After a minor seasonal adjustment to the delights of the wood stove, i.e., how to revel in the warmth without falling asleep, I’ve settled into two good reads. Sue Grafton’s latest, W is for Wasted, features the optimistic and fearless private eye, Kinsey Milhone, in her latest go-round with the shady characters of Santa Teresa, California.

This time, she discovers she has been named executor and sole beneficiary in the will of a homeless man found near the beach, a man who turns out to be yet another long lost relative with a fortune to bequeath.

Colum McCann’s new book, Transatlantic, features, among others, ardent abolitionist Frederick Douglass and former Senator George Mitchell of Maine, the man who brokered the Northern Ireland Peace Accords. But the story takes off with the transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown, who landed in Ireland after a first-of-its-kind journey from Newfoundland aboard their airplane, a construction they pieced together of canvas, wood, and metal in a field above the sea.

Take flight to our libraries and check these two out.