While I know September is still technically summer for the first few weeks, once Labor Day arrives, I’m thinking about autumn. It’s time to bring out the sweaters and hoodies, drink hot tea and read a book (I do that year-round, but it’s still on my list), and enjoy fall foliage. Now, we aren’t called the Evergreen State for no reason. And, I appreciate our green summers and winters. But it does limit our autumn color. My family roots are in Pennsylvania, so I think maybe I have a genetic desire for red, orange, and gold trees in large quantities.
One of these falls, I’m going to make it to New England, to the world center of fall foliage. In the meantime, I’ve found some interesting books set in New England. From U.S. history to true crime, I hope there is something here for everyone.
- The ride : Paul Revere and the night that saved America by Kostya Kennedy. (Nonfiction) The author presents a dramatic new narrative of the events of April 18 and 19, 1775, informed by fresh research into archives, family letters and diaries, contemporary accounts, and more.
- The Martha's Vineyard beach and book club : a novel by Kate Winkler Dawson. (Fiction) Mari Starwood, grieving her mother's death, travels to Martha's Vineyard. There, she learns a tale of WWII that shows her deep family roots and intrigue.
- Norwich : one tiny Vermont town's secret to happiness and excellence by Karen Crouse. (Nonfiction) Norwich, a charming Vermont town of roughly three thousand residents, has sent an athlete to almost every Winter Olympics for the past thirty years. Norwich, Crouse realized, wasn't just raising better athletes than the rest of America; it was raising happier, healthier kids.
- The sinners all bow : two authors, one murder, and the real Hester Prynne by Kate Winkler Dawson. (Nonfiction) On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Cornell was found hanging in a barn, four months pregnant, after a disgraceful liaison with a charismatic Methodist minister, becoming the subject of the nation’s first true crime novel. This fills in the blanks of that story and looks at how the judgment of the victim clouded justice.
- The cliffs : a novel by J. Courtney Sullivan. (Fiction) As a child, Jane loved the abandoned Victorian house. But, 20 years later, the wealthy owner who has rehabbed the house into something unrecognizable, thinks it’s haunted. She asks Jane to research the land, and what Jane learns is fascinating.
- Summer hours at the robbers library : a novel by Sue Halpern. (Fiction) A middle-aged librarian, a teenager doing community service for shoplifting, and a former Wall Street high-flyer are nursing their wounds in a New Hampshire library. Together they begin to see a way to form a new path in life.
Library tip of the month: September is the perfect month to get a library card. We have some new services coming that you’ll want to participate in. And, around the middle of the month, five new library card designs will be available—created by artists across the library district.
