Saturday Morning at the Library

When I was 5 years old, I was forced to take dancing lessons while the Brother was forced to take accordion lessons. I hated dancing class. The Knights of Columbus Hall where the classes were given had no heat or it wasn't turned on. I hated wearing the pink beginner tights. I liked clacking around in the tap shoes, but Ma wouldn't let me practice inside the house on the wood floors. I spent most of my time in class being miserable and crying. Eventually, I was taken out of class.

While the Brother still had to endure accordion lessons, Dad took me to the library. He would leave me upstairs in the children's library where I could look at the books and choose to take some books home with my own library card. As I got older, I would go downstairs to the adult library and wander among the stacks enjoying the scent of the books before going to find Dad in the reference area consulting the law books and catching up on his work.

So for the next several weeks, a list of my favorite books, some I have read as a child, others as an adult and some  I have read more than once.

Angels and Demons

Dan Brown

PROLOGUE

Physicist Leonardo Vetra smelled burning flesh, and he knew it was his own. He stared up in terror

at the dark figure looming over him. “What do you want!”

“La chiave,” the raspy voice replied. “The password.”

“But... I don’t—”

The intruder pressed down again, grinding the white hot object deeper into Vetra’s chest. There was

the hiss of broiling flesh.

Vetra cried out in agony. “There is no password!” He felt himself drifting toward unconsciousness.

The figure glared. “Ne avevo paura. I was afraid of that.”

Vetra fought to keep his senses, but the darkness was closing in. His only solace was in knowing his

attacker would never obtain what he had come for. A moment later, however, the figure produced a

blade and brought it to Vetra’s face. The blade hovered. Carefully. Surgically.”

For the love of God!” Vetra screamed. But it was too late.

chapter 1

High atop the steps of the Pyramid of Giza a young woman laughed and called down to him. “Robert, hurry up! I knew I should have married a younger man!” Her smile was magic.

He struggled to keep up, but his legs felt like stone. “Wait,” he begged. “Please...”

As he climbed, his vision began to blur. There was a thundering in his ears. I must reach her! But

when he looked up again, the woman had disappeared. In her place stood an old man with rotting

teeth. The man stared down, curling his lips into a lonely grimace. Then he let out a scream of anguish that resounded across the desert.

Robert Langdon awoke with a start from his nightmare. The phone beside his bed was ringing.

Dazed, he picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“I’m looking for Robert Langdon,” a man’s voice said.

Langdon sat up in his empty bed and tried to clear his mind. “This...is Robert Langdon.” He squinted

at his digital clock. It was 5:18 A.M. “I must see you immediately

“Who is this?”

“My name is Maximilian Kohler. I’m a Discrete Particle Physicist.”

If you haven't read this book, you can find it at your public library.