Staff Picks

If you love a good ghost story, you’ll really enjoy Jennifer McMahon’s latest novel, The Winter People! The author puts a unique spin on the age old question: "If you could, would you want someone you loved to return from the dead, even if only for a short time?"

The year is 1908 and Sara Harrison Shea lives in West Hall, Vermont. Her daughter, 8-year-old Gertie, has been found at the bottom of a deep and abandoned well on their farm property. Sara's gut-wrenching grief is all consuming. In the present day, Fawn and Ruthie live with their mother, Alice, in the same farmhouse where Sara grieved so long ago. One day, Alice goes missing, and as the girls search for clues, they stumble upon an old diary hidden in the floorboards, along with a strange cache of other mysterious items.  Will these items help them find Alice, or perhaps even shed some light on the past? This creepy and suspenseful page-turner will keep you up reading late into the night, but only if you keep the lights on!

Beth Moore
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

As a best-selling novelist submits her latest manuscript -- and causes controversy by revising the endings of her earlier works- her estranged rock-star son is arrested for murder.  These surviving members of a once happy family of four open up all their old wounds in their search for answers to an ever-deepening mystery.

With a fascinating look at celebrity culture and insights into the literary life, The Nobodies Album is a mystery full of family drama.

Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist

Staff Picks

How you view Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother really depends on your own parenting style.  This engaging memoir highlights the differences in Chinese and American parenting styles.  (I know I wouldn’t have enjoyed growing up in Amy Chua’s home but I did enjoy reading about her struggles.)

Like many mothers Amy seems at odds with herself as she defends and doubts her daily choices, most of them regarding pushing her daughters in their artistic pursuits.  Filled with memorable anecdotes, Battle Hymn illustrates the difficulty in striking a balance between parental expectations and modern realities.

Here are a few of my favorite passages from the book.

It’s not easy to make your kids work when they don’t want to, to put in grueling hours when your own youth is slipping away, to convince your kids they can do something when they (and maybe even you) are fearful that they can’t.  “Do you know how many years you’ve taken off my life?” I’m constantly asking my girls.  “You’re both lucky that I have enormous longevity as indicated by my thick good-luck earlobes.”

Unlike my Western friends, I can never say, “As much it kills me, I just have to let my kids make their choices and follow their hearts.  It’s the hardest thing in the world, but I’m doing my best to hold back.”  Then they get to have a glass of wine and go to a yoga class whereas I have to stay home and scream and have my kids hate me.

…Chinese parenting is incredibly lonely—at least if you’re trying to do it in the West, where you’re on your own.  You have to go up against an entire value system --- rooted in the Enlightenment, individual autonomy, child development theory, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--- and there’s no one you can talk to honestly, not even people you like and deeply respect”

Whether the Chua children are the beneficiaries of Chinese parenting or its victims is one question readers will have to decide for themselves though it wouldn’t surprise me if either of the high-achieving youngsters grew up to pen their own memoir one day.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

A girl watched, fascinated, as her mother smoothed cold cream on her face.  "Why do you do that?" she asked. "To make myself beautiful," said the mother, who began removing the cream with a tissue. "What's the matter?" asked the girl.  "Giving up?"

A woman and her husband interrupted their vacation to go to a dentist.  "I want a tooth pulled, and I don't want Novocain because I'm in a big hurry," the woman said.  "Just extract the tooth as quickly as possible, and we'll be on our way." The dentist was quite impressed.  "You're certainly a courageous woman," he said.  "Which tooth is it?" The woman turned to her husband and said, "Show him your tooth, dear."

The reading material at the barber shop consisted entirely of murder stories, mysteries, thrillers, and ghost tales. When I asked the barber if he wanted to terrify his customers he replied, "No, sir.  These books make the customers' hair stand up and then it becomes easier to trim and cut."

Did you hear about the race horse that was so late coming in, they had to pay the jockey time and a half?

Can't get enough?  Check out Reader's Digest Laughter, the Best Medicine for more.

Staff Picks

Talk about a must-read title!   The first chapter of Ron Ronson’s The Psychopath Test reads like the beginning of a science fiction novel-- one that I definitely couldn’t put down!   

When a group of Mensa-level strangers each receives a book of cryptic notes and M.C. Escher drawings from an unknown source they hire journalist Ron Ronson to find out why.  After a bit of detective work he offers the answer but it’s not what the sages were expecting.  

The effect of the hoax on the recipients becomes the starting point for a fascinating look at the definition of madness and the industry of labeling psychopaths.   Ronson even confronts a few individuals who just might qualify for the diagnosis.  It all makes for a very interesting read!

 Alicia Cavitt

Information Specialist

Staff Picks

If you enjoy philosophy and science, you may find these books by Alan Lightman to be just the right mix of the two.  He is considered by many to be a humanist-physicist.  Having been on the faculty of both Harvard and MIT, he brings a unique blend to his topics of science and the humanities.  He has written numerous novels, and several non-fiction titles.

Fiction Titles

The Diagnosis

Einstein's Dreams

Ghost

Reunion







Mr. g

Non-Fiction Titles

The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew

A Sense of the Mysterious:Science and the Human Spirit

The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science







Joan Dudzinski
Collection Support Supervisor

Book Sleuths

Once a world renowned surgeon, Dr. Jennifer White is now losing her mind to a dementia.   Could she be a killer?  Even Jennifer doesn’t know though there’s nearly enough circumstantial evidence to convict her when the body of Jennifer’s best friend Amanda is found with four fingers surgically (and skillfully!) removed.

Jennifer recalls her complicated relationship with Amanda --along with the rest of her life-- in bits and pieces.  Only in her rare moments of lucidity does she begin to suspect that some of her visitors aren’t disclosing what's really going on.

Alice LaPlante's Turn of Mind reveals the very personal struggles of a women suffering from dementia while facing the unthinkable.

FCPL's Book Sleuths Book Club will discuss this compelling mystery on Tuesday, March 25th at 2pm at the Post Road Library.   Please join us for this fascinating discussion.

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

Imagine Harry by Kate Klise is an adorable book about Little Rabbit and his imaginary best friend, Harry.  They do everything together, from climbing trees, rolling down hills, and enjoying their everyday snacks.  Little Rabbit loves playing with Harry but wonders what Harry will do when he starts school soon. Mother Rabbit takes Harry in as her own, supplying him with his own lemonade and cookies and she lets Little Rabbit stay up past his bedtime so Harry will not feel alone.  She warns Little Rabbit that when he starts school in the fall, Harry won't be able to have his own desk and will have to be very quiet. After school starts, Harry is so quiet and Little Rabbit becomes very interested in school and his new friends.  Eventually, Harry disappears and  Little Rabbit is okay with that... so is Mother Rabbit.  This is such a sweet story about a small child's transition from being at home with Mom to staring school for the first time.

Diana Wolski
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

Could you choose one cat out of millions of beautiful cats?  An old woman tells her husband she wants a cat.  The obedient man immediately leaves on a quest to find just the right cat for his beloved wife.  This task proves too difficult for the indecisive man. He cannot choose among the “hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats” that he sees covering every possible space on every hillside. As his journey progresses, he ends up looking like the Pied-Piper of cats with all those millions of cats following him home.  He cannot possibly take care of so many as they have already eaten an entire field of grass and lapped up a whole lake!  Seemingly incapable of choosing, the old man walks home with the parade of cats at his heels.

First published in 1928, Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag is still a fun read with catchy repetition and beautiful artwork.  Sweeping pen-and-ink drawings will delight any reader.  Little cat heads and bodies seem to make up entire hillsides.  The drawings of the old man with armfuls of cats (including one on his head) are imaginative.   The old man and the cats always seem to be walking to the next page, compelling the reader onward to a sweetly satisfying ending.

Children as young as four will enjoy having this story read aloud to them.  The old man tries so hard to find the “prettiest” cat only to see more and more just as pretty or more so.  Being satisfied with what you are given is a great lesson for any child to learn.  This book does so with style and without being preachy.

Kim Ottesen

Information Specialist - Youth Services

Staff Picks

Imagine competing in a dance marathon for 879 hours straight (36 1/2 days), where your only breaks come 10 minutes at a time.  That's what Robert Syverton and Gloria Beatty do in the classic short novel They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy.  This story of desperate people trying to win $1,000 during the height of the Great Depression is captivating.  It's included in the anthology Crime Novels: American Noir of the Thirties and Forties, which leads off with another classic short novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain.

Stephen Kight
Assistant Director for Public Services

Staff Picks

I love sharing my thoughts on newly published fiction but I know I’ll never top this evocative description of Amelia Gray’s novel Threats from author Doug Dorst.

“The first time I encountered Amelia Gray’s fiction, it slugged me in the jaw.   The second time and the third.  Said jaw-slugging has ensued nearly every time I’ve read something of hers, except for when instead it whispered sad and surprising but undeniable truths about the difficulty of intimacy and sense in the wretched blastoscape of modern life.  And then it made me a grilled cheese sandwich to prove that the world can be a kind place, and it waited until I had sated myself and wiped away the crumbs before slugging me in the jaw again.” 

I can’t think of any book that compares to Threats.  After the mysterious death of his wife, David begins finding bizarre threats everywhere he looks.  Here’s a sample:

MY TRUTH WILL BRING ATOMIC SNOW UPON YOUR SWEET-SMELLING LAMBS AND CHILDREN.

This one’s my favorite:

CURL UP ON MY LAP.  LET ME BRUSH YOUR HAIR WITH MY FINGERS.   I AM SINGING YOU A LULLABY.  I AM TESTING FOR STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS IN YOUR SKULL.

Like poor David (who probably wasn't entirely sane to begin with) you may question who or what is tormenting him.   You'll probably still be questioning it after you've finished.  This ghostish and surreal novel is hard to forget.

But if you're in the mood for even more creepy fiction...

The first few chapters of Robert J. Lennon’s novel Castle seem innocent enough as Eric Loesch returns to his hometown after an extended absence.   But tensions build when he meets the locals and vivid flashbacks reveal a bizarre backstory that’s not completely behind him yet.  Another chilling and mesmerizing psychological read!

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Staff Picks

History of...  Are you a History Channel buff, or just enjoy a good history adventure?

Here are a few titles that I've enjoyed and that touch upon so much more than just the main topic. Mark Kurlansky's titles will take you on a journey of discovery and a few culinary adventures.

Check out Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World or Salt: a Word History.

Simon Winchester will spin a British tale of mystery, while you will encounter the world of wordsmiths in The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Stone by Stone takes on not just the history of stone walls but the geological history of the region (and the reason they built the walls).  

Tom Standage will take you through history and around the world in a book that will quench the thirst of any history reader in A History of the World in Six Glasses.  Bon appétit!





Joan Dudzinski
Collection Support Supervisor