Mysteries, intrigue, human horrors await at SouthArk Library
Exciting things are happening at the college right now: basketball games, the holidays, commencement, and yes, a lot of great new books to read!
Want to hear about the rock-star life? Check out an ordinary kid named Dave Grohl who ended up playing in two celebrated bands. He has some stories to tell about Nirvana, Foo Fighters and being a dad in “The Storyteller.”
You may not know her name, but Elizabeth Packard’s story is crucial to the rights of women and the mentally ill. Our book club recently read “The Woman They Could Not Silence” by Kate Moore. It’s the true account of how Packard’s husband had her committed to a mental institution after he felt threatened by her independence and outspoken views. Get ready for a real eye-opener, like Moore’s previous book, “The Radium Girls.”
Did you watch the TV series “Lost”? This book about plane-crash survival reminds me of it. Carol Shaben’s “Into the Abyss” has the remote Canadian wilderness for a backdrop instead of a tropical island. Among the four survivors: the pilot, a prominent politician and a cop handcuffed to a criminal. Sounds intriguing and was authored by the daughter of one of the four survivors.
As for fiction, it’s a good time for new reads from some of everyone’s favorite authors. If you like thrillers, like “Daylight” by David Baldacci, you’ll find some startling revelations in the third entry of the Atlee Pine series. FBI agent Pine has been frustrated for years in the
search for her missing sister, but she may have a breakthrough just as she’s ready to give up. Brad Thor returns with “Black Ice” and ex-Navy SEAL Scot Horvath confronts a ghost from his checkered past.
Doesn’t this sound like a publisher’s dream team? A former secretary of state, ex-first lady and former presidential candidate teaming up to write with the successful author of cozy village mysteries. “State of Terror” by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny is about a secretary of state under siege by terrorist attacks and conspiracy theories, and has lots of international intrigue.
Penny fans have more to look forward to, because a new installment of the Inspector Gamache series is available called “Madness of Crowds” — featuring a return to her favorite setting of Three Pines.
Among the many detective series that I haven’t read is Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan. Her latest, “The Bone Code,” is a good one if you like forensics, anthropology, criminology and other coroner-related fiction.
Several of my favorite authors have new books, and one is “Billy Summers” by Stephen King. As his readers know, King sometimes writes about the horror not in the supernatural world, but in the hearts and minds of humans. His latest is one of those.
Another exciting new book is “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr. It’s dedicated “To all the librarians — then, now and in the years to come.” His last work was the wonderful “All the Light We Cannot See.” Once again he starts with unrelated points of view and draws them together in a fascinating way. Instead of being set in World War II this time, Doerr imagines a futuristic child on a spaceship bound for a new planet, two children on opposing sides of the 1453 siege of Constantinople and a young man planning an attack on a library in 2012.
Also highly recommended is author Amor Towles, who wrote the wonderful “A Gentleman in Moscow” in 2016. This year he takes readers for a drive on “The Lincoln Highway” with brothers Emmett and Billy Watson in a road-trip novel set in 1954. After the loss of their family farm, the Watsons want to start a new life and set out on a cross-country journey. But fate steps in when Duchess and Wooley, Emmett’s somewhat shady friends, come along for the ride. It’s a funny, touching and memorable story of hope and redemption.
These are just a few of the wonderful books from our library that are perfect for the many fall and winter reading days ahead.