BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Poisoner

The Poisoner: The Life and Crimes of Victorian England's Most Notorious Doctor

by Stephen Bates

In 1856, a baying crowd of over 30,000 people gathered outside Stafford prison to watch the hanging of Dr. William Palmer, the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey" as Charles Dickens once called him. Palmer was convicted of poisoning and suspected in the murders of dozens of others, including his best friend, his wife, and his mother-in-law, and cashing in on their insurance to fuel his worsening gambling addiction.

 Highlighting his gruesome penchant for strychnine, the trial made news across both the Old World and the New. Palmer gripped readers including Queen Victoria who wrote of "that horrible Palmer" in her journal.  Palmer was a different sort of murderer than the public had come to fear, respectable, middle class, personable, and consequently more terrifying. But as the gallows door dropped, one question still gnawed at many who knew the case: Was Palmer truly guilty? 

Tyson

 

What's New in Mystery and Fiction

Wondering what will be the new titles in mystery and fiction for June?  Here are a few titles: 

Top Secret Twenty-one: a Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich
The 21st installment (obviously) in the series involving bounty hunter Stephanie Plum.  

Terminal City by Linda Fairstein
This is Fairstein's sixteenth mystery with ADA Alexandra Cooper.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon
Continuing the story of  Clare Randall begun with the novel Outlander.  This is the eighth book in the Outlander series.

Cop Town by Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter's first "stand alone" novel, this book involves race relations, violent crime, and political upheaval.

maf

In Memory - Gordon Willis

Master cinematographer Gordon Willis' work propelled the narratives of many films from the 1970's and the society that they embraced. Three films that he shot — Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” (1977) — won the Academy Award for best picture. Cinematographer Conrad Hall called Mr. Willis “the prince of darkness” for his use of minimalist light and embrace of shadows in Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Woody Allen's beloved Manhattan.  Some of his other films include Zelig, Purple Rose of Cairo, Parallax View, All the President's Men, and Bad Company.
Mr. Willis grew up in Queens, New York, the child of former Broadway dancers. He grew up loving movies and wanting to be an actor, but after performing in some summer stock productions, gravitated toward stage design, theater lighting and ultimately photography. 
Gordon Wills died on Sunday  at his home in North Falmouth, Massachusetts. He was 82.

DB

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Freezing People Is (Not) Easy

Freezing People Is (Not) Easy: My Adventures in Cryonics
by Bob Nelson

Bob Nelson was no ordinary T.V. repairman. One day he discovered a book that ultimately changed his entire life trajectory,The Prospect of Immortality by Professor Robert Ettinger. From it, he learned about cryonics: a process in which the body temperature is lowered during the beginning of the dying process to keep the brain intact, so that those frozen could potentially be reanimated in the future.  

A world of possibilities unfolded for Nelson, as he relentlessly pursued cryonics and became the founder and President of the Cryonics Society of California. Working in coalition with a biophysicist, in 1967 Nelson orchestrated the freezing of Dr. James Bedford, the first human to be placed in cryonic suspension. Soon thereafter he began freezing others who sought his help, obtaining special capsules and an underground vault. Underfunded, Nelson struggled desperately, often dipping into his own savings, and taking extraordinary measures to maintain his patients in a frozen state. His fascinating memoir reveals his irrepressible passion for life and chronicles the complicated circumstances that comprised his adventures in cryonics.

A  look back at the optimistic age of the new frontier when everything and anything seemed possible. When even a T.V. repairman could try to conquer mortality. 

 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Mantle of Command FDR at War 1941-1942

The Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942

by Nigel Hamilton

Based on years of archival research and interviews with the last surviving aides and Roosevelt family members, Nigel Hamilton offers a definitive account of FDR's under appreciated command of the Allied war effort. Hamilton takes readers inside FDR's White House Oval Study, his personal command center, and into the meetings where he battled with Churchill about strategy and tactics and overrode the near mutinies of his own generals and secretary of war.

Time and again, FDR was proven right and his allies and generals were wrong. When the generals wanted to attack the Nazi fortified coast of France, FDR knew the Allied forces weren't ready. When Churchill insisted his Far East colonies were loyal and would resist the Japanese, Roosevelt knew it was a fantasy. As Hamilton's account reaches its climax with the Torch landings in North Africa in late 1942, the tide of war turns in the Allies' favor and FDR's genius for psychology and military affairs is clear. This intimate, sweeping look at a great president in history's greatest conflict is thought provoking.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: RUSSIAN ROULETTE: how British spies thwarted Lenin's plot for global revolution

Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Plot

for Global Revolution
by Giles Milton

In 1917, a band of communist revolutionaries stormed the Winter Palace of Tsar Nicholas II, a dramatic and explosive act marking that Vladimir Lenin's communist revolution was now underway. But Lenin would not be satisfied with overthrowing the Tsar. His goal was a global revolt that would topple all Western capitalist regimes, starting with the British Empire. 

Russian Roulette tells the spectacular story of the British spies in revolutionary Russia and their mission to stop Lenin's red tide from washing across the free world. They were an eccentric cast of characters, led by Mansfield Cumming, a one-legged, monocle-wearing former sea captain, and included novelist W. Somerset Maugham, beloved children's author Arthur Ransome, and the dashing, ice-cool Sidney Reilly, the legendary Ace of Spies and a model for Ian Fleming's James Bond. 

Cumming's network would pioneer the field of covert action and would one day become MI6. Living in disguise, constantly switching identities, they infiltrated Soviet commissariats, the Red Army, and Cheka (the feared secret police).  This nonfiction book is written more like a novel then a history book and follows the agents in a sequence of bold exploits that stretched from Moscow to central Asia.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Most Dangerous Man in America

The Most Dangerous Man in America: The Making of Douglas MacArthur
by Mark Perry

At times, even his admirers seemed unsure of what to do with General Douglas MacArthur. Imperious, headstrong, and vain, MacArthur matched an undeniable military genius with a massive ego and a rebellious streak that often seemed to destine him for the dustbin of history. Yet despite his flaws, MacArthur is remembered as a brilliant commander whose combined-arms operation in the Pacific; the first in the history of warfare; secured America's triumph in World War II and changed the course of history.

In The Most Dangerous Man in America, celebrated historian Mark Perry examines how this paradox of a man overcame personal and professional challenges to lead his countrymen in their darkest hour. As Perry shows, Franklin Roosevelt and a handful of MacArthur's subordinates made this feat possible, taming MacArthur, making him useful, and finally making him victorious. A gripping, authoritative biography of the Pacific Theater's most celebrated and misunderstood commander, The Most Dangerous Man in America reveals the secrets of Douglas MacArthur's success; and the incredible efforts of the men who made it possible. 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Lucky Planet Why Earth is Exceptional - and What that Means for Life in the Universe

Lucky Planet: Why Earth Is Exceptional - And What That Means for Life in the Universe
by David Waltham

Humankind has long fantasized about life elsewhere in the universe. And as we discover countless exoplanets orbiting other stars among them, rocky super-Earths and gaseous Hot Jupiters, we become ever more hopeful that we may come across extraterrestrial life. Yet even as we become aware of the vast numbers of planets outside our solar system, it has also become clear that Earth is exceptional. The question is: why?

In Lucky Planet, astrobiologist David Waltham argues that Earth's climate stability is one of the primary factors that makes it able to support life, and that nothing short of luck made such conditions possible. The four billion year stretch of good weather that our planet has experienced is statistically so unlikely, he shows, that chances are slim that we will ever encounter intelligent extraterrestrial others. Describing the three factors that typically control a planet's average temperature, the heat received from its star, how much heat the planet absorbs, and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Waltham paints a complex picture of how special Earth's climate really is.

Waltham challenges the prevailing scientific consensus that other Earth-like planets have natural stabilizing mechanisms that allow life to flourish. A lively exploration of the stars above and the ground beneath our feet, Lucky Planet presents a new perspective of the surprising role chance plays in our place in the universe. 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Napoleon in America

Napoleon in America 

by Shannon Selin


What if Napoleon Bonaparte had escaped from St. Helena and wound up in the United States?  The former French Emperor Napoleon has been imprisoned on a small dark rock in the Atlantic since his defeat at Waterloo in 1815. Rescued in a state of near-death by Gulf pirate Jean Laffite, Napoleon lands in New Orleans, where he struggles to regain his health aided by voodoo priestess Marie Laveau.




It is unusual for me to learn about a book when it's publisher is small and Canadian.  However, Shannon Selin's alternate history debut is highly praised by Kirkis Reviews:

      Evocative and immersive, Selin’s debut historical fiction twists
Napoleon’s fate … vigorous, engrossing and remarkably realistic. A
thorough, sweeping novel with seamless transitions from the real to the imagined.

Are Napoleon's intentions as peaceful as he says they are? His brother Joseph pleads with him to settle peacefully in New Jersey. Opponents of the Bourbon regime expect him to reconquer France. French Canadians beg him to seize Canada from Britain. American adventurers urge him to steal Texas from Mexico.  And what of Napoleon's ten-year-old son, trapped in the velvet fetters of the Austrian court?
If you enjoy alternate history or 19th century historical fiction, Napoleon in America is for you. 

Tyson

Andrew Carnegie Medal Shortlist for Fiction and Nonfiction Announced

The American Library Association has announced the finalists for the prestigious Andrew Carnegie Medal.  The books selected represent the best American adult titles published in the previous calendar year.  The winner will be announced at ALA's June meeting.  

In the meantime, here are great titles to add to your spring/summer reading list OR click on the links and reserve a copy at our library right now!  Remember we also offer these titles on Book on CD and Downloadable E-Book & Audiobook.

 

2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Shortlist

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. By Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital. By Sheri Fink.

On Paper: The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History. By Nicholas A. Basbanes.

2014 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Shortlist

Americanah. By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Claire of the Sea Light. By Edwidge Danticat.

The Goldfinch. By Donna Tartt.

SH

Book Spotlight: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
by Claire North

SOME STORIES CANNOT BE TOLD IN JUST ONE LIFETIME.

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again.

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.

Until now.

As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message."This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

North has written a mystery involving Harry August, an immortal who is reborn after death, and retains the memories of his previous lives. This book is full of plot and there's a lot going on as the story ranges back and forth in time as episodes of Harry's past lives are reveled.

The author Claire North is a pseudonym for an acclaimed British author, with several published novels, who's real name is being kept secret for now.

Tyson

Can you guess who it is?

MASSBOOK MUST-READS ANNOUNCED

Support Massachusetts authors and read the books selected for the Massachusetts Must-Read list for
2014!  The four categories are Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Children's/Young Adult.  These books created by Massachusetts authors and books about Massachusetts have been chosen because they will lead to conversations in the community.

The titles currently available in Minuteman are linked to our catalog so you can place a request and read a summary of the book and it's reviews.  Contact the library if you would like to request a title that is not currently in the catalog.

Pick up one of these titles today and share with your friends and book groups.

Fiction
Along the Watchtower, David Litwack (Double Dragon)
The Celestials, Karen Shepard (Tin House)
The Hanging Judge, Michael Ponsor (Open Road Media)
News from Heaven, Jennifer Haigh (Harper)
Together Tea, Marjan Kamali (Ecco)
Vatican Waltz, Roland Merullo (Crown)

NonfictionBook of Ages, Jill Lepore (Knopf)
A Fort of Nine Towers, Qais Akbar Omar (FSG)
Breach of Trust, Andrew Bacevich (Metropolitan)
The Last Train to Zona Verde, Paul Theroux (HMH)
Margaret Fuller, Megan Marshall (HMH)
Miss Anne in Harlem, Carla Kaplan (Harper)






Poetry

Belmont, Stephen Burt (Graywolf)
Boy Singing to Cattle, Mark D. Hart (Pearl Editions)
Frost in the Low Areas, Karen Skolfield (Zone 3 Press )
Grass Whistle, Amy Dryansky (Salmon)
Inside the Splintered Wood, Myles Gordon (Tebot Bach )
Strange Borderlands, Ben Berman (Able Muse)
  

Children's/Young Adult
The Extra, Kathryn Lasky (Candlewick)
White Fur Flying, Patricia MacLachlan (McElderry/S&S)
Journey, Aaron Becker (Candlewick)
Garden Princess, Kristin Kladstrup (Candlewick)
The First Drawing, Mordicai Gerstein (Little, Brown BYR)
A Place for Turtles, Melissa Stewart (Peachtree) 





SH

Book Spotlight: Daughter of the King

Daughter of the King: Growing Up in Gangland
 by Sandra Lansky and William Stadiem

 
Sandi Lansky Lombardo grew up the only daughter of Meyer Lansky. Lansky known as the “Mobs Accountant” developed a gambling empire which stretched from Las Vegas, to Cuba and the Bahamas to London.  For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful individuals in the country. 

Sandi was raised in upper-class Jewish splendor, first at the Majestic Hotel and then at the Beresford, she attended at finishing schools and fancy stables. She partied till dawn at El Morocco and the Stork Club and was the Paris Hilton of her day, dating the biggest celebrities of the era. Her life was not without heartbreak and tragedy, including the insanity of her mother, and the crippling handicap of her baby brother.

Tyson

 

Book Spotlight: Red Rising

Red Rising
 by Pierce Brown

  A new adult novel set in a dystopian society for readers who liked The Hunger Games and Divergent. Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he works all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of Mars livable for future generations. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better world for his children. But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. 

Soon he discovers that humanity reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him, are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. 

Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow sacrifices everything to infiltrate the legendary Institute, a proving ground for the dominant Gold caste, where the next generation of humanity's overlords struggle for power.He will be forced to compete for his life and the very future of civilization against the best and most brutal of Society's ruling class. There, he will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies, even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

Tyson

Book Spotlight: Trapped Under the Sea

Trapped under the Sea: One Engineering Marvel Five Men, and a Disaster Ten Miles into the Darkness
 
by Neil Swidey

The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job with deadly results. Twenty five years ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of "black mayonnaise." Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as "beach whistles.

 In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel,its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth's deepest ocean trench, to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. 

   What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population's rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe.  

Tyson

New Mystery and Fiction for April

What's coming out in Mystery and Fiction for April?  Here are a few titles:

Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel by Nevada Barr
A vacation trip to the Iron Range in Minnesota goes wrong and US Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon is on the case.

To Dwell in Darkness by Deborah Crombie
Married London detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are off on another case.  This time there's been a deadly bombing at a London train station.

Death on Blackheath: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel by Anne Perry
Another Victorian era historical mystery from Anne Perry.  Thomas Pitt, commander of the Special Branch, investigates a murder case which may put national security at risk.

Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline
A man makes a split-second decision to protect his son and serious consequences follow.

hoopla is Here!

hoopla's Here!!!

 

 

                   

          

 Why are we so excited?

Beginning this month, Wellesley Free Library Card holders will have access to thousands of movies (at least 2 years old), television shows, music  

albums and audiobooks -- all available for mobile and online access -- through hoopla. 


You may stream on your computer or use the hoopla app to view and listen on your phone or tablet.  AND most importantly, there is no waiting.  The titles are ALWAYS available!  
 

 It's easy to do:

• Have your Wellesley Library Card out and sign up at http://www.hoopladigital.com

• If you are using a mobile device (phone, tablet, etc.) download the app at the bottom of the hoopla page or from the Apple App Store or Google play Store.  (If you are using a computer, the file will simply stream so no need for an app).

• Log in to Hoopla on your mobile device or PC

• Browse, borrow, and enjoy 5 digital videos, music or audiobooks per library card each month.

• Borrowed titles will be automatically returned when your lending period is over. 

Lending Periods are:

• Movies and TV content are available for 72 hours (3 days)
• Music albums are available for 7 days
• Audiobooks are available for 21 days

For more information and assistance, visit the library, sign up for the class on March 25th, or simply stop by an Open Lab (Mondays 1 PM to 4 PM and Tuesdays 6 PM to 8 PM)

Have fun and tell us how you like hoopla ! 

SH

  

Book Spotlight: The Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert

Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Except this time around, the culprit is not an asteroid, it is us.

In The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino.

Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human. A powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. 
 

Tyson