book talk for august 06 2024

Book Talk

Book Talk for August 6, 2024

Shepherds for Sale
by Megan Vasham

Promise me, Dad: a year of hope, hardship, and purpose
by Joseph Biden JR.

In November 2014, thirteen members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past forty years. But this year felt different. Joe and Jill Biden's eldest son, Beau, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor fifteen months earlier, and his survival was uncertain. "Promise me, Dad," Beau had told his father. "Give me your word that no matter what happens, you're going to be all right." Joe Biden gave him his word. The year that followed would be the most momentous and challenging in Joe Biden's extraordinary life and career. Vice President Biden traveled more than a hundred thousand miles that year, across the world, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America, and Iraq. For twelve months, while Beau fought for and then lost his life, the vice president balanced the twin imperatives of living up to his responsibilities to his country and his responsibilities to his family. Bestseller. 2017. Unrated. Marrakesh title.
BRG04205 DB88982

Disillusioned: five families and the unraveling of America's suburbs
by Benjamin Herold

"Through the stories of five American families, a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools Outside Atlanta, a middle-class Black family faces off with a school system seemingly bent on punishing their teenage son. North of Dallas, a conservative white family relocates to an affluent suburban enclave, but can't escape the changes sweeping the country. On Chicago's North Shore, a multiracial mom throws herself into an ultra-progressive challenge to the town's liberal status quo. In Compton, California, whose suburban roots are now barely recognizable, undocumented Hispanic parents place their gifted son's future in the hands of educators at a remarkable elementary school. And outside Pittsburgh, a Black mother buys a home on the same street where the author grew up, then confronts the destructive legacy left behind by white families like his. Education journalist Benjamin Herold's ability to braid these compelling human stories together with local and national history makes Disillusioned an astonishing reading experience, along with an urgent argument that America's suburbs and their schools are locked into a destructive cycle that has brought the country to a point of crisis. For generations, white families have reaped the benefits of massive federal investment in suburbia, then moved on as social and political infrastructure began to fail, leaving the mostly Black and brown families who follow to clean up the ensuing mess. Now, though, the suburbs are caught between rapidly shifting demographics and the reality that endless expansion is no longer feasible. Forced to confront truths that their communities were built to avoid, everyday suburban families find themselves at the center of the nation's most pressing debates: How do we repair America's divided communities? How do we build a future for all our children? In exploring these questions, Herold pulls back the curtain on suburban public schools and school boards, which he persuasively argues are the new ground zero in the fight for the country's future. Herold brings together research on the effects of racism on everyone with empathetic portrayals of families of wildly different backgrounds and perspectives. Nothing short of a journalistic masterpiece, Disillusioned brings readers face-to-face with the roots of America's discontent. Then, alongside the Black mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book, Herold offers a hopeful path toward renewal." -- Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB119227

A light beyond the Trenches
by Alan Hlad

"April 1916, Germany: Anna Zeller, whose fiancé, Bruno, is fighting on the western front, works as a nurse at an overcrowded hospital in Oldenburg, trying to comfort men broken in body and spirit. But during a visit from Dr. Stalling, the director of the Red Cross Ambulance Dogs Association, she witnesses a rare spark of optimism: as a German shepherd guides a battle-blinded soldier over a garden path, Dr. Stalling is inspired with an idea--to train dogs as companions for sightless veterans. Anna convinces Dr. Stalling to let her work at his new guide dog training school. Some of the dogs that arrive are themselves veterans of war, including Nia, a German shepherd with trench-damaged paws. Anna brings the ailing Nia home and secretly tends and trains her. In Max Benesch, a Jewish soldier blinded by chlorine gas at the front, Nia finds her person. War has taken Max's sight, his fiancée, and his hopes of being a composer. Yet despite all he's given for his country, the tide of anti-Semitism at home is rising, and Max encounters it firsthand in one of the school's trainers. Still, through Anna's prompting, he rediscovers his passion for music. But as Anna discovers more about the conflict's escalating brutality and Bruno's role in it she realizes how impossible it will be for any of them to escape the war unscathed . . ." -- Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB119487

The Various Haunts of Men
by Susan Hill

Chief inspector Simon Serrailler's new detective, Freya Graffham, investigates the disappearance of a middle-aged woman who was last seen on her morning run. As Freya falls for Simon, another woman vanishes. Meanwhile, Simon's physician sister investigates suspicious alternative medicine practitioners. Some violence and some strong language. 2004.
BR18096 DB83206
Not a Sound
Heather Gudenkauf

Two years ago an accident left Amelia Winn deaf, finished her nursing career, and destroyed her marriage as she turned to alcohol. Now sober, Amelia and her hearing dog find the body of an estranged friend and former colleague by the river and begin investigating. Some violence and some strong language. 2017.
BR22398 DB88392

The Secret Keeper
by Kate Morton

England. In the 1960s teenager Laurel Nicolson witnessed her mother Dorothy stab a man to death. Decades later Laurel, now a renowned actress, visits her senile ninety-year-old mother and begins to research the matriarch's complicated past. Some violence. Bestseller. Commercial audiobook. 2012.
DB75668

Fallen: a Kate Burkholder novel
by Linda Castillo

When a body is found in a Painters Mill motel, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder recognizes the victim as a charming, but troubled, Amish girl who left the fold. As Kate digs into the woman's past, someone doesn't want the secrets she took to the grave revealed. Strong language and some violence. Commercial audiobook. 2021.
DB104082

The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides

Alicia Berenson--a famous painter married to a fashion photographer--lives in a grand house in one of London's most desirable areas. One evening after her husband returns home late from a fashion shoot, Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Some violence, strong language, and some descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2019.
DB93996

Anatomy of innocence: testimonies of the wrongfully convicted
By Leslie S Klinger, Barry Scheck, and Laura Caldwell

The stories of fifteen exonerated prisoners are retold through the writing of mystery and suspense authors including Sara Paretsky, Lee Child, and Phillip M. Margolin, and by playwright Arthur Miller. Illustrates how justice can be thwarted in the legal system and eventually--sometimes--regained. Some violence and some strong language. 2017.
DB92649

Dark Corners
by Ruth Rendell

When twenty-three-year-old novelist...