New Books for July 24
At home : a short history of private life
Bryson, Bill
2010
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, be began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as found in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.
Edge of darkness
Stone, Kyla, author
2020
Liam and Hannah continue their dangerous journey, but their every step is dogged by a deadly adversary. Hunted and exhausted, will they have what it takes to get home? In Fall Creek, Noah struggles to protect his son and his friends. With the town running out of food and fuel, and the cold as brutal as ever, they're forced to make compromises that may place them in even greater danger...
Edge of madness
Stone, Kyla, author
2020
On the five-year anniversary of his wife Hannah's disappearance, small-town cop Noah Sheridan takes his son Milo to a local ski resort for some much needed father-son time. In a blink, the power grid goes out. Phones and cars stop working. What starts as a Christmas holiday soon turns deadly. When an impending blizzard cuts off the town from the rest of civilization, it'll take everything Noah has to keep his family and friends alive. Nature's wrath is dangerous. So are the desperate people willing to do anything to survive.
Farley : the life of Farley Mowat
King, James, 1942-
2002
In a sensitive and deeply insightful biography covering areas from Mowat's childhood, to marriages, to skirmishes with the media, King artfully marries the public and private Mowat, often revealing startling new information about the writer and his life.
A gentleman from Japan : the untold story of an incredible journey from Asia to Queen Elizabeth's court
Lockley, Thomas, author
2024
On November 12, 1588, five young Asian men--led by a twenty-one-year-old called Christopher--traveled up the River Thames to meet Queen Elizabeth I. Christopher's epic sea voyage had spanned from Japan, via the Philippines, New Spain (Mexico), Java and Southern Africa. On the way, he had already become the first recorded Japanese person in North America. Now Christopher was the first ever Japanese visitor to England, and no other would leave such a legacy for centuries to come. The story of Christopher is almost utterly forgotten and has never been fully told before.
In my time of dying : how I came face to face with the idea of an afterlife
Junger, Sebastian, author
2024
For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger traveled to many front lines and frequently put his life at risk. And yet the closest he ever came to death was the summer of 2020 while spending a quiet afternoon at the New England home he shared with his wife and two young children. Crippled by abdominal pain, Junger was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Once there, he began slipping away. As blackness encroached, he was visited by his dead father, inviting Junger to join him. “It’s okay,” his father said. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’ll take care of you.” That was the last thing Junger remembered until he came to the next day when he was told he had suffered a ruptured aneurysm that he should not have survived. This experience spurred Junger—a confirmed atheist raised by his physicist father to respect the empirical—to undertake a scientific, philosophical, and deeply personal examination of mortality and what happens after we die.
Kekwan etakwak mîkisîhk? = what's in a bead?
Borgford, Kelsey, author
2024
Tessa's Kohkom spends her days sewing beautiful beads onto smoked hides. Inspired, she asks Kohkom to teach her beading, but first she must listen and learn about the many stories held in a bead.
The lost flowers of Alice Hart
Ringland, Holly, author
2023
"After her family suffers a tragedy, nine-year-old Alice Hart is forced to leave her idyllic seaside home. She is taken in by her grandmother, June, a flower farmer who raises Alice on the language of Australian native flowers, a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. Under the watchful eye of June and the women who run the farm, Alice settles, but grows up increasingly frustrated by how little she knows of her family's story. In her early twenties, Alice's life is thrown into upheaval again, forcing her to flee to the dramatically beautiful central Australian desert. In this otherworldly landscape Alice thinks she has found solace, until she meets a charismatic and ultimately dangerous man."--Back cover.
Mind games
Roberts, Nora, author
2024
Twelve-year-old Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know something terrible has happened. Thanks to Thea's vision, their parents' killer will spend his life in supermax. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her - because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. A long, silent battle will be waged between them - and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head.
The ministry of time : a novel
Bradley, Kaliane, author
2024
A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible. A civil servant is tasked with working as a "bridge:" living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as "1847" or Commander Graham Gore. By the time the true shape of the Ministry's project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how - and whether she believes - what she does next can change the future.
Nana in the country
Castillo, Lauren, author, illustrator
2024
When Nana comes from the city to visit her grandson in the country, the boy is so excited to teach her about all the wonderful things he does on the farm where he lives - feeding the ducks, milking the cow, even tending to bees. But to his disappointment, Nana already seems to know how to do just about everything. And she isn't the least bit nervous about picking up bugs or easing a hen aside to collect an egg. But then a storm hits in the night, and the boy must take the lead and make sure the animals are safe and dry. And it turns out there are many more unique-to-the-country adventures to surprise his beloved Nana with.
One perfect couple
Ware, Ruth, author
2024
Lyla and her boyfriend, Nico join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple. Lyla and Nico are whisked off to Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples in order to win a cash prize. Not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start going wrong. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean and unable to reach the boat and crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. Then, one by one, contestants start to die. Lyla suddenly realizes she and Nico are trapped on the island with a murderer on the loose - and nowhere to hide.
Ruby's repair cafe
Worthington, Michelle, 1976- author
2024
"Ruby loves to fix things, rather than throwing them away. When a shiny new department store opens next door to Ruby's Repair Cafe, everyone in town soon forgets about fixing things. But will Ruby be able to save her family business from big business before the trash takes over the town?" --Back cover.
Rules for rule breaking
Tucker, Talia, author
2024
When Korean American teens Bobby and Winter reluctantly go on a college visit road trip together, the sworn mortal enemies discover they might actually be a perfect pair.
Tales from Earthsea
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-2018
2003
Explores further the magical world of Earthsea through five tales of events which occur before or after the time of the original novels, as well as an essay on the people, languages, history and magic of the place.
They called him a radical : the memoirs of Pete Maloff and the making of a Doukhobor pacifist
Maloff, Pete, 1900-1971, author
2024
Peter “Pete” Maloff was born in Saskatchewan in 1900, the year after the first Doukhobors, including his parents, immigrated to Canada. Vera revisits her grandfather’s memoirs, written while under house arrest and covering the formative years from his birth to his late twenties, during which Pete’s resolve to live as a pacifist was cemented. Here, Pete writes of growing up in the new Canadian Doukhobor community at the turn of the century, meeting influential figures in the pacifist movement in California, his time in a cooperative freedom colony in Oregon, and his turning to writing, as he truly believed that the pen could be mightier than the sword.
Tom Clancy act of defiance
Andrews, Brian, 1973-, author
2024
US intelligence says there's something going on in Russia. While their land forces have been decimated by corruption and incompetence, the Navy seems to be pouring money into some secret project. Analysts are stumped, until the knot is untangled by one particularly bright young woman at the Office of Naval Intelligence - Katie Ryan, the youngest daughter of President Jack Ryan. Katie is determined that the Russians are about to launch a super missile submarine, the Belgorod. Now the race is on to determine where the sub is and whether it poses a threat to the continental US.
The tombs of Atuan
Le Guin, Ursula K., 1929-2018, author
2001
Arha's isolated existence as high priestess in the tombs of Atuan is jarred by a thief who seeks a special treasure.
You like it darker : stories
King, Stephen, 1947- author
2024
Stephen King's magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life - both metaphorical and literal. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In "Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream," a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny's most catastrophically. In "Rattlesnakes," a sequel to "Cujo," a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance - with major strings attached. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries.