Category: Bookworm

New Nonfiction for February

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What is Authentic Enlightenment? It is awakening to our closest Self, discovering our own Essence, the deepest Heart of the Heart. It is not about becoming somebody else but has everything to do with opening to the boundless Awareness that we are. It is about overcoming inner limitations that suppress our Full Consciousness potential. Sat Mindo offers crystal-clear insights on the steps of Enlightenment, supporting and guiding you through every aspect of awakening to your Natural Self (Sahaja Consciousness).

As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.” And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all if you want to know a person.

When Max Marshall arrived on the campus of the College of Charleston in 2018, he hoped to investigate a small-time fraternity Xanax trafficking ring. Instead, he found a homicide, several student deaths, and millions of dollars circulating around the Deep South. He also opened up an elite world hidden to outsiders. The result is a true-life story of hubris, status, money, drugs, and murder—one that lifts a curtain on an ecstatic and disturbing way of life. With expert pacing and a cool eye, he follows a never-ending party that continues after funerals and mass arrests.

On January 21, 1958, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather changed the course of crime in the United States when he murdered the parents and sister of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend (and possible accomplice), Caril Ann Fugate, in a house on the edge of Lincoln, Nebraska. By the time the dust settled, ten innocent people were dead, and the city of Lincoln was in a state of terror. In Starkweather, bestselling author Harry N. MacLean tells the story of this shocking event and its lasting impact, a crime spree that struck deep into the heart of the heartland.

Years before the name Alex Murdaugh was splashed across every major media outlet in America, local South Carolina journalist Mandy Matney had an instinct that something wasn’t right in the Lowcountry. When Mandy and her reporting partner Liz Farrell looked closer at a fatal boat crash involving the storied family’s teenage son Paul, they began to uncover a web of mysteries. Just as their investigations were unfolding, the brutal double murder of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh rocketed Alex Murdaugh onto the international stage.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.  Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.

The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography: “I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions.” He was referring to Germany in 1923. Now, a century later, best-selling author Volker Ullrich draws on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources to present a riveting chronicle of one of the most difficult years any modern democracy has ever faced—one with haunting parallels to our own political moment.

In the fall of 1871, Chicagoans knew they were due for the “big one”—a massive, uncontrollable fire that would decimate the city. It had been bone-dry for months, and a recent string of blazes had nearly outstripped the fire department’s already scant resources. Then, on October 8, a minor fire broke out in the barn of Irishwoman Kate Leary. A series of unfortunate mishaps and misunderstandings along with insufficient preparation and a high south-westerly wind combined to set the stage for an unmitigated catastrophe.

In the 1950s, an obsessive firearms designer named Eugene Stoner invented the AR-15 rifle in a California garage. High-minded and patriotic, Stoner sought to devise a lightweight, easy-to-use weapon that could replace the M1s carried by soldiers in World War II. What he did create was a lethal handheld icon of the American century. In American Gun, veteran reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson track the AR-15 from inception to ubiquity. How did the same gun represent the essence of freedom to millions of Americans and the essence of evil to millions more?

Feeling Romantic? Nine Romance Novels to Enjoy On Valentine’s Day

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Sally Milz is a sketch writer for “The Night Owls,” the late-night live comedy show that airs each Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she’s long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life. With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

In a little town in the south of France in the 1960s, a dazzling encounter with Love itself changes the life of infant orphan Marie-Jeanne forever. As a girl, Marie-Jeanne realizes that she can see the marks Love has left on the people around her.Before long, Marie-Jeanne is playing matchmaker, bringing true loves together in her village. As she grows up, Marie-Jeanne helps her foster father, Francis, begin a mobile library that travels throughout the many small mountain towns in the region of Nyons.

Joan Sample is not living the life she expected. Now a widow and an empty-nester, she has become by her own admission something of a recluse. But after another birthday spent alone, she is finally inclined to listen to her sister, who has been begging Joan to reengage with the world. Across town, Maggie Herbert works mornings as a barista, tending to impatient customers before rushing to afternoon nursing classes. As Maggie and Joan confront unfamiliar life choices, they find themselves leaning on each other in surprising ways.

Lily Lee is a bestselling author of the How to Be a Supernova At Work series, and her editor wants her to strike while the iron’s hot with a new book, How to Land the Perfect Job. But when Lily is offered a coveted position at a top firm, the employer background check reveals she’s short a few college credits and never actually completed her degree. Unbelievably, her worst nightmare has come true. The Do-Over is a delightfully warm and hopeful story about second chances in love and life, and how the future we want may turn out far different than we imagined.

When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of a like-minded, pitch-black soul. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering. But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love.

The Kingsley family is practically American royalty, beloved for their military heroics, political service, and unmatched elegance. When Joseph S. Kingsley III is born in 1960, he inherits the weight of that legacy. No one ever expected anything of Cate, on the other hand. She, too, grew up in a single-parent household—just her and her mom scraping by in their small apartment. When Joe and Cate’s paths cross, their connection is instant. What remains to be seen is whether their relationship will survive the glare of the spotlight that follows Joe everywhere.

Melanie Travis is taking a much-needed break from the dog show circuit for a romantic Valentine’s trip with her husband Sam, but when someone at their cozy Berkshires inn has an unexpected date with death, Melanie must slip into something sleuthier for the weekend . . . Melanie is delighted at the prospect of three uninterrupted days alone with Sam (and, of course, her prize-winning Standard Poodle, Faith). Her Valentine’s trip is heating up faster than the chocolate fondue . . . just not in the way Melanie hoped.

Joe is done with the cities. He’s done with the muck and the posers, done with Love. Now, he’s saying hello to nature, to simple pleasures on a cozy island in the Pacific Northwest. For the first time in a long time, he can just breathe. He gets a job at the local library—he does know a thing or two about books—and that’s where he meets her: Mary Kay DiMarco. Joe won’t meddle; he will not obsess. He’ll win her the old-fashioned way: by providing a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. True love can only triumph if both people are willing to make room for the real thing.

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees. Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion.

New Fiction for February

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A mid-air collision in the Alaskan wilderness between two small aircraft leaves ten people dead. Was it a bird strike, pilot error… or premeditated murder? Then an eleventh body is found in the wreckage: a man shot gangland style, twice in the chest and once in the head. In an investigation that reaches to the highest levels of government, justice may not be served, but Kate Shugak is determined that the truth will out, even at the risk of her life and the lives of those she loves most.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants. Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

It is an ordinary Monday and harried London literary agent Emma is flying out of the door as usual. Preoccupied with work and her ever growing to-do list, she fails to notice her lovely husband Dan seems bereft, her son can barely meet her eye, and her daughter won’t go near her. Even the dog seems sad. A moving “What if” story of what it is to be a woman in the modern world—never feeling we’re getting it quite right—about learning to slow down and appreciate life that is sure to resonate with women’s fiction fans.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard.

When human remains are found in Joanna Brady’s Cochise County, the victim turns out to be a missing young woman of Apache descent. As part of a newly formed Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Task Force, Dan Pardee, a former Border Patrol Shadow Wolf and Brandon Walker’s son-in-law, catches the case and ends up in Sheriff Joanna Brady’s jurisdiction. Will Dan find out what led to this young woman’s death? There’s a long case ahead, and the task force will do anything to bring down a serial killer before he can strike again.

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden. But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared.

Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures. While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . .

Keera Duggan was building a solid reputation as a Seattle prosecutor, until her romantic relationship with a senior colleague ended badly. For the competitive former chess prodigy, returning to her family’s failing criminal defense law firm to work for her father is the best shot she has. With the right moves, she hopes to restore the family’s reputation, her relationship with her father, and her career. Keera’s chance to play in the big leagues comes when she’s retained by Vince LaRussa, an investment adviser accused of murdering his wealthy wife.

Londoner Madeleine Grant is studying at the Sorbonne in Paris when she marries charismatic French journalist Giles Martin. As they raise their son, Olivier, they hold on to a tenuous promise for the future. Until the thunder of war sets off alarms in France. After a devastating twist of fate resulting in the loss of her son, Madeleine accepts a request from the ministry to aid in the war effort. Though her perseverance, defiance, and heart will be tested beyond imagining, no risk is too great for a brave wife and mother determined to fight and survive against inconceivable odds.

Nine New Audiobooks to Enjoy on the Libby App

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 The accident came quickly. With no warning. In the dead of night, a precipitous plunge into a freezing river trapped everyone inside the bus. It was then that Army veteran John Reiff’s life came to an end. Extinguished in the sudden rush of frigid water. There was no expectation of survival. None. Let alone waking up beneath blinding hospital lights. Struggling to move, or see, or even breathe. But the doctors assure him that everything is normal. That things will improve. And yet, he has this nagging feeling that there’s something they’re not telling him.

Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the truth. Spanning years of pain and triumph, The Storm We Made is a dazzling saga about the horrors of war.

In Campfire Stories: Narrow Escapes & More Close Calls, storytellers take us from Florida to the Northern Rockies to the Arctic Ocean with wild and true stories, a reminder that the natural world is rugged and unpredictable. Including stories from MeatEater’s Steven Rinella and Clay Newcomb, and spearfishing champion Kimi Werner, this immersive audio collection also features tales from listeners who survived falling through the ice, gunshot and arrowhead wounds, hand-to-hoof combat with a deer, and a spearfisherman who made the best shot of his life to save a friend from certain death.

Talia March, Pallas Llewellyn, and Amelia Rivers, bonded by a night they all have no memory of, are dedicated to uncovering the mystery of what really happened to them months ago—an experience that brought out innate psychic abilities in each of them. The women suspect they were test subjects years earlier, and that there are more people like them—all they have to do is find the list. When Talia follows up on a lead from Phoebe, a fan of the trio’s podcast, she discovers that the informant has vanished.

A luxury train speeding towards Moscow and a date with destiny. A CIA plane downed in the jungles of the Golden Triangle. One Russian magnate’s dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos. Only Frances Coffey, the CIA’s most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special. Enter Argylle, a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world. If only he can save himself first…

Shoji Morimoto provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. After an old boss told him that he contributed nothing and that it made no difference whether he showed up to work or not, he wondered if a person who ‘does nothing’ could still have a place in the world. With a tweet, his Rental Person service was born. Morimoto is dependable, non-judgmental and committed to remaining a stranger throughout each request, and his encounters are revelatory about both Japanese society and human psychology.

When it comes to love and art, Rooney Gao believes in signs. Most of all, she believes in the Chinese legend that everyone is tied to their one true love by the red string of fate. And that belief has inspired her career as an artist, as well as the large art installations she makes with red string. That is until artist’s block strikes and Rooney begins to question everything. But then fate leads her to the perfect guy . . . Jack Liu is perfect. He’s absurdly smart, successful, handsome, and after one enchanting New York night all signs point to destiny. Only Jack doesn’t believe.

Eli North is not okay. His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff’s department. And that’s only because the sheriff is his mother—and she’s overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake’s dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic. The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer’s paradise, but amidst the fishing trips and campfires and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—until now. James Patterson shows the real Vegas in a dazzling journey through lively tales of those who labor and dream in Sin City. No dream is too big, no wish is too small—the VIP hosts in Vegas fulfill guests’ every (legal) desire. Jackpots hit when least expected. The Nevada Gaming Control Board has days to find a man who unknowingly won over $200,000 at the slots. James Patterson and Vanity Fair contributing editor Mark Seal transport readers from the thrill of adrenaline-fueled vice to the glitter of A-list celebrity and entertainment.

Nine Feel-Good Books to Chase Away Those Winter Blues

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Fred Rogers (1928–2003) was an enormously influential figure in the history of television and in the lives of tens of millions of children. As the creator and star of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness. Rogers was fiercely devoted to children and to taking their fears, concerns, and questions about the world seriously. The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, tells the story of this utterly unique and enduring American icon.

 This is the epic story of Frankie Presto—the greatest guitar player who ever lived—and the six lives he changed with his six magical blue strings. Frankie, born in a burning church, abandoned as an infant, and raised by a music teacher in a small Spanish town, until war rips his life apart. At nine years old, he is sent to America and his only possession is an old guitar and six precious strings. But Frankie Presto’s gift is also his burden, as he realizes the power of the strings his teacher gave him, and how, through his music, he can actually affect people’s lives.

In its heyday, The Golden Hotel was the crown jewel of the hotter-than-hot Catskills vacation scene. For more than sixty years, the Goldman and Weingold families have presided over this glamorous resort which served as a second home for well-heeled guests and celebrities. But the Catskills are not what they used to be – and neither is the relationship between the Goldmans and the Weingolds. As the facilities and management begin to fall apart, a tempting offer to sell forces the two families together again to make a heart-wrenching decision.

Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. The Rosie Project is a moving and hilarious novel for anyone who has ever tenaciously gone after life or love in the face of overwhelming challenges.

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive.

Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more. Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling.

Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam’s death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam’s possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he’s never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife’s secret life before they met.

Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world’s most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients. In All Creatures Great and Small, we meet the young Herriot as he takes up his calling and discovers that the realities of veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire are very different from the sterile setting of veterinary school. Herriot discovers the wondrous variety and never-ending challenges of veterinary practice as his humor, compassion, and love of the animal world shine forth.

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better? Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

New Nonfiction for January

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We live in a world that’s obsessed with talent. We celebrate gifted students in school, natural athletes in sports, and child prodigies in music. But admiring people who start out with innate advantages leads us to overlook the distance we ourselves can travel. We underestimate the range of skills that we can learn and how good we can become. We can all improve at improving. And when opportunity doesn’t knock, there are ways to build a door. Many writers have chronicled the habits of superstars who accomplish great things.

In the midst of the impeachment crisis of 2019, Heather Cox Richardson launched a daily Facebook essay providing the historical background of the daily torrent of news. It soon turned into a newsletter and its readership ballooned to more than 2 million dedicated readers who rely on her plainspoken and informed take on the present and past in America. Many books tell us what has happened over the last five years. Democracy Awakening explains how we got to this perilous point and what our history really tells us about ourselves.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen…but do you recall the most petrifying Christmas figures of all? Not all children fear just a lump of coal in their stockings. Discover the terrifying Yuletide fables that have horrified kids for generations. He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. This lighthearted song is a bit more ominous in the context of other Christmas traditions.

When Title IX was enacted in 1972, the University of Nebraska volleyball program, like many across the country, received a fraction of the funding and attention given to the school’s mighty football program. The players had to organize a run from Lincoln to Omaha to raise money for uniforms. The women were asked to wait their turn to use the weight room. Today the Nebraska women’s volleyball team is one of the sport’s most decorated programs—with more career wins than any other program and five NCAA National Championships.

What’s it like to be the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that’s been sealed for thousands of years? What horrifying secret was found among the prehistoric ruins of the American Southwest? Who really was the infamous the Monster of Florence? Douglas Preston’s journalistic explorations have taken him from the haunted country of Italy to the jungles of Honduras. The Lost Tomb brings together an astonishing and compelling collection of true stories about buried treasure, enigmatic murders, lost tombs, bizarre crimes, and other fascinating tales of the past and present.

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and many around him, including certain other elected Republican officials, intentionally breached their oath, ignored the rulings of dozens of courts, plotted to overturn a lawful election, and provoked a violent attack on our Capitol. Liz Cheney, witnessed the attack first-hand, and then helped lead the Congressional Select Committee investigation into how it happened. In Oath and Honor, she tells the story of this perilous moment in our history.

Ever since a childhood visit to Washington, DC, Cassidy Hutchinson aspired to serve her country in government. Raised in a working-class family with a military background, she was the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Despite having no ties to Washington, Hutchinson landed a vital position at the center of the Trump White House. Enough reaches far beyond the typical insider political account. It’s the saga of a woman whose fierce determination helped her overcome childhood challenges to get her dream job.

The story of the Astors is a quintessentially American story—of ambition, invention, destruction, and reinvention. From 1783, when German immigrant John Jacob Astor first arrived in the United States, until 2009, when Brooke Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, was convicted of defrauding his elderly mother, the Astor name occupied a unique place in American society. In this unconventional, page-turning historical biography, authors Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe chronicle the lives of the Astors and explore what the Astor name has come to mean in America.

Re-create recipes with The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbook, featuring delicious dishes from the hit series as prepared by real-life chef and character “Gator.” Whether it’s a hearty breakfast of Rip’s Fry Bread with Scrambled Eggs and Bacon, a quick week-night dinner with Beth’s Cheesy Hamburger Mac Casserole, or a pick-me-up with Beth’s “Two Scoops of Ice Cream, Three Shots of Vodka” Smoothie, The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbook compiles over 55 recipes inspired by and featured in Yellowstone.

New Fiction for January

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July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her.

Detectives Cross and Sampson are tracking a serial killer who’s fatally ambushing young men in the “Dead Hours” murders. They don’t hear the machine gun fire. At first. “Drop whatever you’re doing, Dr. Cross, and head to Reagan Airport,” DC Metro Police dispatch says. “A plane just crashed and exploded on the runway. The chief and the FBI want you and John Sampson there pronto.” As Cross and Sampson race to prevent another mass murder, their fearsomely armed opponent once again looks skyward.

In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being created out of mud or clay and animated through secret prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a rabbi who makes a golem, and always in a time of crisis. The Golem of Brooklyn is an epic romp through Jewish history and the American present that wrestles with the deepest questions of our humanity—the conflicts between faith and skepticism, tribalism and interdependence, and vengeance and healing.

In 1941, beautiful Irvel Ellis is too focused on her secret to take much notice in the war raging overseas. She’s dating Sam but in love with his brother, Hank, and Irvel has no idea how to break the news when the unthinkable happens—Pearl Harbor is attacked. With their lives turned upside down overnight, Sam is drafted, and Hank wants to enlist. But Sam insists Hank stay home, where he and Irvel take up the battle on the home front. While Sam fights in Europe, an undeniable chemistry builds between Irvel and Hank but neither would dare cross that line.

 My husband made a terrible mistake. Now our children are missing…This should be the trip of a lifetime – a week in New York with my family. As we stroll along the Hudson River, drinking coffee in the sunshine, anyone would think we’re the perfect family. But the truth is far more complicated. I’ve been on edge the whole time because fifteen years ago when we were living in this city my husband Jack did something that ripped our lives apart. I swore I would never come back here, but Jack insisted.

She crossed continents to chase her London dream; he works the same job in the same restaurant, night after night. Then fate steps in. When Gia’s takeout is delivered, her embarrassing list of New Year’s resolutions accidentally makes its way to Ben’s restaurant, stuck to the bottom of a delivery backpack. With each delivery Gia orders, Ben slips in a note of his own and eagerly awaits her reply. One by one, these notes transform their lives in unexpected ways, and an unlikely love story is written.

In May 1940, as the German army blitzes Europe and Parisians flee their city, the chief curator of the Musee de l’Armee is ordered to get a mysterious piece of cargo out of the country. When he arrives at the port of Le Havre and learns that his intended ship has been sunk, he places the object on a decrepit steamer that sails out under German fire. From the shadow of the Eiffel Tower to the depths of the Irish Sea to the islands of the Caribbean, only Dirk Pitt and his children, Summer and Dirk Jr., can locate the treasure that will preserve the soul of a nation.

In this thrilling new installment of Patricia Cornwell’s #1 bestselling Scarpetta series, chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds herself in a Northern Virginia wilderness examining the remains of two campers wanted by federal law enforcement. The victims have been mauled beyond recognition, and other evidence is terrifying and baffling including a larger-than-life footprint. After the most frightening body retrievals of her career, Scarpetta must discover who would commit murders this savage, and why.

When CIA operative Jenny Sikwell is murdered in rural Maine, government officials have immediate concerns over national security. Her laptop and phone were full of state secrets that, in the wrong hands, endanger the lives of countless operatives. In need of someone who can solve the murder quickly and retrieve the missing information, the U.S. government knows just the chameleon they can call on. Ex-Army Ranger Travis Devine spent his time in the military preparing to take on any scenario, followed by his short-lived business career chasing shadows in the deepest halls of power.

Ring in the New Year with These New Audiobooks Available on the Libby App

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When a young nanny is found dead in mysterious circumstances, new mom, Tash, is intrigued. She has been searching for a story to launch her career as a freelance journalist. But she has also been searching for something else—new friends to help her navigate motherhood. The other mothers. A group of sleek, sophisticated women who live in a neighborhood of tree-lined avenues and stunning houses. But when another young woman is found dead, it’s clear there’s much more to the community than meets the eye.

In The End of the World is a Cul de Sac the political is intertwined with the personal, as Louise Kennedy reveals how ordinary lives can get caught up in a wider, national drama. Sarah, abandoned by her partner, sits alone in their brand new house. Orla, facing the strange revenge of her husband, is forced to judge a contest in the local fête. Peter raises his daughter in rural seclusion, at what might as well be the end of the world.

When I Was Your Age  is a hilarious, heartwarming and surprising ode to growing up, getting older and wiser, and luck, life, and learning from the school of hard knocks, from SNL’s longest-serving actor, Kenan Thompson Kenan Thompson is  Saturday Night Live’s  longest-ever-serving cast member and a star of such pioneering sketches as “Black Jeopardy” and is hugely beloved thanks to a tidal wave of nostalgic fans who grew up on early 2000s classics  All That, Good Burger , and  Kenan & Kel  on Nickelodeon.

After Dr. Jack Stapleton’s near-death confrontation with a medical serial killer, his wife, NYC Chief Medical Examiner Laurie Montgomery, is carrying the load both at work and at home. When Laurie insists that Dr. Ryan Sullivan—an underperforming senior pathology resident who is spending his required month at the medical examiner’s office but who truly detests doing forensic autopsies—assist her on a suicide autopsy in hopes of stimulating his interest in the field, the last thing she expects is to be unwittingly drawn into a major conspiracy that puts her own life in jeopardy.

Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back. Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza Corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

Only Murders in Gotham, the smash-hit streaming program, is famous for filming in authentic New York locations and using real New Yorkers as extras. For its second season, they’ve chosen to spotlight the century-old Village Blend and its quirky crew of baristas. Shop manager and master roaster Clare Cosi is beyond thrilled, especially when her superb bulletproof coffee lands her a craft services contract for the production. Madame, the eccentric octogenarian owner of the landmark shop, reveals an old kinship with the star of the show, comedian Jerry Sullivan.

From the creator of The Holistic Psychologist and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller How to Do the Work comes this paradigm-shifting guide to strengthen your relationships, beginning with the one you have with yourself. Relationships have long been essential to human survival. Our bodies and brains are programmed to seek out connection, both romantic and platonic. And yet, these vital bonds are often at the root of some of our deepest suffering.  For decades, experts have posited that maintaining successful relationships requires a certain kind of compromise.

When a young woman from the Ojibwa tribe asks McKnight for shelter from her violent boyfriend, McKnight agrees. But after letting her stay in one of his cabins, he finds her gone the next morning. His search for her brings on a host of suspects, bruising encounters, and a thickening web of crime, all obscured by the relentless whiplash of brutal snowstorms. From the secret world of the Ojibwa reservation to the Canadian border and deep into the silent woods, someone is out to kill—and McKnight is heading right into the line of fire.

Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling nonstop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job-hunting to finally renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amidst the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail, People have to learn there are consequences, Ellen. And I’m going to teach you that lesson. Right under your nose. Why would someone send her this? Ellen has no clue. She’s no angel—a white lie here, an occasional sharp tongue there—but nothing to incur the wrath of an anonymous enemy.

New Fiction to Read During Your Winter Holiday

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On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives. But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

On an ordinary night in an ordinary year, Tommy Llewellyn’s doting parents wake in a home without toys and diapers, without photos of their baby scattered about, and without any idea that the small child asleep in his cot is theirs. That’s because Tommy is a boy destined to never be remembered. On the same day every year, everyone around him forgets he exists, and he grows up enduring his own universal Reset. That is until something extraordinary happens: Tommy Llewellyn falls in love.

Katie’s divorce was, in a word, humiliating. So when her friend Bess offers a fresh start—a residential caretaking job at a nature preserve—Katie accepts. No matter that she’s not exactly a “nature person.” How hard can it be? But from day one, something feels off. Katie’s new farmhouse looks as if the last caretaker barely moved out at all. When a frantic, terrified woman arrives late at night, expecting a safe place to hide, it’s clear caretaking involves way more than Katie bargained for.

It’s the summer of 1959 and the Palace of Versailles is hosting an event that will make history. It is an exclusive dusk to dawn ball in which a select group of American and French debutantes will be presented to international society and royalty. Four young women, all with something to prove, receive what some see as the invitation of a lifetime. For all these young women, Paris and one transcendent night will change their lives forever. Bestselling author Danielle Steel extends an invitation to all, in The Ball at Versailles.

I pick up the photograph from their mantelpiece and carefully wipe away the dust. The beautiful wife. Supposedly happily married and enjoying a family vacation. I know her husband killed her. And I’m going to make him pay… This is my first job as a housekeeper, but Evan Warner doesn’t need to know that. It’s the first of many lies I’ll tell him. He just lost his wife, Lola, and now he and his young daughter Jessica are adrift. But no amount of cleaning will rid this house of the secrets that have seeped into the cracks.

There was only one woman who could set me free. But I would rather set myself on fire than ask Sloane Walton for anything. Lucian Rollins is a lean, mean vengeance-seeking mogul. On a quest to erase his father’s mark on the family name, he spends every waking minute pulling strings and building an indestructible empire. The more money and power he amasses, the safer he is from threats. Except when it comes to the feisty small-town librarian that keeps him up at night…

Bast knows how to bargain. The give-and-take of a negotiation is as familiar to him as the in-and-out of breathing; to watch him trade is to watch an artist at work. But even a master’s brush can slip. When he accepts a gift, taking something for nothing, Bast’s whole world is knocked askew, for he knows how to bargain—but not how to owe. From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the Kingkiller Chronicle’s most charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.

Graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is stunned to learn that her late father had a twin he never knew about―and that her newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has left her almost everything he owned, including a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast, which the will stipulates she must live in it for at least three years. Her engagement recently broken, she sets off to find out why the boys were separated at birth―and why it was all kept secret until a genealogy website brought it to light.

Molly Gray is not like anyone else. With her flair for cleaning and proper etiquette, she has risen through the ranks of the glorious five-star Regency Grand Hotel to become the esteemed Head Maid. But just as her life reaches a pinnacle state of perfection, her world is turned upside down when J.D. Grimthorpe, the world-renowned mystery author, drops dead—very dead—on the hotel’s tea room floor. When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul.

More Holiday Titles Available in the Library and on the Libby App

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It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production. Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition?

Sophie Potter’s job is helping people deal with the worst, because Sophie Potter knows what the worst feels like. An expert at keeping moving, with her trusty motorhome and faithful dog Muffin, Sophie has built her life around keeping her loves and loyalties as few as possible. Fabulous fifty-something Hattie Langford has kept her heart and past safely stored away too. But for reasons she’s only willing to share with a stranger, Hattie needs to tell the story her family has been hiding at Riverbend, their home in Sherwood Forest.

Mariah Ellison, Charlotte Pitt’s grandmother, accepts her longtime friend Sadie’s gracious invitation to spend Christmas with her and her husband, Barton, in their picturesque village. But upon arrival, Mariah discovers that Sadie has vanished without a trace, and Barton rudely rescinds the invitation. Once Mariah finds another acquaintance to stay with during the holiday season, she begins investigating Sadie’s disappearance. Mariah’s uncanny knack for solving mysteries serves her well during her search, which is driven by gossip as icy as the December weather.

All year long, Zoey Andrews lives and breathes Christmas–not just because she loves everything about the festive season, but because, as the director of countless Christmas movies, she’s perpetually (and happily) surrounded by 24/7 holiday cheer. And this year Christmas has come early: After years of making other people’s movies, Zoey finally has the chance to make her own. There’s just one thing standing in her way of that: Benoît Deschamps, the mayor who refuses to grant Zoey the permit to film in the cozy and snowy Quebec hamlet at the center of her screenplay.

Once the hottest mergers and acquisitions executive in the company, Henrietta Wegner can see the ambitious and impossibly young up-and-comers gunning for her job. When Henri’s boss makes it clear she’ll be starting the New Year unemployed unless she can close a big deal before the holidays, Henri impulsively tells him that she can convince her aging parents to sell Wegner’s—their iconic Frankenmuth, Michigan, Christmas store—to a massive, soulless corporation. It’s the kind of deal cool, corporate Henri has built her career on.

On Christmas Eve, Jack Reacher stumbles into a no-name bar in the California desert, desperate to take refuge from an unexpected snowstorm. Reacher came to Barstow for a little R&R. Instead, he’s sequestered in a dark little roadhouse with a bartender, a bewildered elderly couple—and two members of Britain’s Royal Military Police. They tell Reacher they were escorting a VIP to a top-secret meeting at a U.S. military base when they became separated from their charge. That’s when the threat came in from a notorious assassin: the Christmas Scorpion. (note: only available in ebook format)

Kate Potter used to love Christmas. A few years ago, she would have been wrapping her presents in September and baking mince pies on Halloween, counting down the days and hours to Christmas. But that was before Kate’s husband left for the army and never came home. Now she can hardly stand December at all. Kate can’t deny she’s lonely, yet she doesn’t think she’s ready for romance. She knows that her son, Jack, needs a Christmas to remember—just like Kate needs a miracle to help her finally move forward with her life.

Sherlock Holmes’s discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of ‘theft without theft’, such as a statue missing from a museum found hidden in the room it was taken from. In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes’s preoccupation with the “Adler Variations” risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats.

After reading Christmas Carol, the notoriously reclusive Thomas Carlyle was “seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality” and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit, and about the season as a time for celebration, charity, and memory. Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol has had significant influence on our ideas about the Christmas spirit.