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Moscow exile / by Lawton, John,1949-author.;
"From "quite possibly the best historical novelist we have" (Philadelphia Inquirer), the fourth Joe Wilderness spy thriller, moving from Red Scare-era Washington, DC to a KGB prison near Moscow's Kremlin. In Moscow Exile, John Lawton departs from his usual stomping grounds of England and Germany to jump across the Atlantic to Washington, DC, in the fragile postwar period where the Red Scare is growing noisier every day. Charlotte is a British expatriate who has recently settled in the nation's capital with her second husband, a man who looks intriguingly like Clark Gable, but her enviable dinner parties and soirées aren't the only things she is planning. Meanwhile, Charlie Leigh-Hunt has been posted to Washington as a replacement for Guy Burgess, last seen disappearing around the corner and into the Soviet Union. Charlie is soon shocked to cross paths with Charlotte, an old flame of his, who, thanks to all her gossipy parties, has a packed pocketbook full of secrets she is eager to share. Two decades or so later, in 1969, Joe Wilderness is stuck on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, held captive by the KGB, a chip in a game way above his pay grade--but his old friends Frank and Eddie are going to try to spring him out of the toughest prison in the world. All roads lead back to Berlin, and to the famous Bridge of Spies ... Featuring crackling dialogue, brilliantly plotted Cold War intrigue, and the return of beloved characters, including Inspector Troy, Moscow Exile is a gripping thriller populated by larger-than-life personalities in a Cold War plot that feels strangely in tune with our present"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Spy fiction.; Novels.; Wilderness, Joe (Fictitious character); Cold War; Intelligence officers; Prisoners; Traitors;

Neglected no more : the urgent need to improve the lives of Canada's elders in the wake of a pandemic / by Picard, André,1960-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."It took the coronavirus pandemic to open our eyes to the deplorable state of so many of the nation's long-term care homes: the inhumane conditions, overworked and underpaid staff, and lack of oversight. In this timely new book, esteemed health reporter André Picard reveals the full extent of the crisis in eldercare, and offers an urgently needed prescription to fix a broken system. When COVID-19 spread through seniors' residences across Canada, the impact was horrific. Along with widespread illness and a devastating death toll, the situation exposed a decades-old crisis: the shocking systemic neglect towards our elders. Called in to provide emergency care in some of the hardest-hit facilities in Ontario and Quebec, the military issued damning reports of what they encountered. And yet, the failings that were exposed--unappetizing meals, infrequent baths, overmedication, physical abuse and inadequate personal care--have persisted for years in these institutions. In Time to care, André Picard takes a hard look at how we came to embrace mass institutionalization, and lays out what can and must be done to improve the state of care for our elders, a highly vulnerable population with complex needs and little ability to advocate for themselves. Picard shows that the entire eldercare system--fragmented, underfunded and unsupported--is long overdue for a fundamental rethink. We need to find ways to ensure seniors can age gracefully in the community for longer, with supportive home care and respite for family caregivers, and ensure that long-term care homes are not warehouses of isolation and neglect. Our elders deserve nothing less"-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Long-term care facilities; Older people; Older people;

Year one / by Roberts, Nora,author.;
"A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author--an epic of hope and horror, chaos and magic, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives ... It began on New Year's Eve. The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed--and more than half of the world's population was decimated. Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river--or in the ones you know and love the most. As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive"--
Subjects: Dystopian fiction.; Survival; Magic; Good and evil;

The world as it is : a memoir of the Obama White House / by Rhodes, Benjamin J.,1977-author.;
For nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes saw almost everything that happened at the center of the Obama administration--first as a speechwriter, then as deputy national security advisor, and finally as a multipurpose aide and close collaborator. He started every morning in the Oval Office with the President's Daily Brief, traveled the world with Obama, and was at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial moments of the presidency. Now he tells the full story of his partnership--and, ultimately, friendship--with a man who also happened to be a historic president of the United States. Rhodes was not your typical presidential confidant, and this is not your typical White House memoir. Rendered in vivid, novelistic detail by someone who was a writer before he was a staffer, this is a rare look inside the most poignant, tense, and consequential moments of the Obama presidency--waiting out the bin Laden raid in the Situation Room, responding to the Arab Spring, reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran, leading secret negotiations with the Cuban government to normalize relations, and confronting the resurgence of nationalism and nativism that culminated in the election of Donald Trump. In The World as It Is, Rhodes shows what it was like to be there--from the early days of the Obama campaign to the final hours of the presidency. It is a story populated by such characters as Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, and--above all--Barack Obama, who comes to life on the page in moments of great urgency and disarming intimacy. This is the most vivid portrayal yet of Obama's worldview and presidency, a chronicle of a political education by a writer of enormous talent, and an essential record of the forces that shaped the last decade.
Subjects: Biographies.; Obama, Barack.; Rhodes, Benjamin J., 1977-; Presidents;

Into the gray zone : a neuroscientist explores the border between life and death / by Owen, Adrian M.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.In this startling and thought-provoking book, which will remind readers of works by Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, a world-renowned neuroscientist reveals his controversial, groundbreaking work with patients whose brains were previously thought vegetative or non-responsive but turn out--in up to 20 percent of cases--to be vibrantly alive, existing in the "Gray Zone." Into the Gray Zone takes readers to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called "gray zone" between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought. But a sizeable number are experiencing something different: intact minds adrift deep within damaged brains and bodies. An expert in the field, Adrian Owen led a team that, in 2006, discovered this lost population and made medical history. Scientists, physicians, and philosophers have only just begun to grapple with the implications. Following Owen's journey of exciting medical discovery, Into the Gray Zone asks some tough and terrifying questions, such as: What is life like for these patients? What can their families and friends do to help them? What are the ethical implications for religious organizations, politicians, the Right to Die movement, and even insurers? And perhaps most intriguing of all: in defining what a life worth living is, are we too concerned with the physical and not giving enough emphasis to the power of thought? What, truly, defines a satisfying life?
Subjects: Brain damage.; Persistent vegetative state.; Persistent vegetative state; Brain; Neurosciences.; Coma.;

A Gorgeous Excitement A Novel [electronic resource] : by Weiner, Cynthia.aut; cloudLibrary;
In this “absorbing, astute novel” (Town & Country, Must Read Books of Winter 2025) one young woman’s summer of infinite possibility takes a turn she never saw coming. A CRIMEREADS MOST ANTICIPATED CRIME BOOK OF 2025 “I haven’t felt this kind of excitement reading a story set in the ’80s since I first discovered Jay McInerney, Tama Janowitz, and Bret Easton Ellis.”—Margarita Montimore, bestselling author of Oona Out of Order There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents’ medicine cabinet. Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed. Every girl wants to sleep with him and every guy wants to be him. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost? Freud called cocaine “a gorgeous excitement,” but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Coming of Age; Psychological;
© 2025., Crown,

A Town with Half the Lights On A Novel [electronic resource] : by Getz, Page.aut; CloudLibrary;
For readers of J. Ryan Stradal and The Music of Bees (with a dash of FX's The Bear) comes a quirky and refreshing epistolary novel about a family of culture-shocked Brooklynites transplanted to Goodnight, Kansas and their fight for their unexpected lifeline: the legendary May Day Diner. Welcome to Goodnight, Kansas. Population: Many Kansans, three New Yorkers, and one chance to save the place they love most With more wind chimes than residents, folks don't move to Goodnight when their lives are going well. That's why all eyes are on chef Sid Solvang and his family from the moment they turn down Emporia Road to the dilapidated Victorian they inherited. While Sid searches for work and a way back to Brooklyn, his daughter searches for answers to the cryptic messages her grandfather left behind to save both her family and the town. But then Sid makes an impulsive purchase: the fledgling May Day Diner, an iconic eatery under the threat of the wrecking ball. As the Solvangs search for their ticket out, they discover the truth of Goodnight: one of heart and tradition, of exploitation and greed, and neighbors you would do anything to save. And the Solvangs must navigate all of it—plus a wayward girl named Disco, a host of rambunctious alpacas, and the corrupt factory sustaining the town—in order to find their way back home...wherever that may be. Told through diary entries, emails, school notes, and an anonymous town paper of the Lady Whistledown variety, A Town with Half the Lights On is a tender testament to the notions that home isn't just the place you live, family isn't just your relatives, and it's almost never easy to find the courage to do what's right.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Coming of Age; Contemporary Women; Small Town & Rural; Epistolary; Family Life;
© 2025., Sourcebooks,

Finding Larkspur : a return to village life / by Needles, Dan,author.;
"Bestselling chronicler of village life Dan Needles (author of the Wingfield Farm stage plays) leads an insightful and laugh-out-loud tour through the quirks and customs of today's Canadian small town. Modern literature has not been kind to village life. For almost two centuries, small towns have been portrayed as backward, insular places needing to be escaped. But anthropologists tell us that the human species has spent more than 100,000 years living in villages of 100 to 150 people. This is where the oldest part of our brain, the limbic system, grew and adapted to become a very sophisticated instrument for reading other people's emotions and figuring out how we might cooperate to find food, shelter and protection. By comparison, the frontal cortex, which helps us do our taxes, drive a car and download cat videos, is a very recent aftermarket addition, like a sunroof. And it is the village where almost half the world's population still chooses to live. Finding Larkspur takes a walk through the Canadian village of the twenty-first century, observing customs and traditions that endure despite the best efforts of Twitter, Facebook and Amazon. The author looks at the buildings and organizations left over from the old rural community, why they were built in the first place and how they have adapted to the modern day. The post office, the general store, the church, the school and the service club all remain standing, but they operate quite differently than they did for our ancestors. Drawing from his experience working in rural communities across Canada and in other countries, Needles reveals how a national conversation may be driven by urban voices but the national character is often very much a product of its small towns and back roads."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Sociology, Rural; Villages; Villages;

Year one [sound recording] / by Roberts, Nora,author.; Whelan, Julia,1984-narrator.; Brilliance Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Julia Whelan."A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author--an epic of hope and horror, chaos and magic, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives ... It began on New Year's Eve. The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed--and more than half of the world's population was decimated. Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practicing in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river--or in the ones you know and love the most. As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travelers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Dystopian fiction.; Survival; Magic; Good and evil;

The wisdom of trauma [videorecording] / by Benazzo, Maurizio,film director,film producer.; Benazzo, Zaya,film director,film producer.; Brand, Russell,1975-interviewee.; Campbell, Caroline,director of photography,editor of moving image work.; Doty, James R.(James Robert),1955-interviewee.; Ferriss, Timothy,interviewee.; Horstman, Fritzi,interviewee.; K, Sheila,film producer.; Maté, Gabor,narrator,interviewee.; Maté, Rae,1948-interviewee.; Nottage, Romie,interviewee.; Wilson, Courtney,composer.; McIntyre Media,film distributor.; Science and Nonduality (Firm),production company.; Sea Stars,performer.; Video Project,production company.;
Executive producer, Sheila K. ; director of photography and lead editor, Caroline Campbell ; assistant editor, Kirk Demorest ; song "Mind over matter" written by Courtney Wilson, performed by Sea Stars.Featuring: Gabor Maté (Psychologist/Physician), Rae Maté (Artist), James Doty (Director/Founder, Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University), Tim Ferriss (Entrepreneur), Fritzi Horstman (Founder/Executive Director, Compassion Prison Project), Romie Nottage (Director, Downtown Streets Team San Francisco), Tessa Rose (Harm Reduction Specialist), Russell Brand, Joey Carter, [and others].One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness in any given year. In the US, death by suicide is the second most common cause of death for those aged 15-24, killing over 48,000. Annually, drug overdose kill 81,000 in the US. The autoimmunity epidemic affects 24 million people in the US. What is going on? The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness, and substance abuse are, according to Dr. Gabor Maté, normal. But not in the way you might think. In The Wisdom of Trauma, we travel alongside physician, bestselling author, and Order of Canada recipient Dr. Gabor Maté to explore the root causes of the myriad health epidemics faced by Western countries. This is a journey with a man who has dedicated his life to understanding the connection between illness, addiction, trauma, and society. Trauma is the invisible, but no less material, force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we form connections, and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds. Dr. Maté gives us a new vision: a trauma-literate society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy makers, and legal personnel seek to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring, in order to better address the issues of the populations they serve. Through his insights a path materializes towards individual and collective healing, with practices that aim to create cures to address root causes before they manifest as physical symptoms.E.DVD.
Subjects: Documentary films.; Maté, Gabor.; Addicts; Alternative medicine.; Compassion.; Drug addiction; Drug addicts; Emotions; Mental healing.; Mental illness; Mind and body therapies.; Physicians; Psychic trauma; Psychic trauma; Substance abuse; Substance abuse; Substance abuse; Vulnerability model of recovery.;
For private home use only.