Readers’ Advisory Committee OCTOBER 2018

STAFF PICKS Libraries To find book suggestions on the web go to www.nccde.org/libraries and click on “What Do I Read Next” for Staff Picks, Select Reads, and more... FICTION

THE CACTUS BY SARAH HAYWOOD (PICKED BY KT) People aren't sure what to make of Susan Green—a prickly independent woman, who has everything just the way she wants it and who certainly has no need for messy emotional relationships. Family and colleagues find her standoffish and hard to understand. At forty-five, she thinks her life is perfect, as long as she avoids her feckless brother, Edward. She has a London flat which is ideal for one; a job that suits her passion for logic; and a personal arrangement providing cultural and other, more intimate, benefits. Yet suddenly faced with the loss of her mother and, implausibly, with the possibility of becoming a mother herself, Susan's greatest fear is being realized: she is losing control. When she discovers that her mother's will inexplicably favors her brother, Susan sets out to prove that Edward and his equally feckless friend Rob somehow coerced this dubious outcome. But when problems closer to home become increasingly hard to ignore, she finds help in the most unlikely of places. (384 pgs) AUSCHWITZ LULLABY BY MARIO ESCOBAR (PICKED BY SM) In 1943 Germany, Helene is just about to wake up her children for school when a group of policemen break into her house. They want to haul away her gypsy husband and their five children. The police tell Helene that as a German she does not have to go with them, but she decides to share the fate of her family. The entire family is deported to Auschwitz. The living conditions are extremely harsh, but at least she is with her children. A few days after their arrival, Doctor Mengele comes to visit, having noticed on her entry card that she is a nurse. He proposes that she direct the camp’s nursery. Helene, with the help of two Polish Jewish prisoners and four gypsy mothers, organizes the buildings. Though Mengele provides them with Disney movies, school supplies, and food, the people are living in crowded conditions under extreme conditions. And less than 400 yards away, two gas chambers are exterminating thousands of people daily. For sixteen months, Helene lives with this reality, desperately trying to find a way to save her children. (281 pgs) BONE ON BONE BY JULIA KELLER (PICKED BY SLS) How far would you go for someone you love? Would you die? Would you kill? After a three-year prison sentence, Bell Elkins is back in Acker's Gap. And she finds herself in the white-hot center of a complicated and deadly case -- even as she comes to terms with one last, devastating secret of her own. A prominent local family has fallen victim to the same sickness that infects the whole region: drug addiction. With mother against father, child against parent, and tensions that lead inexorably to tragedy, they are trapped in a grim, hopeless struggle with nowhere to turn. Bell has lost her job as prosecutor -- but not her affection for her hard-luck hometown. Teamed up with former Deputy Jake Oakes, who battles his own demons as he adjusts to life as a paraplegic, and aided by the new prosecutor, Rhonda Lovejoy, Bell tackles a case as poignant as it is perilous, as heartbreaking as it is challenging. (320 pgs) AN OCEAN OF MINUTES BY THEA LIM (PICKED BY BS) America is in the grip of a deadly flu pandemic. When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him, even if it means risking everything. She agrees to a radical plan—time travel has been invented in the future to thwart the virus. If she signs up for a one-way-trip into the future to work as a bonded laborer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs. Polly promises to meet Frank again in Galveston, Texas, where she will arrive in twelve years. But when Polly is re-routed an extra five years into the future, Frank is nowhere to be found. Alone in a changed and divided America, with no status and no money, Polly must navigate a new life and find a way to locate Frank, to discover if he is alive, and if their love has endured. (309 pgs)

New Castle County Libraries | Department of Community Services | Matthew Meyer , County Executive STAFF PICKS FICTION

GOODBYE, PARIS BY ANSTEY HARRIS (PICKED BY SM) Grace once had the beginnings of a promising musical career, but she hasn't been able to play her cello publicly since a traumatic event at music college years ago. Since then, she's built a quiet life for herself in her small English village, repairing instruments and nurturing her long- distance affair with David, the man who has helped her rebuild her life even as she puts her dreams of a family on hold until his children are old enough for him to leave his loveless marriage. But when David saves the life of a woman in the Paris Metro, his resulting fame shines a light onto the real state of the relationship(s) in his life. Shattered, Grace hits rock bottom and abandons everything that has been important to her, including her dream of entering and winning the world's most important violin-making competition. Her closest friends – a charming elderly violinist and her store clerk step in to help, but will their friendship be enough to help her pick up the pieces? (288 pgs) BELLEWETHER BY SUSANNA KEARSLEY (PICKED BY SH) It’s 1759 and the world is at war, pulling the North American colonies of Britain and France into the conflict. Many New York merchants have secretly been trading with the French for years, defying Britain’s colonial laws. When captured French officers are brought to Long Island to be billeted in private homes it upends the lives of the Wilde family—deeply involved in the treasonous trade and already divided by war. Lydia Wilde has little time or kindness to spare for her unwanted guests. French-Canadian lieutenant Jean-Philippe de Sabran has little desire to be there. But by the war’s end they’ll both learn love, honor, and duty can form tangled bonds that are not broken easily. Their doomed romance becomes a local legend, told and re-told through the years until the present day, when conflict of a different kind brings Charley Van Hoek to Long Island to be the new curator of the Wilde House Museum. Charley doesn’t believe in ghosts. But as she starts to delve into the history of Lydia and her French officer, Charley discovers the legend might not have been telling the whole story...or the whole truth. (414pgs) THREE THINGS ABOUT ELSIE BY JOANNA CANNON (PICKED BY BS) There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first thing is that she’s my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third thing… might take a bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to be rescued, she thinks about her friend Elsie and wonders if a terrible secret from their past is about to come to light. If the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died sixty years ago? Three Things About Elsie is a story about forever friends on the twisting path of life. As we uncover their buried secrets, we learn how the fine threads of humanity connect us all. (464 pgs) TIFFANY BLUES BY M.J. ROSE (PICKED BY SLH) New York, 1924. Jenny Bell is one of a dozen artists invited to Louis Tiffany’s prestigious artists’ colony. Jenny vows to avoid distractions and take full advantage of the wonders to be found at Laurelton Hall. But Jenny’s past has followed her to Long Island. Images of her beloved mother, her hard-hearted stepfather, waterfalls, murder, and the dank hallways of Canada’s Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women overwhelm Jenny’s thoughts, even as she is inextricably drawn to Oliver, Tiffany’s charismatic grandson. As the summer goes on, and the competition between the artists grows fierce as they vie for a spot at Tiffany’s New York gallery, a series of suspicious and disturbing occurrences suggest someone knows enough about Jenny’s childhood trauma to expose her. Supported by her closest friend and Oliver, Jenny pushes her demons aside. Between stolen kisses and stolen jewels, the jazz plays on until one moonless night when Jenny’s past and present are thrown together in a desperate moment that will threaten her future and her very life. (317 pgs) IKE AND KAY BY JAMES MACMANUS (PICKED BY LD) In 1942, Kay Summersby’s life is changed forever when she is conscripted to drive General Eisenhower on his fact-finding visit to wartime London. So begins a tumultuous relationship that, against all military regulation, sees Kay traveling with Eisenhower on missions to far-flung places before the final assault on Nazi Germany. Based on the scandalous true story of General Eisenhower’s secret World War II love affair, Ike and Kay is a compelling story of love, duty, sacrifice, and heartbreak, set against the backdrop of the most tumultuous period of the twentieth century. (288 pgs)

STAFF PICKS

OCTOBER 2018 Libraries

NON-FICTION

SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE BY MAX ALLAN COLLINS (PICKED BY SLH) In 1929, Al Capone ruled both Chicago's underworld and its corrupt government. To a public who scorned Prohibition, "Scarface" became a local hero and national celebrity. But after the brutal St. Valentine's Day Massacre transformed Capone into "Public Enemy Number One," the federal government found an unlikely new hero in a Prohibition agent named Eliot Ness. Chosen to head the legendary law enforcement team known as "The Untouchables," Ness set his sights on crippling Capone's criminal empire. In 2016 the Chicago Tribune wrote, "Al Capone still awaits the biographer who can fully untangle, and balance the complexities of his life," while revisionist historians have continued to misrepresent Ness and his remarkable career. Enter Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz, a unique and vibrant writing team combining the narrative skill of a master novelist with the scholarly rigor of a trained historian. Scarface and the Untouchable draws upon decades of primary source research. Together they have crafted the definitive work on Capone, Ness, and the battle for Chicago. (736 pgs) INFINITE TUESDAY BY MICHAEL NESMITH [BIO] (PICKED BY BS) The long, strange journey of Michael Nesmith is as fascinating as it as was fraught--from fleeing Dallas as a young man with his pregnant girlfriend, to gaining international fame as a member of the Monkees, to falling deep into the grips of what he calls Celebrity Psychosis, to finally achieving inner peace and finding a creative wellspring in the teachings of Christian Science. Influenced in equal parts by the consciousness-expanding ambitions of Timothy Leary and the cerebral humor of Douglas Adams, in Infinite Tuesday Nesmith spins a spellbinding tale of an unexpected life, in which stories about meeting John Lennon, or recording with Nashville greats, or inventing the music video trace an arc from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, illuminating a remarkable mind along the way. (320 pgs) CHASING THE DEMON BY DAN HAMPTON (PICKED BY SMC) Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells the true story of mankind’s quest for Mach 1. After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than one’s enemy became the singular obsession of American war planners. Scientists and engineers were pioneering a revolutionary new type of aircraft which could reach mach 1-a speed faster than the movement of sound-which pilots called "the demon." An extraordinary band of pilots, including WWII aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, risked their lives flying this experimental aircraft. Officially Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new interviews with survivors of the program, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents evidence that a fellow American—George Welch met the demon first, though he was not favored to wear the laurels, as he was now a civilian test pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1.Chasing the Demon sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, so that the reader can learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before. (352 pgs) TOMORROW WILL BE DIFFERENT BY SARAH MCBRIDE (PICKED BY PB) Sarah McBride is on a mission to fight for transgender rights around the world. But before she was a prominent activist, and before she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was a teenager struggling with her identity. She inspires readers with her barrier-breaking political journey that took her, in just four years, from a frightened, closeted college student to one of the nation's most prominent transgender activists. She also details the heartbreaking romance with her first love and future husband Andy, a trans man and activist, who passed away from cancer in 2014 just days after they were married. From issues like bathroom access to healthcare, identification and schools, Sarah weaves the important political milestones, cultural and political debates, and historical context into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds. (272 pgs)

New Castle County Libraries | Department of Community Services | Matthew Meyer, County Executive STAFF PICKS NON-FICTION MEG, JO, BETH, AMY BY ANNE BOYD RIOUX (PICKED BY SH) Soon after publication on September 30, 1868, Little Women became an enormous bestseller and one of America’s favorite novels. Its popularity quickly spread throughout the world, and the book has become an international classic. When Anne Boyd Rioux read the novel in her twenties, she had a powerful reaction to the story. Through teaching the book, she has seen the same effect on many others. Rioux recounts how Louisa May Alcott came to write Little Women, drawing inspiration for it from her own life. Rioux also examines why this tale of family and community ties, set while the Civil War tore America apart, has resonated through later wars, the Depression, and times of changing opportunities for women. Alcott’s novel has moved generations of women, many of them writers. Today, Rioux sees the novel’s beating heart in Alcott’s portrayal of family resilience and her honest look at the struggles of girls growing into women. (288 pgs) SOUTH OF FORGIVENESS BY THORDIS ELVA (PICKED BY KT) One ordinary spring morning in Reykjavik, Iceland, Thordis Elva kisses her son and partner goodbye before boarding a plane to fly seven-thousand miles to confront the man who raped her when she was just sixteen. Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia, Tom Stranger nervously embarks on an equally life-changing journey to meet Thordis, wondering whether he is worthy of this milestone. After exchanging hundreds of searingly honest email messages over eight years, Thordis and Tom decided it was time to speak face to face. South of Forgiveness is an unprecedented collaboration between a survivor and a perpetrator, each equally committed to exploring the darkest moment of their lives. It is a true story about being bent but not broken, facing fear with courage, and finding hope even in the most wounded of places. This is an intense and refreshing look at a gendered violence, rape culture, personal responsibility, and the effect that patriarchal cultures have on both men and women. (322 pgs) SEEDS OF SCIENCE BY MARK LYNAS (PICKED BY SMC) Mark Lynas was one of the original GM field wreckers. Back in the 1990s--working undercover with his colleagues in the environmental movement--he would descend on trial sites of genetically modified crops at night and hack them to pieces. In 2013, in a world-famous recantation speech, Mark apologized for having destroyed GM crops. He spent the subsequent years touring Africa and Asia, and working with plant scientists who are using this technology to help smallholder farmers in developing countries cope better with pests, diseases and droughts. Mark takes us back to the origins of the technology and introduces the scientific pioneers who invented it. He explains what led him to question his earlier assumptions about GM food, and talks to both sides of this fractious debate to see what still motivates worldwide opposition today. (304 pgs) EAGER BY BEN GOLDFARB (PICKED BY SLS & SLH) In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”―including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens―recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. Eager is a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. (304 pgs) WALLS BY DAVID FRYE (PICKED BY SLH) With Frye as our guide, we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected, on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves. As we journey across time and place, we witness the epic siege of Constantinople, marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line, tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin, and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound. Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? (304 pgs)

Reviews excerpted from amazon.com and goodreads.com