Enjoy some of your holiday free time by checking out one of the books the Kansas Talking Books staff have been reading recently.
Michael Lang, Director
DB 122602 The witchstone by Henry H. Neff
"Meet Laszlo, eight-hundred-year-old demon and Hell's least productive Curse Keeper. From his office beneath Midtown, he oversees the Drakeford Curse, which involves a pathetic family upstate and a mysterious black monolith. It's a sexy enough assignment--colonial origins, mutating victims, et cetera--but Laszlo has no interest in maximizing the curse's potential; he'd rather sunbathe in Ibiza, quaff martinis, and hustle the hustlers on Manhattan's subway. Unfortunately, his division has new management, and Laszlo's ratings are so abysmal that he's given six days to shape up or he'll be melted down and returned to the Primordial Ooze. Meet Maggie Drakeford, nineteen-year-old Curse Bearer. All she's ever known is the dreary corner of the Catskills where the Drakeford Curse has devoured her father's humanity and is rapidly laying claim to her own. The future looks hopeless, until Laszlo appears at the Drakeford farmhouse one October night and informs them that they have six days--and six days only--to break the spell before it becomes permanent. Can Maggie trust the glib and handsome Laszlo? Of course not. But she also can't pass up an opportunity to save her family, even if it means having a demon as a guide ... Thus begins a breakneck international adventure that takes our unlikely duo from a hot dog stand in Central Park to the mountains of Liechtenstein, a five-star hotel in Zurich, and even the time-traveling vault of a demonic crime boss. As the clock ticks down, tough-as-nails Maggie and conniving Laszlo will uncover a secret so profound that what began as a farcical quest to break a curse will eventually threaten the very Lords of Hell." - (dust jacket) -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
DB 124700 Playground by Richard Powers
"Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world's first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane's work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough. They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity's next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island's residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away." -- book jacket -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Dylan Calhoon, Patron Services Manager
DB 124757 On earth as it is on television by Emily Jane
"First Contact stories have never been as intoxicating and fun as in Emily Jane's novel of the sudden arrival-and equally sudden departure-of spaceships above Earth"-- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Jason Brinkman, Production Manager
DB 42315 The lady in the lake by Raymond Chandler
A swaggering businessman hires hard-boiled Philip Marlowe to find his wife, who has been missing for a month. She sent her husband a note to say she was running off to remarry, but her "intended" denies seeing her. When a woman's body is pulled from the lake where the wife had been staying and the caretaker's wife also turns out to be missing, Marlowe begins expertly piecing the puzzle together. Some strong language and some violence.
Ryan Lauber, Library Assistant
DB 119147 Gods of the Wyrdwood by R. J. Barker
"Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester a man who can navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no one else. But once he was more. Once he belonged to the god of fire. Udinny serves the goddess of the lost, a goddess of small things; when she ventures into the Deepforest to find a lost child, Cahan will be her guide. But in a land where territory is won and lost for uncaring gods, where temples of warrior monks pit one prophet against another Cahan will need to choose the forest or the fire-and his choice will have consequences for his entire world." -- Provided by publisher. -- Unrated. Commercial audiobook.
Maggie Witte, Outreach Librarian
DB 97443 The bromance book club by Lyssa Kay Adams
Baseball player Gavin Scott's marriage is in trouble, and to fix things, he's going to need some assistance. He finds a secret book club of other men who have used romance novels to fix their own relationships, and they agree to help him win back his family. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2019.
DBC02962 The man who invented Christmas: how Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol rescued his career and revived our holiday spirits by Les Standiford
With warmth, wit, and good cheer, Standiford shows how the unlikely success of "A Christmas Carol" revitalized Charles Dickens's languishing career and revived the celebration of the near-forgotten Christmas holiday.