Library Loot

It was a rainy library day here in San Leandro. It was nice, though - the rain sounds really beautiful on the skylights in the downtown San Leandro Public Library. It is such a nice building. It makes me happy to go in there. Today was also a great library day in terms of getting great stuff to read. Here's what I got:

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. A spellbinding novel, at once sweeping and intimate, from the Booker Prize–winning author of Possession, that spans the Victorian era through the World War I years, and centers around a famous children’s book author and the passions, betrayals, and secrets that tear apart the people she loves.

Jericho's Fall by Stephen L. Carter. In an imposing house in the Colorado Rockies, Jericho Ainsley, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency and a Wall Street titan, lies dying. He summons to his beside Beck DeForde, the younger woman for whom he threw away his career years ago, miring them both in scandal. Beck believes she is visiting to say farewell. Instead, she is drawn into a battle over an explosive secret that foreign governments and powerful corporations alike want to wrest from Jericho before he dies.

Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child. New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn’t. In the next few tense seconds Reacher will make a choice–and trigger an electrifying chain of events in this gritty, gripping masterwork of suspense by #1 New York Times bestseller Lee Child.

Past Imperfect by Julian Fellowes. Nearly forty years later, the narrator hates Damian Baxter and would gladly forget their disastrous last encounter. But if it is pleasant to hear from an old friend, it is more interesting to hear from an old enemy, and so he accepts an invitation from the rich and dying Damian, who begs him to track down the past girlfriend whose anonymous letter claimed he had fathered a child during that ruinous debutante season.

Little Face by Sophie Hannah. The first time she goes out after their daughter is born, Alice leaves the two-week-old infant at home with her husband, David. When she returns two hours later, she insists that the baby in the crib is not her child. Despite her apparent distress, David is adamant that she is wrong.

Hurting Distance by Sophie Hannah. A serial rapist relies on successful career women's shame to insulate him from punishment. Then one of them sets out to find her missing lover, a married man, and in so doing exposes a sinister plot.

Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo by Werner Herzog. One of the most revered filmmakers of our time, Werner Herzog wrote this diary during the making of Fitzcarraldo, the lavish 1982 film that tells the story of a would-be rubber baron who pulls a steamship over a hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. Later, Herzog spoke of his difficulties when making the film, including casting problems, reshoots, language barriers, epic clashes with the star, and the logistics of moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects.

Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stores of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual edited by Loren Rhoads. A highly original anthology featuring true stories of the unsavory, unwise, unorthodox and unusual, originally published in Morbid Curiosity magazine.