Author: Quinn, Spencer, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F QUINN
Format: Books
Summary: "Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe) and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing. At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne's expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne's personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil's Purse, a deep mountain gorge. When our duo discovers that someone very close to Dame Ariadne was murdered in that same spot decades earlier, they start looking into that long ago unsolved crime. But as they reach into the past, the past is also reaching out for them. Can they unlock the secrets of Dame Ariadne's life before they too end up at the bottom of the gorge? Is Rudy somehow the key? Up on the Woof Top is a brand-new holiday adventure in Spencer Quinn's delightful New York Times and USA Today bestselling series that the Los Angeles Times called "nothing short of masterful.""--
Author: Cole, Teju, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F COLE
Format: Books
Summary: "A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speak out from a pulsing metropolis. Tunde, the man at the center of this novel, reflects on the places and times of his life, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films. Together these stories make up his days. In aggregate these days comprise a life"--
Author: Carlisle, Kate, 1951- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F CARLISLE
Format: Books
Summary: "San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright and her hunky security-expert husband, Derek Stone, face a locked-room murder mystery during the holidays in Scotland. In the middle of a wonderful Christmas holiday in Dharma, Brooklyn and Derek receive a frantic phone call from their dear friend Claire in Loch Ness, Scotland. The laird of the castle, Cameron MacKinnon, has just proposed to her! They plan to be married on New Year's Day, and they want Derek and Brooklyn to be their witnesses. And while they're visiting, Claire hopes that Brooklyn will be able to solve a little mystery that's occurred in the castle library--twelve very rare, very important books have gone missing. Once in Scotland, Brooklyn starts working on the mystery of the missing books but is soon distracted by all of the thumping and bumping noises she's been hearing in the middle of the night. You'd think the Ghost of Christmas Past had taken up residence. But when one of the guests is poisoned and another is killed by an arrow through the heart, Brooklyn and Derek know this is not the work of any ghost. Now they must race to find a killer and a book thief before another murder occurs and their friends' bright and happy future turns dark and deadly"--
Author: Fodor's Travel Guides (Firm)
Published: 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019
Call Number: 917.4811 2ND ED.
Format: Continuing Resources
Summary: "Ready to go away? The experts at Fodor's are here to help. We're bringing you the very best of Philadelphia, including historic landmarks, great restaurants, and more. Our local experts vet every recommendation to ensure that you have all the essential information to plan a perfect trip and make the most of your time." --Back cover of 2020 edition
Author: Reid, Stuart A., author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 967.5103
Format: Books
Summary: "A spellbinding work of history that reads like a Cold War spy thriller-about the US-sanctioned plot to assassinate the democratically elected leader of the newly independent Congo"-- "It was supposed to be a moment of great optimism, a cause for jubilation. The Congo was at last being set free from Belgium--one of seventeen countries to gain independence in 1960 from ruling European powers. At the helm as prime minister was charismatic nationalist Patrice Lumumba. Just days after the handover, however, the Congo's new army mutinied, Belgian forces intervened, and Lumumba turned to the United Nations for help in saving his newborn nation from what the press was already calling "the Congo crisis." Dag Hammarskjöld, the tidy Swede serving as UN secretary-general, quickly arranged the organization's biggest peacekeeping mission in history. But chaos was still spreading. Frustrated with the fecklessness of the UN and spurned by the United States, Lumumba then approached the Soviets for help--an appeal that set off alarm bells at the CIA. To forestall the spread of Communism in Africa, the CIA sent word to its station chief in the Congo, Larry Devlin: Lumumba had to go..." --Amazon.com
Author: Gabriel, Mary, 1955- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B MADONNA
Format: Books
Summary: "With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion--as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles--taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. Within two years of her 1983 debut album, a flagship Macy's store in Manhattan held a Madonna lookalike contest featuring Andy Warhol as a judge, and opened a department called "Madonna-land." But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanor of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever--and be whoever--they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And, as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films, and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time" --
Author: Coppins, McKay, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B ROMNEY
Format: Books
Summary: A remarkably illuminating biography of one of America's most fascinating political figures--including news-making revelations from Mitt Romney himself about dissension within today's Republican Party--written with his full cooperation by an award-winning writer at The Atlantic. Few figures in American politics have seen more and said less than Mitt Romney. An outspoken dissident in Donald Trump's GOP, he has made headlines in recent years for standing alone against the forces he believes are poisoning the party he once led. Romney was the first senator in history to vote to remove from office a president of his own party. When that president's supporters went on to storm the US Capitol, Romney delivered a thundering speech from the Senate floor accusing his fellow Republicans of stoking insurrection. Despite these moments of public courage, Romney has shared very little about what he's witnessed behind the scenes over his three decades in politics--in GOP cloakrooms and caucus lunches, in his private meetings with Donald Trump and his family, in his dealings with John McCain, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema. Now, exclusively for this biography, Romney has provided a window to his most private thoughts. Based on dozens of interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle as well as hundreds of pages of his personal journals and private emails, this in-depth portrait by award-winning journalist McKay Coppins shows a public servant authentically wrestling with the choices he has made over his career. In lively, revelatory detail, the book traces Romney's early life and rise through the ranks of a fast-transforming Republican Party and exposes how a trail of seemingly small compromises by political leaders has led to a crisis in democracy. Ultimately, Romney: A Reckoning is a redemptive story about a flawed politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life.
Author: Mundy, Liza, 1960- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 327.1273
Format: Books
Summary: "Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Central Intelligence Agency relied on women even as it attempted to channel their talents and keep them down. Women sent cables, made dead drops, and maintained the agency's secrets. Despite discrimination--even because of it--women who started as clerks, secretaries, or unpaid spouses rose to become some of the CIA's shrewdest operatives.
They were unlikely spies--and that's exactly what made them perfect for the role. Because women were seen as unimportant, pioneering female intelligence officers moved unnoticed around Bonn, Geneva, and Moscow, stealing secrets from under the noses of their KGB adversaries. Back at headquarters, women built the CIA's critical archives--first by hand, then by computer. And they noticed things that the men at the top didn't see. As the CIA faced an identity crisis after the Cold War, it was a close-knit network of female analysts who spotted the rising threat of al-Qaeda--though their warnings were repeatedly brushed aside." --Amazon.com
Author: Moore, Thurston, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B MOORE
Format: Books
Summary: "A memoir tracing the author's life and art, from his teen years, to the formation of his legendary rock group, to his years as a member of Sonic Youth"-- Thurston Moore moved to Manhattan's East Village in 1978 with a yearning for music. He wanted to be immersed in downtown New York's sights and sounds--the feral energy of its nightclubs, the angular roar of its bands, the magnetic personalities within its orbit. But more than anything, he wanted to make music--to create indelible sounds that would move, provoke, and inspire. His dream came to life in 1981 with the formation of Sonic Youth, a band Moore co-founded with Kim Gordon and Lee Ranaldo. Sonic Youth became a fixture in New York's burgeoning No Wave scene--an avant-garde collision of art and sound, poetry and punk. The band would evolve from critical darlings to commercial heavyweights, headlining festivals around the globe while helping introduce listeners to such artists as Nirvana, Hole, and Pavement, and playing alongside such icons as Neil Young and Iggy Pop. Through it all, Moore maintained an unwavering love of music: the new, the unheralded, the challenging, the irresistible. In the spirit of Just Kids, Sonic Life offers a window into the trajectory of a celebrated artist and a tribute to an era of explosive creativity. It presents a firsthand account of New York in a defining cultural moment, a history of alternative rock as it was birthed and came to dominate airwaves, and a love letter to music, whatever the form. This is a story for anyone who has ever felt touched by sound--who knows the way the right song at the right moment can change the course of a life.
Author: Guttmann, Ben, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 658.45
Format: Books
Summary: "Stop complicating everything! Simple messages and ideas are more powerful, more memorable, and win people over. We often sabotage ourselves by using complicated words and ideas to make our message seem more important. Do you want your colleagues and customers to listen to you? Entrepreneur and teacher Ben Guttmann provides simple tools and practices to make everything you do and say work better by "keeping it simple.""--
Author: Smith, Jada Pinkett, 1971- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B SMITH
Format: Books
Summary: "A gripping, painfully honest, and ultimately inspirational memoir from global superstar and creator of the Red Table Talk series Jada Pinkett Smith. In a media driven landscape that crafts narratives for our celebrities, Smith recounts her story in an intimate conversation with readers. Along the way, she explores her path to accepting her power as a woman, and her discovery that a strong sense of self is every woman's right and saving grace. An impactful and rare memoir that engages and educates, Worthy is a courageous love song to self, to family, to life, and to the world. From an unconventional upbringing in Baltimore, to an unconventional marriage to one of the most famous men in the world, adhering to the status quo has never been a familiar road for Jada Pinkett Smith. In Worthy, Smith strips herself of all the labels and stories crafted by others, and reclaims her narrative with radical self-love. Worthy teaches us who Jada is, and how to embrace our most authentic lovable souls"--
Author: Tan, Twan Eng, 1972- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F TAN
Format: Books
Summary: The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary House on the Straits Settlement of Penang. When "Willie" Somerset Maugham, a famed writer and old friend of Robert's, arrives for an extended visit with his secretary Gerald, the pair threatens a rift that could alter more lives than one. Maugham, one of the great novelists of his day, is beleaguered: Having long hidden his homosexuality, his unhappy and expensive marriage of convenience becomes unbearable after he loses his savings-and the freedom to travel with Gerald. His career deflating, his health failing, Maugham arrives at Cassowary House in desperate need of a subject for his next book. Lesley, too, is enduring a marriage more duplicitous than it first appears. Maugham suspects an affair, and, learning of Lesley's past connection to the Chinese revolutionary, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, decides to probe deeper. But as their friendship grows and Lesley confides in him about life in the Straits, Maugham discovers a far more surprising tale than he imagined, one that involves not only war and scandal but the trial of an Englishwoman charged with murder. It is, to Maugham, a story worthy of fiction. A mesmerizing & beautiful novel based on real events, The House of Doors traces the fault lines of race, gender, sexuality, and power under empire, and dives deep into the complicated nature of love and friendship in its shadow.
Author: Rovelli, Carlo, 1956- author. Carnell, Simon, 1962- translator.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 523.1
Format: Books
Summary: "Let us journey, with beloved physicist Carlo Rovelli, into the heart of a black hole. We slip beyond its horizon and tumble down this crack in the universe. As we plunge, we see geometry fold. Time and space pull and stretch. And finally, at the black hole's core, space and time dissolve, and a white hole is born. Rovelli has dedicated his career to uniting the time-warping ideas of general relativity and the perplexing uncertainties of quantum mechanics. In White Holes, he reveals the mind of a scientist at work. He traces the ongoing adventure of his own cutting-edge research, investigating whether all black holes could eventually turn into white holes, equally compact objects in which the arrow of time is reversed. Rovelli writes just as compellingly about the work of a scientist as he does the marvels of the universe. He shares the fear, uncertainty, and frequent disappointment of exploring hypotheses and unknown worlds, and the delight of chasing new ideas to unexpected conclusions. Guiding us beyond the horizon, he invites us to experience the fever and the disquiet of science-and the strange and startling life of a white hole"--
Author: Stone, Sly, author. Greenman, Ben, author. Questlove, writer of foreword. Hirschkowitz, Arlene, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B STONE
Format: Books
Summary: "The first memoir from the legendary Sly Stone, the front man of the iconic band Sly and the Family Stone"-- "As the front man for the sixties pop-rock-funk band Sly and the Family Stone, a songwriter who created some of the most memorable anthems of the 1960s and 1970s ("Everyday People," "Family Affair"), and a performer who electrified audiences at Woodstock and elsewhere, Sly Stone's influence on modern music and culture is indisputable. But as much as people know the music, the man remains a mystery. After a rapid rise to superstardom, Sly spent decades in the grips of addiction. Now he is ready to relate the ups and downs and ins and outs of his amazing life in his memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin). The book moves from Sly's early career as a radio DJ and record producer through the dizzying heights of the San Francisco music scene in the late 1960s and into the darker, denser life (and music) of 1970s and 1980s Los Angeles. Set on stages and in mansions, in the company of family and of other celebrities, it's a story about flawed humanity and flawless artistry"--
Author: Garner, Helen, 1942- author. Weinman, Sarah, author of foreword.
Published: 2023 2014
Call Number: 364.1523
Format: Books
Summary: "From one of Australia's most prolific writers comes the engrossing, definitive chronicle of an infamous true-crime saga, about a father suspected of murdering his three sons, the trial that gripped a nation, and the brutal spectacle of Australia's criminal justice system On the evening of September 4, 2005, Father's Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, in rural Australia. His car veered off the road and plunged into a dam, and the boys, aged ten, seven, and two, drowned. Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? The court case that followed became a national obsession-a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions. Helen Garner, the celebrated writer and master chronicler of Australian life, was equally swept up in Farquharson's case. In This House of Grief, she tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from the moment of the crash to the trial's final verdict. Garner takes her reader behind oak doors and captures a panorama of perspectives, from the defendant himself, to the team of prosecutors, to the jury. But most crucially, she delves deep into her own perspective as a member of the public, a voyeur peering into a family's darkest moments, and onto the exacting procedure of Australia's criminal justice system. The result is richly textured portrait-of a man and his broken life, of a community wracked by tragedy, and of the long and torturous road to closure. Written with Garner's trademark style-brisk and candid, yet never dismissive of her deeply flawed subjects-This House of Grief is a modern classic and a masterwork of literary journalism"--
Author: Ward, Jesmyn, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F WARD
Format: Books
Summary: "Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Ward leads readers through the descent, this, her fourth novel, is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation." --Provided by publisher.
Author: Mathis, Ayana, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F MATHIS
Format: Books
Summary: From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there. Ava has been estranged from her own mother, Dutchess, since she left her Alabama home as a young woman barely out of her teens. Despite their estrangement and the thousand miles between them, mother and daughter are deeply entwined, but Ava can't forgive her sharp-tongued, larger than life mother whose intractability and bouts of debilitating despair brought young Ava to the outer reaches of neglect and hunger. Ava wants to love her son differently, better. But when Toussaint's father, Cass, reappears, she is swept off course by his charisma, and the intoxicating power of his radical vision to destroy systems of racial injustice and bring about a bold new way of communal living. Meanwhile, in Alabama, Dutchess struggles to keep Bonaparte, once a beacon of Black freedom and self-determination, in the hands of its last five Black residents - families whose lives have been rooted in this stretch of land for generations - and away from rapidly encroaching white developers. She fights against the erasure of Bonaparte's venerable history and the loss of the land itself, which she has so arduously preserved as Ava's inheritance. As Ava becomes more enmeshed with Cass, Toussaint senses the danger simmering all around him - his well-intentioned but erratic mother; the intense, volatile figure of his father who drives his fledgling Philadelphia community toward ever increasing violence and instability. He begins to dream of Dutchess and Bonaparte, his home and birthright, if only he can find his way there.
Author: Barron, Stephanie, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F BARRON
Format: Books
Summary: "March 1817: As winter turns to spring, Jane Austen's health is in slow decline, and threatens to cease progress on her latest manuscript. But when her nephew Edward brings chilling news of a death at his former school, Winchester College, not even her debilitating ailment can keep Jane from seeking out the truth. Arthur Prendergast, a senior pupil at the prestigious all-boys' boarding school, has been found dead in a culvert near the schoolgrounds--and in the pocket of his drenched waistcoat is an incriminating note penned by the young William Heathcote, the son of Jane's dear friend Elizabeth. Winchester College is a world unto itself, with its own language and rites of passage, cruel hazing and dangerous pranks. Can Jane clear William's name before her illness gets the better of her?" --Goodreads.
Author: Hilderbrand, Elin, author.
Published: 2022 2020
Call Number: PB HILDERBR
Format: Books
Summary: After uprooting her life in the States, Irene Steele has just settled in at the villa on St. John where her husband Russ had been living a double life. But a visit from the FBI shakes her foundations, and Irene once again learns just how little she knew about the man she loved. With help from their friends, Irene and her sons set up their lives while evidence mounts that the helicopter crash that killed Russ may not have been an accident. Meanwhile, the island watches this drama unfold -- including the driver of a Jeep with tinted windows who seems to be shadowing the Steele family. As a storm gathers strength in the Atlantic, surprises are in store for the Steeles: help from a mysterious source, and a new beginning in the paradise that has become their home. At last all will be revealed about the secrets and lies that brought Irene and her sons to St. John -- and the truth that transformed them all.
Author: Martin, Celestine, author.
Published: 2022
Call Number: F MARTIN
Format: Books
Summary: "What does a witch do when life's a bore? You wish for something more. If wishes were fish, homebody witch Lucy Caraway could open an aquarium and gift shop with every wish she's ever made in her entire life. When she isn't grading papers over homemade tea blends, Lucy tends to her ancestral home in Freya Grove, New Jersey, while leafing through spellbooks, protecting her familial magic from complete mayhem. On the eve of her ten-year high school reunion, Lucy yearns for more--the soulmate she's searching for, the cute cottage she's coveting, and to be the best version of herself. Fueled by nostalgia and spiced rum, Lucy casts a spell that brings trouble in the form of a big lie and reunites her high school crush merman Alex Dwyer. Like every Dwyer merfolk, Alex saw the world and all its splendors, destined never to make a home on land. When he's unexpectedly given a jinxed cottage, he returns to Freya Grove, determined to get his life on track after a string of bitter disappointments. Alex believes a merman needs a house like a fish needs a bicycle. He plans on flipping it and getting as far away from the Grove as his tail can take him. But once he discovers that his new neighbor is the witch who got away, Alex starts to rethink his plan. As the spell unfolds, baking disasters, flirtatious tea readings, and midnight meetups spark their decade-old chemistry; Lucy and Alex wonder whether their newfound love is strong enough to outlast the fleeting power of a wish"--
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