Book Talk

Book Talk for Jan 28, 2025 Mystery Writers of America presents the prosecution rests: new stories about courtrooms, criminals, and the law  Linda Fairstein Twenty-two short stories dealing with the criminal justice system, with themes that include lawyers, victims, liars, revenge seekers, killers, and alibi witnesses. In Joel Goldman's "Knife Fight" a female Jewish attorney defends a black, drug-d...

Book talk for January 14, 2025 Papa Married a Mormon by John Dennis Fitzgerald Cheerful reminiscences of the author's early life on the old Utah frontier where his father, a respected Roman Catholic newspaper editor, and his spunky Morman mother made an unorthodox but very happy home for their children. DB13297 The Braille Killer: An Alice Bergman Novel by Daniel Kuhnley "Blind at birth, Alice Ber...

Book talk for Jan 7 2025 Christmas At the Borrow a Book Shop by Kiley Dunbar 'Tis the season for finding love... and the perfect book! With just two weeks until Christmas, everything in Clove Lore should be perfect. But the latest holidaymaker to the Borrow a Bookshop is feeling far from festive... Icelandic ex-bookseller Magnús Sturluson might be surrounded by love stories in the Bookshop, but he...

Book Talk for October 22 2024 Sanibel Dreams 1 a Shellseeker Beach novel by Hope Holloway "When 53-year-old Eliza Whitney loses both her beloved husband and her high-powered job in the same month, she's uncertain what the next chapter of her life will look like. Then her estranged father's widow contacts her and asks her to come to Sanibel Island to help settle his affairs. Eliza sees the trip to...

Book talk for October 8 2024 Sanibel Dreams by Hope Holloway "When 53-year-old Eliza Whitney loses both her beloved husband and her high-powered job in the same month, she's uncertain what the next chapter of her life will look like. Then her estranged father's widow contacts her and asks her to come to Sanibel Island to help settle his affairs. Eliza sees the trip to a place called Shellseeker Be...

 Book talk for September 17 2024 Plain honest men: The Making of the American Constitution by Richard Beeman Historian provides a day-by-day account of the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Uses primary and secondary sources to illustrate the debates and negotiations that raged between the states before the document's ratification. Discusses the failure to come to an agreement about...

Book talk for September 10 2024 The Sunflower Forest by Torey L Hayden Seventeen-year-old Lesley is preoccupied with high school, the prospect of college, and her first serious romance. She must also come to terms with her mother's eccentric behavior and tragic past and her father's unwillingness to deal with his wife's deteriorating mental state. Some strong language and some explicit description...

Book Talk for September 3 2024 Failure to appear by Judith A Jance Seattle police detective J. P. Beaumont follows his 18-year-old daughter Kelly when she runs away to Ashland, Oregon. He finds her pregnant and about to marry an actor in the midst of the town's Shakespeare festival. When one of Kelly's actress friends is accused of murder, Beau investigates.  Some strong language and some violence...

Book talk for august 27 2024 Straighten up and fly Right The Music and life of Nat King Cole by W Friedwald A music journalist examines the life and legacy of jazz great Nat King Cole (1919-1965). He explores his early life in Alabama, the start of his career as a successful pianist and bandleader of the Nat King Cole Trio, and the transition later in his career to solo singer. Some strong languag...

Book Talk for August 20, 2024 Blood and iron: the rise and fall of the German Empire, 1871-1918  by Katja Hoyer "This vivid fifty-year history of Germany from 1871–1918—which inspired events that forever changed the European continent—is the story of the Second Reich from its violent beginnings and rise to power to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. Before 1871, Germany was not yet a na...

Book Talk for August 13 2024 The bone collector by Jeffery Deaver Retired forensic scientist and criminologist Lincoln Rhyme is enlisted to track down a serial murderer who is stalking victims in New York City. Injured on the job and now a quadriplegic, Rhyme can move one finger--enabling him to use his computer. Assisted by policewoman Amelia Sachs, Rhyme races against time to find the killer. In...

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 malign...

Book talk for July 30 2024 Breathe your last by Lisa Regan Dropping off a shirt off for her brother at his college job, Detective Josie Quinn spots a body in the pool, but her attempts to save the young woman fail. How did the star swimmer--who was not dressed for practice--drown? Strong language and some violence. 2020.  DB101647 The Bodyguard Katherine Center "She's got his back. Hannah Brooks l...

Book Talk for June 25 2024 Dinner in Camelot: the night America's greatest scientists, writers, and scholars partied at the Kennedy White House  by Joseph Esposito Account of a dinner on April 29, 1962, hosted by President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy for Nobel laureates, writers, scientists, historians, and artists. Discusses the historical context of the dinner, notable interactions, and the many re...

Book talk for June 18, 2024 First Father First Daughter by Maureen Reagan "Mermie," as she was affectionately called by her father writes about growing up with the former president and about realizing her own political ambitions. Maureen's admiration for her father shows throughout the book as she writes about her childhood in Hollywood, a string of uninspiring jobs, several marriages, and her inv...

Book talk for June 11, 2024 Girl in the Leaves by Robert Scott "In the fall of 2010, in the all-American town of Apple Valley, Ohio, four people disappeared without a trace: Stephanie Sprang; her friend, Tina Maynard; and Tina's two children, thirteen-year-old Sarah and eleven-year-old Kody. Investigators began scouring the area, yet despite an extensive search, no signs of the missing people were...

Book Talk for June 4, 2024 Nuclear War a scenario by Annie Jacobsen "Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These projects are vital to how we understand the world we really live in: where one nuclear missile begets one in return; where the choreography of the world's end requi...

Book talk for May 28, 2024 Then came Violence Virgil Tibbs No. 6 by John Dudley Ball "Virgil Tibbs, the cool, highly competent black detective of the Pasadena Police Department opens the door of his bachelor apartment to find that it has been expertly stripped to the bare walls—not a thing is left to show that he ever lived there. At headquarters he is given a cryptic note from Police Chief McGowa...

Book Talk for May 21, 2024 Reaching for the stars: the inspiring story of a migrant farmworker turned astronaut  by Jose M Hernandez "Born into a family of migrant workers, toiling in the fields by the age of six, Jose M. Hernández dreamed of traveling through the night skies on a rocket ship. [The book] is the inspiring story of how he realized that dream, becoming the first Mexican-American ast...

Book Talk for May 14, 2024 Far from the Madding Crowd By Thomas Hardy and Ronald Blythe In this late-Victorian novel, a penniless girl becomes a woman of means when she inherits her uncle's farm. The plot focuses on her changing relationships with the three men who court her, and on their personal relationships with other people. DB32653 The Vanished Man Book NO. 5 in the Lincoln Rhyme series by J...

Book Talk for May 7, 2024 Time and Tide by Thomas J. Fleming Historical World War II melodrama about a U.S. Navy cruiser, the USS "Jefferson City." As the lone survivor of a battle in the Solomon Islands, the ship is disgraced and considered jinxed until a new captain takes command. Some strong language and some descriptions of sex. 1987. DB26656 Shamed A Kate Burkholder novel by Linda Castillo Th...

Book Talk for April 30, 2024 Angels in the ER: Inspiring true stories from an emergency room doctor by Robert D. Leslie "Twenty-five years in the ER could become a résumé for despair, but for best-selling author Dr. Robert D. Lesslie, it's a foundation for inspiring stories of everyday angels - friends, nurses, doctors, patients, and even strangers who offer love, help, and support in the midst...

Book talk for April 23, 2024 Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews Meg is knocking herself out trying to be a bridesmaid for the weddings of her brother, mother, and best friend. As she tries to help her ditzy relatives prepare for their various outrageous festivities, one of the guests is murdered, old crimes are uncovered, and she falls in love. 1999. BR13270 DBC16974 Close to Home Adam Fawley 1...

book talk for April 16, 2024 Broadcasters In Baseball by Curt Smith The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis DB116879 Reaching for the Stars the inspirational story of an immigrant turned astronaut DB116999 Heart of a killer by David Rosenfeld DB74334 Honeymoon Crasher by Tina Morris DB116577 Motion to Suppress DB52073 Paul Harvey's America by Stephen Mansfield DB72283 61 Hours by Lee Child DB71403 BR...

Book Talk for April 9, 2024 The Perfect Marriage  by Geneva Klint Hill The Michael Bennett Series Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L Trump Live from the Battlefield by Peter Arnet Gilda Radner   Hans Christian Anderson A stranger in the House  Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly Kate Shugak by Dana Stabinow  DB109792 The Good Dream DB118478 Paper Moon by tatum O'Neal Finding Stevie by Kathy Gla...