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Author Archives: Weston Public Library Staff

The Rules Do Not Apply: a Memoir by Ariel Levy

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in 20th century, Biography

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autobiography, lesbians, life changing events, marriage, miscarriage, sex roles, United States, women journalists

When 38-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.  Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life – reinventing work, marriage, family, pregnancy, sex and divorce for herself from the ground up and  then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed.

“Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this profound book. Ariel Levy has taken grief and made art out of it.”—David Sedaris

“A great memoir is not a trip through someone else’s life but a series of long looks into your own.  Ariel Levy’s book – grieving, hopeful, painful, funny – is that.” – Amy Bloom

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Camino Island by John Grisham

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, mystery

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antiquarian booksellers, bookstores, Florida, rare book thefts, suspense, undercover operations

John Grisham has broken away from his classic legal storytelling and has written a lawyerless, bookish thriller set in a picturesque Florida beach resort town.

Camino Island, Grisham’s 30th book in 28 years, is a story filled with book lovers – from those who write them to those who steal them, in particular the manuscript copies of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s early works which are housed in the basement vault of the Rare Books and Special Collections Department in the Firestone Library at Princeton University.  Filled with insights on the book trade, Camino Island is a fun read for those who love books!

“Tasty . . . a fresh, fun departure . . . sheer catnip . . . a most agreeable summer destination.” —USA Today

“A theft of priceless books from a library, a book dealer who dabbles in the black market of stolen manuscripts, and a novelist who is recruited for a daring mission all add up to what sounds like the ideal beach read.” – Library Journal

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The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, nature, Non-fiction

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anecdotes, chronically ill, Gastropoda physiology, meaning of life, snail anatomy, snails as pets

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While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world.

“As I read Bailey’s description of how her snail moved, ate, slept, and reproduced, I felt myself shrinking and shrinking, like Alice in Wonderland, until I was snail-size myself.” – Anne Fadiman

A charming, delicate meditation on the meaning of life. — Kirkus Review

“Though illness may rob us of vitality, sometimes it can also help bring us understanding—-albeit in improbable disguises . . . Perhaps there’s something to be said for moving at a snail’s pace.” —NPR.org

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Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland) by Hank Phillippi Ryan

01 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, murder, mystery

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adoption, corrupt practices, family secrets, foster home care, Massachusetts, missing children, murder investigation, suspense

Chosen by the Weston Library Mystery Group.  Now the AGATHA AWARD WINNER for Best Contemporary Mystery and the DAPHNE AWARD WINNER for Best Mystery/Suspense!

Investigating allegations against an adoption agency that is suspected of reuniting adopted children with the wrong birth parents, Jane Ryland finds her efforts suspiciously tied to Jake Brogan’s case involving a young woman’s brutal murder and the disappearance of a baby.

THE WRONG GIRL has all the right stuff! The pacing is furious, the characters are great fun, and the dialogue crackles.–Linwood Barclay

A riveting story that will hook you from page one! Unputdownable–Deborah Crombie

 

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The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, case studies, Non-fiction

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hermits, Maine, nature, recluses, Smithfield region, solitude, survival, thieves

If you have ever dreamed of getting away from it all, then this is the book for you!

In 1986, a young man seeking a quiet and peaceful life, drove his car into the back woods of Maine, left the keys on the dashboard and disappeared for 27 years.  Where did he sleep, what did he eat, how did he survive the black fly season and the rain and the bitter cold and was he ever lonely?  All these questions and many more will be answered.  P.S. This book has a Metrowest Boston connection.

“A story that takes the two primary human relationships—to nature and to one another—and deftly upends our assumptions about both. This was a breathtaking book to read and many weeks later I am still thinking about the implications for our society and—by extension—for my own life.”—Sebastian Junger

“An absorbing exploration of solitude and man’s eroding relationship with the natural world. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves.”—Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic

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The Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Historical Fiction

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17th century, art forgeries, art historians, Dutch painting, Netherlands, Sarah van Baalbergen (1607-1638?), women artists

This beautifully written novel is centered around a seventeenth-century Dutch painting. It follows the story of its creator, the man who inherits it, and the woman hired to create a forgery. While the book spans a few countries and time periods, its focus always remains on its engaging characters.

Highly evocative of time and place, this stunning novel explores a triumvirate of fate, choice, and consequence and is worthy of comparison to Tracy Chevalier’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring “and Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch “.” . . “Just as a painter may utilize thousands of fine brushstrokes, Smith slowly creates a masterly, multilayered story that will dazzle readers of fine historical fiction. Library Journal (starred review)

Gliding gracefully from grungy 1950s Brooklyn to the lucent interiors of Golden Age Holland and the sun-splashed streets of contemporary Sydney, the novel links the lives of two troubled, enigmatic, and hugely talented young women, one of them an artist, the other, her forger. A page-turning book with much to say about the pain and exhilaration of art and life. Geraldine Brooks, author of “The Secret Chord”

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The Nix by Nathan Hill

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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Americans, desertion and non-support, family secrets, mothers and sons, Norway, riots in Chicago, runaway wives, self-realization

Samuel, a college professor and failed novelist, has not seen his mother in over twenty years since she left him and his father. When she is arrested for a political protest, he decides to see her again and learn more about her past, particularly her time as a young woman in 1960s Chicago. An engrossing, funny book with many characters and time periods.

“A fantastic novel about love, betrayal, politics and pop culture—as good as the best Michael Chabon or Jonathan Franzen.” —People 

“It broke my heart, this book. Time after time. It made me laugh just as often. I loved it on the first page as powerfully as I did on the last.” —Jason Sheehan, NPR.org

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Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky

24 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction

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cooking, female friendship, life changing events, local food, Maine, romance

Two childhood friends reunite at a summer retreat, each harboring a horrible secret that would test the bounds of their longtime relationship if revealed.

“Set on the fictional Maine island of Quinnipeague, Delinksy’s novel centers on two childhood friends, Charlotte and Nicole, who reunite to coauthor a cookbook about the local cuisine. (Warning: there are tantalizing food descriptions in this book. Don’t listen to it while hungry.)”  – Publishers Weekly

“With grace and dignity Sweet Salt Air reveals the fragility of human nature while intimating at the healing powers of forgiveness.” ―New York Journal of Books

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Never Caught : the Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

17 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Biography, History, Non-fiction, United States

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African American women, fugitive slaves, George Wahington (1732-1799), Martha Wahington (1731-1802), Oney Judge, relations with slaves, United States

“Oney Judge’s forgotten story is a powerful reminder that the tentacles of slavery could reach from the South all the way north to the State of New Hampshire.  The surprising part of the true history is not that she achieved her freedom, but the lengths to which George and Martha Washington would go to try to recapture a young woman who insulted them by rejecting bondage.” – Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

“A startling, well-researched .  . . narrative that seriously questions the intentions of our first president.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Erica Armstrong Dunbar combines the known facts of Ona’s life in service to the Washingtons with vivid descriptions of the physical and emotional conditions early American slaves faced.” (New York Post)

“Totally engrossing and absolutely necessary for understanding the birth of the American Republic, Never Caught is richly human history from the vantage point of the enslaved fifth of the early American population. Here is Ona Judge’s (successful) quest for freedom, on one side, and, on the other, George and Martha Washington’s (vain) use of federal power to try to keep her enslaved.” (Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol)

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The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye

10 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by Weston Public Library Staff in Fiction, Historical Fiction, mystery

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1775-1865, detective, Irish Americans, mystery, New York City, police, serial murder investigation, suspense

One of Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Mystery/Thrillers of the Year
One of Kirkus Reviews’ Ten Best Crime Novels of the Year
Edgar(R) Award Nominee for Best Novel
ALA Reading List Award for Best Mystery
Enjoyed by the Weston Tuesday Mystery Book Group!

1845: New York City forms its first police force. The great potato famine hits Ireland.    These two events will change New York City forever…

“The launch of a brilliant new mystery series, set in 1845 New York City: Irish Potato Famine, the birth of the police force, brothels and bedlam.”– Gillian Flynn

“It’s been almost twenty years since Caleb Carr’s bestselling Olde New York crime novel, The Alienist, was published, and I cant count the number of times since then that someone has asked me if I can recommend a suspense story anything ‘like it.’ Well, New York has inspired lots of terrific thrillers, but I’ve just stumbled on one of the worthiest successors yet. Lyndsay Faye’s novel, The Gods of Gotham.“—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

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