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By Gayle, Mike2022., Adult, Hodder & Stoughton Call No: NEW BLK Fic Gay Edition: First Grand Central Publishing Trade edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Life is waiting to happen to Hubert Bird.But first he has to open his front door and let it in. In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship and fulfilment. But Hubert Bird is lying. The truth is day after day drags by without him seeing a single soul. Until, that is, he receives some good news - good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out. Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all.
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2019., Arachnide Call No: Fic Wil Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Reminiscent of Gaétan Soucy's The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches and William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Audrée Wilhelmy's The Body of the Beasts is a startling, gorgeously written novel that tells the story of the Boryas family, who mind a lighthouse and live in isolation until their lives are altered when young Noé arrives in Sitjaq after fifteen years of wandering. Her dresses are torn, her manners are savage. Noé marries into the family and bears seven children that she leaves to the care of Sevastien-Benedikt, an elder and kind of giant on whose hunting and gathering the family depends. Noé then moves into a cabin on her own and covers the walls with drawings that explain her mysterious life. The extended family's curious and enthralling descent into a weirdly carnal, primal existence reaches its disturbing, singular apogee in the revelatory life of twelve-year-old Mie, one of Noé's daughters, who is able to borrow at will the body of mammals, birds, fish, and insects. Her shape-shifting allows her to know the world, but only to a point. When her awakening body starts to intrigue her, she shamelessly asks her uncle Osip to show her "how humans do sex," something she has as yet only briefly experienced through the animals whose bodies she has borrowed. The Body of the Beasts is a tour de force, driven by uninhibited and sensuous writing, a book that explores an aspect of the human condition too often ignored - our animal nature."--
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c2013., Adult, Little, Brown and Co. Call No: Fic Ken Edition: 1st North American ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A brilliant literary DEBUT, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard."--Publisher.
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2017., Adult, Viking Call No: SC Fic Hon Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Eleanor Oliphant is, well, a bit of an oddball--albeit a loveable one. She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking... and that, combined with her unusual appearance (scarred cheek, a tendency to wear the same clothes year after year), means that Eleanor has become a bit of a loner. But she thinks that nothing really important is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding perplexing social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, Glen's Vodka, and phone chats with 'Mummy.' But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and sweet IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kind of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. It's Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repairing her own damaged one, as she realizes that the only way to survive in the real world is to open her life to friendship--and that there's always room there for love, too..."--From publisher.
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2018., Adult, Simon and Schuster Call No: Fic Rei Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "We don't get visitors. Not out here. We never have. Junior and Hen are a quiet married couple. They live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with surprising news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm... very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Hen won't have a chance to miss him at all, because she won't be left alone-not even for a moment. Hen will have company. Familiar company. Foe examines the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be (or not to be) a person. An eerily entrancing page-turner, it churns with unease and suspense from the first words to its shocking finale."--
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c2005., Doubleday Call No: Fic Pal Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your LibraryClick here to watch Click here to view
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c2013., Adult, Myriad Editions Edition: eBook ed. Summary Note: Police analyst Annabel wouldn't describe herself as lonely. Her work and the needs of her aging mother keep her busy. But Annabel is shocked when she discovers her neighbor's decomposing body in the house next door, and she is appalled to think that no one, including herself, noticed the woman's absence. Annabel sets out to investigate, despite her colleagues' lack of interest, and discovers that such cases are frighteningly common in her hometown.
![Human remains [eBook]](/Library/images/~imageCT76053.JPG "Human remains [eBook]")
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c2015., Adult, Grand Central Publishing Call No: SC MYS Fic Tre Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcroft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives. But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity--that she, in fact, is Lydia--their world comes crashing down once again. As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, they are forced to confront what really happened on that fateful day.
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2019., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: Fic Cru c.2 Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them. As they fight for their own survival through years of meagre catches and storms and ravaging illness, it is their fierce loyalty to each other that motivates and sustains them. But as seasons pass and they wade deeper into the mystery of their own natures, even that loyalty will be tested. This novel is a story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister."--Publisher.
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2019., Adult, Doubleday Canada Edition: (eBook ed.). Connect to this eBook title Summary Note: "A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them. As they fight for their own survival through years of meagre catches and storms and ravaging illness, it is their fierce loyalty to each other that motivates and sustains them. But as seasons pass and they wade deeper into the mystery of their own natures, even that loyalty will be tested. This novel is a story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister."--Publisher.
![The innocents [eBook] : a novel](/Library/images/~imageCT100626.JPG "The innocents [eBook] : a novel")
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2022., Random House Call No: Fic Str Edition: First edition. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: With her trademark spare, crystalline prose-a voice infused with "intimate, fragile, desperate humanness" (The Washington Post)-Elizabeth Strout once again turns her exquisitely-tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, this time following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton and Oh William! through the early days of the pandemic. As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and longtime friend, William. For the next several months, it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. They will not emerge unscathed.
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2022., 08:19:37, Random House Audio Edition: Unabridged. Click to access digital title. Summary Note: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a poignant, pitch-perfect novel about a divorced couple stuck together during lockdown—and the love, loss, despair, and hope that animate us even as the world seems to be falling apart. “No novelist working today has Strout’s extraordinary capacity for radical empathy. . . . May droves of readers come to feel enlarged, comforted, and genuinely uplifted by Lucy’s story.”— The Boston Globe ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Time, The Washington Post, PopSugar, She Reads With her trademark spare, crystalline prose—a voice infused with “intimate, fragile, desperate humanness” ( The Washington Post )—Elizabeth Strout turns her exquisitely tuned eye to the inner workings of the human heart, following the indomitable heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton through the early days of the pandemic. As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and on-again, off-again friend, William. For the next several months, it’s just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we’re apart—the pain of a beloved daughter’s suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.
![Lucy by the sea [eAudiobook] : A novel](/Library/images/~imageCT102769.JPG "Lucy by the sea [eAudiobook] : A novel")
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2017., Adult, Riverhead Books Call No: Fic Tal Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. The reader tracks Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, and watches, heart in throat, as she struggles to become her own hero--and in the process, becomes ours as well.
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-- NorthwestBy Smith, Zadiec2012., Adult, Hamish Hamilton Call No: BLK Fic Smi Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Twenty-first century London: rich and poor, black and white, joyful and melancholy, boring and deviant - occasionally lethal.Somewhere in the northwest of the city stands the Caldwell housing estate, a relic of '70s urban planning. Leah, an administrator for the lottery, grew up there. So did her best friend, Natalie, now a barrister, and Felix, an MG car mechanic. Thirty years later these Caldwell kids and their partners live only a few streets apart, yet inhabit separate worlds. Until the day a desperate local woman comes to Leah's door seeking help - and forces Leah out of her isolation. But is Shar a stranger or a friend? Sincere or a fraud? A connection to the past or a threat to the future? From private dinner tables to public parks, at work and at play, in this delicate but devastating novel of encounters Zadie Smith's Londoners find themselves navigating an increasingly atomized society. For some the city remains a place of happy accidents and chance good fortune, while for others it is darker terrain in which the main streets hide the back alleys, and taking the high road can sometimes lead to a dead end. NW brilliantly depicts this modern urban zone - familiar to city dwellers everywhere - in a tragicomic novel as mercurial as the city itself."--Publisher.
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2020., Adult, Doubleday Call No: SC MYS Fic Too Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "They are driving home from the search party when they see her ... The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men. Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. In the morning, she's gone. In a community where daughters rebel, men quietly rage, and drinking is a means of forgetting, mysteries like these are not out of the ordinary. The trapper found hanging with the dead animals for two weeks. Locked doors and stone circles. The disappearance of Lauren's mother a decade ago. Lauren looks for answers in her tarot cards, hoping she might one day be able to read her father's turbulent mind. Neighbours know more than they let on, but when local teenager Ann-Marie goes missing it's no longer clear who she can trust."--Publisher description.
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c2012., Adult, Doubleday Canada Call No: Fic Fau Edition: 1st ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Terrified, a young prisoner in the Second World War closes his eyes and pictures himself going out to bat on a sunlit cricket ground in Hampshire. Across the courtyard in a Victorian workhouse, a father is too ashamed to acknowledge his son. A skinny girl steps out of a Chevy with a guitar and sings four songs that send shivers through the skull. Through desperation and desire, soldiers and lovers, parents and children, scientists and musicians risk their bodies and hearts in search of a connection -- some key to understanding what makes us the people we become. Provocative and profound, Sebastian Faulks' dazzling novel journeys across continents and time to explore the chaos created by love, separation and missed opportunities.
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c2011., Adult, Alfred A. Knopf Call No: Fic Coe Edition: 1st U.S. ed. Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "Maxwell Sim can't seem to make a single meaningful connection. His absent father was always more interested in poetry; he maintains an e-mail correspondence with his estranged wife, though under a false identity; his incomprehensible teenage daughter prefers her BlackBerry to his conversation; and his best friend since childhood is refusing to return his calls. He has seventy-four friends on Facebook, but nobody to talk to. In an attempt to stir himself out of this horrible rut, Max quits his job as a customer liaison at the local department store and accepts a strange business proposition that falls in his lap by chance: he's hired to drive a Prius full of toothbrushes to the remote Shetland Islands, part of a misguided promotional campaign for a dental-hygiene company intent on illustrating the slogan 'We Reach Furthest.' But Max's trip doesn't go as planned, as he's unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past who live en route. After a string of cruelly enlightening and intensely awkward misadventures, he finds himself falling in love with the soothing voice of his GPS system ('Emma') and obsessively identifying with a sailor who perpetrated a notorious hoax and subsequently lost his mind. Eventually Max begins to wonder if perhaps it's a severe lack of self-knowledge that<U+2019>s hampering his ability to form actual relationships. A humane satire and modern-day picaresque, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim is a gently comic and rollickingly entertaining novel about the paradoxical difficulties of making genuine attachments in a world of advanced communications technology and rampant social networking."--Publisher.
