Larry Grieco, Gilpin County Librarian.  Louise Penny has written 11 best-selling “Chief Inspector Gamache” novels, with the latest one, The Nature of the Beast, newly added to the library. If you’ve been reading her books, you know how compelling they can be, and if you’ve just discovered her, there are hours of pleasure awaiting you. The plot of the current offering centers on the disappearance of a nine-year-old boy, Laurent Lepage, in Three Pines, a small village outside Montreal, in the province of Quebec. The search for the boy sets off “a sequence of events that leads to murder, leads to an old crime, leads to an old betrayal.” In fact, it leads to the door of Ruth Zardo, aging poet. She writes: “And now it is now/And the dark thing is here.” Apparently “a monster once visited Three Pines. And put down deep roots. And now it is back.”

Armand Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Surete’ du Quebec, who, with his wife, lives in Three Pines, is on the case.

The New York Times: “Splendid….Ms. Penny’s books mix some classic elements of the police procedural with a deep-delving psychology, as well as a sorrowful sense of the precarious nature of human goodness and the persistence of its opposite.”

Willie Nelson, according to Vanity Fair, is “one of those rare American icons that you’re just not allowed to dislike.” As Willie himself puts it: “My life gets lived on the road, at home, and on the road again, tried and true, and I’ve written it all  down from my heart to yours.” He’s referring to his newly published definitive autobiography, It’s a Long Story: My Life.

Written with David Ritz, Willie’s story is just as you might expect, “a story  of true love, wild times, best friends, and barrooms, with a musical sound track ripping right through it.” Just as frequent are the surprises, like how he was influenced early in his career by the writings of Kahlil Gibran, how he and Bob Dylan collaborated on the writing of a song, “Heartland,” more or less by exchanging verses through the mail, and many more.

Musician Carlos Santana on Willie Nelson: “Willie Nelson’s impact on American music is indelible. He stands at the crossroads of all the sounds and colors of his country. What he reflects is true soul and sincerity.”

Only slightly longer than Willie Nelson’s It’s a Long Story is the story of us—us humans, that is. In Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, historian Yuval Noah Harari relates the story of our species, beginning about one hundred thousand years ago when at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today, as you might guess, there is only one. Us. And what a history it has been! Professor Harari traces the our species from the “very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific revolutions.”

To accomplish this history, he draws on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology, and economics. He tries to answer the questions: Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behavior from the legacy of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come? John Gray, writing in the Financial Times (London): “An absorbing, provocative history of civilization…packed with heretical thinking and surprising facts. This riveting, myth-busting book cannot be summarized…you will simply have to read it.”

Here is a reminder to all of you with pre-school age children, and home-schooled kids as well: Our weekly story (and craft) hour is every Wednesday morning, from 10 to 11 a.m. It’s the three E’s: Exciting, Educational, and Enjoyable. And, of course, it’s also free. Oh yeah, and it might just be one of the most important Experiences of your young child’s life (the fourth E.) Come join us for stories and crafts, led by the incomparable Deb Benitez, our children’s librarian. Be there or be square.