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IT'S A MYSTERY!

The Perfect Nanny: A Novel

By Leila Slimani

In the store

Called a masterpiece and a brilliant exploration of the collision of race, genre, and class wrapped up in a gripping psychological thriller.

The English Teacher: A Novel

By Yiftach Reicher Atir, Philip Simpson

In the store

Yiftach Atir is a retired Israeli intelligence officer who writes like a poet about the double life of those trapped in the world of espionage.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye

By Michael Connelly

In the store

Can't go wrong with Connelly! Great details about police procedures.

Roseanna: A Martin Beck Police Mystery (1)

By Henning Mankell, Maj Sjowall, Per Wahloo

In the store

Introduction by Henning Mankell for the husband and wife team who started Scandinavian Noir in the 70's.

Coffin Road

By Peter May

In the store

In his latest mystery set in Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, award-winning author Peter May spins a tale about three disparate cases that may or may not be linked.

The Twenty-Three

By Linwood Barclay

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Canadian mystery writer Linwood Barclay is one of Stephen King's favourite mystery writers!

The Sympathizer: A Novel

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

In the store

Last year's Pulitzer Prize winner, The Sympathizer is described as a thriller. The narrator, a Vietnamese army captain is actually a communist sleeper agent in the United States.

The Woman in the Window: A Novel

By A. J. Finn

In the store

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one-and nothing-is what it seems.

Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THE MOVIE!

The Sense of an Ending

By Julian Barnes

In the store

The star of the movie, Jim Broadbent, is such a suitable match for the elegant and memorable words of Juian Barnes. This novel reveals how a life unlived beneath the surface can affect all of one's interactions for years.

The Global Forest: Forty Ways Trees Can Save Us

By Diana Beresford-Kroeger

In the store

After seeing this movie Call of the Forest and reading this book, or visa versa, you will understand why Canadian botanist and medical biochemist Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a hero in the fight to help people understand the importance of the natural world.

I Am Not Your Negro: A Companion Edition to the Documentary Film Directed by Raoul Peck

By James Baldwin, Raoul Peck

In the store

The powerful and prescient words of James Baldwin are laid bare in this moving and still timely book and movie.

A Man Called Ove

By Fredrik Backman

In the store

Ove has been a bestseller everywhere! Bitter sweet, and hard not to love!

Paterson

By William Carlos Williams

In the store

Considered one of the greatest poets of the 20 century, William Carlos Williams wrote about life of his hometown, Paterson, New Jersey, in a series of poems called Paterson. Jim Jarmusch's movie of the same name evokes much of the feel of the city with Adam Driver playing the role of a citizen whose last name is Paterson. Lots of sweetness and love here.

Lion (Movie tie-in edition)

By Saroo Brierley

In the store

Lion is a moving, poignant, and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit: hope.

Fences (Movie tie-in)

By August Wilson

In the store

From legendary playwright August Wilson, the powerful, stunning dramatic work that won him critical acclaim, including the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize.

Page Turners & Pot Boilers

REVIEW: WORRY

Review By Andrew Hood

Date: 22 Sep 2019

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Worry: A Novel

Sometimes it feels as though my attention, the force and thoroughness of it, is all that’s holding the world together. To let my guard down would be to turn off some causal gravity, unmooring everything and sending it drifting into oblivion.

I’m a worrier. Me and other worriers aren’t necessarily not the reason that the worst things you could possibly imagine aren’t constantly happening.

Ruth is also a worrier. For instance, she’s never without her well-stocked parental “bug-out bag.” Its presence and heft makes it a sort of sibling to her almost-four-year-old daughter, Fern. Though her husband stays behind to continue unpacking in their new house, when Ruth accepts an invitation to her childhood best friend Stef’s cottage, the pack certainly comes along. Ruth literally and figuratively brings her baggage along for the weekend because, for a worrier, there’s no such thing as leaving your worries behind.

Worrying can be an attempt to exert control over the unreliability of daily life, or at least to close off all the exits so things can’t get too far out of hand. At the lavish lakeside cottage, though, Ruth’s at the whim of Stef’s carefree—sometimes careless—attitude. Getting away from it all means exposing Fern to the bad TV and bad food and bad behaviour and bad who-knows-what-else that she otherwise strives to protect her from. With Fern at the age where she’s just starting getting big enough to see over the fence that Ruth’s built around her, the little boost of Stef’s Way risks allowing her to make a break for it.

When they first arrive, Ruth and Fern are left waiting for Stef and the rest of the family to show. Their car is in the driveway, but there’s no sign of them. As mother and daughter bake in the sun, waiting, a man appears on the lake, paddle-boarding toward them. Fern, even though she’s been warned countless times about talking to strangers, tugs at her tether and strikes up a conversation.

The man turns out to just be Marvin, a gregarious neighbour who’s come to report that Stef and her brood have taken a boat ride. “Stef’s in the lake,” he casually assures Ruth, bringing to the worrier’s mind images of her friend, drowned, “long strands of blonde hair like seaweed, drifting.”

Less than ten minutes later, Stef and her lot arrive. Everything’s fine. But the unsteadiness, tension, and mistrust of Ruth’s initial worry lingres like a ringing in her ears--and a ring in the reader's ear--which becomes an insidious hum that carries on as everything continues to be seemingly fine.

Jessica Westhead does as a writer what the best worrier is able to do: make you doubt your own sense of safety, compromise even the simplest, sturdiest-seeming structure with “but what ifs,” convinces you that all it takes is turning away for an instant for everything to go flying off into space. It’s an influence that, exerted deftly, makes you reconsider your own compass. Worry, on the surface, is a simple story. But any worrier will tell you that the surface of things is not to be trusted.

Of course there’s a comfort to worry. It’s the comfort of attentiveness that verges on augury: you predict the worst thing and either enjoy the reflief of things turning out okay, or you get proven right--your worry validated. Becuase the worst things happen all the time, and they usually happen when you’ve stopped paying attention for just an instant.

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