How Main Street was hit by—and might recover from—the financial crisis, by The New York Times's national economics correspondent When the financial crisis struck in 2008, Main Street felt the blow just as hard as Wall Street. The New York Times national economics correspondent Peter S. Goodman takes us behind the headlines and exposes how the flow of capital from Asia and Silicon Valley to the suburbs of the housing bubble perverted America's economy. He follows a real estate entrepreneur who sees endless opportunity in the underdeveloped lots of Florida—until the mortgages for them collapse. And he watches as an Oakland, California-based deliveryman, unable to land a job in the biotech industry, slides into unemployment and a homeless shelter. As Goodman shows, for two decades Americans binged on imports and easy credit, a spending spree abetted by ever-increasing home values—and then the bill came due. Yet even in a new environment of thrift and pullback, Goodman argues that economic adaptation is possible, through new industries and new safety nets. His tour of new businesses in Michigan, Iowa, South Carolina, and elsewhere and his clear-eyed analysis point the way to the economic promises and risks America now faces.

After a young woman goes missing during a spring bonfire, library director Amy Webber must wade through the web of lies entangling her small Virginia town Spring has sprung in quaint Taylorsford, Virginia, and the mayor has revived the town’s long-defunct May Day celebration to boost tourism. As part of the festivities, library director Amy Webber is helping to organize a research project and presentation by a local folklore expert. All seems well at first—but spring takes on a sudden chill when a university student inexplicably vanishes during a bonfire. The local police cast a wide net to find the missing woman, but in a shocking turn of events, Amy’s swoon-worthy neighbor Richard Muir becomes a person of interest in the case. Not only is Richard the woman’s dance instructor, he also doesn’t have an alibi for the night the student vanished—or at least not one he’ll divulge, even to Amy. When the missing student is finally discovered lost in the mountains, with no memory of recent events—and a dead body lying nearby—an already disturbing mystery takes on a sinister new hue. Blessed with her innate curiosity and a librarian’s gift for research, Amy may be the only one who can learn the truth. For fans of Miranda James and Jenn McKinlay, Past Due for Murder is the third conspiratorially delightful third entry in Victoria Gilbert’s critically acclaimed Blue Ridge Library mysteries.

FIRST IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING CAT IN THE STACKS MYSTERY SERIES! Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows Charlie Harris, the good-natured librarian with a rescued Maine coon cat named Diesel that he walks on a leash. He’s returned to his hometown to immerse himself in books, but soon enough he’s entangled in a real-life thriller... A famous author of gory bestsellers and a former classmate of Charlie’s, Godfrey Priest may be the pride of Athena, but Charlie remembers him as an arrogant, manipulative jerk—and he’s not the only one. Godfrey’s homecoming as a distinguished alumnus couldn’t possibly go worse: by lunch, he’s put a man in the hospital. By dinner, Godfrey’s dead. Now it’s up to Charlie, with some help from Diesel, to paw through the town’s grudges and find the killer before an impatient deputy throws the book at the wrong person. But every last one of Charlie’s friends and co-workers had a score to settle with the nasty novelist. As if the murder wasn’t already purr-plexing enough...

Featuring Victor Carl.

A spirited exploration of libraries' evolution from fusty brick-and-mortar institutions to fluid virtual environments.

Give your business a successful credit and collections plan with this easy and clear guide Over 100,000 businesses have slow or non-paying customers. Yet very few actually have a workable plan for claiming the missing revenue that results. This book gives you a complete solution and tool set to ensure your business maximizes its collections while maintaining an effective, profitable credit plan. You'll discover how to set up an efficient in-house credit policy that not only lets you collect more debts, but also boost sales, increase cash flow, and grow profits. Step-by-step credit management instructions show you how to weed out bad-paying customers, add more good-paying customers, collect on past-due balances, avoid bad debt, and limit credit risk. Contains all needed forms to set up and implement an effective credit policy Author is a popular columnist for several newspapers and national magazines, and appears regularly in the media as a go-to authority on debt Get Paid enables you to decide what matters most to your business when it comes to billing, payment terms, pricing, cash flow, and more, then set up the systems to meet these goals and increase profitability.