City Lights Bookstore

Lighthouses are such a fixture of the North Carolina coast that we take them for granted, but the concept and the technology was developed in England and Scotland, largely through the perseverance and genius of the family Stevenson. Robert Louis Stevenson was a scion of this family, and a disappointment to his father when he showed little interest or aptitude for engineering, showing a bent instead for frivolous pursuits (such as writing classics of English literature). I learned here that lighthouses were not universally admired -- whole towns made their living by salvaging (or pillaging) wrecked ships, and a light to warn away their economic base was the last thing their people wanted. The places where lighthouses needed to be built were another challenge -- the descriptions of the violence of the sea on these exposed headlands makes enthralling reading.

Alice was framed! A refugee princess from a Wonderland brutally conquered by her aunt, the Red Queen, Alice Heart tries to tell her story to the Reverend Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), but he thinks she's making it up and converts her story into a pretty fantasy. The reality is much grimmer, as Alice seeks to right the wrongs and defeat the evil Red Queen and her deadly shape-shifting minion, the Cheshire Cat. Definitely not for children, but highly recommended!
- Allen Moore