My LINKcat AccountIt’s difficult to tell what season it is right now. It is so glooming and soggy that many indicators of the change of season, from summer to fall, are difficult to spot. Corn is usually firing and soybeans are turning yellow (to celebrate the start of football season – Go Packers!) but this year, the crops look confused. I drove up to see family over the holiday weekend – between rounds of thunder storms. The fields on the way to Minnesota were a hodgepodge of green and brown. Apparently even given all the rain we’ve been having if you cut your hay too short, you can still burn it. I’d noticed that same phenomena with lawns around here as well. The most striking thing to me was how high the water was along the Interstate even after the water has been off the roads for a few days now. The poor trees look like they’re wading. I saw a flock of egrets (Great? Snowy? Cattle?) wading in the flood waters in an area I’ve never seen them before. Speaking of birds, loose flocks of starlings and redwing black birds are starting to assemble. Everywhere. I also saw flocks of nighthawks migrating in their jerky flight patterns over the Interstate in two places. Nighthawks usually start heading south at the end of August, so they are right on time. You probably noticed that there aren’t very many robins around anymore, or much of a dawn chorus. Those are two other good indicators that the season is changing. Another indicator is the fall booklist titles are starting to arrive. Below is a sampling of the new books that arrived recently. All I can say about all the rain is it is perfect reading weather and, at least it’s not snow. Enjoy!
New Non-Fiction
“American Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis – and How to End It” by Ryan Hampton.
A recovery advocate for the Facing Addiction not-for-profit and former White House staffer traces his own recovery journey while comprehensively explaining the national opioid crisis and his recommendations for addressing it.
“Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago” by Max Allan Collins and Brad Schwartz. A groundbreaking dual biography of notorious gangster Al Capone and Prohibition agent Eliot Ness explores the violence and corruption of 1930s Chicago and the history-shaping raids and arrests made by the legendary Untouchables.
New Fiction
“French Exit” by Patrick DeWitt. Bankrupted by her infamous litigator husband's tabloid death, a scandal-fearing widow flees New York for Paris, where her deadbeat son and she navigate near-comic self-destructive choices. By the New York Times best-selling author of “The Sisters Brothers”.
“Kismet” by Luke Tredget. Living in a world where a matchmaking app drives relationships, 29-year-old Anna reconsiders her options when she meets a dashing older journalist with a higher compatibility score than her safe, stable boyfriend.
“The Shakespeare Requirement” by Julie Schumacher. A sequel to the prize-winning Dear Committee Members finds newly appointed English Department chair Jason Fitger navigating his wife's affair with his boss, budget cuts, a formidable department secretary and a Shakespeare scholar who refuses to retire.
“We All Love the Beautiful Girls” by Joanne Proulx. Three suburban families' lives spiral dangerously out of control after a man and woman are cheated out of their life savings by their best friend and a teenage boy passes out in the snow at a party.
“Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens. Viewed with suspicion in the aftermath of a tragedy, a beautiful hermit who has survived for years in a marsh becomes targeted by unthinkable forces. A first novel by the New York Times best-selling author of “Cry of the Kalahari”.
“The Last Hours, No.1 (Black Death)” by Minette Walters. Assuming control of her despised late husband's people in the wake of the Black Death, a 14th-century noblewoman struggles to protect formerly oppressed people who have been rendered superstitious and fanatical by the plague. By a New York Times best-selling author.
“The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis. A recently divorced information-booth worker stumbles on an abandoned art school within a crumbling Grand Central Terminal before learning the story of a talented woman artist who went missing 50 years earlier. By the national best-selling author of “The Dollhouse” and “The Address”.
“The Middleman” by Olen Steinhauer. The rise and fall of a domestic left-wing terrorist group is traced from the perspectives of an FBI agent, an undercover agent, a convert and a writer on the sidelines. By a New York Times best-selling author.
“The Money Shot, No.3 (Teddy Fay)” by Stuart Woods & Parnell Hall. Disguising himself as a stuntman to investigate blackmail threats against an actress starring in a new production, Teddy Fay discovers that the perpetrators are looking for something other than money, in a novel that also features fan-favorite Stone Barrington. Co-written by a #1 New York Times best-selling author.
“Tailspin” by Sandra Brown. Hired to deliver a mysterious box to a fogbound Georgia town, daredevil pilot Rye Mallett is targeted by saboteurs and law enforcement before teaming up with an attractive but suspicious doctor to determine the box's significance. By a #1 New York Times best-selling author.