June 28, 2021
Adult Fiction
Death with a Double
Edge by Anne Perry.
When junior barrister
Daniel Pitt is summoned to the scene of a murder in the London district known
as Mile End, he knows only that the victim is a senior barrister from the same
firm. To Daniel's relief, it is not his close friend Toby Kitteridge, but the
question remains: What was this respected colleague doing in such a rough part
of the city? The firm's head, Marcus fford Croft, may know more than he admits,
but fford Croft's memory is not what it used to be, and his daughter,
Miriam--Daniel's sometime sidekick--isn't in the country to offer her usual
help. And so Daniel and Kitteridge must investigate on their own, lest the
police uncover something that may cast a suspicious light on the firm. Their
inquiries in Mile End lead them to a local brothel and to an opium den, but
also--unexpectedly--to a wealthy shipbuilder crucial to Britain's effort to
build up its fleet, which may soon face the fearsome naval might of Germany.
Daniel finds his path blocked by officials at every turn, his investigation so
unwelcome that even his father, Special Branch head Thomas Pitt, receives a
chilling warning from a powerful source. Suddenly, not just Daniel but his
whole family--including his beloved mother, Charlotte--is in danger. Will
Daniel's devotion to justice be the undoing of his entire life, and endanger
Britain's defense at sea?
To Wake the Giant by Jeff Shaara.
"In 1941, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt watches uneasily as the world heads rapidly down a
dangerous path. The Japanese have waged an aggressive campaign against China,
and they now begin to expand their ambitions to other parts of Asia. As their
expansion efforts grow bolder, their enemies know that Japan's ultimate goal is
total conquest over the region, especially when the Japanese align themselves
with Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, who wage their own war of conquest
across Europe. Meanwhile, the British stand nearly alone against Hitler, and
there is pressure in Washington to transfer America's powerful fleet of
warships from Hawaii to the Atlantic to join the fight against German U-boats
that are devastating shipping. But despite deep concerns about weakening the
Pacific fleet, no one believes that the main base at Pearl Harbor is under any
real threat. Told through the eyes of widely diverse characters, this story
looks at all sides of the drama and puts the reader squarely in the middle."
-- Publisher description.
The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen.
Caroline Grant is
struggling to accept the end of her marriage when she receives an unexpected
bequest. Her beloved great-aunt Lettie leaves her a sketchbook, three keys, and
a final whisper... Venice. Caroline's quest: to scatter Juliet
"Lettie" Browning's ashes in the city she loved and to unlock the mysteries
stored away for more than sixty years. It's 1938 when art teacher Juliet
Browning arrives in romantic Venice. For her students, it's a wealth of
history, art, and beauty. For Juliet, it's poignant memories and a chance to
reconnect with Leonardo Da Rossi, the man she loves whose future is already
determined by his noble family. However star-crossed, nothing can come between
them. Until the threat of war closes in on Venice and they're forced to fight,
survive, and protect a secret that will bind them forever. Key by key, Lettie's
life of impossible love, loss, and courage unfolds. It's one that Caroline can
now make right again as her own journey of self-discovery begins.
Adult Non-Fiction
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey.
I've been in this life for
fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping
diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes
and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that
made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have
fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How
to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage
to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I
learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters,
some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a
reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the
time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life's challenges--how
to get relative with the inevitable--you can enjoy a state of success I
call "catching greenlights." So I took a one-way ticket to the desert
and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is
fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and
shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs,
getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully,
it's medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a
spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot's license, going to church without
having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It's a love letter. To
life. It's also a guide to catching more greenlights--and to realizing that the
yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.
This is the Fire by Don Lemon.
The host of CNN Tonight
with Don Lemon is more popular than ever. As America's only Black prime-time
anchor, Lemon and his daily monologues on racism and antiracism, on the
failures of the Trump administration and of so many of our leaders, and on
America's systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Now, in an urgent,
deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and
what we can do to begin to fix them. Beginning with a letter to one of his
Black nephews, he proceeds with reporting and reflections on his slave
ancestors, his upbringing in the shadows of segregation, and his adult
confrontations with politicians, activists, and scholars. In doing so, Lemon
offers a searing and poetic ultimatum to America. He visits the slave port
where a direct ancestor was shackled and shipped to America. He recalls a slave
uprising in Louisiana, just a few miles from his birthplace. And he takes us to
the heart of the 2020 protests in New York City. As he writes to his young
nephew: We must resist racism every single day. We must resist it with love.
Easy/Juvenile/Young Adult/Graphic Novel
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna.
YA
Sixteen-year-old Deka
lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine
whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from
everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so
she can finally feel like she belongs. But on the day of the ceremony, her
blood runs gold, the color of impurity-and Deka knows she will face a
consequence worse than death. Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a
choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the
emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki-near-immortals
with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest
threat. Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka
decides to leave the only life she's ever known. But as she journeys to the
capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the
great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they
seem to be-not even Deka herself.
Power Up by Sam Nisson.
J GN
Miles
and Rhys know each other only as Gryphon and Backslash, and in the video game
Mecha Melee they're an unstoppable team. They're the best friends they've got,
online or in the real world, and they don't even realize they go to the same
middle school. But real-life wrongdoing blasts their duo into a crater the size
of Arcticon. With life online and off a complete mess and BattleCon--and the
Every Game Ever tournament--just weeks away, can the boys play their way back
to each other?
