lkernagh (Lori)'s 2016 Journey of Books, Food, Crafts and Walking - Part 3

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a land that is a strange reflection of his own world, populated by heroes and monsters, and ruled over by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book... The Book of Lost Things. An imaginative tale about navigating the journey into adulthood, while doing your best to hang on to your childhood.

When the young Irish maid Annie Phelan arrives at the country home of Isabelle and Eldon Dashell, she is swept into a world of artistic ambitions and hidden passions. But she also discovers a marriage that has grown distant and two people who see her as a blank slate upon which to project their own desires and failed dreams. Jealousy, longing and sensuality intertwine in this mesmerizing novel of aesthetic obsession and unfulfilled dreams.

Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers unveils the history you were never taught at school. With a breathtaking sweep spanning Rome to the modern day, popular historian and author Dominic Selwood challenges the traditional version of some of the best-known events of the past. From ancient Christianity to the voyages of Columbus, and from the medieval Crusades to ISIS and the modern Middle East, this book debunks dozens of historical myths.

They say that the Thorn of Camorr can beat anyone in a fight. They say he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. They say he's part man, part myth, and mostly street-corner rumor. And they are wrong on every count. Only averagely tall, slender, and god-awful with a sword, Locke Lamora is the fabled Thorn, and the greatest weapons at his disposal are his wit and cunning. He steals from the rich - they're the only ones worth stealing from - but the poor can go steal for themselves. What Locke cons, wheedles and tricks into his possession is strictly for him and his band of fellow con-artists and thieves: the Gentleman Bastards. Together their domain is the city of Camorr. Built of Elderglass by a race no-one remembers, it's a city of shifting revels, filthy canals, baroque palaces and crowded cemeteries. Home to Dons, merchants, soldiers, beggars, cripples, and feral children. And to Capa Barsavi, the criminal mastermind who runs the city. But there are whispers of a challenge to the Capa's power. A challenge from a man no one has ever seen, a man no blade can touch. The Grey King is coming. A man would be well advised not to be caught between Capa Barsavi and The Grey King. Even such a master of the sword as the Thorn of Camorr. As for Locke Lamora ...

While seventy-seven-year-old Ike Robison lies terminally ill, three generations of Robison women gather, attend, and squabble. But most of all, they remember - so that, after twenty-four hours in their company, readers will know this family, its history, and its relationships as intimately as their own. After a life of overburdened domesticity, Anna struggles to balance her feelings of obligation to care for her husband with her unspoken desire for freedom.

At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house, and the story of Miles is one told from the points of view of four of them: a woman in her forties called Anna, a man in his sixties called Mark, a woman in her eighties called May, and a ten-year-old child called Brooke. The thing is . . . none of these people knows Miles anything more than glancingly. So how much is it possible to know about a stranger? And what are the consequences of even the most casual, most fleeting meetings we have every day with other human beings?

In 1448 a team of architects and engineers brought Pope Nicholas V unhappy news: the 1100-year-old Basilica of St. Peter suffered from so many structural defects that it was beyond repair. The only solution was to pull down the old church--one of the most venerable churches in Christendom--and erect a new basilica on the site. Incredibly, one of the tombs the builders paved over was the resting place of St. Peter. Then in 1939, while working underground in the Vatican, one workman's shovel struck not dirt or rock but open air. The diggers shone a flashlight through the opening and saw a portion of an ancient Christian mausoleum. An archaeologist was summoned at once, and after inspecting what could be seen through the hole the diggers had made in the mausoleum's roof, he authorized a full-scale excavation. What lay beneath? The answer and the adventure await

For a Happy Easter, eat ya a couple a Peeps! You know you want to… Made right here in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Weird, huh?

Based on the 18th century novel by Samuel Richardson, this is the original tale of fatal attraction and dangerous liaisons. A wealthy young heiress, famed for her virtue, is sought by a man wishing to seduce her and destroy her reputation. For the first time in his life he becomes genuinely infatuated with his prey, and sows the seeds of his own fate.

One freezing winter morning a dead body is found in the backyard of the Dharma family’s house. It’s the body of Anu Krishnan. For Anu, a writer seeking a secluded retreat from the city, the Dharmas’ “back-house” in the sleepy mountain town of Merrit’s Point was the ideal spot to take a year off and begin writing. She had found the Dharmas’ rental through a happy coincidence. A friend from university who had kept tabs on everyone in their graduating year – including the quiet and reserved Vikram Dharma and his first wife, Helen – sent her the listing. Anu vaguely remembered Vikram but had a strong recollection of Helen, a beautiful, vivacious, social and charming woman. But now Vikram had a new wife, a marriage hastily arranged in India after Helen was killed in a car accident. Suman Dharma, a stark contrast to Helen, is quiet and timid. She arrived from the bustling warmth of India full of the promise of her new life – a new home, a new country and a daughter from Vikram’s first marriage. But her husband’s suspicious, controlling and angry tirades become almost a daily ritual, resigning Suman to a desolate future entangled in a marriage of fear and despair. Suman is isolated both by the landscape and the culture, and her fortunes begin to change only when Anu arrives. A friendship begins to form between the two women as Anu becomes a frequent visitor to the house. While the children, Varsha and Hemant, are at school, Anu, Vikram’s mother, Akka, and Suman spend time sharing tea and stories. But Anu’s arrival will change the balance of the Dharma household. Young Varsha, deeply affected by her mother’s death and desperate to keep her new family together, becomes increasingly suspicious of Anu’s relationship with her stepmother. Varsha’s singular attention to keeping her family together, and the secrets that emerge as Anu and Suman become friends, create cracks in the Dharma family that can only spell certain disaster.

Based on the 18th century novel by Samuel Richardson, this is the original tale of fatal attraction and dangerous liaisons. A wealthy young heiress, famed for her virtue, is sought by a man wishing to seduce her and destroy her reputation. For the first time in his life he becomes genuinely infatuated with his prey, and sows the seeds of his own fate.

What is a poor anatomist to do? Twenty pounds, wasted, up in smoke when a beautiful young woman wakes up on the dissection table. Someone has made a ghastly error. Dr Richard Craven, an ethical doctor, has but one choice, to nurse the girl back to health and restore her to her family. That’s when his troubles start. She can’t remember anything, only her first name, and she isn’t even sure about that. As his household helps her to recover her strength and her memories trickle, then flood back, their mutual attraction buds into a flowing passion. Unfortunately one of the things she’s conveniently forgotten was her arranged engagement to a vulgar, but wealthy son of a Northern industrialist. Not only that, but there is some deep dark secret about Dr Craven that her father believes makes him completely ineligible. Resolving the resulting tangle in this sweet historical romance takes the combined efforts of the doctor’s once profligate brother, the Earl of Craven, a displaced French Royal, le Duc de Bourbon, and the visit of a mysterious French Baron to the sacred floor of Almack’s.

"A few minutes later, with the pits and smelly bits washed, and garbed in a housedress, Henrietta walked down to the parlour."

"So a little less of the sulky alt behaviour, and a great deal more smiling, if you please. A little sweetness and light perhaps?"

When Tahar Ben Jelloun took his ten-year-old daughter to a street protest against anti-immigration laws in Paris, she asked question after question: "What is racism? What is an immigrant? What is discrimination?" Out of their frank discussion comes this book, an international bestseller translated into twenty languages. Ben Jelloun has created a unique and compelling dialogue in which he explains difficult concepts from ghettos and genocide to slavery and anti-Semitism in language we can all understand, and adds an all-new chapter for this edition. Also included are personal essays from four prizewinning writers and educators who themselves are parents: Patricia Williams, David Mura, William Ayers, and Lisa D. Delpit.