program, trying to stay clean and get her kids back. Champ is trying to do right by his mom and younger brothers, and dreams of reclaiming the only home he and his family have ever shared. But selling crack is the only sure way he knows to achieve his dream. In this world of few options and little opportunity, where love is your strength and your weakness, this family fights for family and against what tears one apart. Honest in its portrayal, with cadences that dazzle, The Residue Years signals the arrival of a writer set to awe.
New Book Thief Trailer
20th Century Fox has released the first trailer for World War II drama The Book Thief, based on a novel of the same name by Markus Zusak. Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson star as a married couple living in Nazi Germany who foster a young girl named Liesel (Sophie Nélisse) while also hiding a Jewish refuge in their basement. Even though she can't read, Liesel steals her first book before arriving at her new home and bonds with her new father over learning to read, then proceeds to share her love of literature with others in her community. Adapted by screenwriter Michael Petroni and directed by Brian Percival, the drama lands in theaters on Nov. 15. Snag a copy of the book at your Community Library!
New Culinary Cozy
Goldy Schulz knows her food is to die for, but she never expects one of her best friends to actually keel over when she's leaving a birthday party Goldy has catered. At first, everyone assumes that all the fun and excitement of the party, not to mention the rich fare, did her in. But what looks like a coronary turns out to be a generous serving of cold-blooded murder. And the clever culprit is just getting cooking. When a colleague—a woman who resembles Goldy—is stabbed, and Goldy is attacked outside her house, it becomes clear that the popular caterer is the main course on a killer menu. With time running out, Goldy must roll up her sleeves, sharpen her knives, and make a meal out of a devious murderer, before that killer can serve her up cold. The Whole Enchilada, the latest entry in Diane Mott Davidson's best selling series, will puzzle and delight fans both old and new.
Portrait of Rural American Life
Writing a sequel is always a risky proposition, especially when your first book was a national bestseller and an Oprah Book Club selection but Robert Morgan pulls it off effortlessly with The Road From Gap Creek. After beginning their married life in Gap Creek, the Richards family has returned home to the beauty and abject poverty of North Carolina. Morgan takes us through the family's life as they experience the Great Depression, WWII, and an endless stream of adversity. An honest and and captivating novel, readers will find themselves sad to say goodbye to the Richards clan at novel's end.The Lost Are Found
What if people who are long dead started reappearing all over the world just as they were when they left? That is the premise of award winning poet Jason Mott's debut novel, The Returned. We enter the small time lives of Harold and Lucille as they find out their 8 year old son who died in 1966 has come back from the afterlife. Although Lucille is religious and accepts their son while Harold is skeptical and keeps a distance, they present a united front against Agent Bellamy of the International Bureau of the Returned. Tensions flare as a militia known as the True Living Movement attempts to take the law into their own hands by sending the Returned back into the graves they came from. As the drama plays out, the sense that things aren't going to end well only increases. Explore a Twilight Zone like parallel universe in this remarkable imaginative new novel.
Story of Faith, Hope, and Love
Set in Holland during WWII, Snow on the Tulips, by Thomas Nelson, finds Cornelia and her 20 year oldbrother, Johan caught up in the action as Dutch resistance fighters battle against Nazi occupation. While Cornelia has sworn to keep Johan from being rounded up to right for Hitler, protecting him becomes more difficult as she takes Gerrit, a half dead Resistance fighter, into their home. Not only is Gerrit a threat to their neutrality, he's a threat to her heart, long shuttered since her husband's death on their wedding night. Full of heartfelt characters, this debut novel will stay with you a long time.
The Continued Adventures of Morrie Morgan
In the winter of 1920, a quirky bequest draws Morrie Morgan back to Butte, Montana, from a year-long honeymoon with his bride, Grace. But the mansion bestowed by a former boss upon the itinerant charmer, who debuted in Ivan Doig’s bestselling The Whistling Season, promises to be less windfall than money pit. And the town itself, with its polyglot army of miners struggling to extricate themselves from the stranglehold of the ruthless Anaconda Copper Mining Company, seems—like the couple’s fast-diminishing finances—on the verge of implosion. These twin dilemmas catapult Morrie into his new career as editorialist for the Thunder, the fledgling union newspaper that dares to play David to Anaconda’s Goliath. Amid the clatter of typewriters, the rumble of the printing presses, and a cast of unforgettable characters, Morrie puts his gift for word-slinging to work. As he pursues victory for the miners, he discovers that he is enmeshed in a deeply personal battle as well—the struggle to win lasting love for himself. Brilliantly capturing an America roaring into a new age, Sweet Thunder is another great tale from a classic American novelist.
For Lovers of Lev Grossman's The Magicians
Cheesemaker's Tall Tale
Haunting Mystery
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years. For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself. Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more. Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page.
Lawrence of Arabia's 125th Anniversary
The Arab Revolt against the Turks in WWI was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater. As a result, the conflict was shaped by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers. Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule. Aaron Aaronsohn was an agronomist and Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions. At the center of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of WWI battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert. Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East. Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost. Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil. And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions. Based on years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson, definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.
Perfect For Vacation Reading
The Husband's Secret, by Liane Moriarty, is a funny, heartbreaking novel of marriage, grief, love and secrets. When her husband announces he's in love with her best friend, painfully shy Tess picks up her young son and returns to her mother's house. There she begins an unexpected affair with an old flame. Rachel is a woman in her sixties consumed by grief and anger at the loss of her daughter twenty years earlier. When her son announces he is taking her beloved grandson overseas, Rachel begins a descent into deeper bitterness and pain. Cecilia is the quintessential "I don't know how she does it" woman. A devoted mother to three daughters, she runs her household like clockwork, is President of the P&C, owns an extremely successful Tupperware business and is happy in her fifteen-year marriage. Until she discovers a letter in their attic labelled: "To my wife Cecilia, to be opened in the event of my death"... Her husband's secret is a bombshell beyond all imagining with repercussions across the lives of all three women.
Wild Romp Through the South
Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolina’s high society, where old Southern money—and older Southern secrets—meet the new wealth of bankers, boom-era speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers. Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her family’s legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War re-enactor. Jerene’s brother Gaston is an infamously dissolute bestselling historical novelist who has never managed to begin his long-dreamed-of literary masterpiece, while their sister Dillard is a prisoner of unfortunate life decisions that have made her a near-recluse. In Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt has written a headlong, hilarious narrative of a family coming apart, a society changing beyond recognition, and an unforgettable woman striving to pull it all together.
Final Alan Gregory Novel
At the start of bestseller Stephen White’s engrossing 20th and final novel featuring Boulder, Colo., psychologist Alan Gregory, Compound Fractures, Gregory gives evasive answers to his new, inexperienced therapist, Delilah Travis, when she asks him about witnessing Diane, his professional partner and best friend, shooting his wife Lauren, an attorney. Meanwhile, Boulder cop Sam Purdy, another friend of Gregory’s, may be leaving him at the mercy of a vindictive Boulder County DA, who is Lauren’s boss and who considers Gregory a suspect in three murders. The shocking finale confirms White’s central metaphor, drawn from the local story of tightrope walker Ivy Baldwin, who frequently crossed a half-mile canyon on a wire without a net and sometimes at night: life for the tormented psychologist is a fearful balancing act, where the only absolute is his desire to protect his children. He may survive, but at what cost to his soul?
Horror Fiction for Hot Days
Horror is usually associated with autumn but there are plenty of good books including Dan Simmons' Summer of Night to keep you awake during sweltering nights. It’s the summer of 1960 and in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys are forging the powerful bonds that a lifetime of change will not break. From sunset bike rides to shaded hiding places in the woods, the boys’ days are marked by all of the secrets and silences of an idyllic middle-childhood. But amid the sun-drenched cornfields their loyalty will be pitilessly tested. When a long-silent bell peals in the middle of the night, the townsfolk know it marks the end of their carefree days. From the depths of the Old Central School, a hulking fortress tinged with the mahogany scent of coffins, an invisible evil is rising. Strange and horrifying events begin to overtake everyday life, spreading terror through the once idyllic town. Determined to exorcize this ancient plague, Mike, Duane, Dale, Harlen, and Kevin must wage a war of blood—against an arcane abomination who owns the night.
Chilling New Paranormal Romance
Dr. Charlie Stone has dedicated her career as a psychiatrist to exploring the darkest territory of all: the hearts and minds of serial killers. It’s a job she’s uniquely suited for, thanks to the secret talent that gives her an uncanny edge—Charlie can see dead people, whose tormented spirits cry out to her for the justice only she can provide. This blessing—or curse—gives Charlie the power to hunt down and catch madmen and murderers. It’s also turned her love life upside down by drawing her into a hopelessly passionate relationship with the lingering ghost of charismatic bad boy Michael Garland. But there’s little time for romance with her supernatural suitor when murder comes pounding at Charlie’s door in the form of a terrified young woman fleeing a homicidal maniac. Saving her life places Charlie squarely in the cross-hairs of a sadistic predator nicknamed “the Gingerbread Man,” notorious for manipulating his victims like pawns in a deadly chess game. And now the queen this psychopath’s bent on capturing is Charlie. Refusal to play will only put more innocent lives in danger. Matching wits with this cunningly twisted opponent will require all of Charlie’s training and expert skills. But even with her devilish “guardian angel”—not to mention her favorite flesh-and-blood Fed, Tony Bartoli—watching her beautiful back, the Gingerbread Man’s horrifying grin might be the last thing Charlie ever sees. From Karen Robards, one of the most popular voices in women's fiction comes The Last Kiss Goodbye.
Books About Everyday Things
Bicycle: The History by David Herlihy: This lavishly illustrated book tells the extraordinary story of the bicycle, an invention that sparked a social revolution.
The Toothpick: Technology and Culture by Henry Petroski: This fascinating and quirky book traces the toothpick from ancient Rome to present day examining its various forms, designs, and applications throughout history.
Coal: A Human History by Barbara Freese: Traces the history of coal from its formation almost 3 million years ago through its role in industry and disease including its part in establishing China at a twelfth century super power and in the American Civil War.
Beauchamp Family #3
Freya Beauchamp is trapped in 1692, in Salem of all places, with no recollection of her past. A powerful enemy spell has sent her spiraling away so that she is separated by centuries from her mother, Joanna, and sister, Ingrid. This is not good news for a twenty-first-century witch. Not to mention the immediate threat she faces from the wealthy and influential Putnam family. When little Annie Putnam is one of the first to make accusations of witchcraft, her landowner father jumps at the opportunity to consolidate his power and expand his holdings in Puritan Salem Town. If Freya is caught using magic, she will be forced to relive the witch trials, and this time, even her immortality is in question. Meanwhile, twenty-first-century North Hampton has its own snares. Joanna and Norm consult the Oracle for advice, and Freddie and his pixie allies search for a missing totem that could reopen the passages of time and help bring his sister home. When Ingrid bumps into an old flame, she finds that her new love for Detective Matt Noble is in doubt. Moving between past and present, Melissa De la Cruz's Winds of Salem's dizzying plot twists and page-turning suspense is sure to bewitch fans old and new.
The Johnson & Johnson Dynasty
Jerry Oppenheimer’s eleventh biography, Crazy Rich, chronicles five generations of the Johnson dynasty, from the three brothers who founded the world’s largest health-care business in 1888 through the subsequent members of the Lucky Sperm Club, heirs and heiresses who benefited financially from the family name while having little or nothing to do with running the company. Known as “The General,” founding brother Robert Wood Johnson Jr. ruled the roost with an iron fist until his death in 1968, and his great-grandson and namesake Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV is the billionaire owner of the New York Jets. Woody’s daughter, “Casey” Johnson, was a tabloid “celebutante” and friend of Paris Hilton who came to a tragic end in 2009 at the age of 31, and his once-troubled uncle is the famed sculptor, J. Seward Johnson Jr. Oppenheimer follows the clan of dysfunctional Band-Aid and baby-powder millionaires through the adulterous affairs, ugly divorces, drug and alcohol addictions, tragic accidents, suicide attempts, paternity disputes, will contests, and other turmoil as the family reaps the rewards of inheritance through privilege, opulence, and excess, for better and for worse.
Dreamy, Strange, and Magical Stories
In Aimee Bender's new collection of short stories, The Color Master, her unique talents sparkle in tales about people searching for connection through love and family—while navigating the often painful realities of their lives. A traumatic event unfolds when a girl with flowing hair of golden wheat appears in an apple orchard, where a group of people await her. A woman plays out a prostitution fantasy with her husband and finds she cannot go back to her old sex life. An ugly woman marries an ogre and struggles to decide if she should stay with him after he mistakenly eats their children. Two sisters travel deep into Malaysia, where one learns the art of mending tigers who have been ripped to shreds. In these deeply resonant stories—evocative, funny, beautiful, and sad—we see ourselves reflected as if in a funhouse mirror. Aimee Bender has once again proven herself to be among the most imaginative, exciting, and intelligent writers of our time.
Debut Anthropological Adventure
In 1950, a young doctor called Norton Perina signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences. Hanya Yanagihara's debut novel, The People In The Trees, is meaty and exhilarationg, scandalous, and supremely satisfying!
Racy New Memoir
Shirley Jones is an American film legend of the first order, having starred in "Oklahoma!," "Carousel," "The Music Man," and her Oscar-winning role as a prostitute in "Elmer Gantry," all long before the iconic "The Partridge Family." On the show, she portrayed the epitome of American motherhood, a symbol to thousands of families in the 1970s, and she remains a cult icon today. In her self titled new memoir, we meet the real Shirley Jones: a small-town girl from Pennsylvania with a rebellious nature, radiant smile, and rare talent that grabbed the attention of Broadway legends Rodgers and Hammerstein—on her very first audition. Shirley’s meteoric rise put her in the company of major movie stars like Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, and Burt Lancaster. But it was the dashing, charismatic, and deeply troubled actor Jack Cassidy who stole Shirley’s. For the first time, she reveals the stunning details of their rocky marriage and adventurous life. She talks openly about her relationship with stepson David Cassidy, her cult status with The Partridge Family, and her second marriage to wacky TV comedian and producer Marty Ingels. Hilarious, heartwarming, and honest, Shirley Jones, makes for a memorable beach read!
Sweeping West Texas Tale
Roaming across the salt flats and skirting the salt lake, Richard, a geologist working for an oil company, hunts for fossils under the spell of Clarissa, the local beauty who plans to use her share of their plunder to get out of small, dusty Midland for good. A generation earlier, a Depression-era couple, Max and Marie, mines for salt along the banks of the briny lake until their marriage is suddenly and irrevocably altered. The strange, surreal arrival of a runaway circus elephant, careening across the sand, sets in motion Marie’s final break from Max and heralds the beginning of her second chance. Consequences reverberate through the years when Marie becomes linked to Richard’s own second act. With a cast of characters rounded out by a one-legged-treasure-hunter, a renegade teacher, and an elephant trainer, Rick Bass' All the Land to Hold Us is a vivid portrait of human longing and greed, nature endangered, and the possibility for redemption.
A Perfect Mix of Secrecy, Mystery, Murder, & Revenge
Eight months after dropping out of Tarble, an all-women's college, twenty-two-year-old Ruby is still haunted by the memories of her senior year-marred by an affair with her professor and a deep depression that not only caused her to question her own sanity but prompted a failed suicide attempt. And then a mysterious suitcase arrives, bearing Ruby's name and address on the tag. When Ruby tries to return the luggage to its rightful owner, Beth, her dorm mate at Tarble, she learns that Beth disappeared two days earlier, and the suitcase is the only tangible evidence as to her whereabouts. Consumed by the mystery of the missing girl and the contents of the luggage-a tattered copy of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, the book on which Ruby based her senior thesis, and which she believes instigated her madness-she sets out to uncover the truth, not only about Beth Richards's past but also her own. Amy Hansen's The Butterfly Sister is a Gothic tale that interweaves madness, betrayal, love, and literature.
Slow and Intricate Thriller
Samuel always wondered what Sandrine saw in him. He was a meek, stuffy doctorate student, and she a brilliant, beautiful, bohemian with limitless talents and imagination. On the surface their relationship and marriage seemed perfect: jobs at the same college, a precocious young daughter, a home filled with art and literature, and trips to some of the world's most beautiful cities. And then one night Sandrine is found dead in their bed and Samuel is accused of her murder. As the truth about their relationship comes to light, Samuel must face a town convinced of his guilt, a daughter whose faith in her father has been shaken, and revelations about his wife that make him fall in love with her for a second time. A searing novel about love lost and rediscovered, from one of our greatest chroniclers of the human heart, Sandrine's Case is Thomas Cook's most compelling novels yet.
Big Titles This Month
Find some hot reads for the end of summer with these big August new releases.
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride is a novel about a boy named Henry who was born a slave in Kansas in 1857. When abolitionist John Brown comes to town and gets in a violent fight with Henry's master, Henry flees with him. Brown, however, believes Henry is a girl since he has disguised himself.After Her by Joyce Maynard is the story of two sisters whose father is a well known detective who loves women. When he fails to find out who is committing a string of murders, his daughter tries to lure the killer to herself in order to help her father.
The Glass Ocean by Lori Baker is a debut novel that takes place in Victorian England. This is a story of love and art, narrated by a woman about her parents.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)