My LINKcat AccountAh, fall! The days are most noticeably getting shorter. I am a lark by nature (or because I live with cats who march to their own circadian rhythms), so I tend to rise a bit before the sun. Back in June, during our longest days, sunrise was at 5:18 although light was flooding the skies long before the sun popped over the horizon. These days we’re looking at sunrise around 6:45. On the other end evening wasn’t falling until nearly 9 p.m. Now sunset is at 7:02 p.m. That’s a lot of daylight to lose. The nights are getting cooler which makes for great sleeping weather. And some precocious trees are already strutting their stuff and showing off their splendid colors. The crickets (the fall variety that predict the coming of the first frost) started singing on or about August 28th. That means – according to weather lore, that we were six weeks from the first frost. If I’m counting correctly, that would be about October 2nd. One final indicator that fall is rapidly arriving is the influx of new books. The book titles from the fall publishing lists have started to arrive. And what excellent time. With fewer daylight hours to spend outdoors, it’s the perfect time to curl up with a good book. Below you will find some of the titles which recently arrived at the library. Enjoy!
Renovation update: The cabinets arrived today (Monday) and are being installed even as I type. The room already looks more spacious and welcoming. Flooring will go in after the cabinetry is installed. Suddenly things are moving very quickly! Stop by and take a peek.
New Non-Fiction
“Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me” by Bernie Taupin. In this much anticipated memoir, the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John—and half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music—shares, for the first time, his own account of their adventures, transporting readers across the decades and around the world.
“Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things” by Dan Ariely. Grounded in years of study as well as his own experience as a target of disinformation, a preeminent social scientist explores the behavior of “misbelief,” analyzing the psychological drivers that cause otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs.
“Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence” by Gavin Francis. A gentle, expert guide to the secrets of recovery, showing why we need it and how to do it better.
New Fiction
“Lion & Lamb: Two Crime Investigators, Two Rivals, One Hell of a Crime” by James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski. Veena Lion and Cooper Lamb are rival PIs in Philadelphia in this fun ride that starts with the death of the Eagles quarterback as the team prepares for the playoffs. The romance between Cooper and Veena is artfully handled. There are a number of endearing characters including Cooper’s two preternaturally clever kids and his Rhodesian ridgeback puppy, Lupe.
“Beyond the Door of No Return” by David Diop Translated by Sam Taylor. In 1906 Paris, the renowned botanist Michel Adanson lies on his deathbed, the masterwork to which he dedicated his life still incomplete; and as he expires, the last word to escape his lips is a woman’s name: Maram.
“Digging Stars” by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. Blending drama and satire while examining the complexities of colonialism, racism, and what it means to be American, the author probes the emotional universes of love, friendship, family, and nationhood.
“Flipping Boxcars” by Cedric the Entertainer. The first novel from one of the original Kings of Comedy is a crime caper that is a valentine to close-knit black families and tightly woven communities struggling to get by during the Depression and World War II.
“Not Forever, but for Now” by Chuck Palahniuk. Two brothers in a family of professional killers, Otto and Cecil find it hard to continue the family legacy due to a series of escaped convicts showing up at their door, a lecherous new tutor with disturbing hobbies, their mother’s burgeoning opioid addiction and the disappearance of their father.
“A Winter’s Rime” by Carol Dunbar. A harrowing and emotional novel set in rural Wisconsin explores the impact of generational trauma and one woman's journey to find peace and healing from the violence of her past.
“The Wren, the Wren” by Anne Enright. Centering around celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh, who was lauded in public but was carelessly selfish at home, three generations of McDaragh women must contend with inheritances—poetic wonder, abandonment and a sustaining love, in this intricately woven tapestry of longing, betrayal and hope.
“Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance” by Paulette Jiles. After recovering from a traumatic head injury, John Chenneville discovers his beloved sister and her family were murdered during the end of the Civil War and embarks on an odyssey across the Reconstruction-era South seeking revenge.
“Night Watch” by Jayne Anne Phillips. In 1874, in the wake of the Civil War, 12-year-old ConaLee and her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year, seek refuge in a West Virginia mental asylum where they get swept up in the life of the facility—and the mystery behind the man they call the Night Watch.
“Nineteen Steps” by Millie Bobby Brown. Millie Bobby Brown’s debut novel is a tale of love, longing and loss, inspired by the true events of her family’s experience during World War II. A first novel.