My LINKcat AccountAs I was driving to work last Thursday, I heard crickets chirping in the lawns. I was somewhat worried by this because it is well-known weather lore that it is six (6) weeks from hearing crickets chirping to the first frost. Now, looking at a calendar that would put the first frost around, oh, July 18th. While this has been a crazy spring (I can’t say early summer yet since the first day of summer is still a week away) a frost in the middle of July would hardly seem possible. So I did some digging around (librarians call this research) and discovered that the weather lore refers (at least in some cases) to fall crickets. Who knew there were fall crickets, right? Not only are there fall crickets there are also spring crickets. The spring crickets are what I have been hearing. They survive the winter in a juvenile form and as the weather warms, they mature and start chirping. They die off and the fall crickets who started their post-winter life as eggs are finally mature and chirping by the end of July or early August. Apparently there can be a short lacunae of chirping between the expiration of the spring crickets and the emergence of the fall crickets. To notice this brief, chirp-less, period in the middle of summer is as rare as hens’ teeth. When the fall crickets start singing is when the countdown to the first frost occurs. I’ll keep you posted on the first frost warnings, but for now, there is still a whole lot of summer yet to come (once summer actually gets here, of course). There are still a whole lot of summer books to be read and enjoyed indoors or outdoors. Below you will find some of the new titles that have arrived recently. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America” by Michael Dyson. A timely follow-up to Tears We Cannot Stop examines the sources of America's torturous racial politics, tracing the 1963 meetings that included James Baldwin, Robert Kennedy and a host of expert activists, who transformed racial and political understandings and set the stage for national disputes that are still raging today.
“Lost Pilots: The Spectacular Rise and Scandalous Fall of Aviation’s Golden Couple” by Corey Mead. Describes the affair between pilots Jessie Miller and William Lancaster, who few from London to Melbourne in 1927 setting the long distance flying record and falling in love despite both being married to other people.
“The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations” by John McCain. A candid new political memoir by the former Republican presidential nominee and author of Faith of My Fathers chronicles the election of Barack Obama through the divisive 2016 election of Donald Trump, offering no-holds-barred opinions of the current developments coming out of Washington as well as his recommendations for ongoing international challenges, from Russia and NATO to ISIS and the wars in the Middle East.
“Robin” by Dave Itzkoff. The New York Times culture reporter and author of Mad as Hell presents a compelling portrait of Robin Williams that illuminates his comic brilliance, conflicting emotions and often misunderstood character, sharing insights into the gift for improvisation that shaped his wide range of characters, his struggles with addiction and depression and his relationships with friends and family members.
“AIQ: How People and Machines are Smarter Together” by Nick Polson & James Scott. Two statistics professors describe how intelligent machines are changing the world and use stories, rather than equations, to help readers understand the mathematical language they use, and provide a better grasp on concepts in data and probability.
“Birds of a Feather: A True Story of Hope and the Healing Power of Animals” by Lorin Lindner. The clinical supervisor for Clinica Sierra Vista Behavioral Health traces her unlikely founding of the Serenity Park exotic bird sanctuary and veteran PTSD center, describing how her relationship with an abandoned Moluccan cockatoo led to her use the deep bonds that birds are capable of forming to establish a beneficial therapy practice for traumatized veterans.
New Fiction
“By Invitation Only” by Dorothea Frank. A young, sophisticated Chicago woman falls for the owner of a farm on Johns Island, a lush low country paradise off the coast of South Carolina, and trades the bustle of cosmopolitan city life for the vagaries of a small Southern community. By the best-selling author of “The Hurricane Sisters”.
“The Cactus” by Sarah Haywood. Avoiding messy emotions in a perfectly ordered life marked by a logic-oriented career and a friends-with-benefits arrangement, Susan tackles the unexpected double challenge of losing her mother and becoming pregnant and is challenged to ask for help while discovering herself in unlikely ways. A first novel.
“The High Season” by Judy Blundell. Forced to rent out her family's beautiful seaside Long Island home every summer just so that they can afford to keep it, Ruthie is forced to go to extreme lengths to protect the life she loves in the wake of a suddenly estranged marriage, greedy co-workers who are threatening her job, the return of an old flame and her teen daughter's destructive relationship. By the National Book Award-winning author.
“How to Walk Away” by Katherine Center. When an accident on what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life lands her in the hospital with a very uncertain future, Margaret struggles to come to terms with family secrets, heartbreak and starting over before discovering love in an unexpected place. By the author of “Happiness for Beginners”.
“The Mercy Seat” by Elizabeth Winthrop. Set during the hours leading up to the scheduled execution of a black teen for the alleged rape of a white woman in 1943 Louisiana, a meticulous portrait of race, racism and injustice in the Jim Crow era South traces the experiences of the convicted boy; his father, the District Attorney; the convict truck driver delivering the executioner's chair and a couple grappling with grief and secrets. By the author of “The Why of Things”.
“To the Moon and Back, No. 43 (Baxter Family)” by Karen Kingsbury. Meeting a bereft and smitten son of an Oklahoma City bombing victim who bonded with, and then lost contact with, the daughter of another bombing victim, Ashley struggles to help the man find the girl at the same time she tries to get her skeptical husband to understand why she feels strongly compelled to get involved.
“Give-a-Damn Jones” by Bill Pronzini. A free-spirited itinerant typographer who hates both his nickname and the rumors attributed to his character arrives in a small Montana town rife with tensions related to a convict's efforts to prove his innocence, a cattleman's demand for respect, a snooping firebrand editor and a feud between a wily dentist and a violent blacksmith. By the award-winning author of the Nameless Detective series.