On the shelves - Jan. 17

In conjunction with the City of Clovis Floodplain Management Program, the library maintains a collection of materials on National Flood Insurance Programs including manuals for designing or retrofitting structures, handbooks on residential repair, guidelines for erosion control, and similar topics. Librarians can assist users in locating these materials.

The books listed below are now available for checkout at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The library itself is closed to the public, but patrons can visit the online catalog at clovis.polarislibrary.com or call 575-769-7840 to request a specific item for curbside pickup.

“The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” by Les Payne and Tamara Payne. One of the most fascinating historical figures of the 20th century, Malcolm X seems often more a reflection of the politics of the viewer than the reality of the man. Les Payne's three decades of meticulous investigative research, however, have rectified this in a brilliantly singular, nuanced biography of an extraordinary, entirely human individual.

“Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation” by Michael Powell. Deep in the heart of northern Arizona, in a small and isolated patch of the vast 17.5-million-acre Navajo reservation, sits Chinle High School. Here, in a town with 4,500 residents and a high school arena that seats 7,000, basketball is passion, a sport for winters where dark and cold descend fast and there is little else to do. Powell shows how important sports can be to youths in struggling communities, and the transcendent magic and painful realities that confront Native Americans living on reservations.

“Hot To Trot” by M.C. Beaton. When Private Detective Agatha Raisin learns that her friend Charles Fraith is to be married to a mysterious socialite, Miss Mary Brown-Field, she sees it as her duty to find out what she can about the woman. Coming up empty, Agatha does the only sensible thing she can think of: she crashes their wedding. The next morning, she gets a phone call from Charles, with even more disturbing news: Mary has been murdered. Agatha takes on the case, and quickly becomes entrenched in the competitive equestrian world as well as the victim's surprisingly violent past. Meanwhile, the police department has its money on another suspect: Agatha.

“Upon a Burning Throne” by Ashok K. Banker. In a world where demigods and demons walk among mortals, the Emperor of the vast Burnt Empire has died, leaving a turbulent realm without an emperor. Two young princes, Adri and Shvate, are in line to rule, but birthright does not guarantee inheritance: For any successor must sit upon the legendary Burning Throne and pass The Test of Fire. Imbued with dark sorceries, the throne is a crucible-one that incinerates the unworthy. Adri and Shvate pass The Test and are declared heirs to the empire… but there is another with a claim to power, another who also survives: a girl from an outlying kingdom.

“Euphoria” by Lily King. English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell's poor health, are hungry for a new discovery. When Bankson finds them a new tribe nearby, the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and romantic firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone's control.

— Summaries provided by library staff