Central Skagit Library District

Reuniting in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living "funerals," celebrations to remind themselves life is worth living--and living well--five friends find their pact upended when one of them reveals a shocking secret.

"A haunting collection of short fiction from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club, A Head Full of Ghosts, and The Cabin at the End of the World."--Provided by publisher.

"Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon...One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob,... the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed. Behind Bob Comet's plain facade is...

"A novel by the author of The Man Who Saw Everything about wayward selves, femininities, sexualities, avatars, alter egos, and the twin poles of compassion and cruelty that exist within all of us"--

"In the face of a pandemic, an unprepared world scrambles to escape the mysterious disease causing sensory damage, nerve loss, and, in most cases, death. Neffy, a disgraced and desperately indebted twenty-seven-year-old marine biologist, registers for an experimental vaccine trial in London-perhaps humanity's last hope for a cure. Though isolated from the chaos outside, she and the other volunteers-Rachel, Leon, Yahiko, and Piper-cannot hide from...

Invited by a reclusive mystery novelist to help draft his life story, a longtime correspondent and detective fiction expert finds herself in a real whodunnit when she learns the writer's first wife and son mysteriously vanished.

"The year is 1998. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is a lonely American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny's bemused eyes, we watch global interests flock to her temporary backyard for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hearing rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age--from Baku to...

"Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from...

"Joe Goldberg is ready for a change. Instead of selling books, he's writing them. And he's off to a good start. Glenn Shoddy, an acclaimed literary author, recognizes Joe's genius and invites him to join a tight-knit writing fellowship at Harvard. Finally, Joe will be in a place where talent matters more than pedigree . . . where intellect is the great equalizer and anything is possible. Even happy endings. Or so he thinks, until he meets his already-published,...

"Kate had high hopes when she moved to her husband's hometown, but her domestic bliss was short-lived. Blindsided by her spouse's very public affair with his high school sweetheart and a painful divorce, Kate's determined to hold onto custody of her kids and pull herself together. When Kate's bashed in the head by a drone at her son's soccer game and face-plants in the grass, it's more than her self-esteem that's shattered. The drone's video reveals...