Reader Services Has Some Books to Keep You Warm

It's winter with a vengeance and we're all stuck inside.  Instead of fretting (and freezing), may we suggest two good, long, page-turners to take you away. Curl up on the couch with a cup of chamomile, your favorite furry friend, and a good book to start feeling warm again.

Theodore Decker, a 13 year old NYC prep school student, is in trouble and may be suspended. On the way to the parent-teacher conference, he and his mother decide to stop in at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view an exhibition.  While his mother looks at the paintings, Theo separates from her to follow a young girl who's with an older man.  An explosion occurs and he is thrown to the ground along with the other museum attendees. The old man, now dying, insists he take the painting by Fabritius, The Goldfinch, and a ring out of the museum, and gives him a name to contact.  When he gets back to his Greenwich Village apartment, he finds that his mother died in the explosion and that he is virtually an orphan; his father having left them without a contact many years ago.  Thus begins Donna Tartt's tour de force novel The Goldfinch, a compelling book that explores the themes of family, friendship, luck, atonement, redemption and fate.  As they follow Theo's life path, readers will be caught up in the twists and turns that destroy and remake him, and ultimately bring him to the place he needs to be.  This book deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence.

What could be better than a murder mystery?  How about one that is somehow tied to a bio-terrorism plot on an international level.  If this sounds intriguing, you'll probably love Terry Hayes' I am Pilgrim, a novel that will leave you breathless.   "Saracen", a radicalized Saudi, patiently concocts a failure proof scheme to take America down and avenge the death of his father.  As ex-CIA operative Pilgrim attempts to unravel his plot, the reader moves with him from Britain to France, Saudi Arabia and  Afghanistan following the clues that will hopefully prevent a melt-down.  First time author Hayes is a screenwriter and his book reads like a James Bond movie.
 
Happy reading!