Kansas City native Tessa Gratton, author of last year's debut novel Blood Magic, returns with the sequel The Blood Keeper.  Join us for Tessa's Book Launch Party on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 at 7:00 PM at Rainy Day Books in The Fairway Shops.

Read full details about this Event on our Website. 

Actress & Author Jamie Lee Curtis appears for her New Children's Picture Book My Brave Year of Firsts: Tries, Sighs and High Fives on Friday, September 7, 2012 at 7:00 PM at The Village Presbyterian Church, Friendship Hall, 6641 Mission Road, Prairie Village, Kansas 66208.

Join us for a fun time for the whole family with Actress & Author Jamie Lee Curtis. There will be activities, treats and giveaways for our young friends, and Jamie Lee will read from and talk about her New Book, My Brave Year of Firsts: Tries, Sighs, and High Fives, and then visit and sign Books with our guests. We'll also have drawings for Prizes for the whole family.

Purchase your Family Admission Packages now because only 150 Packages are available for this Special Event. 

Co-Sponsored by Rainy Day Books, Head Start of Shawnee Mission and The Little House.

Read full details about this Event on our Website. 

Jeffrey Toobin, Staff Writer at The New Yorker, Senior Legal Analyst at CNN, and author of the Bestselling Book The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court, returns with his New Book The Oath: The Obama White House v. The Supreme Court.  This Event is Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary.

Read full details about this Event on our Website. 

Kansas City native and Editor-At-Large for TIME Magazine, David Von Drehle appears for his New Book Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year.  This Event is Tuesday, November 13, 2012 at 7:00 PM at Unity Temple on The Plaza, Sanctuary.

Read full details about this Event on our Website. 

The Headmaster's Wager

Vincent Lam

Knopf 

Percival Chen is the headmaster of the most respected English academy in 1960s Saigon, and he is well accustomed to bribing a forever-changing list of government officials in order to maintain the elite status of his school. Fiercely proud of his Chinese heritage, he is quick to spot the business opportunities rife in a divided country, though he also harbors a weakness for gambling haunts and the women who frequent them. He devotedly ignores all news of the fighting that swirls around him, but when his only son gets in trouble with the Vietnamese authorities, Percival faces the limits of his connections and wealth and is forced to send him away. In the loneliness that follows, Percival finds solace in Jacqueline, a beautiful woman of mixed French and Vietnamese heritage whom he is able to confide in. But Percival's new-found happiness is precarious, and as the complexities of war encroach further into his world, he must confront the tragedy of all he has refused to see.

Syndrome E

Franck Thilliez, Mark Polizzotti

Viking

Already a runaway bestseller in France, Syndrome E tells the story of beleaguered detective Lucie Hennebelle, whose old friend has developed a case of spontaneous blindness after watching an extremely rare-and violent-film from the 1950s. Embedded in the film are subliminal images so unspeakably heinous that Lucie realizes she must get to the bottom of it-especially when nearly everyone who comes into contact with the film starts turning up dead. Enlisting the help of Inspector Franck Sharko-a brooding, broken analyst for the Paris police who is exploring the film's connection to five murdered men left in the woods, Lucie begins to strip away the layers of what is perhaps the most disturbing and powerful film ever made. Soon Sharko and Lucie find themselves mired in a darkness that spreads across politics, religion, science, and art while stretching from France to Canada, Egypt to Rwanda, and beyond. And just who is responsible for this darkness will blow readers minds, as Syndrome E forces them to consider: what if the earliest and most brilliant advances and discoveries of neuroscience were not used for good-but for evil.

The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World's Greatest Empire

Anthony Everitt

Random House

Emerging as a market town from a cluster of hill villages in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C., Rome grew to become the ancient world's preeminent power. Everitt fashions the story of Rome's rise to glory into an erudite page-turner filled with lasting lessons for our time. He chronicles the clash between patricians and plebeians that defined the politics of the Republic. He shows how Rome's shrewd strategy of offering citizenship to her defeated subjects was instrumental in expanding the reach of her burgeoning empire. And he outlines the corrosion of constitutional norms that accompanied Rome's imperial expansion, as old habits of political compromise gave way, leading to violence and civil war. In the end, unimaginable wealth and power corrupted the traditional virtues of the Republic, and Rome was left triumphant everywhere except within its own borders.

Wild About You!

Judy Sierra, Marc Brown

Knopf Books for Young Readers

The tree kangaroo at the zoo would like nothing more than a baby of her own. So, when a new egg arrives via the endangered species van, the 'roo jumps at the chance to take care of it, even when no one else wants it. Soon, out comes a penguin and all the animals chip in to help because, as the tree kangaroo says, "Penguins eat fishes."

The Chandeliers

Vincent X. Kirsch

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Night after night, little Rufus Chandelier watches from the wings while the rest of his family puts on "the greatest show in town." But Rufus isn't quite big enough to be a part of the show. Until the night when everything goes terribly wrong, and it is Rufus Chandelier who makes certain that the show goes on. With winsome, colorful illustrations, Vincent X. Kirsch's entertaining story shows that the greatest reward is simply the chance to help others-no matter how little you might be.

La Luna

Enrico Casarosa

Disney Books

La Luna is the timeless fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise is in store for the little boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work. Should he follow the example of his Papa, or his Grandpa? Or will he be able to find his own way?