BOOK SPOTLIGHT: When the Heavens Fall

 When the Heavens Fall

by Marc Turner 

 The first of an epic swords & sorcery fantasy series, Marc Turner's When the Heavens Fall features gritty characters, deadly magic, and meddlesome gods!

If you pick a fight with Shroud, Lord of the Dead, you had better ensure your victory, else death will mark only the beginning of your suffering.

A book giving its wielder power over the dead has been stolen from a fellowship of mages that has kept the powerful relic dormant for centuries. The thief, a crafty, power-hungry necromancer, intends to use the Book of Lost Souls to resurrect an ancient race and challenge Shroud for dominion of the underworld. Shroud counters by sending his most formidable servants to seize the artifact at all cost.

However, the god is not the only one interested in the Book, and a host of other forces converge, drawn by the powerful magic that has been unleashed. Among them is a reluctant Guardian who is commissioned by the Emperor to find the stolen Book, a troubled prince who battles enemies both personal and political, and a young girl of great power, whose past uniquely prepares her for an encounter with Shroud. The greatest threat to each of their quests lies not in the horror of an undead army but in the risk of betrayal from those closest to them. Each of their decisions comes at a personal cost and will not only affect them, but also determine the fate of their entire empire. 


 
Love, revenge, devious gods, lots of scheming and intrigue as well as legions of undead. What more could you ask for?

Tyson

 What is the What: the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

by Dave Eggers

If you enjoyed Zeitoun, A heartbreaking work of staggering genius, or A hologram for the king, please join us on June 19 for the Wellesley Friday Morning Book/Movie Club when we will discuss What is the What : The Authobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, Eggers' astonishing and harrowing novel of a Sudanese refuge who triumphs over horrific tragedy and disaster.  The group meets at 10AM in the Arnold Room on the 2nd floor of the Main Library.  The book is available for checkout at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.

DB

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Spy's Son

The Spy's Son: How CIA Officer Jim Nicholson Twice Betrayed Country and Kin for Russia

by Bryan Denson 


 
Investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the

riveting story of the Nicholsons, father and son co-conspirators who deceived their country by selling national secrets to Russia. 

Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA's top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA's clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids. 

But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia's foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. 

But his duplicity didn't stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. 

When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to be heroic and to make his father proud. 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Uprooted

Uprooted

by Naomi Novik

Naomi Novik, author of the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed
Temeraire novels, introduces a bold new world rooted in folk stories and legends.  Uprooted is a wonderful story loosely based on a number of fairy tales from Eastern Europe. Naomi is of Polish and Russian descent, and the stories her family used to tell her as a child left an indelible impression upon her.

Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that's not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he's still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we're grateful, but not that grateful.


Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life. Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay.

But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood. The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows, everyone knows, that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn't, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her. But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Whirlwind

The Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It

by John Ferling
 
John Ferling is  a very well respected author of many books on the American Revolution including; The Ascent of George Washington, and Almost a Miracle.
Books chronicling the Revolution have largely ranged from multivolume tomes that appeal to scholars and the most serious general readers to microhistories that necessarily gloss over swaths of Independence era history with only a cursory treatment. 

Written in Ferling's engaging and narrative-driven style, Whirlwind is a fast-paced and scrupulously told one-volume history of this fascinating time. Ferling balances the social and political concerns of the era  with a careful examination of the war itself. An ideal book for armchair military history buffs.

The perspective of the average American revolutionary is examined, while also explaining the causes of the American Revolution.  Ferling gives us his insight on, the war that won the American Revolution, and the meaning of the Revolution overall. 

Combining careful scholarship, arresting detail, and illustrative storytelling, Whirlwind is a unique and compelling addition to any collection of books on the American Revolution. 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Five Nights In Paris

 Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light

by John Baxter
Armchair travel at its best. The preeminent expat writer on Paris and author of The Most Beautiful Walk in the World takes you on an unforgettable nocturnal stroll through five iconic Parisian neighborhoods and his own memories.  John Baxter who lived in the City of Light for more than twenty years, introduces you to the city's streets after dark, revealing hidden treasures and unexpected delights.  As he takes you through five of the city's greatest neighborhoods, Montmartre, Montparnasse, the Marais, and more. 

Baxter shares pithy anecdotes about his life in France, as well as fascinating knowledge he has gleaned from leading literary tours of the city by dark.  His stories are grouped by a tantalizing focus on sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch.

With Baxter as your guide, you will discover the City of Light as never before, walking in the ghostly footsteps of Marcel Proust, the quintessential night owl for whom memory was more vivid than reality; Hungarian photographer Gyula Halász, known as Brassai, who prowled the midnight streets, camera in hand, with his friend Henry Miller; Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, who shared the Surrealists' taste for the city's shadowed, secret world; and Josephine Baker and other African-American performers who dazzled adventurous Parisians at late-night jazz clubs. 

 A feast for the mind and the senses, Five Nights in Paris takes you through the haunts of Paris's most storied artists and writers to the scenes of its most infamous crimes in a lively off-the-beaten-path tour not found in any guidebook.

Tyson

Nora Webster

by Colm Toibin

If you enjoyed Brooklyn and The Master and The Testament of Mary,  please join us at the Wellesley Friday Morning Book/Movie Group on May 15 at 10AM when we will discuss Colm Toibin's newest literary achievement. Nora Webster is the beautifully rendered character portrait of a young widow struggling with grief set in mid 20th century Ireland. Both the book and audio are available for checkout at the Reference Desk. 

Waiting for Superman

Is our education system broken?

Last Thursday the Non-Fiction Book Group had a great discussion about schools. We read Real Education by Charles Murray. The author contends that IQ rules all. Children should be tested early for their general intelligence and then educated according to their measured abilities. Lower performing students would not have to read Shakespeare and learn algebra and would not be encouraged to go to college. Needless to say, we were not in agreement.
In May, we're continuing the debate on schools. We're watching (and/or) reading Waiting for Superman. The movie won awards, received great reviews and sparked a national discussion about bad teaching. Waiting for Superman traces the struggle of several families from poor neighborhoods to find good schools. Finding a completely dysfunctional system, the filmmakers find some heroes and some villains and plenty of victims. We're anticipating another lively discussion and invite you to watch the movie and come participate in the debate about schools.
The Non-fiction Book Group meets every 4th Thursday at 10am in the Arnold Room. May's meeting will be on the 28th. If you have any questions about the group contact Rob Lerman (rlerman@minlib.net)

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Target Tokyo

 Target Tokyo: Jimmy Doolittle and the Raid That Avenged Pearl Harbor
by James M. Scott



In December 1941, as American forces tallied the dead at Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt gathered with his senior military counselors to plan an ambitious counterstrike against the heart of the Japanese Empire: Tokyo. Four months later, on April 18, 1942, sixteen U.S. Army bombers under the command of daredevil pilot Jimmy Doolittle lifted off from the deck of the USS Hornet on a one-way mission to pummel the enemy's factories, refineries, and dockyards and then escape to Free China. For Roosevelt, the raid was a propaganda victory, a potent salve to heal a wounded nation.

In Japan, outraged over the deaths of innocent civilians, including children, military leaders launched an ill-fated attempt to seize Midway that would turn the tide of the war. But it was the Chinese who suffered the worst, victims of a retaliatory campaign by the Japanese Army that claimed an estimated 250,000 lives and saw families drowned in wells, entire towns burned, and communities devastated by bacteriological warfare. 

At the center of this incredible story is Doolittle, the son of an Alaskan gold prospector, a former boxer, and brilliant engineer who earned his doctorate from MIT. Other fascinating characters populate this gripping narrative, including Chiang Kai-shek, Lieutenant General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, and the feisty Vice Admiral William "Bull" Halsey Jr. Here, too, are indelible portraits of the young pilots, navigators, and bombardiers, many of them little more than teenagers, who raised their hands to volunteer for a mission from which few expected to return. 

Most of the bombers ran out of fuel and crashed. Captured raiders suffered torture and starvation in Japan's notorious POW camps. Others faced a harrowing escape across China, via boat, rickshaw, and foot, with the Japanese Army in pursuit. Based on scores of never before published records drawn from archives across four continents as well as new interviews with survivors, Target Tokyo is a harrowing adventure story that also serves as a pivotal reexamination of one of America's most daring military operations. 

Tyson

Wolf Hall Read-Alikes

Do you love Wolf Hall on PBS?  These books will satisfy your craving for more from Tudor England.

Fiction

The Secret Diary of
Anne Boleyn
By Robin Maxwell

"Anne Boleyn was the second of Henry's six wives, doomed to be beloved, betrayed, and beheaded. When Henry fell madly in love with her upon her return from the French court, where she was educated, he was already married to Catherine of Aragon. But his passion for Anne was great enough to rock the foundations of England and of all Christendom."

BOOK JACKET. Summary provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Wolf Hall
By Hilary Mantel

Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, master of deadly intrigue, and implacable in his ambition.

Non-Fiction

The Lady in the Tower:
The Fall of Anne Boleyn
By Alison Weir

 Anne's ascent from private gentlewoman to queen was astonishing, but equally compelling was her shockingly swift downfall. Charged with high treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London in May 1536, Anne met her terrible end all the while protesting her innocence.

Thomas Cromwell:
The Untold Story of
Henry VIII's Most
Faithful Servant
By Tracy Borman

Born a lowly tavern keeper's son, Cromwell rose swiftly through the ranks to become Henry VIII's right hand man, and one of the most powerful figures in Tudor history. The architect of England's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries, he oversaw seismic changes in our country's history.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong

The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Dalai Lama, His Family, and Their Secret Struggle for Tibet

by Gyalo Thondup and  Anne F. Thurston

In December 2010 residents of Kalimpong, a town on the Indian border with Tibet, turned out en masse to welcome the Dalai Lama. It was only then they realized for the first time that the neighbor they knew as the noodle maker of Kalimpong was also the Dalai Lama's older brother. The Tibetan spiritual leader had come to visit the Gaden Tharpa Choeling monastery and join his brother for lunch in the family compound. 

Gyalo Thondup has long lived out of the spotlight and hidden from view, but his whole life has been dedicated to the cause of his younger brother and Tibet. He served for decades as the Dalai Lama's special envoy, the trusted interlocutor between Tibet and foreign leaders from Chiang Kai-shek to Jawaharlal Nehru, Zhou Enlai to Deng Xiaoping. Traveling the globe and meeting behind closed doors, Thondup has been an important witness to some of the epochal events of the 20th century. 


Indeed, the Dalai Lama's dramatic escape from Lhasa to exile in India would not have been possible without his brother's behind-the-scenes help. Now, together with Anne F. Thurston, who co-wrote the international best seller The Private Life of Chairman Mao , Gyalo Thondup is finally telling his story. 

The settings are exotic-the Tibetan province of Amdo where the two brothers spent their early childhood; Tibet's legendary capital of Lhasa; Nanjing, where Thondup received a Chinese education; Taiwan, where he fled when he could not return to Tibet; Calcutta, Delhi, and the Himalayan hill towns of India, where he finally made his home; Hong Kong, which served as his listening post for China, and the American Rockies, where he sent young Tibetan resistance fighters to be trained clandestinely by the CIA. 

But Thondup's story does not reiterate the otherworldly, Shangri-La vision of the Land of Snows so often portrayed in the West. Instead, it is an intimate, personal look at the Dalai Lama and his immediate family and an inside view of vicious and sometimes deadly power struggles within the Potala Palace, that immensely imposing architectural wonder that looms over Lhasa and is home to both the spiritual and secular seats of Tibetan power.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Residence

The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House
by Kate Andersen Brower

The Residence offers an intimate account of the service staff of the White House, from the Kennedys
to the Obamas. America's First Families are unknowable in many ways. No one has insight into their true character like the people who serve their meals and make their beds every day.

Full of stories and details by turns dramatic, humorous, and heartwarming, The Residence reveals daily life in the White House as it is really lived through the voices of the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers, and others who tend to the needs of the President and First Family. 

These dedicated professionals maintain the six-floor mansion's 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 28 fireplaces, three elevators, and eight staircases, and prepare everything from hors d'oeuvres for intimate gatherings to meals served at elaborate state dinners. Over the course of the day, they gather in the lower level's basement kitchen to share stories, trade secrets, forge lifelong friendships, and sometimes even fall in love.

The Residence also reveals the intimacy between the First Family and the people who serve them, as well as tension that has shaken the staff over the decades.

•  The Kennedys - from intimate glimpses of their marriage to the chaotic days after JFK's assassination.

•     The Johnsons - featuring the bizarre saga of LBJ's obsession with the White House plumbing.

•     The Nixons - including Richard Nixon's unexpected appearance in the White House kitchen the morning he resigned.

•     The Reagans - from a fire that endangered Ronald Reagan late in his second term to Nancy's control of details large and small.

•     The Clintons - whose private battles, marked by shouting matches and flying objects, unsettled residence workers.

•  The Obamas - who danced to Mary J. Blige on their first night in the White House.

The Residence is full of surprising and moving details that illuminate day-to-day life at the White House. 

Tyson

   

What's New in Mystery and Fiction for April?

Donna Leon

Falling in Love

The latest in the series featuring Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti.

David Baldacci

Memory Man

A man with perfect memory must solve his own family's murder.

Ann Packer

The Children's Crusade

A California family's story over the course of five decades.  

Lisa Scottoline

Every Fifteen Minutes

A psychiatrist tries to help a high-risk patient and becomes a "person of interest" in a murder investigation.  


maf

Book Spotlight: Kill Chain

Kill Chain: Drones and the Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
by Andrew Cockburn

A critical narrative on the history of drone warfare by Harper Washington editor Cockburn.  Assassination by drone is a subject of deep and enduring fascination. Kill Chain  explores how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing. 

Cockburn uncovers the real and extraordinary story of how and why using drones has become our principal way of waging war. Uncovering its origins in long-buried secret programs, and the breakthroughs that made drone operations possible, Cockburn examines the ways in which the technology works and, despite official claims, does not work. Taking the reader inside the well-guarded world of national security, the book reveals the powerful interests, military, CIA and corporate, that have led the drive to kill individuals by remote control. 

Most importantly of all, the book describes what has really happened when the theories underpinning the strategy, and the multi-billion dollar contracts they spawn, have been put to the test. Drawing on sources deep in the military and intelligence establishments, Andrew Cockburn's Kill Chain unveils the true effects, as demonstrated by bloody experience, of assassination warfare, a revelation that readers will find surprising as well as shocking.

Tyson

Book Spotlight: Dead Wake

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania 
 by Erik Larson 





Erik Larson author of Devil in the White City tells the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania. On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds", the fastest liner then in service. Her captain, William Thomas Turner placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot 20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and small all converge to produce one of the great disasters of history. 

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history. 

Tyson

Wellesley Friday Morning Book Group

All are welcome to come and join in the discussion! Our group meets on the third Friday of each month from 10-11AM. This month we are reading Behind the beautiful forevers, New Yorker staff writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo's powerful account of the staggering gap between the haves and have-nots in India. New participants are welcome to join at any time. For more information, Contact Deb Berenbaum at 781 235 1610 x1220 or dberenbaum@minlib.net

DB

The Listen List: Outstanding Audio Narration 2015

Looking for a great new audiobook?  The American Library Association recently announced the 2015 Listen List, a collection of audiobooks read by extraordinary narrators.  Check out the full list here!

The Bees by Laline Paull
Read by Orlagh Cassidy

Flora 717 is a sanitation worker, a member of the lowest caste in her orchard hive. With circumstances threatening the hive's survival, her curiosity is regarded as dangerous, but her courage and strength an asset. She finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers mysteries about the hive that are both profound and ominous.

The Martian by Andy Weir
Read by R. C. Bray

 Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Read by Robert Glenister

 When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. When Quine is found brutally murdered, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John
Read by Kirsten Potter

 In a world ravaged by a pandemic, this small troupe moves between  settlements, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty.

What we're discussing on Mar.26: Race and Reunion

What the critics say:

''Race and Reunion'' demonstrates forcefully that in the year 2001, it still matters very much how we remember the Civil War.”

--NY Times

This book will be the standard for how public perceptions of the Civil War were formed and propagated in a manner directly analogous to today's doublespeak and spin control.

--Publishers Weekly

The main thrust of Blight's book is that, in the end, the white supremacist vision won.

--Southern Cultures

The book’s pages will continue to be underlined, annotated, and coffee-stained because the questions it posed were the very questions that Americans have asked themselves again and again, generation after generation. What did the Civil War mean? How can we make sense of such an unprecedented struggle?

--Civil War Monitor

As Blight makes abundantly clear, white healing and reunion came at an enormous cost, one that we are still paying today.

--New England Quarterly

Indeed, even after the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and others to raise the modern and historical profile of African Americans including Ken Burn's thoughtful Civil War television series--the force of reconciliationist memory remains strong. "To this day, at the beginning of the twenty-first century," Blight warns, "much of Civil War nostalgia is still rooted in the fateful choices made in the latter two decades of the nineteenth century."

--Canadian Journal of History

The book shows us how Southerners, decisively whipped on the battlefield, managed, nevertheless, to wrest a victory on the intellectual, social, and economic fronts. They did this by willfully manipulating the national press, historiography, and literature to show that the war had been about states rights, the right to property, and the right to live an agrarian life free of the class strife that supposedly plagued the industrialized North

--African American Review

In the end, the author persuasively shows that Northern and Southern advocates of reconciliation triumphed by forging a highly romanticized narrative of new nationalism based upon the bravery and sacrifice of Union and Confederate soldiers. Everyone was a hero and no one a villain. Controversial subjects such as slavery were conveniently forgotten.

--Civil War Times

The initial price of Civil War reunion was the perpetuation of white racism--a price the majority of Americans were willing to pay in 1913. But the hidden costs mounted. Fifty years later, Martin Luther King, Jr., called for a renewed commitment to fulfill the promises of emancipation--a genuine rebirth of freedom, a struggle to which many remain committed.

--American Prospect

Did the South win the peace?

Come to the second meeting of the Non-fiction Book Discussion Group on Thursday, Mar. 26 at 10 am in the Arnold Room.