Non-Fiction:
A Sea full of turtles: the search for optimism in an epoch of extinction by Bill Steever DB 123302
"Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction event caused by the more than eight billion humans who share this planet. At times, it seems there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastics, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, conversion of habitat to housing, farming, and industrial infrastructure--the list of impacts and insults goes on and on. We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity. A feeling of hopelessness, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost? While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico's Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature--and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis. Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth."
The Dalai Lama's cat and the claw of attraction by David Michie DB 123595
"The Dalai Lama regarded their flushed, animated faces, his forehead wrinkling. "The materialist approach," he nodded. "Seeking to change what you believe to be entirely outside you. It has many problems. For example, why must you constantly postpone your happiness?" India's Top Ten Social Influencers Under 30 were taken aback by this question. Staring at him, their eyes filled with consternation. Postponing happiness was something they most definitely wanted no part of. "For example, if our happiness depends on having the new diamante sunglasses," he chuckled. "Or the perfect boyfriend," he beamed from the girl dressed in crimson to the one in emerald green. "Or having ten million followers," he nodded at the woman in the yellow sari. "What do we do until then? If we are constantly yearning for material things that we don't have yet, then our happiness is always around the corner. Or at the top of the next mountain. Why do you not wish to be happy here and now? Without needing anything else. Happy as I am?" In a chance encounter with India's Top Ten Social Influencers, the Dalai Lama is asked to how to use the 'law of attraction' to manifest abundance. He points out that material wellbeing was never the goal of such practices as he begins to explain their true purpose. It is a purpose that His Holiness's Cat goes on to explore with her usual warm-hearted and wonky-legged aplomb. Is the world much more a projection of our mind than we suspect? Can a few, precious insights transform our reality? In a drama of intimate revelations as well as panoramic visions, of encounters with much-loved friends along with intriguing newcomers, the Dalai Lama's Cat comes to discover that The Claw of Attraction holds the key to a more sublime transcendence than she ever believed possible. Stretch out your own talons, dear reader, and you may too!"
The multiple murders of Mary Kelley Campbell by Ruby Campbell Stroschein DBC00965
"Janel Campbell was 11 years old when her mother was murdered. After 60 years of banishment from family conversation and memory, Janel gives the backdrop of her mother's life, from the farm in southeast Idaho to her brutal murder in King County, Washington on March 8, 1961. “Mary was nicknamed 'Mary Sunshine' by her sisters because every morning she would run to all the windows and pull back the curtains to let the warmth and light of the morning sun pour into the house.” Mary was a high-spirited Irish girl, a devout Mormon, a compassionate Christian, and the mother of six children, executed by members of her church. She was found by Janel's 12-year-old brother, bludgeoned and shot in the head, their seven-month-old baby brother left abandoned on the day bed in the dining room. The Murder of Mary Sunshine is a heartbreaking story of a mother gone too soon, overshadowed by the larger than life vitality, love and wit of Mary Sunshine."
Fiction:
Mockingbird Summer by Lynda Rutledge DB123198
"In segregated High Cotton, Texas, in 1964, the racial divide is as clear as the railroad tracks running through town. It's also where two girls are going to shake things up. This is the last summer of thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran's childhood, and her family hires a Haitian housekeeper who brings her daughter, America, along with her. Corky is quick to befriend America and eager to share her favorite new "grown-up" novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. America's take on it is different and profoundly personal. As their friendship grows, Corky finds out so much more about America's life and her hidden skill: she can run as fast as Olympian Wilma Rudolph! When Corky asks America to play with her girls' softball team for the annual church rivals game, it's a move that crosses the color line and sets off a firestorm. As tensions escalate, it fast becomes a season of big changes in High Cotton. For Corky, those changes will last a lifetime."
King Dayvid by Ty Marshall DB 1231999
"Meet King Dayvid, the most feared man in the city of Baltimore. After years of terrorizing the streets through murder, armed robbery and extortion and frustrating every law enforcement agency in and around the state of Maryland. Dayvid is on the verge of accomplishing what so many before him had failed to do...retire on his own terms. But as with most things in the life, nothing goes as planned, when ATF raids the safe house following his final heist."
One deadly eye by Randy Wayne White DB 124950
"A Russian diplomat disappears while Doc is tagging great white sharks in South Africa, and members of a criminal brotherhood, Bratva, don't think it's a coincidence. They track the biologist to Dinkin's Bay Marina on the west coast of Florida, where Brotherhood mercenaries have already deployed, prepared to pillage and kill in the wake of an approaching hurricane. No one, however, is prepared for a cataclysmic event that will forever change the island and leaves Doc to deal with escapees from Russia's most dangerous prison, including a serial killer--the Vulture Monk--who has a taste for blood. His only ally is an enigmatic British inventor whose decision to ride out the storm might have more to do with revenge than protecting a priceless art collection. Doc has a lot at stake--the lives of his fiancée, Hannah Smith, and their son, plus the fate of his hipster pal, Tomlinson, whose sailboat has disappeared in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest threat of all, though, is a force that cannot be escaped--a Category Five hurricane that, minute by minute, melds sins of the past with Florida's precarious future"