2015 Pulitzer Prize Winners

This year's Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced! This is an award for journalism, literature, and music named after the late Joseph Pulitzer, a newspaper publisher.

Congratulations to all of the winning authors. Below are this year's winners with links to the items in our catalog for you to check out.

Fiction: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

General Nonfiction: The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Biography or Autobiography: The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pope Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe by David I. Kertzer

History: Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People by Elizabeth Fenn

Have you read any of these titles yet? Which ones are you planning on reading?

Library Program: The Art Forger (Book Discussion)

 
Join us at either 2 PM or 7 PM on Tuesday, April 28th, 2015.

Librarian Ann Patterson will lead a discussion on the novel The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro. This story combines history, art, and a mystery.

Please register here if you'd like to join us at one of the two sessions, or give us a call to register at (585) 225-8951.

Hope to see you there!

After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson

Title: After the War is Over

Author: Jennifer Robson

Jennifer Robson's second novel, After the War is Over, tells of the time in England immediately following the Great War.  After four years as a military nurse, Charlotte Brown is ready to leave devastation and death behind. The daughter of a vicar, she has always wanted to dedicate her life to helping others.  She moves to busy Liverpool where her hard work assisting destitute families leaves no time for social life other than occasional dinners with the women at her boardinghouse. 

Eventually, Charlotte takes time off to return to the estate where she was once a governess for the wedding of her former charge, Lilly Neville-Ashford.  During that weekend, Charlotte takes one look at Lilly's brother, Edward, Lord Cumberland, and realizes that she has never stopped loving him.  When Edward's war injuries threaten to destroy his future, Charlotte agrees to help nurse him back to health.  She must do this knowing that class differences will forever keep them apart.

An interesting look at changes resulting from the First World War.
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Call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!   

Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott

Title: Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War 

Author: Karen Abbott

Seventeen-year old Belle Boyd, a tempestuous Virginian, shot a Union soldier in her home and became a courier and spy for the Confederate  army. Though the flirtatious Boyd seduced men on both sides of the conflict, she actually had a serious crush on Stonewall Jackson, and on one occasion managed to thwart a Union plan to trap him in the Shenandoah Valley.

Abbott claims that “as many as four hundred women" in both North and  South posed and fought as men.  Canadian Emma Edmonds was one such woman. Edmonds came from an unhappy home, and finally fled when threatened with an arranged marriage to an elderly neighbor. Disguised as Frank Thompson, medic and mail carrier with Company F, Second Michigan Infantry, she infiltrated enemy lines and eventually witnessed the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest engagement in the Civil War.

Of the four women Abbott highlights, widow Rose O'Neal Greenhow is the best known.  Greenhow lived in Washington where she lobbied politicians on behalf of the confederacy.  She learned how to write messages in code and used her young daughter, Little Rose, to send information to Southern generals.  For a time, mother and daughter were imprisoned together. 

Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, was known to have Yankee roots, yet her wealth and Southern manners served as cover for a far-ranging espionage network.  She even managed to place Mary Jane Bowser, a former slave, inside the Confederate  White House.          

This is an exciting read which focuses on women who risked everything for a cause in which they believed. It also offers a fuller picture of people involved in the Civil War.
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Call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!   

 

Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett

Title: Edge of Eternity

Author: Ken Follett

Edge of Eternity, the third novel in Ken Follett's Century Trilogy, continues the saga of five interrelated families first seen in Fall of Giants and Winter of the World.  This third book introduces a new generation of men and women located in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Russia.  These younger family members are linked by blood and also by tumultuous global events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Civil Rights Movement, and Watergate.

As fascinating as Follett makes history, he is essentially a storyteller who lets his characters drive the action.  George Jakes is in Robert F Kennedy's Justice Department.  Dimka Dworkin is an aid to Nikita Khrushchev.  Jasper Murray is a journalist, and finally, Walli Franck is a rock 'n roll musician.  All are impacted in important ways by twentieth century milestones.  However, its the account of their ambition, insight, and passion which keeps the reader hooked for hours.

Ken Follett's books often require a big investment of time.  The Century Trilogy is worth it.
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Call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!  

Review: The Heiress of Winterwood by Sarah Ladd

Review: The Heiress of Winterwood

Author: Sarah Ladd

Genre: Inspirational, historical, regency, love stories

Pages:  314

Published: 2013

Amelia Barrett, heiress to an estate nestled in the English moors, defies family expectations and promises to raise her dying friend's baby. She'll risk everything to keep her word -- even to the point of proposing to Graham, the child's father -- a sea captain she's never met. When the child vanishes with little more than an ominous ransom note hinting at her whereabouts, Amelia and Graham are driven to test the boundaries of their love for this little one. Amelia’s detailed plans would normally see her through any trial, but now, desperate and shaken, she’s forced to examine her soul and face her one weakness: pride. Graham’s strength and self-control have served him well and earned him much respect, but chasing perfection has kept him a prisoner of his own discipline. And away from the family he has sworn to love and protect. Both must learn to have faith and relinquish control so they can embrace the future ahead of them.

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Reviewed by Cathy

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!

Mrs. Lincoln's Rival by Jennifer Chiaverini

Title: Mrs. Lincoln's Rival

Author: Jennifer Chiaverini

Genre: Historical fiction

Pages: 419

Published: 2014

In Mrs. Lincoln’s Rival, Chiaverini reveals the famous First Lady’s very public social and political contest with Kate Chase Sprague, memorialized as “one of the most remarkable women ever known to Washington society.” (Providence Journal)

Beautiful, intelligent, regal, and entrancing, young Kate Chase stepped into the role of establishing her thrice-widowed father in Washington society and as a future presidential candidate. Her efforts were successful enough that The Washington Star declared her “the most brilliant woman of her day. None outshone her.”

None, that is, but Mary Todd Lincoln. Though Mrs. Lincoln and her young rival held much in common—political acumen, love of country, and a resolute determination to help the men they loved achieve greatness—they could never be friends, for the success of one could come only at the expense of the other. When Kate Chase married William Sprague, the wealthy young governor of Rhode Island, it was widely regarded as the pinnacle of Washington society weddings. President Lincoln was in attendance. The First Lady was not.

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Reviewed by Cathy

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!

Review: The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig

Title: The Ashford Affair

Author: Lauren Willig

Genre:  Family History and Secrets

Pages: 358 (listened to audiobook)

Published: 2013

Clementine (Clemmie) Evans is a Manhattan lawyer up for partnership in her firm. She has put in long hours towards achieving the partnership, she thinks she wants. But relationships have suffered along the way; her fiancé ended their engagement and  she hasn’t kept in touch with her family as much as she would like. That’s why Clemmie is startled to see her grandmother Addie’s  condition at her 99^th birthday party.  At the party, a relative lets slip about a long-buried family secret, Clemmie goes on a journey into the past.  

Addie never quite belonged, when her parents die and she is taken in by her aristocratic aunt and uncle in the early twentieth century, she is raised with her cousin Bea. They are as different as night and day and become closer than sisters.  Addie and Bea’s journey goes from the inner circles of British society to the bustle of Manhattan and the red-dirt hills of Kenya. 

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Reviewed by Cathy

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!

Review: The Wind is Not a River by Brian Payton

Title: The Wind is Not a River

Author: Brian Payton

Genre: Historical fiction

Pages: 308

Published: 2014

In 1942, Japanese forces seized the islands of Attu and Kiska in the Aleutians.  Few people remember this episode of the war because U.S. censors speedily ordered a news embargo to hide the invasion from the public. There were also immediate orders to evacuate press and civilian personnel, including the Aleut people. Would the Japanese turn these islands into strategic air bases?  Would the fighting spread to the lower 48 states?  This little-known part of Alaska’s history provides the background for Brian Payton’s second novel, The Wind is not a River.

As the novel opens, John Easley, a National Geographic reporter, has lost his brother to antiaircraft fire over the  island of Attu.  Hoping to find meaning in his loss and also report on the Alaska campaign, John disregards the press blackout and slips into the Aleutians. Ultimately, he finds his way onto a bombing run and is shot down and marooned with the only other survivor of the crash, an airman from Texas.  The two of them battle the elements and the threat of starvation while evading capture by Japanese patrols.  Here, Payton is at his best.  He creates a raw, unforgiving time and place against which Easley and his companion struggle to stay alive.  This struggle grips the reader and dominates the first part of the novel.

Back in Seattle, Helen, John’s wife, has stayed behind to look after her father. She’s particularly unhappy because she and John parted on bad terms.  When it begins to appear that John is missing, Helen takes a desperate gamble in an effort to find him.  She joins a U.S.O. troupe that’s traveling to Alaska to entertain servicemen.  Helen has only a little experience singing and dancing, but is willing to do whatever is necessary to find out what has happened to her husband.  Her heartbreaking journey, like John’s, suggests that love sometimes compels each of us to do extraordinary things. 

Paton writes, “Rivers flow throughout the seasons — under bright summer sun, plates of winter ice — morning, noon and night. Wind rises up and fades away, but a river flows endlessly. And our suffering? This too shall pass.” As they say in the Aleutians, “The wind is not a river.”

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Reviewed by Ann

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!

Review: Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini

Title: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

Author: Jennifer Chiaverini

Genre: Historical fiction

Pages: 352

Published: 2013

I listened to the Book on CD. I love Jennifer Chiavernin’s Elm Creek Quilt books. She does a great job of keeping me hooked with the historical fiction in the books. When I saw that she tried another time in history in another setting, I decided to listen.

This book (on CD) covered an interesting period of history from a different perspective. Elizabeth Keckley was a black woman who had bought her freedom from slavery. Her skill was sewing.  She caught the attention of Mrs. Lincoln and eventually became her dressmaker and confidant.

You travel through history and learn about a period of history in a different way.

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Reviewed by Cathy H.

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!

Review: The Time Between by Karen White

Title: The Time Between

Author: Karen White

Genre: Women's fiction , historical

Pages: 352

Published: 2013

For a long while now, I’ve been wanting to read Karen White. Her books always sound like quintessential women’s fiction, and their covers are usually striking. With this latest release from her, I finally got around to reading one of her books, and while I can certainly see why she is such a popular author, I was slightly underwhelmed. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the book, because I did, I just didn’t love it.

Eleanor Murray has a bit of a humdrum and sad life. As a child, her father died in an accident, and her sister later wound up partially paralyzed and permanently bound to a wheelchair after an incident for which Eleanor blames herself. Add that to the fact that her sister also married the man that Eleanor is in love with, and that makes for a pretty strained and messed up relationship between sisters. Her sister also blames her for the accident and as such, Eleanor has devoted most of her life to taking care of her, never living much of her own life. This all changes when her boss offers her a job on Edisto Island, her beloved childhood home, taking care of his old and cranky great-aunt, Helena. Life starts changing when Eleanor begins to unravel the past – both hers and Helena’s – and begins to accept the things she cannot change.

This book had an extremely interesting premise and a great mystery behind it. This is very much a story of sisters, and Helena’s story runs parallel to Eleanor’s as the novel examines the dark side of each relationship. Furthermore, there is a great mystery and secret that Helena keeps, causing her to be bitter and hold everyone at a distance, Eleanor included. While Helena is initially resistant to Eleanor, and quite mean to her, they eventually learn to help each other through the pain of the past, and I really enjoyed seeing their relationship evolve. I also enjoyed the mystery.
The characters were also very well developed and strong. I particularly enjoyed the spunky young daughter of Eleanor’s boss. Because the characters were strong, the relationships between them all were strong as well. I enjoyed this aspect.

Lastly, the writing was beautiful and elegant. As you can see, there were many wonderful things about this book, however, I am only giving it 3 stars because the story moved a bit too slowly for my taste, and had the tendency to drag sometimes. I find I have this problem a lot with books that are “beautifully” written. I really did appreciate the book and can see that the author is an incredibly talented writer, I just would have liked to see the story move along quicker. I definitely will read Karen White again though. I think fans of historical fiction will really enjoy this one as there is quite a bit of history involved too.

My Rating: 3/5
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Reviewed by Stephanie

As always, feel free to call us to check on an item's availability at 720-4106, or try our Barnard Crossing Branch at 663-3357. You can also check our online catalog 24/7 at http://greecepubliclibrary.org/. Click on the title above to link directly to the item in our catalog!