With a bright, beautiful, blue sky over the library, it made for a perfect day for an Easter Egg Hunt on April 14, 2022. We had approximately 80 people attend. The children got their choice of a bunny head band or Easter football to color as their craft, while they listened to Vj read Pet the Cat: Big Easter Adventure. Once our volunteers signaled that the ‘Easter Bunny’ had hidden all the eggs, the kids were given a colorful plastic Easter bag to begin the hunt. It’s always a lot of fun having this program. We couldn’t do it without the help of our volunteers: Heidi, Kay Lynn, Nancy, Rachel, Gabby, Sierra, Ben, and Macy. Thank you all.
No one mourned when San Francisco DA Wes Farrell put Paul Riley in prison eleven years ago for the rape and murder of his girlfriend. And no one is particularly happy to see him again when he’s released after The Exoneration Initiative uncovered evidence that pinned the crime on someone else. In fact, Riley soon turns up murdered, surrounded by the loot from his latest scam. But if Riley was really innocent all along, who wanted him dead? To the cops, it’s straightforward: the stillgrieving father of Riley’s dead girlfriend killed the former prisoner. Farrell, now out of politics and practicing law with master attorney Dismas Hardy, agrees to represent the defendant, Doug Rush--and is left in the dust when Rush suddenly vanishes. At a loss, Farrell and Hardy ask PI Abe Glitsky to track down the potentially lethal defendant. The search takes Glitsky through an investigative hall of mirrors populated by wounded parents, crooked cops, cheating spouses, and single-minded vigilantes. As Glitsky embraces and then discards one enticing theory after another, the truth seems to recede ever farther. So far that he begins to question his own moral compass in The Missing Piece, a thriller from author Jeffrey Deaver.
After artist Claire Beaudry Chase is attacked and left for dead in her home on the Connecticut coast, she doesn’t know who she can trust. But her well-connected husband, Griffin--who is running for governor--is her prime suspect. Just before the attack, Claire was preparing for an exhibit of her shadow boxes, one of which clearly accuses Griffin of a violent crime committed twenty-five years ago. If the public were to find out who her husband is, his political career would be over. Claire’s certain her husband and his powerful supporters would kill her to stop the truth from getting out. When one of Claire’s acquaintances is murdered, the authorities suspect the homicide is linked to the attack on Claire. As the dual investigations unfold, Claire must decide how much she’s willing to lose to take down her husband and the corrupt group of elites who will do anything to protect Griffin’s interests and their own. The Shadow Box, a haunting thriller by author Luanne Rice.
Our ability to pay attention is collapsing, teenagers can focus on one task for only sixty-five seconds at a time, and office workers average only three minutes. Like so many of us, Johann Hari was finding that constantly switching from device to device and tab to tab was a diminishing and depressing way to live. He tried all sorts of self-help solutions--even abandoning his phone for three months--but nothing seemed to work. So, Hari went on an epic journey across the world to interview the leading experts on human attention--and he discovered that everything we think we know about this crisis is wrong. We think our inability to focus is a personal failure to exert enough willpower over our devices. The truth is even more disturbing: our focus has been stolen by powerful external forces that have left us uniquely vulnerable to corporations determined to raid our attention for profit. Hari found that there are twelve deep causes of this crisis, from the decline of mind-wandering to rising pollution, all of which have robbed some of our attention. Hari learned how we can reclaim our focus--as individuals, and as a society--if we are determined to fight for it. The book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari will transform the debate about attention and finally show us how to get it back.