Pines and Plains Libraries

No one knew they'd moved in together. Now one of them is dead. Could this be the perfect murder? 56 DAYS AGO Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin the same week Covid-19 reaches Irish shores. 35 DAYS AGO When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests that Ciara move in with him. She sees a unique opportunity for a new relationship to flourish without the pressure of scrutiny of family and friends. He sees it as an opportunity...

When Reyna Grande's father leaves his wife and three children behind in a village in Mexico to make the dangerous trek across the border to the United States, he promises he will soon return from "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) with enough money to build them a dream house where they can all live together. His promises become harder to believe as months turn into years. When he summons his wife to join him, Reyna and her siblings are deposited in...

America has a huge problem. It faces four major challenges, on which its future depends, and it is failing to meet them. In That Used to Be Us, Thomas L. Friedman, one of our most influential columnists, and Michael Mandelbaum, one of our leading foreign policy thinkers, analyze those challenges-globalization, the revolution in information technology, the nation's chronic deficits, and its pattern of energy consumption-and spell out what we need to...

What causes people to forsake their country and take arms against it? What prompts their neighbors, hardly distinguishable in station or success, to defend that country against the rebels? Those are the questions H. W. Brands answers in his powerful new history of the American Revolution. George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were the unlikeliest of rebels. Washington in the 1770s stood at the apex of Virginia society. Franklin was more successful...

The report details the 1997 California flooding, the research methodology utilized, interview results from both emergency response agencies and citizen perspectives. The report concludes with lessons learned from the event.

What if aging is something to aspire to, not to dread? Join Karen Walrond, author of The Lightmaker's Manifesto, as she investigates how we can reclaim aging, cultivate joy, and resist ageism. Walrond does a deep dive into different aspects of getting older, including health, beauty, spirituality, relationships, adventure, activism, and purpose.

"Threat management consultant Spencer Coursen offers proactive strategies to protect yourself and your loved ones in the event of hostile encounters and emergency situations in The Safety Trap: A Security Expert's Secrets for Staying Safe in a Dangerous World. "Only you can tell you what to do when your life is on the line." Despite what the news and social media would have you believe, we have never lived in a safer time than we are now. Unfortunately,...