Here are some of the most highly anticipated and best reviewed fiction titles by debut authors coming in July. For a more extensive list of titles, please visit our catalog.
In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.
But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.
Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her.
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 by Decimal Diver
Laura McHugh is a Columbia, MO author whose latest book is “The Wolf Wants In.” It’s a suspense novel set in a small town ravaged by the opioid crisis featuring a woman who confronts a dark secret about her brother’s shocking death. McHugh is the internationally bestselling author of “The Weight of Blood,” winner of an International Thriller Writers Award, and “Arrowood,” an International Thriller Writers Award finalist for best novel. I recently emailed some interview questions to her and she was kind enough to take time out of her schedule to write back some answers. Continue reading “Author Interview: Laura McHugh”
Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.
“Little Women” Website / Reviews
Playing last year at Ragtag Cinema, this film by writer-director Greta Gerwig draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott and unfolds as the author’s alter ego, Jo March reflects back and forth on her fictional life. In Gerwig’s take, the beloved story of the March sisters, four young women each determined to live life on her own terms, is both timeless and timely. Continue reading “New DVD List: Little Women, Watchmen & More”
“Coronavirus Covid-19 Face Masks For Sale” 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
I thought I had a very clever idea when COVID-19 started to show up in the news more and more, but before a confirmed case had reached America — I would write a “Know Your Dystopias” post about pandemic themed novels! Then it quickly came to America, spread all over, and things started shutting down. I considered my blog post and thought, “too soon?”
It depends on the person. Some people feel empowered exploring worst case scenarios. I watched “Contagion” for the first time a couple days before the library had to close. I thought it was a good time to see what that movie had to say. But it also isn’t unusual for me to spend time hunkered down in my bunker while soaking in a bathtub filled with hand sanitizer. In fact, I call that Wednesday. I realize that might be a new practice for some of you (Welcome to the club!). Continue reading “Know Your Dystopias: Pandemic!”
On April 11, 2011, I published my first ever DBRL blog post, “Resources for Writers at Your Library.” While many older articles are no longer in the archives, I’m an information hoarder and have maintained a spreadsheet listing the ones I’ve written. This post you’re reading right now? Number 100 for me. To mark the occasion, I’m focusing on books with 100 in the title.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, published in 1967, follows several generations of the Buendia family, living in the remote Colombian jungle town of Macondo, established by their patriarch. I read this book more than twenty years ago, yet there are images that remain fresh in my memory — the reaction of someone seeing ice for the first time, a scene with ants that still makes me shudder. Incorporating magical realism, ghosts and a lot of metaphor, the story interweaves much of the history of Colombia into the telling. No matter the remoteness of the family dwellings, they are unable to escape the encroachments of the railroad, a civil war, and United Fruit. Continue reading “One Hundred”
Four Seasons 1208 / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)
“All human things are a circle” is the inscription on the temple to Athena in Athens.
I had started to write a very different article. I was going to write about summer and beach reads, but this just doesn’t seem to be the summer for that. Not that there’s anything wrong with escaping into a good beach read. I changed my mind when my 25-year-old son came to me and wanted me to watch President Kennedy’s address on civil rights and Bobby Kennedy’s address in Indianapolis on the 1968 race riots after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. He made the comment that it feels like the world is on fire. He says this from a position of relative privilege. And it’s not just the George Floyd protests. It’s everything. It’s race. It’s climate. It’s the pandemic. It’s political chaos. It’s so much more. I asked him if he had read “The Fire Next Time” by James Baldwin and the parallel book of essays, “The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race.” It’s hard to deny a sense of deja vu. It’s also incredibly frustrating that we seem to be still fighting the same fights. Continue reading “Literary Links: All Human Things Are a Circle”
Posted on Thursday, July 2, 2020 by Reading Addict
What a crazy summer it is! Normally that would mean wild parties and big vacations but that is (hopefully?) not the case this year. This summer doesn’t HAVE to be defined as the summer of the pandemic, although I’m sure it will be. But we can define it as the summer of the pause. We can make it the summer of reading. There are a lot of hot new books out that feature our hottest season.Continue reading “Are You Ready for the Summer?!”
I’m sure I’m not the only avid reader who often finishes a book, or an entire series, yet still wishes to know more about the characters and the fictional universe they inhabit. Specifically, I wonder about what happened in their pasts. This is where prequels come in.
I’ve done a lot of pondering about the world Suzanne Collins created with The Hunger Games trilogy. How did it get to the state it was in? Were the games always so technologically advanced? Some backstory was woven into the original three books, explaining the origins of the deadly contest for which the series is named. Readers saw many details about the mechanical and political workings of the games as experienced by teenaged protagonist Katniss Everdeen and dictated by the ruthless leader of Panem, President Snow. Now, in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a recently released prequel that is set 64 years before Katniss became a District 12 tribute, we get a look at how things were done in the early days, when Coriolanus Snow was a teenager eager to restore his family’s ever-slipping position of power in society. Continue reading “Prequels: What Happened Before”
This September, our community will explore resilience in isolation with Amor Towles’ “A Gentleman in Moscow,” a spellbinding work of historical fiction. This novel beat out the legal historical thriller “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore to be named this year’s One Read.
Before the public vote, a panel of community members considered a varied list of ten finalist books that includes other works of historical fiction, thought-provoking nonfiction, explorations of identity and, this year’s wild card, a darkly satirical story of a serial killer. Continue reading “Literary Links: One Read Final 10”
