Did you miss our Drop-in Book Chat last week? Librarians Kim and Clare discussed some of their favorite fiction reads of the last month and previewed some soon to be released titles. If you love to talk about books but don't want to be tied to only one book, you should check out this program! Enjoy half an hour of sharing about great reads and meeting new reader friends. Our next program will be in March, time and date to be determind.
Check our calendar for updates and contact the Reference Desk at 978-623-8430 if you need help requesting these titles.
Kim and Clare's Picks for January 2018
|
|
The Chilbury Ladies' Choir : a novel
by Jennifer Ryan Letters and journals reveal the struggles, affairs, deceptions and triumphs of five members of a village choir during World War II as they band together to survive the upheavals of war and village intrigue on the English home front. A first novel. |
|
|
The witches of New York : a novel
by Ami McKay A tale inspired by Manhattan's 19th-century witchcraft revival finds a celebrated teahouse proprietress and a gifted medium teaming up with a dream interpreter in the aftermath of a psychic colleague's disappearance. Original. |
|
|
Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant-and that her lover is married-she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. |
|
|
Song of a Captive Bird
by Jasmin Darznik All through her childhood in Tehran, poet Forugh Farrokhzad is told that Persian daughters should be quiet and modest. She is taught only to obey, but she always finds ways to rebel. During the summer of 1950, Forugh’s passion for poetry takes flight until she is forced into a suffocating marriage. She runs away and falls into an affair that fuels her desire to write and to achieve freedom and independence. Her poems are considered both scandalous & brilliant; some see her as a national treasure, other see her as a demon influenced by the West. She perseveres, but at enormous cost. |
|
|
Carnegie's maid
by Marie Benedict Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie requires skills she doesn't have, answering to an icy mistress who rules her sons and her domain with an iron fist. What Clara does have is a resolve as strong as the steel Pittsburgh is becoming famous for, coupled with an uncanny understanding of business, and Andrew begins to rely on her. But Clara can't let her guard down, not even when Andrew becomes something more than an employer. Revealing her past might ruin her future -- and her family's. |
|
|
We were the lucky ones
by Georgia Hunter A novel based on the true story of a Jewish-Polish family recounts how the Kurcs are scattered throughout the world by the horrors of World War II and fight respective hardships to survive, reach safety and find each other. Includes a family tree. |
|
|
How to Stop Time
by Matt Haig Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Now, he just wants an ordinary life. So Tom moves back his to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher--the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present. |
|
|
The Magdalen girls
by V. S. Alexander Sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan's family sends her to one of 1962 Dublin's Magdalen Laundries—grim workhouses where the cities unwed mothers, prostitutes, petty criminals and other "fallen" women are sent—when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest. Original. |
|
|
The widows of Malabar Hill
by Sujata Massey Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Mistry Law has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen is going through the paperwork, she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on if they forfeit what their husband left them? Perveen is suspicious, especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X--meaning she probably couldn't even read the document. Perveen tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts about the will were correct when tensions escalate to murder. |
|
|
The gilded hour
by Sara Donati Haunted by childhood losses in spite of successful medical careers in 1883 New York City, surgeon Anna Savard and her obstetrician cousin, Sophie, consider taking in a child and helping a desperate young mother, while avoiding dangerous anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock |
|
|
An American marriage
by Tayari Jones Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated byforces beyond their control. |
|
|
The casual vacancy
by J. K Rowling A long-anticipated first adult novel by the award-winning author of the Harry Potter series follows the early death of a small town councilman whose demise reveals deep-rooted conflicts in his seemingly idyllic community, which rapidly deteriorates in the face of cultural disputes, generation clashes and a volatile election. Reprint. |
|
|
Our souls at night
by Kent Haruf A senior-aged widow and widower forge a loving bond over shared loneliness and respective histories, provoking local gossip and the disapproval of their grown children in ways that are further complicated by an extended visit by a sad young grandchild. |