What Your Neighbors are Reading
Simply Lies by David Baldacci
Mickey Gibson, single mother and former detective, leads a hectic life similar to that of many moms: juggling the demands of her two small children with the tasks of her job working remotely for ProEye, a global investigation company that hunts down wealthy tax and credit cheats. When Mickey gets a call from a colleague named Arlene Robinson, she thinks nothing of Arlene’s unusual request for her to go inventory the vacant home of an arms dealer who cheated ProEye’s clients and fled. That is, until she arrives at the mansion to discover a dead body in a secret room—and that nothing is as it seems. Not only does the arms dealer not exist but the murder victim turns out to be Harry Langhorne, a man with mob ties who used to be in Witness Protection. What’s more, no one named Arlene Robinson works at ProEye.
A Wing and a Prayer: The Race to Save Our Vanishing Birds by Anders & Beverly Gyllenhaal
Belinda says: "One-third - more than 30% - of the number of birds alive 50 years ago in North America are gone.
Vanished.
Reading this brief, unflinching analysis in A Wing and a Prayer by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal stopped me cold. I closed the book and gazed out at my backyard bird feeder.
Nearly 2.913 billion fewer birds than in the early 1970s - not here to fly, chirp, gobble up insects, pollinate, reproduce, fill their vital role in nature's cycle. Not here to simply live.
We did this. And we need to answer for it.
Fortunately bird loving journalists Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal have some suggestions. In this book they take us along in their cross-country quest to find answers: how did this come to be? More importantly, what can we do? They gathered ideas from scientists, conservationists, experts, amateurs and ordinary folks who are passionate about these creatures.
If we listen and act there is hope and, just maybe, we can stop - reverse, even? - this vanishing.
Read this book and get going."
Happy Place by Emily Henry
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t. They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends. Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blissful week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.
The Ice Cream Machine by Adam Rubin
In these six stories, set in six distinct worlds, you’ll meet a boy and his robot nanny traveling the globe in search of the world’s tastiest treat, a child mechanical prodigy who invents the freshest dessert ever, and an evil ice cream truck driver who strikes fear in the heart of every kid in town. You’ll be transported to a beachside boardwalk with an ice cream stand run by a penguin, a hilltop realm ruled by a king with a sweet tooth, and a giant alien space lab with a lone human subject who longs for a taste of home.
The Human Kaboom by Adam Rubin
Adam Rubin is back with this companion to The Ice Cream Machine, inviting you into six thrilling new worlds filled with daring and danger, mystery and mayhem—not to mention explosions! In a swanky New York City hotel, a reclusive guest appears to have spontaneously combusted. On a school field trip to a human anatomy museum in space, two kids try to pull off the greatest prank in history. Somewhere on a deserted island, three siblings try to make a life for themselves after the rest of the planet has been decimated by gigantic rock monsters. And then there's the small, quaint fishing town where a boy visiting his sister stumbles across an ancient curse; the traveling circus where a young girl becomes the assistant to a death-defying human cannonball; and the rugged wilderness where one kid with superpowers just can't seem to find some peace.
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
From Mamie: "Seven decades (in book time!) and more than 700 pages later, I closed The Covenant of Water, the story of a family haunted by drownings. Abraham Verghese, author of two books that I also loved, My Own Country and Cutting for Stone, has written a spellbinding novel set in a Christian community in India. Verghese draws, as he did in the other two books, on his vast knowledge of medicine, and exhibits his ability to delve deep into character and setting. In the past six months, I have left two novels of more than 500 pages unfinished, but I read this one to the very end, moved by the quest of three generations of a family trying to save themselves from destiny and solve the mystery of their affliction. This book is a stunner, and it is sure to be high on the list when awards are given out this year."
The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry
In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own. But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks
Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.
Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.
Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.
Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.
The Thing About Home by Rhonda McKnight
Casey Black needs an escape. When her picture-perfect vow renewal ceremony ends in her being left at the altar, the former model turned social media influencer has new fame--the kind she never wanted. An embarrassing viral video has cost her millions of followers, and her seven-year marriage is over. With her personal and business lives in shambles, Casey runs from New York City to South Carolina's Lowcountry hoping to find long-lost family. Family who can give her more answers about her past than her controlling mom-slash-manager has ever been willing to share.
