FICTION
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be — led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva. Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house, Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation — leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva — nor the house in which they live — are what they seem.
The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers on Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass — but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. She teaches herself to make glass beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes. In a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists.
Five Years After by William R. Forstchen
After several years attempting to lead a quiet life, John Matherson receives the news that the President is dying from a possible assassination attempt and is asked to step in to negotiate with what appears to be a new military power hidden in the wreckage of the world. Pulled back into the fray, John struggles to hold the tottering Republic together. Facing threats on multiple fronts, he races against time to stop another EMP attack on the former United States and China, putting years of progress at risk. With so much of his work under threat, John must find the strength within to start over, so that he can save the country and the people that he holds dear from even greater calamity.
The Son’s Secret by Daryl Wood Gerber
Maggie Lawson is the smart, capable dean of a boutique college, but even the most confident mother has a weakness — her child. When Maggie can’t reach her college senior son, Aiden, to tell him that his father has been shot, she starts to panic. She texts. She calls. Is Aiden ghosting her, or have the dangerous stories Aiden’s father, her investigative journalist ex-husband, pursues finally brought trouble to her door? Maggie is sure that something is very wrong, but no one believes her. As dark events unfold, she must rely on her own investigative instincts to find Aiden. But when Maggie uncovers a devastating secret, she faces a race against time to save him.
NONFICTION
Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy by Isaac Arnsdorf
Inspired by Donald Trump’s election lies, a growing movement of grassroots activists mobilized around the country to pick up where the insurrection left off, laying the groundwork to succeed next time where Trump had failed to keep himself in power. But their own success in taking over and purging the Republican Party became their undoing as it drove away moderates and supplied the Democrats with a winning message in the 2022 midterms. Washington Post national political reporter Isaac Arnsdorf has spent years at the forefront of reporting on this growing movement. Drawing on extensive, exclusive on-the-ground reporting around the country, Arnsdorf has produced the defining journalistic account of the origins, evolution and future of the MAGA movement.
The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in the Age of Machine Thinking by Shannon Vallor
To meet today’s grave challenges to our species and our planet, we will need something new from AI, and from ourselves. Shannon Vallor makes a wide-ranging, prophetic, and philosophical case for what AI could be: a way to reclaim our human potential for moral and intellectual growth, rather than lose ourselves in mirrors of the past. Rejecting prophecies of doom, she encourages us to pursue technology that helps us recover our sense of the possible, and with it the confidence and courage to repair a broken world. Vallor calls us to rethink what AI is and can be, and what we want to be with it.
Undue Burden: Life-and-Death Decisions in Post-Roe America by Shefali Luthra
On June 24, 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and the impact was immediate: by 2024, abortion was virtually unavailable or significantly restricted in 21 states. In Undue Burden, reporter Shefali Luthra traces the unforgettable stories of patients faced with one of the most personal decisions of their lives. Outside of Houston, there’s a 16-year-old girl who becomes pregnant well before she intends to. A 21-year-old mother barely making ends meet must travel hundreds of miles in secret for medical treatment in another state. A revelatory portrait of inequality in America, Undue Burden examines abortion not as a footnote or a political pawn, but as a basic human right, something worthy of our collective attention and with immense power to transform our lives, families, and futures.
Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drug by Johann Hari
In January 2023, Johann Hari started to inject himself once a week with Ozempic, one of the new drugs that produces significant weight loss. He wasn’t alone — some predictions suggest that in a few years, a quarter of the U.S. population will be taking these drugs. While around 80 percent of diets fail, someone taking one of the new drugs will lose up to a quarter of their body weight in six months. To the drugs’ defenders, here is a moment of liberation from a condition that massively increases your chances of diabetes, cancer, and an early death. Can these drugs really be as good as they sound? Are they a magic solution — or a magic trick? Magic Pill is an essential guide to the revolution that has already begun, and which one leading expert argues will be as transformative as the invention of the smartphone.
CHILDREN’S
Women in Sports: 50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win by Rachel Ignotofsky
This illustrated book tells the stories of 50 distinguished female athletes, dating from the 1800s to today. In addition to featuring these athletes, the book also includes information on muscle anatomy, the history of female participation in sports, influential women’s teams, and more. Loaded with facts and beautiful illustrations, Women in Sports is a great book to pick up.
Ages 10 and up
LIBRARY OPEN
Lima Public Library is open to the public six days a week. Hours for the Main Library in Lima are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Our Cairo, Elida and Spencerville branch libraries are open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Our Lafayette branch is open from 12 noon to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Friday.
