My LINKcat AccountThere is something about countdowns. When you finally get down to zero and the event is finished, there is another countdown just lurking in the wings, ready to step up and into the spotlight. We did indeed finish the countdown to the Harry Potter Birthday Party on July 31st.And it was a swell party, but then, it always is! Now the countdown for the end of the Summer Reading Program has not only begun, it is rapidly approaching. As of today (one assumes the publication date of the newspaper is Friday) August 2nd, it is a mere a 15 days until the Summer Reading Programs end. This means there is still plenty of time to read or listen to books, record them, redeem them for Dragon Dollars, and spend them in our store. But it also means there are only 15 days left to do all that. Time is beginning to run out. It is not only beginning to run out for you, individually, as a participant in the Summer Reading Program, but also for you as part of a group engaged in a reading challenge. As of the 25th of July, the total that will gain a very cool party for all is 5,000 books away. Can we do it? Yes, we can! But you need to record all those books you’ve been reading for the good of the cause. The Teens are 514 books towards their goal of 800. The Intermediate School is soundly trouncing library and school staff and will, undoubtedly, get their slime party. Yahara is leading the elementary schools to see which will qualify for their slime party. (Personally, the opportunity to “slime” some person would not motivate me to read, but…..). While you’re counting down with us to the end of the pressure to read because of the Summer Reading Program, you might care to take a look at some of the new books, listed below, which recently arrived at the library. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI” by Ray Kurzweil. Drawing on 60 years of research on artificial intelligence, a noted inventor and futurist, in this follow-up to his groundbreaking book The Singularity is Near, explores how technology will transform humanity in the decades to come while considering the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology and AI.
New Fiction
“The Comfort of Ghosts, No. 18 (Maisie Dobbs)” by Jaqueline Winspear. In 1945 London, psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs visits a vacant Belgravia mansion where she finds four adolescent orphans and a demobilized, gravely ill soldier and as she tries to bring comfort to them all, she is forced to examine her own painful past and the beliefs she has always accepted as true.
“A Botanist’s Guide to Society and Secrets (Saffron Everleigh Mysteries)” by Kat Khavari. Brilliant botanist Saffron Everleigh is ready for her next thrilling adventure in the newest installment of a historical mystery series.
“Farwell, Amethystine, No. 16 (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)” by Walter Mosely. Los Angeles detective Easy Rawlins investigates when the ex-husband of his ex-lover, Amethystine Stoller, turns up dead and his only friend at the LAPD goes into hiding in the sixteenth novel of the series following Blood Grove.
“The Last Note of Warning, No. 3“ by Katharine Schellman. The third installment in the luscious, mysterious and queer Nightingale mystery series, set in 1920s New York.
“Murder Buys a One-Way Ticket, No. 20 (Jaine Austen Mysteries)” by Laura Levine. When she finds the body of her client, a wealthy gym chain owner who was a tyrant and a bully with an ego as big as his muscles, Hollywood-writer-for-hire Jaine Austen is the prime suspect in the murder and must track down the real killer before the train reaches its destination.
“Peg and Rose Play the Ponies, No. 3 (Senior Sleuths Mysteries)” by Laurien Berenson. While in Kentucky to sell her Thoroughbred broodmare’s offspring at a high-stakes yearling sale, rival sisters-in-law Peg and Rose discover something seems off about Six Oaks farm, and when the yearling manager with serious anger issues is murdered, the ladies enter the ring to expose the culprit.
“Requiem for a Mouse, No. 16 (Cat in the Stacks Mysteries)” by Miranda James. When his bride-to-be’s new employee, a shy, peculiar woman named Tara, is viciously attacked, librarian Charlie Harris takes a break from wedding preparations to find the culprit, discovering shocking glimpses into Tara’s past he could’ve never predicted that could delay his and Helen Louise’s happily ever after.
“The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye” by Briony Cameron. An epic tale based on true events illuminates a woman of color’s rise to power as one of the few purported female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean, and the forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.
“Husbands & Lovers” by Beatriz Williams. Two women, separated by decades and continents, but sharing an exotic family heirloom, search for their lost loves and reclaim secrets in the new novel from the New York Times best-selling author of “The Summer Wives”.
“Just Some Stupid Love Story” by Katelyn Doyle. A rom-com screenwriter who doesn't believe in love and a divorce attorney who does are forced together at their high school reunion 15 years after their breakup.
“Not in Love” by Ali Hazelwood. A successful biotech engineer, Rue Siebert, when a hostile takeover and its front man, Eli Killgore, threaten to bring her stable, hard-fought world crashing down, is torn between loyalty and undeniable attraction when they embark on a forbidden, no-strings-attached affair that proves all’s fair in love and science.
“Eruption” by Michael Crichton & James Patterson. Two of the world's most popular and prolific modern authors team up for a thriller about a history-making eruption in Hawaii that threatens to reveal a huge secret the US military has been hiding for decades.