Arcadia Public Library

Ester Velasquez is an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city. Helen Watt is an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history. When Helen is summoned by a former student to view a cache of seventeenth-century Jewish documents newly discovered in his home during a renovation, she enlists the help of Aaron Levy, an American graduate student as impatient as he is charming. In a race...

A whodunit set in the art world. The protagonist is Julia, an art restoration expert in Madrid who is cleaning a 15th Century painting. The painting shows a duke and his knight playing chess and the story begins when, with the aid of x-rays, Julia discovers an inscription hidden in a corner, "Who killed the knight?"

"Madeline "Max" Maxwell has stumbled on the dream of a lifetime: a career as a time-traveling historian with St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research. The researchers are under strict orders to observe only--no interaction with the locals is allowed. But from her first mission rescuing artifacts from the Great Library of Alexandria, Max realized that time travel is a dangerous activity and that history--and other historians--will go to elaborate...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An extraordinary book that reveals how the themes and symbols of ancient narratives continue to bring meaning to birth, death, love, and war.

The Power of Myth launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. A preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher, he has had a profound influence on millions of people—including Star Wars creator George Lucas....

"Amrapali Anna Singh is an historian and analyst capable of discerning the most cryptic and trivial details from audio recordings. One day, a mysterious man appears at her office in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, having traveled a great distance to bring her three Type IV audio cassettes that bear the stamp of a library in Buenos Aires that may or may not exist. On the cassettes is the deposition of an adventure journalist and his obsessive pursuit of an amorphous,...

A portrait of the life and achievements of the progressive activist, author, and teacher examines his roles as an anti-war veteran, an iconic contributor to the civil rights movement, and dedicated white professor at a historically black college.

"Carter G. Woodson was born ten years after the end of the Civil War, to parents who had both been enslaved. Their stories were not the ones written about in history books, but Carter learned them and kept them in his heart. Carter's father could not read or write, but he believed in being an informed citizen. So Carter read the newspaper to him every day, and from this practice, he learned about the world and how to find out what he didn't know....

"Miss Layla Beck, the daughter of a powerful Senator from Delaware refuses to marry the gentleman her father has chosen for her and is forced to get a job working for the FWP to write the first official account of Macedonian History. Her notions of real life--the social whirl of Newport and New York--are totally upended and she despairs in rooming with the overly eccentric Romeyn family in such a small backwater town. The Romeyn family is a fixture...

"Why does religion still exist in the twenty-first century? And why do so many people -- even, and especially, those who challenge religion -- continue to argue about the questions it raises? What purpose does it serve in our lives? These questions took on a new urgency for Pagels when she was dealing with unimaginable loss: the death of her young son, followed a year later by the shocking loss of her husband. Here she interweaves her personal story...

When a well-known British TV historian, Marmaduke Godolphin, is found murdered in the canals of Venice during carnival, stabbed by a stiletto blade, the Venetian police are eager to have the case solved and cleared up within a day--murder is bad for tourism! The police recruit the help of retired archivist, Arnold Clover. Godolphin had hired his services on arriving in Venice to help sort through some historical papers of note. These dusty documents...