Emily Thomas

An achingly funny, touching story for anyone who has been thrown in at the deep end. It's 1979, and thirteen-year-old Lydia has no idea how she'll cope when her dad announces that the family has to sell up and move onto a Thames sailing barge in Essex. With his girlfriend. And her three kids. Between trying to keep her clothes dry in a leaky cabin, disastrous hair-dye attempts, awkward encounters with local boys, and coping with her suddenly enormous...

How can we think more deeply about our travels? This was the question that inspired Emily Thomas's journey into the philosophy of travel. Part philosophical ramble, part travelogue, The Meaning of Travel begins in the Age of Discovery, when philosophers first started taking travel seriously. It meanders forward to consider Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. On our travels with Thomas, we discover the...

It's early February in Blue Hill and Anne Gibson is surprised to receive a Valentine's Day postcard from an exotic locale addressed to her late aunt Edie. What puzzles Anne even more is the year-old postmark. The sender, whose scrawled first name is illegible, references a reunion at an undisclosed location in two weeks. Anne doesn't want the mystery coorespondent to travel halfway around the world for a meeting that can't hapen, but how can she figure...

Anne and Wendy decide to organize a used books sale to raise money for the library.

Librarian Anne Gibson tries to uncover the truth behind the identity thefts that have affected elderly Blue Hill residents while she and her children plan a big dinner at the library for their new friends.

Following a meeting of the Blue Hill Library's writing group, Lucas Miller disappers. His teenage daughters, Remi and Bella, who are also part-time library employees, are unable to console their distraught mother when Lucas's car is found crashed into a tree outside town, without him in it.. Anne reluctantly agrees to look into the published author's disappearance, but the mystery gets more tangled with each clue she finds.

Coraline Watson brings her yellow-naped Amazon parrot to the library one night for the Birders Club meeting and Liddie takes an instant liking to the beautiful bird. Anne doesn't pay much attention to Coraline's wild stories about spies from a nearby chemical company until the next morning when the parrot, Lorenzo, appears at Liddie's window. Anne tries to return the bird but Coraline's house is dark and empty, the front window is broken and no one...

Anne and Wendy are preparing for a new adult literacy class when Ben races inside the library to tell his mother that their dog, Hershey, has found a package on the porch. Anne chases Hershey around the yard until she is finally able to retrieve it and discovers and envelope with several thousand dollars of cash inside! Wendy is convinced the money is an answer to prayer -- the library's elevator is in severe need of repair -- but Anne doesn't feel...

Anne balances raising her children alone with her job at the library and anonymous threats against her reputation.