Pierce County Library System
Information & Imagination

Dutch house, The : a novel (Hardback)
(Patchett, Ann)
At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Cyril's son Danny and his older sister Maeve are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another.

So you want to talk about race
(Oluo, Ijeoma)
"A current, constructive, and actionable exploration of today's racial landscape, offering straightforward clarity that readers of all races need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment, Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.

Transcription (Hardback)
(Atkinson, Kate)
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever. Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.

Warlight (Hardback)
(Ondaatje, Michael)
Just after World War II, Nathaniel and his older sister Rachel stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the care of a mysterious figure named The Moth and his eccentric crew of friends. These friends are men and women joined by a shared history of unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined now to protect and educate Rachel and Nathaniel. Their mother returns after months of silence-- without their father, explaining nothing. A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this journey - through reality, recollection, and imagination - that is told in this magnificent novel.