The titles and links below will direct you to print copies when available. Click on the title to see all available formats, including recorded versions and eBooks.
You can learn more about using eBooks and eAudiobooks on our blog, and contact us if you need assistance. *Restrictions to using Hoopla apply based on your home address.
In the coastal town of Mockbegger, Newfoundland, a power struggle erupts between Abe Strapp and the Widow Caine. She thwarts his plan to marry the daughter of another rich man to bolster his holdings, and things get very ugly thereafter. Characters’ names like Cheater, and Clinch reflect the book’s melodramatic aspects which I quite enjoyed. Derring-do on the high seas stirs up the action further. The antagonists both get their due, so nobody wins but their victims—hah!
Griffin’s father hasn’t made it big as an actor, and his mother was a ballerina who now teaches. The family lives in NYC, an expensive place. Young Griffin turns out to have acting chops too and snags an ongoing role as a star in a TV series. This pays for his tuition in a fancy prep school where he gets heavily involved in wrestling. The coach is a tyrant and also, we discover, an abuser. A friend of his parents, Naomi, is drawn to Griffin, and a heady relationship develops between them. Intense, conflicting, shaming pressures pile up on Griffin but he puts up with them until it all implodes. Ross evokes the zeitgeist of the ‘70s-‘80s, and of the city I grew up in so vividly I felt right back at home on those familiar streets.
Olney’s son Cully is multitalented and charming. Tragically, addiction claims him, but his father keeps hurling himself at trying to rescue him. So does his ex-wife, Kat, but their strenuous, frustrating efforts run aground. Olney connects with a stranger, Mireille, who has a rapidly progressing fatal disease but somehow provides odd spiritual solace. Dufresne has a wildly ebullient style and celebrates the mixed bag of the setting, Florida, with witty panache. The paradox here is how ultimate sadness can be shot through with humor and love
No doubt about it, as this superlative chronicler of the natural world shows us. Three rivers in peril: in Ecuador in the company of Giuliana and Cosmo (author of Entangled, a groundbreaking book about fungi), both passionate mycologists. In India where 27-year-old Yuvan is trying to combat the ongoing poisoning of a river in Chennai, and in Canada , where Macfarlane kayaks the length of a wild river with Rita who is an activist, healer, and guardian of her First Nations culture. Unrelenting damage from mining, damming, garbage, and greed are constant pressures all over the world. The author takes us to the heart of each story with vivid descriptions of people, places and things, always illuminated by his own intense sensibilities. Another triumph.
Add a comment to: Neshama’s Choices for January 26