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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors

A tangled tale

Cover of The Golden Thread: The Col
A review of The Golden Thread: The Cold War and the Mysterious Death of Dag Hammarskjold by Ravi Somaiya

The 1960s was an especially rife period for political assassinations, but for years, one of the most famous deaths of the decade—the killing of United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammarskjold—was officially an accident. The downing of the general secretary’s plane in the skies of Rhodesia (modern Zambia) in the early hours of September 18, 1961, has long been cast in doubt, almost from the moment the burnt out remains of the plane and its fifteen crash victims were discovered in the sweltering jungle (the sole survivor would later die in hospital after making some intriguing comments).

Sep 9, 2020

Investing in each other

Cover of Big Friendship: How We Kee
A review of Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman

This is a tribute to one of society's most enduring yet under-recognized relationships: female best friends. Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman met at a Gossip Girl viewing party when they were in their mid-twenties and struggling to start their careers. They've seen each other through heartaches and heartbreaks, job triumphs and disasters, health scares and holidays. More than a decade later, these are their stories of real-life and recognizable female friendship. I saw myself in their stories and if you've been nurturing your own big friendships, you will, too.  

Sep 2, 2020

He'll shake the universe

Cover of Empire of Silence
A review of Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

I knew nothing about Ruocchio's debut, first in the Sun Eater series, other than it's pretty long, it's going to take a long time to read. If I say I finished it in a couple days, you'll get an idea as to how exhilarating it was and how much I loved it.

Sep 1, 2020

After the ever after

Cover of The Heir Affair
A review of The Heir Affair by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

Is there any guilty pleasure quite as satisfying as royal watching? We all love to tune into the elaborate weddings, analyze sartorial choices and coo when a royal baby arrives on the scene. But as basically every generation of royalty throughout history has shown, the happy ever after surface doesn’t always match what’s happening behind palace walls, and occasionally that unhappiness breaks into the public.

Aug 31, 2020

More than she bargained for

Cover of Don't Talk to Strangers
A review of Don't Talk to Strangers by Amanda Kyle Williams

I've been delving into Overdrive for titles that are a little older (so they don't have a long wait list) and re-discovered Amanda Kyle Williams and her Keye Street series. And a happy discovery it was! Keye is an investigator/consultant running her own office in Atlanta. She does a little bit of everything; including background checks, catching bail jumpers, and because of her former job as an FBI profiler, sometimes consulting with local police when a serial killer may be working. The most recent request comes from the small town of Whisper, Georgia.

Aug 24, 2020

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