The Beached Ones

“Share with fans of atmospheric literary fiction in the vein of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library or Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life.” —Library Journal “A major achievement in fantasy and paranormal novel-writing.” —Nina Romano, Pushcart Prize nominee and author of The Secret Language of Women and The Girl Who Loved Cayo Bradley He came back, determined to keep his promise. Daniel and his younger brother grew up in an abusive home, but Daniel was the only one who escaped. Now an established stunt rider, he intends to go back to rescue his brother. But then one jump goes horribly wrong . . . He recovers to find himself in Iowa, unscathed, yet his life falls has drastically changed. His best friend won’t answer his calls. Even his girlfriend is hiding something. Increasingly terrified, he clings to the one thing he knows: He must pick up his brother in San Francisco. In five days. From the isolating fields of Iowa to the crowded streets of San Francisco, Daniel must fight his way through a fog of disjointed memories and supernatural encounters to pay a debt he didn’t know he owed. For readers who enjoy Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah, The Secrets of Lost Stones by Melissa Payne, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

"On the Beach" is a 1957 post-apocalyptic novel written by British-Australian author Nevil Shute after he emigrated to Australia. The novel details the experiences of a mixed group of people in Melbourne as they await the arrival of deadly radiation spreading towards them from the northern hemisphere following a nuclear war a year previously. As the radiation approaches each person deals with their impending death in different ways.

Tony joins in a dangerous mission to roll several stranded whales back into the sea.

While driving a big rig up the Dalton Highway to the North Slope oil fields in Alaska, Birch becomes the “one and only” after a shakes the arctic world asunder. He survives the disaster in his personally-designed 80-foot boat named SASSY (Safety and Satellite Ship/ Yacht) that was destined for offshore oil-field work. With this boat and its sophisticated storehouse of gear, food, and water he begins his quest to find other living people in the changed land and seascape. Birch survives, but where are all the people: Native villages, military radar sites, and oil field infrastructure? Befriended by a lone eagle and a family of wolves, Birch overcomes unique, challenging, life-threatening obstacles with courage, frontier inventiveness, and even a touch of old Alaskan sourdough.

(LINDY WALL)A Musical Parody. It's dusk, and predators and prey animals meet at the water hole. Percival 'Possum sets out on his nightly food forage, as he ponders his solitary life. His story unfolds ... one of love found and lost and found again. Meanwhile, predators brag of their prowess and lineage, provoking a lively discussion of genealogy among all the animals. The would-be prey lament their lot as snack fare, and all consider the general wickedness of humans. Dogs roll in smelly things, cats toss up furballs, and a night and day pass. As evening again approaches, the lonely male opossum is reunited with his lady love and their new babies. The animals' story is told in original, humorous lyrics set to familiar music, pop and show tunes, operatic arias, and bits of classical works. 40 songs, with libretto; cast of 28 animals.

The huge, slow-moving PBM seaplanes flew by day, searching out enemy shipping. In the darkness of the night they returned, to attack and destroy. Although these squadrons played a vital role in World War II, almost nothing has been published about the lives and experiences of the young men who formed the crews for these missions. This is the gritty true-to-life story of one of these crews in the Pacific theater. Sent on a suicide mission to bomb an enemy airstrip, these men soon found out that the war was not about glory and heroism, but was about hardship, pain and death. Surviving against all odds, they found that the true enemy was not the Japanese, but was the corrosive influence of the war itself.

A 17th century Italian nobleman is marooned on an empty ship in this “astonishing intellectual journey" by the author of Foucault’s Pendulum (San Francisco Chronicle). In the year 1643, a violent storm in the South Pacific leaves Roberto della Griva shipwrecked—on a ship. Swept from the Amaryllis, he has managed to pull himself aboard the Daphne, anchored in the bay of a beautiful island. The ship is fully provisioned, he discovers, but the crew is missing. As Roberto explores the different cabinets in the hold, he looks back on various episodes from his life: Ferrante, his imaginary evil brother; the siege of Casale, that meaningless chess move in the Thirty Years' War in which he lost his father and his illusions; and the lessons given him on Reasons of State, fencing, the writing of love letters, and blasphemy. In this “intellectually stimulating and dramatically intriguing” novel, Umberto Eco conjures a young dreamer searching for love and meaning; and an old Jesuit who, with his clocks and maps, has plumbed the secrets of longitudes, the four moons of Jupiter, and the Flood (Chicago Tribune).