My LINKcat AccountWell. Another year is all-but gone. We stand here on the 29th of December, the antepenultimate day before the year 2024 begins and can see almost the entire year of 2023 behind us, and are close enough to the start of 2024 to almost see it if we squint really hard. It’s only three days, 72 hours, 4,320 minutes until we get a fresh start, a clean slate, a chance to get it right this time, a new chapter, the dawn of a new day. When you think about it, it’s quite a remarkable thing. Someone had a really good idea about turning this rather mathematical / astronomical event of the year changing, into a celebration. A celebration where we can turn our backs on the past and face that first day of the new year with hope in our hearts about the things we have resolved to do (or not do in the coming year). Isn’t it wonderful that we can look at the past year and say, “I’m so glad it’s over. Or “It was a wonderful year”. And then we can look ahead to the next year and say, “I hope next year is better.” Or “I hope next year is even better.” We humans are, at times, remarkably optimistic. When you think about it, looking at the past year and looking forward to the New Year is like reading a book. You finished that last book and you can say “Boy, am I glad that one’s done. It should have ended at page 200, not dragged on for another 400 pages.” Or “Wow! That book was so good I hope it’s a series and the next book is immediately available.” Then, when you get the book you reserved in the series or you pick out a new book (Based on its cover. Admit it. We all do it.) and you open the book, with hope in your heart and start to read. It’s a new book, a new dawn, another chance, a fresh start, a new beginning, the next chapter! Below you will find some of the new titles which recently arrived at the library. I hope they inspire hope in your heart and that this New Year is your best one ever.
The library will be closed all day on New Year’s Eve, December 31st, and all day Monday, New Year’s Day, January 1st.
New Non-Fiction
“Everywhere an Oink Oink: An Embittered, Dyspeptic, and Accurate Report of Forty Years in Hollywood” by David Mamet. The award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director reflects on his 40 years in Hollywood and his work with industry giants such as Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Mike Nichols, Bob Evans and Sue Mengers.
“Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning” by Liz Cheney. A House Republican leader offers a first-hand account from inside the halls of Congress as Donald Trump and his enablers betrayed the American people and the Constitution—leading to the violent attack on our Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
“When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Parenting Advice from a Professional Clown” by Kenan Thompson. In this heartwarming and surprising ode to growing up, getting older and wiser and learning from your mistakes, SNL’s longest-ever-serving cast member shares hilarious yet poignant essays that offer any reader valuable advice on parenting, focusing on positivity and having fun in life.
“Orbital” by Samantha Harvey. In this moving elegy to our humanity, environment and planet, six astronauts, selected for one of the last space station missions, leave their lives behind to travel at a speed of over 17,000 miles an hour to orbit Earth, witnessing the marks of civilization below.
“The Book of James: The Power, Politics, and Passion of Lebron” by Valerie Babb. This unique social, cultural and political look at the life of LeBron James shows how he uses his celebrity not to transcend Blackness, but to give it a place of cultural prominence, exposing the frictions between Blackness and a country not fully comfortable with its presence.
New Fiction
“A Different Kind of Gone” by Catherin Rya Hyde. A woman who joined a search party for a missing nineteen-year-old discovers her hiding in a cave terrified that her abusive boyfriend will kill her if he sees her again and must make a decision about keeping her secret.
“Prophet Song” by Paul Lynch. On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police on her step. Long-listed for the 2023 Booker Prize.
“Dead of Night, No. 2 (Berlin Wartime Thriller)” by Simon Scarrow. After the SS rules a doctor's mysterious death a suicide, the man's widow and Criminal Inspector Horst Schenke investigate while trying not to run afoul of the Gestapo in the second novel of the series following “Blackout”.
“The Frozen River” by Ariel Lawhon. In 1789 Maine, midwife and healer Martha Ballard, who is good at keeping secrets, investigates a shocking murder linked to an alleged rape that has shaken her small town, especially when her diary lands at the center of the scandal, threatening to tear both her family and her community apart.
“Death in the Dark Woods, No. 2 (Monster Hunter Mystery)” by Annelise Ryan. Odds and Ends bookstore owner and amateur cryptozoologist Morgan Carter travels to Bayfield County, Wisconsin, with her dog, Newt, to investigate a series of Bigfoot sightings in the second novel of the series following “A Death in Door County”
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“The Irish Millshake Murder” by Carlene O’Connor. Three cozy novellas that take place on St. Patrick's Day include the tale of a killer green milkshake at a New Jersey luncheonette and another murderous milkshake that takes out a wedding guest on a ferry trip to Inis Mór.
“The Second Stranger” by Martin Griffin. Trapped in the remote MacKinnon Hotel in the Scottish Highlands during a blizzard, Remie York and her remaining guests must endure one deadly night when two injured men arrive, both claiming to be Constable Dan Gaines as a dangerous prisoner is at-large.
‘The Mistress of Ashmore Castle” by Cynt Harrod-Eagles. When her husband, the Earl of Stainton, flees to Egypt to continue his research, new mother Kitty, reeling from his sudden departure, struggles to establish herself as the true mistress of Ashmore Castle despite the many secrets the inhabitants are hiding from her.