My LINKcat AccountWe’ve certainly had our share of rainy weather lately. It seems like the last day of school rolled past us and all those children just waiting to get outside and play have been kept indoors by rain. The Atlantic Hurricane Season started on June 1st, so perhaps our local weather is having sympathetic showers and thunder storms. Even with a rainy weekend behind us and more rain in the forecast for during the week, I’m not complaining. I have plants in pots (porch pots and driveway pots) that I carry water to when it doesn’t rain. Since sticking those wee plants in the ground back in the middle of May, the rain has been nicely cooperative by falling gently on the potted plants. This rain has also ended the drought we were experiencing here in southern Wisconsin. We were in a moderate drought until all the rain came. As of May 31st we are still “abnormally dry”, we are no longer in a drought. So let it rain! And, as we all know, rainy days are just perfect for settling in with a good book – perhaps after baking something that makes the house smell wonderful (if you are so inclined) or opening something commercially baked. A nice cup of tea, a light refreshment, curling up with a cat and/or dog, and/or significant other, and a good book, and the dark skies and patter of rain make for perfect reading weather. To help you make the best of rainy days, you will find the title of some of the books which recently arrived at the library. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
The Movement Made Us: A Father, A Don, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride by David Dennis, Jr. & David Dennis, Sr. A work of oral history and memoir chronicles the extraordinary story of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and its living legacy embodied in Black Lives Matter.
How to Prevent the Next Pandemic by Bill Gates. The technologist, business leader and philanthropist who founded Microsoft explains the science of fighting pandemics, discusses the lessons learned from COVID-19 and provides a path forward to preventing another pandemic from taking millions of lives.
Team America: Patton, MacArthur, Marshall, Eisenhower, and the World They Forged by Robert O’Connell. From a national best-selling author and acclaimed military historian comes a history of four military leaders whose extraordinary leadership and strategy led the United States to success during World War I and beyond.
There are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness: And Other Thoughts on Physics, Philosophy, and the World by Carlo Rovelli. One of the world’s most prominent physicists takes us on an accessible and enlightening journey through science, literature, philosophy and politics across time and space, in this intellectual portal to the universe.
African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom by David Fischer. Investigates the little-known history of how enslaved people from various parts of Africa mixed with colonists of European ancestry in the colonial United States to establish unique regional cultures.
New Fiction
Evening Hero by Marie Myung-Ok Lee. When the rural, Minnesota hospital where he is a practicing obstetrician closes, a Korean immigrant confronts the life he built after the war and the assumptions he made about the so-called American Dream.
The Golden Season by Madeline Sneed. In a novel set in the Southern Baptist "Bible Belt" of West Texas, a father and daughter must grapple with her coming out and the ways in which it redefines questions of faith, love and what it means to be family for them both.
Love Marriage by Monica Ali. In training to be a doctor, and engaged to upper-class Joe Sangster, who formidable mother is a famous feminist, 26-year-old Yasmin Ghorami, as the wedding quickly approaches, finds her relationship upended by misunderstandings, infidelities, long-buried-secrets and the truth about her parents supposed “love marriage.”
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach. Opening in the early 90s and charting almost two decades of shared history and missed connections, a new novel is both a breathtaking love story about two broken people and a coming-of-age tale.
The Shore by Katie Runde. When their father, the owner of a beachside real estate company, develops a brain tumor, needing constant care, siblings Liz and Evy still seek out summer adventures while their mother tries to keep it together, wishing to leave the beach behind her.
We Measure the Earth With Our Bodies by Tsering Lama. A novel tells the compelling and profound story of a Tibetan family’s journey through exile.
Daughters of the Occupation: A Novel of WWII by Shelly Sanders. Inspired by true events in World War II Latvia, an emotionally charged novel of sacrifice, trauma, resilience and survival follows three generations of women.
Nightwork by Nora Roberts. Harry Booth, a clever thief who can’t afford to get attached, finds his heart stolen by Miranda Emerson, but must leave her cruelly behind to free himself from the grip of a deadly predator in order to possess something more valuable than anything he has ever stolen—Miranda.
You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi. Learning how to feel joy while healing from loss, Feyi Adekola starts dating the perfect guy, but discovers she has feelings for someone else who is off limits and must decide just how far she is willing to go for a second chance at love.