New items are available at the Hancock County Public Library.
The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Adult Fiction
“Normal People,” by Sally Rooney
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At school, Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s a popular and well-adjusted star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her daily job at Marianne’s house, a connection grows between the two teenagers — one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and other futures but are always magnetically drawn back together. As Marianne veers into self-destruction, and Connell begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must decide how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Adult Nonfiction
“Barnum: an American Life,” by Robert Wilson
Phineas T. Barnum was the greatest showman the world has ever seen: the co-creator of the Barnum & Bailey Circus and the man who made worldwide sensations of Jumbo the Elephant, General Tom Thumb and the “Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind. He was a champion of wonder, joy, trickery and “humbuggery.” He was, as “Barnum” argues, one of the most important Americans of the 19th century. Nearly 125 years after his death, Robert Wilson’s new biography captures the genius, infamy and allure of the ebullient showman. From birth to death, P.T. Barnum repeatedly reinvented himself. He learned as a young man how to wow crowds and built a fortune that placed him among the first millionaires in the United States. He also suffered tragedy, bankruptcy and fires that destroyed his life’s work, yet after each setback, he willed himself to rebuild and succeed again. As an entertainer, Barnum courted controversy time and again throughout his life — yet he was also a man of strong convictions, guided not by a desire to deceive but by an eagerness to thrill and bring joy to his audiences. He almost certainly never uttered the infamous line, “There’s a sucker born every minute;” but instead he took pride in giving crowds their money’s worth and more.
