Good Reads

We continue our occasional series previewing good reads for young adults from Katherine Farmer, Coordinator of the Racers Children's Preview Collection at Murray State University. This week's recommended read is "Bomb: The Race to Build - And Steal - The World's Most Dangerous Weapon" by Steve Sheinkin. This nonfiction book tells the story of how the atomic bomb came to be - and how it came to be used. Critics have called this book a 'must read,' 'a complicated thriller that intercuts action with the deftness of a Hollywood blockbuster.

We continue our occasional series previewing good reads for young adults from Katherine Farmer, Coordinator of the Racers Children's Preview Collection at Murray State University. This week's recommended read is Splendors and Glooms, by Laura Amy Schlitz. Winner of the 2013 Newbery Honor, Splendors and Glooms tells the story of two orphans in splendorous Victorian London who unravel the mystery of a girl gone missing, a suspicious puppeteer, and a sinister old witch. Critics describe this young adult novel as "wonderfully twisty, delightfully eerie, and utterly transporting." 

Click here to purchase the book on Amazon. 

Michael Cohen, Professor Emeritus at Murray State University, brings us his latest 'Uncommon Mystery,' When Beggars Die by E.A. Allen. 

E. A. Allen, When Beggars Die (2013) ISBN: 978-1-60653-066-5

When I met Ed Allen—that’s a great moniker, by the way, for one writing in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe—he was finishing a Ph.D. in history at Tulane and I was teaching at the University of New Orleans. He went on to a career that included a post as Senior CIA Analyst for European Security Affairs. I can’t think of a better background for someone writing a historical thriller about the precarious balance of power in Europe at the dawn of the twentieth century. That’s the period when the action of When Beggars Die takes place, just after the turn of the century, when the English King Edward VII is in Paris to negotiate a treaty. 

Murray native, and Maryville, Tennessee resident Kim Trevathan is on the water again with a book with a new book recounting his kayaking places where dammed reservoirs give way to the current of rivers that feed them. Trevathan signs his new book Liminal Zones: Where Lakes End and Rivers Begin at Murray State this Friday. See more about Trevathan and his work at Amazon.com.