My LINKcat AccountIt's hard to believe we've passed the middle of July. The back-to-school sales (at least the back-to-college ones) are starting to appear. The dawn chorus is getting quieter as the final batches of eggs have been laid, hatched, and fledged. The main purposes of all that singing at the crack of dawn is 1) to let the lady birds know what a wonderful partner and provider you'd be and 2) to warn away all those potential rivals and to defend your territory. Once the offspring have fledged, the need to proclaim numbers 1 and /or 2 is pretty much gone. If you're a bird who just likes singing because it annoys human beings who are trying to sleep - and I know there is at least one cardinal who does this - you at least are starting all the chirping and warbling later since dawn is now about 20 minutes later than it was a month ago. This summer is moving on apace. This year the number of summer books offered by publishers seems to offer a steady stream of new books. This isn't always the case. Some years there's a big push of summer reading titles that appear at the end of May or the beginning of June and after that push, books just dribble in until the fall titles start appearing. All that being said, below you will find some titles in that stream of books. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
Rose Kennedy : the life and times of a political matriarch / by Barbara Perry. Describes the life of the Kennedy family matriarch using information culled from her newly-made-public diaries and letters from defying her father's wishes and marrying Joseph Kennedy through the crushing tragedies that seem to plague her extensive family.
I wear the black hat : grappling with villians (real and imagined) / by Chuck Klosterman. The award-winning cultural critic and author of "Fargo Rock City" questions the nature of how modern people understand the concept of villainy, describing how his youthful idealism gave way to an adult sympathy with the choices of notorious cultural figures to offer insight into the complexities and appeal of anti-heroes.
Martha Stewart's favorite crafts for kids : 175 projects for kids of all ages to create, build, design, explore, and share / by Martha Stewart Living. A guide for crafty parents and their kids mixes a kid-centric and family friendly design with a treasure trove of charming, beautiful, creative and educational projects that parents and their kids, aged 3 to 12, will love to create together.
The astronaut wives club : a true story / by Lily Koppel. Describes what lives were like for a group of military wives, including Annie Glenn, Rene Carpenter, Betty Grissom and Louise Shepherd, who were thrust into the spotlight when their husbands became Mercury Seven astronauts and made them stars.
New Fiction
The arrivals : a novel / by Melissa Marr. Waking up in The Wasteland, a world populated by monsters and unfamiliar landscapes, and in the company of people just like her, Chloe, riddled with the guilt of five years of sobriety down the drawn, and a group of strangers are trapped in an eternal afterlife and must help each other find salvation.
Star wars : crucible / by Troy Denning. Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Princess Leia have spent a lifetime fighting wars, bringing the Jedi back from extinction & saving the galaxy, so they've earned their rest, but fate has other plans for them-a quest only they can tackle & hope to survive.
Limits of power / by Elizabeth Moon. A re-emergence of magic after centuries of absence sparks brutal pogroms throughout the Eight Kingdoms, pitting a group of resolute heroes against the machinations of a vicious traitor. By the Nebula Award-winning author of "Kings of the North".
Big girl panties / by Stephanie Evanovich. When Logan Montgomery, a personal trainer to the country's most famous pro athletes, offers to help her get back in shape, young widow Holly Brennan, deciding to make at least one positive change in her life, throws herself into exercise and into Logan's arms.
Chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger / by Beth Harbison. Running away with her fiancé's brother after he convinces her that he loves her more and that the man she was about to marry has been unfaithful, Ashley Barton takes a job at a bridal shop when the ensuing relationship also fails, a situation that leads to an explosive confrontation 17 years later. By the best-selling author of "Secrets of a Shoe Addict".
The impossible lives of Greta Wells / by Andrew Greer. To alleviate her suffocating depression after the death of her twin brother and the break-up with her long-time lover, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment that has an unexpected side effect, which transports her to the lives she might have had if she had been born in a different era.
Lotería : a novel / by Mario Alberto Zambrano. Using the a deck of Loteria cards as her muse, 11-year-old Luz Castillo, a ward of the state who has retreated into silence, finds each shuffle sparking a random memory that, pieced together, brings into focus the joy and pain of her life and the events that led to her present situation.
The mouse-proof kitchen / by Saira Shah. Preparing to start over in idyllic Provence, France, after learning she is pregnant, Anna and her easygoing musician partner, Tobias, embark on an unexpected journey of the heart when their daughter is born with severe disabilities, a situation that is further complicated by a rickety home, eccentric neighbors and frequent trips to the hospital.
Death rides again / by Janice Hamrick. A latest entry in the award-winning series that includes "Death Makes the Cut" finds Texas high-school teacher Jocelyn Shore's family Thanksgiving disrupted by violent disputes involving a cousin's imminent divorce, which is further complicated by a disappearance, a murder and numerous suspects.