Calvert Library's Book Bites for Adults
44 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsCalvert librarians share some of their favorite books by reading a chapter or two to whet your appetite. We will cover a wide variety of genres, so you are sure to find something to sink your teeth into. All titles shared are available through Calvert Library’s Digital Collection: https://bit.ly/CalvertLibraryDigitalPlatforms
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Episodes
If I Disappear by Eliza Jane Brazier
September 29, 2021 16:00 - 7 minutes - 5.18 MBEnjoy our presentation of If I Disappear written by Eliza Jane Brazier and published by Berkley. When her favorite true-crime podcast host goes missing, an adrift young woman plunges headfirst into the wild backcountry of Northern California and her own dangerous obsession. Sera loves true crime podcasts. They make her feel empowered in a world where women just like her disappear daily. She's sure they are preparing her for something. So when Rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, ...
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
September 22, 2021 16:00 - 16 minutes - 10.7 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Flight Attendant written by Chris Bohjalian and published by Random House. When binge-drinking flight attendant Cassandra wakes up in a Dubai hotel next to a body, she has no idea what happened, and all she can think to do is lie about it. She lies to her coworkers, and eventually to the FBI agents who question her. Could she have killed him? If not, then who did? Please be advised, The Flight Attendant contains depictions or discussions of alcoholism, death an...
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
September 15, 2021 16:00 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern and published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young m...
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
September 08, 2021 16:00 - 16 minutes - 10.5 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Stranger Diaries written by Elly Griffiths and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Clare Cassidy is no stranger to murder. A high school English teacher specializing in the Gothic writer R. M. Holland, she teaches a course on it every year. But when one of Clare's colleagues and closest friends is found dead, with a line from R. M. Holland's most famous story, "The Stranger," left by her body, Clare is horrified to see her life collide with the storylines ...
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
September 01, 2021 04:00 - 6 minutes - 4.19 MBEnjoy our presentation of Nothing to See Here, written by Kevin Wilson and published by HarperCollins. Lillian and Madison were unlikely, yet inseparable friends at their boarding school. Then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal, and they have barely spoken since. Years later, Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison's twin step-kids are moving in, and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there's a catch: the twins spon...
Circe by Madeline Miller
August 25, 2021 16:00 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBEnjoy our presentation of Circe written by Madeline Miller and published by Back Bay Books. In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. With unforgettably...
True Grit by Charles Portis
August 18, 2021 16:00 - 10 minutes - 6.45 MBEnjoy our presentation of True Grit written by Charles Portis and published by Harry N. Abrams. Mattie Ross is just fourteen when the coward Tom Chaney shoots her father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 cash. Filled with an unwavering urge to avenge her father’s blood, Mattie finds and, after some tenacious finagling, enlists one-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, as her partner in pursuit. True Grit is a New York Times Bes...
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
August 11, 2021 16:00 - 24 minutes - 15.1 MBEnjoy our presentation of A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail written by Bill Bryson and published by Thorndike Press. Bryson shares his experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail with a childhood friend. The two encounter eccentric characters, a blizzard, getting lost, and rude yuppies along the way. Following his return to America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appala...
Along Came a Spider by James Patterson
August 04, 2021 16:00 - 5 minutes - 4.52 MBEnjoy our presentation of Along Came a Spider written by James Patterson and published by Little, Brown & Co. He had always wanted to be famous. When he kidnapped two well-known rich kids it was headline news. Then one of them was found--dead. For such a high-profile case, they needed Alex Cross, police psychologist, and Jezzie Flanagan, a Secret Service agent, and even they were no match for the killer. New York Times bestseller Please be advised, Along Came a Spider contains depictions o...
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
July 28, 2021 16:00 - 17 minutes - 10.7 MBEnjoy our presentation of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory written by Caitlin Doughty and published by W.W. Norton & Company. Armed with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre, Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She cared for bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. In her best-selling memoir, brimming with gallows humor and v...
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
July 21, 2021 16:00 - 11 minutes - 7.04 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, written by Grady Hendrix and published by Quirk Books. Steel Magnolias meets Dracula in this '90s-set horror novel about a women's book club that must do battle with a mysterious newcomer to their small Southern town, perfect for murderinos and fans of Stephen King. Please be advised: This title contains gore and child abuse. This title is a New York Times Best Seller, and a Barnes & Noble Best Fiction Book of ...
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
July 14, 2021 16:00 - 13 minutes - 8.37 MBEnjoy our presentation of The House in the Cerulean Sea written by TJ Klune and published by Tor. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: tra...
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
July 07, 2021 16:00 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBEnjoy our presentation of Sharp Objects written by Gillian Flynn and published by Penguin Random House. Camille Preaker was recently released from a psych hospital, and is now working as a reporter in Chicago. Her superior gives her a troubling assignment: return to her hometown to report on the unsolved murder of a young girl and the disappearance of another. Heading home means she’ll have to face her neurotic, hypochondriac mother, and a half-sister she barely knows. Haunted by her own dem...
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
June 30, 2021 16:00 - 10 minutes - 6.24 MBEnjoy our presentation of Middlesex, written by Jeffrey Eugenides and published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To unde...
The Widow's House by Carol Goodman
June 23, 2021 16:00 - 29 minutes - 13.5 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Widow’s House written by Carol Goodman and published by HarperCollins. Goodman’s novel blends the gothic allure of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca and the crazed undertones of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper with the twisty, contemporary edge of A.S.A. Harrison’s The Silent Wife - a tale of psychological suspense set in New York’s Hudson Valley. This title is available as an ebook and audiobook on Hoopla and as an ebook on Libby by Overdrive. ...
Finding Chika by Mitch Albom
June 16, 2021 16:00 - 8 minutes - 7.98 MBEnjoy our presentation of Finding Chika written by Mitch Albom and published by Harper. Bestselling author Mitch Albom returns to nonfiction for the first time in more than a decade in this poignant memoir that celebrates Chika, a young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart. Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a...
South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby
June 09, 2021 16:00 - 13 minutes - 8.25 MBEnjoy our presentation of South Pole Station, written by Ashley Shelby and published by Picador. Cooper accepts her place in the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers Program and flees to Antarctica, where she encounters a group of misfits motivated by desires as ambiguous as her own. The only thing the Polies have in common is the conviction that they don’t belong anywhere else. Then a fringe scientist arrives, claiming climate change is a hoax. His presence will rattle this alr...
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
June 02, 2021 16:00 - 9 minutes - 6.21 MBEnjoy our presentation of City of Girls written by Elizabeth Gilbert and published by Riverhead Books. City of Girls is a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. Please be advised, City of Girls contains explicit sexual ...
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen
May 26, 2021 16:00 - 19 minutes - 14.3 MBEnjoy our presentation of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong written by James Loewen and published by New Press. This work criticizes the way history is presented in current textbooks and suggests a fresh and more accurate approach to teaching American history. Lies My Teacher Told Me was recognized with an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship Please be advised, Lies My Teacher Told Me cont...
Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly
May 19, 2021 16:00 - 12 minutes - 8.25 MBEnjoy our presentation of Amberlough written by Lara Elena Donnelly and published by Tor Books. Welcome to Amberlough City, the illustrious but corrupt cosmopolitan beacon of Gedda. The radical One State Party--nicknamed the Ospies--is gaining popular support to unite Gedda's four municipal governments under an ironclad, socially conservative vision. Not everyone agrees with the Ospies' philosophy, including master spy Cyril DePaul and his lover Aristide Makricosta, smuggler and emcee at th...
His & Hers by Alice Feeney
May 12, 2021 16:00 - 4 minutes - 1.95 MBEnjoy our presentation of His & Hers written by Alice Feeney and published by Flatiron Books. There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying. Anna Andrews finally has what she wants. Almost. She's worked hard to become the main TV presenter of the BBC's lunchtime news, putting work before friends, family, and her now ex-husband. So, when someone threatens to take her dream job away, she'll do almost anything to keep it. Wh...
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
May 05, 2021 16:00 - 37 minutes - 24.5 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Magicians written by Lev Grossman and published by Penguin Books. Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit ho...
The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman
April 28, 2021 16:00 - 2 minutes - 2.22 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Story Sisters written by Alice Hoffman and published by Shaye Areheart Books. Elv, Claire and Meg are the Story Sisters, and each has a fate she must meet alone. One on a country road, one in the streets of Paris and one in the corridors of her own imagination. At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga and a love story of erotic longing. Please be advised, The Story Sisters contains depictions or discussions of child abuse, drug use, sexual assault, substan...
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
April 21, 2021 16:00 - 11 minutes - 7.68 MBEnjoy our presentation of This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, published by Saga Press. Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that co...
Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben
April 14, 2021 16:00 - 18 minutes - 16.8 MBEnjoy our presentation of Deal Breaker written by Harlan Coben and published by Random House. Sports agent Myron Bolitar is poised on the edge of the big-time. So is Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback and Myron's prized client. But when Christian gets a phone call from a former girlfriend, a woman who everyone, including the police, believes is dead, the deal starts to go sour. Suddenly Myron is plunged into a baffling mystery of sex and blackmail. Trying to unravel the truth about a fam...
The Color of Water by James McBride
April 07, 2021 16:00 - 21 minutes - 17.9 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother written by James McBride and published by Phoenix Books, Inc. James McBride grew up in the all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn with eleven siblings, and a mother who was as tough as nails. His mother was born a white, Orthodox Jew, who at the age of seventeen, left her family and past behind to marry a black minister. McBride reveals within this memoir the trials and hardships that his mother endured...
The Guest List by Lucy Foley
March 31, 2021 16:00 - 4 minutes - 3.07 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Guest List written by Lucy Foley and published by William Morrow. On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It's a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spot...
Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson
March 24, 2021 16:00 - 10 minutes - 9.9 MBEnjoy our presentation of Undead and Unwed written by MaryJanice Davidson and published by Penguin Publishing Group. After being killed in a car accident, fashion savvy Betsy Taylor becomes one of the undead and, with the help of her newfound friends, the lure of designer shoes, and a sexy vampire, must destroy a dark enemy and fulfill her destiny as the prophesied vampire queen. MaryJanice Davison is a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award Winner Please be advised, Undead and Unwed con...
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
March 17, 2021 16:00 - 4 minutes - 3.25 MBEnjoy our presentation of A Woman is No Man written by Etaf Rum and published by HarperCollins. In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman ...
Noir by Christopher Moore
March 10, 2021 17:00 - 28 minutes - 26.2 MBEnjoy our presentation of Noir written by Christopher Moore and published by HarperCollins. It’s the summer of 1947 in San Francisco, California. Sammy “Two Toes” Tiffin tends bar at Sal’s Saloon, and his daily life is about to be shaken up by some weird occurrences. His adventure begins when a comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint and takes a seat at the bar. They hit it off well, but his life quickly gets turned upside down. One of his schemes goes ...
The Radium Girls by Kate Moore
March 03, 2021 17:00 - 17 minutes - 10.4 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Radium Girls : the Dark Story of America's Shining Women written by Kate Moore and published by Sourcebooks. As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a cove...
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
February 24, 2021 17:00 - 6 minutes - 5.62 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. written by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland and published by HarperCollins. A shadowy government agency recruits linguist Melisande Stokes to help discover the reason magic left the world. Partnered with a military intelligence officer, she must travel back in time and alter events so that the Department of Diachronic Operations can preserve and protect magic. The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. was named one of School Library Journal's A...
Severance by Ling Ma
February 17, 2021 17:00 - 10 minutes - 7.3 MBEnjoy our presentation of Severance written by Ling Ma and published by Picador/Macmillan. After an epidemic causes most New Yorkers to flee, Candace Chen stays behind and continues her routine: going to work, getting paid and blogging about the deserted city. Eventually, though, Candace will have to leave--putting her at the mercy of a power-hungry IT specialist named Bob. Severance was awarded the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and the 2019 NYPL Young Lions Prize. It was a finalist for th...
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
February 10, 2021 17:00 - 20 minutes - 11.8 MBEnjoy our presentation of The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle written by Stuart Turton and published by Sourcebooks Landmark. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day, until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle was a Costa First Novel Award Winner in 2018. It was also one of Harper's Baz...
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
February 03, 2021 17:00 - 6 minutes - 4.72 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Color Purple by Alice Walker and published by Harcourt. In a series of letters to God and her sister Nettie, Celie tells the story of her life--from the horrifying details of childhood sexual abuse to glorious material success as an adult. The Color Purple was the winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Please be advised, The Color Purple contains depictions or discussions of sexual assault, violence, physical abuse, strong language, hate speech and ra...
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
January 27, 2021 17:00 - 29 minutes - 21.8 MBEnjoy our presentation of One for the Money written by Janet Evanovich and published by Thorndike. Watch out, world. Here comes Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter with attitude. In Stephanie's opinion, toxic waste, rabid drivers, armed schizophrenics, and August heat, humidity, and hydrocarbons are all part of the great adventure of living in Jersey. She's a product of the "burg," a blue-collar pocket of Trenton where houses are attached and narrow, cars are American, windows are clean, and (Go...
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
January 20, 2021 17:00 - 15 minutes - 10.5 MBEnjoy our presentation of Exit West, written by Mohsin Hamid and published by Riverhead Books. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, thrust into premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk peopl...
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
January 13, 2021 17:00 - 9 minutes - 6.78 MBEnjoy our presentation of Her Royal Spyness written by Rhys Bowen and published Penguin Publishing Group. Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, daughter to the Duke of Atholt and Rannoch, and thirty-fourth in line for the throne, finds herself broke in London. After trying to earn money incognito at a cosmetics counter and as a housekeeper, she is tasked by the Queen to spy on the heir to the throne. Soon Georgie puts her sleuthing talents to work when an arrogant Frenchman, determined...
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
January 06, 2021 17:00 - 19 minutes - 13.3 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Forgotten Garden written by Kate Morton and published by Atria Books. A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book - a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaker and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on...
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
December 30, 2020 17:00 - 5 minutes - 5.37 MBEnjoy our presentation of The Testaments written by Margaret Atwood and published by Penguin/Random House. In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades. When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death. With The Testaments, the wait is over. Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story...
Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker
December 23, 2020 17:00 - 15 minutes - 10.8 MBEnjoy our presentation of Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker and published by Doubelday. Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to ...
Night Film by Marisha Pessl
December 16, 2020 17:00 - 13 minutes - 12.3 MBEnjoy our presentation of Night Film, written by Marisha Pessl and published by Penguin Random House. On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley's life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father, the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-fil...
Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
December 16, 2020 17:00 - 18 minutes - 13 MBEnjoy our presentation of Empty Mansions: the Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune written by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr. and published by Ballatine Books. When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed a property listing for a grand estate that had been unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled into one of the most surprising American stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empty Mansions is a rich tale of weal...
Welcome to Calvert Library's Book Bites for Adults
December 09, 2020 15:00 - 1 minute - 1.13 MBOur new podcast is here to share first chapters of books in our digital collection! Start here for more details. Beach Bum Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100347