April 28, 2009
New Books - Non-fiction
The Power of Soul – Dr. Zhi Gang Sha
"Dr. Sha is the most inspirational healer and teacher available in North America today. Master healers are rare. Here is one of the living masters of soul healing and its effects upon mind and body."-- C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D., president of Holos University Graduate Seminar, founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association, and author of Life Beyond 100
The Last Lecture – Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a last lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave--"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"--wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have...and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.
House of Testosterone: One Mom’s Survival in a Household of Males – Sharon O’Donnell
Every woman has asked herself the question, what was he thinking? at least once in her life. When you are the mother of boys, it seems like this question is on a continuous tape loop in your head. Humor columnist Sharon O’Donnell knows this feeling. In House of Testosterone, she chronicles her adventures raising three sons and reining in her über-male, forgetful husband, Kevin. She shares her stories of welcoming her third son into the world, resisting the gravitational pull of the “guy zone,” and running a household immersed in a world of sports, bathroom humor, and laundry. O’Donnell’s spirit shines through as she struggles to find some “me time” or survive another comical family vacation.
Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto – Ted Nugent
Straight from the Motor-City Madman comes the wildest, most politically incorrect book yet. In The Nugent Manifesto, rocker/hunter extraordinaire Ted Nugent is taking aim and setting his sights on our country. In his trademark unapologetic style, Nugent will praise God, guns, and red-blooded, full-throated Americanism against pantywaist politicians, nanny-state judges, and tofu-eating Obamamaniacs, calling on readers to "Roll up your damn sleeves, sharpen your crowbars, and think hardcore." The Nugent Manifesto follows up his New York Times bestseller God, Guns, and Rock 'N' Roll and his wildly successful cookbook, Kill It & Grill It. Look out America, "The Nuge" is back--and with a whole new arsenal of "Tedisms" ready for launch!
The Founders’ Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms – Stephen P. Halbrook
"[Halbrook] covers the Second Amendment's historical underpinnings from 1768-1826, and so offers readers a rich interpretive framework from which to grasp the U.S. Supreme Court's (conservative) decision in June 2008... affirming the constitutional right of individuals to keep guns at home." – CHOICE
Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution…and How It Can Renew America – Thomas L. Friedman
Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.” Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green. This is a great challenge, Friedman explains, but also a great opportunity and one that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.
Outliers: The Story of Success – Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the "self-made man," he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."
April 21, 2009
New Books - fiction
Silks - Dick Francis & Felix Francis
After collaborating on Dead Heat (2007), bestseller Francis and his son, Felix, deliver another gripping thriller with a thoroughbred racing backdrop. Soon after London barrister Geoffrey Mason, an amateur jockey by avocation, starts receiving a series of threatening messages from a former client, Julian Trent, whose conviction for assault was overturned on appeal, Mason reluctantly accepts the defense of a jockey, Steve Mitchell, accused of the pitch-fork murder of fellow rider Scot Barlow at a steeplechase event. Mitchell and Barlow had fallen out over Barlow's sister, a vet and Mitchell's former girlfriend, who took her own life just a short while before. When unknown parties order Mason to lose the case, he must balance his professional ethics and his sense of self-preservation. The solid writing and engaging lead will carry readers along at a brisk pace, though some may find the dramatic courtroom revelation of the murderer overly theatrical. –Publishers Weekly
The Likeness - Tana French
French’s debut novel, In the Woods (2007), introduced Dublin Murder Squad detective Cassie Maddox and earned unanimous critical praise. Cassie is back, and French has written another winner. The body of a young woman is found in the ruins of an old stone cottage in a dying village outside of Dublin, and the dead woman and Cassie are virtual twins. Lacking suspects or leads, the victim is reported by the police to be injured but alive, leaving Cassie to step into the dead woman’s life as a Trinity College graduate student and the housemate of four other students. Despite the tensions of being undercover, Cassie quickly learns to love her quirky, insular housemates and her new life in a once-grand house, even as the Murder Squad investigation yields little. Someone stabbed her doppelganger to death, and Cassie must find the killer. The Likeness has everything: memorable characters, crisp dialogue, shrewd psychological insight, mounting tension, a palpable sense of place, and wonderfully evocative, painterly prose. In the Woods was an Edgar Award finalist; this one just might go one step further. --Thomas Gaughan, Booklist
Silesian Station - David Downing
John Russell’s life is complicated. The half-English, half-American journalist, who lives in Berlin, has a son from a German ex-wife and is dating a German film actress. His work is made difficult by Germany’s imminent invasion of Poland—but that’s not the half of it. Although he is an amateur at espionage, circumstances force him to become a spy for the Americans, the Germans, and the Russians. And he has taken a personal interest in the case of a Jewish country girl who’s gone missing in the big city, too. Three-fourths espionage novel, one-fourth mystery, Downing’s sequel to Zoo Station (2007) vividly evokes Europe before World War II, both the larger political picture and the routines of daily life under dictatorship. His research shows—sometimes the details slow the storytelling (so many railway timetables, so many landmarks)—and the characters aren’t quite as interesting as they could be. The story eventually picks up steam, though, and while Downing isn’t the best of this breed, he is a solid recommendation to readers who have finished their Fursts. --Keir Graff, Booklist
High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed - Michael Kodas
"High Crimes is both fascinating and terrifying. As someone who shies away from climbing stairs, let alone mountains, I was completely blown away by the high-stakes drama and intrigue of this Everest story. Kodas's vivid writing kept me up for two straight nights, and my heart is still racing! The story is tragic, yet somehow also uplifting--a true masterpiece!" -- Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and Rigged
New Books - Non-fiction
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House - Charles Osgood
Charles Osgood, one of America's favorite news personalities, offers a hilarious compendium of anecdotes from the last seventy years of presidential campaigns. With anecdotes from Harry Truman to JFK to George W. Bush, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House captures the wit and humor of the campaign trail. Culled from speeches, interviews, press conferences, as well as articles written by and about the candidates--no source is left untapped.
From Bob Dole telling reporters after a loss in the primary that "I slept like a baby--every two hours I woke up and cried," and Barry Goldwater's comment that his talkative opponent Hubert Humphreys "has been clocked at 275 words a minute with gusts up to 340," to Adlai Stevenson declaring that "If I talk over the people's head, Ike must be talking under their feet," this is the go-to source for campaign humor.
April 14, 2009
New Books - fiction
Promises in Death - J.D. Robb
NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas always does her best to solve every one of her cases, but her latest assignment just might be her most difficult yet. Not only was the victim, Amarylis Coltraine, a cop who was killed with her own weapon, but the case also takes on an added personal dimension since Amarylis was Chief Medical Examiner Morris’ lover, and Morris is one of Eve’s best friends. When the killer sends Eve a package containing Coltraine’s badge, weapon, and a taunting note suggesting that she might be next on the list, Eve finds herself trying to untangle a case that may be linked to her own past. All of the familiar ingredients Robb’s millions of readers expect to fall neatly into place—a cleverly constructed plot, an intriguing cast of secondary characters, and a sexy romance between tough-as-nails Eve and her mysterious billionaire husband Roarke—do so in the 30th gritty, suspenseful addition to Robb’s best-selling, futuristic police-procedural series. --John Charles, Booklist
Run for Your Life - James Patterson
A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on New York City, killing the powerful and the arrogant. His message is clear: remember your manners or suffer the consequences! For some, it seems that the rich are finally getting what they deserve. For New York's elite, it is a call to terror. Only one man can tackle such a high-profile case: Detective Mike Bennett. The pressure is enough for anyone, but Mike also has to care for his 10 children-all of whom have come down with virulent flu at once!
Dear American Airlines: A Novel - Jonathan Miles
This crisp yowl of a first novel from Miles, who covers books for Men's Journal and cocktails for the New York Times, finds despairing yet effusive litterateur Benjamin Ford midair in midlife crisis. Bennie is en route from New York, where he shares a cramped apartment with his stroke-disabled mother and her caretaker, to L.A., where he will attend his daughter Stella's wedding. He gets stranded at O'Hare when his connecting flight—along with all others—is unaccountably canceled. In the long, empty hours amid a marooned crowd, Bennie's demand for a refund quickly becomes a scathing yet oddly joyful reflection on his difficult life, and on the Polish novel he is translating. Bennie writes lightly of his dark years of drinking, of his failed marriages, about his mother's descent into suicidal madness and about her marriage to Bennie's father, a survivor of a Nazi labor camp. Bennie's father recited Polish poetry for solace during Bennie's childhood, inadvertently setting Bennie's life course; Bennie's command of language as he describes his fellow strandees and his riotous embrace of his own feelings will have readers rooting for him. By the time flights resume, Miles has masterfully taken Bennie from grim resignation to the dazzling exhilaration of the possible. –Publishers Weekly
New Books – Non-fiction
Breakthrough: Eight Steps to Wellness - Suzanne Somers
Life-Altering Secrets from Today’s Cutting-Edge Doctors and the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Ageless. Today’s most trusted advocate of anti-aging medicine, Suzanne Somers, deepens her commitment to helping people lead healthier, happier lives by opening their eyes to cutting-edge, proven remedies and preventative care that most doctors just aren’t talking about with patients: longevity medicine and the more progressive study of bio-identical hormones.
Two Weeks of Life: A Memoir of Love, Death and Politics - Eleanor Clift
In this elegant, heartrending account of the final choices we make, journalist Clift (Founding Sisters) juxtaposes the death of two people, one close to her and the other a national cause célèbre. Clift's husband of 20 years, Tom Brazaitis, also a journalist, was diagnosed with metastatic kidney cancer in 1999, and after undergoing various debilitating treatments, by March 2005 he lay dying in his home hospice. Meanwhile, the fate of Terri Schiavo, a woman in a permanent vegetative state in a Florida hospice, hung in the balance, decided by courts and President Bush himself. Shiavo's husband and parents were battling over the decision to cease feeding her by tube, and their family custody case turned into a crusade led by vociferous fundamentalist Christians. In diary format, Clift recounts the history of Tom's illness and their relationship while weaving in references to the Shiavo case and touching knowledgeably on the history of the hospice movement. The two main narratives work surprisingly well together, the tenderness and pathos of the first serving to illuminate the complex moral issues of the second, and vice versa. The result is a moving portrait. - Publishers Weekly
Crush the Cell: How to Defeat Terrorism without Terrorizing Ourselves- Michael A. Sheehan
“Michael Sheehan has written the most sensible and coherent approach to combating terrorism to date, and at just the right time. He is a man of unique credentials and perspective, someone who has been dealing with the problem in one way or another his entire life and his assessment of the threat and prescriptions for dealing with it are clear-eyed, grounded in hard experience, and convincing. I hope whoever next occupies the Oval Office first reads this book.”—Mark Bowden, New York Times bestselling author of Black Hawk Down, Killing Pablo and Guests of the Ayatollah
April 7, 2009
Books by Japanese Authors – New on the Shelf
(Provided by a grant from Toyota Corporation)
North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter - Sakie Yokota
“North Korea Kidnapped my Daughter" by Mrs. Sakie Yokota is a deeply moving personal account that reminds us all of the very real human costs of the unresolved historical legacies in East Asia." --"L. Gordon Flake, The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation". "This profoundly touching testimony of a mother's love for her daughter, and her unwillingness to give up the search to find her, should be read by anyone wanting to learn the depths of horror and depravity to which the government of North Korea will sink in its quest to perpetuate its horrific dictatorship. The case of Megumi Yokota cries out for attention." --"Thor Halvorssen, President, Human Rights Foundation
Outlet - Randy Taguchi
A young Japanese finance writer tries to uncover the truth behind her older brother's mysterious death in Taguchi's bizarre, provocative and sometimes grisly debut novel, which was a bestseller in Japan. – Publishers Weekly
Parasite Eve - Hideaki Sena and Tyran Grillo
Japanese pharmacologist Sena's biochemical horror novel, which won the first Japan Horror Novel Award, has lost something in translation. Notwithstanding the many academic footnotes, the author fails to suspend disbelief in the book's outlandish premise; that mitochondria, sub cellular organelles, have secretly evolved and developed an intelligence superior to Homo sapiens. Alternating between past and present, the story opens with a car crash that imperils the life of Kiyomi, the wife of scientist Toshiaki Nagashima; that "accident" sets in motion the mitochondria's elaborate scheme involving a parasitic kidney transplant to inherit the planet. The plot reaches almost farcical levels when the cell component manipulates organic matter to form pod like human simulacra, complete with fake genitalia. Readers expecting the thrills or suspense of Curt Siodmak's classic Donovan's Brain or even Michael Crichton's Prey will come away disappointed. –Publishers Weekly
The Poison Ape: A Shinjuku Shark Novel - Arimasa Osawa and Deborah Iwabuchi
"Japanese screenwriter and novelist Osawa might find good company with television writers/producers like David Milch (NYPD Blue) or Barry Levinson (Homicide: Life on the Streets) for his depictions on television and in print of hard-hitting action and gritty police life. His popular detective series, now available in English, gives hard-boiled fans and police drama enthusiasts what they are hungry for."
"- Library Journal
Promenade of the Gods – Koji Suziki
It begins with a woman's search to find her husband, who disappears after watching a TV show. She enlists the aid of her husband's best friend, and together they discover that the famous female personality of the TV show disappeared after the same evening's broadcast as well. The duo's search leads to a battle within a religious cult. Each answer brings only more questions, until the story's stunning final solution is revealed.
A Rabbit’s Eyes - Kenjiro Haitani
The first year on the job a young idealistic teacher, tries to persuade a shy, virtually autistic boy call Tetsun to give up his obsession for flies. She changes her mind when she becomes aware of the breadth and depth of his knowledge of various flies. When a local food-processing factory begins to suffer from a fly problem, it is young Tetsun to the rescue, vindicating his teacher's belief in him.
Ring (Ring Trilogy) - Koji Suzuki
From its eerie opening to its chilling conclusion, this novel ... will keep readers glued to its pages.- Library Journal
Saying Yes to Japan: How Outsiders are Reviving a Trillion Dollar Services Market - Tim Clark and Carl Kay
"From financial services to funeral services, Clark and Kay provide a fascinating tour of important developments in Japan’s service economy.” Shinsei Bank Vice Chairman Thierry Porté "…systematically debunks the myth that Japan’s economy is a well-oiled machine..” New York Times business writer Ken Belson Review: "This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand and profit from inside opportunities in the world's largest creditor nation.” Merrill Lynch Japan Chief Economist Jesper Koll
Sayonara, Gangsters - Genichiro Takahashi
Takahashi's first novel to be translated into English can be amusing, sexy, moving, intelligent and maddeningly obtuse-often all at the same time, which is exactly what Takahashi, acclaimed author of postmodernist romps and former porn director, intends. Somewhere in a future time and place, people have no names. Lovers find this inconvenient, so they begin naming each other. The two main characters settle on the following names: the woman is the Nakajima Miyuki Song Book, and the man, who teaches at a poetry school, is Sayonara, Gangsters. Their cat, which prefers milk-and-vodka and is a great fan of Aristotle, is named Henry IV. The first of the book's three parts tells the story of Sayonara, Gangster’s former lover, "the woman," and their daughter, named both Caraway and Green Pinky. – Publishers Weekly
The Siege of Rhodes - Nanami Shiono and Carolyn L. Temporelli
In this, the second installment in The East Mediterranean Trilogy, Nanami Shiono weaves another rich and fascinating narrative around a key battle between Islam and Christendom. An inspiring portrait of nobility and courage in the face of overwhelming odds, it also offers a rare glimpse into the history of one of the most important knightly orders, one that helped establish the tradition of medical care in the West as we know it today.
The Toyota Leaders: An Executive Guide - Masaaki Sato and Justin Bonsey
Six decades ago, Toyota was an embarrassment. Today, they are the auto- industry leader. The Toyota Leaders: An Executive Guide tells how they did it, and in such a way that allows readers to apply the lessons. Discover how Toyota is more than just a series of good business moves, but a culture first put into place by its founders and built on through the years. Not a corporate history, Sato uses Toyota's past to contextualize his discussion as he focuses on the company's unique business strategies.
Translucent Tree - Nobuko Takagi and Deborah Iwabuchi
Chigiri Yamazaki is a divorced single mother who has returned to Tsurugi City with her 11 year old daughter to care for her ailing father--a famous sword maker whose business has completely faltered. It falls upon Chigiri to keep dept collectors at bay. Go Imai, a freelance documentary maker, is on a business trip from Tokyo and has decided to stop by this little town of Tsurugi, where he had come to do a story on Chigiri's father 25 years ago. Go reunites with Chigiri, and the two begin a love story of epic consequence and passion reminiscent of the works of Marguerite Duras and Alice Munro, set against the backdrop of bucolic Japan.
Twinkle Twinkle - Kaori Ekuni
This is a savvy novel dealing with city life, commodity culture, marriage, forgiveness, and acceptance.
Winter Sleep - Kenzo Kitakata
A story of an ex-con painter who, in searching to elevate his art, takes on two students to literally explosive effect.
Zero Over Berlin - Joh Sasaki, Hiroko Yoda, and Matt Alt
A major Japanese talent in detective and thriller fiction appears in English with this excellent, compact WWII tale.