Heard Any Good Books Lately? July 2022 edition - Transcript

The content of this program is intended for people who are blind and print impaired.

Hello and welcome to our July 2022 edition of “Heard Any Good Books Lately?” a program from the North Carolina Reading Service. I’m George Douglas. This program is brought to you by the Friends of the North Carolina Library for the Blind, an organization of citizens, volunteers and patrons all interested in supporting the library and the services it provides. The Friends group was founded in 1989 and now has more than 300 members across North Carolina. If you would like to join the Friends group yourself, we’ll have information on how to do that later in the program.

This program is all about books, with special emphasis on those available from the NC Library for the Blind. The library has more than 86,000 titles in its collection. Books and magazines are available in large print, Braille and talking books as well. 

The library has more than 11-thousand patrons across the state. If you are not a patron but are interested in becoming one, I’ll have more information at the end of this program.

This month we will take a look at some of the most popular books checked out in the month of April at the State Library of North Carolina - Accessible Books and Library Services, the new name for the NC Library for the Blind 
The Talented Mr. Varg by Alexander McCall Smith

In the second installment in the best-selling Detective Varg Novels, Ulf and his team investigate a notorious lothario—a wolf of a man whose bad reputation may, much to his chagrin, be all bark and no bite. 

The Department of Sensitive Crimes, renowned for taking on the most obscure and irrelevant cases, led by Ulf Varg, their best detective, is always prepared to take on an investigation, no matter how complex. So when Ulf is approached by the girlfriend of Trig Oloffson, who claims her beau (the infamous bad boy of Swedish letters) is being blackmailed, Ulf is determined to help. It turns out that this wild bear of a man may be more of a teddy. And while Swedes are notoriously tolerant, finding out that their beloved rough and tumble ink slinger is more likely to use a pen than a sword . . . well, there are limits. Even for the Swedish.

The case requires all of Ulf's concentration, but he finds himself distracted by his brother's questionable politics and meteoric rise within the Moderate Extremist Party and by his own constant attraction to his married co-worker Anna. When Ulf is then tasked with looking into a group of dealers exporting wolves that seem decidedly domestic, it will require all of his team's investigative instincts and dogged persistence to put these matters to bed. 
 
June by Lori Copeland

As June leaves her Michigan home to become the mail-order bride of a Washington State preacher, readers will learn the important lesson that God is ever faithful, even when we don't understand his plan or purpose in our lives. "June" delivers a lighthearted, entertaining story along with strong moral values and a Christian worldview.

Mail-order bride June Kallahan arrives in Seattle from Michigan to discover that her intended, Eli Messenger, the assistant to a famous evangelist named Isaac Inman, is ill. After he dies, June stays on to work at the local orphanage, where she realizes Inman is allowing the orphans to go without in order to build a showy tabernacle. A romance blooms between June and Parker Sentell, a friend of Eli's, as they try to convince Inman of the errors of his thinking. 
 
The Finders: A Mace Reid K-9 Mystery by Jeffrey B Burton

Jeffrey B. Burton's The Finders marks the beginning of a fast-paced new mystery series featuring a heroic golden retriever cadaver dog named Vira and her handler, Mason Reid.

Mason "Mace" Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human remains detection. He trains dogs to hunt for the dead. Reid’s coming off a taxing year—mourning the death of a beloved springer spaniel as well as the dissolution of his marriage. He adopts a rescue dog with a mysterious past—a golden retriever named Vira. And when Reid begins training Vira as a cadaver dog, he comes to realize just how special the newest addition to his family truly is…

Suddenly, Reid and his prize pupil find themselves hurled into a taxing murder case, which will push them to their very limits. Paired with determined Chicago Police Officer Kippy Gimm, Mace must put all his trust in Vira's abilities to thwart a serial killer who has now set his sights on Mace himself.
 
The Ride of Her Life: The True Story of a Woman, Her Horse and their last chance journey across America by Elizabeth Letts

The bestselling author of The Eighty-Dollar Champion and The Perfect Horse returns with another uplifting story of horses and determination.
Letts narrates the tale of Annie Wilkins. In 1954, after being diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis, the 63-year-old Mainer "took her dog and got on a horse" and rode all the way to California. In the small town of Minot, Wilkins had lived in poverty on the family farm, with no electricity or running water. After her uncle died and she received her grim prognosis, which rendered her unable to look after the farm, she decided to live out a childhood dream to “see the Pacific Ocean at least once in my life.” She used most of the money she got from selling the family farm to buy Tarzan, a horse destined for the slaughterhouse, and set out for California, leading her beloved small mutt, Depeche Toi, on a clothesline leash. 
Newspaper reporters transformed her into a celebrity whose story brightened the lives of Americans living through the nightmare of the McCarthy era and earned her the gift of a companion horse for Tarzan named Rex from a small Tennessee community. In 1955, she appeared on Art Linkletter's popular TV show People Are Funny. “Linkletter,” writes the author, “immediately understood Annie’s essential Americanness: her authority came precisely from the fact that her journey was neither choreographed nor staged. Here was a woman who was doing something just because she wanted to do it.” 
This engaging folk-hero biography, which follows Wilkins throughout her grand adventure, also touches on the cultural history of mid-20th-century America. As Letts delves into the postwar prosperity that transformed the U.S. into a land of cars and endless highways, she celebrates the dying tradition of the “American tramp or hobo” that Wilkins, the self-christened "Last of the Saddle Tramps," represented.
A heartwarming and nostalgic book to appeal to horse lovers and fans of the author’s previous books.

 
Proposing Mischief by Regina Jennings

Only one person can give her the freedom she seeks--but is it worth the risk?

Maisie Kentworth is being forced to stay on her parents' ranch. After a short-lived relationship with the wrong man, she's worried about inflaming things further between her former beau and her protective family. Left to rue her mistakes, she keeps busy exploring the idle mine at the edge of their property, where she discovers a great treasure.

Boone Bragg is also stuck. With his parents on vacation, the management of Bragg Mining falls on him, and one of his advisors wants him as a son-in-law. One wrong move, and Boone will end up either offending an associate or marrying a woman he can't endure.

While closing up a spent mine, Boone gets two surprises. One is a spitfire farm girl who's trespassing with a pickax, and the other is the amazing crystal cavern that she's discovered. Suddenly Boone sees a way to overhaul the family business. With part of the cavern on Kentworth land, Boone makes Maisie a proposal that he hopes will solve all of their problems. Instead it throws Joplin into chaos, and it will take all of Maisie's gumption to set things right.
 
Righteous Troublemakers: Untold Stories of the Social Justice movement by Al Sharpton

Bestselling author Reverend Al Sharpton brings to light the stories of the unsung heroes of the Civil Rights movement, drawing on his unique perspective in the history of the fight for social justice in America
 
“This is the time. We won’t stop until we change the whole system of justice.”—Rev. Al Sharpton

While the world may know the major names of the Civil Rights movement, there are countless lesser-known heroes fighting the good fight to advance equal justice for all, heeding the call when no one else was listening, often risking their lives and livelihoods in the process.

Righteous Troublemakers shines a light on everyday people called to do extraordinary things—like Pauli Murray, whose early work informed Thurgood Marshall’s legal argument for Brown v. Board of Education, Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus months before Rosa Parks did the same, and Gwen Carr, whose private pain in losing her son Eric Garner stoked her public activism against police brutality. Sharpton also illuminates the lives of more widely known individuals, revealing overlooked details, historical connections, and a perspective informed by years of working on the front line of the social justice movement, to provide a behind-the-scenes look at the wheels of justice and the individuals who have helped advance its cause.

Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage by Amme Lamott

From the bestselling author of Help, Thanks, Wow comes an inspiring guide to restoring hope and joy in our lives.

In Dusk, Night, Dawn, Anne Lamott explores the tough questions that many of us grapple with. How can we recapture the confidence we once had as we stumble through the dark times that seem increasingly bleak? As bad newspiles up—from climate crises to daily assaults on civility—how can we cope? Where, she asks, “do we start to get our world and joy and hope and our faith in life itself back . . . with our sore feet, hearing loss, stiff fingers, poor digestion, stunned minds, broken hearts?”

We begin, Lamott says, by accepting our flaws and embracing our humanity.

Drawing from her own experiences, Lamott shows us the intimate and human ways we can adopt to move through life’s dark places and toward the light of hope that still burns ahead for all of us.

As she does in Help, Thanks, Wow and her other bestselling books, Lamott explores the thorny issues of life and faith by breaking them down into manageable, human-sized questions for readers to ponder, in the process showing us how we can amplify life's small moments of joy by staying open to love and connection. As Lamott notes in Dusk, Night, Dawn, “I got Medicare three days before I got hitched, which sounds like something an old person might do, which does not describe adorably ageless me.” Marrying for the first time with a grown son and a grandson, Lamott explains that finding happiness with a partner isn't a function of age or beauty but of outlook and perspective. 

Full of the honesty, humor, and humanity that have made Lamott beloved by millions of readers, Dusk, Night, Dawn is classic Anne Lamott—thoughtful and comic, warm and wise—and further proof that Lamott truly speaks to the better angels in all of us.
 
Sister Stardust By Jane Green

New York Times bestselling author Jane Green reimagines the life of troubled icon Talitha Getty in this transporting story from a forgotten chapter of the Swinging '60s

Claire grew up in a small town, far from the glitz and glamour of London. On the cusp of adulthood, she yearns for the adventure and independence of a counterculture taking root across the world.
When she’s offered the chance to start anew in Morocco, in a palace where famous artists and musicians — even the Rolling Stones — have been known to visit, she seizes the chance. Arriving in Marrakesh, she’s quickly swept up in a heady world of music, drugs and communal living. And Talitha Getty, socialite wife of a famous oil heir, seems to preside over the whole scene. As Claire is pulled into her orbit, the realities of Talitha’s precarious existence set off a chain of dangerous events that could alter Claire’s life forever.
 
Someday Home by Lauraine Snelling

A heartwarming story that celebrates how life-changing friendships can be found in all seasons of life.

The sprawling lake home Lynn Lundberg built with her husband has been an epicenter of joyful family life, from summer holidays spent around the water, to cookies baked in the kitchen with grandchildren in the fall. But since her husband's sudden passing two years ago, Lynn has been lost in the grief and solitude she feels without him at home. She doesn't want to sell the big family place, but she can't exist there on her own much longer. 

After hearing of a new way of living--where single women share responsibilities as housemates--Lynn thinks she's found the answer to her prayers. Soon she meets two ladies with whom she could begin this journey. Angela Bishop, a successful real estate agent accustomed to the finer things in life, has just been jilted by her husband of twenty-five-years. Judith Rutherford, who has devoted her adulthood to caring for her ailing father, must leave the only home she's known now that he has passed. 

These three women seek a place to grieve, to laugh, and to be renewed. But coming from such differing circumstances, will the new challenges they face undo their plans? Or will they begin a friendship to see them through the years to come in this Someday Home? 
 
The Paris Apartment, a novel by Lucy Foley

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Guest List comes a new locked room mystery, set in a Paris apartment building in which every resident has something to hide… 
Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.
The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.
The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge
Everyone's a neighbor. Everyone's a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.
 
Closing

That’s all for this month’s edition of “Heard Any Good Books Lately? I’m George Douglas. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like more information about how to become a patron of the State Library of North Carolina - Accessible Books and Library Services, simply Google or search for Accessible Books – North Carolina Library – or call toll free -888-388-2460. That’s 888-388-2460.

You can also use the same numbers and website to join the Friends of the NC Library for the Blind. It is that wonderful organization that sponsors this monthly feature on books. 

This program is intended for people who are blind or print impaired. “Heard Any Good Books Lately” will be available right after the broadcast at our website NCReadingService.Org. So long until next time.