February 20, 2020 - Twos and Zeros

While today is not quite a palindromic day, it still sure has a lot of twos and zeros in it. It has been two weeks and two days since the Ground Hog’s Day early spring prediction. We have had two sub-zero mornings since that prediction and snow and a couple of days of colder weather. We have also had sun and above freezing temperatures on a number of days. The extended forecast has not only temperatures in the mid to upper 30s but also a few 40-degree weather days. I won’t say it – or type it—because I don’t want to jinx anything but, it (meaning winter) just might be almost (insert 4-letter word here that starts with an “o” and ends with and “r” and has a 4-point Scrabble consonant in it). One of those old weather adages that I am so fond of dropping into conversations is that “As the days lengthen, the cold strengthens”. When we started the year, sunrise was at 7:29 a.m. and sunset was at 4:33p.m. The sun is now rising at 6:48 a.m. and setting at 5:35. If gaining that much daylight cost a few days of cold, I’m okay with that. The Winter Reading is approaching its end which will be the 28th of this month. There’s still plenty of time to record your books and still plenty of time to read as well. Below are some of the new titles that recently arrived at the library. Read them and record them! Enjoy!

New Non-Fiction

Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class” by Charles Murray. The “New York Times” best-selling author of “Coming Apart” argues that all groups of people are not the same and reveals an investigation of the genetics and neuroscience of human differences

 

The Adventurer’s Son: A Memoir” by Roman Dial. An Alaska Pacific University scientist and National Geographic Explorer recounts his two-year effort to uncover the fate of his adventurer son, who in 2014 disappeared into the untracked rainforest of Corcovado National Park.

 

Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War” by Steve Inskeep. An NPR host tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America’s first great political couple

 

The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever” by Kent Garrett & Jeanne Ellsworth. A Harvard graduate who attended as one of 18 African-American recruits in an early affirmative-action program describes how he reconnected with his fellow graduates half a century later to learn their remarkable stories.

 

A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II” by Simon Parkin. Tells the triumphant story of a group of young women who helped devised a winning strategy to defeat the Nazi U-boats and deliver a decisive victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.

 

Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote” by Craig Fehrman. A journalist historian shares lesser-known insights into the public and private writing lives of America's Presidents, from Lincoln's secret speech anthology for the 1860 election to Teddy Roosevelt's accounts of his life-risking safaris.

New Fiction

Shattered Justice, No. 3 (Bone Gap Travelers Mysteries) by Susan Furlong. When the ears of a man she met the night before are found hanging from the monkey bars at a local playground, Brynne Callahan begins an investigation that forces her to confront the demons of her own past.

 

The Mercies” by Kiran Hargrave. In Finnmark, Norway, 1617, after 40 fishermen are drowned in the sea, the women of the tiny Arctic town of Vardo must fend for themselves especially when a sinister figure arrives, bringing with him a mighty evil that threatens their very existence.

 

Blindside, No. 12 (Michael Bennett) by James Patterson &James Born. Agreeing to help the mayor of New York track down his missing daughter in exchange for leniency for his imprisoned son, detective Michael Bennett investigates a tricky homicide before uncovering ties to a sophisticated hacking operation.

 

A Divided Loyalty, No. 22 (Inspector Ian Rutledge)” by Charles Todd. Investigating the murder of an unknown victim who was found within a great prehistoric circle near Stonehenge, Rutledge follows unreliable clues to an impossible conclusion that places him on the wrong side of Scotland Yard.

 

Golden in Death, No. 50 (In Death)” by J.D. Robb. Homicide detective Eve Dallas investigates the springtime murder of a beloved pediatrician by an unknown killer who hid a deadly toxin inside of a small golden egg. By the best-selling author of “Connections in Death”.

 

The Authenticity Project” by Clare Pooley. When Julian Jessup, an eccentric, lonely artist who believes that most people aren’t really honest with each other, writes the truth about his own life in a green journal and leaves it behind, others start writing in their own truth, which leads to unexpected friendship and love.

 

Dead to Her” by Sarah Pinborough. Navigating her new husband's complicated social circle and wandering eye, a mistress-turned-wife becomes ruthless when her husband begins an affair with his boss's own second wife. By the best-selling author of “Behind Her Eyes”.