City of Thieves is one of those books recommended to me time and again, and I always think, "Oh yes, I must read this," and then I never get around to it. But after stumbling across the audio version and seeing that it was narrated by Ron Perlman, I knew I couldn't delay any longer. I'm so glad I didn't. City starts with Lev, our hero, discovering a dead German paratrooper frozen on the streets of Leningrad. The year is 1941 and the Russians are under siege from the Nazis, starving and freezing to death in bitterly large numbers.
The BBC America series Orphan Black is about...well, it's difficult to say what it's about without giving away spoilers. The first episode opens with a young, streetwise grifter named Sarah arriving at a train station, where she witnesses another woman folding her clothes carefully on the platform and taking off her shoes. The woman turns, looks at Sarah...and Sarah sees her own face looking back at her. Then the identical woman walks in front of an oncoming train to her death.
No one thought the exiled half-goblin son of the emperor would ever inherit the throne. Not even Maia himself. But when his father and three brothers are killed in an airship crash (which may not have been an accident), Maia is thrust into an environment for which he is ill prepared. With no friends nor allies to guide him, the new emperor struggles to find supporters amidst those who would see him deposed, or worse dead...
Four Girl is unwanted and unloved by her family. Seen as a demon-child, her family practically gives her up as a lost cause. Four girl, searching for acceptance discovers catholic missionaries near her small Chinese village. After one exceptionally harsh experience with her grandfather, Four runs into the forest and sees a vision of Jeanne D'Arc. As Four distances herself from her family, and grows closer to the missionaries visions of Jeanne come more often, offering peace and guidance.
In a spotless suburban home in Ireland, a man and two children are found dead, and a badly-wounded woman is rushed to the hospital. They are residents of Broken Harbor, a nearly-abandoned new development left in the lurch after the housing crisis. This is how Detective Mick “Scorcher” Kennedy finds the Spain family, and has his chance to be top detective on the murder squad. In addition to taking on the biggest case of the year, he has a rookie, Richie Curran, to break in.
This memoir recounts the story of Malika Oufkir, whose father was the closest aide to the King of Morocco. We follow Malika from the age of five, as she is raised in the palace as the princess’ companion. While life in the harem is a kind of imprisonment itself, it is nothing compared to what awaits her, her mother, and her siblings after her father is executed for an attempt to assassinate the King.
Holly George-Warren’s new biography on Alex Chilton, A Man Called Destruction: the Life and Music of Alex Chilton From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man, is a true cautionary tale, especially if you’re planning on becoming a rock star. Talent and hard work don’t always translate to success. What you do, no matter how good it is, can be so anachronistic as to render your hard work audience-less for decades. Drugs and alcohol can really mess things up (duh).
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.
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.
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.
