March is chockablock full of fun library adventures, so be
sure to check the calendar at www.eolib.org
to plan out your month! Meditation, yoga, a free author event , and more are
just a click on “Registration” away!
The Genre Reading Group met recently to discuss short story
collections.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • THE EMMY AWARD–WINNING HBO
MINISERIES STARRING FRANCES MCDORMAND, RICHARD JENKINS, AND BILL MURRAY
In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.
At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY
People • USA Today • The Atlantic • The Washington Post Book World • Seattle Post-Intelligencer • Entertainment Weekly • The Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle • Salon • San Antonio Express-News • Chicago Tribune • The Wall Street Journal
In a voice more powerful and compassionate than ever before, New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Strout binds together thirteen rich, luminous narratives into a book with the heft of a novel, through the presence of one larger-than-life, unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge.
At the edge of the continent, Crosby, Maine, may seem like nowhere, but seen through this brilliant writer’s eyes, it’s in essence the whole world, and the lives that are lived there are filled with all of the grand human drama–desire, despair, jealousy, hope, and love.
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town and in the world at large, but she doesn’t always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance: a former student who has lost the will to live: Olive’s own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life–sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition–its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY
People • USA Today • The Atlantic • The Washington Post Book World • Seattle Post-Intelligencer • Entertainment Weekly • The Christian Science Monitor • San Francisco Chronicle • Salon • San Antonio Express-News • Chicago Tribune • The Wall Street Journal
After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham
Jones
WINNER, Best Collection of the Year, THIS IS HORROR
NOMINATED, Best Collection of the Year, BRAM STOKER AWARDS
NOMINATED, Best Collection of the Year, SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS
The fifteen stories in After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones explore the horrors and fears of the supernatural and the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out of print narratives, as well as a few "best of the year" inclusions. In "Thirteen," horrors lurk behind the flickering images on the big screen. "Welcome to the Reptile House" reveals the secrets that hide in our flesh. In "The Black Sleeve of Destiny," a single sweatshirt leads to unexpectedly dark adventures. And the title story, "After the People Lights Have Gone Off," is anything but your typical haunted house story.
With an introduction by Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale, and featuring fifteen full-page illustrations by Luke Spooner, After the People Lights Have Gone Off gets under your skin and stays there.
NOMINATED, Best Collection of the Year, BRAM STOKER AWARDS
NOMINATED, Best Collection of the Year, SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS
The fifteen stories in After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones explore the horrors and fears of the supernatural and the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out of print narratives, as well as a few "best of the year" inclusions. In "Thirteen," horrors lurk behind the flickering images on the big screen. "Welcome to the Reptile House" reveals the secrets that hide in our flesh. In "The Black Sleeve of Destiny," a single sweatshirt leads to unexpectedly dark adventures. And the title story, "After the People Lights Have Gone Off," is anything but your typical haunted house story.
With an introduction by Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale, and featuring fifteen full-page illustrations by Luke Spooner, After the People Lights Have Gone Off gets under your skin and stays there.
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death by Maggie
O’Farrell
I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing
memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life.
The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not
expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in
disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most
terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter--for whom
this book was written--from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable
to life's myriad dangers.
Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning
debut collection unerring charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking
love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. In stories that travel
from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to
everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.
The Awakening and Other Stories by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" is one of
literature's most influential short stories and popular in literature courses.
Included here are several other of her stories: "Beyond the Bayo,"
"Ma'ame Pelagie," "Desiree's Baby," "A Respectable
Woman," "The Kiss," "A Pair of Silk Stockings,"
"The Locket," and "A Reflection."
39 true spy stories from Greek antiquity to the Cold War,
selected by the former CIA chief.
Night Train: New and Selected Stories by Thom Jones
This scorching collection from award-winning author Thom
Jones features his best new short fiction alongside a selection of outstanding
stories from three previous books. Jones's stories are full of high-octane,
prose-drunk entertainment. His characters are grifters and drifters, rogues and
ne'er-do-wells, would-be do-gooders whose human frailties usually get the
better of them. Some are lovable, others are not, but each has an indelible and
irresistible voice. They include Vietnam soldiers, amateur boxers, devoted
doctors, strung-out advertising writers, pill poppers and veterans of the psych
ward, and an unforgettable adolescent DJ radio host, among others.
The stories here are excursions into a unique world that
veers between abject desperation and fleeting transcendence. Perhaps no other
writer in recent memory could encapsulate in such short spaces the profound and
the devastating, the poignant and the hallucinatory, with such an exquisite
balance of darkness and light. Jones's fiction reveals again and again the
resilience and grace of characters who refuse to succumb. In stories that can
at once delight us with their wicked humor and sting us with their affecting
pathos, Night Train perfectly captures the essence of this iconic
American master, showcasing in a single collection the breadth of power of his
inimitable fiction.
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
Fragile Things is a sterling collection of exceptional
tales from Neil Gaiman, multiple award-winning (the Hugo, Bram Stoker,
Newberry, and Eisner Awards, to name just a few), #1 New York Times bestselling
author of The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline, and the
groundbreaking Sandman graphic novel series. A uniquely imaginative
creator of wonders whose unique storytelling genius has been acclaimed by a
host of literary luminaries from Norman Mailer to Stephen King, Gaiman’s
astonishing powers are on glorious displays in Fragile Things. Enter
and be amazed!
Tales of the Macabre by Edgar Allan Poe
A unique edition of some of Edgar Allan Poe's famous short
stories, Tales of the Macabre takes the reader into the heart of a dozen
stories, including The Fall of The House of Usher, Berenice, and The Black
Cat…all beautifully illustrated by Benjamin Lacombe. Includes Charles
Baudelaire's essay on Poe's life and works.
The Great Non-Freeze of January 2019 derailed our meeting to
discuss books on war, so we doubled up on our topic at February short story
collection meeting.
Sgt. Reckless: America’s Warhorse by Robin Hutton
From the racetrack to the battlefield—dauntless, fearless,
and exemplar of Semper Fi—she was Reckless, "pride of the
Marines."
A Mongolian mare who was bred to be a racehorse, Ah-Chim-Hai, or Flame-of-the-Morning, belonged to a young boy named Kim-Huk-Moon. In order to pay for a prosthetic leg for his sister, Kim made the difficult decision to sell his beloved companion. Lieutenant Eric Pedersen purchased the bodacious mare and renamed her Reckless, for the Recoilless Rifles Platoon, Anti-Tank Division, of the 5th Marines she’d be joining.
The four-legged equine braved minefields and hailing shrapnel to deliver ammunition to her division on the frontlines. In one day alone, performing fifty-one trips up and down treacherous terrain, covering a distance of over thirty-five miles, and rescuing wounded comrades-in-arms, Reckless demonstrated her steadfast devotion to the Marines who had become her herd.
Despite only measuring about thirteen hands high, this pint-sized equine became an American hero. Reckless was awarded two Purple Hearts for her valor and was officially promoted to staff sergeant twice, a distinction never bestowed upon an animal before or since.
Author Robin Hutton has reignited excitement about this nearly forgotten legend, realizing the Sgt. Reckless Memorial Monument at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, completed in July 2013, and now spurring the creation of a second memorial at Camp Pendleton, California, where Reckless lived out the rest of her days.
A Mongolian mare who was bred to be a racehorse, Ah-Chim-Hai, or Flame-of-the-Morning, belonged to a young boy named Kim-Huk-Moon. In order to pay for a prosthetic leg for his sister, Kim made the difficult decision to sell his beloved companion. Lieutenant Eric Pedersen purchased the bodacious mare and renamed her Reckless, for the Recoilless Rifles Platoon, Anti-Tank Division, of the 5th Marines she’d be joining.
The four-legged equine braved minefields and hailing shrapnel to deliver ammunition to her division on the frontlines. In one day alone, performing fifty-one trips up and down treacherous terrain, covering a distance of over thirty-five miles, and rescuing wounded comrades-in-arms, Reckless demonstrated her steadfast devotion to the Marines who had become her herd.
Despite only measuring about thirteen hands high, this pint-sized equine became an American hero. Reckless was awarded two Purple Hearts for her valor and was officially promoted to staff sergeant twice, a distinction never bestowed upon an animal before or since.
Author Robin Hutton has reignited excitement about this nearly forgotten legend, realizing the Sgt. Reckless Memorial Monument at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, completed in July 2013, and now spurring the creation of a second memorial at Camp Pendleton, California, where Reckless lived out the rest of her days.
Indianapolis: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in US Naval History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man by Lynn
Vincent and Sara Vladic
A human drama unlike any other—the riveting and definitive
full story of the worst sea disaster in United States naval history.
Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive.
For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated—and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
It begins in 1932, when Indianapolis is christened and launched as the ship of state for President Franklin Roosevelt. After Pearl Harbor, Indianapolis leads the charge to the Pacific Islands, notching an unbroken string of victories in an uncharted theater of war. Then, under orders from President Harry Truman, the ship takes aboard a superspy and embarks on her final world-changing mission: delivering the core of the atomic bomb to the Pacific for the strike on Hiroshima. Vincent and Vladic provide a visceral, moment-by-moment account of the disaster that unfolds days later after the Japanese torpedo attack, from the chaos on board the sinking ship to the first moments of shock as the crew plunge into the remote waters of the Philippine Sea, to the long days and nights during which terror and hunger morph into delusion and desperation, and the men must band together to survive.
Then, for the first time, the authors go beyond the men’s rescue to chronicle Indianapolis’s extraordinary final mission: the survivors’ fifty-year fight for justice on behalf of their skipper, Captain Charles McVay III, who is wrongly court-martialed for the sinking. What follows is a captivating courtroom drama that weaves through generations of American presidents, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and forever entwines the lives of three captains—McVay, whose life and career are never the same after the scandal; Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese sub commander who sinks Indianapolis but later joins the battle to exonerate McVay; and William Toti, the captain of the modern-day submarine Indianapolis, who helps the survivors fight to vindicate their captain.
A sweeping saga of survival, sacrifice, justice, and love, Indianapolis stands as both groundbreaking naval history and spellbinding narrative—and brings the ship and her heroic crew back to full, vivid, unforgettable life. It is the definitive account of one of the most remarkable episodes in American history.
Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive.
For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated—and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
It begins in 1932, when Indianapolis is christened and launched as the ship of state for President Franklin Roosevelt. After Pearl Harbor, Indianapolis leads the charge to the Pacific Islands, notching an unbroken string of victories in an uncharted theater of war. Then, under orders from President Harry Truman, the ship takes aboard a superspy and embarks on her final world-changing mission: delivering the core of the atomic bomb to the Pacific for the strike on Hiroshima. Vincent and Vladic provide a visceral, moment-by-moment account of the disaster that unfolds days later after the Japanese torpedo attack, from the chaos on board the sinking ship to the first moments of shock as the crew plunge into the remote waters of the Philippine Sea, to the long days and nights during which terror and hunger morph into delusion and desperation, and the men must band together to survive.
Then, for the first time, the authors go beyond the men’s rescue to chronicle Indianapolis’s extraordinary final mission: the survivors’ fifty-year fight for justice on behalf of their skipper, Captain Charles McVay III, who is wrongly court-martialed for the sinking. What follows is a captivating courtroom drama that weaves through generations of American presidents, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, and forever entwines the lives of three captains—McVay, whose life and career are never the same after the scandal; Mochitsura Hashimoto, the Japanese sub commander who sinks Indianapolis but later joins the battle to exonerate McVay; and William Toti, the captain of the modern-day submarine Indianapolis, who helps the survivors fight to vindicate their captain.
A sweeping saga of survival, sacrifice, justice, and love, Indianapolis stands as both groundbreaking naval history and spellbinding narrative—and brings the ship and her heroic crew back to full, vivid, unforgettable life. It is the definitive account of one of the most remarkable episodes in American history.
Killing Patton: The Strange Death of WWII’s Most Audacious General by Bill O’Reilly
General George S. Patton, Jr. died under mysterious
circumstances in the months following the end of World War II. For almost
seventy years, there has been suspicion that his death was not an accident--and
may very well have been an act of assassination. Killing Patton takes
readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding
Patton's tragic demise, naming names of the many powerful individuals who
wanted him silenced.
The Perfect Horse: The Daring US Mission to Rescue the Priceless Stallions Kidnapped by the Nazis by Elizabeth Letts
WINNER OF THE PEN AWARD FOR RESEARCH NONFICTION
In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find—his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world’s finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine—an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food.
With only hours to spare, one of the U.S. Army’s last great cavalrymen, Colonel Hank Reed, makes a bold decision—with General George Patton’s blessing—to mount a covert rescue operation. Racing against time, Reed’s small but determined force of soldiers, aided by several turncoat Germans, steals across enemy lines in a last-ditch effort to save the horses.
Pulling together this multistranded story, Elizabeth Letts introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters: Alois Podhajsky, director of the famed Spanish Riding School of Vienna, a former Olympic medalist who is forced to flee the bomb-ravaged Austrian capital with his entire stable in tow; Gustav Rau, Hitler’s imperious chief of horse breeding, a proponent of eugenics who dreams of genetically engineering the perfect warhorse for Germany; and Tom Stewart, a senator’s son who makes a daring moonlight ride on a white stallion to secure the farm’s surrender.
A compelling account for animal lovers and World War II buffs alike, The Perfect Horse tells for the first time the full story of these events. Elizabeth Letts’s exhilarating tale of behind-enemy-lines adventure, courage, and sacrifice brings to life one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of human valor.
In the chaotic last days of the war, a small troop of battle-weary American soldiers captures a German spy and makes an astonishing find—his briefcase is empty but for photos of beautiful white horses that have been stolen and kept on a secret farm behind enemy lines. Hitler has stockpiled the world’s finest purebreds in order to breed the perfect military machine—an equine master race. But with the starving Russian army closing in, the animals are in imminent danger of being slaughtered for food.
With only hours to spare, one of the U.S. Army’s last great cavalrymen, Colonel Hank Reed, makes a bold decision—with General George Patton’s blessing—to mount a covert rescue operation. Racing against time, Reed’s small but determined force of soldiers, aided by several turncoat Germans, steals across enemy lines in a last-ditch effort to save the horses.
Pulling together this multistranded story, Elizabeth Letts introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters: Alois Podhajsky, director of the famed Spanish Riding School of Vienna, a former Olympic medalist who is forced to flee the bomb-ravaged Austrian capital with his entire stable in tow; Gustav Rau, Hitler’s imperious chief of horse breeding, a proponent of eugenics who dreams of genetically engineering the perfect warhorse for Germany; and Tom Stewart, a senator’s son who makes a daring moonlight ride on a white stallion to secure the farm’s surrender.
A compelling account for animal lovers and World War II buffs alike, The Perfect Horse tells for the first time the full story of these events. Elizabeth Letts’s exhilarating tale of behind-enemy-lines adventure, courage, and sacrifice brings to life one of the most inspiring chapters in the annals of human valor.
Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans: The Battle That Shaped America’s Destiny by Brian Kilmeade
The War of 1812 saw America threatened on every side.
Encouraged by the British, Indian tribes attacked settlers in the West, while
the Royal Navy terrorized the coasts. By mid-1814, President James Madison’s
generals had lost control of the war in the North, losing battles in Canada.
Then British troops set the White House ablaze, and a feeling of hopelessness
spread across the country.
Into this dire situation stepped Major General Andrew Jackson, who feared that President Madison’s men were overlooking the most important target of all: New Orleans. If the British conquered New Orleans, they would control the mouth of the Mississippi River, cutting Americans off from that essential trade route. The new nation’s dreams of western expansion would be crushed before they really got off the ground.
Jackson had to convince President Madison and his War Department to take him seriously, even though he wasn’t one of the Virginians and New Englanders who dominated the government. He had to assemble a coalition of frontier militiamen, French-speaking Louisianans, Cherokee and Choctaw Indians, freed slaves, and even some pirates. And then he had to face the most powerful military force in the world, in the confusing terrain of the Louisiana bayous.
As they did in their previous bestsellers, Kilmeade and Yaeger make history come alive with a riveting true story that will keep you turning the pages. You’ll finish with a new understanding of one of our greatest generals and a renewed appreciation for the brave men who fought so that America could one day stretch “from sea to shining sea.”
Into this dire situation stepped Major General Andrew Jackson, who feared that President Madison’s men were overlooking the most important target of all: New Orleans. If the British conquered New Orleans, they would control the mouth of the Mississippi River, cutting Americans off from that essential trade route. The new nation’s dreams of western expansion would be crushed before they really got off the ground.
Jackson had to convince President Madison and his War Department to take him seriously, even though he wasn’t one of the Virginians and New Englanders who dominated the government. He had to assemble a coalition of frontier militiamen, French-speaking Louisianans, Cherokee and Choctaw Indians, freed slaves, and even some pirates. And then he had to face the most powerful military force in the world, in the confusing terrain of the Louisiana bayous.
As they did in their previous bestsellers, Kilmeade and Yaeger make history come alive with a riveting true story that will keep you turning the pages. You’ll finish with a new understanding of one of our greatest generals and a renewed appreciation for the brave men who fought so that America could one day stretch “from sea to shining sea.”
A Fable by William Faulkner
This novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book
Award in 1955. An allegorical story of World War I, set in the trenches in
France and dealing ostensibly with a mutiny in a French regiment, it was
originally considered a sharp departure for Faulkner. Recently it has come to
be recognized as one of his major works and an essential part of the
Faulkner oeuvre. His descriptions of the war "rise to
magnificence," according to The New York Times, and include, in
Malcolm Cowley's words, "some of the most powerful scenes he ever
conceived."
\The Lines We Leave Behind by Eliza Graham
England, 1947: A young woman finds herself under close
observation in an insane asylum, charged with a violent crime she has no memory
of committing. As she tries to make sense of her recent past, she recalls very
little.
But she still remembers wartime in Yugoslavia. There she and
her lover risked everything to carry out dangerous work resisting the Germans—a
heroic campaign in which many brave comrades were lost. After that, the trail
disappears into confusion. How did she come to be trapped in a living
nightmare?
As she struggles to piece together the missing years of her
life, she will have to confront the harrowing experiences of her special-operations
work and peacetime marriage. Only then can she hope to regain the vital
memories that will uncover the truth: is she really a violent criminal…or was
she betrayed?
The Vietnam War: An Intimate History by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
The Vietnam War, an immersive ten-part, eighteen hour
documentary film series directed by acclaimed filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn
Novick, tells the epic story of one of the most divisive, consequential and
misunderstood events in American history, as it has never before been told on
film.
Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) leaves his university studies
to enlist in combat duty in Vietnam in 1967. Once he's on the ground in the
middle of battle, his idealism fades. Infighting in his unit between Staff
Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), who believes nearby villagers are harboring
Viet Cong soldiers, and Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), who has a more
sympathetic view of the locals, ends up pitting the soldiers against each other
as well as against the enemy.
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