New Books Due Out in June!

Summer is a great time to read, so you can usually count on lots of new titles coming out!  Here are some of the ones we are looking forward to reading:

 

New in June!

Allende, Isabel The Wind Knows My Name

Bartz, Andrea  The Spare Room

Benedict, Marie The First Ladies

Berry, Steve  The Ninth Man

Clarke, Amy Suiter Lay Your Body Down

Connealy, Mary  The Laws of Attraction

Cosby, S.A.  All the Sinners Bleed

Davis, Fiona  The Spectacular

De Los Santos, Marisa  Watch Us Shine

Doiron, Paul  Dead Man’s Wake (Mike Bowditch)

Frank, Victoria Benton My Magnolia Summer

Gaylin, Alison  Robert B. Parker’s Bad Influence (Sunny Randall)

Graham, Heather  Whispers at Dusk

Harmel, Kristin  The Paris Daughter

Higgins, Kristan  A Little Ray of Sunshine

Hilderbrand, Elin  Five-Star Weekend

James, Miranda  Hiss Me Deadly

Jackson, Lisa The Last Sinner

Johansen, Iris The Survivor (Eve Duncan)

Maden, Mike  Clive Cussler Fire Strike

Mallery, Susan  The Happiness Plan

Patrick, Phaedra  The Little Italian Hotel

Patterson, James  Cross Down (Alex Cross & John Sampson)

Patterson, James  Private Moscow

Quirk, Matthew  Inside Threat

Sanderson, Brandon The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

See, Lisa  Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

Smiley, Jane The Questions That Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom (essays)

Taylor, Sarah Stewart A Stolen Child (Maggie d’Arcy Mystery)

Ware, Ruth  Zero Days

Wiggs, Susan  Welcome to Beach Town

Williams, Beatriz  The Beach at Summerly

Willis, Connie  The Road to Roswell

Woods, Stuart  Near Miss

Decoration Day in the Mountains by Alan Jabbour and Karen Singer Jabbour

  

Reviewed by Jeanne

Note: This is a review from some years ago, but I always think of this book when Memorial Day rolls around. 

For many years I assumed that everyone went to the family graveyard over Memorial Day weekend to decorate the graves of family and friends. Many families would gather en masse to clean the cemetery and have dinner on the ground. Family members who lived out of the area were at least expected to send flowers; families who graves left unadorned after the holiday were the subject of gossip. I remembered hearing too that Memorial Day was the modern name; earlier it was called Decoration Day and that flowers were homemade from crepe paper.

Family graveyards still exist, but as families move away from the traditional "homeplace" and descendants scatter more and more people are opting for perpetual care cemeteries. These cemeteries are owned by companies which will see to it that the graves are properly maintained, relieving family members of the burden. Along with this trend,   I've been seeing fewer grave decorations when I make the trek back to my home county these past few years. More and more people in the area see Memorial Day more as the start to summer than a day to remember the past.

Recently I heard a radio interview about a new book called Decoration Day in the Mountains by Alan Jabbour & Karen Singer Jabbour which discusses this very topic. Although the particular area they surveyed was in North Carolina, many of the things they discuss are customs similar to the ones I knew. They include Church Homecomings, grave inscriptions and decorations,  This book describes the history and culture surrounding the day, including photographs and interviews.  It's a fascinating look at a way of life which is fast disappearing along with the family graveyards. It's a lovely piece of nostalgia for those who remember, and a wonderful introduction to those who don't.

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

The book opens with a friendly fan letter to Hannah, an Australian author, from Leo, a would-be writer who lives in Boston.  The two have apparently been corresponding for some time, and he hopes to visit her in a few months.

The next section introduces Freddie—short for Winifred—a young Australian author who has a fellowship that allows her to come to Boston to write her novel.  She’s in the Reading Room of the Boston Public Library, sitting at a table with three strangers, when they all hear a woman scream.  Security swoops in, and after a check, assures everyone that it was a false alarm.  The three strangers, bonded by the shared experience, exchange names and begin talking. It turns out they are all writers of one sort or another. Things take a darker turn when, some hours later, Freddie hears on the news that the body of a woman has been found at the library.

This is followed by a letter from Leo, excitedly discussing the chapter of Hannah’s new book set in Boston and offering her his insights and insider information about the city that she can use in her novel.

It sounds very confusing but it isn’t, really.  I have been telling people that it’s like having a picture of a woman looking at a picture of a woman looking at a picture. It’s well written, keeping the reader involved in both storylines, and there are some wonderful twists and turns as the stories go along. While at first I found it a bit distracting to be pulled out of Hannah’s novel into a different reality, I admire the way the author shows you some of the tricks of her trade, all the while having another card up her sleeve.

There’s a good sense of place and well defined characters along with the fine writing. It’s almost as if the reader is getting a peek behind the scenes at how an author works along with a very intriguing storyline. One reviewer compared it to the unpeeling the layers of an onion, and I would agree. The book is very well paced, enticing the reader to keep those pages turning to see how the plots will be resolved.  

Nevermore: Guns of August, Joan Rivers Confidential, Best Minds, Boneheap in the Lion's Den

 

Reported by Garry

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman recounts in impeccably researched details the outbreak of World War I, its first thirty days, and the lasting effects of the conflict on the modern world. Until the Great War, wars had been generally regional and of limited scope – that all changed in the summer of 1914 when Germany invaded Belgium and ended four years later with the deaths of 20 million and the maps of Europe and the Middle-East permanently redrawn. This Pulitzer Prize winning look at one of the most consequential conflicts of the last century is a fascinating and engaging read, and one that will leave you with a greater understanding of why our world looks the way it does today.  AH

 

Joan Rivers Confidential: The Unseen Scrapbooks, Joke Cards, Personal Files, and Photos of a Very Funny Woman Who Kept Everything by Melissa Rivers. Our reader loved Joan Rivers before reading this book, and loves her even more now. Famous as a trailblazing comedienne, Rivers was also a brilliant executive who kept immaculate records of everything from the reactions to jokes to exchanges with fans. Author Melissa Rivers is Joan’s daughter, and covers Joan’s career from the late 1950s until her sudden death in 2014.  KM

 

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions by Jonathan Rosen is a heart-wrenching and unflinching memoir about mental illness and the wake of tragedy it can leave. Rosen was childhood friends with Michael Laudor, a brilliant, charismatic young man who finished his college degree in three years and then graduated from Yale Law School. Laudor was schizophrenic and during a severe paranoid psychotic break, stabbed his pregnant girlfriend to death with a kitchen knife. As tragic as it is, our reader says that this is an absolutely fantastic book that she could not put down. DC

 

The Boneheap in the Lion’s Den by Maya J. Sorini is a book of poetry, portraying the author’s harrowing time working in the trauma ward of one of St. Louis’ largest hospitals. Sorini never flinches away from the horrors of the ward, and her poems take the reader along for a blood-soaked ride. Sorini’s poetry shares her own trauma and is some of the most wonderful poetry our reader has ever read – in fact, she read this slender book three times over!  PP

 

Also mentioned:

 

The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

Clay’s Quilt by Silas House

The Dutch Orphan by Ellen Keith

The Chain by Adrian McKinty

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

Jackal by Erin E. Adams

Uncanny Times by Laura Anne Gilman

Run Rose Run by Dolly Parton and James Patterson

Thunder Dog:  The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust by Michael Hingson and Susy Flory

 

New Books:

 

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan

Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester

The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry

Pandora by Susan Stokes-Chapman

Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph

Shadow in the Glass by M.E. Hilliard

Reviewed by Jeanne

Librarian Greer Hogan, fortified by successfully discovering a murderer in An Unkindness of Ravens, is now ready to start working on a mystery in her own life.  Her husband Danny was murdered and while a man was tried and convicted for the crime, Greer believes he was innocent.  An invitation to the wedding of an old friend will bring Greer back in contact with people from the couple’s past—people who may have some answers or at least help her to find the questions to be answered.

This quest is derailed when one of the guests turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, and Greer finds herself dealing with more than one mystery.

Having loved the first book, I was anxious to read the next in the series.  I was glad to find many of the features I loved showing up in the second book.  First and foremost is Greer herself: she’s no flighty heroine, rushing into trouble. I think of her as one of the few grown-ups in the contemporary cozy scene.  She thinks things through rationally and goes prepared. For example, after her previous experience, she’s begun exercising and training in case she finds herself in another physical altercation. She’s honest with herself. Her marriage was not perfect, and she doesn’t put her late husband on a pedestal. She’s not desperately looking for a new relationship, either. She’s comfortable with who she is. Of course, she is a reader and offers a number of literary references, but these never come off as an in-joke or an attempt to one-up the reader. It’s more like the way readers talk to each other and I love it.

In general, the other characters are fully realized people, with different facets to their personalities. There’s also a good sense of place, which I appreciate.

If I have a criticism, it’s that dealing with two very different crimes can be a bit frustrating. As a reader, I was more invested in Danny’s murder than that of the wedding guest and was more anxious for Greer to pursue those clues. Still, this is an excellent second book in a series and I very much look forward to reading Three Can Keep a Secret which came out in February, 2023.

While Danny’s murder is first brought up in the first book, you do not have to read them in order. The author fills in the background information if you start with the second while not giving away the plot or solution of the mystery in the first book.

Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds: 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright

Reviewed by Kristin

You know those online “articles” which promise to show you “40+ Unusual and Fascinating (fill in the blank here)” and tease you with some interesting image at the very top that you have to scroll through or click through way more than 40 entries and you end up forgetting why you wanted to read the article in the first place….?

Yeah, I’m a sucker for those.

Inevitably, the online article goes to some ad, or the browser crashes, or I finally decide I shouldn’t be giving these shady websites the clicks they desire. I really try to resist clicking them, because I don’t actually want to waste my time reading something that was compiled by someone who barely knows the difference between “there”, “they’re” and “their”. So, I was extremely happy to find this book in the Young Adult section.

Bonus: no ads!

I am a map person. I like seeing how the world is laid out. Even when I was a kid I loved reading my social studies textbook to see which countries produced what kinds of grain, who had nuclear weapons, and who had the largest gross domestic products (GDP) of any number of things. I am still fascinated by the fact that the standard Mercator projection map does not realistically portray the size of the areas anywhere other than very near the equator.

Oh yes, back to the book at hand.

This book includes nine chapters titled: People and Populations; Politics, Power, and Religion; Culture and Customs; Friends and Enemies; Geography; History; National Identity; Crime and Punishment; and Nature.

Do you want to know the average person’s height in a specific country? Which countries have preferences for cats or dogs? Which type of electrical outlet can you expect to find when you are traveling to a foreign country? Which countries have no rivers? Which countries have no McDonalds? Which 22 counties has the United Kingdom not invaded? How many heavy metal bands per 100,000 of population? All the sharks killed by humans vs all the humans killed by sharks (in 2017)? Which countries have economies larger than California? (Spoiler alert, only a few.)

This is the kind of information that I like to have tumbling around in my brain. I might have very few instances in which I need this information, but it is pleasant background noise as I go about my everyday life. And, pages 108-109 do a decent job of showing the actual relative sizes of countries vs. how they are shown on a Mercator projection map.

Intrigued? Find this book (with no ads) at YA 912 WRI.

Nevermore: Soul of an Octopus, One of Us Is Lying, Girl Called Samson

 

Reported by Garry

 

Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery – A favorite of our Nevermore group, this book follows Montgomery as she travels the world learning about the variety and astounding nature of these eight armed creatures. Highly intelligent, able to teach each other, and capable of changing not only the color but texture of their skin, octopuses are amazing creatures that are seem out of this worldly alien when compared with humans. Our reader loved this slim volume, and many of our group heartily recommend it.  KM

 

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus. Labelled as The Breakfast Club meets Pretty Little Liars, this murder mystery revolves around five high-school students: Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, Cooper, and Simon who are all in detention for various reasons. One winds up dead, and suspicion quickly falls on the remaining four students, whose lives are far more intertwined than initially apparent, with secrets to kill (or die) for. This YA novel delivers excitement and thrills, and comes highly recommended by our reader.  MP

 

A Girl Called Samson by Amy Harmon is a historical novel based in Massachusetts in the 1760s. Deborah Samson is bound out as an indentured servant when she is still a young girl, and when the US Civil War breaks out, she escapes, disguises herself as a man, and joins the Continental army. Facing the horrors of war and revolution, Deborah (who used her last name as her first), also discovers love and truths about herself. Fictionalized from real-life events, this novel captured our reader’s imagination and made her value the lives and contributions of women of the era even more.  AH

 

Also Mentioned:

 

Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro

Monticello: A Daughter and Her Father by Sally Cabot Gunning

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty

Hugh Glass by Bruce Bradley

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Clay's Quilt by Silas House

The Magic Kingdom by Russell Banks

The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World by Malcolm Harris

Smithsonian American Table: The Foods, People and Innovations That Feed Us by The Smithsonian Institution

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

Empress of the Nile: The Daredevil Archaeologist Who Saved Egypt's Ancient Temples from Destruction by Lynne Olson

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

The House Is On Fire by Rachel Beanland

Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash

 

New books:

 

The Golden Doves by Martha Hall Kelly

The Dutch Orphan by Ellen Keith

The Cuban Heiress by Chanel Cleeton

Things I Wish I Told My Mother by Susan Patterson and Susan DiLallo with James Patterson

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliot Dark

Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues by Jonathan Kennedy