Down River

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Title: Down River

Author: John Hart

Summary: Five years ago, Adam Chase was acquitted of murder, even though his own stepmother testified against him. Most people in his hometown believed that he was guilty and that his father’s money paid for the verdict. Adam left home soon after the trial and has been living in New York ever since.

Now Adam has been asked by a childhood friend to come back to his hometown in North Carolina. Adam returns to find that the residents’ feelings toward him have not changed since he left. To make matters worse, many of them are angry with Adam’s father for interfering with a local land deal which could make them all rich. After Adam’s arrival,  violent attacks occur against the people closest to him. Seeds of doubt as to Adam’s innocence are again planted and he must find the true murderer before he/she kills again.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

The Savage Garden

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Title: The Savage Garden

Author: Mark Mills

Summary: The Savage Garden, written by Mark Mills, is the story of two murders, committed 400 years apart, and the attempt to solve the mystery of both crimes.

It’s 1958 and Adam Strickland, Cambridge undergraduate, has just been dumped by his girlfriend. When he is offered the opportunity to study a Tuscan Renaissance garden for his art history thesis, he accepts the offer. The garden was built in 1577 as a memorial to the villa owner’s wife Flora, who died at a very young age. During his research, Adam begins to see the garden’s statues and inscriptions as clues to Flora’s murder, not as a memorial to her death.

As Adam deciphers the clues in the garden, he begins to suspect that the more recent murder-that of the current villa owner’s son, may not be as clear cut as everyone thinks. Signora Docci’s son, Emilio, was shot and killed by Nazi officers on the third floor of the villa and the area has been sealed off ever since. Though everyone is excited about the revelation of Flora’s murder, Adam finds himself in danger when he begins to question the events surrounding Emilio’s death.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

Mudbound

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Title: Mudbound

Author: Hillary Jordan

Summary: Halfway into Hillary Jordan’s debut novel, Mudbound, I knew that she had earned a place on my “Must Read Authors” list. This is a wonderful, beautiful, brutal, tragic, richly painted novel that is worthy of all of its high praise.

It’s the Mississippi Delta in the 1940’s. The story opens as Henry and his brother Jamie are trying desperately to bury the body of a man, their father. Slowly, the reader is drawn into the lives of the six people who set in motion the events that lead to this man’s death. Laura and Henry McCallan are struggling with day-to-day life on a farm; Hap and Florence Jackson, the black sharecroppers who live and work on the McCallans’ farm, must deal with racism and the unforgiving conditions of the labor they face every day. Each family awaits the return of a war hero, and each family is brought to its knees as their wounded veterans come home and try to resume a “normal” life.

Before it was even published, Mudbound was the winner of a literary prize, the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Barbara Kingsolver, the founder of the award, had this to say of Hillary Jordan: “her characters walked straight out of 1940’s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are still with me.”

And they are still with me as well.

Recommended by: Mary, Reference Librarian

I Was Told There’d Be Cake

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Title: I Was Told There’d Be Cake

Author: Sloane Crosley

Summary: This collection of witty, self-depricating, utterly hillarious essays examine what is means to be young, single and whipsmart in New York today. Crosley, who grew up in Westchester and has written for the New York Observer, Playboy and The Village Voice, touches on many of the common experiences of growing up in suburbia: summer camp, being a bridesmaid, secretly wishing you lived somewhere more exotic; as well as life in post-9/11 New York, from the secret kindness of strangers, dinner parties and moving to a new apartment. However, like the essays of David Sedaris, these mundane events transform into irreverant, laugh-out-loud commentaries on the intricacies of modern life.

One of the blurbs on the back of the book calls Crosley “a 21st century Dorothy Parker.” Usually statements like these bother me, but in this case, the proof is in the reading. This is an outstanding debut collection, and I cannot recommend it highly enough!

Who will like this book?: People waiting patiently for the next David Sedaris book. Young, single, urban (or wannabe urban) women.

If you like this, try this: The books of David Rakoff, including Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable. Or try Sarah Vowell’s witty commentaries on pop culture and history, particularly Assassination Vacation.

Recommended by: Nicole, Teen Librarian

Shortcomings

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Title: Shortcomings

Author: Adrian Tomine

Summary: Once you meet him, you will never forget Ben Tanaka, a cranky, sarcastic Gen-X slacker and anti-hero of Adrian Tomine’s daring graphic novel. We follow Ben across the country from the Bay Area to New York City, through his relationship with the ambitious Miko, his friendship with perpetual student/skirt-chaser Alice, and his (firmly and unconvincingly denied) obsession with white girls.

This story could be called an anti-romance – it insists that love is not blind, but entirely dependent on hundreds of factors large and small including age, race, economic status, and first impressions. Will Ben’s cynical heart open? Will he get the girl and/or keep the girl? Can he change?

Who will like this book?: Fans of contemporary Asian-American stories, who are looking for something a little more edgy.

If you like this, try this: For another, more innocent Asian-American coming-of-age story, try the Printz-Award winning young adult graphic novel American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.

Recommended by: Nicole, Teen Librarian

The Book of Joe

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Title: The Book of Joe

Author:  Jonathan Tropper

Summary:   Who says you can’t go home again? In “The Book of Joe”, Joe Goffman does just that. Joe returns to his hometown of Bush Falls, CT to see his father who has suffered a serious stroke, but Joe was very busy while he was away. He wrote a best selling novel that was recently made into a movie. Unfortunately, the novel was based on Joe’s life during his senior year in high school, and many residents of his small hometown were not portrayed very favorably.

Some signs that the residents are not too happy with his book? The wife of the high school basketball coach dumps a milkshake in his lap, copies of his novel are strewn across the lawn of his childhood home, and threats of bodily harm are made by the “high school bully”. Joe must must reconnect with the people of Bush Falls that he left behind and come to terms with the actual events of that fateful senior year.

Who will like this book?:Anyone who likes a fun, fast paced read. References to Fairfield, CT including the Stratfield Road area and the Duchess Restaurant make this a fun read for anyone who knows the area.

If you like this, try this:Jonathan Tropper has a written a new novel titled How to Talk to a Widower.

Recommended by: Sue, Circulation Coordinator

The Air We Breathe

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Title: The Air We Breathe

Author: Andrea Barrett

Summary: While World War I looms in the future, the patients at Tamarack State Sanatorium are fighting their own battle with tuberculosis and the emotional issues that come from being confined to a strict regimen of rest and little social interaction.  Their insular world begins to expand, however, with the arrival of a somewhat mysterious young chemist from Odessa named Leo Marburg, and the pompous and wealthy Miles Fairchild, who is sure the less fortunate patients will benefit greatly from the wisdom he imparts through his weekly discussion groups. The lives of the patients become more entangled, and life at Tamarack gets complex and messy, bringing about the major disruption that the patients have both longed for and dreaded.  A final and unexpected tragedy will draw the group even closer together, although not to everyone’s benefit.

I’m a huge fan of historical fiction, and that’s mostly because of books like this.  Author Andrea Barrett has done a great job of describing a world we will never know, gently weaving in interesting lessons in both science and history.  She is the author of the National Book Award winner “Ship Fever,” Pulitzer Prize finalist “Servants of the Map,” as well as the fabulous “Voyage of the Narwhal.”
Recommended by: Mary, Reference Librarian

Chat

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Title: Chat

Author: Archer Mayor

Summary: Chat brings you the 18th book of a series that features Joe Gunther, a member of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This series is strong in the local settings and is a delight in its small town characterization. The author brings his experience as an investigator for the chief medical examiner’s office, a deputy, and an EMT to create a believable crime procedural novel.

Joe Gunther’s mother and brother are involved in a suspicious automobile accident. He investigates this accident and then becomes involved in the investigation of two seemingly unrelated deaths that draw him into chat rooms and online predators.

Who will like this book?: Anyone who has ever traveled to Vermont would love the descriptions of the Green Mountain state wrapped in a well-written mystery.

If you like this, try this: We have 17 other mysteries in the series that started with the Open Season in 1988!

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

The Venetian Betrayal

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Title: Venetian Betrayal

Author:  Steve Berry

Summary: The third entry in the Cotton Malone series brings us Cotton who has retired from a clandestine U.S. government agency. He is operating a rare book shop in Denmark where he is drawn into a geopolitical game that takes him across Europe and Asia. Cotton narrowly escapes death in a fire that envelopes a Danish museum. His friend, Cassiopoeia Vitt informs him that museums across Europe are being set ablaze to mask the theft of Alexander the Great medallions. These medallions hold clues that reveal the final resting place of Alexander the Great and more importantly the secret of the powerful “draught” that can possibly cure AIDS.

Cotton and company has to beat the bad guys which include the leader of a new nation that has arisen from the ashes of the USSR and an international organization of power brokers that has amassed a secret cache of biological weapons. The first to unlock and possess the secret will control the fate of the world.

Who will like this book?: Fans who like suspenseful thrillers based on historical facts; fans of books like the DaVinci Code. 

If you like this, try this: Read the first two entries in the Cotton Malone series. Templar Legacy is about a lost treasure and the secrets of the Order. Alexandria Link revolves around the Lost Library of Alexandria.

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

Ghost – A Novel

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Title: Ghost – a Novel

Author: Alan Lightman

Summary: What happens when an ordinary person experiences something truly extra-ordinary? In the case of David Kurzweil, his life is completely turned upside down. This is a fascinating story about a man struggling with some fairly typical mid-life issues (divorce, career change, etc.), who unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of a scientific and metaphysical controversy after he witnesses something paranormal in the funeral home where he works. David’s effort to understand what he has seen takes him on an emotional journey that will change his relationships, his beliefs, and his place in the world forever.

Author and physicist Alan Lightman writes with sensitivity and compassion, gently suggesting that there just might be a world that exists beyond the material one, a world “felt only in brief, fleeting stabs.”

Who will like this book: Anyone who was a fan of the TV show “Six Feet Under.”

Recommended by: Mary, Reference Librarian