Evelyn S. Field Library Blog

New Books - December 2017

Fiction

The last ballad by Wiley Cash

PS3603.A86525 L37 2017

"The eagerly awaited next novel from the author of the New York Times bestselling A Land More Kind Than Home, about a young mother desperately trying to hold her family together in the years before the Great Depression, a haunting and moving story of cowardice, courage and sacrifice"-- Provided by publisher.

Origin: a novel by Dan Brown

PS3552.R685434 O74 2017

Robert Langdon, Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconology, arrives at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao to attend the unveiling of a discovery that "will change the face of science forever". The evening's host is his friend and former student, Edmond Kirsch, a forty-year-old tech magnate whose dazzling inventions and audacious predictions have made him a controversial figure around the world. This evening is to be no exception: he claims he will reveal an astonishing scientific breakthrough that will answer two of the fundamental questions of human existence. But the meticulously orchestrated evening suddenly erupts into chaos. Langdon is forced into a desperate bid to escape Bilbao. With him is Ambra Vidal, the elegant museum director who worked with Kirsch to stage the provocative event. Together they flee to Barcelona on a perilous quest to locate a cryptic password that will unlock Kirsch's secret. Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain's Royal Palace itself.

The girl who takes an eye for an eye by David Lagercrantz, George Goulding (Translator), Stieg Larsson

PT9877.22 A44 M3613 2017

Lisbeth Salander has been forged by a brutal childhood and horrific abuse. And repeated attempts on her life. The ink embedded in her skin is a constant reminder of her pledge to fight against the injustice she finds on every side. Confinement to the secure unit of a women's prison is intended as a punishment. Instead, Lisbeth finds herself in relative safety. Flodberga is a failing prison, effectively controlled by the inmates, and for a computer hacker of her exceptional gifts, there are no boundaries. Mikael Blomkvist makes the long trip to visit every week--and receives a lead to follow for his pains, one that could provide an important expose for Millennium. Salander tells him to check out Leo Mannheimer, a seemingly reputable stockbroker from Stockholm, somehow connected to the long-ago death of a child psychologist--and to the psychiatric unit where Lisbeth was an involuntary patient as a child. Lisbeth knows she is coming closer to solving the mysteries of her early life; and even within the confines of the prison, she feels the deadly influence exerted by her twin sister. Salander will stand up for what she believes in. She will find out the truth. Whatever the cost.

In the midst of winter: a novel by Isabel Allende, Nick Caistor, Amanda Hopkinson

PQ8098.1.L54 M3713 2017

In the middle of a snowstorm in Brooklyn, 60-year-old human rights scholar Richard Bowmaster hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young, undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. What at first seems just a small inconvenience takes a far more serious turn when Evelyn turns up at the professor's house seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant Lucia Maraz, a 62-year-old lecturer from Chile, for her advice. These three very different people are brought together in a story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story between Richard and Lucia.

Manhattan Beach: a novel by Jennifer Egan

PS3555.G292 M36 2017

Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family with the Great Depression underway. Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father's life, the reasons he might have vanished.-- Adapted from book jacket.

Nonfiction

Endurance: a year in space, a lifetime of discovery by Scott Kelly, Margaret Lazarus Dean

TL789.85.K45 A3 2017

The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home -- an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight. Here we see the triumph of the human imagination, the strength of the human will, and the boundless wonder of the galaxy.

The last castle: the epic story of love, loss, and American royalty in the nation's largest home by Denise Kiernan

F264.A8 K54 2017

Documents the story of the Gilded Age mansion Biltmore, tracing George Vanderbilt's construction of his European-style estate and the efforts of his bride, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, to become its protector in the face of changing fortunes and times.

Soonish: ten emerging technologies that'll improve and/or ruin everything by Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weiner

T174 .W543 2017

"From a top scientist and the creator of the hugely popular web comic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, a hilariously illustrated investigation into future technologies--from how to fling a ship into deep space on the cheap to 3D organ printing. What will the world of tomorrow be like? How does progress happen? And why do we not have a lunar colony already? What is the holdup? In this smart and funny book, celebrated cartoonist Zach Weinersmith and noted researcher Dr. Kelly Weinersmith give us a snapshot of what's coming next--from robot swarms to nuclear-fusion-powered toasters. By weaving their own research, interviews with the scientists who are making these advances happen, and Zach's trademark comics, the Weinersmiths investigate why these technologies are needed, how they would work, and what is standing in their way. New technologies are almost never the work of isolated geniuses with a neat idea. A given future technology may need any number of intermediate technologies to develop first, and many of these critical advances may appear to be irrelevant when they are first discovered. The journey to progress is full of strange detours and blind alleys that tell us so much about the human mind and the march of civilization. To this end, SOONISH investigates ten different emerging fields, from programmable matter to augmented reality, from space elevators to robotic construction, to show us the amazing world we will have, you know, soonish."--Jacket.

The storm before the storm: the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic by Michael Duncan 

DG254 .D86 2017

The creator of the podcast series “The History of Rome and Revolutions” brings to life the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic was one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of civilization. Beginning as a small city-state in central Italy, Rome gradually expanded into a wider world filled with petty tyrants, barbarian chieftains, and despotic kings. Through the centuries, Rome's model of cooperative and participatory government remained remarkably durable and unmatched in the history of the ancient world. In 146 BC, Rome finally emerged as the strongest power in the Mediterranean. But the very success of the Republic proved to be its undoing. The republican system was unable to cope with the vast empire Rome now ruled: rising economic inequality disrupted traditional ways of life, endemic social and ethnic prejudice led to clashes over citizenship and voting rights, and rampant corruption and ruthless ambition sparked violent political clashes that cracked the once indestructible foundations of the Republic. Chronicling the years 146-78 BC, Michael Duncan dives headlong into the first generation to face this treacherous new political environment. Abandoning the ancient principles of their forbearers, men like Marius, Sulla, and the Gracchi brothers set dangerous new precedents that would start the Republic on the road to destruction and provide a stark warning about what can happen to a civilization that has lost its way.