HISTORICAL FICTION - SYRACUSE (ITALY) Set in Syracuse, Sicily, during the Peloponnesian War but told in contemporary Irish dialect, Glorious Exploits follows Lampo and Gelon, best friends since childhood. Thrilled to have survived the Athenians' recent invasion and as shocked by the Syracusan victory as everyone else, these unemployed potters are in a mood to celebrate. Of course, they hate the Athenians. Still, that doesn't mean you can't love the theatre of their great playwright Euripides, does it? Realizing that if the Athenians are as doomed as everyone says, this might be their last chance to hear Euripides's poetry, they go down to the quarry where the Athenian prisoners are being held and offer extra rations to any prisoner who can recite his work, a decision that sets into motion an extraordinary series of events. A novel that asks big questions about war and its aftermath, Glorious Exploits is a story as hopeful and playful as it is tragic
(15 copies)
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HISTORICAL FICTION - HOMECOMING Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch--"Scout"--returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past--a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience.
(15 copies)
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FICTION - MISSING PERSONS When Barbara Van Laar is discovered missing from her summer camp bunk one morning in August 1975, it triggers a panicked, terrified search. Losing a camper is a horrific tragedy under any circumstances, but Barbara isn't just any camper, she's the daughter of the wealthy family who owns the camp--as well as the opulent nearby estate, and most of the land in sight. And this isn't the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared in this region: Barbara's older brother also went missing 16 years earlier, never to be found. How could this have happened yet again? Out of this gripping beginning, Liz Moore weaves a richly textured drama, both emotionally nuanced and propelled by a double-barrelled mystery. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the community working in its shadow, Moore's multi-threaded drama brings readers into the hearts of characters whose lives are forever changed by this eventful summer: Barbara's wounded, grieving mother; the "townie" whose family makes a living off this land; the 13-year-old camper struggling to find her way; and the outsider tasked with seeing the bigger picture, and uncovering the truth.
(15 copies)
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HISTORICAL FICTION - DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES Lenora Allbright is 13 when her father convinces her mother, Cora, to forgo their inauspicious existence in Seattle and move to Kaneq, AK. It's 1974, and the former Vietnam POW sees a better future away from the noise and nightmares that plague him. Having been left a homestead by a buddy who died in the war, Ernt is secure in his beliefs, but never was a family less prepared for the reality of Alaska, the long, cold winters and isolation. Locals want to help out, especially classmate Matthew Walker, who likes everything about Leni. Yet the harsh conditions bring out the worst in Ernt, whose paranoia takes over their lives and exacerbates what Leni sees as the toxic relationship between her parents. The Allbrights are as green as greenhorns can be, and even first love must endure unimaginable hardship and tragedy as the wilderness tries to claim more victims.
(15 copies)
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LITERARY FICTION - GENEALOGY It's 2034 and Jake Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world's last remaining forests.
It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, fallen from a ladder and sprawled on his broken back, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion.
It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire.
It's 1934 and Everett Greenwood is alone, as usual, in his maple syrup camp squat when he hears the cries of an abandoned infant and gets tangled up in the web of a crime that will cling to his family for decades.
And throughout, there are trees: thrumming a steady, silent pulse beneath Christie's effortless sentences and working as a guiding metaphor for withering, weathering, and survival.
A shining, intricate clockwork of a novel, Greenwood is a rain-soaked and sun-dappled story of the bonds and breaking points of money and love, wood and blood—and the hopeful, impossible task of growing toward the light.
(15 copies)
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SUSPENSE FICTION - MURDER A wedding celebration turns dark and deadly in this deliciously wicked and atmospheric thriller. On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It's a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride's oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn't wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more importantly, why?
(12 copies)
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THRILLERS - SISTERS Software prodigy Josie Ashkenazi has invented an application that records everything its users do. When an Egyptian library invites her to visit as a consultant, her jealous sister Judith persuades her to go. A century earlier, another traveler arrives in Egypt: Solomon Schechter, a Cambridge professor hunting for a medieval archive hidden in a Cairo synagogue. Both he and Josie are haunted by the work of the medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides, a doctor and rationalist who sought to reconcile faith and science, destiny and free will. But what Schechter finds will reveal the power and perils of what Josie's ingenious work brings into being: a world where nothing is ever forgotten.
(15 copies)
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HISTORICAL FICTION - AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSCICIANS Paris, 1940. A brilliant jazz musician, Hiero, is arrested by the Nazis and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. He is a German citizen. And he is black.
Fifty years later, his friend and fellow musician, Sid, must relive that unforgettable time, revealing the friendships, love affairs and treacheries that sealed Hiero's fate. From the smoky bars of pre-war Berlin to the salons of Paris -- where the legendary Louis Armstrong makes an appearance -- Sid, with his distinctive and rhythmic German-American slang, leads the reader through a fascinating world alive with passion, music and the spirit of the resistance.
Half-Blood Blues, the second novel by an exceptionally talented young writer, is an entrancing, electric story about jazz, race, love and loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art
(15 copies)
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MYSTERY FICTION - DETECTIVE We didn't call the police right away. When Mia's father doesn't come home from a walk in the local nature reserve, she doesn't think much of it. He must've turned off his phone. Or his battery died. Or he probably stopped for an errand-but doing what exactly? Soon more questions arise and it becomes clear to Mia and her family that he is missing. Or is he?
(4 copies)
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NON-FICTION - CHINESE RESTAURANTS From small-town Saskatchewan to Cape Town, South Africa, family-run Chinese restaurants are global icons of immigration, community and delicious food. The cultural outposts of far-flung settlers, bringers of dim sum, Peking duck and creative culinary hybrids, Chinese restaurants are a microcosm of greater social forces—an insight into time, history and place.
Author and documentarian Cheuk Kwan, a self-described “card-carrying member of the Chinese diaspora,” weaves a global narrative by linking the myriad personal stories of chefs, entrepreneurs, labourers and dreamers who populate Chinese kitchens worldwide. Behind these kitchen doors lies an intriguing paradox which characterizes many of these communities: how Chinese immigrants have resisted—or often been prevented from—complete assimilation into the social fabric of their new homes, while the engine of their economic survival, the Chinese restaurant and its food, has become seamlessly woven into towns and cities all around the world.
An intrepid travelogue of grand vistas, adventure and serendipity, Have You Eaten Yet? charts a living atlas of the global Chinese migration, ultimately revealing how an excellent meal always tells an even better story.
(12 copies)
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