Harlem Library

The regular meeting of the library board is today, Wednesday, April 27, 4:15 P.M. in the library meeting room.

Please stop by the library and pick up a community questionnaire. The library board and staff need your input as we develop a new long-range plan. Questionnaires should be returned to the library by May 15. You may also download a copy from our website http://harlempubliclibrary.org.

Summer Reading is just around the corner. Mark your calendars for May 31 when registration opens. This year’s theme is “On Your Mark, Get Set....READ!”

A great quote from Elizabeth Hardwick is “The greatest gift is a passion for reading.” The library has so many titles to get passionate about.

“Two If by Sea” by Jacquelyn Mitchard is a suspense-filled story of former police office and American expat, Frank Mercy, whose wife and family perish in a tsunami while in Brisbane. Hours later Frank pulls a little boy from a submerged car. Frank goes outside of the law and takes the boy home to the farm in the Midwest where he grew up. Frank’s only concern is to protect the frightened boy, but he soon realizes the boy has an exceptional gift. Ominous occurrences put Frank’s police instincts on high alert as a sinister group threatens to take the child.

The latest work by Danielle Steel is “Property of a Noblewoman.” The contents of long abandoned safe-deposit box in a New York City Bank include photographs of a couple in postwar Europe, old letters that tell the story of tragic loss, and magnificent jewelry. Who was the woman who left the valuables and no will? Law clerk, Jane Willoughby, and fine arts expert, Phillip Lawton, find themselves drawn together as they reconstruct the life of Marguerite Pearson who left America with a broken heart at the end of WWII.

Helen Simonson, author of “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” has a new novel “The Summer Before the War.” It is the summer of 1914 in the small coastal town of Rye in East Sussex. Hugh Grange is visiting his Aunt Agatha whose husband works for the Foreign Office. Aunt Agatha has done the unthinkable and hired a woman as the new Latin master. Penniless after the death of her father, Beatrice Nash, arrives and learns to feel alive again in the beauty of Sussex and the company of colorful characters. But life in peaceful Sussex will be tested as war is declared.

One winter afternoon in upstate New York, George Clare comes home to find his wife murdered and their three-year-old daughter alone in her room. George is the immediate suspect. While his parents rescue him from suspicion, a persistent cop is bent on proving Clare a heartless murderer. Three orphaned teenage brothers find themselves entangled in the mystery. Behind one crime there are others and more than twenty years go by before a kind a justice is served. “All Things Cease to Appear” is by Elizabeth Brundage.

Bestselling author Stephanie Evanovich has written “The Total Package,” a story about love and second chances. Quarterback Tyson Palmer has come back from an addiction to painkillers and is flying high with a winning season and the promise of a Super Bowl ring. But sports commentator Dani Carr is yet to be convinced that Tyson has made a turn around. Years ago, she and Tyson shared a single passionate night, but now he doesn’t even recognize her. Can a sports journalist trying to make it to the top and a sports star who knows all about rock bottom make it to the Super Bowl without destroying each other?

Contact the library with the title of the book you read for the April Book Challenge. May’s challenge is to read a book you can finish in one day!