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The company we keep : [Book Club Set] / by Itani, Frances,1942-author.;
"In this warm, bittersweet story, set in the same town as Remembering the Bones, five strangers find solace and new friendships as they grapple with grief in its many guises. Hazzley is having a hard time after the death of her husband. When her longtime friend Cassandra, café owner and occasional tea-leaf reader, suggests that Hazzley start up a conversation group, Hazzley posts a notice on the community board at the local grocery store. Four people turn up at the first meeting: Gwen, a recent retiree who is similarly getting over the loss of a husband, and who finds herself telling her life story to the parrot she is temporarily caring for; Chiyo, a 45-year old dance instructor who became accustomed to checking the notice board for news on behalf of her gossip-loving mother who had become too ill to go out; Addie, the daughter of a psychiatric nurse who is pre-emptively grieving a close friend who has breast cancer; and Tom, an amateur poet who, having been deprived of home baking since becoming a widower, comes to the first meeting hoping cake will be served. With a good deal of humour and world-weary savvy, Cassie watches over the group and bears witness to the interaction and weekly exchange of stories, some of which she knows are true, some fabricated, and all of which she can see are pulling this small group together. In the end, all five find themselves on previously unimagined paths, learning that new beginnings are possible, and that they are never past the stage when life can still surprise."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Grief; Friendship; Loss (Psychology);
Available copies: 15 / Total copies: 15
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Under the Surface [electronic resource] : by Urban, Diana.aut; cloudLibrary;
An epic survival-thriller about four teens who get lost in the Paris catacombs for days—a gripping and propulsive story of love, danger, betrayal, and hope… even when all seems lost. "Tense and fast-moving, with a unique setting and compelling characters, Under the Surface is Diana Urban’s best yet."—Karen M. McManus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying Ruby is terrified to cave to her feelings for Sean and risk him crushing her heart.  Sean is pumped to spend a week with Ruby in Paris on their senior class trip, and he’ll wait however long until she’s ready to take things further. But when Ruby’s best friend sneaks out the first night to meet a  mysterious French boy, Ruby goes after her with two classmates, but caves to another temptation: attending mystery boy’s exclusive party in the Paris catacombs, the intricate web of tunnels beneath the city, home to six million long-dead Parisians. Only they never reach the party. Underground, as something sinister chases them, they get lost in the endless maze of bones, uncovering dark secrets about the catacombs…..and each other. And if they can’t find a way out, they’ll die in the dark beneath the City of Light.  Aboveground, Sean races to find the girl he loves as a media frenzy over the four missing teens begins. From award-winning author and rising YA star Diana Urban comes a twisty tale of four teens lost in the dark beneath the City of Light and the race to find them.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Europe; Survival Stories; Thrillers & Suspense;
© 2024., Penguin Young Readers Group,
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Cat fight : a novel / by Conway, Kit,author.;
"Big Little Lies meets Tiger King in this fun and propulsive debut novel about three suburban women who, over the course of one summer, each use the growing hysteria around a big cat sighting to achieve their own agendas - some more sinister than others. Former zoologist Coralie King now reigns over a different sort of animal kingdom as Queen Bee of Sevenoaks, a wealthy suburb of London. When her husband Adam spots a panther on the hood of his car at one of her exclusive dinner parties, Coralie is quick to reassure her guests that they're in no real danger. She sees the sighting as the perfect opportunity to revive her career and promote her own ecological endeavors. New neighbor Emma Brooks doesn't believe for a second that there's a big cat in their midst but is all too willing to use the concern as a distraction from her home remodel application that's been facing scrutiny. Meanwhile, former punk musician Twig Dorsett doesn't know what to believe. She never thought she'd return to Sevenoaks and be living in her childhood home, but after her daughter became sick, she and her wife traded their Bohemian life in Bali for the security of London suburbia. As the summer heats up, the frenzy around the big cat sighting reaches a fever pitch when gnawed bones, pawprints, and scratches are discovered. But is the real predator a big cat on the prowl or is the true threat more of the domestic variety? Filled with gasp-worthy twists and turns, Cat Fight is a wickedly entertaining novel of suspense that examines the lengths to which some women will go when they feel caged"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Domestic fiction.; Novels.; Families; Neighborhoods; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The power of kindness : why empathy is essential in everyday life / by Goldman, Brian,1956-author.;
As a veteran emergency room physician, Dr. Brian Goldman has a successful career setting broken bones, curing pneumonia, and otherwise pulling people back from the brink of medical emergency. He always believed that caring came naturally to physicians. But time, stress, errors, and heavy expectations left him wondering if he might not be the same caring doctor he thought he was at the beginning of his career. He wondered what kindness truly looks like--in himself and in others. In The Power of Kindness, Goldman leaves the comfortable, familiar surroundings of the hospital in search of his own lost compassion. A top neuroscientist performs an MRI scan of his brain to see if he is hard-wired for empathy. A researcher at Western University in Ontario tests his personality and makes a startling discovery. Goldman then circles the planet in search of the most empathic people alive, to hear their stories and learn their secrets. He visits a boulevard in São Paulo, Brazil, where he meets a woman who calls a homeless poet her soulmate and reunited him with his family; a research lab in Kyoto, Japan, where he meets a lifelike, empathetic android; and a nursing home in rural Pennsylvania, where he meets a therapist at a nursing home who has an uncanny knack of knowing what's inside the hearts and minds of people with dementia, as well as her protege, a woman who talked a gun-wielding robber into walking away from his crime. Powerful and engaging, The Power of Kindness takes us far from the theatre of medicine and into the world at large, and investigates why kindness is so vital to our existence.
Subjects: Kindness.; Empathy.; Conduct of life.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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King of the armadillos / by Chin-Tanner, Wendy,author.;
"A transcendent debut novel about family, love, and belonging, set against the backdrops of 1950s New York City and a historical leprosarium in Louisiana, following one young man's quest to not only survive, but live a full and vibrant life. Perfect for fans of Jacqueline Woodson's Red at The Bone, Netflix's Atypical, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Victor Chin's life is turned upside down at the tender age of 15. Diagnosed with Hansen's disease, otherwise known as leprosy, he's forced to leave the familiar confines of his father's laundry business in the Bronx - the only home he's known since emigrating from China with his older brother - to quarantine alongside patients from all over the country at a federal institution in Carville. At first, Victor is scared not only of the disease, but of the confinement, and wants nothing more than to flee. Between treatments he dreams of escape and imagines his life as a fugitive. But soon he finds a new sense of freedom far from home - one without the pull of obligations to his family, or the laundry business, or his mother back in China. Here, in the company of an unforgettable cast of characters, Victor finds refuge in music and experiences first love, jealousy, betrayal, and even tragedy. But with the promise of a life-changing cure on the horizon, Victor's time at Carville is running out, and he has some difficult choices to make. A groundbreaking work of historical fiction, King of the Armadillos announces Wendy Chin-Tanner as an extraordinary new voice. Inspired by her father's experience as a young patient at Carville, this tender coming-of-age novel is a captivating look at a forgotten radical community and a lyrical exploration of the power of art"--
Subjects: Bildungsromans.; Historical fiction.; Novels.; Chinese Americans; Families; Leprosy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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King of the blues : the rise and reign of B.B. King / by De Visé, Daniel,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Riley King, ever to be known as B.B. (1925-2015), was born into deep poverty in Jim Crow Mississippi. Wrenched away from his sharecropper father, B.B. lost his mother at age ten, leaving him more or less alone. Music became his emancipation from exhausting toil in the fields. Inspired by a local minister's guitar and by the records of Blind Lemon Jefferson and T-Bone Walker, and encouraged by his cousin, the established bluesman Bukka White, B.B. taught his guitar to sing in the unique solo style that, along with his relentless work ethic and humanity, became his trademark. In turn, generations of artists claimed him as inspiration, from Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton to Carlos Santana and the Edge. King of the Blues presents the vibrant life and times of a trailblazing giant. Witness to dark prejudice and lynching in his youth, B.B. performed incessantly (some 15,000 concerts in ninety countries over nearly sixty years)-in some real way his means of escaping his past. Several of his concerts, including landmark gigs at Bill Graham's Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco and Chicago's Cook County Jail, endure in legend to this day. His career roller-coasted between adulation and relegation, but he always rose back up. At the same time, his story reveals the many ways record companies took advantage of artists, especially those of color. Daniel de Visé has interviewed almost every surviving member of B.B. King's inner circle-family, band members, retainers, managers, and more-and their voices and memories enrich and enliven the life of this Mississippi blues titan, whom his contemporary Bobby "Blue" Bland simply called "the man.""--
Subjects: Biographies.; King, B. B.; Blues musicians; Guitarists;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The death of Jane Lawrence / by Starling, Caitlin,author.;
"From the Bram Stoker-nominated author of The Luminous Dead comes a gothic fantasy horror--The Death of Jane Lawrence. "Intense and amazing! It's like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell meets Mexican Gothic meets Crimson Peak." -BookRiot. Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man-one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to. Set in a dark-mirror version of post-war England, Caitlin Starling crafts a new kind of gothic horror from the bones of the beloved canon. This Crimson Peak-inspired story assembles, then upends, every expectation set in place by Shirley Jackson and Rebecca, and will leave readers shaken, desperate to begin again as soon as they are finished. "Don't read this one alone at night; Caitlin Starling has done it again. Unsettling, atmospheric, and downright brutal at times, The Death of Jane Lawrence will continue to haunt you long after you leave Lindridge Hall ... if the house lets you leave, that is." -Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch's Heart"--
Subjects: Horror fiction.; Man-woman relationships; Surgeons;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Orphan bachelors : a memoir : on being a confession baby, Chinatown daughter, baa-bai sister, caretaker of exotics, literary balloon peddler, and grand historian of a doomed American family / by Ng, Fae Myenne,1956-author.;
"From the bestselling, award-winning author of novels Bone and Steer Toward Rock, Fae Myenne Ng's Orphan Bachelors is a singular memoir of her beloved San Francisco's Chinatown and of a family building a life in a country bent on their exclusion. Beloved by readers for her "incantatory" (New York Times) novels and their luminous depictions of Chinatown, Fae Myenne Ng's new memoir is a personal, timely portrait of the same storied place. In pre-Communist China, Ng's father memorized a book of lies and gained entry to the United States as a stranger's son, evading the Exclusion Act, an immigration law which he believed was meant to extinguish the Chinese American family. During the McCarthy era, he entered the Confession Program only to have his citizenship revoked. Ng was her parents' precocious firstborn. A child raised by a seafaring father and a seamstress mother, by Chinatown and its legendary Orphan Bachelors--men without wives or children, exclusion's living legacy. Exclusion's shadow followed Ng from the back alleys of Chinatown in the sixties, to Manhattan in the eighties, to the high desert of California in the nineties, until her return home in the 2000s when the deaths of her youngest brother and her father devastated the family. As a child, Ng believed her father's lies; as an adult, she returned to her childhood home to write his truth. Orphan Bachelors weaves together the history of one doomed family; an elegy for brothers estranged and for elders lost; and insights into writing between languages and teaching between generations. In this powerful remembrance, Ng gives voice to her ancestors, her Orphan Bachelors, and her own inner self, howling in Cantonese, impossible to translate but determined to be heard"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Ng, Fae Myenne, 1956-; Chinese American authors; Chinese American families;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Sunbringer A Novel [electronic resource] : by Kaner, Hannah.aut; cloudLibrary;
“An epic fantasy odyssey.” — Entertainment Weekly "A richly rendered world . . . Kaner writes action that's both fun and intelligible.”  — The Washington Post Return to the world of Godkiller in this thrilling sequel to the #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut When Middren falls to the gods, your kind will be the first to die. Gods are forbidden in the kingdom of Middren—but now they are stirring, whispering of war. Godkiller Kissen sacrificed herself to vanquish the fire god Hseth, who murdered her family and endangered her friends. But gods cannot be destroyed so easily, and Hseth’s power threatens to reform with even greater strength and a thirst for vengeance. As tensions rise throughout the land, the kingdom needs its Godkiller more than ever. Still reeling from the loss of Kissen, young noble Inara and her little god of white lies, Skedi, have set out to discover more about the true nature of their bond. As the divide between gods and humans widens, Inara and Skedi will uncover secrets that could determine the fate of the war to come. Meanwhile, Elogast, no longer a loyal knight of King Arren, has been tasked with killing the man he once called friend. The king vowed to eradicate all gods throughout the land, but has now entered into an unholy pact with the most dangerous of them all. And where his heart once beat, a god now burns. . . “Will have you in its grasp from the first pages . . . An extraordinary journey.” — Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of Priory of the Orange Tree, on Godkiller “A triumph of storytelling.”  — Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf, on Godkiller “A bone-rattling fantasy thriller that flies by in a breathtaking rush.” — Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Godkiller
Subjects: Electronic books.; Epic;
© 2024., HarperCollins,
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The Margot affair : a novel / by Lemoine, Sanaë,author.;
""There were so many of us, children of these double families who dreamed of the other side. That night, I fantasized about the separate spheres of our lives colliding ... " Introspective and headstrong, and fueled by an intensity she can't name, Margot Louve has lived as her parents' secret. For seventeen years, her father - an influential French politician with presidential ambitions - has led a double life, his only contact with Margot and her mother in moments stolen from his wife and his official duties. Margot's mother, Anouk - a charismatic and prominent stage actress - constructs a private, shimmering world of secrecy around their hidden family in their tiny Parisian apartment on the Left Bank. It is a carefully constructed house of cards that Margot decides fatefully to tumble when one evening, at the opening night of one of her mother's plays, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: the powerful and well-regarded journalist David Perrin. The next day, the front pages of the morning papers are emblazoned with news of the affair, and Margot finds herself drawn into another marriage - that of David and his beguiling wife Brigitte, each of whom want more from her than she is willing to give up. In just one stunning revelation, Margot discovers how her impulsive decision will change the contours of everyone's life around her in ways she could never have imagined. In this simmering debut, Sanaë Lemoine exposes the seams between private and public faces, truth and deceit, love and persuasion. Insightful and moving, woven in sensuous prose, The Margot Affair explores razor-sharp turns between women - from the bone-deep bond between mothers and daughters to the devotion and betrayal of friendship - and the dangers of pushing beyond the boundaries of a life lived in the shadows"--
Subjects: Domestic fiction.; Adultery; Mothers and daughters; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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