New adult fiction

Jan Karon fans who love Mitford will be pleased to see the tenth novel in the successful Father Tim series Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good has arrived at PWPL.  Five years after retirement, Father Tim finds that retirement is not that exciting.  He considers a return to the ministry.  His adopted son is struggling with his own issues and bookstore owner Hope Murphy may be facing tragedy with her unborn baby.  As usual, Karon spins multiple storylines into a compelling story about the residents of Mitford, South Carolina.

            The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant is an absorbing historical novel.  Addie, the daughter of Jewish immigrants was born in Boston in 1900.  A spirited and strong girl and woman, Addie and her two sisters thirst for adventure.  During her life, she witnesses wars, faces heartbreak and comes into her own as a woman.  Diamant’s previous novel, The Red Tent, is another skillfully written historical chronical.

            Emma Healey has a degree in bookbinding and attended art school in London.  After both of her grandmothers suffered from dementia, she started to explore the disease by writing a novel.  Elizabeth is Missing centers around Maud who knows something is not quite right in her life.  She keeps buying cans of sliced peaches, even though she has a cupboard full, and forgets to drink her tea.  She does know her friend Elizabeth is missing and her disappearance may relate to the mystery of her sister’s disappearance following World War II.  This debut novel explores how Maud tries to solve a mystery when she can’t remember all of the clues.

            Lisa and Joe Stone have been married for twenty years.  The two attorneys run a small law firm in Henry County, Virginia.  They handle ordinary cases and try to appease their difficult client Lettie VanSandt.  When Lettie dies in a freakish fire, they have to determine if the fire was an accident or if someone intended to do away with her.  Settling her peculiar estate becomes endlessly complex and reveals a number of deadly secrets.  The Jezebel Remedy by Martin Clark is a well plotted and quirky legal thriller.

            Sara Taylor’s first novel The Shore is set in a group of small islands in the Chesapeake Bay just off the coast of Virginia.  Here inhabitants, wealthy and destitute, have lived for generations.  The characters in this novel are all deeply connected to the land and possess a resilience that only the place they call home could create.  Spanning a century, this saga is filled with characters and an intertwined narrative that tells their stories.

            Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies, but this one is unique even by Detroit standards.  As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, the city tries to hold on.  Broken Monsters is an eye opening thriller about broken cities, broken dreams and broken people trying to put themselves back together again.

           C.J. Box captivates readers with his Joe Pickett novels set in Wyoming.  In Shots Fired, Box shares ten short stories about colorful western characters including Pickett. Filled with character, suspense and a sense of place, these stories will appeal to Box fans and introduce new readers to his style and unforgettable characters.

            Ruby by Cynthia Bond is the epic and unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her.  Another debut novel, Bond tells the story of Ephram Jennings and the beautiful girl he has loved since childhood.  Ruby is the girl he never forgot, but as soon as she was old enough, she fled Liberty, Texas for the bright lights of New York City.  When a telegram from her cousin forces Ruby to return home, Ephram must choose between his loyalty to the sister who raised him or his dreams of love and life with Ruby.

            Ben and Caroline Tierney and their two young boys are hoping to start over after Ben hits a dead end with his latest novel and Caroline loses her banking job.  When Ben inherits land in the village of Swannhaven, the couple moves to a remote corner of upstate New York.  Strange things begin to happen as Ben discovers chilling, dangerous and deadly secrets.  What seemed to be a fresh start has turned into a nightmare as Ben and Caroline try to survive in the House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy.

            Dexter Morgan is a man people love to watch in action.  As the star of seven national bestsellers and a phenomenal TV series, author Jeff Lindsay has created a character unlike any other.  In his eighth Dexter novel Dexter is Dead, Lindsay elevates his witty, dark and fascinating character to new heights one last time.  This novel is purported to be the final novel in the Dexter series, and Lindsay does not disappoint.  Dexter is confronted with the end.  He has lost his wife, kids, career and the loyalty of his sister.  He is in jail for murders he didn’t commit, but an unlikely savior, his twisted brother, may save him.

            These and many more readable works of fiction are available on the new book shelves of the Peter White Public Library.

By Pam Christensen

Library Director

Take your prhotographing skills to the next level

Now that the sun shines for endless summer hours, it's a perfect time to step outside and start sharpening your photography skills. From DVD's to children's books, Peter White Public Library offers these non-fiction materials to help inspire and drive your photography to the next level. 

Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye. Directed by Perry Miller Adato 

Alfred Stieglitz was a genius photographer who wanted to push the boundaries of his medium and this DVD biography outlines how he did just that and became known as the father of modern day photography. Stieglitz was more than a photographer; he was a champion of art, promoting other forms art long before they gained any sort of a following in America. He was incredibly gifted with an impeccable artistic eye and thus began a magazine intended to foster avant-garde art around the beginning of the 20th century. Though much of the film is about his art, the bulk of the content is about how he selflessly put aside his own highly respected work to foster that of new artists who were working out of the mainstream. 

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Eames: Beautiful Details. edited by Eames Demetrios 

This large, hardcover book details one of America's greatest and most iconic design couples, Charles and Ray Eames. Though the Eameses are best known for their groundbreaking furniture designs, this book explores their important and experimental, contributions in the areas of architecture, exhibit design, textile design, product design, graphic design, toy design, film, and photography. That may seem like a lot of topics for one book to cover but all of that information is made easy to digest through glossy high-resolution images that fill the pages. The book offers a comprehensive look at the life of Charles and Ray through their eyes and the eyes of their family, with several intimate family photos found only between these pages. This book will inspire and challenge you to think "outside the box" while reminding you that the beauty of life lies within the details. 

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The Complete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography. A book by Michael Freeman.

Michael Freeman guides you through the process of digitally converting a color photo into a black and white copy but his main objective is to teach you to see in black and white.  With Adobe Photoshop as his main weapon, Freeman shows how to overcome the various issues one faces with digital images such as noise reduction, color correction, and distortion.  The step-by-step guides make producing black and white images fun and easy.  

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Walker Evans: Photographer of America.  by Thomas Nau

Although this book was written for school-aged children in grades 5-9, it will prove to be an important find for anyone interested in American photography from the early half of the 20^th century.  This 60-page book beautifully recounts the life and philosophies of Walker Evans while displaying some the most striking reproductions from his career.  Many books on Walker Evan’s work deal entirely with his contributions to the documentation of depression-era America, however, this book shows the wide scope of his career with great respect to his earlier photographic work.  

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Build Fun Paper Cameras: Take Eye-catching Pinhole Photos.  A Lark Photography Book.

This new book explores numerous ways for creating your own paper pinhole cameras that actually work.  A CD also accompanies the book for added ease and instruction.  With the aid of Justin Quinnell, an expert in pinhole photography, this book explains how a camera is a simple light processing box and how you can create your own with outstanding results.  Due to the experimental nature of pinhole photography both novice and experienced photographers will find this book fascinating.  

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20^th Century Photography.  A book edited by the Museum Ludwig.

The stunning reproductions in this book come from the Photographic Collection at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany.  The vastness of the museum’s collection is obvious with all of the major photographic movements and genres represented in this book.  In the span of less than 200 pages you are able to explore the works of photographic icons ranging from Ansel Adams to Joel Peter Witkin.  This book does not shy away from controversial work from photographers such as Herbert Bayer and Duane Michals either.  Instead, 20th Century Photography celebrates all of these photographers and their varying viewpoints. 

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by Dominic M. Davis, Administrative Assistant

Summer reading titles for youth

Summer reading is a time of opportunity, a time of freedom. Readers are free to choose books according to individual interests and to thoroughly enjoy the act of reading. Like any acquired skill, reading improves with practice. Practice enhances vocabulary development and comprehension, which both factor into test-taking skills and classroom success. It makes sense that children who read during the summer retain last year’s cognitive skills for their return to the classroom in September.

Written by Michigan author, Kelly DiPucchio, and illustrated by Christian Robinson, Gaston will delight children in Grades K-1, along with their siblings and parents. A young bulldog named Gaston makes every effort to learn his manners, just like his poodle sisters who are “no bigger than teacups,” but he continues to grow, making it difficult to “sip…Never slobber!” and “yip….Never Yap!” A springtime excursion to the park, leads to a chance meeting between the poodles and a family of bulldogs who have an unusual poodle sibling named Antoinette. A look between the mothers makes it clear that two of the dogs were sent home with the wrong families, so they switch pups again. Depending on the age of the reader, this tale of belonging will lead to layers of discussion about family structure. Robinson’s art looks deceptively simple, featuring the pups as negative white space against bright backgrounds. Dots for eyes and nose with a simple mouth line perfectly convey each dog’s personality and joy as Gaston and Antoinette decide to return to the families who raised them. 

I Love You Just Enough by Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen is Story 5 in the Hazel Ridge Farm Stories which feature some of the animals rescued and rehabilitated on the family’s wildlife refuge in central Michigan. The author narrates her daughter Heather’s story from the summer she rescued an abandoned wood duck. Heather takes the rehabilitation process seriously, providing natural pond food for the duck and teaching him how to live independently. Her father warns her that saying goodbye to her summer companion will be hard, but a duck’s home should be with other ducks. It’s a challenge for Heather to love the animal “just enough” to let him leave at the end of summer, but she knows what must be done. This story has enough text to equal a beginning chapter book for Grades 2 and 3, but is even better in picture book format with realistic illustrations painted on canvas by Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen. Look for the other four books in the series to make it a full day of reading.

Fourth and fifth grade students won’t stop reading The Madman of Piney Woods until they solve of the mystery behind this local legend set just across the border in Ontario, Canada. Michigan’s own Christopher Paul Curtis lays out a dual storyline with Benji and Red, two boys from very different backgrounds. Benji, a descendant of African-American slaves, loves the outdoors and spends his time playing pranks on his twin siblings, while polishing his writing skills for the local newspaper. Red, nicknamed for his hair color, is second generation Irish and lives in constant fear of his unpredictable Grandmother O’Toole, a survivor of the disease-ridden coffin ships arriving from Ireland in the 1840’s. Benji and Red narrate their own stories and come together for a dramatic rescue involving the Madman. The author sprinkles the pages with humor, adds plenty of adventure, and wraps it up with regional history. Although this is a sequel to ELIJAH OF BUXTON, the thirty year time span and large array of characters allows each story to stand on its own.

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier can be described as quirky and creepy. 14 year-old Molly and her 10 year-old brother, Kip, are orphaned Irish siblings traveling to a household position at the Windsor estate, an isolated English manor with a huge tree growing into it. Molly is quite the storyteller, soothing her brother with tales of the day their parents will return - a story that will never come true, and lying her way out of any trouble that comes her way. She uses her storytelling skills to endear herself to the mysterious Windsor family and begins to care about their welfare. Why is everyone so lethargic and pessimistic?  Could it have something to do with the shadowy Night Gardener who enters her dreams? She and Kip must find answers in order to save themselves and the family they’ve become part of. Auxier creates a quiet suspense that results in a spine-tingling ghost story for Grades 6-8.

--Lynette Suckow, Reference Desk

Summer Reads: New Adult Fiction

Summer months are the perfect time to escape with fiction and the new book shelves at the Peter White Public Library have plenty of offerings for all reading tastes.

Reykjavik Nights by Arnaldur Indridason is the prequel to the critically acclaimed Inspector Erlendur series.  Readers will find Erlendur as a young and budding detective on the busy streets in Reykjavik.  Erlendur is haunted by the drowning death of a tramp he regularly sees on his nightly rounds.  When nobody else cares about the crime, the young detective gets dragged into the strange and dark underworld of the city in an effort to solve the mystery.

Orient is a small isolated town on the north fork of Long Island.  As the summer draws to a close, the residents are gripped by a series of mysterious deaths.  Mills Chevern is a new resident of town.  An orphan with no ties and a hazy history, suspicion lands on him.  Can he solve the mysteries before time runs out?  That is the question posed in Orient by Christopher Bollen.

         

High season is coming to an end for Jackson Hole fishing guide Jake Trent.  With time on his hands, the ex-lawyer’s thoughts turn to his sputtering romance with ranger Noelle Klimpton.   Suddenly, a surprise call from a long-lost lover throws his life into disarray.  The second installment in the Jake Trent series by David Riley Bertsch, River of No Return is filled with twists and turns.

            Anne Rice reinvented the vampire universe in her Vampire Chronicles series.   Her latest, Prince Lestat is a chillingly hypnotic thriller that picks up where Rice left off with the Queen of the Damned and The Vampire Lestat.  She creates new characters, legends and lore in this eagerly-awaited novel.

            The Witch of Painted Sorrows by M.J. Rose conjours the brilliance and intrigue of Belle Epoque Paris through the travels of New York socialite Sandrine Salome.  Salome flees an abusive husband by traveling to her grandmother’s Paris mansion.  There she finds a situation more menacing than that which she left at home.

            In southeast Minnesota, a school board meeting is drawing to a deadly close as the Board chair announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed to the public and press.  He persuades his fellow board members to vote for the execution of local reporter Clancy Conley.  Detective Virgil Flowers is confronted with numerous crimes as he is called from one investigation to another in John Sanford’s Deadline.

            Lynne Truss is best known for Eats, Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.   She tries her hand at mystery with Cat out of Hell.  Librarian Alec Charlesworth is having a bad day.  He recently lost his job, his beloved wife has just died and to top it off, his sister is missing.  Things can’t get any worse, or can they?  When his sister’s cat Roger starts talking to Alec, he finds that he is not alone.   Roger and Alec try to piece together clues involving local history, mysterious deaths and missing persons in this clever mystery.

            Sano Ichirio’s career as the Shogun’s detective has experienced ups and downs, but nothing seems to be as bad as he finds things in 1709.  He has been demoted to a lowly patrol guard.  His relationship with his wife Reiko is in tatters and his two bitter enemies have formed an alliance.  With the Shogun old and ailing, can Sano find the culprit who tried to murder the Shogun and to destroy Japan before all is lost?  The Iris Fan is the seventeenth novel in Laura Joh Rowland’s Sano Ichirio series. 

            Jane Smiley has written the first in what is to be a new family-saga trilogy set in Iowa.  Spanning three decades, the 1920s through 1950s, Some Luck tells the tale of Roseanna and Walter Langdon and their five children.  Each chapter covers a single year.  As the novel opens, Walter has returned from World War I.  He and Rosanna raise five children, each of whom follows a different path.  Upon completing this novel, Smiley fans will be eagerly awaiting the next installment.

            One of the most popular thrillers this year is Paula Hawkins’ slow burning psychological thriller The Girl on theTrain. Each morning Rachel takes the same London commuter train past a stretch of cozy suburban homes.  Each day, the train stops at the same signal and Rachel observes a couple eating breakfast on their deck.  She starts to spin a fantasy life about the couple, until one day, their perfect life is disrupted by a shocking sight.  Her actions

in reporting the situation spin out of control in a story reminiscent of a Hitchcock thriller.

            Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty also focuses on suburban conflict as three mothers juggle rivalries and plenty of juicy secrets.  The connections between the three women drawn together in a peaceful little town develop into more than they expect.   The little lies they each tell themselves to survive may not be so innocent after all.

             Hildie Good is a native of a small little town on Boston’s rocky North Shore.  She is a successful real estate broker, mother and grandmother, but her children have decided she is too dependent on wine.  They send her off to rehab and upon release, she is in a less than dedicated recovery.  Wealthy newcomer Rebecca McAllister provides some diversion, but also spells danger.  As a cluster of secrets becomes known, this darkly comic novel, The Good House by Ann Leary, takes a deadly turn.

           

Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood reaffirms her reputation as a chronicler of humankind’s darkest impulses.  This collection of nine loosely linked short stories features grotesque and delightfully wicked facets of humanity.  A fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband.  A young woman disfigured by a genetic defect is mistaken for a vampire while a murderess who has killed all four of her husband exacts her final revenge on the first man who ever wronged her.  Atwood fans will love these tales.

            There is no limit to the variety of fiction available on the new book shelves of the Peter White Public Library.

--Pam Christensen, Library Director