The following titles – and more – will be on the shelves of Hartford Public Library, beginning November 20. If the title is not at your closest branch, place a hold and it will be delivered there for you. All our titles are in our catalog; you may search it at any time.
(Summaries from publishers)
Beauchamp Hall by Danielle Steel
Available at Barbour, Camp Field, and Downtown.
Winona Farmington once dreamed of graduating from college, moving to New York City, and pursuing a career in publishing. Then real life got in the way when she left college and returned to her small Michigan hometown to care for her sick mother.
Years later, stuck in a dead-end job and an unsatisfying relationship, Winnie has concluded that dreams were meant for others. She consoles herself with binge-watching the British television series that she loves, Beauchamp Hall, enthralled by the sumptuous period drama set on a great Norfolk estate in the 1920s. The rich upstairs-downstairs world brilliantly brought to life by superb actors is the ultimate in escapism.
On the day Winnie is passed over for a long-overdue promotion, she is also betrayed by her boyfriend and her best friend. Heartbroken, she makes the first impulsive decision of her conventional life—which changes everything.
She packs her bags and flies to England to see the town where Beauchamp Hall is filmed. The quaint B & B where she stays feels like home. The brother and sister who live in the castle where the show is filmed, rich in titles but poor in cash, are more like long-lost friends than British nobility. And the show itself, with its colorful company and behind-the-scenes affairs, is a drama all its own. Winnie’s world comes alive on the set of the show.
What happens next is the stuff of dreams, as Winnie takes the boldest leap of all. Beauchamp Hall reminds us to follow our dreams. . . . You never know what magic will happen!
Versailles by Colin Jones
Available Downtown.
Nothing represents the glorious and fraught history of France quite like the Palace of Versailles. Made famous by the absolutist king Louis XIV, Versailles became legendary for the splendor of its revels-but then, after the Revolution of 1789, it fell into disrepute as a reminder of royal excess and abuse of power. Subsequent French governments struggled with how to handle the opulent palace and grounds-should the site be memorialized, trivialized, rehabilitated, or even destroyed outright?
Drawing on a new wave of recent research, historian Colin Jones masterfully traces the evolution of Versailles as a space of royal politics and aristocratic pleasures, a building of mythic status, and one of the world’s great tourist destinations. Accessible and compelling, this book is a must-read for all Francophiles.
No One at the Wheel by Samuel I. Schwartz
Available Downtown.
Our time at the wheel is done. Driving will become illegal, as human drivers will be demonstrably more dangerous than cars that pilot themselves. Is this an impossible future, or a revolution just around the corner?
Sam Schwartz, America’s most celebrated transportation guru, describes in this book the revolution in self-driving cars. The ramifications will be dramatic, and the transition will be far from seamless. It will overturn the job market for the one in seven Americans who work in the trucking industry. It will cause us to grapple with new ethical dilemmas-if a car will hit a person or a building, endangering the lives of its passengers, who will decide what it does? It will further erode our privacy, since the vehicle can relay our location at any moment. And, like every other computer-controlled device, it can be vulnerable to hacking.
Right now, every major car maker here and abroad is working on bringing autonomous vehicles to consumers. The fleets are getting ready to roll and nothing will ever be the same, and this book shows us what the future has in store.
My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Available at Albany, Barbour, and Downtown.
“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”
Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead.
Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.
Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.
Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.
Is there something else you would like to see on our shelves? Let us know!