Thursday, August 5, 2010

Library Notes Week of August 2

If you use our WiFi after library hours you will notice a big change. It will now be available only from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and not available at all on Sunday. We hope this will be temporary. If this impacts you, please let us know.

Come by and check out one of these titles from our new book shelf.

The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke. Dave Robicheaux is back in New Iberia, Louisiana, hoping to enjoy the company of his adopted daughter, Alafair, who is taking a semester off from law school to finish a novel. Not nearly as suspicious of Louisiana's blood-stained aristocracy as Dave, Alafair has become involved, romantically and otherwise, with Kermit Abelard, a writer who is also the son of one of the region's most notorious robber barons. Kermit, along with his friend, an ex-con turned best-selling memoirist, volunteers to help Alafair find a publisher for her book, much to Dave's chagrin. Father-daughter conflict ensues, and as Dave's investigation of a series of murders veers ever closer to the Abelards, it appears that, yet again, the closets of Louisiana's rich are knee-deep in skeletons.

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith. Set in present-day London, Smith's charming first in a new series offers a variation on his 44 Scotland Street books, centering on the eccentric occupants of Corduroy Mansions and their offbeat doings. William French, a wine merchant, hopes to force his son, Eddie, who refuses to take his hints about sharing a flat with other 20-somethings, to leave the nest by getting a dog whose presence in their apartment he expects will drive Eddie out. William's neighbors include Dee, who works at a vitamin shop and believes a coworker needs to purge his system of excess sodium, and her roommate, Jenny, who works for an odious MP, Oedipus Snark, who treats Jenny like dirt.

Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner. When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician’s wife—her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. Lizzie, the Woodruffs’ younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict and trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve—a husband, a young son, the perfect home—and yet she’s trapped in a loveless marriage. After Richard’s extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.