Summer Reading

Welcome to Summer Reading 2011!  At the end of 4 weeks we had 342 people signed up. This week, 25 new people participated and 55 people read 175 books, which brings the totals for the summer to 127 people and 505 books.

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An Object of Beauty By Martin, Steve 2010-11 - Grand Central Publishing 9780446573641 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title Lacey Yeager charms men and women with her magnetic charisma and liveliness. Her ascension to the highest tiers of the city parallel the highs and lows of the art world and the country from the late 1990s through today. …More

La's Orchestra Saves the World By McCall Smith, Alexander 2009-12 - Pantheon Books 9780307378385 Check Our Catalog BookPage Notable Title From the bestselling author of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series: a delightful and moving story that celebrates the healing powers of friendship and music. La escapes World War II-ravaged London and a shattered marriage and relocates to a small African village. But can she really escape her past--or create a new life? HPL patron:  Great book, a joy to read.  Really llike McCall Smith.  I was introduced to him by the Ladies #1 Detective Agency books. …More

English Tea Murder By Meier, Leslie 2011-07 - Kensington Publishing Corporation 9780758229311 Check Our Catalog Lucy Stone is saying cheerio to Tinker's Cove and jetting off to jolly old England! But when things get dodgy, it appears murder may have followed her across the Atlantic. …More

The Inner Circle By Meltzer, Brad 2011-01 - Grand Central Publishing 9780446577892 Check Our Catalog Number-one "New York Times"-bestselling author Meltzer returns with a pulse-pounding new novel of lies and deception at the highest levels of government. After reuniting with a childhood crush, a young archivist makes an astonishing discovery in the secret vault of the National Archives, where the president privately reviews classified documents. The two soon find themselves entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder that will reveal the most well-kept secret of the U.S. presidency. HPL patron:  Ok read, slow moving. …More

Love to Love You Baby By Michaels, Kasey 2001-11 - Kensington Publishing Corporation 9780821768440 Check Our Catalog With his major league baseball career prematurely curtailed, Jack figures he's hit rock bottom--until he finds a basket on his porch with a baby inside. When interior designer Keely McBride enters the picture, Jack quickly recruits her as a nanny. But when he pitches her a curveball straight from the heart, it's a whole new ballgame. …More

The Butterfly's Daughter By Monroe, Mary Alice 2011-05 - Gallery Press 9781439170618 Check Our Catalog Four very different women embark on a transformational journey that follows the migrating monarchs across the United States to Mexico. While taking her grandmother's ashes home to Mexico, Luz attracts a collection of lost women, each seeking change in their lives. HPL patron:  A beautiful journey into the future by way of the past.  A few unexpected stops, some unplanned fellow travelers, and a "resurrection" lead finally to an understanding of self and an awakening.  Also lots and lots of monarchs! …More

Captain of the Sleepers By Montero, Mayra Translator Grossman, Edith 2005-09 - Farrar Straus Giroux 9780374118822 Check Our Catalog For fifty years, Andres Yasin has carried a grudge against J.T. Bunker. Now, Bunker, eighty-two years old and dying of cancer, wants to tell his side of a story, a story of his affair with Andres's mother. As a child Andres knew Bunker as the "Captain of the Sleepers"-so called because he transported the bodies of those who had died off the island, but wished to be buried at home. But what really happened between Bunker and Andres's mother, between his mother and her next lover, a leader in the Puerto Rican Nationalistic Insurrection, and what were the actual circumstances of Andres's mother's mysterious death? In this taut, erotic novel that slips effortlessly between past and present, remembrance and reality, Mayra Montero describes a feverish Caribbean childhood of secrets, disillusionment, and sexual awakening. Beautifully translated by Edith Grossman, "The Captain of the Sleepers" confirms Montero's stature as one of our finest prose stylists and as an international writer of the first rank. …More

The Headhunter's Daughter: A Mystery By Myers, Tamar 2011-02 - William Morrow & Company 9780061997648 Check Our Catalog Myers, the bestselling creator of the Den of Antiquity mysteries, delivers the second book in her new mystery series set in the Belgian Congo. HPL patron:  I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  First, the names of the characters were fascinating.  I especially appreciated the Afterword and the interview because each explained/supported Ms. Myers fiction. …More

Ottoman Cage By Nadel, Barbara 2005-02 - Minotaur Books 9780312337698 Check Our Catalog British Praise for "Belshazzar's Daughter": "Intriguing, exotic whodunnit set in the scruffy Turkish township of Balat...Local colour judiciously applied and ethnic differences (White Russian refugees, uxorious Turks, fraught British expats) skilfully explored...A first novel: exciting, accomplished and original." - "Literary Review" "Best crime fiction by a new writer was Barbara Nadel's "Belshazzar's Daughter." Set in Istanbul, with a battered, cynical and credible Turkish cop, and a great blooming baroque plot (ditto talent)." - "Books of the Year, Independent Weekend Review" "An unusual and very well written first novel...Although the murder mystery is intriguing, it is the characters who make this book so successful. The police team and their little feuds, the English teacher besotted with his mysterious Turkish girlfriend, and, most memorably, the chain-smoking little Inspector Ikmen, with his eight children and pregnant wife, contribute to this portrayal of an exotically different city." - "Sunday Telegraph" "This is an extraordinarily interesting first novel: the idea which drives its plot is an intriguing one; the Istanbul background is richly and thickly layered; the diverse cast of characters exhibits most of the psychoses known to man; while cetin Ikmen is a detective one hopes to see more of." - "Evening Standard" "This Istanbul-set-thriller combines a multi-layered description of its locale with an equally complex plot...Nadel presents a fully fledged psychological understanding worthy of the best of the genre and her plotting is satisfyingly labyrinthine. Inspector lkmen too, is a highly unusual protagonist, characterized in a way that owes little to her predecessors. An evocative and idiosyncratic debut novel." - "Good Book Guide" "In Inspector Ikmen, Nadel has created a sympathetic sleuth. Supported by his handsome side-kick, intellectual father and plaintive wife, Ikmen should go far." - "Scotsman" …More

One Day (Movie Tie-In Edition) By Nicholls, David 2011-05 - Vintage 9780307946713 Check Our Catalog It's 1988 and Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley have only just met. But after only one day together, they cannot stop thinking about one another. Over twenty years, snapshots of that relationship are revealed on the same day--July 15th--of each year. Dex and Em face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself. …More

What Is Left the Daughter By Norman, Howard 2010-07 - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) 9780618735433 Check Our Catalog Norman, widely regarded as one of this country's finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books--"The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard," and "The Haunting of L"--in this erotically charged and morally complex story. HPL patron:  Good book.  Very sad and moving. …More

The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense By Oates, Joyce Carol 2006-01 - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) 9780151011797 Check Our Catalog In these gripping and disturbing tales, women are confronted by the evil around them and surprised by the evil they find within themselves. With wicked insight, Oates demonstrates why the females of the species are by nature more deadly than the males. …More

Hidden Witness By Oldham, Nick 2011-02 - Severn House Publishers 9780727869647 Check Our Catalog The new Detective Superintendent Henry Christie novel - When Detective Superintendent Henry Christie takes on the case of a brutal murder of a seemingly innocent old man, the investigation brings him into touch with old friend and FBI agent Karl Donaldson, who is trying to track down a hit man believed to have entered the UK illegally. It's obvious the two cases are connected, but it soon becomes clear there's more to the old man's murder than simple underworld retribution . . . …More

A Victorian Christmas Keepsake By Palmer, Catherine Joint Author Billerbeck, Kristin Joint Author Aiken, Ginny 2001-08 - Heartquest 9780842335690 Check Our Catalog …More

The Dark of Day By Parker, Barbara 2008-06 - Vanguard Press 9781593154615 Check Our Catalog A young woman vanishes from a celebrity-studded party on South Beach. The media descend, and the spotlight threatens to reveal the secret past of a high-profile criminal defense attorney. HPL patron:  Current-look at highlife in MIami South Beach-gangsters-politicians, media blind sides fun-entertaining and educational for young people-potential traps laying in wait. …More

The 9th Judgment By Patterson, James Author Paetro, Maxine 2010-04 - Little Brown and Company 9780316036276 Check Our Catalog In the most exciting Women's Murder Club novel yet, Detective Lindsay Boxer spends every waking hour working to piece together clues in two area murders. One of the killers forces Lindsay to put her own life on the line--but will that be enough? …More

Cross Fire By Patterson, James 2010-11 - Little Brown and Company 9780316036177 Check Our Catalog Detective Alex Cross's wedding plans are put on hold when he is called to the scene of the perfectly executed assassination of two of Washington, D.C.'s, most corrupt: a dirty congressmen and an underhanded lobbyist. Next, the elusive gunman begins picking off other crooked politicians. HPL patron:  Riveting, tense, exciting, and more! …More

Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports By Patterson, James 2008-09 - Little, Brown Young Readers 9780316154277 Check Our Catalog In this #1 "New York Times" bestseller, the time has arrived for Max and her winged "flock" to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of a sinister experiment to reengineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race. …More

Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas By Patterson, James 2001-07 - Little Brown and Company 9780316969444 Check Our Catalog Changing genres, the author of "Cradle and All" offers a moving and suspenseful novel about families, loss, new love, and hope. Katie Wilkinson has found the perfect man at last, but one day he disappears from her life, leaving behind only a diary for her to read. HPL patron:  Not  your  typical Patterson read, but well worth your time.  Read it without thinking Patterson. …More

Tick Tock By Patterson, James Author Ledwidge, Michael 2011-01 - Little Brown and Company 9780316037914 Check Our Catalog A rash of horrifying crimes tears through New York City, throwing it into complete chaos and terrorizing everyone living there. Immediately, it becomes clear that these offenses are not the work of an amateur, but of a calculating, efficient, and deadly mastermind. All too soon, another appalling murder leads Detective Michael Bennett to a shocking discovery that exposes the killer's pattern and the earth-shattering enormity of his plan. HPL patron:  Awesome.  James Patterson is a fantastic writer. HPL patron:  Great author, lots of suspense, plus human  interest. …More

Toys By Patterson, James Author McMahon, Neil 2011-03 - Little Brown and Company 9780316097369 Check Our Catalog Hays Baker and his wife Lizbeth possess super-human strength, extraordinary intelligence, stunning looks, a sex life to die for, and two beautiful children. Of course they do--they're Elites, endowed at birth with the very best that the world can offer. The only problems in their perfect world: people, their toys, and the battle to save humanity. …More

Bone Rattler: A Mystery of Colonial America By Pattison, Eliot 2007-12 - Counterpoint LLC 9781593761851 Check Our Catalog Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners that thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths--or face a lethal punishment. His conclusions--based on the cryptic, ceremonial nature of the killings--suggest that the wave of violence is somehow linked to the "savages" of the American wilderness. Duncan's suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey's estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions--the British, rogue Scots, the French, the Huron, and the Iroquois--are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Following a strange trail of clues that seem half Iroquois and half Highland Scot, mesmerized by Lord Ramsey's beautiful daughter--who has a forbidden knowledge of "heathen" ways--and frequently defying death in a dangerous wilderness populated by grizzled European settlers, mysterious scalping parties, and Indian sorcerers, Duncan McCallum, exiled chief of his near-extinct clan, finds the source of all evil at the site of an Indian massacre. HPL patron:  Sex  in 1760-story of a British convict and the mystery he must solve-upon transport  to the NY colony-instructive of Scotts and Iroquis' influence of Native American culture onto European immigrants-specifically the Morairans. …More

The Opposite of Me By Pekkanen, Sarah 2010-03 - Washington Square Press 9781439121986 Check Our Catalog A funny, poignant debut novel about the complicated bonds of sisterhood. When Lindsay's controlled life falls apart and she's forced to move home, she uncovers some revelations that call into question the identities she and Alex have developed their whole lives. …More