February 2, 2024 - Happy Ground Hog's Day

Happy Ground Hog’s Day! At this writing, our prognosticating Badger, Booky, has yet to take a squint outside to see what he sees and make a prediection. Will he see his shadow thus forecasting an additional 6 weeks of winter? Or will he not see his shadow and the January thaw we have been experience for the past week or more, will continue? Tune in on the actual day to see what Booky predicts. Booky, as you probably recall, has a perfect record for Ground Hog Day predictions. While badgers and ground hogs are both, squat, short-legged mammals the similarity ends there. Groundhogs (Marmota monax) are grazing members of the rodent family; badgers are hunting members of the weasel family, (Mustelidae). This pretty much means, theoretically, a badger could eat a groundhog for lunch which is probably why our badger’s predictions trump the local groundhog’s prediction consistently. Ground Hog’s Day is a nice way of celebrating that spring might just be about to appear over the horizon. Sure, February, over the decades has had days that don’t get above zero and March is rather notorious for dumping large amounts of snow during high school basketball tournaments. But still, we are at least at the top of the hill, and will be rolling towards spring any day now. The seed catalogs and seed packets are beginning to appear in mailboxes and in hardware stores. The spring book titles are also beginning to appear.Below you will find some of them. Enjoy!

New Non-Fiction

“Hello, Friends” by Dolce Sloan. A standup comic and correspondent for comic and correspondent for “The Daily Show” offers a comedic trip through her whirlwind life.

“Big Meg: The Story of the Largest and Most Mysterious Predator That Ever Lived”  by Tim and Emma Flannery. A father-daughter scientist team presents an account of the ancient marine creature known as the megalodon, a now extinct shark that was the largest predator of all time, and its impact on both marine ecosystems and the human psyche.

New Fiction

“Even if it Breaks Your Heart” by Erin Hahn. A heart-buckling ride of a romance by beloved author Erin Hahn, Even If It Breaks Your Heart is about two teens finding out that sometimes, the hardest part of discovering what you want is getting the courage to pursue it.

“The Year of the Locust” by Terry Hayes. CIA spy Kane travels to the badlands where the borders of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet to exfiltrate a man with vital information for the safety of the West—but instead he meets an adversary who will take the world to the brink of extinction.

“The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder” by C.L. Miller. A former antique hunter investigates a suspicious death at an isolated English manor, embroiling her back in the dangerous world of tracking stolen artifacts.

“Everyone Who Can Forgive Me is Dead” by Jenny Hollander. After fleeing as the lone surviving witness to horrific, gruesome events at her graduate school, Charlie Colbert disappeared and rebuilt her life only discover that the events of that night are being adapted into a film

“The Lantern’s Dance: A Novel of Suspense Feature Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, No.18” by LuAnne Rice. Discovering an old journal written in a nearly impenetrable code that is linked to a zoetrope whose images dance with the lantern’s spin, Mary Russell, when secrets of the past appear to be reaching into the present, must figure out how these items are related to Damian—and possibly to Sherlock Holmes himself.

“Northwoods”  by Amy Pease. The dark underbelly of an idyllic Midwestern resort town is revealed in the aftermath of a murder with ties to America’s opioid epidemic in this un-put-down-able and thrilling debut that is perfect for fans of James Lee Burke, William Kent Krueger, and Mindy Mejia.

“A Love Song for Ricki Wilde” by Tia Williams. In this enchanting love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, a free-spirited florist and an enigmatic musician are irreversibly linked through the history, art, and magic of Harlem.

“Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel” by The Authors Guild, Margaret Atwood, et al. During the pandemic, a group of Manhattan neighbors gather nightly on a rooftop to tell stories in a collaborative novel where each character was secretly written by a major literary voice, including Margaret Atwood and Celest Ng