Staff Picks - October 2016
By Jim Dwyer
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian
Recounts the survival efforts of thousands of people who were inside the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, in an account that also raises questions about building safety and New York’s emergency preparedness.
By Elizabeth Poliner
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
Enjoying summertime weeks of freedom at a popular Jewish beach with their children, beautiful Ada thrives when away from her strict husband, while chef Vivie develops diplomatic skills and unmarried Bec is forced to choose between family beliefs and her passion for a married man.
By Joshua Hammer
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian
Describes how a group of Timbuktu librarians enacted a daring plan to smuggle the city’s great collection of rare Islamic manuscripts away from the threat of destruction at the hands of Al Quaeda militants to the safety of southern Mali.
By Fredrik Backman
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services
Walking away from her loveless marriage and taking a job in a derelict, financially devastated town, sixty-three-year-old Britt-Marie uses her fierce organizational skills to become a local soccer coach to a group of lost children.
By Benedict Jacka
Series Alex Verus
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager
When an enemy on the Council of Mages wants him executed along with his closest friends, Alex, a Diviner, must find an ally on the Council to save himself, but his efforts to survive might cause him to lose his soul.
By Lissa Evans
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference
A precocious orphan evacuee and a debt-ridden widow con artist forge an unlikely alliance and take advantage of unscrupulous money-making opportunities in the bombed suburbs of World War II England.
By Blaine Harden
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
Presents a dramatic account by one of the few survivors born in North Korea's infamous political prison camps, describing the brutal conditions he was forced to endure as a child, his witnessing of his family's executions, and his final, harrowing escape.
By Laura Lippman
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk
Seven years after inadvertently causing a death while walking home from a party, estranged friends Alice and Ronnie are forced to confront the truth about what happened when another child goes missing under similar circumstances.
By Amber Brock
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
Enduring a life of lonely desperation in spite of her beauty, pedigree and Park Avenue penthouse, Vera is drawn to a secretive French artist who is painting a mural in her coveted building, a relationship that reminds her about a talented forger from her past who nearly cost her everything.
By Patti Smith
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
Singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of her youth among the denizens of Max's Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner's, Brentano's and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe - the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.
By Alison Weir
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian
A vivid fictional portrait of the tumultuous early life of Queen Elizabeth I describes her perilous path to the throne of England and the scandal, political intrigues, and religious turmoil she confronted along the way, from the deaths of her parents, Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, to the fanaticism of her sister, Mary I.
An introspective narrative of the activities, attitudes, and concerns of a writer in his fiftieth year is accompanied by stories that address the same artistic and personal preoccupations.
By Joe Hill
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
Following a shocking death, Kinsey and Tyler Locke turn to their new friend, Zack Wells, for support, little suspecting Zack’s dark secret. Meanwhile, six-year-old Bode Locke tries to puzzle out the secret of the head key, and Uncle Duncan is jarred into the past by a disturbingly familiar face.
By Cara Black
Series Aimee Leduc Investigations
Recommended By Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian
At the request of her friend, the wife of the defense minister, Aimee Leduc and her partner, Rene, journey to the working-class Paris district of Belleville to investigate a car bombing and find a neighborhood in disarray.
By Elizabeth Strout
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
After an appendix operation puts her in the hospital, New York writer Lucy Barton reconnects with her estranged mother as the pair reminisce about the past.
By Stephanie Butland
Recommended By Marie McLaughlin, Head of Circulation
After her husband, Michael, tragically drowns and rumors start to swirl about him, Elizabeth Gray is left to sort through her feelings and the new information about her husband’s actions leading up to his untimely death.
By Debbie Macomber
Series Blossom Street Novels
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian
When Lydia Hoffman, a cancer survivor and owner of A Good Yarn, starts a knitting class for her patrons, she forms a special friendship and bond with three extraordinary women – Jacqueline, Carol, and Alix.
By Amber Dermont
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk
Devastated by the suicide of his prep-school roommate and disdaining the trappings of his affluent Manhattan life, Jason transfers to another school and bonds with a troubled classmate whose subsequent death compels Jason to uncover the truth.
By Molly Prentiss
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
An art critic and an exiled Argentine painter on the run from his country’s violence are brought together by their individual tragedies, a small-town beauty, and a mysterious orphan boy who helps them rediscover what they have lost.
By Nadia Hashimi
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
When her happy middle–class life in Afghanistan is shattered by the rise of the Taliban and her husband's murder by fundamentalists, former schoolteacher Fereiba embarks on a high-risk effort to escape to England with her three children.