On the shelves - July 21

The following books are available for checkout:

Clovis-Carver Public Library

In conjunction with the City of Clovis Floodplain Management Program, the Clovis-Carver Public Library maintains a collection of materials on National Flood Insurance Programs including manuals for designing or retrofitting structures, handbooks on residential repair, guidelines for erosion control, and similar topics. Librarians can assist users in locating these materials.

“Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands” by Andrew E. Masich surveys the least-understood theater of the Civil War that saw not only Union and Confederate forces clashing but also Indians, Hispanos, and Anglos struggling for survival, power, and dominance on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Analysis of these conflicts as interconnected civil wars rather than individual battles provides a close-up history of the war in the region and the war-making traditions of its diverse peoples.

“I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening)” by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers reveals how to talk about politics in a way that inspires rather than angers and that pays spiritual dividends far past election day. As working moms on opposite ends of the political spectrum and hosts of a fast-growing politics podcast, the authors provide practical tools on how to give grace, moving past frustration and into productive dialogue.

“The Trial of Lizzie Borden” by Cara Robertson tells the true story of one of the most sensational murder trials in American history. When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in August 1892, the arrest of the couple's younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. In contrast, Robertson explores what the public at that time wanted and expected to hear and how those stories influenced the debate inside and outside of the courtroom.

“Kitchen Living” by Gestalten and Tessa Peason feeds the imagination with inspiring interior design and professional knowledge to create kitchens that are not just a place to cook but also to celebrate, share, relax, and live life. Tips on how to create your own style, build sustainably, find the best countertop materials, and decorate on a budget show how you can make the most of your current kitchen or start from scratch.

“Space Entrepreneurship” by The New York Times investigates present-day space flight, once done only by governments for exploration and military defense, but is now an advancing science and competition for companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. The wide-open frontier of space promises new kinds of space travel and potential habitats while generating profits, and setbacks, for the entrepreneurs who create them.

Portales Public Library

“Pet Sematary” by Stephen King: Pet Sematary is one of Stephen King’s most iconic, beloved, and most terrifying novels, as well as one of his most personal. When Dr. Louis Creed gets a new job in the rural Maine town of Ludlow, he and his wife Rachel are looking forward to a change of pace and an idyllic place to raise their children, Ellie and Gage. However, the farmhouse they buy just so happens to be set right on a busy, and dangerous, highway, where trucks are known to run over pets that hazard to cross the road. Dozens of pet casualties have ended up buried in the pet cemetery in the woods nearby, and Louis soon hears the local legend of the ancient burial grounds behind the “pet sematary” from neighbor Jud Crandall, a legend that says the dead buried there will come back to life, be it animal or human. Chalking it up to suspicion and tall tales, Louis doesn’t believe Jud, until Ellie’s cat Church is run over, and after burying him behind the cemetery, Church does in fact come back to life…but not as the same cat. When a tragic accident soon follows, Louis faces the temptation of using the cemetery to save his family, setting off a horrifying chain of events that he will be unable to stop.

“Five Feet Apart” by Rachel Lippincott: Five Feet Apart is the story of two teenagers suffering from cystic fibrosis in the hospital. Stella Grant hates being out of control in any part of her life, which is why she hates that she can’t control the fact that her lungs won’t work properly, causing her to stay in hospitals for much of her life. All she has to do is wait for the possibility of a lung transplant, which is easier said than done when she does her utmost to stay away from anyone or anything that might possibly give her an infection, therefore making her too ill to be eligible for a transplant. Stella must keep six feet between herself and anything or anyone else at all times, confined to her hospital room, but when she meets Will Newman in the hospital, she finds her rule even harder to maintain. Will, on the other hand, wants only to finally turn eighteen so that he can release himself from the hospital and move on with his life, despite his own lung problems that have forced him to stay plugged into machines and undergo drug trial after drug trial. When he meets Stella, however, both teens are tempted to inch just a little closer than six feet in order to spend time together, knowing full well that either of them could die if they get too close to stay safe.

“Liar, Liar” by Lisa Jackson: Twenty years ago, Didi Storm was an ex-beauty queen who worked the Vegas strip as a celebrity impersonator, but now, after publishing a telling autobiography that brings her the kind of publicity she always wanted, she jumps to her death from a San Francisco building. While Detective Dani Settler believes the death is either an open-and-shut suicide or else a stunt gone terribly wrong, Didi’s daughter Remmi knows better, because she knows that although the dead body was wearing Didi’s clothes and wig, it wasn’t her mother. Remmi hasn’t, in fact, seen or heard from her mother since she was fifteen years old, when she witnessed her mother hand one of her newborn twins over to a stranger in the middle of the Mojave Desert one night, before later disappearing with the other twin, leaving Remmi to fend for herself. Her mother was never found, but Remmi has always felt as though someone has been watching her throughout her life, and when she meets her old crush, Noah Scott—who was also in the desert that night—both Noah and Remmi investigate the case alongside Detective Settler, and they begin to believe that there may be more to Didi’s disappearance, and her supposed death, than they ever suspected.

— Summaries provided by library staff