Books @ Noon May 2021 Picks

1) The code breaker: Jennifer Doudna, gene editing, and the future of the human race

Author

Notes

Bill kicked us off with this book that he said was like an extension of "The Double Helix", linked next. Your loyal scribe is late getting this list out, so who shared what is all that will appear on the notes for this edition of our list.

Formats:

Book, Book - Hardback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

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"When Jennifer Doudna was in sixth grade, she came home one day to find that her dad had left a paperback, titled The Double Helix, on her bed. She put it aside, thinking it was one of those detective tales she loved. When she read it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered she was right, in a way. As she sped through the pages, she became enthralled by the intense drama behind the competition to discover the building blocks of life. Even though her high...

2) The double helix; a personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA

Author

Watson, James D

3) The thirteenth tale

Author

Setterfield, Diane

Series

WSP readers club

Notes

Mary enjoyed this and read it after having read Bellman and Black, linked next.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, Book - Paperback, eAudiobook, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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When her health begins failing, the mysterious author Vida Winter decides to let Margaret Lea, a biographer, write the truth about her life, but Margaret needs to verify the facts since Vida has a history of telling outlandish tales.

4) Bellman & Black: [a ghost story]

Author

Setterfield, Diane

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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Killing a bird with his slingshot as a boy, William Bellman grows up a wealthy family man unaware of how his act of childhood cruelty will have terrible consequences until a wrenching tragedy compels him to enter into a macabre bargain with a stranger in black.

5) A woman of no importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win World War II

Author

Purnell, Sonia

Series

Thorndike Press large print nonfiction

Notes

Carolyn read and enjoyed this title...and Mary & Sandra recommended Madame Fourcade's Secret War, linked next.

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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"The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War. In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization dubbed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly...

6) Madame Fourcade's secret war: the daring young woman who led France's largest spy network against Hitler

Author

Olson, Lynne

Formats:

Book - Hardback, eAudiobook

Description

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The little-known true story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II, from the bestselling author of Citizens of London and Last Hope Island
“Brava to Lynne Olson for a biography that should challenge any outdated assumptions about who deserves to be called a hero.”—The Washington Post
NAMED...

7) The midnight library

Author

Haig, Matt

Notes

Mike recommended this title

Formats:

Audiobook CD, Book - Hardback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle, Large Print - Hardback

Description

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Nora Seed finds herself faced with the possibility of changing her life. She must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is fulfilling, and what makes life worth living.

8) rising sun

This entry no longer exists in the catalog

9) The Prophets

Author

Jones, Jr., Robert

Notes

Sandra shared this novel set in the antebellum south and told from multiple points of view. Your chronicler did just finish this herself and it is definitely gritty in its representation of slavery, including lots of plot points involving rape, but is beautifully written and powerful.

Description

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Best Book of the Year
NPR • The Washington Post • Boston Globe • TIME • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Real Simple • Parade • Buzzfeed • Electric Literature • LitHub • BookRiot • PopSugar • Goop • Library Journal • BookBub • KCRW
• Finalist for the National Book Award
•...

10) The lowering days: a novel

Author

Brown, Gregory

Notes

Kathy read this book. Then we talked about Harper Lee and her books are linked next.

Formats:

Book - Hardback, eBook

Description

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"In The Lowering Days Gregory Brown gives us a lush, almost mythic portrait of a very specific place and time that feels all the more universal for its singularity. There's magic here." -Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls and Chances Are A promising literary star makes his debut with this emotionally powerful saga, set in 1980s Maine, that explores family love, the power of myths and storytelling, survival and environmental...

11) To kill a mockingbird

Author

Lee, Harper

Series

Perennial classics

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, Book - Hardback, eAudiobook, eBook, Kindle

Description

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Scout Finch, daughter of the town lawyer Atticus, has just started school; but her carefree days come to an end when a black man in town is accused of raping a white woman, and her father is the only man willing to defend him.

12) Shakespeare in a divided America: what his plays tell us about our past and future

Author

Shapiro, James

Notes

Kristin suggested that many attendees might enjoy this look at Shakespeare productions through the lens of US History.

Description

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"From leading Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, a timely and insightful examination of what the world's greatest dramatist can teach us about life in an America riven by conflict. The United States has always been divided, but Americans from all walks of life have also always shared a deep affinity for the plays William Shakespeare, even if their meaning has been fiercely contested. For well over two centuries now, Americans of all stripes--presidents...

13) The Book of Delights: Essays

Author

Gay, Ross

Notes

Sandra suggested this one for its "quotidian little pieces" which made Kristin think of Gmorning Gnight by Lin Manuel Miranda, linked next.

Formats:

Audiobook CD, Book - Paperback, eBook, Kindle, McNaughton

Description

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As Heard on NPR's This American Life: The New York Times bestselling book that celebrates ordinary delights in the world around us by one of America's most original and observant writers and the author of Inciting Joy, award-winning poet Ross Gay. Pre-order The Book of (More) Delights now, too!
“Ross Gay’s eye lands upon wonder at every turn, bolstering my belief in the...

14) We dream of space

Author

Kelly, Erin Entrada

Notes

Kristin suggested this middle grade retelling of an event all of us will remember: the Challenger space shuttle crash, told from the point of view of a young girl who wants to be an astronaut.

Formats:

Book, Audiobook CD, eAudiobook, eBook

Description

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Publisher Annotation: Cash, Fitch, and Bird Nelson Thomas are three siblings in seventh grade together in Park, Delaware. In 1986, as the nation waits expectantly for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger, they each struggle with their own personal anxieties. Cash, who loves basketball but has a newly broken wrist, is in danger of failing seventh grade for the second time. Fitch spends every afternoon playing Major Havoc at the arcade on Main...

15) Gmorning, gnight!: little pep talks for me & you

Author

Miranda, Lin-Manuel

Formats:

Book, eAudiobook

Description

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From the creator and star of Hamilton comes an audiobook of affirmations to inspire listeners at the beginning and end of each day.
“When the world is bringing you down, Gmorning, Gnight! will remind you that you are awesome.”—Booklist
Good morning. Do NOT get stuck in the comments section of life today. Make, do, create the things. Let others tussle it out. Vamos!
Before he...