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Releases from the Perkins Library Recording Studio
Double, double toil and trouble! Here's our list for some magical and spooky October reads.
The studio has been busy over the last year or so as we welcomed back our narrators after the COVID shutdown. After a few quiet years in book production, we are finally starting to produce new titles. Some of the books have been in production for well over three years now. Needless to say, we are very pleased to start getting them out to our patrons. You will find a wide variety of subject matter in the following titles, some recorded in our studio and some commercially produced. We hope you enjoy them!
Digital book (DB, DBC, DBF, DBG), braille (BR), and large print (LT) copies of these titles are available from the Perkins Library or the Worcester Talking Book Library. Please contact the library to order any of these books.
Prepared by Nancy Gahagan
Recording Studio Manager
Perkins Library
Against the Claw
by Shari Randall
DBC 11671, Available as BARD Download
Ballerina Allie Larkin is still back home, healing up from a broken ankle and lending a hand at her aunt’s Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack. But now that the famed restaurant is branching out into the world of catering, Allie’s help is needed more than ever even on the lobster boat. The last thing she expects to find once she’s out on the bay, however, is the dead body of a beautiful young woman. Part of the Lobster Shack Mystery Series. 2018.
The Air We Breathe
by Andrea Barrett
DBC 11400, Available as BARD Download
In the outside world, great progress is being made in science and medicine, even in the dark art of war. But time seems to be standing still for the patients at a lakeside sanatorium in the Adirondacks, until a well-meaning newcomer disrupts their old routines. Set in 1916, this luminous novel is by the National Book Award-winning author of Ship Fever. 2007.
The Barmaid’s Brain and Other Strange Tales from Science
by Jay Ingram
DBC 11614, Available as BARD Download
From what Saint Joan might have been thinking back in the 15th century to why moths are drawn to the flame — a popular science writer tells twenty-one true tales that cast an entertaining light on scientific inquiry. 2000.
Download The Barmaid’s Brain and Other Strange Tales from Science, DBC 11614
Brighton
by Michael T. Harvey
DBC 11672, available as BARD Download
An extraordinary thriller – gripping, haunting, and marvelously told – about two friends growing up in a rapidly changing Boston who must face the sins of their past in the midst of a series of brutal murders. 2016.
Cemetery Yew
by Cynthia Riggs
DB 11673, BR 15214, Available as BARD Download
There’s more than one reason why the new West Tisbury police chief officially made 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull her deputy. For one thing, Victoria knows just about everything about everyone in Martha’s Vineyard, not to mention their ancestors. She may be 92, but she is as sharp and as sharp-eyed as the proverbial tack. When Victoria is the only one who spots something amiss among the gravestones of the West Tisbury cemetery, it’s no surprise that the police chief listens. Book 3 of the Martha’s Vineyard Mystery Series. 2003.
Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day
by Lauren Clark
DBC 11623, Available as BARD Download
Four hundred years of Yankee beer-making are chronicled in this spirited account of the people, the processes, and the culture that keeps taps flowing throughout the region. 2014.
Dangers of an Ordinary Night
by Lynne Reeves Griffin
DBC 11674, Available as BARD Download
On a chilly fall evening at the prestigious Performing Arts High School of Boston, best friends Tali Carrington and June Danforth go missing after auditioning for a play. They’re last seen in grainy, out-of-focus surveillance footage that shows them walking away from the school. Two days later in a town south of Boston, Tali is found disoriented and traumatized by the ocean’s edge, and June is pronounced dead at the scene. In the end, all those involved must decide what lengths they’re willing to go to protect the people they love while also saving themselves. 2021.
Death and Honesty
by Cynthia Riggs
DBC 11663, BR 18926, Available as BARD Download
Victoria Trumbull, ninety-two-year-old poet and deputy police officer, discovers a body in the home of a tax assessor who has been ripping off local landowners. When more bodies appear, Victoria teams up with her enigmatic friend and possible jewel thief Emery–who now calls himself Darcy. Book 8 of the Martha’s Vineyard Mystery Series. 2009.
The Dog I Loved
by Susan Wilson
DBC 11676, LT 27320, Available as BARD Download
Two strong women on a journey toward independence whose paths collide in extraordinary ways. Two dogs who somehow manage to save them both. A tale of survival and a testament to the human spirit, The Dog I Loved is an emotional and inspiring audiobook that no listener will soon forget. 2019.
Every Life a Story: Natalie Jacobson Reporting
by Natalie Jacobson
DBC 11660, Available as BARD Download
Throughout her 40-year career in broadcast television, including 35 as a reporter and anchor on Channel 5 in Boston, Natalie Jacobson told the stories of countless lives. Now she tells her own. Every Life a Story takes listeners behind the scenes of the extraordinary career of a woman who rose from an immigrant childhood in Chicago to become the first woman to anchor the evening news in Boston. Narrated by the author. 2022.
Flour, Too: Indispensable Recipes for the Cafe’s Most Loved Sweets & Savories
by Joanne Chang
DBC 11609, Available as BARD Download
The acclaimed chef of one of Boston’s most celebrated eateries shares dozens of her favorite recipes: from breakfast treats to imaginative salads to crowd-pleasing party fare. 2013.
For the People Against the Tide: A Democratic Woman’s Ten Years in the Massachusetts Legislature
by Kathleen Teahan
DBC 11650, Available as BARD Download
A state legislator for a decade, the author explores what it means to be a public servant, and how she and her fellow legislators worked for their districts in countless ways. 2021.
Goodnight, Beautiful Women
by Anna Noyes
DBC 11664, Available as BARD Download
Women bring us into the sultry, mysterious inner lives of New England women and girls as they navigate the dangers and struggles of their outer worlds. With novelistic breadth and a quicksilver emotional intelligence, Noyes explores the ruptures and vicissitudes of growing up and growing old, and shines a light on our most uncomfortable impulses while masterfully charting the depths of our murky desires. Finalist for the Story Prize. 2016.
Hidden History of Boston
by Dina Vargo
DBC 11620, Available as BARD Download
Murder, mayhem, treachery, and the occasional good deed are chronicled in this spirited gathering of lesser-known tales from Beantown’s past. 2018.
History of the Boston Braves: A Time Gone By
by William J. Craig
DBC 11698, Available as BARD Download
Boston has been a proud baseball town for over a century. For those lucky enough to have passed through the turnstiles of Braves Field, the Boston Braves will forever live in the corridors of their collective memory. Travel back with author William J. Craig, to a time when players arrived at the ballpark by trolley car and a seat in the bleachers only cost sixty cents. From the astounding 1948 pennant season to the final inning, Craig pays tribute to a team that Boston fans will never forget. 2012.
Kennedy Babylon 2: A Century of Scandal and Depravity, Volume 2
by Howie Carr
DBC 11696, Available as BARD Download
Written by Howie Carr, the New York Times bestselling author of The Brothers Bulger and Hitman, Kennedy Babylon Vol. 2 is a brawling and rambunctious tour of scandals from the days of the clan’s bootlegging anti-Semitic patriarch to the death of JFK Jr. 2018.
Lipstick in Afghanistan
by Roberta Gately
DBC 11685, Available as BARD Download
In the months after 9/11, Boston nurse Elsa Murphy volunteers to go to Afghanistan to work in a small clinic. Although her new surroundings take some adjusting to, Elsa soon finds friendship with a young Afghani woman and potential romance with a U.S. soldier. But Elsa’s newfound happiness is threatened when Taliban forces move in. 2010.
Lost Towns of the Swift River Valley: Drowned by the Quabbin
by Elena Palladino
DBC 11724, Available as BARD Download
In April 1938, Swift River Valley residents held a farewell ball to mark the demise of the quintessential New England town of Enfield and its three smaller neighbors, Greenwich, Dana, and Prescott. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts sacrificed these three towns to build the Quabbin, a massive reservoir of drinking water for residents of Boston. The author recounts the story of these communities as seen through the eyes of those who lived there until the end. 2022.
Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer and Their Vision for World Peace
by Peter Janney
DBC 11416, Available as BARD Download
Shrouded in secrecy for decades, the 1964 murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer – reputed mistress of President Kennedy, ex-wife of a CIA operative, and keeper of an explosive diary – is explored in this meticulously researched book by a one-time friend of her family. 2009.
Murder and Mayhem in Boston: Historic Crimes in the Hub
by Christopher Daley
DBC 11653, Available as BARD Download
Boston’s sordid past creeps out of the shadows in this gathering of nine gruesome true-crime stories of death, betrayal and treachery. Explicit descriptions of sex and violence. 2015.
New Boston Bucket List: 100 Ways to Have a True Boston Experience
by Larry Stanford
DBC 11666, Available as BARD Download
The New Boston Bucket list is part guide book, part scavenger hunt and part historical reference to give you a true and unique way to visit the greater Boston area. It won’t matter if you complete just a few items or all 100, use the list to guide you through this historical and iconic treasure. 2021.
Nibble & Kuhn
by David Schmahmann
DBC 11632, Available as BARD Download
Up for partner in a prestigious Boston law firm, a young lawyer is romantically pursuing a colleague, who happens to be another man’s fiancée, while he’s also trying to win an unwinnable court case. 2009.
Pudge: The Biography of Carlton Fisk
by Doug Wilson
DBC 4064, Available as BARD Download
A native New Englander who went from rooting for the Red Sox in the 1950s and ’60s to becoming their greatest catcher ever in the 1970s and ’80s, Hall-of-Famer Carlton Fisk is chronicled in this extensively researched look at his life and career. 2015.
A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse
by Daniel A. Gagnon
DBC 11723, Available as BARD Download
In the first full account of Rebecca Nurse’s life, the author vividly recreates 17th-century Salem and in the process challenges previous interpretations of Nurse’s life and the 1692 witch hunt in general. 2021.
See You at the Summit: My Blind Journey from the Depths of Loss to the Heights of Achievement
by Randy Pierce
DBC 11702, Available as BARD Download
At twenty-two years old, Randy Pierce was on top of the world. Then, in just two short and devastating weeks, an unexpected neurological disorder plunged him into blindness. Randy, believing his future had vanished in the blink of an eye, wondered, “How can my life have meaning now?” He climbs from his lowest point, persevering to historic achievements in hiking, winning a National Marathon Championship, and becoming a highly sought after motivational speaker. Randy’s insightful vision will demonstrate how our choices in responding to life’s challenges define us so much more than those challenges ever could and perhaps, how a blind man really can see! 2018.
Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America’s Coldest Cases
by Deborah Halber
DBC 3954, Available as BARD Download
Describes how many of America’s cold murder and missing persons cases are sleuthed and often solved by amateur detectives, mainly utilizing the internet. 2014.
Sometime a Clear Light
by Aylette Jenness
DBC 11722, Available as BARD Download
The author reflects on living with her husband and two small children in a tiny Yu’pik village in Alaska in the early 1960s, and on the time they spent in Africa from 1966 to 1969. The memoir follows her evolution as a single mother, an author of eleven children’s books on diverse cultural groups, and as a self-taught photographer. Jenness, now 87, looks back at her own life to find insight into the past as she is losing her physical sight due to macular degeneration. 2021.
Songs for the Pilgrimage
by Lynda McKinney Lambert
DBC 11648, Available as BARD Download
Award-winning Pennsylvania author and artist, Lynda McKinney Lambert takes readers on a joyous journey in this solid collection of poems, memoirs, and meditations. She provides vivid descriptions and observations of a physical and spiritual world.
Wicked Rebellion: Wicked Kingdom, Book 1
by Daisy Russell
DBC 11669, Available as BARD Download
Dark secrets brought to light and terrible acts driven by fear and hatred ignite a bloody war within the shadows just beyond this world. An attempt to bring about peace ends in a tragic sacrifice. Mad with grief, the king locks the gates to the Hell Realm and hides away the key. Almost eighteen years later, the gates are accidentally left open, unleashing the hungry Hell creatures on the world. Sabrina, better known as Brina, knew nothing about the Hell Realm and her role as its princess until a nap in the cemetery triggers the beginning of a prophecy made years ago. It hints that she may be the change the Hell Realm has been waiting for. 2022.
