Adult

In SILENT SPRING REVOLUTION, acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley pays tribute to those who combated the mauling of the natural world in the Long Sixties (1960-1973). Rachel Carson (a marine biologist and author), David Brower (director of the Sierra Club), Barry Commoner (an environmental justice advocate), Coretta Scott King (an antinuclear activist), Stewart Udall (the secretary of the interior), William O. Douglas (Supreme Court justice), Cesar Chavez (a labor organizer) and other crusaders are profiled with verve and insight.

Painfully shy, Elizabeth Windsor’s personality was well suited to her youthful ambition of living quietly in the country, raising a family, and caring for her dogs and horses. But when her uncle, King Edward VIII, abdicated, she became heir to the throne --- embarking on a journey that would test her as a woman and queen. In THE QUEEN, renowned biographer Andrew Morton takes an in-depth look at Britain’s longest reigning monarch, exploring the influence that Queen Elizabeth had on both Britain and the rest of the world for much of the last century. From leading a nation struggling to restore itself after the devastation of the second World War to navigating the divisive political landscape of the present day, Queen Elizabeth was a reluctant but resolute queen.

Dr. Brandt Savage is on sabbatical from the University of Chicago. Instead of doing solo fieldwork in anthropology, the gawky, bespectacled PhD finds himself enrolled in a school where he is the sole pupil. His professor, “Meed,” is demanding. She’s also his captor. Savage emerges from their intensive training sessions physically and mentally transformed, but with no idea why he’s been chosen and how he’ll use his fearsome abilities. Then his first mission with Meed takes them back to her own training ground, where Savage learns how deeply entwined their two lives have been. To prevent a new class of killers from escaping this harsh place where their ancestors first fought to make a better world, they must pledge anew: Do right to all, and wrong to no one.

You can spot a Billy Collins poem immediately. The amiable voice, the light touch, the sudden turn at the end. In his own words, his poems tend to “begin in Kansas and end in Oz.” Now Collins has found a new form for his unique poetic style: the small poem. Here he writes about his trademark themes of nature, animals, poetry, mortality, absurdity and love --- all in a handful of lines. Neither haiku nor limerick, the small poem pushes to an extreme poetry’s famed power to condense emotional and conceptual meaning. The poems in MUSICAL TABLES are inspired by the small poetry of writers as diverse as William Carlos Williams, W.S. Merwin, Kay Ryan and Charles Simic, and written with Collins’ recognizable wit and wisdom.

On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling. Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull discovered under the foundations of Baldwin Hall to the hushed-up murder-suicide in Waddel. But in the course of investigating this hit-and-run, she will uncover more chilling secrets as she explores the sprawling, interconnected Greek system that entertains and delights the university’s most elite and connected students.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success --- not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

On New Year's Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he's generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors. But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake. On New Year's Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family --- and Ffion has her own secrets to protect. With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn't who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.

Sid Halley, a private investigator, has a new left hand, having had a transplant since his last appearance in REFUSAL. After receiving death threats, an ex-jockey trainer friend calls Sid to ask for his help, but Sid has his own problems to deal with --- like recovering from surgery and saving his crumbling marriage. When his friend’s stable yard is torched, horses killed, and the friend is found dead, Sid can only blame himself for not helping sooner. The police think it’s suicide, but Sid is not convinced after his friend’s terrified phone calls. Heavy with a guilty heart, Sid starts to investigate and soon finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that cuts to the very heart of the integrity of British horse racing.

After nearly dying of a gunshot wound, Jonathan Stride has been on leave from the Duluth Police for more than a year. When his partner, Maggie Bei, gets called about a suspicious abduction involving a local lawyer, she tells Stride it's time for him to come back. Attorney Gavin Webster says he paid $100,000 in ransom money to the men who kidnapped his wife. Now they've disappeared with the cash, and she's still missing. Gavin claims to be desperate to find her --- but Stride discovers that the lawyer had plenty of motive to be the mastermind behind the crime. Even as Stride digs for the truth about Gavin Webster and his wife, he also must deal with a crisis in his own marriage.

Kari James spends most of her time at her favorite spot in Denver, a bar called White Horse. There, she tries her best to ignore her past and the questions surrounding her mother who abandoned her when she was just two years old. But soon after her cousin, Debby, brings her a traditional bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, Kari starts seeing disturbing visions of her mother and a mysterious creature. When the visions refuse to go away, she must uncover what really happened to her mother. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.