Spotlight Titles

Spotlight Books for Fall

Fall is a busy time for publishers.
Look for new works by YPL favorite authors:
John Grisham, Louise Penny, Nicholas Sparks, and James Patterson
all have new books coming out in September.

Fiction: “Sir Gawain an the Green Knight”
translated by Simon Armitage

Have you the heard critical acclaim for the new movie based on the medieval romance of “Sir Gawain an the Green Knight?” Read the version translated by Simon Armitage from the original Middle English text.

One of the founding stories of English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight narrates the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse who rudely interrupts Camelot’s Round Table festivities one Yuletide, casting a pall of unease over the company and challenging one of their number to a wager. The virtuous Gawain accepts and decapitates the intruder with his own axe. Gushing blood, the knight reclaims his head, orders Gawain to seek him out a year hence, and departs. The following Yuletide, Gawain dutifully sets forth. His quest for the Green Knight involves a winter journey, a seduction scene in a dreamlike castle, a dire challenge answered―and a drama of enigmatic reward disguised as psychic undoing.

Fiction: "The Man Who Died Twice"
by Richard Osman

Did you enjoy the Thursday Murder Club? Try The Man Who Died Twice by the same author, Richard Osman.

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim—the Thursday Murder Club—are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper’s Chase, their posh retirement village.

But they are out of luck.

An unexpected visitor—an old pal of Elizabeth’s (or perhaps more than just a pal?)—arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men and he’s seriously on the lam.

Then, as night follows day, the first body is found. But not the last. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a ruthless murderer who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can our four friends catch the killer before the killer catches them? And if they find the diamonds, too? Well, wouldn’t that be a bonus? You should never put anything beyond the Thursday Murder Club.

Nonfiction: Science:
Beasts Before Us: The Untold Story of Mammal Origin and Evolution by Elsa Panciroli

In Beasts Before Us, palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, Synapsida, beginning at their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, over three-hundred million years ago. They made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs.

Travelling forward into the Permian and then Triassic periods, we learn how our ancient mammal ancestors evolved from large hairy beasts with accelerating metabolisms to exploit miniaturisation, which was key to unlocking the traits that define mammals as we now know them.

Fiction: "Cloud Cuckoo Land"
by Anthony Doerr

Did you enjoy All the Light We Cannot See? Try Cloud Cuckoo Land, new from Anthony Doerr.

Set in Constantinople in the 15th century, in a small town in present-day Idaho, and on an interstellar ship decades from now, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book.

In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.

Nonfiction: For lovers of history:
The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 by Joseph Ellis

With The Cause, Ellis takes a fresh look at the events between 1773 and 1783, recovering a war more brutal than any in American history save the Civil War and discovering a strange breed of “prudent” revolutionaries, whose prudence proved wise yet tragic when it came to slavery, the original sin that still haunts our land. Written with flair and drama, The Cause brings together a cast of familiar and forgotten characters who, taken together, challenge the story we have long told ourselves about our origins as a people and a nation.

Nonfiction: For lovers of history:
Travels with George by Nathaniel Philbrick

Written at a moment when America's founding figures are under increasing scrutiny, Travels with George grapples bluntly and honestly with Washington's legacy as a man of the people, a reluctant president, and a plantation owner who held people in slavery.

At historic houses and landmarks, Philbrick reports on the reinterpretations at work as he meets reenactors, tour guides, and other keepers of history's flame. He paints a picture of eighteenth century America as divided and fraught as it is today, and he comes to understand how Washington compelled, enticed, stood up to, and listened to the many different people he met along the way--and how his all-consuming belief in the Union helped to forge a nation.

Nonfiction: Animal behavior:
Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Lay
by Mary Roach

Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators, and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers. When it comes to "problem" wildlife, she finds, humans are more often the problem―and the solution. Fascinating, witty, and humane, Fuzz offers hope for compassionate coexistence in our ever-expanding human habitat.

Fiction: Also recommended
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
The Magician by Colm Toibin
The Matrix by Lauren Groff
No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

Nonfiction: Also recommended:
The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of Saint James, 1938-1940, by Susan Ronald

Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive, by Philipp Dettmer

Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front, by Charles Gallagher