My LINKcat AccountIt is hard to believe that we're already into September. As you all know, September is "National Library Card Sign up Month". This compels me to ask "What's in your wallet?" (or on your key chain). If you don't have a library card you are missing out on access to many, many things. The library is about much more than books. We have cake pans, audio books, dvds, video games, telescopes, a metal detector, geocaching equipment, a metal detector, and wi-fi hot spots just to name the first few things that leapt to my mind. If you already have a library card, this is the month to use it. This is also the month to show it with pride at certain, local businesses who will give you a discount. Check out which businesses are participating on our social media.
Entering the month of September also means that we are finally, truly, completely done with the Summer Reading Program. The final, fun event earned by all the participants has happened. And, I am sorry to report, all the donated dragon dollars have been tallied. Over the next few months I shall be converting those dragon dollars into US dollars and making donations to :The Dane County Humane Society in the amount of $1,111.; $387 to the DeForest Area Needs Network; $351 to the Friends of the Yahara Headwaters; and $753 to the DeForest Area Public Library's Endowment. Jumpin' Jimminy! That's a whole lot of charitable giving coming from our reading program participants. I really shall be looking to get a co-sponsor for converting these dollars going forward. Usually, at this point in this column, I would encourage you all to stay in shape for the Winter Reading Program by perusing and checking out some of the titles listed below. I'm not going to do that. I'll just say the titles are there. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House…Yet” by Ali Vitali. The Capitol Hill Correspondent for NBC News explores the reasons why despite having more women run for President than ever before in our history, they have yet to finally break that final glass ceiling.
“We’ve Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible” by Beto O’Rourke. A noted politician shines a spotlight on the heroic life and work of voting-rights advocate Dr. Lawrence Aaron Nixon and the west Texas town where he made his stand.
New Fiction
“The Last White Man” by Mohsin Hamid. As people across the land awaken in new incarnations, Anders, whose skin turns dark, confides only in Oona, an old friend turned new lover, deciding to use this as chance at a kind of rebirth, in this novel of transcendence over bigotry, fear and anger.
“Rules at the School by the Sea: The Second School by the Sea Novel(Little School by the Sea)” by Jenny Colgan. Engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Maggie Adair, a teacher at Downey House the sea in Cornwall, must stop thinking about her colleague at the boys’ school down the road, while her boss, headmistress Veronica Deveral, must confront a scandalous secret she thought she’d buried forever.
“Fox Creek, No. 18 (Cork O’Connor Mysteries)” by William Krueger. Cork O'Conner tries to find his wife who had accompanied a mysterious stranger on a visit the ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux before a group of mercenaries can in the latest novel of the series following “Desolation Mountain”.
“The Hunt (Decker/Lazarus Novels)” by Faye Kellerman. When the biological mother of Peter and his wife Rina’s foster son is brutally beaten and her children taken, Peter, Rina and Gabe’s biological father, a former hitman-turned-millionaire, race against time to rescue them, ending in an explosive confrontation from which no one will emerge unscathed.
“Murder in Westminster, No. 1” by Vanessa Riley. The first in a vibrant, inclusive new historical mystery series by an acclaimed author portrays the true diversity of the Regency-era, as a widow whose skin color and notorious family history have left her with few friends she can rely on—just as the local vicar names her the prime suspect in a murder case.
“Peg and Rose Solve a Murder, No. 1 (Senior Sleuths Mysteries)” by Laurien Berenson. Polar opposites and bridge partners, 60-something former nun Rose and her sister-in-law Peg, who knows how to push all of Rose’s buttons, are drawn into a mystery—one they must work together to solve—when the bridge club’s most accomplished player is murdered and they fall under suspicion.
“Alias Emma” by Ava Glass. A brand new secret agent, Emma Makepeace, is tasked with having only 12 hours to bring the son of Russian dissidents into protective custody while avoiding the assassins looking for him in one of the world's most-surveilled cities.
“Babysitter” by Joyce Carol Oates. The lives of three individuals, including the wife of a prominent businessman who is having an affair, a street hustler seeking to right an injustice and a serial killer called Babysitter, intersect in a Detroit suburb in the 1970s.
“The Blame Game” by Sandie Jones. A psychologist specializing in domestic abuse, Naomi, after her client’s file goes missing, wonders if her own dark past is coming back to haunt her— and if her clients aren’t the only ones in danger
“The Family Remains” by Lisa Jewell. In this sequel to the best-selling The Family Upstairs, two women are faced with complicated mysteries that are linked to a cold case that left three people dead in a Chelsea mansion 30 years ago.
“Firestorm” by Taylor Moore. A powerful energy consortium begins an aggressive mining operation that threatens to destroy special agent Garrett Kohl's Texas ranch and his family's way of life in the new novel from the author of “Down Range”.