My LINKcat AccountThe weather forecast for most of the month of September was pretty boring. Sunny and mild. Sunny and mild. Plants continue to grow. Trees are just beginning to maybe think about changing color—or maybe not. The grass is browning off (again) due to lack of rain. And the 10-day forecast at this writing is for the more of the same. Sunny and mild. Sunny and a bit colder. Sunny and mild. Fortunately for the birds and other migratory critters, they don’t plan their travels based solely on the temperature. Length of day plays a major factor too. You may have noticed – or not—that there aren’t any robins doing their “Cheer-up” songs in the mornings any more, nor are they bopping along looking for worms on your lawn. Red-wing black birds have also departed. I realized this, this morning when I heard a red-wing black bird’s “conk-la-ree!” call. I haven’t heard any of them calling for a while now. During the time they spend in Wisconsin, they are a constant background noise. Hummingbirds have left the area or are in the last stages of leaving (the bags are in the car, the kids are in the car, mom is just running in to check that the stove is off and the water isn’t running). Monarch butterflies have started their trek back to Mexico. Some things are staying on track even if the weather is a bit misleading. The longer evenings which begin earlier and earlier now that we’ve passed the autumnal equinox are the perfect time for settling in with a good book. Below, I’m sure you’ll find at least one title you think would be a “good” book for you to read. Check them out! And enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm” by Demar Derozn with Dave Zarum. The outspoken and respected NBA athlete looks back on his public struggle with depression and his efforts to increase awareness about mental health and reduce the stigma of reaching out for help.
“Who Could Ever Lover You: A Family Memoir” by Mary L. Trump. An intimate, heartbreaking memoir concerns a father, a mother and a family’s exile.
“Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI” by Noah Harari. From the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, Stalinism, Nazism and the resurgence of populism today, an historian and philosopher explores human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world, addressing the urgent choices we face as nonhuman intelligence threatens our very existence.
“Why We Love Football: A History in 100 Moments” by Joe Posnanski. A moving celebration of the history of American football from the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Why We Love Baseball.
“Lovely One” by Ketanji Brown Jackson. In this unflinching account, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court pulls back the curtain to marry the public record of her life with what is less known, chronicling her extraordinary path to become a jurist on America’s highest court.
New Fiction
“An Academy for Liars” by Alexis Henderson. A young woman with a gift for persuasion, Lennon Carter, is invited to take an entrance exam for Drayton College, a school of magic hidden in a secret part of Savannah, where she learns how to master her strange power.
“Bright I Burn” by Molly Aitkin. Escaping the domestic drudgery of thirteenth-century Ireland, Alice builds her father's inn into an empire, but faces whispers of witchcraft and scandals as both her wealth and number of dead husbands rise in a novel inspired by a true story.
“Dungeon Crawler Carl, No.1” by Matt Dinniman. Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon.
“Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, No.2 (Dungeon Crawler Carl)” by Matt Dinniman. Join Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they fight fantastical creatures and deadly mobs to make it to the next level and build the kind of fan following the Dungeon Masters can’t ignore.
“A Fire in the Sky” by Sophie Jordan. A servant in the court of Penterra, Tamsyn's job is to be punished for the misdeeds of the princesses and is commanded to marry Fell, the Beast of the Borderlands, leaving behind everything she's ever known.
“The Life Impossible” by Matt Haig. When Grace Winters is left a house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, she arrives in Ibiza with no guidebook and no plan, in a novel by the #1 New York Times best-selling author of “The Midnight Library”.
“The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife” by Anna Johnston. Eighty-two-year-old Frederick Fife, kind at heart, is desperately lonely, broke and on the brink of homelessness until a case of mistaken identity lands him in a nursing home where he learns about the man’s past and how he can return a life in better condition than he found it.
“The Christmas Cottage, No. 9 (Miramar Bay)” by Davis Bunn. Childhood friends cross paths at Christmas in the kindhearted coastal town of Miramar Bay.
“Intermezzo” by Sally Rooney. In the wake of their father's death, two brothers—successful Dublin lawyer Peter and his younger brother Ivan, a competitive chess player—find different ways to deal with their grief, which affects not only their lives, but the lives of those they hold dear.