FICTION:
F ALBERT MYSTERY
Albert, Susan Wittig. Bleeding hearts. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.
China Bayles is asked to conduct a discreet investigation when someone makes allegations of improper behavior against married high school football coach Tim Duffy, who has married into a wealthy local family. What China uncovers is a story of forbidden desire, deception, and questionable circumstances surrounding a young woman’s death. The more she digs, the more she fears that the town’s beloved coach is not what he appears to be.
F ANDREWS
Andrews, Mary Kay, 1954-. Savannah breeze. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.
All Savannah belle BeBe Loudermilk has left after her disastrous relationship with Reddy, a con man, is a ramshackle 1950s motor court on Tybee Island. With the help of friends, she soon has Breeze Inn ready for paying guests. When Reddy’s spotted in Fort Lauderdale, BeBe decides to go after him and carry out a sting that may be a little outside the law. With any luck however, she’ll be able to retrieve her fortune and put Reddy in jail where he belongs.
F BARNARD MYSTERY
Barnard, Robert. Dying flames. 1st Scribner ed. New York : Scribner, 2006.
Novelist Graham Broadbent returns to his childhood home to attend a reunion and ccomes face to face with a 19-year-old girl who claims to be his daughter. She explains that her mother, an adulteress and compulsive liar, has been showing her his dust jacket photo for years and telling stories about their affair. Although he doesn’t believe he is her father, Graham is drawn to the young girl and becomes entangled in her mother’s bizarre fantasy life and later, the investigation of her mysterious death.
F BARTON
Barton, Emily, 1969-. Brookland. 1st ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
Prudence Winship is now in a position to fulfill her lifelong dream: a bridge connecting Brooklyn, N.Y. with the city of Manhattan. With the help ofher sisters, Tem and Pearl, and a local surveyor, Benjamin Horsfield, the four electrify the communities with practical reasoning for such an enormous project. This gripping historical novel, set in 18th-century New York, embodies the financial and emotional costs to Prudence as her life and the life of the bridge become one.
F BROWN
Brown, Dale, 1956-. Edge of battle. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.
Tensions along the U.S.-Mexican border are high. To combat the threat, the U.S. opens a controversial test base in southern California run by Maj. Jason Richter and members of Task Force TALON. Their success is threatened by a drug kingpin, a migrant smuggler named Enrique Fuerza, and the Mexican president, who’s calling for a revolution to take back the southwest U.S. When Richter and his force are reassigned to the FBI, could an all-out guerrilla war be on the horizon?
F BRUEN MYSTERY
Bruen, Ken. Bust. New York : Dorchester Publishing Co., 2006.
Wealthy, successful New York City business owner Max Fisher finds himself in a delightfully familiar scenario: he wants to get rid of his nagging wife so he can shack up with his sexy secretary, Angela Petrakos. When Angela introduces Max to Dillon, a former IRA hit man, Max thinks he’s found his man; what Max doesn’t know is that Dillon is already Angela’s man-and the two plan to double-cross Max as soon as it becomes profitable. Dillon, however, proves to be less a professional than a psychotic: he’d just as soon kill “for the price of a pint” as he would for Max’s wealth. Rolling in on the action is wheelchair-bound Bobby Rosa, an ex-con with a taste for lewd photography, guns and blackmail. As it tends to do, the murderous plot goes awry, sending Bruen and Starr’s delicious, despicable characters scrambling for their money and their lives. Publisher’s Weekly
F BYRD
Byrd, Lee Merrill. Riley’s fire : a novel. 1st ed. Chapel Hill, N.C. : Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006. Riley Martin narrates this tale from Galveston’s Shriners Burns Institute, where he is being treated for third-degree burns over 63 percent of his body. His mother talks about the “accident,” but Riley knows it to have been his destiny, just as Sleeping Beauty was meant to have pricked her finger and fallen into a deep sleep. Byrd does a beautiful job of inhabiting the mind of a seven-year-old boy who overhears adult conversations and reaches his own conclusions based on a simpler understanding. Readers will see the horror of the medical treatment Riley must undergo and his puzzlement at the concerns of his mother, so different from his own. They will also see boys from different socioeconomic groups forming new kinships based on a split-second event that irrevocably altered each of their lives, and they will see-through Riley’s eyes-the parents of these boys coming to terms with these events while passing judgment on one another for letting this tragedy befall their children. Library Journal
F CHILDS MYSTERY
Childs, Laura. Blood orange brewing. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.
Theodosia Browning is happy to oblige a socialites request for refreshments at a fundraiser. Unfortunately, the unveiling of Theo’s opulent spread proves to be far from grand after a beloved politico guest falls to the floor with a jagged piece of metal protruding from his neck. When the widow asks Theo to apply her sleuthing skills, she can’t refuse and soon fins herself in a situation stickier than any jam she’s ever served.
F CLARK MYSTERY
Clark, Carol Higgins. Hitched : a Regan Reilly mystery. New York : Scribner, c2006.
PI Regan Reilly and her fiancee, Jack, are finally getting married. Regan soon discovers that planning for the big day is serious work. Her planning, however, is interrupted by a mystery. An elite bridal shop has been broken into and a case of wedding gowns have been stolen, including hers. Meanwhile, Jack is working on a series of bank robberies that seem to have been committed by the same person(s). He and Regan combine forces to stop the thief who is wreaking havoc on their planned nuptials.
F CRIDER MYSTERY
Crider, Bill. A mammoth murder. 1st ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.
Sheriff Dan Rhodes and his deputies treat Bud Turley’s story about a tooth he claims belongs to Bigfoot as an amusing breath of fresh air. That is, until they get a call about a Bigfoot sighting and a dead body belonging to Bud’s best friend. Whoever killed the man didn’t leave a trace. Was there truly a legendary creature lurking in their part of the county, or had Bud and his friend had a falling out?
F DAVIDSON MYSTERY
Davidson, Diane Mott. Dark tort. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.
Caterer Goldy Schulz has a financially lucrative new job preparing breakfasts and conference room snacks for a local law firm. It’s a job she enjoys until the night she arrives to find the firm’s paralegal dead. Because the woman is also Goldy’s friend and neighbor, the woman’s grieving mother asks Goldy to find out who killed her daughter. Before long, Goldy’s knee-deep in suspects, one of whom is very dangerous and determined to stay free and unknown.
F DEADLY
Deadly housewives. 1st ed. New York : Avon, c2006.
This collection features 14 authors offering up a deliciously lethal mix of meddling mothers-in-law, nosey neighbors, cheating husbands, fickle friends, steamy sex, and much more.
F DEAN
Dean, Debra, 1957-. The madonnas of Leningrad. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.
Eighty-two-year-old Marina Buriakov, preparing for her granddaughter’s wedding in Seattle, finds it more and more difficult to hold onto memories in the present, retreating often to the 1940s when, living in the basement of the Hermitage Museum with other employees during the German siege of Leningrad, she created a memory room in her mind furnished with the museum’s priceless masterpieces.
F DRAKE FANTASY
Drake, David. The fortress of glass. New York : Tor, 2006.
Prince Garric, along with his wife and his sister, travels to the Isles to confirm his position as rightful king and secure fealty from the Isles’ lesser kings. His first stop, the island of First Atara, brings him in contact with the boy heir Protas, soon to be crowned after the funeral of his late father, King Cervoran. Magic has grown to a peak level in the Isles, and when a meteor falls near First Atara, the dead king rises and walks again. Now Garric must cope with an undead king as well as with the new threat from the powerful entity known as the Green Woman, who resides in a glass fortress. Drake’s latest series intertwines with his current “Lord of the Isles” titles. Library Journal
F EMERSON
Emerson, Earl W. Firetrap : a novel of suspense. 1st ed. New York : Ballantine Books, c2006.
When an African-American social club burns to the ground, community leaders urge local reporter and firefighter Trey Brown to investigate. Hesitant because he fought the fire, his anxieties escalate when they uncover a history of fire code violations and cover-ups. Even worse, the conspiracies were furthered by a man who Trey once called his adoptive brother until his family betrayed Trey years before: a man who is also now the mayor of Seattle.
F FEIST FANTASY
Feist, Raymond E. Flight of the nighthawks. 1st ed. New York : Eos, c2006.
Powerful sorcerer, Pug, is disturbed by a dream that foretold the destruction of Midkemia, and calls for a convening of the Conclave of Shadows. Meanwhile, in a small town on the other side of Midkemia, two young brothers are coming of age when they’re kidnapped and taken to Sorcerer’s Isle, the home of the Conclave, where they will join in the fight against the Nighthawks. When Pug faces his nemesis, the wizard Leso Varen, his honor, his life, and the future of Midkemia’s at stake.
F GREY WESTERN
Grey, Zane, 1872-1939. Cabin gulch : a western story. 1st ed. Waterville, Me. : Five Star, 2006.Written in 1915, for ninety years this work has only existed in a profoundly censored version under the title The border legion; it appeared originally as a six-part serial in All-story weekly. "This Five Star edition restores the sex and violence removed by squeamish editors. It's no doubt tame by today's standards." Library Journal
F HADDAM MYSTERY
Haddam, Jane, 1951-. Hardscrabble road. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2006.
When a local Philadelphia radio host known for his incendiary right- wing tirades is arrested for illegal possession of prescription drugs, the incident sets into motion a series of events that leads ultimately to the death of a homeless man. In the complicated mix is a local Benedictine monastery, a Nobel-Prize-winning leftist academic, and a homeless advocacy group. Gregor Demarkian, a retired FBI agent, is hired to solve the case before the killer strikes again.
F HAMILTON MYSTERY
Hamilton, Lyn. The Orkney scroll. 1st ed. New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2006.
When one of her clients falls victim to a scam and is accused of murder, Lara McClintoch’s investigation takes her to the Orkney Islands off the northeast coast of Scotland. There she’s pulled into a centuries-old Viking saga and a troubling quest that could end in danger, and rewrite history.
F HARRIS
Harris, E. Lynn. I say a little prayer : a novel. New York : Doubleday, 2006.
Chauncy Greer, a former member of a popular boy band who left in disgrace after a homosexual encounter with another band member, now runs a thriving card company. After attending a church service, he falls under the influence of an ambitious fundamentalist preacher who plans to use the revival to speak against gays and gay marriage. Angry, Chauncy and other gays make a stand against the church. Then his former band mate turns up and Chauncy has to make some hard choices about his future.
F HENDRA
Hendra, Tony. The messiah of Morris Avenue : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Henry Holt, 2006.
In a very reverent future, church and state walk hand in hand. Johnny Greco, a fallen journalist nursing a few grudges along with his cocktails, stumbles onto the story of a young man who’s driving around New Jersey preaching radical notions of kindness and generosity and tossing off miracles. Johnny sees this as a chance to stick it to the Rev. Sabbath, America’s #1 Holy Warrior. To do so, Johnny writes a headline-making story announcing that the young man is the Second Coming.
F HENRY MYSTERY
Henry, Sue, 1940-. The tooth of time : a Maxie and Stretch mystery. New York : New American Library, c2006.
Zigzagging the country in a mini-Winnebago means endless adventure for Maxie McNabb and her dog, Stretch, who are now headed for the heat of New Mexico, where Maxie plans to learn how to weave. Those plans change when a local woman attempts suicide after her husband replaced her with a newer, sexier model. Now a sleazy con man has set his sights on her. Maxie’s determined to help the poor woman and won’t rest until she brings two dogs to justice: neither of whom is Stretch.
F LAWRENCE
Lawrence, Starling. The lightning keeper : a novel. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.
Toma Pekocevic is a penniless immigrant in New York in 1914. He’s also a gifted inventor who designs a powerful water turbine while working for Harriet Bigelow, the scion of a proud Connecticut iron-making dynasty now fallen on hard times. Although their attraction is immediate, circumstances work against them and he loses her to a wealthy politician. When Toma goes to work for General Electric, which is on the verge of providing electricity to the entire nation, his only thought is of winning Harriet back.
F LEON MYSTERY
Leon, Donna. Through a glass, darkly. 1st American ed. New York : [Berkeley, Calif.] : Atlantic Monthly Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2006.
Commissario Brunetti and his assistant Vianello are playing hooky from the Questura in order to help Vianello’s friend Marco Ribetti, who has been arrested during an environmental protest. Able to secure his release, they’re then confronted by the man’s father-in-law, a glass factory owner who has been heard making violent threats against Ribetti. His reputation for being a bully is widely known. Could he be capable of murder? Brunetti decides to find out after the old man’s night watchman is found dead inside the factory.
F MARTINEZ MYSTERY
Martinez, Michele, 1962-. The finishing school. 1st ed. New York : Morrow, c2006.
Federal prosecutor Melanie Vargas breaks all the rules when she goes undercover to investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding the deaths of two girls from an exclusive Manhattan girls’ school.
F MCCALLSMITH MYSTERY
McCall Smith, Alexander, 1948-. Blue shoes and happiness. New York : Pantheon Books, 2006.
There’s considerable excitement at the shared premises of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors when a cobra is found in Mma Ramotswe’s office. When a nurse in a local medical office reveals to Mma Ramotswe that she’s found inconsistencies in medical records that suggest falsification of vital information, it becomes obvious that sinister events are brewing. Naturally, Mma Ramotswe and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is right in the middle of the investigation.
F MITCHELL
Mitchell, David (David Stephen). Black swan green : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2006.
Jason, 13, breaks his mother’s Christmas angel while packing up the ornaments. Knowing he has 12 months to replace it before another Christmas rolls around, he wanders his English village in search of a replacement. Along the way he meets a number of people who will forever change his understanding of his place in the world, including Dean Moran, a loner and a loser who becomes Jason’s firmest friend; Dawn Madden, whose image swims into most of Jason’s waking hours; and Ross Wilcox, a bully.
F MOSLEY
Mosley, Nicholas, 1923-. Look at the dark. 1st U.S. ed. Normal, Ill. : Dalkey Archive Press, 2006, c2005.
After being injured in a hit-and-run accident that may have been arranged by the government, an outspoken academic and writer begins reflecting on his life and choices.
F PICKARD MYSTERY
Pickard, Nancy. The virgin of Small Plains : a novel. 1st ed. New York : $b $c : Ballantine Books, c2006.
When the body of a brutalized young woman was discovered outside Plains, Kans., 17 years agp, townsfolk rallied to give her a decent burial. Since then, strange miracles had visited those who faithfully tended her grave. After prodigal son Mitch Newquist returns to town, questions arise about why he abandoned his girlfriend 17-years ago and why the town’s leading citizens seem determined to keep the truth buried.
F REYNOLDS
Reynolds, Sheri. Firefly cloak : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Shaye Areheart Books, c2006.
Eight-year-old Tessa Lee and her brother, Travis, were left in a campground by their mother and her boyfriend with only a phone number printed in magic marker on Travis’ back. Tessa clings to a tattered housecoat that belonged to her mother and hopes of a reunion one day. When she becomes a teen, she goes off in search of the mother she longed for, meeting some unusual characters along the way.
F ROBARDS MYSTERY
Robards, Karen. Vanished. New York : G.P. Putnam’s Sons, c2006.
Ten years ago, Joan Parker’s six-year-old daughter vanished at a local park. Despite a search, she was never found and Joan was emotionally shattered. Then, one hot July night, she answered the phone to hear a child’s terrified voice whispering, ‘Mommy, help. Come and get me. He’s got me.’ Then the phone call is cut off. Joan turns unsuccessfully to authorities and then, in desperation, to PI Ben Hogan. Together they begin a nightmarish search.
F ROSENFELT MYSTERY
Rosenfelt, David. Dead center. 1st ed. New York : Mysterious Press, 2006.
New Jersey defense attorney Andy Carpenter has moved on with his social life, but still has strong feelings for his ex-girlfriend Laurie, a top-ranking cop who moved to Wisconsin. When she calls asking for his help in clearing a young man of murder charges, Andy can’t say no. Although there was enough evidence to arrest him, Laurie believes the man is innocent. After arriving in Wisconsin, Andy finds himself face- to-face with a mysterious religious group who seems to know a great deal about murder.
F SALLIS MYSTERY
Sallis, James, 1944-. Cripple Creek : a novel. New York : Walker & Co. : Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers, 2006.
Ex-policeman, ex-con, and former therapist, Turner is now a Deputy Sheriff and is trying to escape his past in a small town. His life is mending and he and Val are growing closer. Then a young man, arrested in a routine traffic stop with more than $200,000 in his trunk, is forcibly sprung from jail after Sheriff Don Lee is assaulted. Turner pursues the escapee and his partner to Memphis, unleashing ghosts he thought he had left behind and endangering all that matters to him.
F STROUT
Strout, Elizabeth. Abide with me : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c2006.
In the late 1950s, a minister in the small town of West Annett, Maine, struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness after a devastating loss.
F SVOBODA
Svoboda, Terese. Tin god. Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c2006.
In this book, god is not a solemn, dignified deity but a wisecracking woman with attention deficit disorder - the intentionally lower-case, working-class version of a supreme being. She sends an incarnate in a metal hat and suit,(a throwback to Don Quixote), down to Earth to get people’s attention. Tall Pigeon Eye, Pork, Jim, and several others are out there with him, hunting, hiding, hiking, searching for something misplaced, and getting into one misadventure after another (as when Pork tosses a big bag of dope out of his car window, then tries to find the grass in the grass before the authorities do). As the characters meander around, so does the narrative, which spans a few hundred years and shifts from past to present and back again.
F TAYLOR
Taylor, Chad, 1964-. Departure lounge. New York : Europa Editions, 2006.
This noir thriller from New Zealand author Taylor opens on a friendly pool game between disarming narrator Mark Chamberlain and property developer Rory Jones at an Auckland billiards parlor. After the two men part company, Chamberlain admits, “the following night I broke into his apartment and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down.” Chamberlain, we learn, is a professional burglar. In the apartment, to his surprise, he discovers that Jones is the father of Caroline May, a high school classmate who disappeared many years earlier. Taylor interweaves clues concerning Caroline’s disappearance, including some implicating Chamberlain himself, with the thief’s insightful reflections on appearance and reality.
F TUCKER
Tucker, Lisa. Once upon a day : a novel. 1st Atria Books hardcover ed. New York : Atria Books, 2006.
Dorothea’s father undoubtedly thought he was doing the right thing when he left Hollywood with his two small children to live in a desolate corner of New Mexico where he raised them in complete isolation. Now, 19 years later, Dorothea, 23, is leaving the place for the first time in search of her missing brother. Her odyssey of discovery leads to a shocking truth about her family’s past. She is aided by a cab driver who has suffered his own losses.
F TYLER
Tyler, Anne. Digging to America : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
Maryam Yazdan should be happy that her son and daughter-in-law celebrate yearly with the Donaldson’s, whom they met at the airport while both couples were awaiting the arrival of their adopted infant daughters from Korea. Instead, the Iranian-born Maryam now realizes how much she feels like an outsider in her adopted country. Then Bitsy Donaldson’s recently widowed father begins courting Maryam. Will that resolve the problem, or make it worse?
F URQHART
Urquhart, Jane. A map of glass. San Francisco, CA : MacAdam/Cage Pub., c2006.
This multilayered novel focuses on Sylvia, a reclusive woman who suffers from a condition affecting her ability to relate to others. When a young artist named Jerome discovers the frozen body of Sylvia’s lover, Andrew, on a remote island at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, Sylvia conquers her affliction and travels to Toronto to meet Jerome, feeling compelled to speak to him of her life and her relationship with Andrew. The middle third of the novel is Andrew’s reconstruction of the history of his timber-merchant family. The book starts slowly and quietly but rewards patient reading; at play here are big themes about the impermanence of everything: relationships, memory, possessions, civilizations, and even the landscape. Library Journal
F WAITES MYSTERY
Waites, Martyn. The mercy seat. New York : Pegasus Books, 2006.
A research scientist has gone missing. An ace newspaper reporter has disappeared; so has a minidisc, along with its incriminating evidence. And a teenage hustler is on the run. In his pursuer, the Hammer, a skin-headed professional killer with a blue sapphire tooth and a taste for death metal, “the principle of evil” has indeed been “made flesh.”
F WALLANCE
Wallance, Gregory. Two men before the storm : Arba Crane’s recollection of Dred Scott and the Supreme Court case that started the Civil War. Advance reader’s ed. [Austin, TX] : Greenleaf Book Group Press, c2006.
In the early 1850s, Arba Crane, a young Harvard Law School graduate from Vermont, arrived in St Louis to begin his law career. Working alone late in the evenings, Crane forms a friendship with the office janitor, a slave named Dred Scott. As Scott recounts his life as a slave, Crane realizes that Scott has a legal claim to freedom and persuades him to file a lawsuit. Thus begins a chain of events that ignites a political and legal firestorm across the nation.
F WASSERSTEIN
Wasserstein, Wendy. Elements of style : a novel. 1st ed. New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House, 2006.
Readers are taken on a tour of upscale New York in the post-9/11 days where women with Hermes bags and Pilates instructors embody contemporary attitudes towards romance, work, parenting, and friendship.
F WOODS MYSTERY
Woods, Stuart. Dark harbor : a novel. New York : Putnam, 2006.
Although Stone Barrington hadn’t heard from his cousin, Dick Stone, in years, he had fond memories of a teenage summer spent at Dick’s home in Maine. Those memories were what came to mind the moment he received the news that Dick had apparently committed suicide after killing his wife and daughter. Ironically Stone had received a package from Dick that very morning with instructions to open it only in the event of his death. Believing his cousin innocent, Stone began an investigation.
NON-FICTION:
006.3 SEI
Seife, Charles. Decoding the universe : how the new science of information is explaining everything in the cosmos, from our brains to black holes. New York : Viking, 2006.
Explores how information theory is being used in the scientific community, focusing on its use in theoretical physics and highlighting the methods used to decode hidden scientific information. Once the sole province of linguists and philosophers, information theory has become a central generative science. Charles Seife’s “Decoding the Universe” describes how theorists came to understand that information is not simply a mental construct but also a fundamental element of the physical world. With engaging clarity, Seife explains the implications of this discovery for advanced physics and, indeed, the nature of time and space.
155.9 EDE
Edelman, Hope. Motherless mothers : how mother loss shapes the parents we become. 1st ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2006.
Edelman continues with her topic of ‘Motherless Daughters’ from 1994 by exploring what happens to a motherless woman when she becomes a mother herself. Using her own story as background, she reveals the worries, longing, and loneliness that she and others like her face raising children without a living maternal guide. She examines parenting choices, patterns, triumphs and fears, telling how the experience of loss directly impacts the way these women parent their own children.
226 ROB
Robinson, James McConkey, 1924-. The secrets of Judas : the story of the misunderstood disciple and his lost gospel. 1st ed. New York, N.Y. : HarperSanFrancisco, c2006.
As news about the discovery and translation of the lost Gospel of Judas explodes, the first book about the mysterious gospel—an authentic papyrus manuscript from the 4th century—reveals what we can and cannot know about the historical Judas. In “The secrets of Judas”, renowned scholar James Robinson unravels the mystery of the enigmatic disciple and asks whether we should reconsider his place in history, culture, and faith.
229 KRO
Krosney, Herbert. The lost gospel : the quest for the gospel of Judas Iscariot. Washington, D.C. : National Geographic, c2006.
Did Judas really betray Jesus merely for the 30 pieces of silver that he was allegedly paid? Or, was he acting on Jesus’ instructions as a way for God’s plan to be fulfilled? That is just one of the interesting questions posed by the recently revealed finding of writings said to have been authored by Judas. This Gnostic production puts a very different light on what actually happened and is sure to cause debate among historians, theologians, and biblical scholars.
232.9 BAI
Baigent, Michael. The Jesus papers : exposing the greatest cover-up in history. 1st ed. [San Francisco] : HarperSan Francisco, c2006.
Religious historian Michael Baigent presents explosive new evidence that challenges everything we know about the life and death of Jesus Christ. Having unprecedented access to hidden archives, secret societies, Masonic records, and the private collection of antiquities smugglers and their clients, Baigent shares what he has learned about Jesus’ life and death after two decades of research on the subject.
305.43 FLA
Flanagan, Caitilin. To hell with all that : the housewife reconsidered. 1st ed. New York : Little, Brown, c2006.
Caitlin Flanagan, the hilarious and hotly disputed social critic, compares the rituals and experiences that shaped the fifties housewife with those that have forged the modern woman, and arrives at some surprising conclusions. In her signature prose, bitingly funny and brutally honest, Flanagan examines everything from the contemporary white wedding craze to the epidemic of undersexed marriages. Whether she is reporting on the mommy wars, the anti-clutter movement, or America’s new nanny culture, her book reveals both the high cost women pay for devoting themselves to the people they love, and also the matchless rewards that come from such a sacrifice.
306.872 STO
Stosny, Steven. You don’t have to take it anymore : turn your resentful, angry, or emotionally abusive relationship into a compassionate, loving one. New York : Free Press, c2006.
Respected therapist Steven Stosny shares his program for both men and women in toxic relationships on how to stop verbally abusive tendencies and anger problems. Featured in three parts on Oprah in 2004, Stosny addressed what Oprah referred to as a major epidemic in American marriages: verbal and emotional abuse. This book helps readers understand the devastating effects of chronic resentment, anger, and emotional abuse on both adults and children and shows them how to change that behavior permanently.
307.7609 BEL
Belleville, Bill, 1945-. Losing it all to sprawl : how progress ate my cracker landscape. Gainesvillle : University Press of Florida, c2006.
This book is about loss-the loss of community, neighborliness, connection with the land, wetlands, potable water, wildlife, and native plants; in short, the loss of Florida’s unique character. Once known for its vast stretches of fecund wetlands and untainted springs, Florida is fast becoming a land of homogeneous, sterile developments. Here, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and nature writer Belleville (River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida’s St. Johns River) describes the gradual destruction of his Cracker-style rural homestead and neighborhood near Orlando in central Florida. Library Journal
323.1192 FIN
Finkelstein, Norman G. Beyond chutzpah : on the misuse of anti-semitism and the abuse of history. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2005.
Bringing to bear the latest findings on the conflict and recasting the scholarly debate, Finkelstein points to a consensus among historians and human rights organizations on the factual record. Why, then, does so much controversy swirl around the conflict? Finkelstein’s answer, copiously documented, is that apologists for Israel contrive controversy. Whenever Israel comes under international pressure, another media campaign alleging a global outbreak of anti-Semitism is mounted.
324.2736 CAR
Carville, James. Take it back : our party, our country, our future. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.
Arguing that the Democrats have lost power because they “lack a backbone,” political strategists and commentators James Carville and Paul Begala state what they believe the party should stand for regarding moral values, national security, corruption, taxes, energy, the environment, health care, and other issues and discuss the media, Hurricane Katrina, and progressive patriotism.
327.73009 CHO
Chomsky, Noam. Failed states. 1st ed. New York : Metropolitan Books, 2006.
While the United States has repeatedly asserted its right to intervene militarily against failed states around the world, this sequel to Chomsky’s best selling book, “Hegemony or Survival”, charges the United States with being a failed state itself, and therefore a danger to its own people and the world. Exploring recent U.S. foreign and domestic policies, Chomsky assesses Washington’s escalation of Iraq and America’s self-exemption from international law as an example. He also examines America’s electoral system that he claims, impedes meaningful democracy.
327.73009 KIN
Kinzer, Stephen. Overthrow : America’s century of regime changefrom Hawaii to Iraq. 1st ed. New York : Times Books, 2006.
Beginning with the ouster of Hawaii’s monarchy in 1893, Kinzer runs through the foreign governments the U.S. has had a hand in toppling, some of which he has written about at length before (in “All the Shah’s Men”, etc.). Recent invasions of countries such as Grenada and Panama may be more familiar to readers than earlier interventions in Iran and Nicaragua, but Kinzer, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, brings a rich narrative immediacy to all of his stories.
328.73 EIL
Eilperin, Juliet. Fight club politics : how partisanship is poisoning the House of Representatives. Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, c2006.
The function of the U.S. House of Representatives is to serve as the body of government closest to ordinary citizens, reflecting their needs and desires. Yet, over the past decade, the House’s drift from its roots has given rise to Republicans’ ability to capture control of the chamber from a 40-year Democratic rule. Factors including House rules that have curtailed dissent and more powerful party leaders perpetuate this national divide. This book shows how average Americans have little say over what happens in the House, and what can be done about it.
333.91 PEA
Pearce, Fred. When the rivers run dry : water—the defining crisis of the twenty-first century. Boston : Beacon Press, c2006.
Examines the current state of crucial water sources around the world, discusses the scientific, economic, and historic dimensions of the water crisis, and offers practical solutions for preserving the world’s water supply in the twenty-first century.
338.1 FRO
Fromartz, Samuel. Organic, inc. : natural foods and how theygrew. 1st ed. Orlando : Harcourt, 2006.
Fromartz traces organic food back to its anti-industrial origins more than a century ago. Then he follows it forward again, casting a spotlight on the innovators who created an alternative way of producing food that took root and grew beyond their wildest expectations. In the process he captures how the industry came to risk betraying the very ideals that drove its success in a classically complex case of free-market triumph.
338.91096 CAL
Calderisi, Robert. The trouble with Africa : why foreign aid isn’t working. 1st ed. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
It’s the disease, the climate, the corruption, the brutal dictators, the tribal factions, the European colonization, the slavery-you name it, everyone has a reason for Africa’s continuing collapse. Here, an adroit former World Bank official suggests that the misfortunes are more self-imposed. Calderisi places the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the Africans themselves, also blaming the continent’s various leaders. With few exceptions, he writes, the economies have all declined since independence in the 1970s. Botswana, one of the exceptions, has a strong economy and a higher standard of living than nearly all other African countries, and yet 37 percent of its adult population carries the HIV virus, and the life expectancy has plummeted to 34 years. Many hopeful stories from the 1970s and 1980s have disappeared with the loss, through mismanagement, of markets to Asia and Latin America. Wealth for the continent’s people has declined since 1970, and the immediate future looks grim. Calderisi proposes ten workable solutions to the problems, such as that funding for Africa be contingent upon democratic rule.
339 TOF
Toffler, Alvin. Revolutionary wealth : shaping tomorrow’s way of life. New York : Knopf, 2006.
Who will get tomorrow’s wealth, how it will be made, what it will mean to us, and the overwhelming power of money in our lives, is discussed in this book from Toffler, who has been one of the most insightful and influential voices in business, social and intellectual life for decades. Alvin and wife Heidi suggest a radically new way to think about the economy that is racing toward us and the financially lucrative job opportunities that may be created.
355 CAR
Carroll, James, 1943-. House of war : the Pentagon, a history of unbridled power. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006.
Carroll creates a portrait of America’s role in the world in the last century, as seen through the prism of the Pentagon. Drawing on archival research, extensive interviews with Washington insiders, and his own experiences inside and around the ‘house of war,’ he has created a myth-shattering work that follows the Pentagon from its birth to the mythic power it wields today through its latest avatar, Donald Rumsfeld.
362.196 DAV
Davis, Nancy (Nancy Sue). Lean on me : ten powerful steps to moving beyond your diagnosis and taking back your life. New York : Fireside, 2006.
At the age of 33, Davis was a mother of three small children, and was diagnosed with MS. Her neurologist told her to go home and “go to bed... forever.” Determined to have an active life, Davis developed a program to live as fully as possible. First she ditched a troubled marriage and surrounded herself only with people who would support her emotionally. She learned as much as she could about MS, working her way through the maze of medical information and misinformation to find which physicians and treatments would be the most help. In order to remain positive, avoid stress and commit to a healthy diet, she explored alternative approaches (among others, Davis has found homeopathy, acupuncture and osteopathy to be useful for her condition). Davis provides readers with an informed overview of how to negotiate the health-care system as well as Web resources. Today, remarried with two more children, the author, an MS activist, has devised a thoughtful plan for dealing with a devastating illness that should motivate others. Publishers Weekly
363.25 CON
Connelly, Michael. Crime beat : a decade of covering cops and killers. New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2006.
The collection of almost two dozen exposés from the late 1980s and early 1990s ranges from stories focusing on cops (former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates in “Death Squad”) to those spotlighting infamous killers (serial murderer/rapist Christopher Bernard Wilder in “Killer on the Run”). “Trunk Music,” which explores the unsolved gangland-style murder of a businessman found bound and shot to death in the trunk of his Rolls-Royce, was the inspiration behind Connelly’s 1997 novel of the same name. The phrase “truth is stranger than fiction” couldn’t be more apt when it comes to the incredibly diverse subject matter of “Crime Beat”—from demented serial killers to savvy con artists to overzealous police.
363.350973 ERV
Ervin, Clark Kent, 1959-. Open target : where America is vulnerable to attack. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Ervin, former Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, blows the whistle on the profound failures of the DHS to protect Americans from future terrorist attacks. He talks candidly about how he was pressured by top leaders to sugarcoat his findings and how his refusal to spin the truth and toe the party line ultimately led to his forced departure. This revealing page-turner includes: the gaping holes in border security; flaws in port security; wasteful spending and the impact on effectiveness of the DHS, and more.
364.152 JUN
Junger, Sebastian. A death in Belmont. 1st ed. New York :Norton, c2006.
In the spring of 1963, the quiet suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts, is rocked by a shocking sex murder that exactly fits the pattern of the Boston Strangler. Sensing a break in the case that has paralyzed the city of Boston, the police track down a black man, Roy Smith, who cleaned the victim’s house that day and left a receipt with his name on the kitchen counter. Smith is hastily convicted of the Belmont murder, but the terror of the Strangler continues. On the day of the murder, Albert DeSalvo—the man who would eventually confess in lurid detail to the Strangler’s crimes—is also in Belmont, working as a carpenter at the Jungers’ home. In this spare, powerful narrative, Sebastian Junger chronicles three lives that collide—and ultimately are destroyed—in the vortex of one of the first and most controversial serial murder cases in America.—From publisher description
364.152 SWA
Swanson, James L. Manhunt : the twelve day chase for Lincoln’s killer. 1st ed. New York : William Morrow, c2006.
Swanson offers an hour-by-hour account of the search for John Wilkes Booth in the days following his assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
364.66 ABB
Abbott, G. (Geoffrey), 1922-. Execution : the guillotine, thependulum, the thousand cuts, the Spanish donkey, and 66 other ways of putting someone to death. 1st ed. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
The author describes in darkly humorous fashion seventy well-known and obscure execution methods from around the world and throughout history, arranged alphabetically from the axe to “twenty-four cuts.”
371.822 MOR
Mortenson, Greg. Three cups of tea : one man’s mission to fight terrorism and build nations—one school at a time. New York : Viking, 2006.
Greg Mortenson recounts the experiences he had while trying to help impoverished villages in Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya build schools for their children.
428.4 HIR
Hirsch, E. D. (Eric Donald), 1928-. The knowledge deficit : creating a reading revolution for a new generation of American achievers. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Hirsch argues that American students are seriously behind other industrialized countries because they’re taught how to read but not how to think. He further strikes a match against hot issues in education such as testing, regional and class differences, and funding, to illuminate the real issue today: that without an effective curriculum, American students are losing the global education race. He then offers tested methods for delivering improved results in schools nationwide.
510 STE
Stewart, Ian. Letters to a young mathematician. New York : Basic Books, c2006.
Leading research mathematician Ian Stewart reflects on the things he wishes he had known when he was a student, addressing a wide range of topics related to his field of study, including what mathematics is, why it’s worth doing, the link between logic and proof, the role of beauty of mathematics, and many others.
576.8 SAW
Sawyer, Kathy. The rock from Mars : a detective story on two planets. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c2006.
Sawyer describes how the discovery of an ancient meteorite found in Antarctica led to controversial debates over possible signs of life on Mars.
612 GON
Gonzalez-Crussi, F. On seeing : things seen, unseen, and obscene. New York : Overlook Duckworth, 2006.
What Oliver Sacks does for the mind, Gonzalez-Crussi does for the eye in this captivating set of philosophical meditations on the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. The author, amused and amazed by our desire to see what is forbidden, draws on historical and cultural examples, from Actaeon spying on the goddess Diana to a pair of voyeurs in revolutionary France who unwittingly incite a massacre. Mixed in with such accounts are personal reflections drawn from medicine (Gonzalez-Crussi is professor emeritus of pathology at Northwestern’s medical school). He is astounded, for example, at how many people have pestered him for access to an autopsy, just to say they’d seen one.
641.8 BAN
Bannos, Jimmy. Big easy cocktails : jazzy drinks and savory bites from New Orleans. Berkeley : Ten Speed Press, 2006.
Bannos includes 50 cocktail and 35 appetizer recipes plus 30 food and location photos. Features recommended music selections to accompany each cocktail recipe and a list of New Orleans related books and movies.
813 ZEI
Zeitz, Joshua. Flapper : a madcap story of sex, style, celebrity, and the women who made America modern. 1st ed. New York : Crown Publishers, c2006.
Zeitz examines the flapper age and its most influential figures, including author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda; designer Coco Chanel; “New Yorker” writer Lois Long; actresses Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, Louise Brooks; fashion artist Gordon Conway; cartoonist John Held; and advertising and public relations pioneers Bruce Barton and Edward Bernays.
910.4 GIL
Gilbert, Elizabeth, 1969-. Eat, pray, love : one woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia. New York : Viking, 2006.
Elizabeth Gilbert recounts the experiences she had on her year-long journey around the world, and shares how her trip helped her deal with her divorce and the depression that threatened to end her career and her happiness.
910.4 MID
Middleton, Nick. Extremes : surviving the world’s harshest environments. 1st U.S. ed. New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2005.
Travel writer and geographer Middleton recounts his 12- month series of journeys to the coldest, hottest, wettest, and driest places on earth where traditional people live. He discusses how people manage to live there, why they settled there in the first place, and why on earth they stayed once they figured out what the weather was like.
913.604 FRE
Freeman, Philip, 1961-. The philosopher and the Druids : a journey among the ancient Celts. New York : Simon & Schuster, c2006.
The author analyzes first-century Greek philosopher Posidonius’s account of the lives and customs of the ancient Celts, which he wrote after he journeyed deep into the heart of the Celtic lands in Gaul.
920 BRY
Brynner, Rock, 1946-. Empire & odyssey : the Brynners in Far East Russia and beyond. 1st ed. Hanover, N.H. : Steerforth Press, c2006.
While millions of fans adored the mysterious, exotic star who called himself Yul Brynner, there were in fact four men who shared that name over four consecutive generations, beginning with Yul’s Swiss-born grandfather and ending with his son, Yul Jr., better known as Rock Brynner. This family history shares some of the adventures of the Brynner men and offers a unique look at the Brynner who would become a star of stage and screen, winning an Academy Award for “The King and I”.
921 AKHMATOVA
Feinstein, Elaine. Anna of all the Russias : the life of Anna Akhmatova. 1st American ed. New York : Knopf, 2006, c2005.
Feinstein chronicles the life of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, drawing on memoirs, journals, letters, and interviews with her surviving friends and family to discuss the poet’s childhood, schooling, beliefs, career achievements, impact on Russian literature, and personal relationships.
921 ANGELL
Angell, Roger. Let me finish. 1st ed. Orlando : Harcourt, c2006.
Angell takes an unsentimental look at his life beginning with his early days as a boy growing up in Prohibition-era New York with his parents, including his mother, Katherine White, a founding editor of the New Yorker, and famous stepfather, the writer E.B. White. He remembers eccentric relatives, his childhood love of baseball in the time of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio, and his colleagues during his long career as a New Yorker writer and editor.
921 BRYAN
Kazin, Michael, 1948-. A godly hero : the life of William Jennings Bryan. 1st ed. New York : Knopf, 2006.
Michael Kazin chronicles the life of William Jennings Bryan, focusing on his role as an American leader of the Christian left, and placing his life and achievements in a historical and cultural perspective.
921 CLEMENTE
Maraniss, David. Clemente : the passion and grace of baseball’s last hero. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2006.
Roberto Clemente, a former Pittsburgh Pirate, was that rarest of athletic figures who transcended sports. Now, in this full-scale biography, Maraniss shares the remarkable life and career of the great major leaguer and humanitarian who perished in a plane crash while on his way to deliver medical, food, and clothing supplies to those stricken by an earthquake in Nicaragua.
921 GREENBERG
Greenberg, Mike. Why my wife thinks I’m an idiot : the life and times of a sportscaster dad. New York : Villard, C2006.
This is the hilarious, sometimes touching, and endlessly entertaining debut of one of America’s fastest-rising sportscasters, a wry and revealing look at one man’s good-hearted but mistake-prone attempt to grow up before his children do. Marriage, fatherhood, manhood, fame, athletes, crazed aunts with gambling problems, the true significance of sports, the worst possible thing to say in a room full of pregnant women, no topic is beyond his reach.
921 IBADI
‘Ibadi, Shirin. Iran awakening : a memoir of revolution and hope. New York : Random House, 2006.
Dr. Shirin Ebadi, one of the most fascinating people in Iran today, rose to the position of judge but became disillusioned with her country’s political direction after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which stripped women of their basic rights and Iranians of political freedom. Demoted from her job to that of a court clerk, she returned to the law and in spite of multiple arrests and assassination attempts, she continued to speak out on behalf of victims of injustice and discrimination. This is her personal memoir.
921 LEE
Richmond, Peter, 1953-. Fever : the life and music of Miss Peggy Lee. 1st ed. New York : H. Holt, 2006.
A critic once described Peggy Lee’s voice as “light with a delicate huskiness,” but not even the subtlest formula could bottle its soft poignancy. In the age of Sinatra and Crosby, she was regarded as a uniquely gifted song stylist. Her records sold more than 20 million copies; both Einstein and Ellington paid her tribute. As this sympathetic biography demonstrates, her long life (1920-2002) was peppered with indignities and sorrow, starting with an alcoholic father and an abusive stepmother. Lee credited her resilience and courage to “Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, and Mr. Cary Grant,” but her own powers were formidable.
921 LEO
Davis, Natalie Zemon, 1928-. Trickster travels : a sixteenth-century Muslim between worlds. 1st ed. New York : Hill and Wang, 2006.
Davis explores the life of an enigmatic North African traveler-diplomat, al-Hasan al-Wazzan, referred to in the West as Leo Africanus, who was captured by Christian pirates and handed over to the pope.
Converting to Christianity, al-Wazzan took the name Giovanni Leone and wrote the first geography of Africa published in Europe (1550). Because the gaps in the historical record of his life are huge, much that Davis writes is inspired guess, though her text is backed by scrupulous and exhaustive scholarship, exploring such details as the status of women in Islam and Christendom and the ramifications of differences in skin color at that time. Library Journal
921 PARACELSUS
Ball, Philip, 1962-. The devil’s doctor : Paracelsus and the world of Renaissance magic and science. 1st American ed. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.
Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim, who called himself Paracelsus, stands at the cusp of medieval and modern times. A contemporary of Luther, an enemy of the medical establishment, a scourge of the universities, an alchemist, an army surgeon, and a radical theologian, he attracted myths even before he died. His fantastic journeys across Europe and beyond were said to be made on a magical white horse, and he was rumored to carry the elixir of life in the pommel of his great broadsword. His name was linked with Faust. Who was the man behind these stories? Philip Ball exposes a more complex truth that emerges only by entering into Paracelsus’s time. He explores the intellectual, political, and religious undercurrents of the sixteenth century and looks at how doctors really practiced, at how people traveled, and at how wars were fought. For Paracelsus was a product of an age of change and strife, of renaissance and reformation. And yet by uniting the diverse disciplines of medicine, biology, and alchemy, he assisted, almost in spite of himself, in the birth of science and the emergence of the age of rationalism.
921 RUSESABAGINA
Rusesabagina, Paul, 1955-. An ordinary man : an autobiography. New York : Viking, 2006.
Hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina has been called the Oskar Schindler of Africa for the thousands of lives he saved during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. His story was so inspirational, in fact, that it was made into an Academy Award nominated film: ‘Hotel Rwanda.’ This autobiography explores his life and relates the anguish of those 100 days inside the hotel while machete-wielding mobs were on a murderous rampage outside.
921 SOYINKA
Soyinka, Wole. You must set forth at dawn : a memoir. 1st ed. New York : Random House, c2006.
Wole Soyinka, the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, recounts his turbulent life as an adult in his beloved homeland.
921 WEEKS
Weeks, Kevin. Brutal : the untold story of my life inside Whitey Bulger’s Irish mob. New York : ReganBooks, 2006.
Kevin Weeks was ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s number two man in Boston’s Irish mob. He was there when Bulger carried out his hits and dug basement graves when bodies needed buried. The former boxer was Bulger’s enforcer. No one at the top of Bulger’s operation has ever talked about Bulger, one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives . . . until now. Weeks now shares inside info on Bulger (who went underground and hasn’t been seen in years), the deals, the hits, and where the bodies are buried.
921 WINTERS
Winters, Richard D. Beyond band of brothers. 1st ed. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2006.
A war-time memoir of Major Dick Winters, who assumed command of Easy Company, known as the “Band of Brothers,” when they parachuted into France on D-Day, and describes their trek across Europe, the Battle of the Bulge, liberation of concentration camps, and capture of Hitler’s alpine retreat.
955.05 BOW
Bowden, Mark, 1951-. Guests of the Ayatollah. New York : Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006.
Few people realized it on Nov. 4, 1979, when a group of radical Islamist students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, that it was just the first showdown with Islamic fundamentalism. Now Bowden tells the story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new Special Forces’ unit sent on the impossible mission to free them, their radical, naive captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis.
956.7044 HEN
Henderson, Kristin. While they’re at war : the true story of American families on the homefront. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
Henderson offers a collection of true stories that reveal the often hidden aspects of military life in America, recounting the experiences of family members who are left behind to deal with isolation and anticipatory grief while their loved ones are fighting wars on foreign soil.
958.104 BER
Bergen, Peter L., 1962-. The Osama bin Laden I know : an oral history of al Qaeda’s leader. New York : Free Press, c2006.
Peter Bergen draws on interviews to explore the life and true nature of Osama bin Laden and his deadly legacy of terror.
973.2 PHI
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower : the Pilgrims and their legacy. New York : Viking, 2006.
National Book Award winner Philbrick gives us a story of both heartbreaking misery and driving determination as he relates the Pilgrims’ historic journey and their hardscrabble work to establish the Plymouth Colony. They faced the threat of starvation, illness, and the savage winter (half ultimately died) and, 50 years later, bloody wars against the Indians. Philbrick’s Pilgrims are Taliban-like fanatics whose faith also is their politics. New England proved a dangerous, decimated, death-ridden coast ravaged by disease and civil war that claimed as much as 90 percent of the local population, and its soil was so overfarmed that it was as lifeless as stone. Familiar names get new faces: mercenary Miles Standish is a New World Rambo, quick to steal, kill, and behead, and native interpreter Squanto is a deceitful manipulator with his own political agenda. Fast-forward five decades to anovercrowded cluster of colonies pushing the Indians, who saved the Pilgrim forbears from certain death, to the point where the now well-armed natives have little choice but to push back hard in battles generating more carnage than D-day. Mayflower is a jaw-dropping epic of heroes and villains, bravery and bigotry, folly and forgiveness. Library Journal
973.93 KEN
Kennedy, Edward Moore, 1932-. America back on track. New York :Viking, 2006.
For nearly 45 years Edward Kennedy has been one of the leading voices of the Democratic Party. Now, he presents a wide-ranging look at the state of the union today, an agenda for the future that will build upon fundamental American values, which he believes the current administration has abandoned. Believing that America is at a crossroads, he’s determined to renew these ideals, including respect for the law, peace among nations, opportunity for every citizen, and compassion for one another.
973.93 PHI
Phillips, Kevin P. American theocracy : the peril and politics of radical religion, oil, and borrowed money in the 21st century. New York : Viking, 2006.
Phillips argues that an inept and weakly led coalition that is dominated by religious zealotry is threatening the future of America and losing the respect of other countries.
973.931 SAM
Sammon, Bill. Strategery : how George W. Bush is outwitting the media and defeating his enemies at home and abroad. Washington, DC : Lanham, Md. : Regnery Pub. ; Distributed to the trade by National Book Network, c2006.
Every week, President Bush’s top strategists gather in the West Wing office of Karl Rove to plot what they wryly call “strategery.” The word was coined by comic Will Ferrell in a Saturday Night Live skit that portrayed George W. Bush as an endearing dimwit. Far from being offended, the president’s men adopted the term as a sort of ironic inside joke. In fact, they laughed all the way to reelection. “Strategery” is the behind-the-scenes story of that hard-fought election and the tumultuous year that followed.
982 PAR
Parrado, Nando, 1949-. Miracle in the Andes : 72 days on the mountain and my long trek home. 1st ed. New York : Crown Publishers, c2006.
In October 1972, a plane carrying members of a top Uruguayan rugby team crashed into one of the most forbidding and inaccessible regions of the Argentine Andes. The survivors found themselves stranded in summer clothes, with no food, blankets, or means of summoning help. Now, 20 years later, one of the 16 survivors, speaking about it for the first time, tells the nightmarish story of survival and the horrific measures taken in order to do so.
MEDIA:
CD CAP
Capote, Truman, 1924-1984. Summer crossing : [a novel]. New York : Random House Audio, c2006. Read by Cassandra Campbell.
Thought to be lost for more than 50 years, this is the first novel written by one of America’s greatest writers of the 20th century: Truman Capote. Set in New York during the summer of 1945, it’s the story of a young carefree socialite, Grady, who must make serious decisions about the romance she is dangerously pursuing and the effect it will have on everyone involved.
CD MOS
Mosley, Walter. The wave. Minneapolis, MN : HighBridge, p2005. Read by Tim Cain.
Errol is awakened night after night by a phone caller asking for him by name and claiming to be his father, who has been dead for several years. When Errol sneaks into the graveyard where his father is buried, what he finds there changes his life forever. But, once Errol’s been touched by the Wave, a presence infecting the planet, can anything be the same again?.
CD 791.44 KEI
Keillor, Garrison. It’s only a show. Minneapolis, MN : HighBridge Co., c2006.
Just in time for Robert Altman’s film, ‘It’s Only a Show’ starring Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, and others, comes the audio that offers the best of the best of Guy Noir, Dusty and Lefty, ads from the show’s ‘commercial sponsors,’ and of course, the news from Lake Wobegon. With laughter, stories, songs, and special guests, ‘It’s Only a Show’ has everything fans know and love about ‘A Prairie Home Companion.’
CD 814 WAL
Wallace, David Foster. Selected essays from Consider the lobster and other essays. New York : Time Warner Audiobooks, p2005. Read by the author.
In this hilarious new collection of essays, Wallace invites listeners to ponder these questions. Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humor? And who won the Adult Video News’ Female Performer of the Year the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? He answers these questions and more as he explores a variety of modern subjects from politics to a Maine lobster festival.
CD 920 DAV
Davis, Ossie. With Ossie & Ruby : in this life together. New York : Time Warner Audiobooks, p2006, c1998. Read by the authors.
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, legendary stars of the American stage, look back on a half century of their personal and political struggles to maintain a healthy marriage and to create the record of distinguished accomplishments that earned each a Presidential Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.
CD 920 PRE
The presidents collection. Unabridged. [United States] : Harper Audio, p2006.
discs 1-3. George Washington / Paul Johnson -- discs 4-7. Thomas Jefferson / Christopher Hitchens— discs 8-11. Ulysses S. Grant / Michael Korda. Read by Sam Tsoutsouvas.
Korda, Johnson, and Hitchens offer three insightful portraits of U.S. presidents who shaped our nation. Korda brings his storytelling talents to the life of Ulysses S. Grant, a man remembered as a brilliant general but a failed president. Johnson offers a portrait of the great founding American, George Washington, seen as one of the most important authors of the Constitution, in addition to his leadership of the Revolutionary War. Hitchens delves into the subject of Thomas Jefferson who designed and built America.
CD 921 KIMMEL
Kimmel, Haven, 1965-. She got up off the couch : [and other heroic acts from Mooreland, Indiana]. Unabridged. Minneapolis, MN : HighBridge, p2006. Read by the author.
In this memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to Mooreland, Ind., to tell the story of how her mother decided one day to get off the couch and go to college, in the process reinventing her life by learning to drive, losing over 50 pounds, and eventually becoming the breadwinner her husband never was. It’s also an introduction to Zippy’s new friends and the puzzle that is her life. It’s the story of risk-taking, motherly love, and small-town heroism.
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.
