Tag Archives: Disaster

2022 Adult Reading Challenge! April

DISCOVER DIFFERENT GENRES!    FIND NEW AUTHORS!    WIN PRIZES!

Join us for a fun book challenge throughout 2022! Sign up and keep track via Beanstack. If you’ve participated in any of our recent summer or winter reading challenges, you’re all set to go and don’t need to create a new account.

Visit Beanstack here.

Our theme for April is CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Choose from travel memoirs, natural disasters, and survival stories. Here are a few titles to get you started:

FROM SCRATCH: A MEMOIR OF LOVE, SICILY, AND FINDING HOME
By Tembi Locke

“Readers will not want to put Locke’s memoir down, so compellingly does she describe her unique experiences and the universal ups and downs of life.” ~Booklist

For more information, or to place a hold, please click here.

THE LONGEST WAY HOME : ONE MAN’S QUEST FOR THE COURAGE TO SETTLE DOWN                         By Andrew McCarthy

“Though most recognizable as a member of the group of actors known in the 1980s as the Brat Pack, actor and travel journalist McCarthy (editor-at-large, National Geographic Traveler) shows off his writing chops in this memoir of his gradual resolution of the major conflicts in his life: to wander or to settle, to commit or to be free, to be lonely or to be sociable.” ~Library Journal

For more information, or to place a hold, please click here.

ISAAC’S STORM: A MAN, A TIME, AND THE DEADLIEST HURRICANE IN HISTORY
By Erik Larson

“Poignant details and sweeping narrative create a book that is hard to put down even though the outcome is a well-known historical fact: more than 6000 dead and an entire city devastated. At the same time, Larson chronicles a critical period of history for the National Weather Bureau. The blatant errors in judgment led to changes within that federal agency. More than anything, this is a gripping and heartbreaking story of what happens when arrogance meets the immutable forces of nature.” ~SLJ

For more information, or to place a hold, please click here.

IN HARM’S WAY : THE SINKING OF THE USS INDIANAPOLIS AND THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF ITS SURVIVORS
By Doug Stanton

“A crisp, well-executed reconstruction of naval warfare’s darkest chapter: the sinking and abandonment of the USS Indianapolis.” ~Kirkus

For more information, or to place a hold, please click here.

The Unthinkable

Title: The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why

Author: Amanda Ripley

Publisher: Crown, June 2008

Summary: Ever wonder how you would react in a real emergency? You will keep asking that question throughout this interesting non-fiction book on surviving disasters. The author analyzes behavior in several disastrous situations to try and determine who survives – and why. The answers may surprise you.

Who will like this book?: Readers who are interested in human behavior.

If you like this, try this: Brain Rules by John Medina

Recommended by: Barb, Reference Librarian.

The Memory of Water

TitleThe Memory of Water

Author:  Karen White

Summary:  The Memory of Water is a story of family bonds that bend but never break. Marnie Maitland and her sister Diana have not seen each other in 10 years. Not since Marnie went off to college in Arizona and didn’t come back. Growing up, the two girls relied on each other after their father left them and their mother started suffering from bouts of mania and depression. Now Marnie is back in South Carolina. Back to her childhood home on the ocean at the request of Diana’s ex-husband Quinn. Quinn is hoping that Marnie can help his son Gil recover from the trauma he suffered in a sailing accident with Diana. Gil hasn’t spoken a word since the accident and Diana refuses to tell anyone what really happened. Diana blames the Maitland curse that their mother told them about over and over again when they were children. It turns out that the Maitland curse is bi-polar disorder, and Diana is struggling with it also.

What Quinn doesn’t realize is that Marnie has stayed away from South Carolina for a very good reason. Once an accomplished sailor, Marnie is now terrified of the water. You see, Diana’s recent sailing accident was not her first. Sixteen years ago Marnie and Diana nearly drowned in a sailing accident that claimed the life of their mother. Marnie cannot remember everything about the accident, just that afterwards, Diana’s love for her turned to hate. Marnie must uncover the truth about both accidents if she can ever help Gil, and heal herself.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator