Reported by Garry
Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box by Madeleine
Albright. Part illustrated memoir, part social history, Read My Pins provides
an intimate look at Albright's world-spanning bureaucratic life through the
brooches she wore. Her collection is both international and
democratic—dime-store pins share pride of place with designer creations and
family heirlooms. Included are the antique eagle purchased to celebrate
Albright's appointment as secretary of state, the zebra pin she wore when
meeting Nelson Mandela, and the Valentine's Day heart forged by Albright's
five-year-old daughter. Read My Pins features more than 200 photographs, along
with compelling and often humorous stories about jewelry, global politics, and
the life of one of America's most accomplished and fascinating diplomats. Our
reader said that this book is “really beautiful” and full of stories that go
along with the reasoning of why Albright wore what pins she did and at what
times. KM
Clay’s Quilt is the debut novel of now-bestselling author Silas
House. Set in the rural hollers of Free Creek, Kentucky, this novel features
Clay Sizemore who is a motherless young man in his mid-twenties who falls in
love with Alma, a vibrant young woman on the run from an abusive husband. Our
reader pointed out that even though Clay is the nominal main character, this
novel particularly focusses on the women in his life and their effects on him
as well as their struggles. House’s prose is very realistic in its descriptions
of the small Eastern Kentucky towns that he set this book along with its two
companion books The Coal Tattoo and Parchment of Leaves. House
grew up in Eastern Kentucky, and our reader noted how very well developed and
believable the characters are in this book.
AH
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy is a modern-day murder
mystery set in the wilds of the Scotland highlands. Inti Flynn is a biologist
who is in charge of reintroducing grey wolves to the Highlands – a task met with
skepticism and fear by the local farmers. Inti’s belief that “her” wolves would
never hurt a human are put to the test when a local farmer ends up dead in what
looks suspiciously like a wolf attack. As Inti joins the investigation, it
quickly becomes clear that the man she is falling in love with may also be a
prime suspect in the slaying. BM
Beartown by Frederik Backman. Loyalty to friends, duty, and the burden of truth
collide in this character study of the people of a slowly dying Nordic town. The
Beartown high school hockey team is poised to go to the World Championships
when one of the star players rapes a young woman. The ramifications ripple
through the town, leaving confusion, distrust, and anger in their wake.
Backman, whose book A Man Called Ove is considered a modern classic,
brings his trademark wit, insight, and pathos into the mindset of the
characters that populate his hockey obsessed small, northern town. MP
Also mentioned:
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle
Obama
Monticello: A Daughter and Her Father by Sally Cabot Gunning
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry
Pratchett
The Ugly Little Boy by Isaac Azimov and Robert Silverberg
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 1: An Experiment in Literary Investigation by Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn
The Lightness of Water and Other Stories by Rhonda
Browning White
Building Resilience in Children and Teens: Giving Kids Roots and Wings by Kenneth R. Ginsburg
2018 World Almanac edited by Sarah Janssen
The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
The Librarian of Crooked Lane by C.J. Archer
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
A Tyranny of Petticoats: 15 Stories of Belles, Bank Robbers & Other
Badass Girls edited by Jessica Spotswood
In The Hands of the Great Spirit: The 20,000-Year History of American
Indians by Jake Page
Manufacturing Consent: The political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S.
Herman and Noam Chomsky
The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
New Books:
Our Best Intentions by Vibhuti Jain
Two Wars and a Wedding by Lauren Willig
Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
Tremors in the Blood: Murder,
Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector by Amit Katwala
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American
Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher
