Author: Smiley, Jane, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 813.54
Format: Books
Summary: "Essays that show how Smiley draws inspiration from across literary history to invigorate her own writing. Among the authors she examines are Marguerite de Navarre, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Franz Kafka, Halldor Laxness, and Jessica Mitford"-- "Long acclaimed as one of America's preeminent novelists, Jane Smiley is also an unparalleled observer of the craft of writing. In The Questions That Matter Most this Pulitzer Prize-winning writer offers steady and penetrating essays on some of the aesthetic and cultural issues that mark any serious engagement with reading and writing... Throughout, Smiley seeks to think harder and, in her words, with "more clarity and nuance" about the questions that matter most." --Amazon.com
Author: Davis, Fiona, 1966- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F DAVIS
Format: Books
Summary: In 1956 New York City, Marion Brooks, one of the famous Radio City Rockettes, is unwittingly drawn into the police search for the "Big Apple Bomber" and may be forced to sacrifice everything she's worked for, as well as the people she loves most, to catch this elusive criminal. New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her college sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they'd have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes--the glamorous precision-dancing troupe--she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the "Big Apple Bomber," who has been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a years-long manhunt, the police turn in desperation to Peter Griggs, a young doctor at a local mental hospital who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled in to the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that as much as she's been training herself to blend in--performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes--if she hopes-to catch the bomber, she'll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she's worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.
Author: Shipman, Viola, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F SHIPMAN
Format: Books
Summary: Arriving in the lakeside town of Good Hart, Michigan, Becky Thatcher--just turned forty years old with little to show for it--encounters eighty-year-old Mary Jackson, who has almost given up hope that someone will come along to carry on her legacy as the owner of The Very Cherry General Store. For most of her eighty years, Mary Jackson has endured the steady invasion of tourists, influencers and real estate developers who have discovered the lakeside charm of Good Hart, Michigan, waiting patiently for the arrival of a stranger she's believed since childhood would one day carry on her legacy--the Very Cherry General Store. Like generations of Jackson women before her, Cherry Mary, as she's known locally, runs the community hub--part post office, bakery and sandwich shop--and had almost given up hope that the mysterious prediction she'd been told as a girl would come true and the store would have to pass to...a man.
Author: Shalvis, Jill, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F SHALVIS
Format: Large print
Summary: "When Harper Shaw's life falls apart, she knows it's time for a change. She removes everything that doesn't spark joy--from her soul-sucking job to eating kale to making lists--and sets off for the last place she was happy, Lake Tahoe (who wouldn't feel good there, right?) to fulfill her dream of opening her own bakery. With her Sugar Pine Bakery in between a tavern, owned by sexy, grumpy Bodie Campbell, and a bookstore, run by her new BFF, she feels a peace she's never experienced since ... well, forever. Then she meets Ivy, a teenage runaway, who barrels into her heart. She sees a lot of herself in Ivy and takes her under her wing, but the teenager has secrets" --
Author: Hlad, Alan, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F HLAD
Format: Large print
Summary: "President Roosevelt sends an unlikely new taskforce on a unique mission: librarians and microfilm specialists, trained in espionage, are deployed to neutral cities throughout Europe to work with a special branch of the Office of Strategic Services. By acquiring and scouring Axis publications, these librarians can gather information about troop location, weaponry, and military plans. Maria Alves, a microfilm expert working at the New York Public Library, is dispatched to Lisbon. Working in tandem with Tiago Soares, a Portuguese bookstore owner on a precarious mission of his own -- providing Jewish refugees with forged passports and visas -- Maria acquires vital information, including a directory of arms factories in Germany. Then Maria's superiors ask her to pose as a double agent, feeding misinformation to Lars Steiger, a wealthy Swiss banker and Nazi sympathizer who launders Hitler's gold. Gaining Lars's trust will bring Maria into the very heart of the Fuhrer's inner circle. And it will provide her with a chance to help steer the course of war, if she is willing to take risks as great as the possible rewards . . ."--
Author: Davis, Susan Page, author.
Published: 2023 2022
Call Number: LP F DAVIS
Format: Large print
Summary: "Rebecca Harding can hardly wait to get away from her city nursing job in Portland, Maine, for a few restful days at her lakeside cottage. The only problem is, the cottage is half owned by her former fiancé, architect Rob Wallace, whom she hasn't seen for three years. They alternate months for usage and payments. When Rebecca arrives in mid-May, the cottage is neat and tidy, but her feelings are anything but. Family struggles for Rob and accusations at work for Rebecca put them both in a tailspin. When Rob's sister, Debbie, arrives unannounced at the family's home with a black eye, Rob and his parents try to help her come to terms with her feelings for her abusive boyfriend. Meanwhile, Rebecca is accused of perpetrating fraud at the hospital where she works. Things come to a head at the cottage, where he gets June and she gets July."--
Author: Patterson, James, 1947- author. Hamdy, Adam, 1974- author.
Published: 2023 2020
Call Number: LP F PATTERSO
Format: Large print
Summary: The founder of Private, the world's biggest and best detective agency, Jack Morgan investigates the murder of his former U.S. Marine comrade, which appears to be linked to another murder in Moscow, and arriving in Russia, begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences. "On a cold January morning, Jack Morgan stands inside the New York Stock Exchange with his former US Marine comrade whose company is being launched onto the market, eagerly awaiting the opening bell. But before the bell rings, a bullet rips through the air and finds its mark. In the aftermath of the murder, the victim's wife hires Jack to find the killer. As the head of Private, Jack has at his disposal the world's largest investigation agency. What he discovers shakes him to his core. Jack identifies another murder in Moscow that appears to be linked. So he heads to Russia, and begins to uncover a conspiracy that could have global consequences." --Amazon.com
Author: Maden, Mike, author. Cussler, Clive, creator.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F MADEN
Format: Large print
Summary: "When Cabrillo is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya, he finds himself on the trail of a deadly international plot. A Saudi Prince seeks to unleash a deadly assault on U.S. forces, sparking a new war in the Middle East and ultimately destroying Israel. Cabrillo's crew have met their most fearsome adversaries yet: a force of bio-hacked soldiers endowed with extreme strength and stamina and an unquenchable appetite for violence. The Oregon team must journey from the Amazon rainforest to an abandoned monastery in Eritrea before a final showdown in the mountains of Yemen, using every shred of courage and cunning they can muster to disable the ship-killer missile before the Arabian Sea becomes a mass grave"--
Author: Ramaswamy, Vivek, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 330.122
Format: Books
Summary: A Wall Street cartel has quietly seized control of the American economy, and they are forcing governments and businesses to bow down to their political agenda--using your money to do it. Three Wall Street firms have quietly amassed more money than Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Andrew Carnegie, and John Rockefeller combined. But the money isn't even theirs. These asset managers have accumulated all their power through "passive funds," as most investors no longer believe anyone can reliably pick stocks. Yet the Big Three have decided that they can reliably pick the right social policies instead. As entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy reveals, the results are all bad--and working their way into every corner of the economy. They force US companies to adopt "racial equity audits" and "emissions caps" while supporting human rights atrocities in China. They coerce Western companies to produce less oil while shifting production to dirtier places like Russia. They allow companies like FTX to take victory laps on good management while collapsing like a house of cards. They charge high fees to mom-and-pop investors for so-called sustainable funds that are effectively identical to lower-fee index funds. Worst of all, they're celebrated as heroes--at least so far. Capitalist Punishment lifts the veil on the largest fiduciary breaches, antitrust abuses, and First Amendment violations of the twenty-first century, misdeeds that are hiding in plain sight. This isn't just a threat to capitalism. It's a threat to democratic self-governance itself. Capitalist Punishment is an easy-to-follow educational tour de force for every participant in financial markets--which, to the surprise of most Americans, includes nearly every single one of them.
Author: Horan, Nancy, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F HORAN
Format: Books
Summary: "An unprecedented view of Lincoln's Springfield from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Loving Frank. Nancy Horan, author of the million-copy New York Times bestseller Loving Frank, returns with a sweeping historical novel, which tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to the Great Emancipator through the eyes of a young asylum-seeker who arrives in Lincoln's home of Springfield from Madeira, Portugal. Showing intelligence beyond society's expectations, fourteen-year-old Ana Ferreira lands a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hostess duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln's views on equality and the Union and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife, Mary. Along with her African American friend Cal, Ana encounters the presence of the Underground Railroad in town and experiences personally how slavery is tearing apart her adopted country..."--
Author: Quirk, Matthew, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F QUIRK
Format: Books
Summary: "An attack on the White House sends the President and his top aides to take shelter in a top secret government facility buried deep underground--but they soon discover the threat is locked inside with them"-- "Assume the worst. Code Black. The day that every secret service agent trains for has arrived. The White House has been breached; the President forced to flee to a massive doomsday bunker outside DC to defend against whatever comes next. Only the most trusted agents and officials are allowed in with him--those dedicated to keeping the government intact at all costs." --Amazon.com
Author: Schellman, Katharine, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F SCHELLMA
Format: Books
Summary: "The rumor went through the Nightingale like a flood, quietly rising, whispers hovering on lips in pockets of silence. Life as a working-class girl in Prohibition-era New York isn't safe or easy. But Vivian Kelly has a new job at the Nightingale, an underground speakeasy where the jazz is hot and the employees look out for each other in a world that doesn't care about them. Things are finally looking up for her and her sister Florence... until the night Vivian learns that her friend Bea's uncle, a bouncer at the Nightingale, has died. His death is ruled a suicide, but Bea isn't so convinced. She knew her uncle was keeping a secret: a payoff from a mob boss that was going to take him out of the tenements and into a better life. Now, the money is missing. Though her better judgment tells her to stay out of it, Vivian agrees to help Bea find the truth about her uncle's death. But they uncover more than they expected when rumors surface of a mysterious letter writer, blackmailing Vivian's poorest neighbors for their most valuable possessions, threatening poison if they don't comply. Death is always a heartbeat away in Jazz Age New York, where mob bosses rule the back alleys and cops take bootleggers' hush money. But whoever is targeting Vivian's poor and unprotected neighbors is playing a different game. With the Nightingale's dangerously lovely owner, Honor, worried for her employees' safety and Bea determined to discover who is responsible for her uncle's death, Vivian once again finds herself digging through a dead man's past in hopes of stopping a killer"--
Author: Chang, Elysha, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F CHANG
Format: Books
Summary: "A young woman does everything she can to ignore her mother's death, even as unearthed family secrets become increasingly inextricable from her own"-- "Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she's keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn't understand the person you've lost? Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present. As Eleanor's avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous - often hilarious - choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor's childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning she's hurtling toward? At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, a Quitter's Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways wwe unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves." --jacket flap.
Author: Frank, Victoria Benton, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F FRANK
Format: Books
Summary: Returning home when Gran, the treasured matriarch, falls in a coma after a car accident caused by her mother, Maggie finds Sullivan's Island is holding even more secrets as she feels herself changing like the Atlantic tides, rediscovering the roots she left behind and finding love. In this gripping tale of self-discovery, Victoria Benton Frank introduces us to Maggie, a South Carolina transplant in New York City struggling to find her place in the world. When she receives a phone call from her troubled sister, Violet, Maggie must return to her hometown of Sullivan's Island, where she uncovers shocking secrets about her family's past. Upon her arrival, Maggie is confronted with a disarrayed situation at The Magic Lantern, the cherished restaurant owned and operated by generations of women in her family. As she rediscovers the roots she left behind, she unexpectedly finds herself drawn to a charismatic farmer. But amidst her sister's impending breakup and their beloved matriarch, Gran, lying comatose due to a car accident caused by Maggie's troubled mother, Lily, the road to true love won't be easy. When three generations of South Carolina women--the steadfast Gran, the troubled Lily, the impulsive Violet, and the determined Maggie, come together, anything becomes possible. Immerse yourself in the stunning depictions of marsh grasses and dunes, as this novel transports you to a world brimming with cherished family traditions and unforeseen twists of fate.
Author: Pride, Christine, author. Piazza, Jo, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: F PRIDE
Format: Books
Summary: Cinnamon Haynes has fought hard for a life she never thought was possible--a good man by her side, a steady job as a career counselor at a local community college, and a cozy house in a quaint little beach town. It may not look like much, but it's more than she ever dreamed of or what her difficult childhood promised. Her life's mantra is to be good, quiet, grateful. Until something shifts and Cinnamon is suddenly haunted by a terrifying question: "Is this all there is?" Daisy Dunlap has had her own share of problems in her nineteen years on earth--she also has her own big dreams for a life that's barely begun. Her hopes for her future are threatened when she gets unexpectedly pregnant. Desperate, broke, and alone, she hides this development from everyone close to her and then makes a drastic decision with devastating consequences. Daisy isn't the only one with something to hide. When Cinnamon finds an abandoned baby in a park and takes the blonde-haired, blue-eyed newborn into her home, the ripple effects of this decision risk exposing the truth about Cinnamon's own past, which she's gone to great pains to portray as idyllic to everyone...even herself..." --
Author: Swarns, Rachel L., author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 306.362
Format: Books
Summary: "In 1838, a group of America's most prominent Catholic priests sold 272 enslaved people to save their largest mission project, what is now Georgetown University. In this groundbreaking account, journalist, author, and professor Rachel L. Swarns follows one family through nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States. Through the saga of the Mahoney family, Swarns illustrates how the Church relied on slave labor and slave sales to sustain its operations and to help finance its expansion." --Amazon.com.
Author: Knight, Eliza, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: LP F KNIGHT
Format: Books
Summary: Adele Astaire was a glittering, glamorous star, dancing with her brother, Fred, endearing herself to audiences from New York to London. But although she is toasted by royalty and beloved by countless fans, Adele Astaire has dreams of a loving husband and a houseful of children. And when she meets Lord Charles Cavendish, her wishes may just come true, but at what cost? Ever since Violet Wood could walk she's wanted to dance on the London stage. Befriended by Adele, filled with ambition, she is more than willing to make the sacrifices it will take to become a star herself, and her rags-to-riches hopes are within reach. But the road to fame is never easy. From the fast-paced world of roaring 20s New York to the horrors and sacrifice of wartime London, Adele's and Violet's lives intertwine, and each must ask themselves is fame worth the price you must pay?
Author: Jennings, Ken, 1974- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 202.3
Format: Books
Summary: "100 Places to See After You Die is written in the style of iconic bestselling travel guides. But instead of recommending must-see destinations in Mexico, Thailand, or Rome, this book outlines journeys through the afterlife, as dreamed up over the past 5,000 years of human history by our greatest prophets, poets, mystics, artists, and TV show-runners. Where's the best place to grab a bite to eat in the ancient Egyptian underworld? Which circles of Dante's Inferno have the nicest accommodations? How does one dress like a local in the heavenly palace of Hinduism's Lord Vishnu, or avoid the flesh-eating river serpents in the Klingon afterlife? What are the hidden treasures to be found off the beaten path in Hades, Valhalla, or NBC's The Good Place? This book answers all those questions and more about the world(s) to come. The destiny of the human soul in the great beyond is one of life's deepest mysteries. But you won't have to wonder anymore! 100 Places to See After You Die comprehensively indexes one hundred different afterlife destinations, exhaustively researched from sources ranging from the Epic of Gilgamesh to modern-day pop songs, video games, and Simpsons episodes. Be ready for whatever post-mortal destiny awaits, whether you're hoping for the astral plane, a Hieronymus Bosch hell-scape, or the baseball diamond from Field of Dreams. This is one trip no one should leave to chance. Most vacation sojourns are brief, but this destination could be your eternal resting place!"--
Author: Cooper, Christian, author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: B COOPER
Format: Books
Summary: "Christian Cooper is a self-described Blerd (Black nerd), an avid comics fan, and an expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. When birdwatching in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old. But when a routine encounter with a dog-walker escalates age old racial tensions, Cooper's viral video of the incident would send shock-waves through the nation. In Better Living Through Birding, Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous encounter in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in American today. From sharpened senses that work just as well in a protest as in a park, to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover your own. Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper's story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days as a writer for Marvel Comics, where Cooper introduced the first gay storyline, to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding is Cooper's invitation into the wonderful world of birds, and what they can teach us about life, if only we would stop and listen"--
Author: Kelley, Blair Murphy, 1973- author.
Published: 2023
Call Number: 331.639
Format: Books
Summary: "An award-winning historian illuminates the adversities and joys of the Black working class in America through a stunning narrative centered on her forebears. There have been countless books, articles, and televised reports in recent years about the almost mythic "white working class," a tide of commentary that has obscured the labor, and even the very existence, of entire groups of working people, including everyday Black workers. In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story. Spanning two hundred years--from one of Kelley's earliest known ancestors, an enslaved blacksmith, to the essential workers of the Covid-19 pandemic--Black Folk highlights the lives of the laundresses, Pullman porters, domestic maids, and postal workers who established the Black working class as a force in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries..."--Publisher.
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