Lima Public Library Book Reviews

FICTION

From Below by Darcy Coates

Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than 300 miles from its intended course … a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean’s surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life.

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka “bodyguard”), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

Jackie & Me by Louis Bayard

In 1951, former debutante Jacqueline Bouvier is hard at work as the Inquiring Camera Girl for a Washington newspaper. Then she meets the charismatic congressman Jack Kennedy at a Georgetown party. Soon the two are flirting over secret phone calls, cocktails, and dinner dates. For advice, she turns to his best friend and confidant, Lem Billings, a closeted gay man who has made the Kennedy family his own, and who has been instructed by them to seal the deal with Jack’s new girl.

The War Girls: A WW2 Novel of Sisterhood and Survival by V.S. Alexander

It’s not just a thousand miles that separate Hanna Majewski from her younger sister, Stefa. There is another gulf —between the traditional Jewish ways that Hanna chose to leave behind in Warsaw, and her new, independent life in London. But as autumn of 1940 draws near, Germany begins a savage aerial bombing campaign in England, killing and displacing tens of thousands. Hanna, who narrowly escapes death, is recruited as a spy in an undercover operation that sends her back to her war-torn homeland.

NONFICTION

The Watermen: The Birth of American Swimming and One Young Man’s Fight to Capture Olympic Gold by Michael Loynd

In the early twentieth century, few Americans knew how to swim, and swimming as a competitive sport was almost unheard of. That is, until Charles Daniels took to the water.

The scrawny teenager suffered from extreme anxiety. Charles’s only source of joy was swimming. But with no one to teach him, he struggled with technique — until he caught the eye of two immigrant coaches hell-bent on building a U.S. swim program that could rival the British Empire’s 70-year domination of the sport.

The Stolen Year: How COVID Changed Children’s Lives, and Where We Go Now by Anya Kamenetz

The onset of COVID broke a 150-year social contract between America and its children. Tens of millions of students lost what little support they had from the government — not just school but food, heat, and physical and emotional safety. The cost was enormous. But this crisis began much earlier than 2020. Anya Kamenetz exposes a long-running indifference to the plight of children and families in American life and calls for a reckoning.

The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe by James Belich

In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbors. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labor, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion.

The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation by Rosemary Sullivan

Over 30 million people have read The Diary of a Young Girl, the journal teenage Anne Frank kept while living in an attic with her family and four other people in Amsterdam during World War II, until the Nazis arrested them and sent them to a concentration camp. But despite the many works — journalism, books, plays and novels — devoted to Anne’s story, none has ever conclusively explained how these eight people managed to live in hiding undetected for over two years — and who or what finally brought the Nazis to their door.

CHILDREN’S

The Bear and the Piano by David Litchfield

One day a bear cub finds something strange and wonderful in the forest. When he touches the keys, they make a horrible noise. Every day he is drawn back to the piano and with a lot of practice, eventually he learns to play beautiful melodies, much to the delight of his woodland friends. Then the bear is invited to leave his home and share his talent with new friends in the city. It’s always been his dream to see the world beyond his forest … but if he leaves, the other forest bears will be very sad. What should he do? Will following his dream mean leaving his friends behind forever?

Ages: 4-8

LIBRARY OPEN

• Lima Public Library is open to the public six days a week. Hours for the Main Library in Lima are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Our Cairo, Elida and Spencerville branch libraries are open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Our Lafayette branch is open from 12 noon to 6 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

• Curbside pickup is available at the Main Library from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. Arrangements can be made by calling 567-712-5239, contacting the library through Facebook Messenger, or putting a hold on a book through the online catalog. 24 hour notice is required. Call us when you arrive (park near the main entrance) and your items will be brought to you.