On the shelves - June 19

The books listed below are now available for checkout at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The library is open to the public, but patrons can still visit the online catalog at cloviscarverpl.booksys.net/opac/ccpl or call 575-769-7840 to request a specific item for curbside pickup.

“The Sweet Life” by Suzanne Woods Fisher. Dawn Dixon can hardly believe she’s on a groomless honeymoon on beautiful Cape Cod … with her mother. Sure, Marnie Dixon is good company, but Dawn was supposed to be here with Kevin, the love of her life (or so she thought). Marnie Dixon needs some time away from the absolute realness of life as much as her jilted daughter does, and she’s not about to let her only child suffer alone--even if Marnie herself had been doing precisely that for the past month. Everyone knows that broken romances stay broken … don’t they? Welcome to a summer of sweet surprises on Cape Cod--a place where dreams just might come true.

“Shadows of Pecan Hollow” by Caroline Frost. It was 1970 when 13-year-old runaway Kit Walker was abducted by Manny Romero, a smooth-talking, low-level criminal, who first coddled her and then groomed her into his partner-in-crime. Before long, Kit and Manny were infamous for their string of gas station robberies throughout Texas, making a name for themselves as the Texaco Twosome. Twenty years after they meet, Kit has scraped together a life for herself and her daughter. But when he shows up at her doorstep a new man, fresh out of prison, Kit is forced to reckon with the shadows of her past. 

“Last Call at the Nightingale” by Katharine Schellman. New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly’s days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day. But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement. At The Nightingale, Vivian forgets the dangers of Prohibition-era New York and finds a place that feels like home. But then she discovers a body behind the club, and those dangers come knocking. Caught in a police raid at the Nightingale, Vivian discovers that the dead man wasn’t the nameless bootlegger he first appeared.

“Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library” by Amanda Oliver. Who are libraries for, how have they evolved, and why do they fill so many roles in our society today? Overdue begins with Oliver’s first day at an “unusual” branch: Northwest One. Using her experience at this branch allows Oliver to highlight the national problems that have existed in libraries since they were founded: racism, segregation, and class inequalities. These age-old problems have evolved into police violence, the opioid epidemic, rampant houselessness, and lack of mental health care nationwide—all of which come to a head in public library spaces. Can American society sustain one of its most noble institutions?

“The Last Days of the Dinosaurs” by Riley Black. In “The Last Days of the Dinosaurs,” Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries, and the million years after the impact, tracking the sweeping disruptions that overtook this one spot, and imagining what might have been happening elsewhere on the globe. Life’s losses were sharp and deeply felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.

“Himalaya: A Human History” by Ed Douglas. A magisterial history of the Himalaya: an epic story of peoples, cultures, and adventures among the world’s highest mountains. For centuries, the unique and astonishing geography of the Himalaya has attracted those in search of spiritual and literal elevation: pilgrims, adventurers, and mountaineers seeking to test themselves among the world’s most spectacular and challenging peaks. “Himalaya” is history written on the grandest yet also the most human scale―encompassing geology and genetics, botany and art, and bursting with stories of courage and resourcefulness.

— Summaries provided by library staff