Murder Will Out: February, 2017

February 3, 2017 | madame librarian
PhDeath : the Puzzler murders by James. P. Carse

"PhDeath" is a fast-paced thriller set in a major university in a major city on a square. The faculty finds itself in deadly intellectual combat with the anonymous Puzzler. Along with teams of U.S. Military Intelligence and the city's top detective and aided by the Puzzle Master of The New York Times, their collective brains are no match for the Puzzler's perverse talents.--Publisher.

The Ripper's shadow : a Victorian mystery by Laura Joh Rowland

The year is 1888 and Jack the Ripper begins his reign of terror. Miss Sarah Bain, a photographer in Whitechapel, is an independent woman with dark secrets. In the privacy of her studio, she supplements her meager income by taking illicit "boudoir photographs" of the town's local ladies of the night. But when two of her models are found gruesomely murdered within weeks of one another, Sarah begins to suspect it's more than mere coincidence. Teamed with a motley crew of friends--including a street urchin, a gay aristocrat, a Jewish butcher and his wife, and a beautiful young actress--Sarah delves into the crime of the century. But just as she starts unlocking the Ripper's secrets, she catches the attention of the local police, who believe she knows more than she's revealing, as well as from the Ripper himself, now bent on silencing her and her friends for good. Caught in the crosshairs of a ruthless killer, Sarah races through Whitechapel's darkest alleys to find the truth...until she makes a shocking discovery that challenges everything she thought she knew about the case. Intelligent and utterly engrossing, Laura Joh Rowland's Victorian mystery The Ripper's Shadow will keep readers up late into the night.
 

The fourth figure : a Pieter Van in mystery by Pieter Aspe

"Commissioner Pieter Van In must find the link between members of a satanic conspiracy and a young woman's death. A young woman is found dead in the canal outside her Bruges apartment building. But what seems like a clear-cut suicide evolves into something much more complex when Commissioner Pieter Van In uncovers the girl's involvement in a satanic sect. Who is the mysterious Venex, and why does he inspire such devotion from his disciples? Complicating the investigation further, Van In's boss allows beautiful journalist Saartje Maes to profile the case, sparking tension with the commissioner's expectant wife, District Attorney Hannelore Martens. As a horrific tragedy shocks the city, Van In seems to be surrounded by secrets. And though exposing them will lead him to the truth, it will also pit him against the very police force to which he's devoted his life."--Provided by publisher.

Look What's In Large Print: February, 2017

February 3, 2017 | madame librarian

Expand your mind.  What's it like to go to war?  Why do Americans move so frequently?  A brilliant neurosurgeon learns he has inoperable cancer, read how he decides to meet this challenge.  Women 'rocket sciences'? Yes!

This is where you belong [large print] : the art and science of loving the place you live by Melody Warnick

The average restless American will move 11.7 times in a lifetime. For Melody Warnick, it was move #6, from Austin, Texas, to Blacksburg, Virginia, that threatened to unhinge her. In the lonely aftermath of unpacking, she wondered : Aren't we supposed to put down roots at some point? How does the place we live become the place we want to stay? This time, she had an epiphany. Rather than hold her breath and hope this new town would be her family's perfect fit, she would figure out how to fall in love with it-- no matter what. How we come to feel at home in our towns and cities is what Warnick sets out to discover.

The general vs the president [large print] : MacArthur and Truman at the brink of nuclear war by H. W Brands

"From master storyteller and historian H.W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II. At the height of the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman committed a gaffe that sent shock waves around the world. When asked by a reporter about the possible use of atomic weapons in response to China's entry into the war, Truman replied testily, 'The military commander in the field will have charge of the use of the weapons, as he always has.' This suggested that General Douglas MacArthur, the willful, fearless, and highly decorated commander of the American and U.N. forces, had his finger on the nuclear trigger. A correction quickly followed, but the damage was done; two visions for America's path forward were clearly in opposition, and one man would have to make way. Truman was one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Heir to a struggling economy, a ruined Europe, and increasing tension with the Soviet Union, on no issue was the path ahead clear and easy. General MacArthur, by contrast, was incredibly popular, as untouchable as any officer has ever been in America. The lessons he drew from World War II were absolute: appeasement leads to disaster and a showdown with the communists was inevitable--the sooner the better. In the nuclear era, when the Soviets, too, had the bomb, the specter of a catastrophic third World War lurked menacingly close on the horizon. The contest of wills between these two titanic characters unfolds against the turbulent backdrop of a faraway war and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin's blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur's forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era"--.

Savvy Seniors: Tax Preparation Services 2017

January 13, 2017 | madame librarian

Canton Township will be hosting the AARP TaxAide Program, providing free Federal and State tax preparation for residents of Canton and the surrounding communities. You do not need to be an AARP member to participate, everyone is accepted regardless of age or income.  The TaxAide program has a strong non-discrimination policy.  The program for tax year January 1 - December 31, 2016, will run February 6 - April 11, 2017.  Call 734-394-5485 to schedule your appointment.  

Note: Appointments are ONLY available on Mondays and Tuesdays.

There are additional AARP sponsored sites throughout Metro Detroit.

Librarians' Non-Fiction Picks: 2016

January 7, 2017 | madame librarian

The following Adult non-fiction titles were chosen as CPL librarians' favorites of 2016. Check them out today!

Raising the floor : how a universal basic income can renew our economy and rebuild the American dream by Andy Stern
Also available in: e-book

Advances in technology are creating the next economy and enabling us to make things/do things/connect with others in smarter, cheaper, faster, more effective ways. But the price of this progress has been a de-coupling of the engine of prosperity from jobs that have been the means by which people have ascended to (and stayed in) the middle class. Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spent four years traveling the country and asking economists, futurists, labor leaders, CEOs, investment bankers, entrepreneurs, and political leaders to help picture the U.S. economy 25 to 30 years from now. He vividly reports on people who are analyzing and creating this new economy--such as investment banker Steve Berkenfeld; David Cote, the CEO of Honeywell International; Andy Grove of Intel; Carl Camden, the CEO of Kelly Services; and Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone. Through these stories, we come to a stark and deeper understanding of the toll technological progress will continue to take on jobs and income and its inevitable effect on tens of millions of people. But there is hope for our economy and future. The foundation of economic prosperity for all Americans, Stern believes, is a universal basic income. The idea of a universal basic income for all Americans is controversial but American attitudes are shifting. Stern has been a game changer throughout his career, and his next goal is to create a movement that will force the political establishment to take action against s
omething that many on both the right and the left believe is inevitable. Stern's plan is bold, idealistic, and challenging--and its time has come.
 

SPQR : a history of ancient Rome by Mary Beard

Ancient Rome was an imposing city even by modern standards, a sprawling imperial metropolis of more than a million inhabitants, a "mixture of luxury and filth, liberty and exploitation, civic pride and murderous civil war" that served as the seat of power for an empire that spanned from Spain to Syria. Yet how did all this emerge from what was once an insignificant village in central Italy? In S.P.Q.R., world-renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even two thousand years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty.

Look What's in Large Print: January 2017

January 6, 2017 | madame librarian

If the font is bigger, it stands to reason the book will be bigger as well, right? That large print titles seemingly defy basic logic makes this one of the most prevalent misconceptions. In fact, large print titles are often the same size or smaller than their hardcover or trade paperback counterparts and weigh about the same as a traditional hardcover book. The common reaction to learning this fact is, “Well, to be the same size or smaller, they must be abridged.” This is also false. The magic here lies in the combination of printing on a thinner, higher quality paper and laying out the text to maximize the use of white space.

Shoot [large print] by Loren D. Estleman

Valentino, a mild-manner film archivist at UCLA and sometime film detective, is at the closing party for the Red Montana and Dixie Day museum when he is approached by no less than his hero and man-of-the-hour Red Montana, western film and television star. Red tells Valentino that he is being blackmailed over the existence of a blue film that his wife, now known throughout the world as the wholesome Dixie Day and the other half of the Montana/Day power couple, made early in her career. With Dixie on her deathbed, Red is desperate to save her the embarrassment of the promised scandal, and offers Valentino a deal-find the movie, and he can have Red's lost film, Sixgun Sonata, that Red has been hiding away in his archives. Don't accept, and the priceless reel will go up in flames. Feeling blackmailed himself, Valentino agrees and begins to dig. In the surreal world of Hollywood, what is on screen is rarely reality. As he races to uncover the truth before time runs out, his heroes begin their fall from grace. Valentino desperately wants to save Sixgun Sonata-- but at what cost?.

The name of God is mercy [large print] : a conversation with Andrea Tornielli by Francis
Also available in: e-book

"In his first official book published as Pope, in celebration of his Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis here addresses all humanity in an intimate and personal dialogue. At the center of this book is the subject closest to his heart--mercy--which has long been the cornerstone of his faith and is now the central teaching of his papacy. These pages resonate with a desire to reach all those souls who are looking for meaning in life, a road to peace and reconciliation, and the healing of physical and spiritual wounds"--Amazon.com.

Murder Will Out: January 2017

January 4, 2017 | madame librarian

The Mystery Writers of America have announced Max Allan Collins and Ellen Hart as the 2017 Grand Masters, an award that recognizes “the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as for a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality.” It is the highest honor the association bestows.

Better dead by Max Allan Collins

Better Dead: The latest Nathan Heller Thriller from Max Allan Collins! It's the early 1950's. Joe McCarthy is campaigning to rid America of the Red Menace. Nate Heller is doing legwork for the senator, though the Chicago detective is disheartened by McCarthy's witch-hunting tactics. He's made friends with a young staffer, Bobby Kennedy, while trading barbs with a potential enemy, the attorney Roy Cohn, who rubs Heller the wrong way. Not the least of which for successfully prosecuting the so-called Atomic Bomb spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. When famous mystery writer Dashiell Hammett comes to Heller representing a group of showbiz and literary leftists who are engaged in a last minute attempt to save the Rosenbergs, Heller decides to take on the case. Heller will have to play both sides to do this, and when McCarthy also tasks Heller to find out what the CIA has on him, Heller reluctantly agrees. His main lead is an army scientist working for the C.I.A. who admits to Heller that he's been having misgivings about the work he's doing and elliptically referring to the Cold War making World War II look like a tea party. And then the scientist goes missing.

Return to Perdition by Max Allan Collins
Also available in: video

In the 1970s, Michael Satariano, Jr., returns to the United States from a Laos prison camp and is told that his whole family has been killed by mobsters and that he was listed as a casualty of the Vietnam War. Sent by the Justice Department to infiltrate organized crime and assassinate certain people, Michael is set on a road that will lead him to love and to Perdition, Kansas, where his family legacy lies waiting for discovery.

If You Like Robert Ludlum try...

January 3, 2017 | madame librarian

If you enjoy reading Robert Ludlum's suspenseful stories, you may enjoy these authors as well.

The Delta solution : an international thriller by Patrick Robinson
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook

The Delta Solution is an action-packed novel dealing with the Somali pirates operating off the southerly reaches of the lawless East African republic on the Indian Ocean. For the past three years, these heavily armed tribal brigands have been capturing and holding for ransom massive cargo ships, especially oil tankers, and violently demanding millions of dollars for their return. Pirating out of the tiny Somalian village of Haradheere has become a very lucrative, dangerous business, so much so that the village has its own Stock Exchange with a reputed $78 million cash, all in crisp $100 bills, in the town vault. And each time an owner pays big for the return of their ship, the pirates immediately do it again, enraging the Pentagon more and more by the day. That is, until the "Somali Marines" make a big mistake, seizing at gun point two United States ships and demanding a $15 million ransom for their return. Hero Mack Bedford, previously encountered in Diamondhead and Intercept, is deployed to SEAL Team 10 to form The Delta Platoon. His objective: obliterate the Somali Marines in the middle of the Indian Ocean, at all costs, once and for all.

The 14th colony by Steve Berry
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | large print

What happens if both the president and vice-president-elect die before taking the oath of office? The answer is far from certain--in fact, what follows would be nothing short of total political chaos. Shot down over Siberia, ex-Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is forced into a fight for survival against Aleksandr Zorin, a man whose loyalty to the former Soviet Union has festered for decades into an intense hatred of the United States. Before escaping, Malone learns that Zorin and another ex-KGB officer, this one a sleeper still embedded in the West, are headed overseas to Washington D.C. Inauguration Day--noon on January 20th--is only hours away. A flaw in the Constitution, and an even more flawed presidential succession act, have opened the door to disaster and Zorin intends to exploit both weaknesses to their fullest. Armed with a weapon leftover from the Cold War, one long thought to be just a myth, Zorin plans to attack. He's aided by a shocking secret hidden in the archives of America's oldest fraternal organization--the Society of Cincinnati--a group that once lent out its military savvy to presidents, including helping to formulate three invasion plans of what was intended to be America's 14th colony--Canada. In a race against the clock that starts in the frozen extremes of Russia and ultimately ends at the White House itself, Malone must not only battle Zorin, he must also confront a crippling fear that he's long denied, but which now jeopardizes everything. Steve Berry's trademark mix of history and speculation is all here in this provocative new thriller.

Savvy Seniors: January 2017

January 3, 2017 | madame librarian

It's January, it's cold, and most likely the streets are icy.  A good time to sit back and watch a movie from the wonderful collection at Canton Public Library.

A foreign field [videodisc]

A group of nostalgic World War II veterans revisit the shores of Normandy, recounting the events that impacted their lives.

The gathering storm [videodisc]

In the mid-1930's the great politician and orator Winston Churchill was out of favor with the English people and struggling to make his voice heard. Wrestling with his personal demons, a lonely but defiant Churchill attempts to warn the world of the impending gloom surrounding Hitler's Germany.

Canton Seniors Book Discussion 2017 Reading List

December 22, 2016 | madame librarian

The Canton Seniors Book Group meets on the fourth Thursday of the month (except in November) from 2:00-3:00PM in the Friends' Activity Room.  We read a variety of fiction and non-fiction selections. Copies of the month's selection are distributed at the book discussion or request a copy at Canton Public Library's Information Desk.  Join us in this open, no-registration-required conversation.

January 27, 2017

The prophet by Michael Koryta

Two brothers in a small Midwestern town--one the high school's beloved football coach on the verge of a state championship and the other one scraping by as a bail bondsman--have been at odds since their sister was abducted and murdered when they were teenagers. Now a new killing with ties to each of them forces a painful and adversarial reunion.

Librarians' Fiction Picks: 2016

December 12, 2016 | madame librarian

The following Fiction titles were chosen as CPL librarians' favorites of 2016. Check them out today!

They may not mean to, but they do by Cathleen Schine
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | large print

From one of America's greatest comic novelists, a hilarious new novel about aging, family, loneliness, and love The Bergman clan has always stuck together, growing as it incorporated in-laws, ex-in-laws, and same-sex spouses. But families don't just grow, they grow old, and the clan's matriarch, Joy, is not slipping into old age with the quiet grace her children, Molly and Daniel, would have wished. When Joy's beloved husband dies, Molly and Daniel have no shortage of solutions for their mother's loneliness and despair, but there is one challenge they did not count on: the reappearance of an ardent suitor from Joy's college days. And they didn't count on Joy herself, a mother suddenly as willful and rebellious as their own kids. The New York Times -bestselling author Cathleen Schine has been called "full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to [ Jane] Austen's own" ( The New York Review of Books ), and she is at her best in this intensely human, profound, and honest novel about the intrusion of old age into the relationships of one loving but complicated family. They May Not Mean To, But They Do is a radiantly compassionate look at three generations, all coming of age together.

The underground railroad : a novel by Colson Whitehead
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook | large print

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels.

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