Library Notes

Christmas is just around the corner so let me wish you a very Merry Christmas! The library will be closing at 3 p.m. Christmas Eve and closed all day Christmas.

To get you into the holiday mood (if you aren’t already), here are some new books you might want to check out next time you are in.

Angels at the Table by Debbie Macomber. Lucie and Aren meet after bumping into each other in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. They immediately hit it off : Lucie is a burgeoning chef and Aren is a respected food critic. But just as quickly as they’re brought together, a twist of fate tears them apart, with no way to reconnect. A year later, Lucie is the chef of an acclaimed new restaurant and Aren is a successful columnist for a major New York newspaper. For all the time that’s passed, the two have not forgotten their one serendipitous evening—and neither have Angels Shirley, Goodness, Mercy, and Will. To reunite the young couple, the angels cook up a brilliant plan: mix true love, a second chance, and a generous sprinkle of mischief to create a Christmas miracle.

Christmas in Cornwell by Marcia Willett.   A new year dawns, and everything seems to be falling into place for Dossie. Her son Clem and his adorable five-year-old son Jakey have moved to Cornwall to be closer to her. She runs her own successful catering business. All she needs now is some better  luck in her romantic life. Complementing Dossie’s rather unconventional family set-up is the wonderfully eccentric Janna: a warm-hearted, generous woman who looks after the quirky nuns of the local convent  –  and little Jakey. With humour, kindness and the support of friendship, they form a tight bond.
But the Sisters’ life as they know it is thrown into doubt when an avaricious property developer starts prowling around their beautiful, historic home.

Merry Christmas: Alex Cross by James Patterson. It's Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who's robbing his church's poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again--a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything--and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days.

Library Notes - Week of December 3

The latest New York Times Book Review had a list of the 100 notable books of 2012.  I am pleased to say we have a good percentage of them.  Here are a few of from that list.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter. The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper looks out over the waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying. And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier. A roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives.

Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie. Included here are some of Alexie’s most esteemed tales, including “What You Pawn I Will Redeem," “This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona,” “The Toughest Indian in the World,” and “War Dances.” Alexie’s new stories are fresh and quintessential—about donkey basketball leagues, lethal wind turbines, the reservation, marriage, and all species of contemporary American warriors. An indispensable collection of new and classic stories.    

The Round House by Louis Erdrich. One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened. In one day, Joe's life is irrevocably transformed. He tries to heal his mother, but she will not leave her bed and slips into an abyss of solitude. Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill prepared. While his father, who is a tribal judge, endeavors to wrest justice from a situation that defies his efforts, Joe becomes frustrated with the official investigation and sets out with his trusted friends, Cappy, Zack, and Angus, to get some answers of his own.

NW by Zadie Smith. Zadie Smith’s new novel follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan – as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.