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In the current political climate, one might think the transition from comedy writer to politician would be rather seamless. In Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, Franken describes his struggles trying to get elected by the people of Minnesota in 2008, the balance he has been able to find when working with ideologically opposed members of congress, the work ethic that enabled him to more easily secure re-election in 2014, and the current political climate in Washington.

Franken's latest book is, of course, humorous with several moments where I laughed out loud or held the person nearest to me

The Reminders is a story about loss, friendship, and recovery. It’s told in the alternating perspectives of Gavin, a man in his late thirties whose partner has recently died; and Joan, a 10 year old girl whose parents are old college friends of Gavin's.

Shortly after Gavin's partner dies he becomes overwhelmed by the reminders of their life together and throws their belongings into the yard and sets them on fire. A neighbor takes a video of it and it makes the news. Joan's parents happen to see this and insist that Gavin come and stay with them for a while.

Joan can recall every detail of

If you enjoy the television series Blacklist and black-ops stories you will enjoy this surprise offering from Twilight author Stephenie Meyer.

The Chemist is a former black ops government employee known for her ability to use various drugs, poisons and their antidotes to chemically torture people with information the government needs. However, "The Chemist" has been on the run since discovering that those in charge are perhaps operating by their own agenda and survival depends on disappearing. Once you get past the initial few chapters the story takes off and doesn't let up until the final

Fans of Khaled Hosseini’s earlier works will not be disappointed in this continuing story of a culture he knows well: the people of Afghanistan.

And the Mountains Echoed opens with a father telling a story from Iranian Mythology to his children. It's a story about a poor farmer who is forced to give up one of his beloved children to a div (evil giant), and it sets the stage for the emotional rollercoaster that follows. Each character lives with his own brand of misery and a heart-wrenching grief that ties them together. How much can any of us do to relieve the suffering of others? How much

Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors, and she does not disappoint with The Lake House. The story moves through several time periods beginning in the present when Detective Sadie Sparrow (who is on enforced leave from the department due to leaking a hunch to the media) goes to Cornwall to stay with her granddad. There she discovers the remains of a grand estate buried in the woods, and her curiosity is piqued. She learns that the estate was abandoned in the wake of the disappearance of the one-year-old son of the house, who was never found. The detective in Sadie rises to the fore, and she

Beginning when Gus and his twin brother were born and continuing to the present, Newman shares her sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always insightful and upbeat recollections of their lives. She touches on many of the issues with autism, but To Siri With Love is not a "how to" book. It is a positive, yet honest look into one family's journey with autism, and among others, how technology, especially Siri, is helpful to Gus. Most helpful is Siri's ability to talk with Gus ad nauseam about whatever he is interested in at the time, be it trains and train schedules, erosion, or climate change

Originally released in 1945, Ross Poldark is the first of a twelve-part series that explores the Cornwall of a couple hundred years earlier. The story follows Ross Poldark, a man recently returned home from America after the Revolutionary War to find the life he was expecting unrecognizable. Ross does what he can with his current options and begins laboring to bring his land and home back to their previous conditions. Ross encounters Demelza, a girl with a troubled background, and offers her a place in his home as a kitchen maid. Demelza agrees, but only if she can bring her dog (my kind of

There’s no denying that women have made great strides since the days when Joan Cleaver dominated our stereotype. Today’s women can have it all—a successful and demanding career, a passionate, healthy marriage, and a rewarding home life complete with 2.3 children and a white picket fence. We can be power CEO’s during the day and domestic queens by night. Or can we? Women’s Liberation gave this freedom to women, but as we learned in the late 80’s from Hochschild and Machung and their theory of the Second Shift, this isn’t quite the emancipation we had imagined. In Dropping the Ball, Chief

Have you read every book Laura Ingalls Wilder has ever written? Did you watch every season of Little House on the Prairie over and over again and can you hear Melissa Gilbert cry “Pa!” just as clear as can be?  Did you even read Roger Lea MacBride's spinoff series about Laura’s daughter, Rose? Perhaps you’ve visited all the museums and still have documentation stating you belong to a LHOTP fan club you joined as a child. If you're nodding your head yes to everything I've asked you should pull out your calico bonnet and curl up in your distressed rocking chair with Caroline. Caroline is a

When it comes to nonfiction science books, I definitely have a "type." (I blame Mary Roach for this.) And when I heard that  I Contain Multitudes could teach me something about the world around me with engaging clarity and humor, I needed to read it. In it, Ed Yong explores the interconnected web of life that's built on microbes--long thought to be a threat to life, but now known to be a key part of it. Through this lens, we learn to look at ourselves not just as the static result of a specific set of DNA, but as evolving communities of interdependent organisms. Much has been written about

When Steve Jenkins agrees to adopt an abandoned micro pig from an old friend, he has no idea that his life is about to drastically change forever. Rather than maxing out at 70 pounds, the wee “micro pig” turns out to be a commercial sow who grows to a whopping 600 pounds. As Esther grows in size, Steve and his partner transform from bacon-eating and city-dwelling folks to buying and operating a farm to use as a sanctuary for animals in need of a safe home. Happily Ever Esther Farm Sanctuary is located in Canada, and you can keep up with the farm on one of Esther the Wonder Pig’s many popular

Well, that was cheerful and uplifting.

Er, no, that's not quite right. More like bleak, biting, and darkly satirical.

And far too real.

Though science fiction set in a near future, this is all about living at the lowest levels of the global economy, subject to extremes of imperialism, inequality, ethnocentrism, co-option, and poverty. It's an exploration of the dark sides of economic and cultural power. It's just that in this case it's the humans of Earth who have been colonized.

"You think you're so great," says Chloe. "You're no one, Adam. You're nothing."

I laugh politely. "No, Chlo

Here’s a familiar situation that we’ve all been in -  you see someone you know that has recently lost a loved one, or is going through a serious illness, or recently got divorced and that little voice in your head says “do I say something or not . . .  I don’t know them that well . . . what do I say that won’t make matters worse . . . . " Well, here’s a practical and humorous guide encouraging us to go ahead, reach out and fumble; it’s better than not reaching out at all!

In short, colorful chapters, the authors share examples of their “Three Touchstones of Showing Up” – your kindness is your

I despised cheerleaders when I was a teenager. They were the ones who bullied my outcast friends and me. They were so—well—cheery. Didn't they notice that the world all around us is falling apart? I’m much older and somewhat wiser now, so I understand that it’s dumb to assume that all members of a group of people are the same. I comprehend that just because the particular cheerleaders I knew in high school were mean doesn't mean that all cheerleaders are mean. I mean, I try to stay open-minded. Still, cheerleaders. Blech. How superficial, boring, and dumb.  

Needless to say, I never noticed

We know the media story of the West African Ebola outbreak of 2014, but we don’t know the other story. Author, Dr. Steven Hatch focuses less on the virus itself, which was the subject of Hot Zone by Richard Preston, and instead focuses on stories of daily life under the stress of the epidemic. Less is mentioned about the specific symptoms, and more time is spent on the remarkable strength of those touched by the virus: those confirmed with it, those who help them, and everyone else affected by its contagion.

Inferno adds a steady voice to a subject that needs a calm and clear telling. That

Dr. Adam Price has twenty-five years of experience with children and adolescents, especially boys, and his experience shows. He's Not Lazy details how and why an adolescent boy’s brain is often behind, they fear of failure, often "opt out". They opt out by procrastinating, losing themselves in the world of video games, or appearing ambivalent towards everything.

Dr. Price concentrates mostly on high school teens, but I found a lot of it very useful for my twelve-year old, and plan to revisit this book often during his high school years. There are some great worksheets to be used by both

What could be the advantage of a diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Psychiatrist Archer (Better Than Normal) shares his experiences in living with and treating thousands of patients with ADHD. Archer also includes accounts of other innovative self-starters; highly successful individuals who just happened to have been diagnosed with ADHD such as the founder of Jet Blue David Neeleman, John Chambers CEO of Cisco, and business mogul Sir Richard Branson, not to mention entertainers and celebrities like Pink, Ty Pennington and Adam Levine. Most of those profiled use

Jacob Denisov sits alone in his darkened home, waiting for death. Torture at the hands of North Koreans has left him with little will to survive. Surprisingly, death does not come when a car crashes into his house, landing just inches from Jacob. For Maddie Hewitson, driving into a house is just the latest episode of odd behavior she has experienced since coming to Virtue Falls, Washington. For Maddie and Jacob, this first meeting is the spark that will allow them both to heal and discover new life and love together.

Because I’m Watching seventh in the Virtue Falls series of romantic suspense

As one who did not grow up with the internet, I was interested to see what Turkle's opinion is on where we began and where we currently are concerning the internet and how it has changed us.

Turkle’s writing is wonderfully readable and she has done a great job of translating facts and statistics into tangible, real-life scenarios we can all relate to in one way or another. One of the more interesting points Turkle makes in Alone Together, is that the average person might think with the explosion of an ever increasingly sophisticated technology, coupled with sites like Facebook and Twitter

Richard Preston’s work of narrative nonfiction transported me to a place rarely seen by humans. Invisible from the ground, in the canopy of giant redwoods, exists a forest within a forest. Until recently the canopy was thought to be desert like, but thanks to the ecologists, botanists and naturalists depicted in Wild Trees, we now know, in the criss-crossed branches and burned out voids, the redwood nourishes many forms of life -- smaller trees and ferns grow in collected pockets of earth, a rainbow of lichen drip from the trunks and branches, and a particular type of salamander spends its

As a director of Search at Microsoft, Stefan Weitz, in his book Search, focuses on the future of predictive search that cuts out the human action necessary to utilize current search options and applications. Now, one can search for services, but the user has to take action in order to obtain them. In the future, Weitz posits that the system will know the user well enough to cut out this middle step. Through the capable web, people will be able to “take action, not just find information” (pg. 8).



Weitz refers to search as a “hinge” between the abilities of humans and machines, bridging the

Hoda Kotb, winner of a Daytime Emmy Award as part of The Today Show, has penned Where We Belong, a collection of stories about people who were feeling unfulfilled, yet were able to get things back on track by simply following their own desires and passions. While some of the examples she shares are about extraordinary people with money and connections, there are also instances of everyday people with seemingly nothing more than a burning ambition to change their lives and the lives of others for the better.

You’ll come away inspired and testing your own feelings and asking yourself if you are

A majority of Moonglow's plot focuses on a Jewish grandfather reminiscing on his deathbed to his grandson Mike, an author. 

There are stories about the Holocaust, rockets, the Challenger explosion, hunting a dog-eating snake, and the 18 months the grandfather spent in prison after a fit of rage at his job. As a reader, we aren’t given all the details of every story. We know Mike’s dad is out of the picture, but we can tell what kind of father he was by what he packed in a suitcase for his son when dropping him off at the grandparents’ house:  pajama tops, swim trunks, a fake leather vest from

Having never experienced life in a rehab center I cannot speak to the authenticity or veracity of the setting Benjamin Alire Sáenz creates in, Last Night I Sang To The Monster. 18 year-old Zach is an alcoholic who comes out of a black out in a treatment center with no memory of how he got there. I can say the novel is populated by memorable characters who are engaged in emotionally resonant relationships in a visceral setting. And in those respects, Sáenz has succeeded in crafting a very effective and moving novel. While not all aspects of the novel work perfectly, it is clear that Sáenz has

The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is not what I expected, but I wasn't disappointed, either. The twelve previously published magazine stories are similar to Holmes mysteries, but not all involve crimes. Grann immerses himself in his work, reporting on his subjects’ history, and detailing his own interactions with them.

While I initially anticipated a series of murder-mysteries, the people in The Devil and Sherlock Holmes are what piqued my curiosity. Each tale focuses on the backstory of the character and provides some context to Grann’s interviews and interest in them. There are enough facts to

I’ve probably packed for hundreds of trips - long and short, near and far - and I feel like I’ve done a pretty decent job, but after reading this short book by girl on the go, Hitha Palepu, I’ve learned or been reminded of a few tips that I hope will make packing and traveling on my next trip a bit easier and slightly more organized, like:

• If you travel a lot and don’t like waiting in line, for a small fee you can join TSA precheck and Global Entry and beat the crowds.
• Don’t use the water in the plane bathroom to brush your teeth, as the containers that hold the water aren’t cleaned

Renée Ballard works the overnight shift at LA's  Hollywood station aka The Late Show. Cops on this shift don't get to follow their cases - they respond to calls, get information and start the paperwork for the daytime crews to take over. This is why it's considered a punishment for cops that have screwed up in some way. It's rather unfulfilling, and Ballard struggles against this - she's a good cop, and wants to finish a case. She finds a way to keep working on all three of the cases she gets a call out on. One of the cases is a credit card theft that seems pretty straight forward, another is

Hurricane Harvey in the news raises the relevance of this novel to a category five. The fact that we're bringing Julie Murphy--one of the best contemporary realistic fiction authors in the country--to town for a Meet the Author visit means you must put this book on your radar. I listened to the audio version. It's fantastic. The narrator is a perfect fit for Ramona's voice. Ramona is a high school senior living with her overworked and underpaid father and her nineteen-year-old pregnant sister in a too-small trailer in Eulogy, Mississippi, right off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. When Ramona

Arrowood is a grand mansion on the banks where the Des Moines River meets the Mississippi River. Arden Arrowood spent her childhood living in the family home until the tragic disappearance of her two-year old twin sisters drove her family to abandon the house. Now, almost 20 years later, Arden returns to  Arrowood and the memories of her childhood and her sisters. Will she finally be able to find out what happened on that fateful day so long ago?

Arrowood is an absorbing story with a strong lead character that holds your interest throughout. The sense of place (the mansion on the river and

A Foxfire Christmas is an amazing collection of Christmas traditions from the people of Appalachia; food, gifts, decorations, and preparations. It also includes a wonderful compilation of interviews by Georgia High School students.

Learn how to make dough ornaments, simple crafts, and hear stories from elders who have spent their entire lives in the mountains. Holiday recipes are a big part of the Christmas holidays and these have been passed down for many generations.