Staff Picks - Summer 2009RSS

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Beekeeper's Apprentice

By Laurie R. King
Series Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes Mysteries
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian

When Mary Russell meets famous detective Sherlock Holmes, she discovers that he is also a beekeeper. Soon she finds herself on the trail of kidnappers and discovers a plot to kill both Holmes and herself.

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Breathing Room

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Recommended By Lisa C., Library Clerk

“The familiar tricks of the trade are refreshingly revamped in this lively contemporary romance set in Tuscany… Phillips has created a very modern and textured tale: witty, moving, passionate and tender (Publishers Weekly).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   Title Swap - February 10, 2009   
Cairo Modern

By Naguib Mahfouz
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

“The novelist's camera pans from the dome of King Fuad University to students streaming out of the campus, focusing on four students in their twenties, each representing a different trend in Egypt in the 1930s (From the Publisher).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Everything Is Illuminated

By Jonathan Safran Foer
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

“This highly imaginative debut novel features a protagonist with the same name as the author… His mission, as he ventures through the farmlands, is to find Augustine, who may have saved the grandfather he never knew from the Nazis (Library Journal).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Full Dark House

By Christopher Fowler
Series Bryant and May Mysteries
Recommended By Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services

“A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of eighty-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half-a-century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met (From the Publisher).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Garden of Last Days

By Andre Dubus III
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk

“An explosive narrative employs a Florida strip club as a tinderbox of tensions on the weekend before 9/11… Dubus shows a profound empathy as he gets inside the heads of a number of characters, with coincidence, chance and a clash of cultures building to a shattering climax (Kirkus Reviews).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Genghis: Lords of the Bow

By Conn Iggulden
Series Conqueror
Recommended By Megan Kass, Systems Manager

“After defeating the last of the Mongol tribes, Genghis, with his formidable army, sets his sights toward the Chin, whom he has long vowed to conquer. He has become a fearsome force who, with his ruthlessness and cunning need to vanquish, will lead his army to unfathomable victories (School Library Journal).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   Title Swap - February 10, 2009   
Given Day

By Dennis Lehane
Recommended By Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference

“Lehane's first historical novel is a clear winner, displaying all the virtues the author has shown in his exceptional series of crime novels: narrative verve, sensitivity to setting, the interweaving of complicated story lines, an apt and emotionally satisfying denouement-and, above all, the author's abiding love for his characters and the human condition (Library Journal).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   Title Swap - December 10, 2013, 20 & 30-Something Mock Tales Title Swap - July 17, 2017   
I'm a Stranger Here Myself

By Bill Bryson
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions

“...A book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended, if at times bemused, love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away (From the Publisher).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Last Juror

By John Grisham
Recommended By John Shea, Library Page

“The novel will satisfy those with an appetite for legal thrillers and those who believe Grisham possesses more talent than those breathless page-turners sometimes reveal. It ranks among his best-written and most atmospheric novels (USA Today).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Lost Mother

By Mary McGarry Morris
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

“Morris's plot, with its twists and reversals, feels tragic in its inevitability. And yet, to the reader's amazement, its message is ultimately redemptive and affirming. This may be the saddest story ever to have a happy ending (Washington Post).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   Title Swap - November 10, 2009   
Piano Teacher

By Janice Y.K. Lee
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk

Claire Pendleton, newly married and arrived in Hong Kong in 1952, finds work giving piano lessons to the daughter of Melody and Victor Chen, a wealthy Chinese couple. While the girl is less than interested in music, the Chens’ flinty British expat driver, Will Truesdale, is certainly interested in Claire, and vice versa. Their fast–blossoming affair is juxtaposed against a plot line beginning in 1941 when Will gets swept up by the beautiful and temptestuous Trudy Liang, and then follows through his life during the Japanese occupation.

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   Title Swap - June 6, 2017   
Skeletons at the Feast

By Chris Bohjalian
Recommended By Betty Petreshock, Reference Librarian

In the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives.  At the center is eighteen-year-old Anna, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats, and her first love, a twenty-year-old prisoner of war named Callum.

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Tsar

By Ted Bell
Series Alexander Hawke Thrillers
Recommended By Arlene Silverman, Library Clerk

“As always, Bell pulls out all the stops with terrific action scenes, fiendish murders, diabolical villains, dramatic rescues and all the cool weaponry the reader could possibly hope for (Publishers Weekly).”

Staff Picks - Summer 2009   
Woman's Place

By Barbara Delinsky
Recommended By Susan L., Library Page

“Delinsky has another winner: a woman's story of a marriage gone sour, seasoned with betrayal, disloyalty, unhappiness, and greed (Library Journal Review).”