“The Devil in Manuscript” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
I was surprised to see that “The Devil in Manuscript” was written around the same time as the stories from Hawthorne’s first collection, Twice-Told Tales (1837), but was not actually collected until the … Continue reading
“How the Brigadier Slew the Fox” by Arthur Conan Doyle
If you know any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s work outside of Sherlock Holmes it’s probably his science fiction novel The Lost World, or maybe you’ve heard of the spiritualist book he wrote that perpetuated … Continue reading
“Store of the Worlds” by Robert Sheckley
I can’t offer a permanent escape from the earth yet; not one that doesn’t involve death. Perhaps I never will be able to. For now, all I can offer you … Continue reading
Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont’s Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondack by Bill McKibben
Bill McKibben is a well-known environmental activist and author. While inventorying our library’s travel collection, I came across his 2005 title Wandering Home: A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in September
Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month, including new titles from bestselling authors Jojo Moyes, Jan Karon, Anne Perry, Lee Child, Iris Johansen, Salman Rushdie, … Continue reading
“Jamie Freel and the Young Lady” by Letitia Maclintock
This short comes from Yeats’ collection of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales. “Jamie Freel and the Young Lady” is a beautiful Halloween piece that focuses on the wild celebrations of the fae instead of the … Continue reading
The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy
In her comments since writing The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, Rachel Joyce says that she resisted writing this companion book to her wildly popular The Unlikely Pilgrimage of … Continue reading
“It is with the Deepest Sincerity that I Offer Prayers…” by Tatsuaki Ishiguro
Winged mouse research took off on a massive scale. Naturally, researchers must have hoped that any finding related to the winged mouse would make for a first-class paper… I’m not … Continue reading
Cold Moon Over Babylon by Michael McDowell
After their parents mysteriously disappeared on Florida’s Styx river, young Margaret and Jerry Larkin had to struggle to take over the family farm. Now, fifteen years later, the same fate that took her parents … Continue reading
“Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin
All that singing… They were singing to God. They were singing for mercy and they hoped to go to heaven, and he had even sometimes felt, when looking into the eyes … Continue reading
Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist
Living in New Orleans has always been dangerous. Hurricanes, flooding, and tropical diseases were among the natural dangers present even before widespread settlement. As a busy port for French and … Continue reading
“Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates” by Pat Murphy
At this distance from the blast site of the bomb that took out San Jose, I figure I received a medium-sized dose of radiation. Not enough for instant death, but … Continue reading
The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner
This was the most precious of all freedoms… Freedom to become the person you chose to be instead of the person remembered by the computers… It was the enchanted sword, … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in August
Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month, including a new collection from “The Lottery” author Shirley Jackson. Watch our new book shelves for these bound-to-be-popular … Continue reading
“Yuki-Onna” by Lafcadio Hearn
He was awakened by a showering of snow in his face. The door of the hut had been forced open; and, by the snow-light, he saw a woman in the … Continue reading
Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab by Steve Inskeep
What forces shaped the culture, politics, and economy of the American South? The factors were many – it was not one man’s doing – but NPR correspondent and author Steve … Continue reading
“The Tiger’s Bride” by Angela Carter
A great, feline, tawny shape whose pelt was barred with a savage geometry of bars the colour of burned wood. His domed, heavy head, so terrible he must hide it. … Continue reading
How About Never – Is Never Good for You? My Life in Cartoons by Bob Mankoff
I seldom pick up The New Yorker now, but there was a time when once a week I would take the latest copy from the library’s magazine room to our … Continue reading
“The Crewel Needle” by Gerald Kersh
Many is the good man I’ve known who has ruined himself by expecting too much justice. Now, I ask you, what sane man in this world really expects to get … Continue reading
Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free by Hector Tobar
Newspaper, magazine, and podcast reviews proclaimed the book. Other readers whose opinions I trust recommended it. I remember the story from 2010 as amazing and compelling. The probability that I … Continue reading
“The Discovery of Telenapota” by Premendra Mitra
Slowly you will drown in the depths of the blackness around you. From your familiar world you will enter another. An unknown mist-clad universe, bereft of all feeling. Time will … Continue reading
Florence Gordon: A Novel by Brian Morton
Florence Gordon is 75, a cantankerous and blunt woman who earned a reputation for her feminist writings beginning in the 1960s. Now she just wants to be left alone so … Continue reading
“On Saturday Afternoon” by Alan Sillitoe
You know, I shan’t ever kill myself. Trust me. I’ll stay alive half-barmy till I’m a hundred and five, and then go out screaming blue murder because I want to … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in July
Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month. Watch our new book shelves. Annihilation Score by Charles Stross Armada by Ernest Cline Aurora by Kim Stanley … Continue reading
I Was a Child by Bruce Erik Kaplan
Our job as children growing up is to accept and reject. Accept our parents for who they are. Reject some of their ways. Be close if possible in loyalty, but … Continue reading
“The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Theodore Sturgeon
Stretched across the sky is old mourning-cloth, with starlight burning holes in it, and between the holes the black is absolute… Sure, when he wanted Theodore Sturgeon could write straight-ahead adventures … Continue reading
The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai’s clever and original novel is set at the fictitious Laurelfield, an historic estate that once served as an important arts colony north of Chicago. The novel is part … Continue reading
“Getting Sent For” by Agnes Owens
“Of course,” said the headmistress, her spectacles directed towards the top of Mrs Sharp’s head, “I understand that many mothers work nowadays, but unfortunately they are producing a generation of … Continue reading
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
At a time when memoirs are fashionable, Sonia Sotomayor has published an autobiography. My Beloved World is not her full life story, for she ends the book with becoming a … Continue reading
“A Bit of Business” by William Trevor
On a warm Saturday morning the city was deserted. Its suburbs dozed, its streets had acquired a tranquility that did not belong to the hour. Shops and cafes were unexpectedly … Continue reading
How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
Groundbreaking Reads: Ideas That Shook the World is the theme of the adult summer reading program at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. Our intent is to inspire readers by emphasizing … Continue reading
“After the Ball” by Leo Tolstoy
I saw the soldier standing opposite me step forward resolutely and, swinging his rod with a whistle, give a strong blow to the Tartar’s back. The Tartar jerked forward but … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in June
Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month. Watch our new book shelves. All the Single Ladies by Dorothea Frank Blood of the Cosmos by Kevin … Continue reading
“The Cart” by Cesar Aira
There was nothing to distinguish it from the two hundred other carts that belonged to that enormous supermarket, the biggest and busiest in the neighborhood. Except that the cart I’m … Continue reading
The Goshawk by T. H. White
In the 1930s, before he became famous for writing The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King, T. H. White was an impoverished young writer with an … Continue reading
“The Land of the Great Horses” by R.A. Lafferty
“Are the two of us as crazy as the country?’” Rockwell moaned. “I’ve worked with you for three years. Isn’t your name Smith?” “Why, yes, sir, I guess it might … Continue reading
The World of the Shorebirds by Harry Thurston
I have been devoting much of my free time to birding this spring, visiting various DuPage County Forest Preserves to see what I might see. My reading, however, is geographically … Continue reading
“A Spot of Gothic” by Jane Gardam
I went flying through High Thwaite, hurtling through Low Thwaite and the same landscape spread out still before me—endlessly deserted, not a light in any cottage, not a dog barking, … Continue reading
Manhood for Amateurs: the Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son by Michael Chabon
I have never read a Michael Chabon novel, but I was willing to try his essays, so I borrowed the audiobook Manhood for Amateurs: the Pleasures and Regrets of a … Continue reading
“Oriflamme” by Tennessee Williams
As she looked at the closet with its garments for winter, so appropriately descended from the backs of sheep, it occurred to her that revolution begins in putting on bright … Continue reading
A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher by Sue Halpern
A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home: Lessons in the Good Life from an Unlikely Teacher by Sue Halpern is a book that should interest just about everyone. If you … Continue reading
“The Queen of Spades” by Alexander Pushkin
He rose to his feet, pale as the deceased herself, mounted the steps of the catafalque, and bent over… At that moment it seemed to him that the deceased cast … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in May 2015
Now that we have our new computer system, books are flowing in again. Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month. Place your holds now. Beach … Continue reading
Gloomy Terrors and Hidden Fires: The Mystery of John Colter and Yellowstone by Ronald M. Anglin and Larry E. Morris
Who was John Colter? He was a companion of Lewis and Clark on their trek across the continent from 1803 to 1806 and is often credited with discovering what later … Continue reading
“The White People” by Arthur Machen
They were saying how queer I was a year or two before, and how nurse had called my mother to come and listen to me talking all to myself, and … Continue reading
Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces by Miles J. Unger
Before our trip to Florence and Rome this winter, I perused several guidebooks and magazine articles. About a week before our departure, I started Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces … Continue reading
“The Second Bullet” by Anna Katharine Green
A tea, a musicale, and an evening dance kept Violet Strange in a whirl for the remainder of the day. No brighter eye nor more contagious wit lent brilliance to … Continue reading
“Love is the Plan the Plan is Death” by James Tiptree, Jr.
The world is ending, all is terrible, terrible. And yet, my fireberry, even then I almost understood. Great is the Plan! I have no idea what Mogadeet is, but I’ll never … Continue reading
Popular Titles Being Published in April 2015
The implementing of a new library computer system is not stopping us from adding new books! Here are titles Thomas Ford has or will be receiving this month. Place your … Continue reading
“Piper at the Gates of Dawn” by Richard Cowper
Fear slipped away from him like a dusty cloak. he began to hear each separate note of the pipe as clearly as if Tom were sitting playing at his side … Continue reading
Thommy Ford Reads 