BIOGRAPHY - DONALD TRUMP Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump's White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. Often with day-by-day details, dialogue and documentation, Fear tracks key foreign issues from North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, NATO, China and Russia. It reports in-depth on Trump's key domestic issues particularly trade and tariff disputes, immigration, tax legislation, the Paris Climate Accord and the racial violence in Charlottesville in 2017.
(15 copies)
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NON-FICTION - TRUE CRIME STORIES The story begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the U.S. Miriam Rodriguez is stalking one of the men who murdered her daughter. He is a member of the Zeta drug cartel that now controls what was once Miriam's quiet hometown of San Fernando, near the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red and wearing a disguise, Miriam single-handedly orchestrates the arrest of this man, one of the many men she has targeted and gotten arrested for the murder of her daughter, Karen. Moving back and forth in time, this deeply researched account reveals how the drug cartels built their power in Mexico; how the Zeta cartel took over the quiet town of San Fernando, with its crucial geographic location for drug smuggling, near a crossroads to the US border; and how the cartels, for money, power and control, kidnap and murder victims. Miriam's daughter, Karen, was just one of the many people disappeared by the cartels. Miriam, a brilliant and perseverant woman, begins a vigilante crusade to target Karen's killers, and then to help other victimized families seek justice. Eventually, the success of Miriam's investigation techniques and her activism on behalf of other families lead to her being murdered by the cartel. Then, her son, Luis, finds his mother's briefcase with the names of other targets and her investigation techniques, and quietly continues to pursue justice for his family and for the families of other victims of violence in Mexico.
(10 copies)
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NON-FICTION - WILDFIRES In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
Fire has been a partner in our evolution for hundreds of millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.
With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant’s urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.
(10 copies)
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FICTION - INDIGENOUS YOUTH Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention.
Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn't want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.
With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.
(15 copies)
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FICTION - NURSING HOME PATIENTS Lillian and Audrey hatch a plot to escape from Tranquil Meadows Nursing Home, "borrow" a car, and spend their hastily planned vacation time driving to destinations west. They set out on their journey having forgotten that their memory problems might make driving and following directions difficult. Then they meet up with the unsuspecting Rayne, a young man also heading west in hope of reconciling with his family. Without minimizing the realities of old age, dementia, and frailty, Lillian and Audrey's story is rich with laughter, adventure, and hope.
(16 copies)
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SCIENCE FICTION - SPACE WARFARE The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand, despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict, to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries.
(10 copies)
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HISTORICAL FICTION - GREAT DEPRESSION A novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America's most defining eras - the Great Depression. Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli - like so many of her neighbors - must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. This novel is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
(14 copies)
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY - BRITISH/CANADIAN JOURNALISTS Shockingly honest, richly detailed, and pulling no punches, this memoir traverses the highs and lows of Barbara Amiel's storied life in journalism and high society. From her early childhood in London during the Blitz to emigrating to North America and her rise to the top rungs of journalism; to her marriage to Conrad Black and their prolific legal battles against the powerful and vengeful American justice system, Barbara Amiel's life has been as dramatic as it is glamorous. She has been called every conceivable name in the book by the media (and authors of unauthorized biographies about her), pilloried for her extravagant lifestyle and sometimes regrettable quotes to the press, not to mention her outspoken conservative political views as stated in her weekly newspaper columns around the world. It's no surprise she remains to this day a subject of utter fascination after over four decades in the public eye. But until now, very few people actually know her real story - the break-up of her family when she was a child, her bouts of debilitating depression and other chronic health issues, her thoughts on feminism and #MeToo, her travels with the international jet set and A-list celebrities, and her unvarnished views on the trial and conviction (since overturned) of Conrad Black and the iron-clad bond they have shared since they were married in 1992. Whether you are an admirer or critic of Amiel's, you will be completely engrossed in her operatic life, one that seems ripped from the pages of a scandalous novel. She also distinguishes herself as a woman well ahead of her time - the first female editor of a national newspaper in Canada, she challenged the sexual mores of society while also angering the feminist establishment. She has certainly had many friends and enemies over the years and she brings these personalities into the spotlight in this larger-than-life memoir that is sure to cause a sensation with readers everywhere.
(14 copies)
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ROMANCE FICTION - FRIENDSHIPS A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry, Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story. How they met, fell in love, and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. Too bad it turned out to be more of a prequel, a complication to Peter's actual love story, the one that ends with him dumping Daphne before their wedding to begin a relationship with his lifelong best friend, Petra. And so that's how Daphne's story really begins: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children's librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only other non-Peter-related person she knows: Petra's heartbroken ex, Miles Nowak. Just until she can get a new dream job literally anywhere else. Scruffy and chaotic, Miles is entirely the opposite of buttoned-up Daphne, and they mainly avoid one another until one night, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship. Miles decides he will convince Daphne to give Waning Bay a real shot. He'll show her why he loves this idyllic town and its residents, and if they happen to post deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together-for a particular audience of two-who could blame them? Miles believes Daphne deserves the chance to build a life here, her own life. As she begins to fall for the town, Daphne wonders what this summer is supposed to mean. Is it just for fun? An interlude to her own love story? Or maybe it was never meant to be a love story? Maybe it was just an anecdote to share at future dinner parties: that time she fell in love with her ex-fiancé's new fiancée's ex-boyfriend. Who's to say?
(15 copies)
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HISTORICAL FICTION - WORLD WAR II Before everything changed, young Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life. But now, in 1939, the streets of Berlin are draped with red, white, and black flags; her family's fine possessions are hauled away; and they are no longer welcome in the places that once felt like home. Hannah and her best friend, Leo Martin, make a pact: whatever the future has in store for them, they'll meet it together. The German Girl sweeps from Berlin at the brink of the Second World War to Cuba on the cusp of revolution, to New York in the wake of September 11, to the tumult of present-day Havana.
(15 copies)
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