My LINKcat AccountHave you ever noticed how the seconds, minutes, hours in a day go faster or slower depending on the time of year? For instance, during the darkest, coldest days of winter when we get this side of nine hours of daylight each day, I have calculated minutes to actually last 88.8 seconds instead of the standard 60. This means hours instead of lasting 3600 seconds, actually last 5,328 seconds which means days last 127,872 minutes instead of the standard 86,400. No wonder winter days drag on and on. Conversely, when we get to the spring and early summer days (prior to the summer solstice when things start heading downhill again) when those bright, sunny days with rosy-fingered dawns and light in the evening sky until all the stars are strung across it, on those days when we are getting over 15 hours of daylight, I have calculated minutes to actually last 31.2 seconds. This is why those perfect days of spring and early summer seem so fleeting – they actually are. While the numbers assigned in these calculations are purely figments of my imagination the numbers bear me out. During summer a minute is experienced as 48% less than a standard (or average) 60 seconds. During the dark days of winter a minute is experienced as 48% more than an average minute. And if you average the 48% above average with the 48% below average, you get your average 60 second minute. Voilà! Another mystery explained. If you’re in the mood for more fiction, scroll your eyes down the page where you’ll find our latest selection of fiction and non-fiction titles. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
In a dark wood : what Dante taught me about grief, healing, and the mysteries of love / by Joseph Luzzi. A scholar and writer, finding himself a widower and first-time father at the same moment, turns to Dante's “The Divine Comedy” for solace, using this epic poem to learn how to resurrect his life and revealing how the power of art gives us strength in our darkest moments.
No excuses : growing up deaf and achieving my Super Bowl dreams by Derrick Coleman. The first deaf athlete to play offense in the NFL—and win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks—relates his inspirational story of hard work and determination in his own words.
Once upon a time in Russia : The rise of the oligarchs -- A true story of ambition, wealth, betrayal, and murder / by Ben Mezrich. The best-selling author of “Bringing Down the House” and “The Accidental Billionaires” delivers an epic drama of wealth, rivalry and betrayal among mega-wealthy Russian oligarchs—and its international repercussions.
New Fiction
Never die alone / by Lisa Jackson. A detective who harbors doubts about a serial killer conviction, a woman who would prove her cousin innocent and a reporter in search of a career-making story work to find the actual culprit, who has taken twin sisters hostage.
Piranha / by Clive Cussler & Boyd Morrison. Covertly recreating the 1902 sinking of a ship on which a German scientist was on the brink of an astonishing breakthrough, Cabrillo and his team are targeted by an assassin before learning that a traitorous weapons designer has finished the scientist's work.
Radiant angel / by Nelson Demille. Taking a job with the Diplomatic Surveillance Group after a showdown with The Panther, Corey realizes that America has unknowingly entered a second Cold War era with a newly resurgent Russia. By the best-selling author of “The Gold Coast”.
800 grapes : a novel / by Laura Dave. When her wedding is cancelled after her fiancé reveals a shocking secret, Georgia Ford returns to her family's Sonoma vineyard where she, expecting the comfort of her long-married parents, her brothers and everything familiar, discovers that her fiancé wasn't the only one keeping secrets.
The unfortunates / by Sophie Mcmanus. Heiress Cecilia Somner's decline in wealth, her affliction with a rare disease and the complicated relationship with her son, George, and his wife, Iris, all culminate in a crime that is as unforgettable as it is unexpected.
The cherry harvest / by Lucy Sanna. Explores a hidden side of the American home front during World War II, when German POWs were put to work in a Wisconsin farm community—with dark and unexpected consequences.
The fateful lightning : a novel of the Civil War / by Jeff Shaara. A conclusion to the “New York Times” best-selling series that began with “A Blaze of Glory” recounts how Tennessee federal forces commander William T. Sherman conquers Confederate forces under General John Bell Hood during his legendary March to the Sea campaign.
In the unlikely event / by Judy Blume. A novel inspired by a series of passenger airplane crashes that occurred in 1951 and 1952 New Jersey reimagines the impact of the tragedies on three generations of families, friends and strangers. By the author of “Summer Sisters”.
Saint Mazie : a novel / by Jami Attenberg. Running a Jazz Age movie theater that is transformed by Prohibition and the Great Depression, Mazie Phillips reflects on her poverty-stricken youth and converts the theater into a shelter in ways that reverberate nearly a century later. By the “New York Times” best-selling author of “The Middlesteins”.
Never say die / by Tess Gerritsen. Twenty years after her father's plane crashed, Willy Jane Maitland is in Vietnam, seeking the truth, and she enlists the help of rumpled, irreverent ex-army man Guy Barnard.