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In the late 1980's, a quiet young man with began working as a nurse in a burn ward in New Jersey.  Whether initially tempted by pity or a need for control, it was there that Charles Cullen, dubbed by the media as the Angel of Death, murdered his first patient with an insulin overdose.  Over the course of the next sixteen years, he murdered many more, possibly over three hundred people all told, all within the sterile confines of hospital wards.  Journalist Charles Graeber first encountered Cullen while writing an article about the murderer's desire to donate a kidney from prison, and now uses

Some readers like their fictional friends kept safe, never truly in harm’s way, despite immediate apparent dangers; you just know they’ll make out just fine in the end. I am not one of those readers—I like it when happy endings are not guaranteed, and the protagonist gets knocked around a bit.

And hoo boy does October “Tobey” Daye, protagonist of Seanan McGuire’s Rosemary and Rue, get knocked around. A lot. The half-Fae private investigator was once a knight of the Fae court, until she lost 14 years of her life in the line of duty; now she wants nothing to do with them. Unfortunately, she

This is the autobiography of Frank White, the 8-time Gold Glove second baseman for the Kansas City Royals. White describes his childhood and the loving support of his family while growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, his high school days at Lincoln High School, and playing baseball as a young teen. He was a pretty good pitcher in those days. Interestingly, he describes fearful moments when visiting relatives in his birthplace, Mississippi, during the 1950s and 1960s when he and his friends dashed away from roadsides when cars filled with white people sped along the roads.

White describes

Necromancy student Tara Abernathy has been thrown out of her school--literally--only to be recruited by the stern Ms. Kevarian to work for the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao. Brother Abelard is a naive, chain-smoking priest of Kos, god of the city of Alt Coulumb, who has discovered that his god is...dead. Tara and Ms. Kevarian arrive in Alt Coulumb to bring Kos back from the dead, and that's when things get really complicated.

Max Gladstone has created a rich, colorful world where gods are real and make deals with mortals through complicated contracts

Unbroken gives us an opportunity to read about one World War II veteran’s war experience. It reveals what Louis Zamperini went through while serving in the United States Air Force and the hardships he endured as a Prisoner of War for over two years in Japan. His story certainly helps generate appreciation of the sacrifices that veterans have made while serving our country. Unbroken is a well-researched book, detailing Zamperini’s struggles both as a prisoner and as a freed man. This is an excellent book about a man who has led a fascinating life.  Angelina Jolie is directing a movie about

After famed dragon slayer, Lottie Thorskard, is injured on the job she takes early retirement and moves to the small town of Trondheim to escape her notoriety and the big city. She brings her partner Hannah, and nephew Owen, whose father is out fighting the carbon eating dragons that have plagued Canada since the dawn of time.

Late for his first class on the first day of school, Owen asks Siobhan McQuiad for directions. Turns out, they’re both late for English, and both end up in after-school detention where a friendship is born. As a gifted music student, Siobhan is also good at math and

Naoki Higashida is a thirteen-year-old boy with autism so severe that he cannot speak aloud.  But using an alphabet grid, he--letter by letter--has composed this missive from the depths of autism, revealing that a clever mind and keen perception lie behind the limits of his disorder.  Higashida approaches the topic through a series of questions, like "What's the worst thing about having autism?" and "Is it true that you hate being touched?"  His answers are illuminating and occasionally heart-breaking, like this one: "The hardest ordeal for us is the idea that we are causing grief for other

NYPD Detective Kat Donovan finds herself in a place where her past, present, future and current case all merge.  It took years for her to recover from her father's murder which was shortly followed by her fiance calling it quits and disappearing, but Kat is finally ready to enter the dating scene and sets up an account through an online dating website.  As she is scrolling through possible matches she encounters her ex-fiance! When she messages him he acts like he doesn't remember her.  Strange.  Approached by a teen whose mother is "missing" but still communicating via text, Kat is drawn back

Growing up on one of the South Carolina outerbanks islands, Eleanor was a wild child who knew no fear and who loved to play the piano.  Her sister was the beauty queen.  Now in her 30's, Eleanor lives with her sister, brother-in-law and mother in a small house on the mainland.  Eleanor works in an office and moonlights as a piano player in a bar to help make ends meet.  When Eleanor is offered extra work by her boss to be a companion to his elderly aunt that lives on the island she grew up on Eleanor snaps up the opportunity not only to make more money but to get out of the house and away from

Terry Pratchett's fortieth Discworld novel tackles many of the author's favorite themes, the heart of which can be found in one of his quotations: "It was funny how people were people everywhere you went, even if the people concerned weren't the people the people who made up the phrase 'people are people everywhere' had traditionally thought of as people."  Part of what makes Pratchett a great writer is how well he does people: human people, dwarf people, troll people, goblin people, golem people...they're all people.  They're all frightened-clever-ambitious-earnest-conniving-brave

This sequel to Shadow and Bone takes all of the high adventure and dark drama of the first book and cranks it up to 11. The story starts off quietly for a chapter or two and then suddenly kicks the reader into a fast-paced, slam-bang, snarktastic rollercoaster ride that doesn't let up until the end of the novel. And the end...my heart was pounding and I was left breathless by the end of the book.

After the frantic ending of the first book, Siege and Storm opens with Alina and Mal on the run from the Darkling. Alina and Mal are very devoted to each other, but that doesn't stop them from

Shotgun Lovesongs​ revolves around Lee, Hank, Kip, and Ronny—four small-town friends in Little Wing, Michigan. They did everything together as kids and remained in each other's lives as adults, although they lead very different lives. Hank stays in Little Wing, marries his high school sweetheart, and takes over his family's farm. Ronny struggles with alcoholism, and an accident changes his life forever. Kip flees to Chicago to live the high life as a broker, but returns to Little Wing with his fiancée and buys the town mill. And Lee makes it as a successful singer, traveling the globe yet

When I first started reading The Bone Season I wasn’t sure I would like it. There was a fair amount of slang and the tone was dark. Even after finishing it, I can’t say it’ll be on my favorites list. And yet, it was compelling, drawing me in so I had to know how it would end. 

Of course, being the first book in a series it doesn’t really “end." Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the plot and felt for the characters. The Bone Season is a kind of alternate history/science fiction/urban fiction tale with a bit of steampunk thrown in. It takes place in England in the year 2059 and centers around

An unconventional telling of Jesus' forty days in the wilderness, Quarantine grips the reader in a mysterious world of deception and dream. We follow six characters' sojourn in the desert: a merchant and his wife, a wealthy but barren Jewish woman, an elderly Jewish man suffering from a tumor, a madman from the east, a philosophical young Greek, and Jesus the Galilean. It is a believable work of historical fiction with a twist of suspense. At the end the reader is left to interpret the meaning of events.

Crace's writing holds nothing back, exposing his characters' raw and unflattering motives

Graham Nash’s autobiography captures the inner workings of three significant bands of the Sixties and Seventies: The Hollies; Crosby, Stills, & Nash; and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. It’s well worth the read.

Musical harmony was a trademark of the three groups. Nash may have named his first group after Buddy Holly, but his major influence came from the distinctive harmonies of the Everly Brothers, a 1950s and early Sixties Nashville duo that is mentioned several times in the course of the book. Crosby, Stills, and Nash astonished themselves when rehearsing Suite Judy Blue Eyes for the first

Bissonnette, certified career development coach for adults with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and author of Asperger’s Syndrome Workplace Survival Guide has created a handbook to guide adults with AS through the job search process to successful employment.  Her step by step guide walks the job searcher through researching different careers, networking, interviewing and new employment do’s and don’ts.  Focusing on tasks that are difficult for those with AS, Bissonnette breaks each step down into manageable tasks and gives hints, tips and encouragement for success.  Scripts to use for interviews

O’Toole, award winning author of Asperkids and The Asperkid’s (Secret) Book of Social Rules, a social worker, teacher, mother of three Asperkids and an Aspie herself, has developed a “how-to” guide for parents of children with Asperger Syndrome (AS) on how to best structure their home life to support their AS kids.  O’Toole’s instructional manual demonstrates the importance of structuring the home life and everyday tasks (or chores) around the house so that children with AS can feel confident, successful and comfortable thus reducing their stress and building self-esteem.  This visual

Becca Merritt needs help.  Her younger brother and only remaining family member is missing, leaving her a cryptic message which leads her to a tattoo shop called Hard Ink and Nick Rixey, former member of her late father’s Special Forces team.  Unknown to Becca, Nick has hard feelings toward her late father and, based on those feelings, dismisses her request for assistance in finding her brother.  However, realizing that there really is something going on and that Becca is in danger, Nick's Special Forces training and protective instincts kick in and he can’t leave Becca to fend for herself no

Lili DeLuca set aside her plans for grad school and took over managing her family’s Italian restaurant when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Now that her mother has completed her treatment, Lili, bullied as a child because she was heavy, still has a hard time believing that she should pursue her photography career instead of continuing to manage the failing family restaurant.  When she discovers Jack Kilroy, famous chef, has picked her father’s restaurant to be the showcase for his new television series pitting Jack against Lili’s father in a cooking contest. Lili finds things

Weather—a fact of nature we all live with. The extremes of this past winter are a hot topic from the news to neighborly conversations. But rarely does weather become such a dominating life force as it did for almost a decade from 1931 to 1939 in the southwest plains—the Dust Bowl. In The Worst Hard Time Pulitzer Prize winner Timothy Egan takes us back to a time we think we know and delves so deeply that we come away with a new respect for the people who lived through the “dirty thirties.”



He begins with a history of the area that covers the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, western Colorado

Proctor pulls no punches in his 600 page depiction of the cigarette industry. He paints cigarette manufacturing as an industry that addicts over 80 percent of its users, kills half the people who use the product as directed, kills 400,000 Americans each year, kills 50,000 Americans a year through second-hand smoke, corrupts science, corrupts government, and corrupts the legal profession. Still, it is a legal industry.  American addiction to cigarettes began in the early 20th Century with the advent of the match, an instant flame. Most of the book concentrates on the cigarette industry’s

This book is such a great and eerie read. Hoffman’s work of historical fiction paints a despairing portrait of two lives which become intertwined through a series of odd events. Coralie is a disfigured girl who is forced to perform as a mermaid in her father’s Museum of Extraordinary Things on Coney Island. She longs for a normal life and yet is able to find friendship among all of the other abnormal employees, especially the housekeeper Maureen. Ezekiel is a young son of an immigrant Russian Jew who watches his father be forced to work in unsafe working conditions while making hardly any

Charlie, a modern-day Holden Caulfield, reminds me of myself when I was an uber-angsty adolescent. That’s the good thing about reading Young Adult Fiction as a middle aged adult: you have a broader worldview which allows you to appreciate teenage angst in a deeper way. You’ve been there and back. You’ve lived through it. You know there’s a way out. You understand.

Charlie is looking for understanding. He feels out of place. His only friend in middle school killed himself last year. He’s starting high school, anxious and friendless. He works up the courage to sit next to two seniors, Patrick

Through his organization Edge Foundation, John Brockman asks academics and artists to respond to a provocative question about science that will bring something new to a discussion.

This year he asks: What should we be worried about? One hundred and fifty contributors – many well-known, others less famous – take us on short trips to a land of anxiety, detailing fears we might never have otherwise known existed.  Should we worry about the loss of humility, radio leakage, maniacal robots and the black hole of finance? Shouldn’t we also burden our worries with the worry about worry? What about

Delia Ephron has written an entertaining group of personal essays that range from the deeply touching to the absurdly humorous in Sister Mother Husband Dog, (etc.)  The first essay in the book is a tribute to her late sister, the writer Nora Ephron.  The two sisters worked together writing  screenplays for several popular movies, including You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Certainly she writes of her sister in a loving way, but she also shares with us the humanness of the relationship – the jealousy and the competition. Another of the more heartfelt essays titled, “Why I Can’t Write

The day after Liyana experiences her first kiss, her father announces that he is moving the family from St. Louis, to his birthplace, Jerusalem. Liyana leaves everything she knows behind, and everything that won't fit in a few boxes and embarks on an adventure to experience a different kind of life.

In Jerusalem there are no white picket fences, or green lawns. Her father works as a doctor in a hospital, her mother stays home and Liyana and her brother are sent to different schools. Liyana carefully dips her toes in the sights, sounds, smells and tastes around her, soaking up the new culture

This book is a combination of short stories of Niequist's life with a focus on difficulties having children. She is a woman of faith and relates her stories to spiritual lessons which she realized after each individual experience. Almost every chapter is tied to a specific dish which she cooked for a particular experience and she includes recipes at the end of the chapters. I thought that this book was interesting because it was an intimate portrait of a woman's struggle with being thankful for what she had while wanting a larger family. Her stories were well-written and provides readers with

If you're anything like me, you've spent too much time thinking, "I want to be a writer/artist/musician/craftsperson," and not enough time thinking, "I am a writer/artist/musician/craftsperson." Maybe you spend time writing, drawing, painting, playing music, knitting, doing woodwork, making collages, but, because you aren't doing it full-time or professionally, because you think what you've created isn't wildly original and brilliant, you think of yourself as someone who "wants to be" instead of someone who is an artist. Which is pretty silly, because all creative types, even the most famous

Adam scores the ultimate tickets to the last concert of rock star Jimmy Earle. How does he know that it is Jimmy's last concert? Because Jimmy has taken Death, the latest and greatest drug on the street. Live one glorious week on the high of your life...then die. Adam and his girlfriend Lizzie are there to see Earle give the performance of a lifetime, then die on stage. As the crowd goes wild, the two escape the area to find masked members of the Zealots handing out Death capsules on the street.

Without hope for a better future, thousands of young people around Lizzie and Adam happily accept

Ananna is the only daughter of the leaders of the Tanarau pirate clan. When her parents try to marry her off to the son of the Hariri clan, Ananna chooses to flee both families and the arranged marriage. The Hariri are so angered, they send a magic-using assassin after her. But when the assassin, Naji, confronts Ananna and she accidentally saves his life, he becomes bound to her through a powerful, magical curse. They set out on a quest to break this "impossible curse," all the while fleeing the angry Hariri clan and strange, otherwordly beings with a mysterious agenda.

The Assassin's Curse i