Prospect Heights Public Library Staff Picks

The Lumby Lines by Gail Fraser

The Lumby Lines is a delightful cozy read.  It is the first of a series and takes place in Northern Washington state.  Mark and Pam Walker have decided they need to get out of the fast lane of a very hectic life and pursue a dream they've had for a long time.  While on vacation, they come upon an abondoned old Abbey with apple, peach, and plum orchards and decide to buy it.  Their plan is to convert the Abbey into a country inn.  Their adjustment to living in a small town and getting to know the quirky townspeople makes for lots of fun and humor.   Readers of the Mitford series by Jan Karon will feel right at home in Lumby.

Olga Niemasz, Adult Services

 

Buckingham Palace Gardens by Anne Perry

A Buckingham Palace house party for potential investors in a scheme to build a trans-Africa railroad ends with a horrifying murder that implicates the Prince of Wales in suspected treason.  Thomas Pitt, lately engaged by the Special Branch, is under enormous pressure to quickly and quietly identify the guilty party so the project can go forward as planned.  When Pitt's maid Gracie Phipps is assigned to the Palace staff he has an ally whose observations help crack the case, thus saving the Royal family from a scandal which could wreck the monarchy.

Betty Shubeck, Adult Services

The Abyssinian Proof by Jenny White

Antiquities are being stolen from churches and mosques all over Istanbul, and Christians and Muslims are blaming each other as priceless relics reach 19th century European art markets in Magistrate Kamil Pasha's second adventure.  Members of a sect descended from Abyssinian slaves are being murdered, and a distinctive mark carved into their bodies leads Kamil Pasha to the smuggler responsible for bringing the city close to a riot.  When a relic belonging to the sect vanishes and reappears, Kamil Pasha finds a way to calm the city and keep the treasures of both religions safe in their shrines.    Betty Shubeck, Adult Services

Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Elizabeth Hess

Project Nim was launched by Columbia University's Herbert Terrace in the 1970's as an attempt to refute the popular theory that langauge is an exclusively human trait.  Nim Chimpsky was a chimpanzee who was raised in a human family and taught American Sign Language so he could communicate with people. Although the experiment was abandoned before conclusions were reached, Nim retained enough sign language so that his subsequent keepers were forced to acknowledge him as a highly social and complex individual instead of a laboratory animal.

Betty Shubeck-Adult Services

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front is one of my favorite books.  I re-read it every couple of years and I always learn something new from it. 

Written in the aftermath of World War I, and banned throughout the world for it's passivist and anti-government ideals, All Quiet has become one of the most important novels and anti-war books ever written and it continues to speak to readers nearly 80 years after it was first published. 

All Quiet follows the lives of Paul Baumer and his comrades as they transform from idealistic students who enlist in the German Army at the outbreak of war through their basic training under the sadistic Himmeltoss and into the trenches.  At first, Pual struggles to make sense of the war and hopes to achieve some greater good, but he quickly devolves into accepting the hopelessness of the war and simply tries to survive it.  Ultimately the hopelessness and despair transcends into Paul himself as he realizes that the war has already destroys him and his life, even if he lives on.

All Quiet on the Western Front is an incredibly powerful book.  If you've never read it before, you should do so.  If you have read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up again. 

Alex Todd - Adult Services

The Sugar Camp Quilt

The Sugar Camp Quilt  by Jennifer Chiaverini

This novel is set in Creek's Crossing, Pennsylvania in the years that precede the Civil War. Families  of the town are pitted against each other in the absolutionist debate. Dorothea Granger's uncle demands that she finish a quilt to his specification. She cannot understand why he would want to design a quilt in such an ususal pattern.  Dorthea decides that he just made a mistake and takes it upon  herself to correct the pattern. Her uncle becomes very angry with her and demands that she follow the pattern he designed. This time in our history comes very much alive through the lives of the Granger families.

This is the seventh in a series of Elm Creek Quilt stories. It can stand alone however and be enjoyed as a novel of it's own.

Rosalie Kendall  ADS, High School Liason

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

This book, the second in the series written by Khaled Hosseini, is a touching story about the hardships and difficulties faced  by modern day Afghani women. A Thousand Splendid Suns reveals the female perspective on gender inequalities and differences in social classes present not only in Afghanistan, but in many underdeveloped countries. This novel offers compelling insights into the hardships of contemporary life in a country that we  hear of daily in the printed and televised news. It is  a must-read book for today's informed reader.

Sophia Bochula - Adult Services

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

Russian emigre, Marina Buriakov, is losing her battle against Alzheimer's. As the details of her present-day life slip mysteriously away, recollections of her early years as a docent at the State Hermitage Museum becomes increasingly vivid. Time and again Marina withdraws into these memories. Dwelling in these memories she shows the readers the richness and beauty of the Hermitage's collection. this book then is about aging and about art. When reading it I felt that it is about the beauty of both--aging and art.

Aldona Salska - Adult Services

Kerplunk! by Patrick McManus

This collection of humorous stories explores the author's hunting and fishing adventures and much more. One of the stories, for example, tells us what happened when the author got his haircut after making he barber mad at him, another story speaks about the wisdom of patience in a situation when 12 hours fishing didn't yield a fish; still other story narrates a cold morning during a hunting trip, when a deer wondered into the author's tent while his sleeping bag was frozen shut--and so on and on. These stories are so hilarious that they can easily bring tears of laughter to a reader's eyes.

Aldona Salska - Adult Services

United States and the Middle East: 1914 to 9/11 by Salim Yaqub

Taught by University of Chicago professor, Salim Yaqub, Ph.D. (from the Series "Great Courses"), this series of lectures examines U.S. relations with the nations of the Middle East since 1914. The lectures, while by and large structured chronologically, focus on three issues:
(1) The growing involvement of the U.S. in Middle East affairs;
(2) Middle East quest for independence;
(3) the rising antagonism between America and the Middle East.

This series of lectures is an excellent overview of interactions between the West and the Middle East that helps us to understand problems behind many headlines in todays news.

Aldona Salska - Adult Services