The girl who fell from the sky: a novel - Heidi Durrow

The girl who fell from the sky: a novel - Durrow, Heidi

Summary: After a family tragedy orphans her, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., moves into her grandmother's mostly black community in the 1980s, where she must swallow her grief and confront her identity as a biracial woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white. A first novel. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* When we are in pain or danger, we hold our breath and move with caution, which is how Durrow's measured and sorrowful debut novel unfolds. Rachel has yet to get the hang of the American hierarchy of skin color when she arrives in Portland, Oregon, to live with her father's mother and sister. Although considered black like her father, she is "light-skinned-ed" and has blue eyes, thanks to her Danish mother, whose shock and despair over the racism confronting her children after they moved from Europe to Chicago contributed to a mysterious tragedy only Rachel survived. Smart, disciplined, and self-possessed, Rachel endures her confounding new life, coming into her own as she comes of age. Meanwhile Jamie, the neglected son of a prostitute and the only witness to the Chicago catastrophe, has an even rougher time. Durrow fits a striking cast of characters and an almost overwhelming sequence of traumas into this compact and insightful family saga of the toxicity of racism and the forging of the self. As the child of an African American father and a Danish mother, Durrow brings piercing authenticity to this provocative tale, winner of the Bellwether Prize for Fiction. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Dancer: a novel - Colum McCann

Dancer: a novel - McCann, Colum

Summary: Presents a fictional account of the life of Rudolf Nureyev, following his first ballet lessons under Anna Vasileva, his relationship with the ambitious Yulia, and his experiences with Venezuelan hustler Victor. - (Baker & Taylor)



Library Journal Reviews
McCann's latest (after Everything in This Country Must) is hugely ambitious: a fictionalized account of the life of Rudolph Nureyev-the Cold War danseur noble lauded as the world's first "pop star dancer"-as told by those who knew him. Among the narrators are the irrepressible Yulia, the daughter of Nureyev's first ballet teacher; Margot Fonteyn, Rudik's brilliant dance partner; Victor, a gay hustler from the Lower East Side with a penchant for blow, bath houses, and back talk; and others. What emerges is a pastiche of both the man and the myth, the disparate voices combining to create a lyrical and variegated portrait. The narrative technique can, however, be disorienting and even frustrating, as the reader cares more about some narrators than others and is loath to depart from them. McCann also has a somewhat irksome tendency to over-explain moments he should allow to resonate on their own. Still, the work hangs together well and is finally an enormous achievement. Both the Soviet Union of the war-torn 1940s and the displacement and hopefulness of an exile's life are perfectly evoked, and Nureyev-impossible, erratic, and brilliant-is a golden flame that sets everything ablaze. Recommended for all contemporary fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/02.]-Tania Barnes, "Library Journal" Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.


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The bullfighter check her makeup: my encounters with extraordinary people - Susan Orlean

The bullfighter check her makeup: my encounters with extraordinary people - Orlean, Susan

Summary: In a collection of essays from The New Yorker, the acclaimed author of The Orchid Thief offers a series of intriguing profiles of some of the colorful people she has encountered, from the first female Spanish matador to the African king who drives a New York City cab to Silly Billy, a popular entertainer on the children's birthday-party circuit. 50,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
Orlean is confident in her ability to "find something extraordinary in the ordinary," but she is also drawn to unusual people. Instinct, luck, and literary know-how shaped her first book, The Orchid Thief (1999), qualities that are evident here, too, in this exuberant collection of profiles, most of which were published in the New Yorker over the past decade. Orlean's curiosity, faith in improvisation, fundamental respect and fondness for humankind, and ready sense of humor inform each of these well-crafted pieces. She knows how to be present without being intrusive, how to share impressions rather than offer analysis, and how to let her subjects reveal themselves, skills that work especially well with young people. "The American Male, Aged Ten" is a thoroughly charming portrait of a New Jersey boy that perfectly captures Colin Duffy's particular blend of lucidity and goofiness, and Orlean's profile of Felipe Lopez of the South Bronx, the best high-school basketball player in the country in 1993, is similarly warm in tone and agile in structure. In the collection's most bizarre and haunting story, she chronicles the weird phenomena of the Shaggs, a cult-status New Hampshire girl rock group, which consisted of unmusical and browbeaten sisters, forced to perform by their creepy father. Orlean contrasts their gloomy story with a vivid account of a clique of kinetic, fearless, junk-food-devouring Maui surfer girls. She also spends time with a gospel group, a real-estate agent, a clown, a woman bullfighter, Bill Blass, and Kwabena Oppong, king of the African Ashanti and a New York cabbie, pulling up the blinds on one intriguing life after another to extend her readers' knowledge of our dazzlingly diverse world. Donna Seaman YA: Ordinary people become extraordinary; wonderful for creative writing classes. SZ. Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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Simple times: Crafts for poor people - Amy Sedaris

Simple times: Crafts for poor people - Sedaris, Amy

Summary: Sedaris shows how to make popular crafts, such as crab-claw roach clips, tinfoil balls, and crepe-paper moccasins; how to remember which kind of glue to use with which material; how to create your own craft room and avoid the most common crafting accidents; and, how to cook your own edible crafts, from a Crafty Candle Salad to Sugar Skulls, and many more recipe

Booklist Reviews
"In her follow-up to the best-selling I Like You (2006), Sedaris once again invites us all to remember the "good old days" with her off-the-wall crafting and entertaining suggestions. "Did you know that inside your featureless well-worn husk is a creative you?" she asks. No doubt drawing on and making light of the current economic atmosphere, she notes, "Being poor is a wonderful motivation to be creative"; and most crafts are made with found or salvaged materials. More a vehicle for Sedaris' knack for farce and costume than a real how-to guide (unless the formula for a "wizard duck costume" marks the realization of your wildest dreams), it nevertheless contains a few useful facts, ideas, and recipes. The true joy of this book lies in its hilarious and amazingly well-styled photo spreads, many featuring Sedaris in one of her uncanny disguises, including a teenager, an elderly shut-in, and Jesus. She devotes equal time to instruction on making homemade sausage, gift-giving, crafting safety, and lovemaking (aka "fornicrafting"). Those looking to make conventional crafts, obviously, should look elsewhere. Everyone else should sit down, have a laugh, and make your very own bean-and-leaf James Brown mosaic. The author and her brother have a considerable following among hip readers of humor, and the appeal of this book will certainly transcend the world of crafters." Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Cloud atlas: a novel - David Mitchell

Cloud atlas: a novel - Mitchell, David

Summary: Recounts the connected stories of people from the past and the distant future, from a nineteenth-century notary and an investigative journalist in the 1970s to a young man who searches for meaning in a post-apocalyptic world. - (Baker & Taylor)



Kirkus Reviews
Great Britain's answer to Thomas Pynchon outdoes himself with this maddeningly intricate, improbably entertaining successor to Ghostwritten (2000) and Number9Dream (2002).Mitchell's latest consists of six narratives set in the historical and recent pasts and imagined futures, all interconnected whenever a later narrator encounters and absorbs the story that preceded his own. In the first, it's 1850 and American lawyer-adventurer Adam Ewing is exploring endangered primitive Pacific cultures (specifically, the Chatham Islands' native Moriori besieged by numerically superior Maori). In the second, "The Pacific Diary of Adam Ewing" falls (in 1931) into the hands of bisexual musician Robert Frobisher, who describes in letters to his collegiate lover Rufus Sixsmith his work as amanuensis to retired and blind Belgian composer Vivian Ayrs. Next, in 1975, sixtysomething Rufus is a nuclear scientist who opposes a powerful corporation's cover-up of the existence of an unsafe nuclear reactor: a story investigated by crusading reporter Luisa Rey. The fourth story (set in the 1980s) is Luisa's, told in a pulp potboiler submitted to vanity publisher Timothy Cavendish, who soon finds himself effectively imprisoned in a sinister old age home. Mitchell then moves to an indefinite future Korea, in which cloned "fabricants" serve as slaves to privileged "purebloods"—and fabricant Sonmi-451 enlists in a rebellion against her masters. The sixth story, told in its entirety before the novel doubles back and completes the preceding five (in reverse order), occurs in a farther future time, when Sonmi is a deity worshipped by peaceful "Valleymen"—one of whom, goatherd Zachry Bailey, relates the epic tale of his people's war with their oppressors, the murderous Kona tribe. Each of the six stories invents a world, and virtually invents a language to describe it, none more stunningly than does Zachry's narrative ("Sloosha's Crossin' and Ev'rythin' After"). Thus, in one of the most imaginative and rewarding novels in recent memory, the author unforgettably explores issues of exploitation, tyranny, slavery, and genocide.Sheer storytelling brilliance. Mitchell really is his generation's Pynchon.Agency: Curtis Brown Copyright Kirkus 2004 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Pride & prejudice - Nancy Butler

Pride & prejudice - Butler, Nancy

Summary: A graphic novel adaptation of Jane Austen's beloved novel "Pride & Prejudice" in which Lizzy Bennet and her loveable, eccentric family navigate through tricky British social circles.




Staff Review:
If you enjoyed Austen's classic this will be a fun and light read.

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Believing it all: what my children taught me about trout fishing, jelly toast, and life - Marc Parent

Believing it all: what my children taught me about trout fishing, jelly toast, and life - Parent, Marc

Summary: Assuming that life's most difficult questions may in fact be answerable, the author offers an inspirational look at fatherhood, playfulness, and spirituality. - (Baker & Taylor)




Publishers Weekly Reviews
Having in Turning Stones chronicled his years as a social worker in New York City, when he witnessed the tragic abuse and neglect that so many children endure, Parent now shares a more positive, almost idyllic vision of family life in rural Pennsylvania. In vignettes from his tenure as the stay-at-home father of two small boys, he offers insights and ruminations on the lessons of parenthood that are "hidden beneath the roar of everyday living." Because it is still exceptional when men take on the role of primary caregiver for their preschool children while their wives go off to work, this author's thoughts may be taken much more seriously than similar musings by women. Parent is a fine writer, who deftly reveals the profound truths and important insights that spring from the intense intimacy of raising a child. A newborn who briefly stops breathing immediately after arriving home from the hospital, a three-year-old entranced by a dead squirrel in the road, a first somersault and an endless round of preschool interviews all bear Parent's close scrutiny. As his children grow, Parent expresses a range of responses from "some days I'd really just like to have a dinner where I don't have to jump up to help someone use the toilet" to appreciating the "overwhelming and absolute power" of having children who look up to you and believe all that you tell them. (May 24) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Kay Thompson: from Funny face to Eloise - Sam Irvin

Kay Thompson: from Funny face to Eloise - Irvin, Sam

Summary: Presents a tribute to the Hollywood entertainer-turned-author that covers such topics as her close friendship with Judy Garland, contributions as a celebrity trainer, and creation of the mischievous six-year-old Plaza mascot, Eloise. - (Baker & Taylor)



Staff Review:
Kay Thompson is an American legend who is almost forgotten these days except for her delightful Eloise books. This terrific biography reminds us of this very talented woman who had a multi-faceted career before becoming a beloved children's book author. Judy Garland's vocal coach and mentor, Frank Sinatra's vocal guru, Liza Minelli's godmother, star of radio, Broadway, and movies among many many other credits, this eccentric and wacky lady was really something!

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At home: a short history of private life - Bill Bryson

At home: a short history of private life - Bryson, Bill

Summary: Explores the ways in which homes reflect history, from a bathroom's revelations about medicine and hygiene to a kitchen's exposure of the stories of trade and nutrition.




Staff Review:
Endlessly fascinating, this book is so much more than why and how we live the way we do, it's a vast social history. A "wow" on every page. The extensive bibliography is interesting in itself!


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House of rain: tracking a vanished civilization across the American Southwest - Craig Childs

House of rain: tracking a vanished civilization across the American Southwest - Childs, Craig

Summary: Drawing on the latest scholarly research and archaeological evidence, the author examines the accomplishments of the Anasazi people of the American Southwest and speculates on why the culture vanished by the thirteenth century.



Booklist Reviews
Although less well known than the Mayans, the Anasazi, who flourished in the region now known as New Mexico, also vanished without a trace. Now, eight centuries after their thriving, 2,000-year-old civilization disappeared as though it had never existed, naturalist and adventurer Childs undertakes to find out where the Anasazi went and why. But discovering the fate of an entire race of people, 800 years after the fact, is not like tracking down a missing person. Childs' investigation relies heavily on scholarly literature, oral tradition, and lots of reading between the lines of history. There are no definitive answers here, but Childs ask plenty of tantalizing questions. The book is finally not so much about what happened to the Anasazi as it is about our own fascination with lost civilizations. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.

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Wild child: stories - T.C. Boyle

Wild child: stories - Boyle, T.C.

Summary: A collection of 14 short works by the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning and National Book Award-finalist author of World's End focuses on a theme of nature and includes in the title piece a retelling of the story of a feral boy who was captured in the forests of Napoleonic France. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
Although the "wild child" of this book's title is the "Wild Boy of Aveyron," a feral French youth who perhaps embodies the book's epigraph ("In wildness is the preservation of the world"), Boyle's latest collection of stories is as much about the uses adults have for children as it is about the children themselves. In his opening salvo, "Balto," an alcoholic father asks his 12-year-old daughter to be his designated driver, with disastrous results. In "The Lie," a man's impulsive excuse for skipping work ("The baby's dead") goes little better. And in the lengthy and vividly imagined title story, Victor, the wild boy, doggedly resists his superiors' attempts to mold him into something useful and understandable to them—he is wild nature personified. That's a thematic oversimplification of these diverse and wonderful stories, of course, and the appeal of Boyle's short fiction remains remarkably broad. His intelligence and style satisfy lovers of capital-L Literature, while his hooky, propulsive vignettes satisfy readers who just want a damn good story. And there are some damn good stories here. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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Winkie - Clifford Chase

Winkie - Chase, Clifford

Summary: In this debut novel, a mild-mannered teddy bear named Winkie finds himself on the wrong side of America's war on terror.--From publisher description. - (Baker & Taylor




Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ With the recent controversy over domestic spying, the literary world is ripe for skewering America's unwieldy War on Terror--but good. In this wryly comic, paradoxically touching first novel, Chase delivers a cleverly original allegory on the absurdities of our terror-obsessed culture. After suffering years of neglect by children who have grown and moved on, a tattered teddy bear named Winkie miraculously discovers the power of movement and runs away to the forest to begin a new life. Unfortunately, this particular forest has been pigeonholed as the hideout for a notorious terrorist, and militant FBI agents quickly surround Winkie with drawn weapons and whirling helicopters. Unsure quite what to make of the diminutive quadruped--Is he a Middle-Eastern midget or a bizarre genetic experiment?--the authorities nevertheless trot out their standard interrogation techniques while charging the little bear with unparalleled barbarism. In the surrealistic courtroom circus that follows, Winkie faces a gauntlet of bizarre witnesses from the trials of Socrates, Galileo, and Oscar Wilde--an ordeal he endures by retreating into memories of the early years that nurtured his awakening. Inspired by a stuffed animal from his childhood (photographs of the bona fide Winkie are sprinkled throughout), Chase turns in a masterfully measured social critique featuring a protagonist as endearing as any from the classics of childhood literature. ((Reviewed May 15, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews.

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Behemoth - Scott Westerfeld

Behemoth - Westerfeld, Scott
Series Title: Leviathan Series

Summary: Continues the story of Austrian Prince Alek who, in an alternate 1914 Europe, eludes the Germans by traveling in the Leviathan to Constantinople, where he faces a whole new kind of genetically-engineered warships.


Publishers Weekly Reviews
The action is nonstop in Westerfeld's thrilling sequel to last year's Leviathan--fans of that book won't be disappointed. It's 1914 in the author's alternate world, the great powers are moving toward full-scale war, and Deryn, still posing as a boy, has found a place as a midshipman aboard the gigantic, living British airship Leviathan as it sails east on its secret mission to Istanbul. When Austria-Hungary enters the conflict, her friend Alek, the runaway heir to that empire, realizes that he must escape from the airship to avoid imprisonment, giving Deryn "a chance not just to help Alek but to change the course of the whole barking war." Battles abound between eccentric fighting machines and even stranger fabricated "beasties" as Deryn and Alek prove their courage and ingenuity while putting themselves in harm's way. This exciting and inventive tale of military conflict and wildly reimagined history should captivate a wide range of readers. Thompson's evocative and detailed spot art (as well as the luridly gorgeous endpapers) only sweetens the deal. Ages 12–up. (Oct.)

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Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen

Pride and prejudice - Austen, Jane

Summary: Human foibles and early nineteenth-century manners are satirized in this romantic tale of English country family life - (Baker & Taylor)




Magill Book Review
When a novel focuses on the day-to-day life of a family with five young unmarried daughters, the subject is certain to be romance. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE'S depiction of Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia Bennet is something richer, though. As its title hints, the novel is a shrewd and subtle psychological study. Pride and prejudice are the double defects shared by the heroine and hero, spirited Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, a rich, aristocratic young man she meets when his friend Bingley rents the estate next to the Bennets'. In the course of the story, Darcy becomes more flexible in his social views and learns to recognize excellence (notably Elizabeth's) in the ranks below his own. Similarly, Elizabeth becomes less rigid in her judgments, more aware of the many virtues of Darcy, whom she had at first dismissed as cold and haughty. Elizabeth and Darcy's growing love delights the reader because everything about the two--their minds, tastes, appearances, and words--shows them to be ideally suited. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE contains less brilliant variations on the marriage theme as well. Jane Bennet, the serene oldest sister, and easygoing Charles Bingley, a couple whose engagement is for some time thwarted by Darcy and the Bingley sisters, are equally well matched if less dashing. The Reverend William Collins, the pompous cousin who as next male relation will inherit the family estate on Mr. Bennet's death, hopes to marry Elizabeth, but on being rejected, settles for her plain and practical friend Charlotte Lucas, a woman aware of his foolishness but in need of the security his situation can provide. The fourth match made in the novel is between a charming but amoral officer, George Wickham, and pretty, empty-headed Lydia, the youngest Bennet sister. Wickham first attracts Elizabeth, then elopes with Lydia. Only when Darcy intervenes is he persuaded to marry the silly girl. Supplementing this cast of characters is a wonderfully imperfect gallery of human types. The selfish and cynical Mr. Bennet, his ill-bred wife, their priggish daughter Mary, and the domineering Lady Catherine de Bourgh are all people a reader would walk far to avoid in real life. But they are figures delightful to encounter in Austen's satirical novel.

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Losing my cool - Thomas Chatterton Williams

Losing my cool: how a father's love and 15,000 books beat hiphop culture - Williams, Thomas Chatterton

Summary: Describes how the author outwardly embraced self-effacing aspects of hip-hop culture that radically contrasted with his book-loving father's academic prep service and endless pursuit of knowledge, revealing how the father-son bond eventually overcame the genre's rebellious messages. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Growing up in Westfield, New Jersey, with a father who loved wisdom and ran an SAT prep business in a home crammed with books, Williams blithely ignored all that in favor of the hip-hop culture he heard and saw on BET. He spent his youth meticulously studying and imitating images of cool and thuggishness and listening to music that glorified misogyny, violence, and bling. The objective was to be "authentically black," despite his white mother and erudite father. He modeled the thug life with a hair-trigger temper that led to fights and a ghetto-fabulous girlfriend, living on the margins of drug dealing. At Georgetown, he continued the cool persona until he began to gradually face up to evidence that it would lead to failure and that a more interesting life might be available to him. Only then does he acknowledge the gift of his father's efforts to get him to appreciate the value of being able to truly and deeply think for himself. This is more than a coming-of-age story; it is an awakening, as Williams blends Dostoyevsky and Jay-Z in a compelling memoir and analysis of urban youth culture. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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The edible woman - Margaret Atwood

The edible woman - Atwood, Margaret

Summary: A humorous, ironic, disturbing, and parabolic novel features a woman who, after her engagement to be wed, first loses her appetite and then becomes obsessed with the idea that she herself is being eaten. Reissue. - (Baker & Taylor)



Review:
As delightful a novel as has come along in ages; the kind of book you hate to put down and usually don't. - Herald Magazine

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Packing for Mars: the curious science of life in the void - Mary Roach

Packing for Mars: the curious science of life in the void - Roach, Mary

Summary: Describes the weirdness of space travel, answers questions about the long-term effects of living in zero gravity on the human body, and explains how space simulations on Earth can provide a preview to life in space.




Staff Review:
This book is really fun if you like to really dive into the subject of space travel from a very human point of view. Mary researches her subjects with tremendous thoroughness and glee!

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Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan - Westerfeld, Scott
Series Title: Leviathan Series
Summary: In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.



Booklist Reviews
Instead of the Victorian era most often found in the steampunk genre, Westerfeld sets his new series in a Europe hovering on the edge of World War I. The ingenious premise is that Europe is divided not only into traditional historical camps, but also into Darwinists, who genetically manipulate animal "life-strands" into beasts and even whole self-contained ecosystems with wondrous capabilities, and Clankers, whose imposing constructions of metal and gears are a marvel of technological wizardry. Deryn Sharp, from Darwinist England, disguises herself as a boy to enlist on the Leviathan, a flying whale-ship, while Prince Alek, recently orphaned son of Archduke Ferdinand, finds himself on the run in a sort of walking Clanker tank. The plot is boosted almost entirely by exciting and sometimes violent fight sequences, but reading about (and seeing, thanks to Thompson's ample, lavish, and essential illustrations) the wildly imaginative creatures and machines provides nearly as much drive. Fans of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines (2003) or Kenneth Oppel's Airborn (2004) will be right at home in Westerfeld's alternate reality. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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The art of racing in the rain: a novel - Garth Stein

The art of racing in the rain: a novel - Stein, Garth

Summary: Nearing the end of his life, Enzo, a dog with a philosopher's soul, tries to bring together the family, pulled apart by a three year custody battle between daughter Zoe's maternal grandparents and her father Denny, a race car driver.



Booklist Reviews
Enzo the dog feels sure that his next life will be spent in a man's body. In preparation, he closely studies human behavior, and it's from Enzo's observant point of view that Stein writes his moving third novel. Enzo is deeply jealous when his owner, Denny, falls in love with Eve, but after baby Zoe is born, Enzo assumes his role as the family's unconditional protector, particularly after Eve is diagnosed with brain cancer. After Eve's death, her parents drag Denny into a bitter custody battle for Zoe, and Enzo, despite his canine limitations, passionately defends Denny and even alters the course of events. Denny is a race-car driver, and Enzo, who has watched countless televised races, folds thrilling track scenes and driving lessons into the terse family drama. The metaphors may feel purposeful, but readers will nonetheless delight in Enzo's wild, original voice; his aching insights into the limitations and joys of the canine and human worlds; and his infinite capacity for love. A natural choice for book clubs, this should inspire steady demand. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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The reluctant fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid

The reluctant fundamentalist - Hamid, Mohsin

Summary: A young Muslim American, Changez is living the American dream, with a Princeton education and high-paying job, until the events of September 11th force him to confront his personal allegiances. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Presented in the form of a monologue, which is a difficult technique to manage in a novel because the author has to ensure plausibility while guarding against monotony, Hamid's second novel succeeds so well it begs the question--what other narrative format than a sustained monologue could have been as appropriate? Generally, this is a 9/11 novel or, rather, a post-9/11 one. But to see it on its own terms, which, because of its distinctive scenario, is impossible not to do, it eludes categorization. A young Pakistani man, educated at Princeton and employed in a highly prestigious financial-analysis firm in New York, was about to start a brilliant career and had fallen for a young woman whose commitment to him, it must be admitted, was partial and elusive when the terrorist attacks occurred. Answering to his own conscience, he could not remain in the U.S. By the pull of his true personal identity, he must return to Pakistan, despite his reluctance to leave the enigmatic but beguiling young woman behind. From the perspective of a few years later, the young man relates his American experiences to an American man he meets in a cafe, whose visit to Lahore may or may not have to do with the young man's recent anti-American activities. This novel's firm, steady, even beautiful voice proclaims the completeness of the soul when personal and global issues are conjoined. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2007)) Copyright 2007 Booklist Reviews.


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Marriage and other acts of charity - Kate Braestrup

Marriage and other acts of charity - Braestrup, Kate

Summary: As a minister, Kate Braestrup regularly performs weddings. She has also, at 44, been married twice and widowed once, and accordingly has much to say about life after "the ceremony." From helping a newlywed couple make amends after their first fight to preparing herself for her second marriage, Braestrup offers her insights and experiences on what it truly means to share your life with someone, from the first kiss to the last straw, for better or for worse.

Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this breezy, soft-pedaling exercise in spiritual empowerment, Braestrup (Here If You Need Me) shares some of her hard-won marital wisdom. As an ordained minister, Braestrup counsels couples to love and cherish one another, even in the face of a 50% divorce rate, and asserts that of the three kinds of love known in ancient biblical Greek—eros, philos, and agape—the greatest is the last. Translated into Latin as charitas, agape is the generous, selfless love given unconditionally and best mimics the nature of God's love. Braestrup traces her own call to the ministry to the aftermath of the shocking sudden death of her policeman husband, Drew, killed in a car accident in 1996, when her family and friends rallied around her and the couple's four children with abundant love and care. She reveals that not long before his death, the couple had suffered a marital crisis and sought counseling for what the author considered clearly Drew's "incurable character disorder"; however, she was jolted from the brink by the thought of their losing each other. Employing examples of the couples she knows, such as game warden Jeremy Judd and his betrothed, town dispatcher Melanie, who sought the author's advice as they embarked on their marriage, as well as a soon-to-be-divorced couple, Jesse and Georgiana, Braestrup offers grains of folksy, charitable wisdom. She is comfortable discussing death ("One hundred percent of marriages end"), declaring that the only recourse is Jesus' message: "Love more." (Jan.)
[Page 44]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

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The corpse walker: real life stories, China from the bottom up - Yiwu Liao

The corpse walker: real life stories, China from the bottom up - Liao, Yiwu

Summary: "A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the 'new' China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003."--From amazon.com.

Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this rich, often harrowing oral history, Chinese writer (and notorious target of censors) Liao travels to the margins of Chinese society, interviewing 27 outsiders from China's forgotten classes. The book contains an incredible cast of characters: a grave robber, a composer, a leper, a professional mourner paid to wail at funerals, a human trafficker and a delusional peasant who has anointed himself emperor. These conversations, largely recorded from memory, showcase Liao's empathy for his subjects and a particular talent for getting into tight situations; on one occasion, the author is forced to leap out of a three-story building when he fears the Communist government is targeting him for talking to a Falun Gong supporter. Liao's research took 11 years, and his final product is a stunning series of portraits of a generation and class of individuals ignored in history books and unacknowledged in the accounts of the "new" China. (Apr.)
[Page 147]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

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Great house: a novel - Nicole Krauss

Great house: a novel - Krauss, Nicole

Summary: The lives of four strangers are thrown into chaos over an enormous, stolen desk, including an antique dealer in Jerusalem, a man in London, and an American novelist who inherited it from a poet and victim of Pinochet's secret police.

Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* Krauss, in her follow-up to the best-selling History of Love (2005), tells her story entirely through the voices of her characters. All of the elements of literary fiction are conveyed through the monologues of five people: a writer from New York, an angry Jewish father from Jerusalem, an American woman studying in Oxford, the baffled husband of a Holocaust refugee, and an éminence grise who wraps things up—but not too tightly. Readers follow the trail, set forth in straightforward narrative and flashbacks, of an immense desk, which casts its shadow (sometimes literally) over the lives of all five characters. The plot is intricate and rewards careful reading. Krauss' masterful rendition of character is breathtaking, compelling, and reminiscent of ZZ Packer at her very best. In addition, the points of view of the various narrators, taken as a whole, present a broad picture of plot and motivation. Thematically strong, Great House examines the daily survival of Jews and demonstrates the destructiveness of lies and secrets within families. This tour de force of fiction writing will deeply satisfy fans of the author's first two books and bring her legions more." Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.


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For colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem - Ntozake Shange

For colored girls who have considered suicide, when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem - Shange, Ntozake

Summary: A theatrical celebration, in verse and prose, of being female and black incorporates the triumphs, joys, griefs, and losses of black women in America - (Baker & Taylor)




Review:
These poems and prose selections are...rich with the author's special voice: by turns bitter, funny, ironic, and savage; fiercely honest and personal. -- Martin Gottfried New York Post Review

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Captain Alatriste - Arturo Perez-Reverte

Captain Alatriste - Perez-Reverte, Arturo

Summary: In a first installment of a new series of historical novels by the author of The Queen of the South, wounded seventeenth-century Spanish soldier Alatriste works as a swordsman-for-hire in Madrid, but when his latest job takes an unexpectedly deadly turn, he realizes he is in the employ of one of the Spanish Inquisition's most dangerous figures. Simultaneous. - (Baker & Taylor)


Publishers Weekly
International bestseller Pérez-Reverte (The Club Dumas) offers a winning swashbuckler set in 17th-century Spain. Hooded figures, apparently acting on the behalf of Fray Emilio Bocanegra, "president of the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition," hire famed soldier Capt. Diego Alatriste to murder two Englishmen who have come to Madrid. One of the hooded figures, however, begs Alatriste (out of earshot of the others) only to wound the pair. When Alatriste and his fellow assassin, an ill-humored Italian, surprise the British, the captain is impressed by the fighting spirit they show, and he prevents the assassination from taking place. (The Italian, infuriated, swears eternal revenge.) When the Englishmen turn out to be on an important mission, Alatriste suddenly finds himself caught between a number of warring factions, Spanish and otherwise. Splendidly paced and filled with a breathtaking but not overwhelming sense of the history and spirit of the age, this is popular entertainment at its best: the characters have weight and depth, the dialogue illuminates the action as it furthers the story and the film-worthy plot is believable throughout. Agent, Howard Morhaim. (May 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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The empowered patient - Elizabeth Cohen

The empowered patient: how to get the right diagnosis, buy the cheapest drugs, beat your insurance company, and get the best medical care every time - Cohen, Elizabeth

Summary: A CNN medical correspondent offers simple rules for becoming your own advocate and making sure that you and your family get excellent medical care and insurance coverage, in a book that combines powerful anecdotes with shocking statistics and includes checklists and sample letters and dialogues. Original. - (Baker & Taylor)


Staff Review:
I thought when I took this title out that I was already an empowered patient, but I learned so much. She will give you hints on everything from from talking to your doctor to saving money on prescriptions. Don't miss this one.

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The Flashman Papers Series - George MacDonald Fraser

The Flashman Papers Series - Fraser, George MacDonald
Series Title: The Flashman Papers

Summary: Roving British Army colonel Sir Harry Flashman, roisterous scoundrel and witty cynic, is a reluctant hero in exploits ranging from the Crimean War (Flashman at the Charge) to China's Taiping Rebellion (Flashman and the Dragon).



Booklist Reviews
(This review refers to Flashman and the tiger and other extracts from The Flashman papers)
Very few historical fiction writers possess the charm and authenticity that Fraser has exhibited in his series of novels featuring Sir Harry Flashman, "the celebrated Victorian soldier, scoundrel, amorist, and self-confessed poltroon." The conceit of this marvelously entertaining series, as his many fans know, has been that Fraser is simply editing for publication the personal papers/memoirs of Flashman; the conceit is carried even further in this latest novel, which purports to present three "packets" of Flashman's remembrances partnered in one volume. Fraser insists that these are "minor episodes in the career of an eminent if disreputable Victorian," but the reader will find them just as hilarious and endearing as any of the previous Flashman novels. The first (and longest) "packet" deals with Flashman's friend, the newspaperman Henri Blowitz, Paris correspondent for the Times of London. In two interrelated story lines, we see Blowitz scoop the terms reached at the 1878 Congress of Berlin before the official publication of the treaty's text, and we watch Flashman's intervention in a plot to assassinate Emperor Franz Josef of Austria. The second "packet" deals with the "Great Baccarat Scandal of Tranby Croft," in which the Prince of Wales actually had to testify at a cheating-at-gambling trial. And the third "packet" in the triptych concerns Flashman meeting the infamous Colonel John Sebastian ("Tiger Jack") Moran in South Africa. You gotta love Flashman. ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 2000)) Copyright 2000

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Horatio's drive: America's first road trip - Duncan Dayton

Horatio's drive: America's first road trip - Duncan, Dayton

Summary: Chronicles the nation's first road trip by Horatio Jackson, a thirty-one-year-old Vermont doctor who drove his car from San Francisco to New York on mainly unpaved roads in 1903. - (Baker & Taylor)

Publishers Weekly Reviews
Technological revolution makes the unthinkable routine-and what could be more quotidian than an automobile trip across America? Yet at one time such a notion seemed about as likely to succeed as jumping Niagara in a barrel. Burns and Dayton are responsible for the upcoming PBS film about the adventurous first-ever car trip from coast to coast; this is the picture-packed print companion. Impetuously responding to a dare in May 1903, Dr. Horatio Jackson rashly wagered $50 that he could traverse the continent in 90 days. Bankrolled by his wealthy wife and accompanied by mechanic friend Sewall Crocker, Jackson set out for New York from San Francisco. Crossing a landscape devoid of paved roads, roadmaps and streetlights in a vehicle without multiple gears, roof or windshield and capable of a mere 30 mph, the two men ran into considerable problems in Northern California, Oregon and Idaho. (Meanwhile, other, corporate-backed aspirants to the distinction of being first across the country were hot on their heels.) Hardly anybody they encountered had ever seen an automobile before, so the men repeatedly became local heroes before becoming celebrities on a national scale. Few can match nationally famous PBS documentarian Burns's skill at evoking the past visually, and this book does nothing to undo that reputation. (Any picture featuring Bud, the goggled bulldog they adopted on the way, is a winner.) Meanwhile, Duncan, responsible for the research and the text, delivers a graceful, concise, engrossing account. (July) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


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Tammy Pierce is unlovable - Esther Watson

Tammy Pierce is unlovable - Watson, Esther

Summary: Presents the diary of Tammy Pierce during her sophomore year of high school in 1988 with graphic illustrations, and describes her hopes, dreams, boredom, and agonizing experiences, which includes prank calls, school dances, boys, and more

Booklist Reviews
Watson says this panel-per-page graphic novel draws directly on a diary found in a gas-station washroom. If that's disingenuous, the protagonist s voice and candid but awkward self-perception are impressively authentic. Texas high-school sophomore Tammy is overweight, boy crazy, and underdeveloped in social skills when it comes to dealing with her younger brother, her "best" friend (a skanky jerk), and anyone else in her small, nasty circle. Watson s scratchy, turquoise-and-white art, reminiscent but not imitative of Lynda Barry's style, amplifies Tammy's physical and character flaws as well as her pathetic emotional life. Unlike the four Notebook Girls (2006), who are her age-mates, Tammy appears all alone in dealing with social and cultural nemeses she doesn t recognize. Her insider perspective is just as shocking as those of the notebook girls. Unlovable is a fine example of how art and narrative can be combined to make a potentially trivial book compelling and insight-provoking. In particular, Gen Xers ready for an unvarnished backward glance at the concerns and the cruelties of their high-school years will recognize Tammy with stark clarity. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.


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How to be alone: essays - Jonathan Franzen

How to be alone: essays - Franzen, Jonathan

Summary: The author of The Corrections reprints his 1996, "The Harper's Essay," offering additional writings that consider a central theme of the erosion of civic life and private dignity and the increasing persistence of loneliness in postmodern America. 30,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
Franzen won the National Book Award (and, prior to that, Booklist's Top of the List award) for his sharply comedic and deeply compassionate novel The Corrections [BKL Jl 01], but he also drew fire for his fumbled response to being chosen as an Oprah author. Here, in his first essay collection, the qualities of mind that make him a relentlessly questioning thinker, and piercing and candid writer, one willing to ponder the finer points regarding reading, publishing, and the packaging of authors raised by Oprah's Book Club, are revealed, and Franzen's standing as a significant, indeed, essential literary voice is resoundingly reaffirmed. Here is the now infamous Harper's essay about the state of the novel, conscionable skepticism regarding popular culture and the addictive technologies that disseminate it, concern with our obsession with privacy and concomitant degradation of the public sphere, inquiries into the prison system and urban life, insights into depression, and, underlying all, love for and faith in literature. Franzen also quietly illuminates the intense emotions and personal experiences, most movingly his father's succumbing to Alzheimer's, that went into the writing of The Corrections and his inability to transform himself from artist into commodity. ((Reviewed September 1, 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

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The consolations of philosophy - Alain De Botton

The consolations of philosophy - De Botton, Alain

Summary: The author attempts to make philosophy useful by using the great philosophers to heal a variety of pyschic ailments - (Baker & Taylor)




Publishers Weekly Reviews
Three years ago, de Botton offered a delightful encounter with a writer many find unapproachable, in his bestselling How Proust Can Change Your Life. Now he attempts a similar undertaking not wholly successful with the great philosophers. In clear, witty prose, de Botton (who directs the graduate philosophy program at London University) sets some of their ideas to the mundane task of helping readers with their personal problems. Consolation for those feeling unpopular is found in the trial and death of Socrates; for those lacking money, in Epicurus' vision of what is essential for happiness. Senecan stoicism assists us in enduring frustration; Schopenhauer, of all people, mends broken hearts (by showing that "happiness was never part of the plan"); and Nietzsche encourages us to embrace difficulties. Black-and-white illustrations cleverly (sometimes too cleverly) accent the text: a "Bacardi and friends" ad, for example, illustrates the Epicurean doctrine of confused needs. Self-deprecating confessions pepper the book, a succinct account of an episode of impotence being the most daring. The quietly ironic style and eclectic approach will gratify many postmodern readers. But since the philosophers' opinions often cancel each other out (Montaigne undermines Seneca's trust in rational self-mastery, and Nietzsche repudiates "virtually all" that Schopenhauer taught), readers will need to pick and choose whose cogitations to take to heart. At his best (e.g., on Socrates), de Botton offers lucid popularization an enjoyable read with "a few consoling and practical things" to say. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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Major Pettigrew's last stand: a novel - Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew's last stand: a novel - Simonson, Helen

Summary: Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired) leads a quiet life in the village of St. Mary, England, until his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But will their relationship survive in a society that considers Ali a foreigner?

Booklist Reviews
Change is threatening the little world of Edgecombe St. Mary. Lord Dagenham is about to sell off part of his ancestral estate to developers, and Pakistanis have taken over the village shop. Major Ernest Pettigrew is definitely old school, but he has been lonely since his wife died, and though he is is prey to various unattached ladies it is with shopkeeper Mrs. Ali that he forms a bond, nourished by their mutual interest in literature. Meanwhile, his ambitious son Roger comes to town with a sleek American girlfriend and starts renovating a nearby cottage. And the village ladies are busy hatching plans for the annual Golf Club dance, for which this year's theme is "An Evening at the Mughal Court." There is a great deal going on in these pages—sharply observed domestic comedy, late-life romance, culture clash, a dash of P. G. Wodehouse, and a pinch of religious fundamentalism. First novelist Simonson handles it all with great aplomb, and her Major, with his keen sense of both honor and absurdity, is the perfect lens through which to view contemporary England. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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The kitchen god's wife - Amy Tan

The kitchen god's wife - Tan, Amy

Summary: A Chinese immigrant who is convinced she is dying threatens to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths, thus prompting a series of comic misunderstandings - (Baker & Taylor)



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Tan can relax. If The Joy Luck Club was an astonishing literary debut, The Kitchen God's Wife is a triumph, a solid indication of a mature talent for magically involving storytelling, beguiling use of language and deeply textured and nuanced character development. And while this second novel is again a story that a Chinese mother tells her daughter, it surpasses its predecessor as a fully integrated and developed narrative, immensely readable, perceptive, humorous, poignant and wise. Pearl Louie Brandt deplores her mother Winnie's captious criticism and cranky bossiness, her myriad superstitious rituals to ward off bad luck, and her fearful, negative outlook, which has created an emotional abyss between them. Dreading her mother's reaction, Pearl has kept secret the fact that she is suffering from MS. But as she learns during the course of the narrative, Winnie herself has concealed some astonishing facts about her early life in China, abetted by her friend and fellow emigree Helen Kwong. The story Winnie unfolds to Pearl is a series of secrets, each in turn giving way to yet another surprising revelation. Winnie's understated account--during which she goes from a young woman ``full of innocence and hope and dreams'' through marriage to a sadistic bully, the loss of three babies, and the horror and privations of the Japanese war on China--is compelling and heartrending. As Winnie gains insights into the motivations for other peoples' actions, she herself grows strong enough to conceal her past while building a new life in America, never admitting her deadly hidden fears. Integrated into this mesmerizing story is a view of prewar and wartime China--both the living conditions and the mind-set. Tan draws a vivid picture of the male-dominated culture, the chasm between different classes of society, and the profusion of rules for maintaining respect and dignity. But the novel's immediacy resides in its depiction of human nature, exposing foibles and frailties, dreams and hopes, universal to us all. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections; first serial to Grand Street, Lear's, McCalls and San Francisco Focus; paperback sale to Fawcett/Ivy; author tour. (June) Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.

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Coco Chanel: The legend and the life - Justine Picardie

Coco Chanel: The legend and the life - Picardie, Justine

Summary: Peels away the layers of romance and myth to reveal the woman who shaped modern fashion, drawing from research in the Chanel archives and an exclusive interview with Chanel's successor, Karl Lagerfeld.

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