Author: Nadler, Steven M., 1958- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: 170 Format: Books Summary: "The seventeenth-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza has long been known - and vilified - for his heretical view of God and for the radical determinism he sees governing the cosmos and human freedom. Only recently, however, has he begun to be considered seriously as a moral philosopher. In his philosophical masterpiece, the Ethics, after establishing some metaphysical and epistemological foundations, he turns to the "big questions" that so often move one to reflect on, and even change, the values that inform their life: What is truly good? What is happiness? What is the relationship between being a good or virtuous person and enjoying happiness and human flourishing? The guiding thread of the book, and the source of its title, is a claim that comes late in the Ethics: "The free person thinks least of all of death, and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." The life of the free person, according to Spinoza, is one of joy, not sadness. He does what is "most important" in life and is not troubled by such harmful passions as hate, greed and envy. He treats others with benevolence, justice and charity. And, with his attention focused on the rewards of goodness, he enjoys the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. Nadler makes clear that these ethical precepts are not unrelated to Spinoza's metaphysical views. Rather, as Nadler shows, Spinoza's views on how to live are intimately connected to and require an understanding of his conception of human nature and its place in the cosmos, his account of values, and his conception of human happiness and flourishing. Written in an engaging style this book makes Spinoza's often forbiddingly technical philosophy accessible to contemporary readers interested in knowing more about Spinoza's views on morality, and who may even be looking to this famous "atheist", who so scandalized his early modern contemporaries, as a guide to the right way of living today"--
Author: Carlsen, Spike, 1952- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: 031.02 Format: Books Summary: "On his regular walk one morning, Spike Carlsen realized there was an entire world outside his front door that he knew nothing about. How does that fire hydrant work, he wondered? Why are street lights shining more brightly than ever before? And, on a more personal level, why does an easy stroll around the neighborhood always leave him feeling more creative and spry, better able to take on the day? A simple walk around the block set Carlsen off on an investigative journey to discover everything he could about every thing we take for granted in our everyday life, from manhole covers and recycling bins to pedestrian crossings and bike lanes. Leading readers on a spirited adventure through his hometown, and other environs, Carlsen explains with wit and erudition the engineering marvels, unheralded utilities, and secret economic and health benefits hiding in plain sight. Like how the addition of a front porch reduces crime and increases property value. And how planting a $10 boulevard tree cuts air-conditioning costs by 20 percent, while generating approximately $30,000 worth of oxygen and $31,000 worth of erosion control. Or how a simple walk, in addition to reduce your chances of a stroke (20 percent), cardiovascular disease (30 percent), and broken bones (40 percent), can increase creativity by 60 percent. Engaging, entertaining, and informative, A Walk Around the Block is a narrative celebration of all the seemingly random stuff we encounter at any given moment"--
Author: Wong, David, 1975 January 10- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F WONG Format: Books Summary: "Nightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman suddenly in charge of the most decadent city in the world. And her very smelly cat. Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. She finds herself struggling to establish rule over a sprawling empire while Tabula RaSa's rogue's gallery of larger-than-life crime bosses and corrupt plutocrats smell weakness. Tensions brew across the city. A steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey's door, and she and her bodyguard Wu are shocked to find that it contains a disemboweled corpse, and even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises from the box and goes on a rampage through the house. After being subdued, it speaks in an electronic voice, accusing Zoey of being its murderer. Soon, it makes the same claim to the public at large, along with the promise of a cash reward for proof that Zoey and the Suits are behind the crime. Now Zoey is having doubts of her own: Is she 100% sure that someone on her team didn't do this? She also doesn't even have a complete list of what businesses she owns, or what exact laws her organization is still breaking. So what does she really know?"--
Author: Brown, Caraline, author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F BROWN Format: Books Summary: In late eighteenth-century London, Lillian, a freakishly tall woman who struggles to fit into society because of her size and desire to wear trousers, discovers a candlelit exotic animal emporium, where she finds her natural home taking care of and befriending wild animals brought from around the world.
Author: Prentiss, S. A., author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F PRENTISS Format: Books Summary: "After a lifetime of hardship, Jessica Thornton finally has the life she's dreamed of: a new marriage to a realtor with burgeoning success; a daughter whose athleticism has won her a scholarship to college; and a freshly-secured grant from her bank to finally complete her own higher education. Her life today is a complete reversal from the not-too-distant past, when the death of her first husband left her penniless and desperate to provide for her then-newborn child. But after the murder of her children's high school classmate, a series of disturbances brings Jessica to question whether her dreams ever actually came true, or whether they've just been delusions all along... In the days after the murder, suspicion creeps in at every corner, beginning with Jessica's daughter and stepson, who won't tell her where they were on that fateful night. Then she discovers that her husband's business is failing, not growing, and that the stories he's told of meetings with high-powered investors were nothing more than lies. And when a private investigator comes to look into the death of her first husband, her last foundation of truth slips suddenly away."--Publisher description.
Author: Winspear, Jacqueline, 1955- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: B WINSPEAR Format: Books Summary: "After sixteen novels, Jacqueline Winspear has taken the bold step of turning to memoir, revealing the hardships and joys of her family history. Both shockingly frank and deftly restrained, her memoir tackles such difficult, poignant, and fascinating family memories as her paternal grandfather's shellshock, her mother's evacuation from London during the Blitz; her soft-spoken animal-loving father's torturous assignment to an explosives team during WWII; her parents' years living with Romani Gypsies; and Jacqueline's own childhood working on farms in rural Kent, capturing her ties to the land and her dream of being a writer at its very inception. An eye-opening and heartfelt portrayal of a post-War England we rarely see, This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing is the story of a childhood in the English countryside, of working class indomitability and family secrets, of artistic inspiration and the price of memory"--
Author: Hayes-McCoy, Felicity, author. Published: 2020 2019 Call Number: F HAYESMCC Format: Books Summary: Distance makes no difference to love ... Eager to cheer up her recently-widowed gran, Cassie Fitzgerald persuades Lissbeg library to set up a Skype book club, linking readers on Ireland's Finfarran Peninsula with the little US town of Resolve, where generations of Finfarran's emigrants have settled. But when the club decides to read a detective novel, old conflicts on both sides of the ocean are exposed, hidden love affairs come to light, and, as secrets emerge, Cassie fears she may have done more harm than good. Will the truths she uncovers about her granny Pat's marriage affect her own hopes of finding love? Is Pat, who's still struggling with the death of her husband, about to fall out with her oldest friend? Or could the transatlantic book club itself hold the clue to a triumphant happy ending?
Author: Palmer, Diana, author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F PALMER Format: Books Summary: "Jake McGuire has worked hard to earn his success, with holdings that include ranches and a private jet. The only threat to his comfortable existence is the last woman he should ever want. He knows Ida Merridan by reputation only, but the stories he's heard are enough for him to keep her at arm's length, until the day fate puts her in his path under circumstances only the most heartless cowboy could ignore. Now, realizing the truth Ida's been keeping, he's powerless to give her up. Twice married and independently wealthy, Ida did nothing to deserve her bad reputation-except choose the wrong husbands. Live and learn in a small town, but after everything life has handed her, she's in no hurry to make any more mistakes or be anyone's object of pity. Being rescued by Jake throws a wrench in her plans for a solitary existence when one sizzling kiss leads to another, but her past is catching up with her, and there's only so much she can do when Jake is determined to prove there are still some heroes left in the West" -- Front jacket flap.
Author: Barres, E. A., author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F BARRES Format: Books Summary: "Two men from vastly different backgrounds are murdered one after another on the same night, in the same fashion with two bullet wounds: one in the head, another in the heart. The two slayings sends their wives on a desperate search for answers - and a desperate attempt to save their families' lives. Grief takes a heavy toll on northern Virginia freelance editor Deb Linh Thomas when she learns of her husband's murder. And utter dismay sets in when, just a week after the funeral, she discovers that he had been the subject of an FBI investigation after withdrawing a large sum of money from their shared accounts. Elsewhere, Baltimore bartender Cessy Castillo is less bereft when her abusive husband, ex-cop Hector Ramirez, is killed. But it turns out that he was deep in hock - and now Cessy's expected to pay up. Deb and the FBI agent assigned to her case start digging into her husband's murder and learn that he had been the target of criminals. As Deb and Cessy join forces to learn the truth, their investigation reveals an ever-darker web of clues, but if they're not careful, they may just end up like their husbands."--Publisher description.
Author: Robinson, Lisa (Music journalist), author. Published: 2020 Call Number: 781.64 Format: Books Summary: "From the effects of fame on family and vice versa to motherhood and drugs, sex, and romance, Lisa Robinson has discussed every taboo topic with nearly every significant living female artist to pass through the pages of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair. Here, her interviews with and observations of fabulous female pop and rock stars, from Tina Turner and Alanis Morrissette to Rihanna, show how these powerhouse women, all with vastly different life experiences, fell in love with music, seized their ambitions, and changed pop culture. Grouped by topic, ranging from hair and makeup to sexual and emotional abuse, Robinson's interviews reveal each individual artist's sense of humor, private hopes, and personal devastations--along with the grit and fire that brought each woman to the stage in the first place and empowered her to leave her mark on the world"--
Author: Donohue, John (Union leader), author. Molloy, J.T. (Journalist), author. Published: 2020 2015 Call Number: B DONOHUE Format: Regular print Summary: In 1967, John (Chick) Donohue was a 26-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran working as a merchant seaman when he was challenged one night in a New York City bar. The men gathered at this hearth had lost family and friends in the ongoing war in Vietnam. Now, they were seeing protesters turn on the troops. One neighborhood patriot proposed an idea many might deem preposterous: One of them should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies in combat, and give each of them messages of support from back home, maybe some laughs - and beer. Chick volunteered for the mission. He sailed to Vietnam on a cargo ship carrying a backpack full of American beer, landing in Qui Nho'n in 1968. Things went awry when Chick got caught in the Tet Offensive, starting in the early hours as an eyewitness to the battle to retake the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, where he became stuck for months. Chick Donohue later became legendary as "the Sandhog who went to Harvard." He worked for decades on behalf of New York's tunnel builders as the legislative and political director of Sandhogs Local 147. This is the story of his epic beer run to Vietnam, in his own words and in those of the men he found in the war zone.
Author: Goodwin, S. M., author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F GOODWIN Format: Books Summary: "Forced by his father's political connections to relocate to pre-Civil War New York, former Crimean War hero Jasper Lightner teams up with misfit detective Hieronymous Law to investigate a philanthropist's murder and wrongful charges targeting an innocent woman."--Publisher.
Author: Alpsten, Ellen, 1971- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F ALPSTEN Format: Books Summary: "Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten's rich, sweeping first-person narrative is the story of her rise to power. St. Petersburg, 1725. Peter the Great lies dying in his magnificent Winter Palace. The weakness and treachery of his only son has driven his father to an appalling act of cruelty and left the empire without an heir. Russia risks falling into chaos. Into the void steps the woman who has been by his side for decades: his second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, as ambitious, ruthless and passionate as Peter himself. Born into devastating poverty, Catherine used her extraordinary beauty and shrewd intelligence to ingratiate herself with Peter's powerful generals, finally seducing the Tsar himself. But even amongst the splendor and opulence of her new life-the lavish feasts, glittering jewels, and candle-lit hours in Peter's bedchamber-she knows the peril of her position. Peter's attentions are fickle and his rages powerful; his first wife is condemned to a prison cell, her lover impaled alive on a stake in Red Square. And now Catherine faces the ultimate test: can she keep the Tsar's death a secret as she plays a lethal game to destroy her enemies and take the Crown for herself? From the sensuous pleasures of a decadent aristocracy, to the incense-filled rites of the Orthodox Church and the terror of Peter's torture chambers, the intoxicating and dangerous world of Imperial Russia is brought to vivid life. Tsarina is the story of one remarkable woman whose bid for power would transform the Russian Empire"--
Author: Hardy, Mina, author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F HARDY Format: Books Summary: "Five months ago, an accident left Diana Sparrow badly injured and missing a few months of her memory. As if that's not enough, she's started having recurring nightmares about the night of the accident. Dreams that feel so real, she's left questioning: maybe she didn't just slide off the road into a ditch. Maybe, just maybe, she hit something. Or someone. She can't turn to her former best friend Val, who's been sleeping with Diana's husband Jonathan for months, but she might find some comfort in newcomer Cole Pelham. Yet the closer they become, the more Diana begins to wonder what really happened that night - and how Cole might be connected. Worse, it seems everyone else could be involved, too. Who was with her that night? What really happened? As her life unravels thread by thread and the dreams become too real to ignore, Diana will have to face the unthinkable - and do the unforgivable."--Publisher.
Author: Sittenfeld, Curtis, editor. Pitlor, Heidi, editor. Anderson, Selena, author. Boyle, T.C., author. Brown, Jason, author. Published: 2020 2019 Call Number: F BEST 2020 Format: Books Summary: "Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish."--Provided by publisher.
Author: Cooper, Becky, author. Published: 2020 Call Number: 364.152 Format: Books Summary: "1969: the height of counterculture; the year Harvard would begin the tumultuous process of merging with sister school Radcliffe; and the year that Jane Britton, an ambitious graduate student in Harvard's Anthropology department, would be found bludgeoned to death in her apartment. Forty years later, Becky Cooper, a curious undergrad, will first hear whispers of the story: The dead was nameless. A student had an affair with her professor, and he murdered her in the Peabody Museum. Though this rumor would prove false, it started an investigation that would consume Cooper's life for the next ten years. WE KEEP THE DEAD CLOSE is a narrative of mirrors, misogyny, and murder. It is at once a rumination on the violence and oppression that rules our revered institutions, a ghost story reflecting one young woman's past onto another's present, and a love story for a girl who was lost to history"--Dust jacket flap.
Author: Nesbø, Jo, 1960- author. Ferguson, Robert, 1948- translator. Published: 2020 Call Number: LP F NESBO Format: Large print Summary: In the far north of Norway a man lives a peaceful existence. However one day his younger brother, always the more successful and charming of the two, turns up to visit, accompanied by his new wife. It soon turns out that the little brother is not quite as angelic as he seems. Set in a small town filled with secrets, this compellingly dark new thriller from the Sunday Times number-one best seller has a plot as explosive and multi-layered as any of the Harry Hole novels.
Author: Connelly, Michael, 1956- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: LP F CONNELLY Format: Large print Summary: Defense attorney Mickey Haller utilizes his legal team's resources from behind bars to organize his own defense when he is framed for murder by an unknown adversary. When defense attorney Mickey Haller is pulled over by police, they find the body of a client in the trunk of his Lincoln. Charged with murder and unable to make the exorbitant $5 million bail slapped on him by a vindictive judge, Mickey must strategize and build his defense from his jail cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Center in downtown Los Angeles. Mickey knows he's been frames-- and as an officer of the court he is an instant target in the jail. With the help of his trusted team, he has to figure out who has plotted to destroy his life and why. Then he has to go before a judge and jury and prove his innocence. -- adapted from jacket
Author: Horowitz, Anthony, 1955- author. Published: 2020 Call Number: F HOROWITZ Format: Books Summary: "Farlingaye Hall is a beautiful hotel in Suffolk on the east coast of England. Unfortunately, it is also the site of the brutal murder of Frank Parris, a retired advertising executive. Stefan Codrescu, a Romanian maintenance man, is arrested after police find blood spatter on his clothes and bed linen. He is found guilty and spends eight years in prison. It appears an open and shut case, but there is more than meets the eye. Alan Conway, the late author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew Frank Parris and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based Atticus Pund Takes the Cake, the third book in his detective series, on the hotel. Cecily Treherne, the daughter of the hotel owner, read the book and believes the truth of Stefan's innocence is found in its pages. But now...she has disappeared. Conway's former editor Susan Ryeland leaves her own hotel in Crete and travels to Suffolk to investigate the murder and Treherne's disappearance"--
Author: Pattison, Kermit, author. Published: 2020 Call Number: 569.9 Format: Books Summary: "Fossil Men is the riveting science-adventure story of the brilliant team who discovered the "Ardi" skeleton, a human more than a million years older than the famous Lucy, and their 20-year quest to redefine our understanding of human evolution"--
