Hi everyone, here are our five suggested reads of the week!
Weekly Suggested Reading Five postings are usually published on Wednesdays, unless Monday is a holiday and then they are published later in the week.
And the next Suggested Reading posting will be published on Wednesday, August 21, 2024.
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Don’t Let the Devil Ride by Ace Atkins
What begins as another of Atkins’ trademark regional crime tales blossoms into a story of international intrigue without ever abandoning its base. Addison McKellar’s husband, Dean, has gone AWOL once before, returning home after five days with no explanation to speak of. So she doesn’t get seriously alarmed till he’s been gone a whole week. What tips the balance this time isn’t the extra two days, but her visit to the Cotton Exchange Building: The news that McKellar Construction hasn’t had an office there for at least two years sends Addison first to the Memphis police, who don’t believe that Dean is missing, and then to Porter Hayes, “the Black Sherlock Holmes,” who does. As the question of what Dean’s up to morphs into the question of who Dean really is, Atkins skillfully draws in more players who seem summoned from different worlds. Joanna Grayson, who co-starred with Elvis Presley in a movie half a century ago, is still working the connection to attract fans of the King. Her client Leslie Grimes is the billionaire owner of a chain of Christian gift shops. One-armed Jack Dumas is an arms dealer whose partner, Peter Collinson, has vanished with a bulging wallet. Omar, a sketchy Turkish dealer, has been killed in a shopping mall’s security warren. Then, shortly after he’s reported dead, Dean McKellar returns to his hearth and home, and things become much, much worse. He won’t answer Addison’s simplest questions; he casts doubt on everything she says; he goes out of his way to embarrass her in front of their friends; and he ends up turning their children, along with virtually everyone else in her life, against her. Forget about the MacGuffin that knits these threads together and enjoy Atkins’ biggest, boldest thrill ride yet. – Kirkus Review
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Farewell, Amethystine by Walter Mosley
Few flashbacks are as poetic or as heavy with experience as L.A. private investigator Easy Rawlins’ (introduced in Devil in a Blue Dress, 1990), and Amethystine Stoller’s arrival stirs them up aplenty here. Amethystine’s ex-husband, a gifted accountant, has gone missing, and she’s been referred by Easy’s longtime friend Jewelle Blue. Missing people are Easy’s bread and butter, but they tend to lead to trouble, so he turns to LAPD Commander Mel Suggs for background on the case. Strangely, Suggs has also disappeared, and Easy’s told off the record that Suggs is ducking blackmail. Well aware of his debts to Jewelle and Suggs, Easy takes on both cases, pulling in Fearless Jones when the trails become littered with bodies and lead to showdowns with dirty cops and mafia operatives. Easy tracks both mysteries to bittersweet resolution as he weighs his affinity for smart, dangerous women against the steady love of his family. Evocative of both classic noir and 1970s Los Angeles, Mosley’s latest Easy Rawlins story (following Blood Grove, 2021) offers wisdom about human connections folded smoothly into page-turning action. Readers will find a bolstering escape in Rawlins’ world, which is constructed of densely woven loves, grudges, and debts and infused with abiding optimism.
HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Mosley is always a draw and Easy Rawlins novels rack up requests. – Booklist Review
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This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour
Sweetmint is invisible, just like 40 percent of the population. They are oppressed by the Dominant Population at every turn, but Sweetmint hopes that her internship with one of the inventors of the system under which they live will demonstrate what her peoples are capable of. Instead, she learns that she has been elevated just so she can be struck down. When her brother is falsely accused of murder to cover up a political assassination, Sweetmint is forced to run for her life, sending her straight into the arms of a revolution that may, or may not, be capable of dismantling all of the levers of power that have been engineered to keep her people down. Using invisibility as a metaphor for various forms of division and repression, this novel sets multiple narratives on parallel tracks; Sweetmint’s quest for justice is juxtaposed with the real assassin’s revenge motives even as the villainous plots of those in power are set against the rhetoric of the revolutionary underground.
VERDICT A stunning and compelling work of social justice speculative fiction from Askaripour. – Library Journal Review
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More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop: A Novel by Satoshi Yagisawa & Eric Ozawa
Yagisawa’s sequel to his popular Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (2023), also translated by Ozawa, reunites readers with Takako, her Uncle Satoru, Aunt Momoku, and the people who come into their lives at the Morisaki Bookshop. It’s now three years later, and Takako is happy at work and in a new relationship. She is still a frequent visitor to her aunt and uncle’s bookshop. The store is the thread that ties them together and connects them to others in the Tokyo neighborhood of Jimbocho, but a tragedy makes the Morisaki’s future seem uncertain. Yagisawa maintains the charm and comfort of the first bookshop tale while deepening Takako’s understanding of the people who frequent the bookshop and nearby business owners and their various customers. If the first book is a coming-of-age story, the sequel is a story about community. Readers will pick this up for the atmosphere of this well-established world. They will turn the last page with a deepened love for this bookshop family and how well they care for each other and their customers and neighbors. – Booklist Review
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Sharing Space: An Astronaut’s Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change by Cady Coleman
Scientist, pilot, and former astronaut and U.S. Air Force colonel, Coleman shares her early life and what led her to NASA and the International Space Station (ISS). She writes vividly about how, in 1969, she almost missed Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon because of “”space is for boys”” cultural norms and how she noticed then that all the astronauts were white men. Later she received inspiration and “”permission”” from Sally Ride to pursue space exploration. Coleman describes her demanding journey from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to how surreal it felt when NASA selected her for the ISS mission to the breathtaking moment of donning the blue flight suit, recounting the punishing training process and her uncertainty countered by her determination. Looking to the larger picture, Coleman highlights the importance of having a broad support system, acknowledging vulnerabilities, and building deeply trusted friendships and professional bonds, while emphasizing counseling (particularly regarding the emotional preparation for the isolation of living aboard the ISS), and the impact of navigating cultural differences. – Booklist Review
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Happy reading!
Linda Reimer, SSCL
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Note: Book summaries are from the respective publishers unless otherwise specified.
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Information on the three library catalogs
The Digital Catalog: https://stls.overdrive.com/
The Digital Catalog, is an online catalog containing eBooks, eAudiobooks, and digital magazines. You can use your library card and checkout content on a PC; you can also use the companion app, Libby, to access titles on your mobile devices; so you can enjoy eBooks and eAudiobooks on the go!
All card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can check out items from the Digital Catalog.
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Hoopla Catalog: https://www.hoopladigital.com/
The Hoopla Catalog features on demand checkouts of eBooks, eAudiobooks, comic books, albums, movies and TV shows. Patron check out limit is 10 items per month.
Hoopla is a Southeast Steuben County Library service available to all Southeast Steuben County Library card holders.
The Hoopla companion app, also called Hoopla is available for mobile devices, smart TVs & media streaming players.
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StarCat: The catalog of physical/traditional library materials: https://starcat.stls.org
Card holders of all Southern Tier Library System member libraries can access StarCat to search for and request materials available at libraries through out the Southern Tier Library System.
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Have questions about how to access Internet based content (i.e. eBooks, eAudios)? Feel free to drop by the Reference Desk or call the library and we will assist you! The library’s telephone number is: 607-936-3713.
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Tech & Book Talk is a Southeast Steuben County Library blog.
Tech & Book Talk at SSCL 