Staff Picks - Spring 2008

By Amy Bloom
Recommended By Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk

Arriving in America alone after her family is destroyed in a Russian pogrom, Lillian Leyb receives word that her daughter Sophie might still be alive and embarks on a risky odyssey that takes her from New York's Lower East Side to Siberia to find the missing girl.

By Pearl S. Buck
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

A slave bride of a Chinese laborer devotes herself to her husband's family, but when civil war in China brings wealth to the family, her happiness is endangered as her husband brings home a second wife.

By Edward Rutherfurd
Recommended By Barney Levantino, Reference Librarian

A fictionalized account of the City of London, tracing its role in history and describing succeeding generations of families associated with its fortunes. Interwoven are the everyday lives of ordinary people, from London as a Celtic settlement, 2,000 years ago, to its finest hour during the Blitz in World War II.

By Kate Atkinson
Series Jackson Brodie Mysteries

Millionaire ex-detective Jackson Brodie follows his girlfriend to Edinburgh for the famous arts festival, but when he witnesses a brutal attack on a man, he becomes caught up in a string of events that draws him into a deadly conspiracy.

By John Grisham
Recommended By Rosemary Moran, Senior Library Clerk

Cut from the Cleveland Browns after the worst performance in the history of the NFL, Rick Dockery, desperate to play football, is hired by the Panthers of Parma, Italy, and finds himself confronted by the confusing diversity of Italian culture, language,and romance.

By Azar Nafisi
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, June 30, 2010.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

The author describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature.

By Ann Patchett
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director

Struggling with single parenthood and a scandal that cost him his political career, Bernard Doyle fights his disappointment with his adopted sons' career choices before a violent event forces the members of his family to reconsider their priorities.

By Pete Hamill

Michael Devlin, an 11–year–old Irish American, meets Rabbi Hirsch, recently arrived from Europe, and in return for teaching the rabbi about baseball and English, the rabbi teaches Michael Yiddish and tells him about Prague, until an Irish gang becomes violent in its anti–Semitism.

By Sara Gruen
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell.

By Lionel Shriver
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk

Eva never really wanted to be a mother - and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

By Diane Ackerman
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, October 10. 7:30 PM.

When Germany invaded Poland, bombers devastated Warsaw--and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into the empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants and refusing to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, even as Europe crumbled around her.