September 30, 2022 - Last Quarter

One more day and we shall have entered the last quarter of the year, 2022. The past three-quarters of the year have passed at a steady pace with the seasons arriving about when you'd expect them to. The migratory birds showing up perhaps a little earlier than has been their wont in decades past due in some part to slightly warmer springs. We have entered the last week of September without hearing that weather word that starts with "f" in the forecast although this week's overnight lows are flirting with the mid-thirty-degree-temperature range. Why I remember, not too many years ago, when it was not that unusual to see that weather word that starts with "f" on the rooftops as the sun was rising in late August. Birds are beginning to flock up. Hummingbirds seem to be heading south and finally finding my still-blooming-like-gangbusters impatiens on my porch. The red-winged black birds aren't hanging around as individual families but have found large, migratory flocks in marshes and cornfields to join and practice their flying-in-large-groups maneuvers. My crops are still putting out flowers hoping to pollinate on more cherry tomato before the growing season comes. It seems like the whole natural world is holding it's collective breaths and waiting for the seasons to switch. The library world is waiting for the switch from summer beach books to more serious, literary works to appear. I'll let you decide which works are listed below. No judgement here! Enjoy!

New Non-Fiction

“The Six Phase Meditation Method: The Proven Technique to Supercharge Your Mind, Manifest Your Goals, and Make Magic in a Minute a Day” by Vishen Lakhiani. Leading a revolution in meditation, an entrepreneur and “New York Times” best-selling author, after interviewing nearly 1,000 neuroscientists, monks, yogis and meditation experts over years of study, creates The 6 Phase Meditation Method, a magic-making, joy-creating, productivity-inducing protocol empowering you to get focused, find peace and manifest your goals.

 

“The Big Fix: Seven Practical Steps to Save Our Planet” by Hal Harvey & Justin Gillis. Sharing first-hand accounts of people already making needed changes, an energy policy advisor and longtime “New York Times “ reporter offers everyday citizens a guide to the seven essential changes our communities must enact to bring our greenhouse gas emissions down to zero.

 

“The Long Alliance: The Imperfect Union of Joe Biden and Barack Obama” by Gabriel Debenedetti. Examines the past, present and future of the historic partnership between Joe Biden and Barack Obama, a bond between them that has been, at times, tense, affectionate, nonexistent and ironclad, shaping a second presidential administration, and the future of Democratic politics as we know it.

New Fiction

“Shrines of Gaiety” by Kate Atkinson. In London after the Great War, Nellie Carter, the notorious—and ruthless—queen of a dazzling, seductive and corrupt new world in the clubs of Soho, finds her success breeding enemies as she faces threats from without and within, revealing the dark underbelly beneath Soho’s gaiety.

 

“Robert B. Parkers’ Fallout, No. 21 (Jesse Stone)” by Mike Lupica. When a star high-school baseball player is found dead after winning the team’s biggest game, police chief Jesse Stone, who had personal ties to the victim, is stonewalled at every turn, while another case needs his attention after the former Paradise police chief is murdered.

 

“The Rising Tide, No 10 (Vera Stanhope)” by Ann Cleeves. When a member of a group of friends, who meet regularly for reunions on Holy Island, is found hanged, Vera Stanhope must discover what the friends are hiding and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now.

 

“Next in Line” by Jeffrey Archer. In this edge-of-your-seat thriller, William Warwick and Ross Hogan return in an explosive adventure that will take them to the very heart of power.

 

“The Shadow Murders (A Department Q Novel)” by Jussi Adler-Olsen. Faced with their toughest case yet, made only more difficult with COVID-19 restrictions and the challenges of their own personal lives, Department Q, led by Detective Carl Mørck, investigates a series of “accidental” deaths over the span of 30 years that may be the work of a violent serial killer.

 

“A Song of Comfortable Chairs, No. 23 (No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)”by Alexander McCall Smith. Mma and Grace help and old friend with a troubled son while Phuti develops a new marketing campaign to beat a rival furniture company's ads, in the latest novel of the series following “The Joy and Light Bus Company”.

 

“Dreamland” by Nicholas Spark. After his own musical career was tragically roadblocked, Colby Mills meets and falls for a graduate of a prestigious college music program looking to become a star in Nashville, in the new novel from the best-selling author of “The Wish”.

 

“Falling Stars” by Fern Michaels. A ski resort owner agrees to train and take a famous actor on one of Colorado's most treacherous runs while pretending she's not a huge fan, in the new novel by the New York Times best-selling author of “Sisterhood”.

 

“Drunk on Love” by Jasmine Guillory. Accidentally and unknowingly having a one-night stand with her new employee the night before his first day, stressed out Napa Valley winery owner Margot Nobel tries to keep things purely professional, but fails miserably.

 

“The Butcher and the Wren” by Alaina Urquhart. In the Louisiana bayou, forensic pathologist Dr. Wren Muller is sucked into an all-consuming cat-and-mouse game with a methodical killer with a penchant for medical experimentation who is getting more brazen by the day.

 

“Captive, No. 29 (Eve Duncan)” by Iris Johansen. Jane MacGuire is on the run after her MI6 agent partner runs afoul of an international crime lord and she is targeted, in the latest addition to the long-running series following “A Face to Die For”.