NEXT LITERARY SALON - Wednesday, September 9 @ 4:30pm
Join us the 2nd Wednesday of the month to share favorite books, authors, or series. Literary Salon is a no-rules book club where you bring whatever you're reading to a round of interested listeners. You are welcome to come and be a listener, too. Nine people shared the following 10 titles in August. Please join us at the next Lit Salon on Wednesday, September 9 at 4:30pm. Check lopezlibrary.org or email Beth for current information.

Recommendations
The Forest
by Riccardo Bozzi

A book about the journey of life, from our wide-eyes of childhood through the tangles and brambles, into our end.

Stunning textured art and a story for all ages. 
Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives - presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.
I Give You My Silence
by Mario Vargas Llosa

In his final novel, the Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa returns to his native Peru. To o Azpilcueta, writer of sundry articles, aspirant to the now defunct professorship of Peruvian studies, is an expert in the vals, a genre of music descended from the European waltz but rooted in New World Creole culture. When he hears a performance by the solitary and elusive guitarist Lalo Molfino, he is convinced not only that he is in the presence of the country's finest musician, but that his own love for Peruvian music, as he has long suspected, has a profound social function. If he could just write the biography of the man before him and tell the story of both the vals and its attendant inspiring ethos, huachafer a (Peru's most important contribution to world culture, according to To o), he might capture his country's soul and inspire his fellow citizens remember the ties that bind them. Through music, the populace might unite and lay down their arms and embrace a harmonious and unified Peruvian culture. Both a send-up of parochial idealism and a love song to the culture of his homeland, Mario Vargas Llosa's I Give You My Silence is the final novel of the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner, whose enduring works captured a changing Latin America. His tragic hero To o, a man whose love for a democratic, proletarian music is at odds with the culture and politics of a modern Peru scarred by violence, is the writer's last statement on the revelatory, maddening, and irrepressible belief in the transformative power of art.
The Dentist
by Tim Sullivan

Who was the unknown man whose weather-beaten body is discovered on Clifton Downs?Did the tragedy that led to a life on the streets also lead to his death? His police colleagues may dismiss it as a squabble among Bristol's homeless community, but Detective Sergeant George Cross is not convinced. An outsider himself, Cross's obsession with logic, detail and patterns does not always endear him to those who have to work alongside him-or his superiors. But he has the best conviction rate in the Avon & Somerset Constabulary. By far. As he delves into the dead man's past, Cross becomes convinced that to catch this killer, he needs to solve a cold case murder from years before. A murder that someone has spent fifteen years thinking they've got away with. And they have no intention of letting one eccentric, socially-awkward detective, change that now... The young woman standing in front of him was smiling. Cross was sure of this as her mouth was turned up at both corners, which was a definite sign. He wasn't sure what it meant though, because he didn't know her. With people he knew he would note the upturned mouth, together with what had been said, combine it with the tone in which it had been said and make his inference. Context was everything for Cross. His interpreter.
The Keeper
by Tana French

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Best Book of the Year (So Far) From the iconic crime writer who inspires cultic devotion in readers (The New Yorker) and has been called incandescent by Stephen King, comes the third and final book in the million-copy-bestselling Cal Hooper trilogy. On a cold night in the remote Irish village of Ardnakelty, a girl goes missing. Sweet, loving Rachel Holohan was about to be engaged to the son of the local big shot. Instead, she's dead in the river. In a close-knit small town, a death like this isn't simple. It comes wrapped in generations-old grudges and power struggles, and it splits the townland in two. Retired Chicago detective Cal Hooper has friends here now, and he owes them loyalty, but his fianc e Lena wants nothing to do with Ardnakelty's tangles. As the feud becomes more vicious, their settled peace starts to crack apart. And when they uncover a scheme that casts a new light on Rachel's death and threatens the whole village, they find themselves in the firing line. One of the greatest crime novelists writing today (Vox) crafts a masterwork of atmospheric suspense that brings the story of one of her most beloved characters to a spellbinding conclusion.
Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot
by Book Author

Every major problem facing humanity is exacerbated by a needlessly ballooning human population. So why is the explosive growth of the human family--more than sevenfold since the Industrial Revolution and still expanding rapidly--generally ignored by policy makers and the media? And why has the environmental movement chosen to be mostly silent about the fundamental driver of species loss and the destruction of wildlife habitats around the globe? Isn't it time to start speaking out about the equation that matters most to the future of people and the planet? The publication centerpiece of the Global Population Speakout campaign, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot (OVER) moves beyond insider debates and tired arguments (human numbers and overconsumption are both responsible for the crisis of population overshoot). Anchored by a series of provocative photo essays, OVER presents the stark reality of a world transformed by human action, action that threatens our future and the buzzing, blossoming diversity of life with which we share the planet.--Publisher website.
The Gavriel Tirosh Affair
by Yitzhak Shalev

In 1936, Palestine is under the British Mandate. Arab rioting against the Jews accelerates, the British respond by limiting the entry of Jews fleeing Europe, and the Jewish leadership of Palestine exercises a policy of restraint. The new history teacher who takes over the junior class of a Jerusalem high school is convinced that a group of his students can be educated to help change the course of Jewish history by changing the way Jews respond to being threatened and displaced. Recalling that fateful time, the novel The Gavriel Tirosh Affair takes stock of what the students and their teacher accomplish. It is astonishing how many of the challenges in the novel remain strikingly relevant today.
Whispers of the Storm
by Z. B. Steele

REDLIN OF THE WOLVESVANGUARD, LEGEND, ASSASSIN, REAPERListen to my story: I wasn't always the monster they see me as. Half of the songs they sing are stories of my grandeur. The other half are tales of my misdeeds. The sad truth is that they're all true.So, listen to my tale and learn why it all happened. Learn the reason for the war, the reason for all the death.Listen to my tale and listen well. I won't be alive long enough to tell it again. A moody, banter-laced, violent, and poetic framed story--Z. B. Steele presents Whispers of the Storm, book one of Song of the Damned.
Other Birds
by Sarah Addison Allen

Includes a brand new bonus story of how Mallow Island came to be! The New York Times Bestseller From the acclaimed author of Garden Spells comes an enchanting tale of lost souls, lonely strangers, secrets that shape us, and how the right flock can guide you home. Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It's called The Dellawisp and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother's apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors including a girl on the run, a grieving chef whose comfort food does not comfort him, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn't yet written. When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she is thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there. She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. To find their way they have to learn how to trust each other, confront their deepest fears, and let go of what haunts them. Delightful and atmospheric, Other Birds is filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won't let you go. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
by Adam Higginbotham

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction - Winner of the Kirkus Nonfiction Prize - Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction - A New York Times Notable Book NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - Stunning...A heart-pounding thriller...Challenger is a remarkable book. --The Atlantic - Devastating...A universal story that transcends time. --The New York Times - Dramatic...a moving narrative. --The Wall Street Journal From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, compelling, and exhaustively researched (The Washington Post) minute-by-minute account of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating and new archival research--a riveting history that reads like a thriller. On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th-century history--one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told. Based on extensive archival research and metic-ulous, original reporting, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space follows a handful of central protagonists--including each of the seven members of the doomed crew--through the years leading up to the accident, and offers a detailed account of the tragedy itself and the inves-tigation afterward. It's a compelling tale of ambition and ingenuity undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and later hidden from the public. Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program and the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster, as well as the designers, engineers, and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger identifies a turning point in history--and brings to life an even more complex and astonishing story than we remember.