Small Great Things is the story of Ruth Jefferson, an African American labor and delivery nurse with twenty years of experience working in hospitals on the East coast. When a couple requests that no person of color touch their baby, the hospital complies and assigns a new nurse. But later, due to an emergency, Ruth is left in the nursery by herself, and the baby goes into cardiac arrest. She hesitates before performing CPR, but there is no way to save the baby.
It is 1974 and Gwendy Peterson is a twelve-year-old living in Castle Rock, Maine. She meets a strange man named Richard Farris, who says he has been watching Gwendy and that she is the person to whom he is entrusting a button box. The box has eight buttons and two levers. Farris is vague about the function of the buttons, but Gwendy quickly comes to her own conclusion about what they do. Almost immediately, she learns the result of pulling each lever, and is eager to repeat this for the prizes she receives.
My Boyfriends’ Dogs begins with Bailey Daley running through the rain in a wedding dress. She’s drenched and has three dogs in tow. Hoping to get out of the rain she ducks into a diner, where she meets the restaurant owners, Louis and Nikki. She then spends the evening explaining to them how she acquired each pup.
The North Water is beyond dark. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road looks like a leisurely stroll through a park on Sunday compared to this gruesome novel about a 19th century whaling expedition. The Volunteer is heading out on a six month voyage to northern waters, where hopefully all the whales haven’t been killed yet.
Line of Duty is a British cop show that follows the internal affairs unit as they attempt to flush out corruption in their own ranks. In the first series, Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott is transferred to the anti-corruption squad after he refuses to participate in the cover-up of a botched counter-terrorism raid.
I am a re-reader. Whether I’m in a reading funk, or waiting for an author’s new release, I would rather pick up a book I’ve read before than take a chance on something new. I don’t know if it’s the comfort of knowing what’s going to happen or the chance to revisit favorite characters that appeals to me, but this habit tends to get me in trouble when I’m trying to weed my book collection.
If the John Steuart Curry image of a crazed John Brown at the state capital and those gigantic Van Gogh sunflowers are the only murals that come to mind, you will be delightfully surprised by this artful trip through Kansas. This is a treasure trove, a mini tour of the state via its murals: painted and mosaic, new and old.
Riley Callahan and Paige Warren were best friends and spent many summers together growing up in Summer Harbor. One summer Paige came back from camp all grown up, and Riley fell in love with her and was determined to tell about his feelings. But then Paige fell for his older brother, Beau. Riley could not watch the love of his life go to his brother, so he joined the Marines. Riley would often remind himself that a Marine needs to improvise, adapt, and overcome. And he has to do just that upon returning home as a veteran and amputee with PTSD.
