September 30,2008
New Books - Non-Fiction
Mastering the Art of Asset Allocation – CFA, David Darst
Mastering the Art of Asset Allocation focuses on the knowledge and nuances that will help you achieve asset allocation success. Asset allocation authority David Darst builds upon his bestselling The Art of Asset Allocation to explore every aspect of asset allocation from foundations through correlations, providing you with detailed techniques for understanding and implementing asset allocation in any portfolio.
The Flat Tax – Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka
Here's the book that started the flat tax debate back in 1985, updated in an edition for the 1990s. Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka present their plan as fair, efficient, simple, and workable. All income in the United States would be taxed once at the rate of 19 percent, and there would be generous allowances for families. This system and its postcard-sized tax form would wipe out $100 billion in annual compliance costs and demolish the Washington culture of lobbyists, whose entire industry depends upon tampering with the rules of free enterprise.
Sin Patron: Stories from Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories – Forward by Naomi Klein
The worker-run factories of Argentina offer an inspirational example of a struggle for social change that has achieved a real victory against corporate globalization.
Giving – Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton titles his thin volume Giving because it extols the virtues of volunteering time and money to worthy causes. But it could just as well have been called Adjusting, as the former president seeks to define his new role while Hillary Rodham Clinton pursues his old office. "Now that we've switched places," he writes, it is his turn to influence events without government portfolio. And perhaps from a perch no man has ever occupied. In Giving, readers and voters in effect get a preview of what a Bill Clinton-run East Wing might look like -- focused on fighting poverty, disease and climate change around the world and rallying the mighty and the meek to noble goals. – Washington Post
Myth of the Hanging Tree: Stories of Crime and Punishment in Territorial New Mexico – Robert Tores
At first glance, the topic may seem downright morbid, and in a sense it is, but these violent attempts at justice are embedded in our perception of America's western experience. In tracing territorial New Mexico's efforts to enforce law, Tórrez challenges the myths and popular perceptions about hangings and lynching in this corner of the Wild West.
The Cannon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science – Natalie Angier
Pulitzer-winning science writer Angier (Woman: An Intimate Geography) distills everything you've forgotten from your high school science classes and more into one enjoyable book, a guide for the scientifically perplexed adult who wants to understand what those guys in lab coats on the news are babbling about, in the realms of physics, chemistry, biology, geology or astronomy. – Publisher’s Weekly
The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives – Leonard Mlodinow
In The Drunkard’s Walk Leonard Mlodinow provides readers with a wonderfully readable guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives. With insight he shows how the hallmarks of chance are apparent in the course of events all around us. The understanding of randomness has brought about profound changes in the way we view our surroundings, and our universe. I am pleased that Leonard has skillfully explained this important branch of mathematics. --Stephen Hawking
Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart – Ian Ayers
"Super Crunchers shows that data-driven decision making is not just revolutionizing baseball and business; it's changing the way that education policy, health care reimbursements, even tax regulations are crafted. Super Crunching is truly reinventing government. Politicians love to tout policy proposals, but they rarely come back and tell you which ones succeeded and which ones failed. Data-driven policy making forces government to ask the bottom line question of 'What works.' That's an approach we can all support."—John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress
New Books - Fiction
When Day Breaks – Mary Jane ClarkThe German Bride – Joanna Hershon
Hershon spins the tale of a German Jewish woman named Eva Frank who, after a hasty marriage in 1865, leaves her wealthy father's mansion in Berlin to pursue a new life among the "low mud-cake hovels" of the American West. To the many expressions of this threshold experience in American immigration literature, by authors from Anzia Yezerskia to Jhumpa Lahiri, Hershon adds an eloquent voice.” -Washington Post
The Appeal – John Grisham
The Appeal is a book-length lesson in how greed and big business have corrupted our electoral and judicial systems. Grisham's characters are over-the-top.
Shadow Music – Julie Garwood
Throughout her acclaimed writing career, Julie Garwood has captivated readers with characters who are compelling, daring, and bursting with life. Now one of the most popular novelists of our time proudly returns to her beloved historical romance roots–in a thrilling tale of love, murder, adventure, and mystery set against the haunting landscape of medieval Scotland.
Bright Shiny Morning – James Frey
Set in contemporary Los Angeles, Bright Shiny Morning is not a cohesive narrative but a compilation of vignettes of several characters (if this were a memoir, we'd call them composites) who have come to the city to fulfill their dreams. Some examples: Dylan and Maddie, madly-in-love Midwestern runaways who survive through the kindness of near strangers; Esperanza, a Mexican-American maid tortured by a body that could have been drawn by R. Crumb; a group of drunks and junkies who create a community behind the shacks on Venice Beach; Amberton Parker, a hugely famous married movie star who is secretly—you guessed it—gay. Interspersed with these rotating portraits are random historical and statistical factoids (which better have been fact-checked, even if there is a nudge-nudge, wink-wink disclaimer up front: Nothing in this book should be considered accurate or reliable) about L.A.
Coyota – Martha Egan
Nena Herrera-Casey is the coyota, the youngest, in her large Mexican-American family. Her life in Albuquerque seems placid enough, teaching Spanish part-time at the University and selling handicrafts imported from south-of-the-border at the flea market. But Nena has nightmares, vivid, chilling, violent and recurring. When she overhears two Drug Enforcement Agents' whispered conversation, she becomes unwittingly entangled in a mysterious "accident", a fiery plane crash that kills a former student. Was the conversation she overheard actually the plot to murder him? As her life unravels, rogue DEA agents conspire to set her up on bogus drug charges. And her worst nightmare stalks her through the Mexican desert.
The May Trees – Annie Dillard
Annie Dillard's books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event, the business of eons and galaxies, however persistently we mistake its local manifestations for mere dust, mere sea, mere self, mere thought. The beauty and obsession of her work are always the integration of being, at the grandest scales of our knowledge of it, with the intimate and momentary sense of life lived. The Maytrees is about wonder -- in the terms of this novel, life's one truth. It is wonder indeed that is invoked here, vast and elusive and inexhaustible and intimate and timeless. There is a resolute this-worldliness that startles the reader again and again with recognition. How much we overlook! What a world this is, after all, and how profound on its own terms.
-Reviewed by Marilynne Robinson of the Washington Post
Critical – Robin Cook
Last seen in 2006's Crisis, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery diligently investigates an abrupt rise in infection deaths at the start of bestseller Cook's lively new thriller. All the deaths can be traced to three Manhattan hospitals owned by Angels Healthcare. Unbeknownst to Montgomery, Angels, which specializes in high-profit surgeries of amply insured patients, is on the verge of going public and can't risk any bad publicity…from Publisher’s Weekly
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus "lovesick ghetto nerd" with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is also the story of a multi-generational family curse that courses through the book, leaving troubles and tragedy in its wake. This was the most dynamic, entertaining, and achingly heartfelt novel I've read in a long time. My head is still buzzing with the memory of dozens of killer passages that I dog-eared throughout the book. The rope-a-dope narrative is funny, hip, tragic, soulful, and bursting with desire. Make some room for Oscar Wao on your bookshelf--you won't be disappointed. --Brad Thomas Parsons
September 23, 2008
New Books - Non-Fiction
Vastu: Transcendental Home Design in Harmony with Nature – Sherri Silverman
This book is delightfully illustrated. It’s clearly detailed information explains time honored ways that will nourish our lives. We discover the importance of incorporating the five elements and directions into our architecture to truly establish sanctuary. How important is it for you to enhance your relationships, your inner peace and your joy? If that is a desire in your life `vastu' is a powerful method for your transition. This book, then, is a must have! -- Mystic Pop Magazine
The Personal Aura – Dora van Gelder Kunz
A fascinating look at the emotional energy field.
Mystery of 2012: Predictions, Prophecies, Possibilities – Gregg Branden, et. al
What Will Happen in 2012? Will there be an age of awakening, a new step in human evolution, or even an end to the world we know? For years, archaeologists have known the Mayan calendar predicts this date as the end of an era on Earth. Today, more and more researchers, spiritual explorers, and even scientists are witnessing signs that 2012 will mark a critical shift in the history of our planet. Now, the leading authorities on the 2012 phenomenon present their insights about this enigmatic date.
Featuring essays from 25 renowned experts on the question of 2012, this invaluable anthology examines the mystery from every angle--spiritual, economic, ecological, and scientific—
Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny – Suze Orman
Money maven Suze Orman's latest book, Women & Money addresses the complicated (and often dysfunctional) relationship women have with personal finance. Orman's direct, non-condescending style is perfect for this subject matter--she begins with the premise that "Women can invest, save, and handle debt as well and skillfully as any man" and then tackles the important question--"So why don't they?" Designed to educate and inspire, Women & Money also offers a "Save Yourself Plan," a five-month program that "delivers genuine long-term financial security." Want to know more? Watch a video message from Suze below, and take a gander at the first chapter of Women & Money--you'll be "controlling your destiny" in no time. --Daphne Durham
The 25% Cash Machine – Bryan Perry
With more than two decades of real-world money management experience, author Bryan Perry knows what it takes to gain above-average returns in a competitive investment environment. And now, with The 25% Cash Machine, he wants to show you how.
Winning our Energy Independence – S. David Freeman
Freeman has an answer to winning the energy war, and everyone should listen. S. David Freeman has had the ear of federal officials since the days of JFK. He helped bring about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Nixon. He headed the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest nuclear program, under Jimmy Carter. From New York to Los Angeles, Freeman has headed agencies and utilities companies, continually working to make utilities more environmentally safe, more efficient, and more cost-friendly to the customer. He authored Energy: The New Era.
A Year Without “Made in China” – Sara Bongiorri
Journalist Bongiorni, on a post-Christmas day mired deep in plastic toys and electronics equipment, makes up her mind to live for a year without buying any products made in China, a decision spurred less by notions of idealism or fair trade-though she does note troubling statistics on job loss and trade deficits-than simply "to see if it can be done." In this more personal vein, Bongiorni tells often funny, occasionally humiliating stories centering around her difficulty procuring sneakers, sunglasses, DVD players and toys for two young children and a skeptical husband.
Marshmallows – Eileen Talanian
No girl or Boy Scout has had marshmallows like these! Marshmallows take the classic favorite to a mouthwatering new level. Featuring over 100 recipes for making your own marshmallows and treats to go with them, the book presents creations ranging from the family favorite S'Mores to the uniquely delicious Blood Orange and Rosemary and Zinfandel Fluff. There's even a recipe for a champagne marshmallow wedding cake! Marshmallows also supply readers with helpful sections on ingredients, equipment, tips and techniques, a history of the marshmallow, and much more.
Put Your Life on a Diet – Gregory Paul Johnson
Put Your Life on a Diet: Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet is the ultimate resource for living a simpler life as well as leaving behind a smaller environmental footprint and living a healthier life for you and the planet. In this book author Gregory Paul Johnson guides us in five significant areas-housing, food, technology, utilities, and transportation-teaching us how to create a simpler life, reducing stress in our own lives and harm to the environment. Due to the pressures and complexity of life today, the search for simplicity is being sought after like never before. Put Your Life on a Diet: Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet offers the tools to escape the "cookie-cutter" existence so many are living today and find peace in a simpler lifestyle.
Historic New Mexico Churches – Annie Lux and Daniel Nadelbach
Churches have played a major role in New Mexico's culture and history since the earliest days of its colonization. Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 photographs by Daniel Nadelbach, Historic New Mexico Churches tells the story of New Mexico through its churches: their history and legends, and the people who built them.
New Books - Fiction
Duma Key – Stephen King
It would be impossible to convey the wonder and the horror of Stephen King's latest novel in just a few words. Suffice it to say that Duma Key, the story of Edgar Freemantle and his recovery from the terrible nightmare-inducing accident that stole his arm and ended his marriage, is Stephen King's most brilliant novel to date (outside of the Dark Tower novels, in which case each is arguably his best work). – Daphne Durham
The Boat – Nam Lee
From a Colombian slum to the streets of Tehran, seven characters in seven stories struggle with very particular Swords of Damocles in Pushcart Prize winner Le's accomplished debut. In Halflead Bay, an Australian mother begins an inevitable submission to multiple sclerosis as her teenage son prepares for the biggest soccer game of his life. The narrator of Meeting Elise, a successful but ailing artist in Manhattan, mourns his dead lover as he anticipates meeting his daughter for the first time since she was an infant…Reed Elsevier
The End of Manners: A Novel – Francesca Marciano
“In Marciano’s brisk third novel, an unlikely pair of women is dispatched to war-torn Afghanistan circa 2004 to report a story about young women attempting suicide rather than entering into arranged marriages. . . . With a fluid mix of gritty irony and palpable fear, Marciano’s evocation of landscape and environment brilliantly captures a devastated Kabul, a messy war and the soulless arms dealers and cold-blooded mercenaries drawn to the fractured nation by the lure of money. Equally intense is her compassionate depiction of a culture where taking photos of women is forbidden and religious doctrine dictates the way of life in ‘a world of a far greater insanity’ than Maria [the narrator] had envisioned. This work of fiction, rooted in harsh reality, tackles moral complexities with powerful self-assurance.” –Publishers Weekly
The Faraday Girls – Monica McInerney
With the arrival of baby Maggie, the Faraday household increases to six girls and one hapless father, yet there is a seventh Faraday woman whose absence is a keenly felt burden. That Tessa Faraday died too young, leaving her husband to raise their five daughters was unbearable enough, but when teenage Clementine, the youngest, announces she's pregnant and that she intends to raise the baby with her sisters' help, Tessa's absence becomes overwhelming. Though they have been locked away since her death, Tessa's private diaries prove to be an irresistible lure to Sadie, who betrays the family trust by reading them in hopes that their mother, who had achieved iconic status in death, would reveal the secrets of perfect motherhood. What Sadie discovers, however, ends up shattering the family.
The Return: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery – Hakan Nesser
Nesser's latest contemporary police procedural, set in his Swedish homeland, is an excellent puzzler that will remind many of the Inspector Morse series. Nesser's sleuth, Detective Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, is on the eve of major surgery when a baffling murder case is dumped on his team… Reed Elsevier
Making Money – Terry Pratchett
Reprieved confidence trickster Moist von Lipwig, who reorganized the Ankh-Morpork Post Office in 2004's Going Postal, turns his attention to the Royal Mint in this splendid Discworld adventure. It seems that the aristocratic families who run the mint are running it into the ground, and benevolent despot Lord Vetinari thinks Moist can do better.
The Front – Patricia Cornwell
Monique Lamont, a politically ambitious D.A., uses a speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., to launch an implausible anticrime initiative she's labeled No Neighbor Left Behind ("The decline of neighborhoods is potentially as destructive as global warming"). Lamont orders her main investigator, Win Garano, to reopen the case of a blind English woman, Janie Brolin, murdered in Watertown in 1962.
The Ghost War – Alex Berenson
Maverick CIA agent John Wells confronts a significant threat in this pulse-pounding sequel from New York Times reporter Berenson. When the CIA's efforts to extract Dr. Sung Kwan, a North Korean scientist and an invaluable source on Kim Jong Il's nuclear ambitions, result in the deaths of Kwan and the rescue team, Wells's significant other, Jennifer Exley, searches to identify the person in U.S. intelligence who compromised Kwan's security. Meanwhile, Wells returns to Afghanistan, the scene of much of the action in The Faithful Spy, to find out what outside country has been helping the Taliban reassert itself.
Playing for Pizza – John Grisham
“Football in Italy? Who knew? Grisham means to have a sweet time with this story of a fallen NFL quarterback. And he does.” —Daily News (New York)
Body Surfing – Anita Shreve
Deceptive love and stark betrayal form the icy core of this dark 12th novel from Oprah-anointed (The Pilot's Wife), Orange Prize finalist (The Weight of Water) Shreve. Set adrift at 29 by the sudden death of her second husband (her first divorced her), smart, underemployed Sydney (no last name) signs on for a quiet New England oceanfront summer of tutoring 18-year-old Julie, the intellectually slow but artistically talented and strikingly beautiful daughter of the fractious Edwards clan.
September 16, 2008
New Books - Fiction
Where Memories Lie – Deborah Crombie
When a diamond brooch stolen decades ago turns up for sale at an upscale London auction house, the brooch's owner, Dr. Erika Rosenthal, a retired academic who escaped Nazi Germany with her philosopher husband, David, during WWII, turns for help to her friend Insp. Gemma James in Crombie's lively 12th mystery to feature Gemma and Scotland Yard's Duncan Kincaid (after 2007's Water Like a Stone).
Fearless Fourteen – Janet Evanovich
Personal vendettas, hidden treasure, and a monkey named Carl will send bounty hunter Stephanie Plum on her most explosive adventure yet.
Love the One You’re With – Emily Griffin
Griffin’s talent lies in taking relatable situations and injecting with enough wit and suspense to make them feel fresh. The cat-and-mouse game between Ellen and Leo lights up these pages, their flirtation as dangerously addictive as a high-speed car chase. The ending isn't explosive, but what Ellen learns is quietly thrilling: Sometimes, you have to do whatever it takes to be with the one you love. -People
A Gentleman’s Game: A Queen & Country Novel – Grey Rucka
This is a little tricky, so pay attention. This novel is based on Rucka's comic-book series, Queen & Country, which was in turn inspired by (or perhaps directly based on) a 25-year-old British television series called The Sandbaggers. The comic-book series chronicles the adventures of Tara Chace, a Special Intelligence Service agent (otherwise known as a minder or a sandbagger) who takes on dangerous missions for the British government. In the novel, she is tasked with the assassination of the mastermind behind a series of terrorist attacks that took the lives of more than 300 British citizens. – Booklist
The Blackbird Papers – Ian Smith
A rainy night . . . A stranded motorist . . . A Good Samaritan passerby … a Nobel Prize–winning professor . . . The setup for a shocking murder designed to cover up an even more sinister crime . . .
The Blackbird Papers marks the debut of Ian Smith, a major new talent in crime fiction, and of Sterling Bledsoe, his smart and occasionally combative sleuth.
Celebutantes – Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper
In Celebutantes, two daughters of Hollywood, Amanda Goldberg and Ruthanna Hopper, take us through the Oscar rituals of that mad and magical week with all the inside knowledge that they have grown up knowing. They are remarkably adroit and witty story tellers. Beneath the utter sophistication and gloriously natural name-dropping, there beats a very warm heart. –Dominick Dunne
Hoare and the Headless Captains – Wilder Perkins
There's treason and skullduggery afoot in Perkins's second novel featuring the redoubtable Captain Bartholomew Hoare. At the story's start, Hoare, whose voice has been reduced to a permanent whisper by an injury -dream of taking command of a new ship. His charge is to make the lowly Royal Duke seaworthy without actually going to sea, and to bring its motley crew of men and women into seafaring shape. An unusual vessel, the Royal Duke is actually a mobile intelligence-gathering operation for King George III. So when two naval officers are found beheaded in a moor near Dorchester known for occult practices, Hoare is assigned to investigate the murders… -Publishers weekly
Hard Revolution – George Pelecanos
It was a time when cars came dressed in chrome, white girls followed the Supremes, and a man in Memphis brandished a gun. On the streets of D.C., where once people of all creeds and colors managed to live together, a tide of anger and confusion is taking young men in its wake. In his early twenties, Derek Strange is one of those men, trying to start a career as a rookie cop. But his own brother is on the other side of a divide, and around him a deadly drama is unfolding. Three white men in a Chevy Nova are going to rob a bank. A black man with a knife is going to commit a murder. And then shots ring out in Memphis for Derek Strange, for his family, friends, and enemies, this is the time that will make him the man he is eventually going to be. And this is the revolution that has just begun....
Dead Famous – Carol O’Connell
O'Connell's post-feminist detective Kathleen Mallory returns full-throttle for an eighth grisly urban crime saga. And O'Connell's prose-sharp, gritty and streetwise-is in top form. In her previous case (2002's Crime School), Mallory solved a very personal murder and faced the doubts of coworkers about her competence. Now she's in total control, overseeing the recuperation of old friend and partner Riker, victim of an arrest-related shooting (she sets up a bogus fund to send him disability payments) and staying two steps ahead of a belligerent FBI agent named Marvin Argus.
Someone Not Really Her Mother – Harriet Scott Chessman
"How long can a war last?" This question—metaphorical, physical and above all, emotional—sits at the heart of this brief novel by Chessman (Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper; Ohio Angels), centered around Hannah Pearl, a French-born World War II survivor now residing in a Connecticut nursing home, where she is increasingly prey to memory loss. The author uses Hannah's condition as the starting place for a series of finely crafted meditations that blur the lines between past and present, English and French. This technique allows for much melancholy confusion. –Publishers Weekly
The Indian Clerk – David Leavitt
David Leavitt's intelligent, ambitious new novel based on historical fact begins in 1936 with an aging professor at a podium. The renowned British mathematician G.H. Hardy has come to Harvard to lecture on the life and work of his friend Srinivasa Ramanujan, considered by many to have possessed one of the most beautiful mathematical minds of the past few centuries. A decade younger than Hardy (who was born in 1877), Ramanujan grew up in poverty near Madras in south India. He was barely noticed by the colonial establishment before Hardy and others, excited by letters from this erratic genius, brought him to Cambridge University. For the English dons, the younger scholar promised a fresh way of seeing number theory. For Ramanujan, the journey was an opportunity to find legitimacy and recognition unavailable to him at home. His years in England, 1914-1919, a period covered by the bulk of this novel, were triumphant but compromised by war, bigotry and his own illness. - From the Washington Post, Reviewed by David Mason
Pyro: A Novel of Suspense – Earl Emerson
When Paul Wollf was 10, he and his older brother, Neil, killed the man who murdered their mother. Now, 19 years later, Neil is still in prison and Wollf is a lieutenant with the Seattle Fire Department. Wollf is a tormented and guilt-ridden man: a hot-shot risk taker with a violent, uncontrollable temper. The department brass wants to fire him, but can't figure out how to can a hero. The complications get even hotter when Wolff's district is plagued by arson fires similar to the one that killed his firefighter father 25 years before… -Publishers Weekly
New Books - Non-Fiction
Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human Evolution – Donna Hart and Robert Sussman
Contrary to the familiar image of the aggressive, spear-wielding "caveman," our hominid ancestors were more hunted than hunters, more preyed upon than slayers of large predators, contend wildlife conservationist Hart and anthropologist Sussman. The authors note that as anthropologists and primatologists have studied various primate species in the African and Asian rainforests, many myths have been dispelled about how aggressive these primates (who resemble our ancestors) were and how they reacted to predation.
Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt - David McCullough
Mornings on Horseback is about the world of the young Theodore Roosevelt. It is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household (and rarefied social world) in which he was raised.
Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision - Thom Hartmann
As you read deeply in this book, you'll see things you hadn't realized were there--in everything from advertising to political rants. You'll learn the three ways people absorb information and how to appeal to each to get your message across, the kinds of words to use when trying to sway people and the kinds to avoid, why politics is all about stories and how knowing what those stories are will help you understand and connect with your audience, and much more.
September 9, 2008
Public Television Programs on DVD
Journey to the Planet Earth – A Series of 10 DVDsThe State of the Rivers of Destiny
Journeys to 4 major river systems: 1) The Mississippi 2) The Amazon 3) The Jordan 4) The Mekong
Land of Plenty, Land of Want
The Urban Explosion
On the Brink
Seas of Grass
Hot zones
Future Conditional
New Books - Fiction
A Prisoner of Birth – Jeffrey Archer
Four upper-crust friends from Cambridge University known as the Musketeers conspire to frame Danny Cartwright, an illiterate London East Ender, for the murder of Danny's oldest friend and brother-in-law to be, Bernie Wilson. The outcome of the intriguing trial, which pits a relatively novice defense lawyer against a skilled prosecutor, is a 22-year sentence for Danny. In maximum-security Belmarsh prison, Danny is lucky enough to share a cell with Sir Nicholas Moncrieff, the book's Abbé Faria figure, who teaches him to read and write. In a trick familiar to those who know their Dumas, Danny escapes by impersonating Moncrieff … - Reed Elsevier, Inc.
Tribute – Nora Roberts
Roberts sets her underwhelming latest in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, where former child star Cilla McGowan rehabs her famous grandmother's long-neglected farm. Cilla's movie-star grandmother, the Marilyn Monroe–like Janet Hardy, who died mysteriously on the farm at age 39, haunts Cilla as she transforms the former hideaway of the rich and famous into habitable living space and tries to resolve whether Janet committed suicide or was murdered. –Publisher’s Weekly
Chasing Harry Winston – Lauren Weisenberger
The bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada and Everyone Worth Knowing returns with the story of three best friends who vow to change their entire lives...and change them fast.
Escape – Robert Tanebaum
"It is a rare novel that both thrills and cuts you to the bone. Robert K. Tanenbaum's latest thriller, ESCAPE, slices even deeper, chilling down to the marrow with a story as topical and real as the pages in your hand. As challenging as it is riveting, here is a story that delves into the root of evil and leaves one questioning where morality ends and insanity begins. It will leave you breathless." - James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain
Death Angel – Linda Howard
In Linda Howard’s gifted hands, second chances, unexpected romance, and unrelenting action combine into a riveting new novel of suspense. In Death Angel, bad girls can wake up and trust their hearts; bad guys can fight for what’s right . . . and dying just might be the only way to change one’s life.
Tail Spin (FBI Thriller No. 12) – Catherine Coulter
“Coulter, one of the best romantic suspense authors, is in top form, providing readers with a pulse-pounding mystery that continues until the breathless conclusion.” --Library Journal
The Sorrows of an American – Siri Hustvedt
"I’m lost," a patient tells her psychiatrist in Hustvedt’s fourth novel. "I’m cold. I’m all alone." She might be speaking for all the characters in this somber meditation on the isolation of urban professionals, in which daily routines are nothing but "pillars in an architecture of need," erotic love is ephemeral, and friendship is the only source of consolation in a post-9/11 New York where everyone is always having nightmares. Hustvedt’s interest in the ways in which language can form both a bridge and a barrier between individuals leads her into digressions on Plato, Kierkegaard, and theories of psychoanalysis. This didactic turn has the unfortunate effect of making her plot—stories of loss and disappointment connected only tenuously through the character of the psychiatrist—start to seem almost beside the point. – New York Times Review
Martin Quinn – Anthony Lee
This tough, gritty novel about the complex relationship between Martin Quinn, a tough, fatherless Irish kid who was raised by Italian gangsters, and Felix Pasko, the son of a Russian Mafioso, is a powerful; gripping thriller set in New York's brilliantly realized mean streets.
New Books - Non-Fiction
Bad Money – Kevin PhillipsOne Minute to Midnight – Michael Dobbs
Washington Post reporter Dobbs (Saboteurs) is a master at telling stories as they unfold and from a variety of perspectives. In this re-examination of the 1963 Bay of Pigs face-off between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Dobbs combines visits to Cuba, discussions with Russian participants and fingertip command of archival and printed U.S. sources to describe a wild ride that—contrary to the myth of Kennedy's steel-nerved crisis management—was shaped by improvisation, guesswork and blind luck.
Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds – Claire Hope Cummins
In Uncertain Peril, environmental journalist Claire Hope Cummings exposes the stories behind the rise of industrial agriculture and plant biotechnology, the fall of public interest science, and the folly of patenting seeds. She examines how farming communities are coping with declining water, soil, and fossil fuels, as well as with new commercial technologies. Will genetically engineered and "terminator" seeds lead to certain promise, as some have hoped, or are we embarking on a path of uncertain peril? Will the "doomsday vault" under construction in the Arctic, designed to store millions of seeds, save the genetic diversity of the world's agriculture?
To answer these questions and others, Cummings takes readers from the Fertile Crescent in Iraq to the island of Kaua'i in Hawai'i; from Oaxaca, Mexico, to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. She examines the plight of farmers who have planted transgenic seeds and scientists who have been persecuted for revealing the dangers of modified genes.
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain – Oliver Sack
Legendary R&B icon Ray Charles claimed that he was "born with music inside me," and neurologist Oliver Sacks believes Ray may have been right. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain examines the extreme effects of music on the human brain and how lives can be utterly transformed by the simplest of harmonies. With clinical studies covering the tragic (individuals afflicted by an inability to connect with any melody) and triumphant (Alzheimer's patients who find order and comfort through music), Sacks provides an erudite look at the notion that humans are truly a "musical species." --Dave Callanan
September 2, 2008
New Books - Non-Fiction
Fair Game: How a Top CIA Agent was Betrayed by Her Own Government – Valerie Plame Wilson
Valerie Wilson retired from the CIA in January 2006, and now, not only as a citizen but as a wife and mother, the daughter of an Air Force colonel, and the sister of a U.S. marine, she sets the record straight, providing an extraordinary account of her training and experiences, and answers many questions that have been asked about her covert status, her responsibilities, and her life.
Barry Dixon Interiors – Brian Coleman and Edward Addeo
Preeminent designer Barry Dixon approaches each project with the design philosophy that the greatest quality a home might possess is that of innate, soulful hospitality. His work features a masterful blend of traditional and contemporary decor that mixes color and texture in astounding ways. Barry Dixon Interiors exemplifies Dixon's belief that our homes reflect our past, emanate our present and suggest our future. From a Manhattan loft choreographed for entertaining to Arts and Crafts in a woodland glade, to embassy elegance in Washington, D.C., Barry Dixon has seen and designed it all.
I Am America (And So Can You!) – Stephen Colbert
Realizing that it takes more than thirty minutes a night to fix everything that's destroying America, Colbert bravely takes on the forces aligned to destroy our country—whether they be terrorists, environmentalists, or Kashi brand breakfast cereals. His various targets include nature (I've never trusted the sea. What's it hiding under there?), the Hollywood Blacklist (I would have named enough names to fill the Moscow phone book)…Colbert also provides helpful illustrations and charts (Things That Are Trying to Turn Me Gay) [and] a complete transcript of his infamous speech at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner [...] all of which add up to a book that is sure to be a bestseller and match the success of Colbert's former Daily Show boss Jon Stewart's America (The Book).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose – Eckhart Tolle
Tolle describes in detail how our current ego-based state of consciousness operates. Then gently, and in very practical terms, he leads us into this new consciousness. We will come to experience who we truly are—which is something infinitely greater than anything we currently think we are—and learn to live and breathe freely.
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die – Chip Heath and Dan Heath
While at first glance this volume might resemble the latest in a series of trendy business advice books, ultimately it is about storytelling, and it is a how-to for crafting a compelling narrative. Employing a lighthearted tone, the Heaths apply those selfsame techniques to create an enjoyable read. They analyze such narratives as urban legends and advertisements to discover what makes them memorable. The authors provide a simple mnemonic to remember their stickiness formula, and the basic principles may be applied in any situation where persuasiveness is an asset.
Women of Courage – Katherine Kiviat and Scott Heidler
This moving tribute profiles 40 Afghan women who have tried to transform their lives since the fall of the Taliban in 2001. Among those interviewed are an Olympic athlete, a TV journalist, a fortune-teller, and an abused wife. Whether urban or rural, the women all reveal a determination and courage that was hidden for years under full-length burkas and gender repression. Each interview is accompanied by a stunning full-page photograph that captures the pride each individual feels in her new life.
The Prince of Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq – Rory Stewart
At the age of 30, the author, a former soldier and diplomat, speaker of Farsi but not of Arabic, was appointed as one of the leading Coalition civilian officials in Maysan, acting as deputy commander first there and then in Nasiriyah during the final nine months of the Coalition's authority in Iraq. Stewart's tale, even more than his complex identity, gives insight into the new and unexpected situation into which the United States and its allies were thrust after toppling Saddam Hussein… – Reed Elsevier, Inc.
New Books - Fiction
Garden Spells – Sarah Addison Allen
Take a pinch of marigold to stimulate affection, add a dash of snapdragon to repel evil influences, finish with a generous helping of rose petals to encourage love, then stand back and let nature take its course. It may be the recipe for Claire Waverley's successful catering business, but when it comes to working its magic on her own love life, she seems to be immune to the charms found only in the plants that have always grown behind the Waverley mansion. Like generations of Waverley women before her, Claire has accepted her family's mysterious gifts, while her estranged sister, Sydney, could not run away from them fast enough… Spellbindingly charming, Allen's impressively accomplished debut novel will bewitch fans of Alice Hoffman and Laura Esquivel, as her entrancing brand of magic realism nimbly blends the evanescent desires of hopeless romantics with the inherent wariness of those who have been hurt once too often. – Carol Haggas
Sequence - Lori Andrews
From one of the U.S.'s leading experts in biotechnology comes a thriller about a geneticist who reluctantly becomes a sleuth. The premise, which will remind some readers of the popular TV series NCIS, involves a civilian doctor, Alexandra Blake, who is conducting blue-sky research at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology when her new boss tells her to put aside the research and handle forensics at a crime scene. This quickly leads Blake into a desperate hunt for a serial killer. – American Library Association
The Reserve – Russell Banks
The title refers to a private sanctuary in the Adirondacks, a pristine wilderness maintained by a few families so wealthy that the deprivations of the Depression do not affect them at all. The tension between illusion and reality is what interests Banks most here. This is primarily a novel about right and wrong, and how class and sex cloud that distinction. He focuses on a man who moves confidently among the haves and the have-nots: Jordan Groves, a left-wing artist who sells his pictures to wealthy collectors, seduces their wives, and pals around with their servants. He's loosely based on Rockwell Kent, the celebrated illustrator and labor advocate who donated a number of his works to the Soviet Union, ran afoul of Sen. McCarthy and eventually appeared on a U.S. postage stamp.
Beautiful Children – Charles Bock
A wide-ranging portrait of an almost mythically depraved Las Vegas, this sweeping debut takes in everything from the bland misery of suburban Nevada to the exploitative Vegas sex industry. At the nexus of this Dickensian universe is Newell Ewing, a hyperactive 12-year-old boy with a comic-book obsession. One Saturday night, Newell disappears after going out with his socially awkward, considerably older friend. Orbiting around that central mystery is a web of sufferers…
New England White – Stephen L. Carter
Two lesser characters from Yale law professor Carter's bestselling first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park(2002)—husband and wife Lemaster and Julia Carlyle—take center stage in his second, a compelling, literate page-turner that effortlessly blends a gripping whodunit with complex discussions of politics and race in contemporary America. – Reed Elsevier, Inc.
The Harlequin, an Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Novel – Laurell K. Hamilton
Into Anita Blake’s world—a world already overflowing with power— come creatures so feared that centuries-old vampires refuse to mention their names.
Fever Moon – Carolyn Haines
Following up her moody Penumbra (2005), Haines tells a story of murder and mysticism in post-World War II Louisiana. Henri Bastion, the wealthiest man in New Iberia, has been killed in an especially gruesome way. Deputy Raymond Thibodeaux finds a young woman standing over Bastion's body who claims to be possessed by a legendary Cajun shape-shifter, the loup garou (otherwise known as a werewolf). Determined to prove the woman has been framed for Bastion's death, Thibodeaux puts his own life on the line. The book depends heavily on its spooky atmosphere, and Haines delivers it with style. Readers of Haines' cozy mysteries starring Sarah Booth Delaney are in for quite a surprise here, but it's a good surprise. Haines may be better at doing dark and spooky than cozy and warm. David Pitt, Copyright © American Library Association
The Last Oracle – James Rollins
At the start of bestseller Rollins's rousing fifth Sigma Force novel (after The Judas Strain), the group's leader, Cmdr. Gray Pierce, encounters a homeless man as he's crossing the Mall in Washington, D.C., near Sigma Force's secret lair far beneath the Smithsonian Castle. The man, who's really an MIT neurology professor, collapses in Pierce's arms and dies after passing him a strange coin, thus kicking off a far-flung adventure whose plot threads include the Oracle of Delphi, autistic savant children with strange implants behind their ears, Gypsies, power-mad Russians bent on unleashing enough radioactivity to poison the world, rogue American spy agencies and genetically enhanced wolves and tigers. – Reed Elsevier, Inc.