Great Reads from the Reference Librarians | Perrot Memorial Library, Old Greenwich, CT

[Click on each book cover to view that item in the catalog and to place a hold.]

	UNEXPECTED FRANCE AND UNEXPECTED ITALY [Non-Fiction] Those of us who love travel just LOVE the DK guides. One of Dorling Kindersley’s newest series is done in conjunction with Travel + Leisure magazine. We just received Unexpected France and Unexpected Italy, and if you know this publisher’s products as well as we do, then you did expect a great book! The pictures are just fantastic and they actually found some unknowns in two countries that are arguably among the best known by those who travel abroad.
	SKYLIGHT CONFESSIONS, BY ALICE HOFFMAN [Fiction] A story of what happens to a family when one parent dies. Arlyn has beautiful long red hair and seventy-four freckles on her face. She marries John and moves to a glass house in Connecticut– everyone knows that people from Connecticut have wings folded up under their clothes so that they can fly away if a boat sinks or a fire happens. This is a tender, tragic, hopeful story of a family that "keeps on keepin' on."
	LEGENDS OF THE CHELSEA HOTEL: LIVING WITH ARTISTS AND OUTLAWS IN NEW YORK'S REBEL MECCA, BY ED HAMILTON [Non-Fiction] This is a portrait of the many people who lived here– mostly artists and musicians, and the manager, Stanley Bard, who had worked there for nearly 50 years and was just about ending his tenure. Hamilton covers the years in sections, from 1995-2006. Some of the well-known former tenants were Dee Dee Ramone, Sarah Bernhardt, Bob Dylan, Arthur Miller and Madonna.
	THE GHOST, BY ROBERT HARRIS [Fiction] This novel centers on a British prime minister who sided politically with the United States over an unpopular war on terror. This position finished him in the political career arena. Off he goes, in hiding with a ghostwriter to finish his memoirs. When the ghostwriter suddenly and mysteriously dies, another ghostwriter enters the scene and quickly realizes he has made a fatal mistake. Grim and bone-chilling are two good words to describe this captivating book.
	THE SILVER SWAN, BY BENJAMIN BLACK [Mystery] The action takes place in 1950’s Ireland. Garret Quirke, the pathologist from Black’s previous novel, Christine Falls, discovers web of lies and blackmail as he gets involved solving a death that was at first thought to be a suicide. (Quirke has other suspicions.) The discovery of things that should have remained hidden might destroy friends and family as this mystery becomes more complex than Quirke imagined.
	THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHARKSKIN SUIT: MY FAMILY'S EXODUS FROM OLD CAIRO TO THE NEW WORLD, BY LUCETTE MATALON LAGNADO [Non-Fiction] This is a fascinating true story of a wealthy, socially prominent Jewish Egyptian family’s exodus from their beloved Cairo in 1963. This memoir is told by the youngest daughter, a Vassar graduate and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and centers on her adored father. While Lucette accepts the America she was forced into, her father can never come to grips with not being able to return to Cairo and his prestigious standing there. This is a tale of great sadness and great courage.