Staff Picks - July 2014
By Jackie Collins
Series Lucky Santangelo
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation
“A prequel to the Lucky Santangelo series features a headstrong teenaged Lucky, who after the murder of her mother escapes her notorious father’s protective stranglehold to pursue a life of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll (From the Publisher).”
By Malcolm Gladwell
Uncovers the hidden rules that shape the balance between the weak and the mighty and the powerful and the dispossessed.
By Allan Folsom
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
An American surgeon tries to kill the man who murdered his father.
By Kelly Parsons
Recommended By Arlene Silverman, Library Clerk
“Botching a major surgery when his ambition for a prestigious job gets the better of him, Steve Mitchell learns that a patient who died under mysterious circumstances was targeted by a sociopath who holds information capable of destroying Steve’s family and career (From the Publisher).”
By Yan Lianke
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
A previously banned work based on a true scandal finds an impoverished village targeted by a blood-selling operation that leads to a catastrophic outbreak of AIDS and decimates an entire community.
By Thomas H. Cook
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference
“Collects the short stories of Thomas H. Cook, one of America’s most celebrated crime fiction authors (From the Publisher).”
By Rohinton Mistry
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
A portrait of India featuring four characters. Two are tailors who are forcibly sterilized, one is a student who emigrates, and the fourth is a widowed seamstress who decides to hang on. A tale of cruelty, political thuggery and despair by an Indian from Toronto, author of Such a Long Journey..
By Sheri Fink
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
Reconstructs five days at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina destroyed its generators to reveal how caregivers were forced to make life-and-death decisions without essential resources.
By Tash Aw
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
“Dreaming of love and success in rapidly changing Shanghai, four individuals including a starry-eyed waitress, a wealthy developer’s son, a pop artist and a poetry-loving activist confront unexpected realities in regional challenges, including a billionaire’s complex business strategy (From the Publisher).”
By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian
Tuesday, September 25, 2018. 1:30 PM.
A monster assembled by a scientist from parts of dead bodies develops a mind of his own as he learns to loathe himself and hate his creator. Includes illustrated notes throughout the text explaining the historical background of the story.
By Joe Hill
Recommended By Jessikah Chautin, Community Engagement Specialist
After his childhood sweetheart is brutally killed and suspicion falls on him, Ig Parrish goes on a drinking binge and wakes up with horns on his head, hate in his heart, and an incredible new power which he uses in the name of vengeance.
By Barbara Mutch
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
“After traveling to South Africa for a loveless marriage in 1919, a young Irish woman befriends Ada, the daughter of the housemaid, and must decide what to do when the girl goes missing after being scorned by the community (From the Publisher).”
By Charles Finch
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
After working on a failed presidential campaign, a young Yale graduate leaves New York for Oxford, where he becomes caught up in surprising friendships and an unexpected romantic entanglement.
By Simon Winchester
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian
“Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Winchester illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings and ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree (From the Publisher).”
By Rick Riordan
Series Tres Navarre
Reformed criminal Ralph Arguello suddenly finds himself at the top of a list of suspects when his wife, homicide detective Ana DeLeon, is shot, and is forced to turn fugitive to find the real triggerman and clear his name.
By Brandon Sanderson
Series Mistborn
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian, Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Experiencing an epiphany within the most daunting prison of the monstrous Lord Ruler who has enslaved his people for a thousand years, half-Skaa Kelsier finds himself taking on the powers of a Mistborn and teams up with ragged orphan Vin in a desperate plot to save their world.
“In a class-divided future America where urban neighborhoods function as labor colonies for elite charter villages, Fan, a female fish-tank diver, embarks on what becomes a legendary quest to find the man she loves in a region overcome by anarchic forces (From the Publisher).”
By Jason Matthews
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian, John Shea, Library Page
“Drafted against her will to serve the regime of Vladmir Putin as an intelligence seductress, Dominika Egorova engages in a charged effort of deception and tradecraft with first-tour CIA officer Nathaniel Nash before a forbidden attraction threatens their careers (From the Publisher).”
By Graeme Simsion
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director, Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Stacey Mencher, Readers' Services Librarian, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
Tuesday, May 15, 2017. 7:30 PM.
A socially awkward genetics professor who has never been on a second date sets out to find the perfect wife, but instead finds Rosie Jarman, a fiercely independent barmaid who is on a quest to find her biological father.
By April Smith
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services
Meeting for the first time for a shared pilgrimage to France to visit the graves of their World War I soldier sons, an Irish maid, a chicken farmer's wife, a Boston socialite, a former tennis star, and a librarian meet a brutally scarred journalist before confronting a shocking secret.