Tuesday, July 25, 2006

August 2006


FICTION:

F ACKROYD
Ackroyd, Peter, 1949-. The Lambs of London. 1st ed. in the U.S.A. New York : Nan A. Talese, 2006.

Mary Lamb is confined by the restrictions of domesticity: her father is losing his mind, her mother watchful and hostile. The great solace of her life is her brother Charles, an aspiring writer. It is no surprise when Mary falls for the bookseller’s son, antiquarian William Ireland, from whom Charles has purchased a book. But this is no ordinary book—it once belonged to William Shakespeare himself. And William Ireland with his green eyes and red hair is no ordinary young man.

F ARNOULT
Arnoult, Darnell, 1955-. Sufficient grace : a novel. New York : Free Press, c2006.

After hearing voices in her head telling her to get in her car and leave everything and everyone behind, Gracie Hollaman drives off leaving her home, her husband, her daughter, and her identity in the dust. Her journey will have profound effects on everyone concerned. Her quest leads her to the home of Mamma Toot and Mattie, two African- American women going through their own life changes. Eventually, Gracie’s new world and her old world collide.

F BAYARD MYSTERY
Bayard, Louis. The pale blue eye : a novel. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins Publishers, c2006.

When a grisly murder takes place on the grounds of West Point, retired New York City detective Gus Landor is recruited to solve the case. Given permission to choose a cadet from among the ranks to be his spy, he selects Cadet Edgar Allan Poe. Together they narrow down the suspects while dealing with their own personal demons.

F CABOT ROMANCE
Cabot, Meg. Queen of babble. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

Lizzie Nichols has a problem. Not only can’t she keep a secret, but now she’s stranded in London without money, without a place to stay, and an airline ticket she can’t use for another month! Fortunately, her best friend is spending the summer in France catering weddings at Chateau Mirac, which just happens to need a bartender. Although Lizzie’s never mixed drinks before and speaks no French, she takes the job. While most bartenders are discreet, Lizzie’s the exception, which gets her into big trouble!

F CHASE FANTASY
Chase, Clifford. Winkie. 1st ed. New York : Grove Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2006.

After decades of neglect from children who once loved him, Winkie, a mild-mannered teddy bear, decides to take charge of his fate. Hurling himself off the shelf, he jumps out the window and takes to the forest. Just as he’s discovering the joys and wonders of mobility, self- determination, and true love, he also finds himself trapped in the jaws of a society gone rabid with fear and paranoia when he is accused by the FBI of being responsible for several terrorist acts.

F CHILDRESS
Childress, Mark. One Mississippi : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Little, Brown and Co., 2006.

Daniel Musgrove and his family moved to a small Mississippi town when he was in his junior year of high school. He and Tim, a fellow outsider, become fast friends. Together they negotiate the triumphs and tribulations of young manhood. When the first-ever black prom queen of Minot High School is hit by a car and emerges from a coma, believing she is white, Daniel and Tim find themselves caught up in a shocking chain of events leading to a shattering climax.

F CLAUDEL MYSTERY
Claudel, Philippe, 1962-. By a slow river. 1st American ed. New York : Knopf, 2006.

On a frigid morning in December 1917, the body of a 10-year-old girl is discovered, strangled, on the banks of the “slow” river that slices through a small, unnamed French village. The townsfolk are stunned by the murder, though they’re curiously oblivious to the seemingly endless slaughter taking place on the nearby Western front. Told by Dadais, a former policeman with a sharp memory and (it gradually becomes apparent) a shadowy history of his own, the story is a re-creation of his dogged pursuit of the killer. Was it the town’s haughty prosecutor, Pierre-Ange Destinat? Was it the Breton deserter who confesses under duress? Could it possibly have been Dadais himself? The answer, like everything else in the story, is far from tidy. Publisher’s Weekly.

F CLELAND MYSTERY
Cleland, Jane K. Consigned to death. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

Josie Prescott needed a change of scenery and a new start after having found herself involved in a high profile price-fixing scandal at the New York auction house where she worked. The New Hampshire coast was her choice of venue. It appeared she made the right choice until she got mixed up in murder and is pegged by the local police chief as a suspect. Refusing to move again, she set out to find a killer and along the way, also found a little romance.

F CONANT-PARK ROMANCE
Conant-Park, Jessica. Steamed. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.

Chloe Carter is a boy-crazy 20-something gourmand who lives in Brighton, Mass. She thinks she might have found both romantic and gastronomic satisfaction in Eric Rafferty, a foodie she meets online. But their first date is a bust: Eric is a dolt, and he winds up getting stabbed before dessert. Chloe later falls for gorgeous Josh Driscoll, a chef acquaintance of Eric’s. But Josh has a temper-and it turns out he owned the knife that killed Eric. Chloe must help clear Josh’s name if their romance is to stand a chance. Publisher’s Weekly.

F COONTS
Coonts, Stephen, 1946-. The traitor. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Within the European Union, national espionage agencies are fiercely competing for supremacy against each other and against the CIA. When the Americans discover that the director of the French spy agency hassecret investments in the Bank of Palestine, alarm bells go off. Jake Grafton is sent to investigate, with the help of Tommy Carmellini. Together they uncover an elaborate strategy to infiltrate the highest levels of Al Qaeda and even more frightening, a plan to shake the West as never before.

F DAVIS MYSTERY
Davis, Lindsey. See Delphi and die. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2005.

While things are looking up for Marcus Didius Falco in 76 A.D., it doesn’t mean things are quiet for him, his wife Helena, or their two young daughters. An informer by trade, he’s been hired to pry his errant brother-in-law away from a murder investigation. Traveling to Olympia in Greece under the guise of being tourists, he must investigate the suspicious goings on with a fly-by-night travel agency. Two women have already gone missing from the packaged tour, when two more, including Falco’s brother-in-law, also disappear.

F DAVISGARDNER
Davis-Gardner, Angela. Plum wine : a novel. Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, Terrace Books, c2006.

American teacher Barbara Jefferson sets out on a life-changing quest when her Japanese surrogate mother, Michi, dies, leaving Barbara a sheaf of rice paper containing a personal narrative revealing the tragedies of Michi’s life.

F DICKEY
Dickey, Eric Jerome. Chasing destiny. New York : Dutton, c2006.
Tough, talented Billie’s life is thrown into a tailspin when she learns she is pregnant and that her lover is a married man who wants Billie to terminate the pregnancy, forcing Billie to flee in order to protect her unborn child and herself.

F DUNCAN FANTASY
Duncan, Dave, 1933-. Children of chaos. 1st ed. New York : Tor, c2006.

Fifteen years after the doge of the walled city of Celebre handed over his four children as hostages to the invading Vigaelians besieging Celebre, the siblings have grown up separately as captives in the land of Vigaelia. One boy, Benard, has become a stonemason of amazing, god-given talent in the city of Kosord. Another boy, Orlando, has become an initiate in the cult of Weru, the god of storm and battle. Frena, who was a babe in arms 15 years earlier, has no memory of the family she was wrenched from, and the revelation of her past history completely changes her life. As for the fourth child, Dantio, he supposedly died early on.

F DUNCAN MYSTERY
Duncan, Alice, 1945-. Lost among the angels. 1st ed. Waterville, Me. : Five Star, 2006.

It is 1926 Los Angeles, where men wear hats and hold doors for ladies, and women
worry about the length of their hair and hemlines. Enter 21-year-old Mercedes “Mercy Louise Allcutt, the daughter of an old-money Boston family living with her sister who is married to a new-money motion picture mogul. Wanting to get experience so she can write books, Mercy gets a job as secretary to a private detective. Although she is way out of her depth, the engaging and lively Mercy plows right along in a number of sticky situations, finding the missing mother of a street urchin, a kidnapped dog, and a serial killer of beautiful young women. Library Journal.

F EISLER
Eisler, Barry. The last assassin. G.P. Putnam, c2006.

John Rain, a Japanese-American contract killer who has been trying to get out of the business, finds he must put his best talents to work once again when he learns his former lover Midori is raising their child in New York and reaches out to her only to have his watching enemies resurface.

F ELKINS MYSTERY
Elkins, Aaron J. Unnatural selection. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.

Forensic sleuth Gideon Oliver accompanies his second wife, Julie, to an unusual gathering of conservation experts in the Scilly Isles. Frustrated by his passive role and forced to bite his tongue when opinions are voiced that strike him as lacking intellectual rigor, Oliver leaps at a chance to examine some human remains stored at the local museum. His casual look becomes something more when he determines that one humerus bone is a recent relic, leading to his rousing the sleepy local constabulary to a murder probe. When the victim turns out to have belonged to the conservation group, the circle of suspects centers on the surviving members.

F EVANOVICH MYSTERY
Evanovich, Janet. Twelve sharp : [a Stephanie Plum novel]. New York : St Martins Press, c2006.
Trenton, New Jersey’s premier troublemaker, bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum, is once again struggling with her tangled love life, her chaotic family, and her gift for destroying every car she drives. Not to mention her attempts to bring in the sometimes scary bail jumpers and the sudden appearance of a mysterious female stalker who turns out to have a close connection to fellow-bounty hunter, Ranger.

F FERRIS MYSTERY
Ferris, Monica. Sins and needles : a needlecraft mystery. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, c2006.

Lucille Jones and Jan Henderson meet when Lucille comes to town researching her roots. An immediate friendship is made. When Jan’s wealthy great-aunt is found dead, and Jan is the prime suspect, Lucille begs Jan’s friend, Betsy, to help clear Jan’s name. Could Jan’s Aunt’s death have anything to do with an embroidered pillow that Jan found in her Aunt’s belongings with a map of Lake Minnetonka stitched in the lining? It’s a secret that someone would kill to conceal.

F FFORDE
Fforde, Katie. Restoring Grace. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Grace Soudley’s only security is the beautiful old house her godmother left her. Now all she has to do is find a fortune to upkeep the place. The solution comes in the form of Ellie Summers who is pregnant and needs a place to stay. Together the two women work at fixing up the house. When an unexpected man turns up and they discover some potentially valuable paintings, they begin to restore not only the house, but their lives as well.

F FLAGG
Flagg, Fannie. Can’t wait to get to heaven : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c2006.

When 80-year-old Mrs. Shimfessle falls out of a fig tree in her front yard one morning, what follows is a series of extraordinary events that gives a comic turn to the age old question: What happens to us after we die? It’s a hilarious novel about a woman’s peculiar experience in the afterlife.

F FOSSUM MYSTERY
Fossum, Karin, 1954-. When the devil holds the candle. 1st U.S. ed. Orlando : Harcourt, Inc., c2006.

A stolen purse; an infant’s death; two teenagers in trouble; a switchblade and an old woman. It’s up to Inspector Konrad Sejer and his partner Jacob Skarre to discern the connection between all these elements and the disappearance of a local delinquent. As the unflappable Sejer digs below the surface of small-town tranquility in an effort to understand how and why violence destroys everyday lives, the question remains: will he figure it out before teens Zipp and Andreas take another life?

F FUENTES
Fuentes, Carlos. The eagle’s throne : a novel. 1st. U.S. ed. New York : Random House, c2006.

A disagreement with the U.S. has led to the severance of satellite power to Mexico during the 2020s; and as the government resorts to old-fashioned methods of communication, political adversaries come out to prey.

F FURST
Furst, Alan. The foreign correspondent : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.
In Paris, 1938, an apparent murder/suicide is fodder for the tabloids. Especially when the deceased, found in a lover’s hotel, turns out to be an Italian political émigré and the wife of a prominent French politician. Upon further investigation, it’s later determined that it was in fact an assassination involving Mussolini’s secret police. It also opens up the secret spy life and secret love life of Carlo Weisz, editor of an underground newspaper, set against the background of an inevitable European war.

F GARCIA MYSTERY
Garcia, Eric. Anonymous Rex : Casual Rex. Ace trade pbk. one-vol. ed. New York : Ace, 2004.

“Anonymous Rex—Casual Rex” presents Eric Garcia’s first two novels featuring Vincent Rubio, a Los Angeles private investigator who also happens to be one of many dinosaurs who roam the Earth disguised in latex costumes that allow them to blend into human society.

F GAUS MYSTERY
Gaus, Paul L. A prayer for the night : an Ohio Amish mystery. Athens : Ohio University Press, c2006.

Amid a whirlwind of drugs, sex, and other temptations of the “English” world, a group of Amish teenagers on their Rumschpringe test the limits of their parents’ religion to the breaking point. The murder of one and the abduction of another challenge Professor Michael Branden as he confronts the communal fear that the young people can never be brought home safely. Along with Holmes County Sheriff Bruce Robertson and Pastor Cal Troyer, Professor Branden works against the clock to find a murderer and a kidnapper, and to break a drug ring operating in the county, determined, wherever the trail may lead him, to restore the shattered community.

F GRANDE
Grande, Reyna. Across a hundred mountains : a novel. 1st Atria Books hardcover ed. New York : Atria Books, 2006.

Juana Garcia had left her small town in Mexico to find her father who had disappeared 19 years earlier. Now, out of money and in need of someone to help her cross the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, who had left her family in California three years before to follow forbidden love in Mexico. Grande puts a human face on the story of those who make it across the border, those who don’t, and those who are left behind.

F GREEN
Green, Jane, 1968-. Swapping lives. 1st American ed. New York : Viking, 2006.

No matter what we have, the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. That’s the case for Vicky Townsley and Amber Winslow. Vicky has a fantastic job, lives in an exciting city, and is financially secure. But, she’d give it up in a heartbeat for marriage, children, and a house in the country. Amber has that but isn’t happy either. When Amber enters a Life Swap contest, wins, and the two swap lives, will they finally find happiness?

F GRENVILLE
Grenville, Kate, 1950-. The secret river. 1st American ed. Edinburgh ; New York : Canongate, 2005.

The Orange Prize-winning author Kate Grenville recalls her family’s history in an astounding novel about the pioneers of New South Wales. Already a best seller in Australia, “The Secret River” is the story of Grenville’s ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people. London, 1806. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill’s theft of their home.

F GRIFFIN
Griffin, W. E. B. The saboteurs. New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.

Griffin and his son team up to bring readers another tale featuring Wild Bill Donovan’s agents who are preparing to invade Sicily and then Italy. U-boats have put German commando-trained saboteurs on American shores and ships are burning at their moorings in U.S. ports. Wild Bill’s spies in the Office of Strategic Services, answerable only to the President, find themselves battling on two fronts and with some very unlikely allies.

F HARPER MYSTERY
Harper, Karen (Karen S.). The fatal fashione : an Elizabeth I mystery. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

In the eighth year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a royal starcher is drowned, setting off a series of events that threatens the Queen, her court, and all of England.

F HENRY
Henry, Diane, 1945-. Blood red, snow white : a novel. 1st ed. Boston : Little, Brown, c1992.

In the midst of defending a messy skimming operation with millions going to foreign banks, lawyer Alec Anton is contacted by his beautiful neighbor to find her missing son. His investigations turn up a billion-dollar cocaine operation, money laundering, and corruption everywhere. His fatal attraction for Lee, the mother, interferes with his work; and he is set up for a sexual harrassment charge by an office assistant. As he goes from New York to California to Montreal, he unearths an incredibly complex international scam.

F HILDEBRAND
Hilderbrand, Elin. The love season. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Renata is visiting her fiance’s family in Nantucket for the summer when she ignores her father’s wishes and goes to see Marguerite, the godmother she’s been forbidden to see her entire life. She’s hoping to get some questions answered regarding her mother’s untimely death. She soon discovers that Marguerite’s life is not so simple and preparing dinner for her goddaughter proves much more complicated than either of them imagined.

F HOLLERAN
Holleran, Andrew. Grief. 1st ed. New York : Hyperion, c2006.

A haunting, exquisite novel about the nature of loss, grief and the illusion of intimacy. The unnamed protagonist, having taken care of his failing mother for some 12 years, is devastated by her death. When a friend offers a one-semester teaching gig in Washington, D.C., and a lead on a room rental, the professor jumps at the deal. So begins Holleran’s spare story: “The house that I lived in that winter in Washington had been a rooming house with fourteen rooms, rented out mostly to addicts, when my landlord bought it in 1974.” On the nightstand is a collection of Mary Todd Lincoln’s letters; the widow’s words become a reference for everything the professor notices as he wanders the nation’s capital. Kirkus Reviews.

F HOLT MYSTERY
Holt, Anne, 1958-. What is mine. Warner Books, c2006.
Anne Holt, the most popular crime writer in Norway, makes her American debut with What Is Mine. As child after child disappears in Norway, police commissioner Stubo asks former FBI profiler Johanna Vik for help. Already immersed in an investigation, she’s reluctant until a gruesome turn in Stubo’s case changes her mind. The bodies of the young victims start turning up in their families’ homes with notes attached that read: ‘You got what you deserved.’ Now, Stubo and Vik must solve the case before more innocent children die. First of a three book series.

F HOROWITZ ROMANCE
Horowitz, Laurie, 1960-. The family fortune. 1st ed. New York: William Morrow, c2006.

Times are tough for the once very wealthy old Boston Fortune family. Forced to rent out their Beacon Hill townhouse, they leave the task of looking after the property to middle daughter, Jane, a self-professed old maid, who heads the Fortune Family Foundation. The winds of change are blowing however, and they’re about to blow across the sedate Jane, moving her right into the path of the first love she’s never been able to forget.

F HOWARD
Howard, Linda, 1950-. Cover of night. New York : Ballantine, 2006.

Cate Nightingale, a young widow and mother, owns and operates a bed- and-breakfast in Idaho. She occasionally enlists the aid of a mysterious, strong handyman named Calvin Harris. After a trio of thugs invade the inn, demanding the possessions of a previous guest who vanished days before, Cal manages to chase them off. The thugs then shut down phone service for the entire village, holding its citizens hostage. Desperate to survive, Cate and Cal strike out to seek help from a neighboring town.

F HUGHES MYSTERY
Hughes, Declan, 1963-. The wrong kind of blood. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

Private detective Ed Loy returns to his native Dublin for his mother’s funeral, but his grieving takes an unexpected turn when an old classmate pleads with him to find her missing husband, taking Ed on a journey into the deadly Irish underworld of drugs, extortion, and murder.

F JACKSON MYSTERY
Jackson, Lisa. Shiver. New York : Kensington Books, c2006.

Detective Reuben “Diego” Montoya must team up with the prime suspect in a murder case to catch a serial killer who is keeping New Orleans in the grip of fear, an investigation that leads them to an abandoned asylum where unspeakable evil awaits them.

F JUDSON MYSTERY
Judson, D. Daniel. The darkest place. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

Record cold weather has come to the Long Island resort community of Shinnecock Bay. So has a series of enigmatic drowning deaths. Deacon Kane, a local college professor, recovering from the accidental drowning of his only son years ago, with the help of alcohol and an affair with a married woman, is the prime suspect. As police watch his every move, it becomes clear that Kane himself may not know the extent of his involvement. Something dark and sinister is definitely at work in Southhampton.

F KELLY
Kelly, Lauren, 1938-. Blood mask : a novel of suspense. 1st ed. New York : Ecco, c2006.

A wealthy, charismatic, and controversial ‘benefactress of art’ named Drewe Hildebrand
has seemingly been abducted from her estate on the Hudson River. Her niece, Marta, found in a wooded area nearby, is too traumatized to describe the abductors. Then an exhibit of avant-garde ‘bio-art’ including a blood mask of Drewe is disrupted by protestors. The world of ‘bio-artists’ and their admirers is explored in this new novel from Kelly.

F LASHNER MYSTERY
Lashner, William. Marked man. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

When Victor Carl wakes up with his suit in tatters, his socks missing, and a tattoo on his chest with the name Chantal Adair inscribed, he doesn’t know how it got there, or who Chantal is, but he intends to find out. So begins a hunt that takes him to a strip club and the tale of a missing girl; delicate negotiations with an ex-con who has a stolen Rembrandt painting, and someone who doesn’t like the questions Victor has been asking.

F LAWRENCE MYSTERY
Lawrence, David, 1942 Dec. 9-. Cold kill. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

This third entry in the highly praised Detective Stella Mooney series finds the memorable Stella at a crime scene in a wintry London park where the brutalized corpse of a young woman has just been discovered. When a man walks into a Notting Hill police station and confesses to the murder, it’s an open-and-shut case—just what the police want this close to Christmas. But Stella has her doubts. And if their suspect didn’t commit the murder, who did?

F LEVINE MYSTERY
Levine, Laura, 1943-. The PMS murder : a Jaine Austen mystery. New York : Kensington Books, c2006.

On the front lines of the battle of the bulge, otherwise known as trying on bathing suits in the communal dressing room at Loehmann’s, Jaine makes a new friend—a wannabe actress named Pam. Their feeling of connection is mutual, so Pam invites Jaine to Join the PMS club—a women’s support group that meets once a week over guacamole and margaritas to commiserate about love and life. But joining the club proves to be a curse more than a blessing for Jaine. Though she is warned that Rochelle, the hostess, makes a guacamole to die for, Jaine never takes the warning literally. Until another PMS member—Marybeth—drops dead over a mouthful of the green stuff...

F LINDSTROM
Lindstrom, Kara. Sparkle life. New York, NY : Other Press, 2006.

The three 30-something stars of this ambitious debut are not friends but New York film world acquaintances at one degree of separation. Joy and Sara see the same psychiatrist, who turns out to be Liv’s uncle. Liv is dating Sara’s brother who cheats on her with Joy. And not far into the book, all three seal their romantic fates at the same movie premier party. The coincidences that bring them together drive their lives-yielding epiphanies, movie deals and weddings-but never bring them closer emotionally.

F LIPPMAN MYSTERY
Lippman, Laura, 1959-. No good deeds. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

Tess Monaghan, a consultant to the local newspaper, inadvertently gets caught up in the unsolved murder of a young federal prosecutor when her boyfriend brings home a young street kid who doesn’t even realize he holds an important key to the man’s death. Protecting the boy’s identity becomes even more crucial after one of the boy’s friends is killed in what appears to be a case of mistaken identity. Federal agents are just as determined to learn the boy’s identity at any cost.

F LOWELL MYSTERY
Lowell, Elizabeth, 1944-. The wrong hostage. 1st ed. New York : W. Morrow, c2006.

Joe Faroe was a kidnap specialist until a friend died trying to kill him. But he agrees to help federal judge Cate Silva when her son falls into the wrong hands. Library Journal.

F LYNN MYSTERY Staff Favorite
Lynn, Jackie. Down by the riverside. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

Abandoned by her husband for a younger woman, Rose Frankin buys a camper and sets off for a campsite in North Carolina called Shady Grove. While she’s there, a respected and well-liked man in the community seems to commit suicide for no apparent reason. Could his death be somehow connected to the ancient slave burial ground that he was researching? Rose decides to find out and unravels the mystery of why a man lost his faith and the consequences of his loss.

F MALKANI
Malkani, Gautam, 1976-. Londonstani. 1st American ed. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.

Jas has no intention of assimilating to mainstream British society. He prefers to be a proper ‘desi rudeboy,’ a term given to second and third generation Indian and Pakistani youth, or Indostanis who continue to assert their ethnicity while borrowing from American gangsta rap. Aligning himself with other rudeboys, his relationship with Samira, a Muslim girl, causes friction and results in dire consequences for Jas.

F MANKELL
Mankell, Henning, 1948-. Chronicler of the winds. New York : New Press : Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2006.
A departure for Swedish crime novelist Mankell, this work takes place in an African country after the overthrow of its longtime dictator by revolutionaries. In the ensuing confusion, bandits terrorize the countryside and conscript young boys into their ranks, among them the child Nelio. Nelio escapes and journeys to a big city, where he joins up with a group of street children. When Nelio is shot, he is cared for by a baker named Jos and tells Jos his story, ending with the gunshot that leads to his death. Nelio’s tragic tale changes Jos ‘s life, and he decides to spend his own life telling Nelio’s story, thus becoming known as the “Chronicler of the Winds.” Library Journal.

F MANRIQUE
Manrique, Jaime, 1949-. Our lives are the rivers : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Rayo, c2006.

Manrique offers a fictionalized account of the love affair between Manuela Saenz and South American liberator Simon Bolivar.

F MARGOLIN MYSTERY
Margolin, Phillip. Proof positive. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.

Both defense attorney Amanda Jaffe, and her father, Frank, are defending killers in two separate cases. Both clients claim to be innocent, despite forensic evidence that shows differently. But, what if the fingerprints, ballistics tests, and other evidence analyzed by the crime lab are not what they seem? When Amanda starts checking the possibility that a CSI technician misused his position to frame two innocent men, people start to die and she discovers that a madman with the power to alter the truth is on the loose.

F MARKLUND MYSTERY
Marklund, Liza, 1962-. Paradise. London : Simon & Schuster, 2004.

A hurricane sweeps across Sweden leaving chaos in its wake. Two men lie dead in Stockholm, shot in the head at point-blank range. A young woman runs for her life. She finds refuge in Paradise, a foundation dedicated to those whose lives are in danger. Newspaper sub-editor Annika Bengtzon is trying to piece her life back together following the violent death of her fiancé, and covering the story of Paradise is just the break she needs. But as she’s about to find out, neither the young woman nor Paradise are quite what they appear to be.

F MCCAFFREY SCIENCE FICTION
McCaffrey, Anne. Dragon’s fire. 1st ed. New York : Del Rey Books, c2006.

Mother and son writing team Anne and Todd McCaffrey collaborate on a second Pern adventure and continue to shed new light on the world of the dragonriders. Mining the firestone that allows the dragons of Pern to breathe fire is a job normally left to the Shunned, people who have committed crimes against the community. But, when an explosion kills the miners, young Cristov volunteers to take over. If he doesn’t survive, the dragons’ flame will be forever extinguished, leaving Pern defenseless.

F MCGOVERN MYSTERY
McGovern, Cammie. Eye contact : a novel. New York : Viking, 2006.

A young girl has been murdered and the only witness is an autistic child who cannot tell what he saw.

F MONARDO
Monardo, Anna. Falling in love with Natassia : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, 2006.

Natassia was conceived on a dare by Mary, an ambitious dancer, and Ross, her infatuated, drug-abusing lover, while they are studying abroad during college. Raised in seeming security in Manhattan by her paternal grandparents and doted on by her godparents, she appears well adjusted. But a secret affair with an older man turns sour, and the 11th grader implodes, as do the many adults in her life as they attempt to make up for years of self-interest. Then a shocking incident in Natassia’s past is revealed, threatening marriages and friendships. Library Journal.

F MOORE
Moore, Christopher, 1957-. A dirty job. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

Charlie Asher a neurotic and anxious hypochondriac who hates change, confronts the challenges of being a widower and a single parent when his wife dies of a freak medical condition on the day his new daughter, Sophie, is born.

F NAYLOR
Naylor, Clare, 1971-. The first assistant : a continuing tale from behind the Hollywood curtain. New York : Viking, 2006.

It’s been awhile since Lizzie Miller came to The Agency and the world of high-powered Hollywood deal-making. She paid her dues by working at the bottom of the ladder however. Now Scott Wagner’s first assistant, she knows company protocol, but is also unfazed by the sparkling mirage that is Los Angeles. Can she continue to be unfazed as her boyfriend waves Harry Winston diamonds and a black AmEx in front of her eyes?

F OTHMER
Othmer, James P. The futurist : a novel. New York : Doubleday, 2006.
Yates is a Futurist who dispenses premonitory wisdom to world governments, corporations, and at global leadership conferences. Thus, he’s an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. While on his way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a note from his girlfriend that tells him she’s left him and witnesses a soccer riot in which five South Africans are killed, after which he writes and delivers a career-ending speech at Futureworld. Could his life get any worse?

F PARKER MYSTERY
Parker, Robert B., 1932-. Blue screen. New York : G. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.

Private Investigator Sunny Randall is hired by a sleazy movie producer to serve as a bodyguard for his prize client, the beautiful Xena-like actress, Erin Flint. Though everyone in the entertainment business has a past, Erin’s troublesome back story has really deadly implications.

F PARKHURST
Parkhurst, Carolyn, 1971-. Lost and found. 1st ed. New York : Little, Brown and Co., 2006.

Seven oddly matched pairs are thrown together to compete in a high- stakes, televised contest on a new reality show called ‘Lost and Found,’ a global scavenger hunt. Each contestant has their own reasons for wanting to participate . . . and their own secrets. As the game escalates, tension mounts, temptations beckon, and the bonds between teammates begin to fray. The question is not only who will capture the final prize, but at what cost?

F PARKS
Parks, Tim. Rapids : a novel. 1st North American ed. New York: Arcade Pub., 2006.

On the surface, this latest novel from Parks tells the story of a group of kayaking enthusiasts learning how to hold their own in the white water of the Italian Alps. In fact, this novel is about the inner struggles of three of these characters: Clive, the rugged instructor who yearns to change the world; Michela, his loyal girlfriend, whose deepest wish is to leave Italy; and Vince, a high-powered British banker who is literally and figuratively drowning in the aftermath of his wife’s death.

F PENNY MYSTERY
Penny, Louise. Still life. 1st St. Martin’s Minotaur ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

The discovery of the body of Jane Neal, a resident of a small rural village south of Montreal, has brought Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his team of investigators to the scene. While the locals are certain it was a hunting accident, Gamache suspects something more sinister than a careless hunter caused her death.

F PINEIRO
Pineiro, R. J. Havoc. New York : Forge, c2005.

CIA officer Tom Grant is pulled out of early retirement to investigate a high-tech robbery at a government-run agency for the development of nanoweapons and is thrown into the middle of a conspiracy that could threaten the future of all mankind.

F POMEROY MYSTERY
Pomeroy, Julia. The dark end of town. 1st Carroll & Graf ed. New York : Carroll & Graf, 2006.

Abbey, the thirty-year-old widow and protagonist, returns from her brief career as an New York City model to the upstate New York resort town where she grew up in order to recover from her husband’s suicide. While working in a friend’s trendy new restaurant, she gets pulled into the dark side of small-town Bantam in ways she never imagined. Two dead bodies turn up: One, the mother of a local troubled teen, the other of the town bad girl.

F PRESTON
Preston, Douglas J. The book of the dead. 1st ed. New York : Warner Books, 2006.

The New York Museum of Natural History receives their stolen gem collection back . . . ground to dust. Diogenes, the killer who stole it, has thrown down the gauntlet to both the city and to his brother, FBI Agent Pendergast. To quiet the P.R. nightmare, the museum decides to reopen the Tomb of Senef: a popular exhibit until the 1930s. When they do, the killings and whispers of an ancient curse begin again. By the time the opening’s over, only one brother will emerge alive.

F PRONZINI MYSTERY
Pronzini, Bill. The crimes of Jordan Wise : a novel. New York : Walker & Co. : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2006.

Jordan Wise was your ordinary run-of-the-mill accountant until he met Annalise Bonner, who lived for adventure and the good life. Intoxicated by her, Jordan resolved to get it for both of them by doing a little creative bookkeeping with his engineering firm’s books. After embezzling a half-million dollars, he arranged escape for himself and Annalise outside the reach of the law. Yes, he had everything under control . . . or so he thought!

F RAMSAY MYSTERY
Ramsay, Frederick. Impulse. Scottsdale, AZ : Poisoned Pen Press, c2006.

Frank Smith was bound for Phoenix to attend his 50th class reunion. He arrived at Scott Academy where he got caught up in a mystery now 25 years old. A group of young boys had walked from the campus into the woods and just disappeared. Bringing back memories of his own wife’s mysterious disappearance four years earlier, he decided to probe the mystery as he relived his own boyhood and that of some of the classmates of the missing boys, on campus for their 25th reunion.

F RICE
Rice, Luanne. Sandcastles. New York : Bantam Books, 2006.

Honor Dillon teaches art at the Star of the Sea Academy, thereby making a life for herself and her three daughters. Now she’s also planning the wedding of her oldest daughter, Regis, who naturally, wanted her father, a sculptor, to be a part of her special day. Although he’d broken Honor’s heart, he would come out of a self-imposed exile to return to the family he’d left and set in motion a chain of events that would shake the Star of the Sea Academy to its foundation.

F ROBINSON MYSTERY
Robinson, Peter, 1950-. Piece of my heart. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, 2006.

Detective Inspector Alan Banks’ latest case involving the murder of a freelance music journalist takes him back more than 30 years, and into the unsolved murder of a young woman found wrapped in a sleeping bag after an outdoor rock concert in 1969 where the up-and-coming psychedelic band, The Mad Hatters was playing. The journalist had been working on a feature story about the now aging rock superstar band. What was the connection, and what hornets’ nest had the journalist inadvertently stirred up?

F ROSENBLATT
Rosenblatt, Roger. Lapham rising : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Ecco, c2006.

Harry March, an eccentric writer living as a recluse on his own island with his talking dog Hector, comes up with a scheme to take on his irritating new neighbor, a multimillionaire named Lapham, who is building an enormous new house next door.

F SANDFORD
Sandford, John, 1944 Feb. 23-. Dead watch. New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006.

The wife of a former U.S. Senator is on the run. Her husband has been missing for days. She doesn’t know if he’s been kidnapped or murdered, but fears for her own safety. In Washington, D.C., chief investigator and Army Intelligence veteran Jacob Winter has been summoned by the White House chief of staff. The disappearances are bad, but when a blackened body shows up barbed-wired to a tree, Winter suspects there’s much worse to come. He doesn’t know how right he is!

F SEE
See, Carolyn. There will never be another you : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.

Set in the UCLA Medical Center of the near future, There Will Never Be Another You
follows three generations of Californians as they struggle to live in a post-9/11 world amid the threat of bioterrorism. As the Los Angeles area weathers one medical crisis after another, the four protagonists of this very real novel-a heartbroken widow, a poetry-loving gangbanger, an innocent coed, and a dermatologist recruited to a highly classified emergency response team-strive to define themselves within and outside the most significant relationships of their lives. The instability of the country pushes each of them to focus on what is important, providing the courage needed to make the decisions that will change their lives. Library Journal.

F SHAARA MYSTERY
Shaara, Lila. Every secret thing : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Ballantine Books, c2006.

Once a top model, Gina Paletta now enjoys the quieter life as mother to two sons and a job as a university professor. That quiet is disturbed when photos of her are posted on a sleazy web site by some of her male students who are also suspects in the murder of a classmate. With danger facing her and her boys, she reluctantly finds herself drawn to police detective Tommy Galloway.

F SIERRA
Sierra, Javier, 1971-. The secret supper : a novel. New York : Atria Books, 2006.

Pope Alejandro VI heard through unnamed sources that Leonardo Da Vinci’s almost finished painting of the Last Supper contained unpopular elements. Elements that caused the pope to send Fray Agustine Leyre, a Dominican Inquisitor, to the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan to confirm his suspicions. Fray instantly knows the painting contains a hidden message and sets out to decode it.

F SNYDER
Snyder, Scott. Voodoo heart : stories. New York : Dial Press, 2006.

These dispatches from disaffected but strangely likeable American oddities have much the same effect as good American roots music: their simplicity is deceptive, their emotional power considerable. And at some point between the mystery-blimp of “Blue Yodel” and the World War I-era Curtis Jenny of “The Star Attraction of 1919,” you may discover that Snyder’s plain folks have stolen your heart. I think what impressed me most about these stories—even the ones in which terrible things happen—was their warmth and humanity.

F STELLA
Stella, Charlie. Shakedown. 1st Pegasus Books ed. New York : Pegasus Books, 2006.

Can a mob bookmaker have a wife and a family and be out for good? “Fuhgetaboutit,” say the wiseguys. Bobby Genarro had at least a shot at escape until the untimely flipping of Nicky D’Angelo, an underboss with the Vignieri family, who when presented with limited options by the FBI chose the Witness Protection Program. Suddenly, Bobby’s position is ambiguous enough to require a hasty visit from a pair of Vignieri soldiers: If Nicky squealed, how can they be sure that Bobby, who worked for him, won’t? And by the way, it would show respect if he came up with $50,000. Annoyed not so much by the breakdown in logic-he knows full well the wiseguy way with a syllogism-as by the boldfaced attempt at extortion, he stonewalls. Kirkus Reviews.

F STEWART
Stewart, Mariah. Final truth : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Ballantine Books, c2006.

Regan Landry, a true-crime writer, has followed lots of big stories throughout his career, but none more challenging than that of convicted rapist/killer Edgar Barnes, who persuades Regan to reinvestigate his case. When Regan and FBI Special Agent Mitch Peyton oblige, they discover a startling number of irregularities, including a crucial DNA mismatch that results in Barnes’ parole. A month after his release, a series of sexually motivated slayings occur. Mitch, Regan, and the FBI, fearing they have set free a monster, sweep into action.

F THOMAS
Thomas, Will, 1958-. The Limehouse text. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

Agent Cyrus Barker, along with assistant Thomas Llewelyn, head to London’s Chinatown district, Limehouse, where they retrieve a Chinese book. Ho, a restaurateur, inspects the book, and informs them that it is a rare and secret martial arts book containing lethal techniques forbidden in the West. The book’s exposure could cause even more trouble between the United Kingdom and China. Barker and Llewelyn must find out how it got to England.

F TIFFANY
Tiffany, Carrie, 1965-. Everyman’s rules for scientific living : a novel. 1st Scribner ed. New York : Scribner, 2006, c2005.

Jean Finnegan is an independent, resilient woman looking for her place in a world wracked by the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II when the ‘Better Farming Train’ slides into her small town in Australia. It’s filled with agricultural and domestic experts like Robert Pettergree, a scientist with an unusual taste for soil. Following a sudden seduction between Robert and Jean, they marry and settle in the impoverished Mallee farmland with the ambition of transforming the land with science.

F TURTLEDOVE
Turtledove, Harry. Fort Pillow. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Turtledove recreates a real-life controversial battle that took place at Fort Pillow in 1864. Manned by 600 mostly black Union troops, they were overrun by about 1,500 Confederate troops and driven out into a deadly crossfire that left only 62 of the black troops unwounded. The controversy over what many considered a massacre continues today and became a Union rallying cry that sustained Union troops to see the war through to its conclusion.

F TYREE
Tyree, Omar. What they want : a novel. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

Successful male model Terrance Mitchell had no plan to ever settle down and have a family. He liked his freedom and being able to date any woman he wanted. In his line of work, he had many to choose from. He was content with his life the way it was.
Then it happened. One of his beautiful women fell over the cuckoo’s nest and shattered his peace of mind. From then on, Terrance could never again lead women on without feeling guilty about it.

F UPDIKE
Updike, John. Terrorist. 1st ed. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Ahmad, 18, was born to an Irish-American mother and an Egyptian father, and is devoted to Allah and the sacred words of the Qu’ran, as revealed to him by the local imam. With his father long since disappeared, Ahmad craves spiritual nurture and views the self-indulgent society around him in New Jersey with contempt. Neither the well-intentioned Jewish guidance counselor at the high school, nor a seductive classmate is able to succeed in deflecting Ahmad’s course of terror.

F WELDON
Weldon, Fay. She may not leave. 1st American ed. New York : [Berkeley, Calif.] : Atlantic Monthly Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2005.

Unmarried partners Hattie and Martyn are the proud parents of a newborn. They’re happy and the baby is healthy. All is fine until the question of who will go back to work and who will stay home with the baby comes up. They compromise by hiring Agnieska, a Polish nanny, who also happens to be a domestic goddess and a first-rate belly dancer. When problems arise with her immigration papers, Martyn and Hattie will do anything to keep her in the country.

F YANCEY MYSTERY
Yancey, Richard. The highly effective detective. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books, 2006.

Teddy Ruzak has wanted to become a detective since childhood. His opportunity comes following the death of his mother, who leaves him a substantial nest egg. After quitting his job as a watchman to become a private investigator, he hires Felicia, a former waitress at his favorite restaurant, to be his secretary. What begins as a seemingly inconsequential case of a hit-and-run of a family of geese quickly evolves into a murder investigation.

YA 741.5 TEE GRAPHIC NOVEL
Teen Titans. New York : DC Comics, c2005
The heroes-in-training travel to the thirty-first century to help the Legion of Super-Heroes battle the Fatal Five Hundred; make a stop, on their way back, at ten years in the future, where they are stunned and disturbed by the adults they turn out to be; and, back in the present, welcome their newest member, Speedy, and face off against Dr. Light, who seeks revenge for past humiliations.


NON-FICTION:

174 LUT
Lutz, Tom. Doing nothing : a history of loafers, loungers, slackers and bums in America. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2006.

Whenever the world of labor changes in significant ways, the pulpits, politicians, and pedagogues ring with exhortations of the value of work, and the slackers answer with a strenuous call of their own: “To do nothing,” as Oscar Wilde said, “is the most difficult thing in the world.” From Benjamin Franklin’s “air baths” to Jack Kerouac’s “dharma bums,” Generation-X slackers, and beyond, anti-work-ethic proponents have held a central place in modern culture. Moving with verve and wit through a series of fascinating case studies that illuminate the changing place of leisure in the American republic, Doing Nothing revises the way we understand slackers and work itself.

176 WIL
Wilmut, Ian. After Dolly :--the uses and misuses of human cloning. W.W.Norton, c2006.

Scientist Ian Wilmut describes the process by which he and other researchers at Scotland’s Roslin Institute cloned the first mammal, a sheep named Dolly, and makes a case for the medical uses of cloning.

362.196 GAR
Garrison, Julia Fox. Don’t leave me this way : or when I get back on my feet you’ll be sorry. 1st HarperCollins ed. New York : HarperCollins, 2006.

Garrison was a thirty-something software professional living in suburban Boston and surrounded by a large and loving family when she suffered what was eventually diagnosed as a brain hemorrhage and stroke that left one side of her body paralyzed. This book, based on her privately printed memoir, “P.S. Julia: Missing a Piece of Your Mind Can Be Puzzling”, tells the story of her more than yearlong struggle toward recovery in the 1990s. Garrison has few kind words for the medical profession or the Boston-area hospitals at which she was treated and does not downplay the many indignities of her intensive rehabilitation effort, including her guilt over not being able to take proper care of her young son. This well-written, episodic memoir is neither a caregiver’s guide nor a self-help manual, and despite the author’s best efforts to be flippant and put a happy face on her medical calamities, it is more harrowing and disturbing than amusing or quirky. Library Journal.

364.1523 BEL VT COLL
Belding, Patricia W. (Patricia Wyman). One less woman : a Vermont murder : 1919. Barre, VT : Potash Brook Publishing, c2006.

In 1919, a woman’s naked body is found just off North main Street in Barre. Belding covers an alleged crime of passion and the trial that followed.

613.20973 PLA
Planck, Nina, 1971-. Real food : what to eat and why. New York : Bloomsbury Pub., 2006.

In lively, personal chapters on produce, dairy, meat, fish, chocolate, and other real foods, Nina explains how ancient foods like beef and butter havebeen falsely accused, while industrial foods like corn syrup and soybean oil have created a triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Real Food upends the conventional wisdom on diet and health and explains our taste for good things.

627 NOR
Norton, Trevor. Underwater to get out of the rain : a love affair with the sea. Cambridge, MA : Da Capo Press, 2006.

Marine biologist Norton (Univ. of Liverpool, UK; Stars Beneath the Sea: The Pioneers of Diving) grew up in a seaside town near Newcastle and was fascinated from an early age by underwater plants and animals. In these lighthearted essays that are part memoir, part natural history, he conveys his profound love of nature and the ocean, injecting his dry sense of humor into such topics as diving, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, island biology, human evolution, seaweed ecology, and luminescence. His autobiographical accounts are interwoven with marine science topics accompanied by lovely line drawings by his wife, Win. Traveling around the world in connection with his scientific work, he finds humor and interest in his human encounters as well as in his biological studies. Library Journal.

658 COL
Collins, James C. (James Charles), 1958-. Good to great : why some companies make the leap—and others don’t. 1st ed. New York : HarperBusiness, c2001.

Presents the findings of a long-term study on a group of companies that made the leap from good to great and sustained those results for at least fifteen years, looking at how those businesses compared with organizations that failed to achieve high performance, and identifying the factors that make the difference.

690 SNE
Snell, Clarke. Building green : a complete how-to guide to alternative building methods : earth plaster, straw bale, cordwood, cob, living roofs. 1st ed. New York : Lark Books, c2005.

A comprehensive guide to alternative building methods that provides information on alternative building materials and techniques that can be used in various construction projects.

741.5 BEC
Bechdel, Alison, 1960-. Fun home : a family tragicomic. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Alison’s father is a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family’s Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, the reader is drawn into a daughter’s complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned ‘fun home,’ as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.

921 BRACCO
Bracco, Lorraine, 1955-. On the couch. New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.

Actress Lorraine Bracco, known for her role as psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi on the hit TV series ‘The Sopranos,’ shares stories of her life as an artist, her career, her tempestuous romances, motherhood, and her role on the TV show. More than your standard memoir, it’s a no-holds-barred account of her life, warts and all, as well as her struggles with work, men, and depression.

921 CORNWELL
Cornwell, John, 1940-. Seminary boy. 1st ed. New York : Doubleday, c2006.

Cornwell, author, journalist, and fellow at Jesus College in Cambridge, England, here tells the story of his life at an all-male school in the 1950s. Son of a struggling working-class family in London, John was sent to Cotton College to become a Catholic priest. Here, during his teen years, he experienced the best and worst of pre-Vatican II seminary life. Some of his teachers were pious and dedicated men; others were sexual predators. He had close friendships and fierce rivalries with other boys and felt forbidden romantic attractions. Though Cornwell chose not to continue into the priesthood, this book is not a denunciation of the system. Instead, it is a bittersweet recollection of a vanished world of religious insights and social isolation that profoundly influenced the author’s character.

921 DUNN
Dunn, Jancee. But enough about me : from eighties geek to rock ‘n’ roll chic - adventures in celebsville. New York : HarperCollins, 2006.

Known for her celebrity profiles, journalist Dunn blends interviewing tips, dirt-digging secrets and memoir-type snippets in a mix that’s tough to define, but a delight to read. As a frequent writer for Rolling Stone and contributor to Vanity Fair, GQ and Vogue, Dunn can reach an array of stars and has the anecdotes to prove it. She details ducking the paparazzi with Mel Gibson, eating in Dolly Parton’s kitchen and posing for three minutes as Ben Affleck’s girlfriend to prove a point about how quickly gossip spreads. Refreshingly, she maintains an “Aw, shucks” quality that has become her work’s hallmark. By providing a zesty glimpse at her New Jersey childhood and young adulthood, Dunn offers a grounded counterpoint to the breezy tales of pop idol handling. Even after rising in the ranks at Rolling Stone, Dunn is mildly astounded that a Jersey girl who still slips phrases like “Yeah, right!” into her conversation should be shaking in her ritzy hotel room after being berated by Flashdance icon Jennifer Beals for asking about her personal life.

921 KAHN
Kahn, Roger. Into my own : the remarkable people and events that shaped a life. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Roger Kahn, often called the dean of American sportswriters and the best baseball writer in the country, has lived a life most people only dream of having. Now in his eighth decade, he shares his own story, chronicling his life and the people who influenced him. People like Stanley Woodward, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Robert Frost, Eugene McCarthy, and others, whose relationships define his identity as a person, a father, and as a friend.

921 MARLEY
Farley, Christopher John. Before the legend : the rise of Bob Marley. 1st ed. New York : Amistad, c2006.

Farley goes beyond the myth of Marley to bring you the private side of a man few people ever really knew. Drawing from original interviews with the people closest to Marley—including his widow, Rita, his mother, Cedella, his bandmate and childhood friend Bunny Wailer, his producer Chris Blackwell, and many others—he paints an entirely fresh picture of one of the most enduring musical artists of our times. This is a portrait of the artist as a young man, from his birth in the tiny town of Nine Miles in the hills of Jamaica to the making of his debut international record, “Catch a Fire.” We see Marley on the tough streets of Trench Town before he found stardom, struggling to find his way in music, in love, and in life, and we take the wild ride with him to worldwide acceptance and adoration.

940.53 GIL
Gilbert, Martin, 1936-. Kristallnacht : prelude to destruction. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.

On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis subjected the Jews in Germany to an organized wave of violence. Historian Gilbert begins this history by detailing the events of Kristallnacht (“The Night of Broken Glass”), drawing on eyewitness reports from Berlin and other parts of Germany, as well as Vienna. He then devotes a chapter to background on the treatment of the Jews in Germany once Hitler had ascended to power. The remainder of the book reviews the aftermath of Kristallnacht and includes news accounts and official responses from other countries at the time.

976.3 BRI
Brinkley, Douglas. The great deluge : Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York : Morrow, 2006.

Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley returns with his most powerful and personal book:the complete story of Hurricane Katrina, the natural disaster that devastated New Orleans, stunned America and the world. Brinkley, like thousands of his fellow New Orleanians, was forced to leave his home. This is his unique, piercing analysis of the ongoing crisis, its historical roots, and its repercussions for America. He’s now documenting the tragedy and its aftermath for posterity as part of the Tulane University Task Force.

MEDIA:

CD 759.409 KIN
King, Ross, 1962-. The judgment of Paris : [the revolutionary decade that gave the world Impressionism]. Unabridged. New York : Audio Renaissance, p2006. Read by Tristan Layton.
“The Judgment of Paris” chronicles the dramatic decadebetween two famous exhibitions set against the rise and dramatic fall of Napoleon III and the Second Empire after the Franco-Prussian War. King offers a fast-paced romp through the Parisian art scene between 1863 (the first Salon des Refuses exhibition) and 1874 (the first impressionist exhibition). Political upheaval and public scandal set the background for artistic endeavors, which King cleverlyframes with two diverse figures who seem to share only initials: Ernest Meissonier (representing the successful old guard) and Edouard Manet (the radical provocateur of the new order). Library Journal.

CD 920 TOL
Tolan, Sandy. The lemon tree : [an Arab, a Jew, and the heart of the Middle East]. Minneapolis, MN : HighBridge, p2006. Read by the author.

Tolan brings the Israeli/Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, as he tells the story of Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian man, and Dalia Ashkenzzi Landau, an Israeli woman, who meet under extraordinary circumstances and begin a rare and difficult friendship that would be tested over 35 years in ways that neither could imagine.

CD ADL
Adler, Elizabeth (Elizabeth A.). The house in Amalfi. Hampton, NH : BBC Audiobooks America, p2005. Read by Carrington MacDuffie.

Lamour Harrington’s husband died two years ago. It is the second time she has lost a man she loved to a tragedy: her father died in a mysterious boating accident when she was seventeen. When a devastating discovery about her husband’s death leaves Lamour feeling stunned and betrayed, she returns to the house on the lush Amalfi coast where she’d lived with her father during the happiest years of her childhood.

CD CAN
Cannell, Stephen J. Cold hit : a Shane Scully novel. Hampton, NH : Sound Library/BBC Audiobooks America, p2005. Read by Scott Brick.

Shane Scully is part of an elite LAPD unit attempting to track down a serial killer who murdered two homeless Vietnam vets. The third killing leads to the case being pulled from Shane and given to a task force led by an ambitious FBI agent. However, Shane isn’t convinced that the same person perpetrated the latest crime. The politically charged investigation gives him two possibilities: the killing was to cover the activities of a rogue national security agent and the Russian mob, or Shane’s alcoholic and divorced partner might be a suspect. Library Journal.

CD RIV
Rivière, William. By the Grand Canal. Ashland, Or. : Blackstone Audiobooks, 2005. Read by Simon Vance.

A novel that takes place in Venice in 1919, about empires and their crises, the desolation and hope that followed the war to end all wars, about death, time, memory, and innocent, as well as not so innocent love.

DVD 974.3 COM
Common ground : the stories of Waterbury to Warren. [Duxbury, Vt. : Harwood Union High School : Duxbury Land Trust, 200-?].

“Common ground” features interviews with townspeople, historic photographs, and film footage on the history of six towns in Washington County: Waterbury, Duxbury, Moretown, Fayston, Waitsfield, and Warren.


Please note: Some of the book descriptions have been excerpted from Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. They are most often based on Publisher's descriptions. Sources such as Booklist, the New York Times Book Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus and others are specifically identified.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

July 2006


FICTION:

F ALMOND
Almond, Steve. Which brings me to you : a novel in confessions.
1st ed. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006.

One couldn’t call a lusty encounter in the coatroom at a friend’s wedding a recipe for true love, but when John and Jane decide it could be the start of something, they decide to start over and really get to know each other first through letters. What follows is a series of traded confessions of their messy histories, their past errors, their big loves, their flaws, and their passions. Where all this soul-baring will take them can only be answered when they meet again in the flesh.

F ANDERSON
Anderson, Scott, 1959-. Moonlight Hotel : a novel. New York : Doubleday, 2006.

David Richards is a mid-level diplomat assigned to Kutar in the early 1980s.The American Empire decides to flex its muscles and decides to do something about the tribal conflict that has flared up. This is bad news for the people of Kutar and the people of Laradan, especially when the Americans later abandon the country and leave Laradan’s people at the mercy of rebels. Ordered to remain, David holes up in a resort called the Moonlight Hotel just before the siege begins.

F ARCHER MYSTERY
Archer, Jeffrey, 1940-. False impression. 1st U.S. ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

In the days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, an FBI agent searches for the link between eight very different individuals who together may hold the key to the mystery of Van Gogh’s last painting.

F ARRUDA
Arruda, Suzanne Middendorf, 1954-. Mark of the lion : a Jade del Cameron novel. New York : New American Library, c2006.

Jade del Cameron sets off for Africa determined to forget the horrors of World War I and fulfill a man’s dying wish, and is forced to draw upon all her ingenuity and courage to find a killer and live to complete her mission.

F ATKINS MYSTERY
Atkins, Ace. White shadow. New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.

Shock waves ripple through Tampa, Fla., in 1955 when mob boss Charlie Wall is found bludgeoned to death. As cops, reporters, and gangsters scramble to discover the truth behind his death, the truth is that there are many more surprises to come. With the trail winding through neighborhoods rich and poor, enmeshing the innocent and corrupt alike, all the way down to the pre-revolutionary Havana, a story of revenge, honor and greed begins to emerge. Soon even Charlie Wall’s secrets will be revealed, with serious repercussions.

F BARNES Staff Favorite MYSTERY
Barnes, Linda. Heart of the world. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

Carlotta Carlyle is awakened by a late-night phone call telling her that Paolina, the 14-year-old girl she has been mentoring, is missing, apparently kidnapped. With memories of a child she’d bore at 15 and had given up for adoption, Carlotta combs the streets of Boston, Miami, and then Bogota, feeling more and more desperate. After Carlotta is kidnapped by Paolina’s father, drug lord Carlos Roldan, they eventually team up in an unlikely bid for Paolina’s freedom.

F BERENSON
Berenson, Alex. The faithful spy : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.

John Wells, the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda, has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan since before the attacks in 2001. Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri, the mastermind plotting more al Qaeda strikes on America, Wells is coming home. Neither Khadri nor Jennifer Exley, Wells’superior, knows what to expect. Wells, now a Muslim, has changed through the years. Has he changed enough to make him turn against his own home country? They’ll all find out soon enough!

F BOVA SCIENCE FICTION
Bova, Ben, 1932-. Titan. 1st ed. New York : Tor, 2006.

In 2095, the gigantic colony ship “Goddard” carries a population of more than ten thousand dissidents, rebels, extremists, and visionaries to the remote Titan moon of Saturn, where they face danger, uncertainty, and tension to create a new world for themselves.

F BOX MYSTERY
Box, C. J. In plain sight : a Joe Pickett novel. New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2006.

Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett finds himself right in the middle of a violent battle between three grown sons over control of their vanished mother’s empire, including Saddlestring Ranch. Soon after beginning his investigation into Opal’s disappearance, Joe’s attacked and nearly beaten to death. A series of threatening messages and attempts to sabotage his career follow. Although he thinks it’s all connected to his investigation, he soon discovers otherwise. In fact, someone with a personal grudge wants to make Joe pay the ultimate price.

F CAREY
Carey, Peter, 1943-. Theft : a love story. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.

Australian artist Michael Butcher Bones’ Boone’s fame seems to have come and gone. Now living with his brother in Sydney, they’re caretaking a house while Butcher scrounges what supplies he can and purloins the rest. Then Marlene Leibovitz, daughter-in-law of the late, great painter Jacques Leibovitz, comes into his life. Although married, she falls in love with Butcher and visa versa. Unfortunately for Butcher, she’s also a criminally pathological liar who soon has him and his brother involved in the forgery of a lost Leibovitz.

F CHILD
Child, Lee. The hard way : a Jack Reacher novel. New York : Delacorte Press, 2006.

For once Jack Reacher seemed to be in the right place at the right time to stop a ransom request gone wrong and help a haunted man with a military past similar to his own. Reacher soon realizes however, that the only way to find the truth, and save an innocent life, is to do it the way he does it best: ‘the hard way.’

F COOPER
Cooper, T. Lipshitz six, or, Two angry blondes. New York : Dutton, c2006.

Fleeing pogrom-shadowed Russia only to lose her fair-haired son upon their arrival in America, Jewish refugee Esther Lipshitz becomes certain that Charles Lindbergh is her lost son and virtually destroys her family with her obsessive conviction.

F CORNWELL MYSTERY
Cornwell, Patricia Daniels. At risk. New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.

A Massachusetts state investigator is summoned to Knoxville, Tenn., to assist the local district attorney, who has aspirations of becoming governor. She plans to use some radical new DNA technology to solve the 21-year-old murder of an elderly woman. It’s the DA’s hope that if she solves the case, it will cinch her chances of winning the political post. The investigator isn’t so sure about that, but before he can say anything, a nasty piece of violence intervenes, shaking up the lives of everyone around them.

F COUPLAND
Coupland, Douglas. jPod. New York : Bloomsbury, 2006.

Ethan Jarlewski and five co-workers are bureaucratically marooned in JPod, a no-escape architectural limbo on the fringes of a massive Vancouver video-game-design company. The six JPodders wage daily battle against the demands of a boneheaded marketing staff, who torture employees with idiotic changes to already idiotic games. Meanwhile, Ethan’s personal life is shaped (or twisted) by phenomena as disparate as Hollywood, marijuana grow-ops, people smuggling, ballroom dancing, and the rise of China. JPod’s universe is amoral and shameless and nobody is exempt.

F COYNE
Coyne, John. The caddie who knew Ben Hogan. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books, 2006.
The country club where Jack Handley worked as a youth and caddied for Ben Hogan holds pleasant memories for him. Memories he enjoys recounting to the sons and daughters of members he once knew. He especially likes to tell the story of the dramatic match between the mysterious and charismatic Hogan and the young club pro he idealized. It was a summer that changed his life forever.

F CRUSIE ROMANCE
Crusie, Jennifer. Don’t look down. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Television commercial director Lucy Armstrong is hired by her ex-husband to complete an action film on which he is working as stunt coordinator, and arrives to find herself in the middle of chaos that only gets worse with the arrival of J.T. Wilder, a Green Beret captain who has been hired by the star of the movie to act as his stunt double, while at the same time doing a little investigation for the CIA.

F DEAVER MYSTERY
Deaver, Jeff. The cold moon : a Lincoln Rhyme novel. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2006.
It begins with the brutal murder of two people on the dark streets of New York City. The sadistic killer had prolonged their deaths and left calling cards: moon-faced clocks that ticked away the victims’ last minutes on earth. Feeling that more murders are planned, Lincoln Rhyme and his team have only hours to stop the killer they’ve dubbed the Watchmaker. Meanwhile, Amelia Sachs must balance her efforts to catch the Watchmaker with revelations that threaten to undermine her relationship with Lincoln.

F DELIBES
Delibes, Miguel. The heretic : a novel of the inquisition. Woodstock : Overlook Press, 2006.

Delibes, the author of more than 50 books, tells a tale that shows how Catholic Spain contrived to withstand the landslide of Lutheranism. On the very day that Luther proclaims his 95 theses at Wittenberg, a child named Cipriano Salcedo is born in Valladolid, Spain, and is destined to join the Protestant movement there. The new Christians meet secretly at great risk, sharing the belief that faith alone (without good works) guarantees salvation as well as disbelief in purgatory and the worship of relics. The Inquisition is now being zealously implemented because Emperor Charles V, sorry that he did not execute Luther when he had the chance, has charged his son Philip II to compensate for his error. The novel is not at all gruesome until the larger-than-life penitential “ceremony” at the very end, and its appeal resides in the vivid details of Cipriano’s everyday 16th-century life, such as his career in business and fashion, his failed marriage, and the insanity and institutionalization of his wife. Library Journal

F DOIG
Doig, Ivan. The whistling season. 1st ed. Orlando : Harcourt, c2006.

Widower Oliver Milliron knows Rose Llewellyn is what he’s been looking for when he sees her newspaper ad offering housekeeping services. That’s how she and her brother, Morris Morgan, came to be in Marias Coulee along with hundreds of other homesteaders drawn there by the promise of jobs on a big project. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service. He and Rose bring several kinds of education to Oliver, his three sons, and the students of the region’s one-room schoolhouse.

F DONOHUE FANTASY
Donohue, Keith. The stolen child : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese, c2006.

Henry Day, a boy stolen by changelings at the age of seven, and the look-alike hobgoblin sent to replace him, both grow up feeling out of place in their respective worlds—and their search for answers about their pasts puts them on a collision course decades later.

F DUMAS MYSTERY
Dumas, Margaret. How to succeed in murder. 1st U.S. ed. Scottsdale, AZ : Poisoned Pen Press, 2006.
Heiress, theatrical producer, and newlywed Charley Fairfax finds herself poised to do the unexpected: get a job. Her husband, Jack, has been hired to investigate mysterious events at a local software company where high-tech executives are turning up dead. He’s not exactly happy when she and her band of irregulars from the repertory theater go undercover to find a killer, but she’s determined. Will she survive to take a honeymoon with Jack?

F DUNNING MYSTERY
Dunning, John, 1942-. The bookwoman’s last fling : a Cliff Janeway novel. New York : Scribner, 2006.

Rare book dealer, ex-homicide cop, and private eye, Cliff Janeway is tempted out of his bookstore into the world of horseracing. He accepts an invitation from wealthy horse trainer H. R. Geiger to travel to Idaho and look at some rare first-edition children’s classics that render Janeway speechless. When Geiger turns up dead, Janeway becomes convinced someone has been dipping into the book collection for their own personal profit. His search for a killer takes him to Golden Gate Fields and Santa Anita Park.

F FINDER
Finder, Joseph. Killer instinct : a novel. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

While sales exec Jason Steadman is witty, charismatic, and well liked at the office, he lacks the instinct to move up the corporate ladder, much to the chagrin of his ambitious wife. Then one evening he meets Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces’ officer just back from Iraq. After arranging a job for Kurt in Corporate Security, good things begin happening for Jason while bad things start happening to his rivals. Only too late does he discover that Kurt is responsible for both.

F FOWLER MYSTERY
Fowler, Earlene. The saddlemaker’s wife. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.

Ruby McGavin gets a lot of surprises following the death of her husband, Cole. First she learns she’s inherited part of a cattle ranch in California. Then she learns that the family he claimed was dead is really much alive. Traveling to California, intent on selling her part of the ranch to the McGavins, she doesn’t count on her attraction to Lucas McGavin, a handsome saddle maker; or, the ultimate painful realization that she never really knew her husband at all.

F FRANK
Frank, Dorothea Benton. Full of grace. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

Big Al and Connie’s move from New Jersey to the coastal paradise and supposed retirement heaven of Hilton Head, S.C., has been fraught with complications, especially for their daughter, Grace. Now 31, she does what she chooses. That includes living, without benefit of marriage, to Michael, a doctor whom Grace suspects is an atheist. Grace, a Catholic, has become ambivalent about her faith while her family is devoutly old-fashioned. The coming showdown could change Grace’s outlook on life, family, and the South itself.

F FUGARD
Fugard, Lisa. Skinner’s drift : a novel. New York : Scribner, c2006.

Eva van Rensburg returns to South Africa after a ten year absence to tend to her ailing father, and fueled by her dead mother’s diaries, embarks on an exploration of her youth on Skinner’s Drift farm, and the social and political upheavals that splintered her family.

F GALLANT
Galant, Debra. Rattled. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Housewife Heather Peters is thrilled when she moves with her husband and son to an upscale neighborhood, but her idea of household bliss is soon shattered when she clashes with an animal rights group, a dishonest real estate mogul, and an endangered rattlesnake.

F GIARDINA
Giardina, Anthony. White guys. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

Billy Mogavero is the only one of five close friends who didn’t make it out of Winship, Mass., after graduating from high school. Twenty years later, the other four, who have been successful, decide to visit Billy, who is now a paint salesman living at home with his mentally handicapped brother. Their reunion sparks a rapid-fire chain of events that changes his life forever. This book was inspired by actual events in Massachusetts relating to the notorious Charles Stuart case.

F GOLDEN FANTASY
Golden, Christopher. The myth hunters. New York : Bantam Books, 2006.

Oliver Bascombe abandons his dream of being an actor to join the family law firm and marry a respectable woman, but on the eve of his wedding, Oliver is lost in a blizzard and encounters Jack Frost, who needs Oliver’s help to save both himself and his world, an alternate reality where fairy tales come true.

F GOODWIN MYSTERY
Goodwin, Jason, 1964-. The janissary tree. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.

As the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire tries to make changes to stay in step with a modernizing Europe, a wave of murders threatens the fragile balance of power in his court. Only intelligence agent Yashim Togalu can be trusted to find out who’s behind the murders. Yashim, a eunuch, is able to go where others can not. He also introduces readers to the Janissaries, the empire’s elite soldiers, whom the Sultan had crushed ten years before. Could they be staging a comeback?

F GORE
Gore, Ariel, 1970-. The traveling Death and Resurrection Show : a novel. 1st ed. [SanFrancisco] : HarperSanFrancisco, c2006.

Orphaned at age four and raised by her black-clad, rosary-mumbling, preoccupied grandmother, Frankka discovered the ability to perform the stigmata as a way to attract her grandmother’s attention. Now twenty-eight, Frankka’s still using this extraordinary talent, crisscrossing the country with “The Death and Resurrection Show,” a Catholic-themed traveling freak show and cast of misfits who have quickly become her new family. But when a reporter from the “Los Angeles Times” shows up to review the show, Frankka finds herself on the front page of the newspaper—the unwitting center of a religious debate. Now unsure of who she is and where she belongs, Frankka disappears in search of herself and a place to call home.

F GREENWAY
Greenway, Alice. White ghost girls. 1st American ed. New York : Black Cat, c2006.

The children of a war-photographer father and beautiful but remote mother, Frankie and Kate, two American sisters, grow up in Hong Kong during the turmoil of the Maoist revolution of the late 1960s.

F GROOT
Groot, Tracy. Madman. Chicago, IL : Moody Publishers, c2006.
Groot’s well-paced, beautifully written historical novel begins in the tombs of Kursi in Palestine on the Sea of Galilee. The story focuses on Tallis, an Athenian servant and scholar who has come to Hippos to learn about the fate of a Socratic academy his master has assembled and bankrolled. As he pieces together cryptic, horrifying details of the academy’s dissolution, Tallis finds himself drawn to the owners and staff of the inn where he is a guest. Groot reveals the secrets of the lost academy as well as those of the innkeepers gradually and with virtually no contrivance. Publisher’s Weekly

F HOCKENSMITH MYSTERY
Hockensmith, Steve. Holmes on the range. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

In 1893 Montana, Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer sign on as ranch hands at the Bar VR cattle spread, expecting little more than hard work, bad food, and a comfortable campfire, but when they come across a dead body, Old Red pulls out his detective skills to find out the victim’s identity and how he was killed.

F HYLAND
Hyland, M. J. (Maria Joan), 1968-. Carry me down. 1st American ed. Edinburgh ; New York : Canongate, 2006.
Twelve-year-old John Egan, alarmingly tall for his age, believes himself to be a human lie detector, a skill he hopes will get him into the “Guinness Book of World Records,” but that in the meantime is proving quite useful in dealing with his disintegrating family.

F JOHANSEN
Johansen, Iris. Killer dreams. New York : Bantam Books, c2006.
Sophie Dunston, a sleep therapist, knows all too well how dreams can kill. She specializes in the fatal night terrors that plague her ten- year-old son. Unfortunately, her horror is just beginning because a shadowy figure threatens to shatter her life with a nightmare that won’t end . . . ever!

F KARP MYSTERY
Karp, Marshall. The rabbit factory. San Francisco, CA : MacAdam/Cage Pub, 2006.
Familyland, an offshoot of Lamaar Studios, has grown into an entertainment conglomerate encompassing movies, TV, music, video games, and a theme park. When an actor portraying Familyland’s mascot, Rambunctious Rabbit, is murdered on park grounds, Lamaar execs worry about the park’s image. They ask Detectives Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs to solve the case discreetly. When a second and third murder occurs however, it’s clear a conspiracy’s afoot to destroy Familyland.

F KELLY
Kelly, Cathy. Just between us. 1st Downtown Press trade pbk. ed. New York : Downtown Press, 2006.

In the Irish village of Kinvara, the three Miller girls appear to have it all. There is the smart and intelligent Stella, the sharp and successful Tara, and the shy bohemian Holly. As the family prepares a birthday party for their mother, Rose, secrets and heartaches are revealed. Are these women strong enough to deal with the truth about their supposedly ideal lives?

F KING
King, Jonathon. Eye of vengeance. New York : Dutton, c2006.

Seasoned journalist Nick Mullins is struggling to balance his career with single-fatherhood following the death of his wife and one of their two daughters. Just as things are beginning to get back to normal, a convicted pedophile and murderer is gunned down in front of a corrections’ facility. Nick is sent to the scene to cover the story and is soon caught up in the case of a serial sniper: a sniper that must be found before he kills again.

F KWITNEY
Kwitney, Alisa, 1964-. Sex as a second language : a novel. New York : Atria Books, 2006.

Katherine Miner, 40, has withdrawn from the world of men and sex to teach advanced English as a second language to adults in downtown Manhattan. It’s not that she hates men. She just doesn’t trust them. Her ex-husband, who abandoned her and their nine-year-old-son, and her own father, whom she hasn’t spoken to in more than 30 years, is reason enough. Then she receives a letter from her father that turns her life upside down and is drawn into a relationship with one of her students.

F LARSSON MYSTERY
Larsson, Åsa, 1966-. Sun storm. New York : Delacorte Press, 2006.

Now translated into English for the first time is Larsson’s Sun Storm in which a young Swedish lawyer is pulled into a vortex of suspicion and religious fanaticism after she’s summoned to her hometown when a body is found.

F LEBBON FANTASY
Lebbon, Tim. Dusk. New York : Bantam Books, 2006.

In the Year of the Black 2208, Kosar the thief senses that Rafe Baburn holds extraordinary powers and vows to save the boy from the men seeking to destroy him and protect the old ways.

F LEIMBACH
Leimbach, Marti, 1963-. Daniel isn’t talking. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, c2006.

Melanie Marsh struggles to help her three-year-old son, Daniel, who has been diagnosed as autistic, get the help he needs and teach him to communicate with her, but her efforts strain both her marriage and her relationship with her daughter.

F LEVINSON FANTASY
Levinson, Paul. The plot to save Socrates. 1st ed. New York : Tor, 2006.
In the year 2042, a young graduate student of classics is shown a new dialogue of Socrates that opens up the possibility of time travel and sends her on an adventure that spans the globe and history.

F LONG MYSTERY
Long, Jeff. The wall. New York : Atria, c2006.

Friends Hugh and Lewis reunite once again to climb El Capitan in Yosemite Park, but when their expedition is plagued by deadly disasters, the friends begin to suspect the mountain is cursed.

F MACOMBER ROMANCE
Macomber, Debbie. Susannah’s garden. New York : Harlequin, 2006.

The year Susannah Nelson’s parents sent her to school abroad at 18, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake, and never saw him again. Now, at 50, she finds herself regretting the paths not taken. Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy. She feels there’s something missing. Returning to her hometown of Pine Ridge, Wash., to care for her aging mother, she also returns to the past, and the choices she made back then.

F MCCULLOUGH
McCullough, Colleen, 1937-. On, off. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

Few contemporary forensic techniques are available to Lt. Carmine Delmonico in 1965 when he’s assigned to solve what at first seems to be a single murder. After part of the body of a woman turns up at a leading center for neurological research, Delmonico suspects he could have a serial killer on his hands. When the body turns out to be from a woman employed by the center, Carmine partners with the center’s female business manager to dig up the dirt on other secretive employees.

F MCGOWAN
McGowan, Heather. Duchess of nothing : a novel. 1st U.S. ed. New York : Bloomsbury Pub. : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2006.

After leaving her husband and traveling to Rome, a middle aged woman finds herself haunted by her past, until her lover’s seven-year-old brother teaches her about the wonders of life.

F MCMURTRY WESTERN
McMurtry, Larry. Telegraph days : a novel. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

In the Old West, Nellie Courtright and her brother Jackson, orphaned by their father’s suicide, made their way to Rita Blanca, where Jackson became a deputy sheriff and Nellie became the town’s telegrapher. Together they put Rita Blanca on the map when Jackson succeeded in shooting down all six Yazee brothers in a gunfight. Nellie romanced Buffalo Bill, had a ringside seat at the Battle of the O.K. Corral, and eventually lived long enough to see her once-wild West tamed on the movie screen.

F MEYER MYSTERY
Meyer, Deon. Dead before dying : a novel. 1st U.S. ed. New York : Little, Brown, 2006.

Three men who have nothing in common have been killed in Cape Town. The weapon appears to be a century-old German handgun with ancient bullets. The killer’s trademark of one shot to the head and one shot to the chest is even more curious. Now it’s up to Capt. Mat Joubert to find answers and prove to everyone that his life’s slow spiral will not pull him under or prevent him from finding a killer.

F MITCHARD
Mitchard, Jacquelyn. Cage of stars. 1st ed. New York : Warner Books, 2006.

Veronica Swan, a sixteen-year-old Mormon, attempts to avenge the deaths of her younger sisters, who were brutally killed four years before by a deranged man her parents have forgiven.

F NANCE
Nance, John J. Orbit. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

In 2009, Kip Dawson thinks his dreams have come true when he wins a passenger seat on one of American Space Adventure’s commercial spaceflights, but when a micrometeor punches through the spacecraft walls, cutting out radio contact and killing the pilot, Kip has no way to navigate the ship home and is left to face his death and reflect on the life he has led.

F NELSCOTT MYSTERY
Nelscott, Kris. Days of rage. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.

In 1969, African-American private investigator Smokey Dalton and his adopted son, Jimmy, who witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., try to keep a low profile in Chicago as the city is thrown into chaos by the trial of the Chicago Eight, but they soon realize someone has tracked them down and is out to kill Jimmy.

F NEMIROVSKY
Némirovsky, Irène, 1903-1942. Suite française. New York : Knopf, 2006.

In 1940, several families and individuals are thrown together as they flee Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion and struggle to stay alive and grieve for the life they once knew.

F NIEDERHOFFER
Niederhoffer, Galt. A taxonomy of Barnacles. New York : St. Martin’s Press, c2006.

When the Barnacle sisters’ father proposes a contest to see which daughter can most spectacularly carry on his name, the sisters set out to win the contest, and their father’s inheritance.

F NIELSEN
Nielsen, Francis, 1920-1990. The witness of St. Ansgar’s : a novel. 1st ed. Hanover, N.H. : Steerforth Press, c2006.

Mario, an altar boy and assistant to Franciscan friar Father Benigno relies on his friendship with the priest to help him through the violence and tragedy of World War II.

F NOEL
Noel, Katharine. Halfway house. 1st ed. New York : Atlantic Monthly, c2006.

Angie Voorster’s entire world changes when she dives to the bottom of the pool during a swim meet and suffers a mental breakdown.

F NUNEZ
Nunez, Elizabeth. Prospero’s daughter : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Ballantine Books, c2006.

A retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in which British doctor Peter Gardner, an amoral genius, flees England with his young daughter Virginia and takes up residence on the Caribbean island of Chacachacare in the 1950s where he conducts experiments on Carlos, a dark-skinned orphan who turns the tables on Gardner when he wins Virginia’s love.

F OBRIEN MYSTERY
O’Brien, Martin. Jacquot and the waterman. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006, c2005.

Detective Daniel Jacquot matches wits with a cunning killer who is threatening the women of Marseilles.

F OMALLEY
O’Malley, Thomas, 1967-. In the province of saints : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Little, Brown, 2005.

In south Ireland, Michael McDonagh struggles to come of age without his father’s influence and while caring for his ill mother, but his life becomes more complex when his father returns home after his neighbor’s sudden death, igniting an old scandal that threatens Michael and his family.

F PAWEL MYSTERY
Pawel, Rebecca, 1977-. The summer snow. New York : Soho Press, c2006.

When an arrogant, elderly woman is found dead, police are reluctant to believe that she may have been murdered, and Lieutenant Carlos Tejada Alonso y Leon, the woman’s nephew, takes charge of the investigation.

F PAXSON FANTASY
Paxson, Diana L. The golden hills of Westria. 1st ed. New York, NY : Tor, 2006.

Prince Phoenix, who has never measured up to his father King Julian’s expectations, is abducted in a raid and sold to slavers. While King Julian searches for his son he must also ward off an army of fanatics led by the charismatic Mother Mahalial who are conquering land after land. Now it seems the only person who can save the Prince is Sombra, the woman he loves. But, at what cost?

F PEARL MYSTERY
Pearl, Matthew. The Poe shadow : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.

No one can say Quentin Clark isn’t loyal. Following the death of Edgar Allan Poe in 1849, everyone accepts that Poe died a drunkard and a second-rate writer. Everyone except Quentin, that is. When he discovers Poe’s last days were riddled with bizarre, unanswered questions, Quentin sets out to resolve Poe’s mysterious death. It sets off a race between two master detectives and catches Quentin in a tempest of crime, murder and literature.

F PRESTON
Preston, Caroline. Gatsby’s girl. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.

She was two months past her sixteenth birthday, a rich man’s daughter who had been told she was pretty far too often for her own good. He was nineteen years old, a poor boy full of ambition. They met at a country club dance in St. Paul, Minnesota, in January 1916. Ginevra was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first love, but despite their intense epistolary romance, the relationship wouldn’t last. After throwing him over with what he deemed “supreme boredom and indifference,” she married a handsome young aviator from the right background. Caroline Preston deftly evokes the entire arc of Ginevra’s story- from her first romantic meeting with Scott to the second act of her sometimes charmed, sometimes troubled life.

F PYWELL
Pywell, Sharon L. Everything after. New York : Putnam, c2006.
Iris Sunnaret, at 19 the baby of the Sunnaret family, is the curious but shielded narrator, her sunny view tempered by her siblings’ perceptions and her own dim memories. Having lost both their parents at a young age (father left; mother drowned), Iris and her three siblings-Eddie, Perry and Angie-were taken in by their Aunt Eleanor, Uncle Charlie and cousin Hank. Eldest brother Eddie has volunteered for the war, and Perry follows; when the family learns that Eddie has been killed and Perry is missing in action-and, furthermore, that Perry may have killed Eddie-it turns the family against itself. Publisher’s Weekly

F QUICK
Quick, Amanda. Second sight. New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.
Venetia Milton learns that Gabriel Jones, whose priceless artifacts and relics she has been photographing, has been reported dead; however, she receives quite a surprise when Jones winds up on her doorstep very much alive and afraid for his life.

F ROBINSON
Robinson, Patrick, 1940-. Ghost force. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, 2006.

After one of the largest oil fields on earth is discovered on the Falkland Islands, Argentina, with the secret assistance of the Kremlin, invades the islands. An outraged Great Britain dispatches a battle fleet to the region. Lying in wait is a Russian nuclear submarine capable of destroying them. With Great Britain on the verge of a massive defeat, the former director of the NSA, Adm. Arnold Morgan, sends in the SEALs. The consequences are as unexpected as they are devastating.

F ROBY
Roby, Kimberla Lawson. Changing faces. 1st ed. New York : Morrow, c2006.

Three best friends band together when Charisse’s husband threatens to reveal a shady secret from Charisse’s past, forcing the women to devise a plan for revenge to save Charisse’s reputation and put her deadbeat husband in his place.

F ROSENBERG
Rosenberg, Nancy Taylor. Sullivan’s evidence. New York : Kensington Books, 2006.
Ten years ago, probation officer Carolyn Sullivan recommended a 44-year sentence for killer and serial rapist Carl Holden. Forensic evidence had him nailed, or so everyone thought. Then the evidence was discredited and Holden was set free, with Carolyn assigned as his probation officer. When the killings start again, everything Carolyn’s ever trusted as a professional is put to the test as she takes the biggest gamble of her life.

F ROTH
Roth, Philip. Everyman. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

The tragically human hero of this book discovers the universal experiences of love, loss, regret, and mortality as a painful surprise. At the pinnacle of his life, he’s a swaggering advertising director, a fond but flawed parent, and a faithless husband. Then his life winds down to something far less comfortable. At the end, he has a daughter who adores him, but he’s three-times divorced, his sons aren’t speaking to him, and he’s estranged from his brother. He’s exactly the person he hoped he’d never be.

F SARAMAGO
Saramago, José. Seeing. 1st U.S. ed. Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, c2006.

Four years after a bizarre blindness plague hits the capital, a mysterious turnout of blank ballots appears on election day that prompts a state of emergency.

F SCHAEFFER
Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. Poison. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

Meena, the third wife of celebrated poet and womanizer Peter Grosvenor, desperate to preserve her wealth after he succumbs to cancer while living with yet another woman, refuses to execute his wishes that she share his estate with his two adult children and his sister/business manager, setting the stage for an epic and revealing struggle.

F SEIDEL
Seidel, Kathleen Gilles. A most uncommon degree of popularity. New York : St. Martin’s Press, c2006.

The camaraderie of four mothers is tested when social cliques create trouble for the friendship between their middle-school-age daughters.

F SHERRILL
Sherrill, Martha. The ruins of California. New York : Penguin Press, 2006.
Inez Ruin moves between two worlds—her mother’s life in Los Angeles and her self-obsessed father in San Francisco—as she attempts to find a reality somewhere in the middle during the turbulent decade of the 1970s.

F SHERWOOD
Sherwood, Frances, 1940-. Night of sorrows : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

In early sixteenth-century Mexico, an Aztec princess sold into slavery begins a love affair with conquistador Hernan Cortes.

F SHREVE
Shreve, Susan Richards. A student of living things. New York : Viking, 2006.

As a graduate student in biology, Claire tends to a menagerie of creatures-mice, birds, snakes, and insects-and she finds solace in this daily routine. However, she is constantly aware that just beyond the relative safety of the academic arena, there is widespread fear and civil unrest. On one fateful day, these two worlds collide when Claire’s brother, a law student with shadowy connections, is shot and killed as he and Claire are leaving the campus library. Of course, many questions arise. Who, for instance, is the man who has been following Claire since that terrible day? Are she and the rest of the family in danger as well?

F SPANBAUER
Spanbauer, Tom. Now is the hour. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.

The year is 1967, and Rigby John Klusener, seventeen years old and finally leaving his home and family in Pocatello, Idaho, is on the highway with his thumb out and a flower behind his ear, headed for San Francisco. Now Is the Hour is the wondrous story of how Rigby John got to this point. It traces his gradual emancipation from the repressions of a strictly religious farming family and from the small-minded, bigoted community in which he has grown up, during a time of explosive cultural change.

F SYKES
Sykes, Plum. The debutante divorcée : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Miramax Books/Hyperion, c2006.

Lauren Blount’s life as a rich divorcee seems incredibly glamorous to the newly married Sylvie, but Sylvie’s jealousy of Lauren soon causes cracks in her own marriage that may lead Sylvie into the divorcee lifestyle.

F TURSTEN MYSTERY
Tursten, Helene, 1954-. The torso. New York : Soho Press, c2006.

Part of a human torso washes up on a beach near Goteborg, Sweden. It is so mutilated that gender is only established by DNA testing. A similar crime, now several years old, remains unsolved in Denmark. Detective Inspector Irene Huss, a wife and mother as well as a member of the Swedish Violent Crimes Unit, is called upon to liaise with the police in Copenhagen. There she finds a clue: a beautifully rendered sign for a gay sex shop which is very like the tattoo on the mutilated torso. Then a third murder takes place, and a fourth, and these new victims are connected to Inspector Huss. She begins to fear that the killer is tracking her, targeting her acquaintances. There is a chilling suggestion that he - or she - is one of her colleagues.

F TURTLEDOVE
Turtledove, Harry. In high places. New York : Tor, c2006.

In twenty-first-century Versailles, Khadija struggles to keep her family’s work as secret agents from disrupting her normal teenage existence, but when she is separated from her parents, she becomes captive in a caravan of slaves being taken to the southern markets.

F UNGER
Unger, Lisa, 1970-. Beautiful lies : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Shaye Areheart Books, c2006.
After a good deed unleashes a chain of events that cause Ridley Jones to question her entire life, she is thrown into a confusing world where everyone in her life seems like a stranger and she is forced to trust no one in order to save her own life.

F VALDES-RODRIGUEZ
Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa. Make him look good. 1st ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006.

Six Miami women, each involved in some way, either personally or professionally, with sexy Latin singing sensation Ricky Biscayne, decide they have finally had enough of his lying and womanizing and join together to win back their lives.

F WATSON
Watson, Jules. The dawn stag. 1st ed. Woodstock, NY : Overlook Press, 2006.

In A.D. 81, Agricola, the ruthless governor of Roman Britain, vows to conquer Alba, Scotland, but is unprepared for the wrath of the Alban priestess and princess Rhiann, who will go to any lengths to save her land.

F WHITE MYSTERY
White, Jenny B. (Jenny Barbara), 1953-. The sultan’s seal. 1st ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

The murder of an English governess for the royal harem causes controversy at the palace and the British embassy as the search for the killer consumes the Ottoman Empire.

F WHITE
White, Stephen, 1951-. Kill me : a novel. New York : Dutton, c2006.

A very wealthy man, deeply affected by an accident that has left a close friend in a vegetative state, enters into a contract with a shady company known as the Death Angels which promises for a million dollars to ensure his death if he should become incapacitated, but when he develops a aneurysm shortly after making the final payment, he realizes he is not at all ready to die.

F WOLITZER
Wolitzer, Hilma. The doctor’s daughter : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Ballantine Books, c2006.

Alice Brill, a fifty-one-year-old wife and mother who has just been downsized from her job as a senior book editor, begins to reevaluate her life and relationships with her husband, son, parents, and a promising new writer, looking for the reason behind the nagging sense of dread that seems to have lodged itself in her chest.

F WOODS MYSTERY
Woods, Paula L. Strange bedfellows : a Charlotte Justice novel. 1st ed. New York : One World/Ballantine Books, c2006.

LAPD homicide detective Charlotte Justice is forced to confront her pain over the murders of her husband and child nearly thirteen years earlier when another case lands on her desk that bears striking resemblance to her family’s murders.

F WORRAL
Worrall, Jay, 1943-. Aboukir Bay : a Charles Edgemont novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.

This time out, Edgemont joins rear admiral Horatio Nelson’s squadron in the Mediterranean to search for a French fleet up to no good. When a storm scatters the squadron, Edgemont sails his frigate, Louisa, in search of Nelson-a search that becomes even more crucial when he learns the location of the French fleet at Alexandria, Egypt, from an English spy. After a series of adventures and misadventures, Edgemont finally stumbles on Nelson, and the squadron sails to Alexandria where it engages the French fleet in one of history’s great naval battles-the Battle of the Nile. Publisher’s Weekly

F WRIGHT
Wright, Vinita Hampton, 1958-. Dwelling places : a novel. 1st ed. [San Francisco] : HarperSanFrancisco, c2006.

After losing his family farm, Mack, his wife Jodie, and their two children struggle to build a new life for themselves, but their efforts are soon threatened by Mack’s overwhelming depression.


NON-FICTION:

327.73 MAN
Mandelbaum, Michael. The case for Goliath : how America acts as the world’s government in the twenty-first century. 1st ed. New York : Public Affairs, c2005.

Presents a comprehensive look into America’s global role, and maintains that the U.S. uses its power to provide the world with services they would otherwise not be able to acquire including global security and prosperity.

388 MCP
McPhee, John (John A.). Uncommon carriers. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, c2006

Ever think about what life must be like for the folks who work in the freight transportation industry? John McPhee, who has spent considerable time in the company of such people over the years, relates some of his stories such as: the driver of a 65-foot, 18-wheel chemical tanker carrying hazardous materials; the engineer of a coal-laden train traveling across country; the skipper of a barge on the Illinois River, and more.

599.93 WAD
Wade, Nicholas. Before the dawn : recovering the lost history of our ancestors. New York : Penguin Press, 2006.

Draws on new findings to examine the ancestral human population that lived in Africa fifty thousand years ago, explaining how the human line evolved from African apes to humans with the unique gift of language.

921 ARMSTRONG
Brothers, Thomas David. Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, 2006.

Brothers examines the social context of trumpeter Louis Armstrong and early New Orleans jazz. The influence of outdoor parades and park concerts, the Sanctified Church, itinerant street musicians, and the influx of former slaves into the Crescent City from 1880 to 1910 all come into play, as does the importance of the decidedly male basis of jazz and the national ragtime craze. Throughout, Brothers interweaves the personal history of Armstrong, including his stay in the Colored Waifs Home for Boys and his work on riverboats with jazz pianist and bandleader Fate Marable. Describing New Orleans as a focal point of racial and social diversity, the author concludes that Armstrong succeeded as a musician by coupling the African traits of polyrhythms, call and response, and blues improvisation with the Eurocentric harmonies and melodies of the Creoles into an innovative style-jazz-that could be accepted by whites, well-heeled Creoles, and lower-class African Americans alike. Library Journal

921 BRENNAN
Brennan, Christine. Best seat in the house : a father, a daughter, a journey through sports. New York : Scribner, c2006.

Woman sports columnist Christine Brennan recalls her close relationship with her father, their life-long love of sports, and the encouragement she received from him to pursue a career in sports broadcasting and journalism.

921 KENNEDY
Leaming, Barbara. Jack Kennedy : the education of a statesman. 1st ed. New York : W.W. Norton, c2006.

This is the previously untold story of the friendships and forces that shaped the Kennedy presidency. Drawing on new sources, this book is the first to trace the arc of Jack Kennedy’s intellectual and political formation, and to detail the goals of his presidency as he saw them. Readers are given an intimate picture of a leader torn between politics and principle, a president who was wrestling with private demons and unresolved conflicts dating back to the 1930s when Churchill and his father were adversaries.

921 SHEA
Shea, John, 1965-. Rat bastards : the life and times of South Boston’s most honorable Irish mobster. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.

The man who has remained silent for more than a decade finally speaks, revealing the true story of his life inside the infamous South Boston Irish mob led by the elusive, Machiavellian kingpin Whitey Bulger, who to this day remains on the lam as one of the world’s Ten Most Wanted criminals, second only to Osama bin Laden. In “Rat Bastards”, John “Red” Shea brings that mysterious world and gritty urban Irish American street culture into sharp focus by telling his own story - of his fatherless upbringing, his apprenticeship on the tough streets of Southie, and his love affair with trouble, boxing, and then the gangster life. A man who did the crime, did the time, and held fast to the Irish code of silence, which he was raised to follow at any cost, Shea remains a man of honor and in doing so has become a living legend.

940.53 BER
Berthon, Simon. Warlords : an extraordinary re-creation of World War II through the eyes and minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin. [Cambridge, MA] : Da Capo Press, 2006, c2005.

Berthon and TV reseacher Potts have a book that focuses narrowly on the day-to-day actions of Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt as they grapple with the war’s events and plot strategy. Contrary to common perceptions, Churchill and Roosevelt held each other in low esteem at the war’s beginnings but put aside their personal and tactical differences to achieve victory. Stalin spent the war pressuring the other Allies to join in the fight, which caused friction between Roosevelt and Churchill over the war’s aims. And, of course, Hitler and his henchmen affected the war’s progress every day. How these four leaders reckoned with one another, how their quirks and prejudices, small or vast, affected policy, and how eventually the Allies prevailed is displayed here in a lively narrative. Library Journal

940.54 WHI
White, David Fairbank, 1951-. Bitter ocean : the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1945. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.

This superior history of the longest-running battle of WWII by White opens with winter on the North Atlantic and Adm. Karl Donitz’s U-boats hunting Allied merchant ships. The question was whether Britain could be starved into surrender or at least made incapable of launching offensives. Against the Royal Navy, with its American and Canadian allies, were pitted the “wolfpacks” of submarines that decimated whole convoys and sank merchant ships faster than the Allies could build them. In the end, Allied training, code breaking, long-range aircraft, escort carriers and the sheer output of American shipyards turned the tide. Along with the overview, White provides excellent focused passages, such as the ordeal of the tanker San Demetrio, as well as portraits of individual combatants-the colorful British destroyer expert Donald Macintyre and the superbly professional U-boat captain Otto Kretschmer.

951 HES
Hessler, Peter, 1969-. Oracle bones : a journey between China’s past and present. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.

Hessler explores how China has changed over the last century, focusing on the role of the Chinese people in this transformation and the country’s growing links to the Western world and its people.

973.931 KOH
Kohut, Andrew. America against the world : how we are different and why we are disliked. 1st ed. New York : Times Books, 2006.

Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, and Pew consultant Stokes describe the results of a worldwide opinion poll involving 91,000 interviews in 50 countries from 2002 to 2005. Anti-American sentiment was widespread before 9/11, they observe, but outside of the Arab world it was generally the minority view. Yet in the wake of 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq, anti-Americanism has become the majority view in most of the world, and throughout Europe America is seen as more dangerous than Iran. People are tired of hearing how different and superior we are (and Pew polls reveal that the least exceptional Americans believe in American exceptionalism). Canadian scholar Michael Ignatieff enumerates other reasons, all of which figure in the survey results: Majorities across the world despise capital punishment; America’s disregard for the poor; a president they believe attained office unjustly in 2000; a culture that hates the thought of gay marriage but divorces on a dime; and America’s God-obsessed people-and they worry that Americans as a class are greedy, dishonest and violent. Interestingly, Kohut and Stokes note, Democrats are far more likely to hold “European” views than are Republicans-but even they are likely to subscribe to exceptionalism. Kirkus Reviews


MEDIA:

CD SIE
Sierra, Javier, 1971-. The secret supper. New York : Simon & Schuster Audio, p2006. Read by Simon Jones.

In 1497 a Dominican inquisitor is sent to Milan to supervise the final phase of the painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Never a conformist, da Vinci creates a masterpiece that raises questions that have yet to be answered. Unlike his contemporaries, he does not hold strictly to the religious doctrine of the scriptures, but adds touches advocated by a repressed heritical sect. Could da Vinci be a member of the secret society?

CD 332.024 PER
Perle, Liz. Money, a memoir : women, emotions, and cash. Abridged. New York : Audio Renaissance, p2006. Read by the author.

Liz Perle shares how her ambivalent feelings about money nearly left her homeless and penniless and discusses how she learned to overcome her financial fears and take responsibility for her own financial security.

CD 599.789 CRO
Croke, Vicki. The lady and the panda : [the true adventures of the first American explorer to bring back China’s most exotic animal]. Abridged. New York : Random House Audio, p2005. Read by Jennifer Van Dyck.

Here is the astonishing true story of Ruth Harkness, the Manhattan bohemian socialite who, against all but impossible odds, trekked to Tibet in 1936 to capture the most mysterious animal of the day: a bear that had for countless centuries lived in secret in the labyrinth of lonely cold mountains. In The Lady and the Panda, Vicki Constantine Croke gives us the remarkable account of Ruth Harkness and her extraordinary journey, and restores Harkness to her rightful place along with Sacajawea, Nellie Bly, and Amelia Earhart as one of the great woman adventurers of all time.

CD 921 MITCHELL
Mitchell, Andrea. Talking back : to presidents, dictators, and assorted scoundrels. New York : Penguin Audio, p2005. Read by the author.

NBC news reporter Andrea Mitchell gives insights into every president from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, and the men and women who surrounded them.

DVD 372.63 SPE
Spellbound. Culver City, Calif. : Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, [2004], c2002.

This documentary follows the lives of eight young Americans who share one goal: to win the 1999 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. The Bee is as intense a competition as any Olympic match, for both the spellers and their families. The unbearable pressure becomes even more extraordinary when it is felt by ordinary teenagers.

DVD GUI
Guimba : un tyran, une époque = a tyrant in his time. New York : Kino on Video, c2004.

A tyrant throws his city into conflict and chaos when he allows his randy, dwarf son to reject an arranged marriage to the slim local beauty in order for him to pursue the girl’s larger, married mother. The tyrant then sets his own eyes on the girl, making the situation even worse. An epic set in the legendary past of Mali (West Africa) to provide a biting allegory of present-day African politics. Through the story of the downfall of Guimba the tyrant, the filmmaker foretells a similar fate for the many dictators who still pillage the continent. He frames his film with the appearance of a griot, a traditional African storyteller who passes down the “wisdom of the ancestors,” looking to the values and legends of the African past for inspiration and guidance in reconstructing well-governed, self-sufficient nations.


Please note: Some of the book descriptions have been excerpted from Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. They are most often based on Publisher's descriptions. Sources such as Booklist, the New York Times Book Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus and others are specifically identified.