The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston, with Mario Spezi
What first attracted me to this book was its setting in Florence, Italy. Right from the start, one immediately becomes privy to the inside story of a series of unsolved serial murders. Author Douglas Preston followed his dream to live in Italy. As he got ready to write a novel about an Italian art theft, he asked around for someone knowledgeable about police procedures in Italy. He was advised to speak with the journalist Mario Spezi. As soon as Spezi found out where Preston was living, he mentioned that one of Florence’s famous serial murders was committed very close by. That is how Douglas Preston got drawn into the Monster of Florence murders. He gave up on his fiction book and wrote this amazing true story instead. [363.1523 Pre]
-Jo-Ann Carhart
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida
On the day of her father's funeral, twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa Iverton discovers that he wasn't her biological father after all. Her mother disappeared fourteen years earlier, and now Clarissa is alone and adrift. The one person she feels she can trust, her fiancé, Pankaj, has just revealed a terrible and life-changing secret to her. In the cycle of a day, all the truths in Clarissa's world become myths and rumors, and she is catapulted out of the life she knew. Vida gives us a remarkable protagonist who is both fierce and funny, and an unforgettable literary thriller that questions whether we can ever truly know where we've come from—and if it is possible to escape our pasts. [Vid]
-Deborah Elwarari
How to Fossilize Your Hamster and Other Amazing Experiments for the
Armchair Scientist by Mick O’Hare
For closet science geeks everywhere, this entertaining and informative collection of one hundred intriguing experiments demonstrates a range of essential scientific principles in action using materials you can find around your home. The book covers everything from explaining the unusual chemical reaction between cola and Mentos that mimics the effect of a geyser to the geological conditions essential to preserving the family pet for all eternity (after they are dead, of course). [507.8 Oha]
- Gus Isaksson
Red Leather Diary by Lily Koppel
Koppel, a New York Times reporter, stumbles upon a diary recounting the life of a privileged teenaged girl in 1930s Manhattan. Interested in learning more of her life, Koppel hires an investigator to find the woman behind the journal. The investigation leads to 90-year-old Florence Wolfson, alive, alert and willing to share her experiences of a long ago time. Brief diary entries are interwoven with more detailed accounts that convey the sophistication and glamour of Manhattan in the 1930s.
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Kassia Worst