My LINKcat AccountThe Summer Library Program is done. The final chance to make purchases or donations with the dragon dollars earned during the summer has past and all that’s left to do is tally up all the numbers. And there are many numbers, which I shall attempt to relate to you next week if all the counting is done. In the meantime library staff is already starting to plan for the Winter Reading Program, because, you know “Winter is Coming”! There really are signs that winter is coming. Okay. Maybe not winter yet, but fall is starting to creep up on us. The days are noticeably shorter both in the morning and the evening which means I’m starting to catch up on my sleep. When the evenings are long and filled with light it’s so easy to keep puttering around or reading. In the wee hours of the morning when the days are at their longest my feline companions are taping me on the head before 4 o’clock in the morning because it is getting light and all the crepuscular animals that cats in the wild prey on are stirring and my apex predators feel that we should all get up and going lest the early bird get away. Speaking of birds, have you noticed that the dawn chorus has stopped – well almost stopped there is an insane cardinal in my neighborhood that never quits--? That’s because there’s not enough time to raise, fledge, and train another nest full of baby birds. And if there’s no time for this there’s no point in singing the mating songs. Birds are also beginning to flock up in preparation of migration. They are practicing flying in formation and getting along with each other – something they weren’t doing when the breeding season was upon them. There’s still plenty of summer left and plenty of hot weather to come, but we have, ever so gently, started to make that turn towards the seasonal shift. There are some new books listed below to help you enjoy on your vacation or time at the beach or time just sitting outside. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
Hillary's America : the secret history of the Democratic Party / by Dinesh D’Souza. The best-selling author of Obama's America characterizes presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a Nixonian political gangster out to control the country's wealth in a scathing critique that makes controversial claims about Clinton family corruption.
Trump and me / by Mark Singer. An updated portrait of the business mogul and presidential candidate, written by his long-suffering chronicler and the author of “Funny Money”, traces Trump's rise as an unlikely tribune of populist rage, political artifice and fantasy-based performance artistry.
The gardener and the carpenter : what the new science of child development tells us about the relationship between parents and children / by Alison Gopnik. A leading developmental psychologist and philosopher uses natural history and the latest scientific research to demonstrate how the modern style of parenting, one of obsessively controlling offspring with goal-oriented labor is bad for both the child and the parents.
Raising human beings : creating a collaborative partnership with your child / by Ross Greene. The renowned child psychologist and best-selling author of The Explosive Child explains how to cultivate a better parent-child relationship while nurturing empathy, honesty, resilience and independence through balanced, non-adversarial parenting approaches.
New Fiction
The Swarm / by Scott Orson Card & Aaron Johnston. A prequel to Ender's Game profiles the past of Ender's world and is set in the aftermath of the Scouring of China as part of the Formic's efforts to eradicate all life on Earth. By the best-selling authors of “Invasive Procedures”.
Thunderlord / by Marion Zimmer Bradley. The son of the defeated Lord Scathfell marries a girl with the ability to sense and control thunderstorms as he plots his revenge, in the latest addition to the series following “The Fall of Neskaya”.
Another Brooklyn : a novel / by Jacqueline Woodson. Torn between the fantasies of her youth and the realities of a life marked by violence and abandonment, August reunites with a beloved old friend who challenges her to reconcile past inconsistencies and come to terms with the difficulties that forced her to grow up too quickly. By a National Book Award-winning author.
The book that matters most / by Ann Hood. Joining a reading group in the wake of a failed marriage, Ava rediscovers a mysterious book from her childhood that helped her through past difficulties, while her troubled daughter, Maggie, descends into a destructive relationship with an older man in Paris By the author of “The Obituary Writer” and “The Knitting Circle”.
Carousel court : a novel / by Joe McGinniss. A follow-up to “The Delivery Man” presents a bold tale of marriage as blood sport that finds a young Southern California couple seeking a fresh start after a devastating loss, only to be confronted by the economic recession and the consequences of a desperate plan to reclaim their middle-class status.
Family tree : a novel / by Susan Wiggs. Waking up from a coma after a shattering accident, Manhattan television producer Annie Harlow retreats to her childhood home on a Vermont maple farm, where she reconnects with loved ones while cooking her grandmother's recipes and uncovering a family mystery. Reading-group guide online. By a #1 New York Times best-selling author.
Valley of the moon : a novel / by Melanie Gideon. Stumbling across an idyllic community in the Sonoma valley that is astonishingly stuck in the first decade of the 20th century, single mom Lux struggles to balance the cultural differences of the present-day world where she is raising her son with the generations-older lifestyle of a man to whom she is drawn.
The bones of paradise / by Jonis Agee. When a white rancher and a young Native American are found murdered on a remote part of his land a decade after Wounded Knee, the scattered members of the victims' families gather to investigate and expose damning secrets against a backdrop of difficult cultural transformations.
The Hamilton affair : a novel / by Elizabeth Cobbs. In a novel set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Revolution, the author tells the sweeping, tumultuous, true love story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler.