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Reading Recommendations: Divine Justice, David Baldacci

Known by his alias, "Oliver Stone", John Carr is the most wanted man in America. With two pulls of the trigger, the men who destroyed Stone's life and kept him in the shadows were finally silenced.

But his freedom comes at a steep price. The assassinations he carried out prompted the highest levels of the U.S. government to unleash a massive manhunt. Yet behind the scenes, master spy Macklin Hayes is playing a very personal game of cat and mouse. He, more than anyone else, wants Stone dead.

With their friend and unofficial leader in hiding, the members of the Camel Club risk everything to save him. Now, as the hunters close in, Stone's flight from the demons of his past will take him from the power corridors of Washington, D.C. to the small isolated coal mining town of Divine, Virginia, and into a world every bit as bloody and lethal as the one he left behind.

David Baldacci is also the co-founder, along with his wife, of the Wish You Well Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America.

And, The Day After He Left For Iraq, A Story of Love, Family, and Reunion, Melissa Seligman

We feel for the men and women who are risking their lives at war, but what of the families they've left behind? In gorgeous prose, a military wife describes a year in her family life. A year in which her husband leaves for war and returns, and prepares again to leave.

Melissa Seligman's son is a newborn, and her daughter, a toddler, when her husband ships out to Iraq. Starting with that day and focusing on the months that follow, she movingly describes the balancing act her life has become: being a loving mother to her young children, with the haunting knowledge that her husband, their father, could be killed at any time.

Seligman doesn't hesitate to express her inner pain. She watches her daughter act out in fury. Then there's her own anger. Ultimately, though, she comes to accept her life and appreciate the strength and determination of her loving children and husband.

It's a book to read in one sitting, and to think about for years.

And, Do Cats Hear With Their Feet? Where Cats Come From, What We Know About Them, and What They Think About Us, Jake Page, Preface by Michael W. Fox

Do Cats Hear With Their Feet? traces the evolution of cats from the time they first adapted their feline form about 20 million years ago. Exploring every aspect of a cat's life, from predation, to play, to communication, Jake Page shows us what a cats daily life is really like. He gives us a cats eye view of a bird hunt in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and explains why cats will hunt even when they are full, and why no self respecting cat will eat vegetables. In sections, Jake Page demonstrates why territory is all important to cats, investigates cat ESP, and shows that cats have, in fact, never been fully domesticated, they just graciously decided to reside with us. Beautifully illustrated, this engaging book is full of surprising facts. Did you know: Black cats do better in the crowded conditions of cities than any other color? Cats are as allergic to humans as humans are to cats? Cats survived falls from heights of over seven stories?

Do Cat's Hear With Their Feet? will show readers exactly why cats are such amazing creatures, and why humans have been crazy about them for centuries.

See you at Rylander!