Henry Hayden is a cold and calculating psychopath.  He has always told lies mixed with bits of truth which he believes is the only way to lie.  Henry is masquerading as a world famous author and living the lifestyle of one.    He's never written a book in his life,  but his wife, Martha,  has written several.   It is their agreed secret that he take credit as the author of her books.  She only wants to write.   Stir in to the mix a pregnant mistress who wants marriage,  a person from Henry's past stalking him and  haboring revenge,  a sad mistake of murder, and Henry's life and lies begin to unravel.  Can he keep spinning lies and half truths or will it all come crumbling down?

 " It's not easy to keep a secret.  A lifetime keeping silent is agony. Looked at that way, a murder's punishment begins on the day of his crime."

 " His punishment had already begun, each day when he awoke, the memory would wake with him and be renewed. To keep a secret, you should never lose concentration; tell nobody and never forget.  That was how Martha had begun the first chapter of , Aggravating Circumstances. She must have meant him, who else could she have meant?"

" Martha had written  in pencil on the last page…hang on a little while longer. Can you guess how it ends? Kisses, Martha"

This is an excellent first novel by the German screenwriter, Arango.  The author takes a look at truth and lies as they relate to our identities, the truth as it relates to the past and our memory of it,  fame, and mortality.  The book is fast-paced, suspenseful, dark, and witty.  It  is one psychologically, wicked tale to add to your reading list.

The speaker was Zak Ebrahim. The 1200 audience members jumped to their feet with tears and applause as the poised young man concluded his powerful nine minute talk. It was a TED conference in Vancouver, British Colombia. Also speaking that particular day in September 2013 were Bill and Melinda Gates, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Jehane Noujaim and the musician Sting but it was Zak’s talk that resonated with the listeners. They were transported back to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center where six individuals were killed and over a thousand injured.

One of the masterminds of this heinous act was El-Sayed Nosair, who was serving time in the Attica Correctional Facility, a supermax New York State prison, for crimes related to the assassination of the leader of the Jewish Defense League. Considered a prime instigator of terrorists’ acts in the United States, El-Sayed was specifically mentioned in one of Osama bin Laden’s infamous video messages where bin Laden urged the world to "Remember El-Sayed Nosair."

El-Sayed Nosair was Zak Ebrahim’s father. Zak’s memoir, The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice, was inspired by his heart-rending TED talk. Imagine moving more than twenty times during your childhood, not only being bullied because you are the new kid in school but because of the atrocious crimes committed by your father. This true account recalls in great detail being awoken at age seven, advised to put all his worldly possessions into a sheet by his panicked mother and the flight from their apartment in New Jersey to which he would never return. The trials and tribulations endured by Zak and his family are detailed in his remarkable journey to escape the legacy of his father’s choices.

At barely under one hundred pages, this is a "small book about big ideas", designed to be read in one sitting. Zak’s choice to reject his childhood indoctrination of bigoted ideology espoused by his father and to instead embrace a life of tolerance and empathy provides an ultimately hopeful story.

"I’ve spent my life trying to understand what drew my father to terrorism, and struggled with the knowledge that I have his blood in my veins. By telling my story, my intention is to do something hopeful and instructive: to offer a portrait of a young man who was raised in the fires of fanaticism and embraced nonviolence instead.”

Zak Ebrahim’s The Terrorist’s Son won the American Library Association’s Alex Award in 2015 for being one of the 10 best adult books of the year that also appeal to young-adult readers. A portion of the earnings the author received to write the book have been donated to Tuesday’s Children, a nonprofit organization helping communities affected by terrorism around the world.

On June 10, 1940, even the French Government officials fled in anticipation of the Nazi takeover of Paris, but Sumner Jackson stayed. He had a duty as doctor and “resident physician in charge,” and he intended to help all he could. Avenue of Spies, an historical account of an American living in Nazi-occupied France, gives the reader a glimpse into what it was like for one family in World Word II Paris.

Sumner Jackson was an American doctor who had fallen in love with a Swiss-born nurse, Toquette, when they were both working in a hospital during the First World War. By the time World War II began, Sumner and Toquette had a 12-year-old son together and were living in one of Paris’ finest neighborhoods, on Avenue Foch. At the onset of the war, Sumner sent his wife and son elsewhere for safety, and he spent most nights in the American Hospital where he worked. Eventually, wife and son returned, and both Sumner and Toquette battled the Nazis in their own ways.

Sumner’s personal rebellion against the Nazis began early on, when he hid Allied troops and other members of the resistance in the basement of the American Hospital. After hiding those who needed to escape, he often kept no record of their names, or officially recorded them as “deceased.”

The reader watches the Nazis advance through the eyes, ears and minds of the Jacksons. The Nazis are 150 miles from Paris, now closer. Hospitals and ambulances are being targeted by the German troops, and Sumner’s hospital paints over any red cross symbols that would announce their presence and intentions. “From the terrace of Sumner’s office… [he] could see flashes of light from bursting artillery shells splashing across the horizon. Hitler’s storm troopers were less than twenty miles away.”

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and one American Family’s Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw reads more like a thrilling spy novel than a history lesson and draws on extensive interviews with Phillip Jackson, Sumner and Toquette’s son. This non-fiction selection includes a selection of photographs of the Jackson family, as well as images of many other high-profile names discussed in this book.

It's a hot, lazy day, perfect for a cookout, until you see those strange dark clouds. Suddenly a violent storm sweeps across the lake and ends as abruptly and unexpectedly as it had begun. Then comes the mist...creeping slowly, inexorably into town, where it settles and waits, trapping you in the supermarket with dozens of others, cut off from your families and the world. The mist is alive, seething with unearthly sounds and movements. What unleashed this terror? Was it the Arrowhead Project---the top secret government operation that everyone has noticed but no one quite understands? And what happens when the provisions have run out and you're forced to make your escape, edging blindly through the dim light?

Travel back to the Great World War and globe trot the world with a colorful band of characters affectionately known as the Explorers Guild.  Published in October, The Explorers Guild is penned by Jonathan Baird and Kevin Costner, the famous actor and filmmaker, assisted by Stephen Meyer. Rick Ross is responsible for the fabulous illustrations.

This great adventure tome harkens back to the golden age of adventure writing in the similar vein of authors Jack London, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad and Robert Louis Stevenson.  The action revolves around the Ogden siblings: brothers John and Arthur, and their sister, Frances.  Each has a vastly different reason for searching for the lost city of Shambhala but all are of the upmost importance to the seeker, ranging from saving a life to saving the world. Broken down into five distinct sections, this high octane tale journeys from the “Ice Fields Wide and Wicked” to the desert sands of Southeast Mesopotamia to “secret waterways beneath Asia” to the bustling neighborhoods of New York City.  

The 770 page novel is almost split evenly between text and graphic storytelling. Kevin Costner shares the reason for the length of the book. “It is packed with illustrated comic panels by Rick Ross. His phenomenal illustrations fire my imagination.”  The images impart some conversation or historical fact necessary to move along the plot. As the book is full of comic book images, an assumption could be made that it is a book aimed at children.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Many times the action is not suitable for younger readers. For example, the evil Sharif Al-Shar’s end is described as “The Sharif is last seen as a dark feather of blood over the village square” after a maid, in retribution for grievances out of counting, most of them unprintable, ignites a cannon to which the sultan is strapped to by Major John Ogden of the Fifth Dragoon Guards.

According to the authors, it took almost ten years to fully develop the storylines.  The word choices, while lengthy, are reminiscent of the time period. When Arthur Ogden claims responsibility for the book’s events, he writes, “I can tell you straight out that we are the victims of an ill-judged boast on my part made in a spasm of jealousy and wrath and of all thing patriotism; which boast has flung us far from the pleasure of Society and put us on term of intimacy with Death, as I say without exaggeration.” Arthur then promises to end his chronicle on a bright note of revenge. With such delicious writing, it forces the reader to journey to the end.

The extended title of the book is “The Explorers Guild Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala - Being an Introduction to that Secret Society And an Account of Certain Travelers in their Far-Faring Search for the Sacred City Yrs. 1912-1918.”  It is available from the VCPL in hardback.

Four patients being cared for during a 12 hour shift in the hospital may not sound challenging to the layperson, but to a nurse who may hold their lives in her hands, it can stretch the limits of her/his endurance.  Theresa Brown, a  nurse on a hospital oncology floor, the Bone Marrow Transplant floor, explains just how much care as well as paperwork goes into a patient's stay.  The four patients she chiefly describes have a variety of medical issues and positive and negative outcomes.  The reader becomes caught up in their stories, wondering who will live and who will die, and those questions are answered.  Theresa says that many nurses rarely even get their lunch half-hour, at least on her floor, so they are working at times almost to physical impairment due to low blood sugar.  The reader comes to have an even greater respect for these individuals who usually know more about the patient's condition than their doctor, and may help the doctor avoid a mistake in the patient's care.   An interesting read for the layperson, and nurses who read it will be nodding their heads that she has captured the essence of a nurse's day-to-day worklife.  The author was previously an English teacher at Tufts University before becoming a nurse, and has written for the New York Times, as well as for professional nursing journals. 

Humans of New York: Stories is a photographic, storytelling blog that began on Facebook. When Brandon, the author, began this journey five years ago, he was simply taking pictures. Now he interviews the subjects of his photographs and has somehow created a safe place on Facebook for people to share their secrets. This book is a compilation of those stories. In this book, the reader meets people of all ages, with all kinds of stories to tell. The reader will laugh out loud, turn the page, and tear up.

While this book looks large, (426 pages of stories!), it can be read in one evening if the reader so chooses.