The ocean at the end of the lane - Neil Gaiman

The ocean at the end of the lane - Gaiman, Neil

Summary: It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In Gaiman's first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he's just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With "an hour or so to kill" afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he's at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he's told since Stardust (1999). And don't worry about that "for adults" designation: it's a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That this is the popular author's first book for adults in eight years pretty much sums up why this will be in demand. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Empty mansions - Bill Dedman

Empty mansions - Dedman, Bill

Summary: A cousin of Huguette Clark and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist trace the life of the reclusive American heiress against a backdrop of the now-infamous W. A. Clark family and include coverage of the internet sensation and elder-abuse investigation that occurred at the end of her life. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
What goes on behind closed doors, especially when those doors are of the gilded variety, has fascinated novelists and journalists for centuries. The private lives of the rich and famous are so tantalizing that Robin Leach made a career out of showcasing them. One of the biggest eccentric, rich fishes out there was Huguette Clark. Deceased for more than two years, Clark, brought to life by investigator Dedman and Clark's descendant, Newell, owned nouveau riche palaces in New York, Connecticut, and California. An heiress, Clark disappeared from public view in the 1920s. What happened to her and her vast wealth? Answering this question is the book's mission. Based on records and the hearsay of relations and former employees, the book pieces together Clark's life, that of a woman rumored to be institutionalized while her mansions stood empty, though immaculately maintained throughout her life. Clark left few clues about herself, but she willed vast sums to her caretakers and numerous charitable endeavors. Still, her absence acts as a shade to seeing her fully, hinting at possible financial malfeasance, all the while conspiring to produce a spellbinding mystery. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Shadow and bone - Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and bone - Bardugo, Leigh

Summary: Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protegé of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.



Booklist Reviews
Debut author Bardugo has conjured up a treat with her first book in the Grisha Trilogy. In the opening passages, a tight bond is formed by two small orphans: handsome, competent Mal and tiny Alina, who never seems to do anything right. Jumping forward in time, the story follows the two friends after they have joined the King's First Army—Mal as a soldier-tracker and Alina as a cartographer. Their land of Ravka is surrounded by enemies and divided by the Shadow Fold, a mysterious, magical darkness that seethes with flesh-eating monsters. After Alina discovers that she possesses a magical power, she is taken to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, magicians who practice the Small Science. Resembling Czarist Russia, the court swirls with deceit and extravagance, and although Alina falls under the spell of the handsome Darkling, she misses Mal grievously. Bardugo weaves a captivating spell with lushly descriptive writing, engaging characters, and an exotic, vivid world. Readers will wait impatiently for the next installment. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A six-figure marketing campaign is already ensuring that this series debut receives blockbuster attention. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The complete tales & poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe

The complete tales & poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Poe, Edgar Allen

Summary: Features a comprehensive collection of the author's works, including such classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Raven" and lesser-known works such as "Loss of Breath" and "Spirits of the Dead." - (Baker & Taylor)

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The stand - Stephen King

The stand - King, Stephen

Summary: After a virus kills most of the people in the world, a handful of survivors choose sides-- a world of good led by 108-year-old Mother Abigail-- or evil led by a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.



Kirkus Review
/* Starred Review */ King's fifth novel returns, 12 years after its first publication, with 230 of its original pages restored. There is also some new writing in the present 1,153 pages of what is now King's longest creation--all has been updated ten years to include references to AIDS, Roger Rabbit, and more recent happenings. But the plot is almost utterly the same, only with more incidents and details deepening the characters. Essentially, if you've read the novel in its shorter form, you've read the novel and don't need to read the new version--unless you're a King fanatic, of course. But what do the new pages do? They give a creamy expansiveness to the flow--but then also delay the book's getting into its big stride: the heat between the story's rival forces doesn't begin until about page 700. And, strangely enough, the long version is a faster, smoother read, less difficult to take in than the short version. Sadly, though, the story's most powerful pages--a very long description of N.Y.C. emptied of human life by a super-flu plague, and a trek through the darkness of a Lincoln Tunnel crammed with dead vehicles and dead people--comes around page 400 and is such a strong, intense passage that nothing that follows equals it. What one gets is King's proletariat cast enacting a story that takes itself seriously, but seems to spring from an imagination fed on comic books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Bruce Springsteen. The story: a plague virus escapes from a California germ-warfare lab and knocks out nearly all human life. A small group of Americans, drawn from the East and West, gathers at Boulder, Colorado, and finds itself in psychic battle with the forces of evil--forces that are entrenched in Las Vegas and led by Satan in the guise of one Randall Flagg. A team of good guys infiltrates the bad guys, but it is the bad guys who bring about their own destruction with an atomic explosion--which is also seen as the hand of God engineering the Apocalypse. A last new touch has Flagg survive the bomb and start his campaign all over by perverting a primitive jungle tribe with civilization. For many, a haunting experience given its greatest life by scenes of devastation, although The Shining is artistically more complex and satisfying. And what can be said about the prole values King celebrates in book after book? Tiresome, man. (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1990)

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The shining (DVD)

The shining (DVD)

Summary: A writer and his family are snowbound in a hotel and are haunted by either the hotel itself or the writer's dementia.



Review
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is less an adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling horror novel than a complete reimagining of it from the inside out. In King's book, the Overlook Hotel is a haunted place that takes possession of its off-season caretaker and provokes him to murderous rage against his wife and young son. Kubrick's movie is an existential Road Runner cartoon (his steadicam scurrying through the hotel's labyrinthine hallways), in which the cavernously empty spaces inside the Overlook mirror the emptiness in the soul of the blocked writer, who's settled in for a long winter's hibernation. As many have pointed out, King's protagonist goes mad, but Kubrick's Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is Looney Tunes from the moment we meet him--all arching eyebrows and mischievous grin. (Both Nicholson and Shelley Duvall reach new levels of hysteria in their performances, driven to extremes by the director's fanatical demands for take after take after take.) The Shining is terrifying--but not in the way fans of the novel might expect. When it was redone as a TV miniseries (reportedly because of King's dissatisfaction with the Kubrick film), the famous topiary-animal attack (which was deemed impossible to film in 1980) was there--but the deeper horror was lost. Kubrick's The Shining gets under your skin and chills your bones; it stays with you, inhabits you, haunts you. And there's no place to hide... --Jim Emerson amazon.com

Staff Comments: Absolutely one of the best horror films of all-time.

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The bad seed - William March

The bad seed - March, William

Summary: What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million-copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine-tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before. - (HARPERCOLL)

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House of leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

House of leaves - Danielewski, Mark Z.

Summary: A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries - (Baker & Taylor)


Library Journal
When Johnny Truant attempts to organize the many fragments of a strange manuscript by a dead blind man, it gains possession of his very soul. The manuscript is a complex commentary on a documentary film (The Navidson Record) about a house that defies all the laws of physics. Navidson's exploration of a seemingly endless, totally dark, and constantly changing labyrinth in the house becomes an examination of truth, perception, and darkness itself. The book interweaves the manuscript with over 400 footnotes to works real and imagined, thus illuminating both the text and Truant's mental disintegration. First novelist Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective. Although it may be consigned to the "horror" genre, this novel is also a psychological thriller, a quest, a literary hoax, a dark comedy, and a work of cultural criticism. It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot. This powerful and extremely original novel is strongly recommended for all public and academic libraries.--Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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Shadowland - Peter Straub

Shadowland - Straub, Peter

Summary: This horror classic is once again brought to life as two best friends, apprentices to a Master Magician, enter a dark realm of immeasurable evil, more ancient than death itself, where only one of them will survive.



Reviews
“Gripping.”—The Memphis Commercial Appeal

“Savor the novel to the fullest.”—Dayton Daily News

“Eerily effective.”—BusinessWeek

“You will be transported.”—Houston Chronicle

“A masterpiece.”—Richmond News-Leader

“A blend of…the old horrors that crouch in the dark corners of the adult mind.”—John Lutz, author of Jericho Man

“I thought it was creepy from page one. I loved it.”—Stephen King

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The gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

The gargoyle - Davidson, Andrew

Summary: "A very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, crashes his car into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide--for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul. Then a beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany."--From publisher description.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Davidson's stunning debut opens with a hedonistic porn star drinking bourbon as he drives, until a vision of burning arrows rushing at his car causes him to crash through a guardrail and careen down a ravine. He awakens in a hospital, burns covering most of his body. Friendless, he loathes the doctors who are working so hard to heal him and plots his suicide. Into this husk of a life walks Marianne Engel, a beautiful sculptress whose first words to him are, You've been burned. Again. Over time she tells him the story of how they first met and fell in love 700 years ago at a German monastery. His initial skepticism over the improbability of her tale, given the fact that she's been in the psych ward, gives way to curiosity and eventually love. He still isn't sure he believes her, but her tale and her presence in his life give him something to live for. There's pure magic here, a classic redemption story with a hero so cynical, so damaged that it seems so unlikely that he'll ever reach for or even believe in salvation. When he does, the reward is immeasurable. Davidson's Gargoyle is a rare gem: completely engrossing, wholly unforgettable, and utterly transcendent. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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The girl who fell beneath fairyland and led the revels there - Catherynne Valente

The girl who fell beneath fairyland and led the revels there - Valente, Catherynne

Summary: After returning to Fairyland, September discovers that her stolen shadow has become the Hollow Queen, the new ruler of Fairyland Below, who is stealing the magic and shadows from Fairyland folk and refusing to give them back.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In this stellar sequel to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011), September is 13 years old and in possession of a teenage heart that is "raw and new, fast and fierce." It is this heart that guides her sophomore trip to Fairyland. When she literally stumbles into the magical realm, September finds that the inhabitants of Fairyland Above have been losing their shadows—sucked Below by the Alleyman, a floating red-feathered hat—and, along with them, their magic. As Fairyland Above becomes depleted, the underworld becomes a stronger, darker, increasingly renegade place under the rule of Halloween, September's shadow. Can September return the shadows and reset the equilibrium in Fairyland? On her quest, she's reunited with friends Saturday and Wyverary—well, their shadows at least—but mostly meets exciting new characters, from Belinda Cabbage, mad scientist, to a soft-spoken Physickist dodo bird named Aubergine. As with the previous title, Valente's inviting, lush, and densely detailed world is evocative of well-traveled lands, such as Neverland and Oz, but, at the same time, is uniquely its own. This is sure to draw new fans, but those familiar with the first book will find the reading a richer experience. Juan's shaded chapter-opening art puts bizarrely wonderful faces to names and sets just the right tone. Let's just hope the Green (or Silver) Wind calls us back to Fairyland soon. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making - Catherynne Valente

The girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making - Valente, Catherynne

Summary: Twelve-year-old September's ordinary life in Omaha turns to adventure when a Green Wind takes her to Fairyland to retrieve a talisman the new and fickle Marquess wants from the enchanted woods.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* When the Green Wind offers to whisk young September from her dull home in Nebraska off to Fairyland, she jumps at the chance and onto his flying leopard. Once in Fairyland (a self-aware mashup of surreal otherworlds from Wonderland to Oz to Neverland), she makes fast friends with a wyverary (the offspring of a dragon and a library); runs afoul of the wicked little girl Marquess, who rules the land with tyrannical poutiness; and traipses about in a loosely plotted series of merry, harrowing, and just plain weird adventures. September herself is a standard-issue fairy-tale fish out of water, ever flummoxed and begging pardon but given to sharp outbursts of pluck in pluckworthy situations. The setting, however, fairly bursts at the seams with darkness, wonder, and oodles of imaginative quirks, while Valente's busy and at times intrusive narration is thick, thorny, and stylistically vigorous. Chapters are headed by Juan's dreamy, stubby-figured drawings and a wry look forward ("In Which September Enters the Worsted Wood, Loses All Her Hair, Meets Her Death, and Sings It to Sleep"). The rich, dense vocabulary presents some tricky footing, but for readers like September, who "read often and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying," this book is quite simply a gold mine. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Wait until dark (DVD)

Wait until dark (DVD)

Summary: A photographer unwittingly smuggles a doll stuffed with heroin into New York City. His recently blinded wife, alone in their apartment, is first terrorized by hired crooks, and then by the psychopathic Roat, in search of the doll.


Review
Audrey Hepburn's last Oscar nomination was for this adaptation of Frederick Knott's famed stage thriller about a blind woman, a con man (Alan Arkin), and a doll full of heroin. Thanks to Hepburn's husband, a photographer who does a good deal of traveling, she's unknowingly come into possession of said doll, which was given to him on a plane by a comely young drug runner who winds up dead. The murderous Arkin, aided by sympathetic henchman Richard Crenna, will let nothing stand in the way of his obtaining it, even if it comes down to assaying multiple "personalities" in order to visit and terrorize Hepburn; Crenna is unwillingly enlisted to help. However, the "world's champion blind lady" (as Hepburn sardonically states) is more than up to the task of defending herself in her basement Manhattan apartment in a heart-stopping climax that to this day still defines the way horror movies with jack-in-the-box psychos are made. Despite the obvious staginess of it all (the entire action takes place in Hepburn's apartment), it still works magnificently, thanks to Hepburn's steely will and Arkin's deadly, sadistic madman. A helpful hint: turn out all the lights when you watch it; theaters back in 1967 did so, killing the guiding lights during the film's last 15 minutes. We can't tell you why, but trust us, it's worth it. --Mark Englehart amazon.com

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AM - Arctic Monkeys

AM - Arctic Monkeys

Summary: Arctic Monkeys release their fifth album, entitled AM. AM was produced by James Ford and co-produced by Ross Orton at Sage & Sound Recording, LA and Rancho De La Luna, Joshua Tree. The album was engineered by Ian Shea and mixed by Tchad Blake. Josh Homme, Pete Thomas and Bill Ryder-Jones all make guest appearances on AM as do the words of John Cooper Clarke, on the track "I Wanna Be Yours."

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The universe versus Alex Woods - Gavin Extence

The universe versus Alex Woods - Extence, Gavin

Summary: The son of a fortune teller, who was struck by a meteorite when he was ten years old, befriends a grumpy old widower and proves his friendship by getting stopped at the border by customs with a large bag of marijuana and an urn full of ashes.


Library Journal Reviews
Most teens think the universe is against them at some point. Seventeen-year-old Alex Woods has plenty of evidence for his case: a tarot-reading witch for a mother, his father a one-night Solstice stand long since forgotten, a chunk of meteorite crashing through the roof and smashing into him, the onset of epileptic seizures, and school bullies eager to target him. Luckily for Alex, the meteorite and bullies have an upside. While the meteorite accident introduces him to two unusual doctors and the worlds of astrophysics and neurology, the school bullies chase him into a life-changing friendship with the semi-reclusive Mr. Peterson after Alex takes the blame for Mr. Peterson's broken greenhouse windows. Rather than revealing the bullies' names, Alex accepts a punishment of helping out the curmudgeonly widower. Neither is very happy about the arrangement until they bond over books and Alex founds the Secular Church of Kurt Vonnegut reading group. Over the course of a year, they also come to terms with a terminal diagnosis. Their plans for a simple trip to a Zurich clinic turn into a wild wheelchair ride through a hospital, an unexpected kiss, and international media attention. Not your average rite of passage but one Alex can ace. VERDICT A bittersweet, cross-audience charmer, this debut novel will appeal to guys, YA readers, and Vonnegut and coming-of-age fiction fans.—Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC

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Evidence of things unseen - Marianne Wiggins

Evidence of things unseen - Wiggins, Marianne

Summary: Falling in love during the Second World War, a soldier and a glassblower's daughter eventually have a son, who in adulthood finds his own love affair impacted by fallout of the atomic age. 35,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
Ray "Fos" Foster loves just three things in life: anything that lights up; his wife, Opal, the daughter of a glassblower; and his best friend, bemused, cynical Chance "Flash" Luttrell. Fos and Flash, who met in the trenches of World War I, start up a business as photographers in Knoxville, Tennessee, while Opal keeps the books. The first thing Opal discovers is that black sheep Flash is underwriting the whole enterprise with inherited wealth. But their congenial partnership ends badly when Flash falls in love with the 14-year-old daughter of a powerful politician and is jailed for violating the Mann Act. The Fosters head to the country, make a bust of farming, and take in a foundling they nickname Lightfoot. Fos' passion for science leads to work at a secret government facility, where the couple unknowingly contracts a fatal case of radiation poisoning. Things come full circle when Lightfoot turns 18 and, desperate for information about his parents, tracks down Flash. Leave it to Wiggins to make this quirky story of passion and science so hypnotic. The plotting is digressive, the themes are stark, the language is lush, and the idiosyncratic characters are entirely winning. A heartfelt tribute to the risks and rewards of following one's inner lights. ((Reviewed April 15, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

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July 1914 - Sean McMeekin

July 1914: countdown to war - McMeekin, Sean

Summary: Focusing on the weeks preceding the beginning of World War I, traces the efforts of a group of statesmen who used the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand--which was largely ignored--to trigger the outbreak of war.



Kirkus Reviews
McMeekin (History/Koç Univ.; The Russian Origins of the First World War, 2011, etc.) treads familiar ground but delivers a thoroughly rewarding account that spares no nation regarding the causes of World War I, although Germany receives more than its share of blame. Historians love to argue about who started World War I. Blaming Germany fell out of fashion soon after the Armistice succeeded, replaced by an interpretation that blamed everyone, exemplified by Barbara Tuchman's classic 1962 Guns of August. Within a decade, German scholars led another reversal back to their own nation's responsibility. Russia, huge and backward but rapidly modernizing, was the key. German military leaders led by Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the General Staff, believed Russia would attack Germany as soon as it felt confident of victory and that only a preventive war could save the nation. Austrian Archduke Ferdinand's murder by a Serbian terrorist proved a godsend. Austria yearned to crush Serbia, the pugnacious Balkan nation stirring up the Slav minority in Austria-Hungary's rickety empire. Von Moltke decided it was time to set matters right since Austria's cooperation was guaranteed. Russia's refusal to stop mobilizing in support of Serbia allowed him to warn that it was about to attack and that Germany had to strike first. It did so by invading Belgium on August 4, the act that made war inevitable. Tuchman remains irresistible, and David Fromkin's Europe's Last Summer (2004) is the best modern history, but McMeekin delivers a gripping, almost day-by-day chronicle of the increasingly frantic maneuvers of European civilian leaders who mostly didn't want war and military leaders who had less objection. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Chance in hell - Gilbert Hernandez

Chance in hell - Hernandez, Gilbert

Summary: Appearing from unknown origins in a shantytown slum where she is collectively looked after by fellow inhabitants, a little orphan girl is adopted by a kind caregiver and eventually marries a well-to-do man only to discover that she is incapable of relating to the comforts of a good life. By the creator of Palomar. - (Baker & Taylor)


Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The rich emotions and passionate characters of Hernandez (Love & Rockets; Luba) are translated to a welcome new graphic novel, which fills B-movie situations with real drama. The story tracks the harsh world of the Empress, an otherwise nameless orphan who survives a hellish existence in an impoverished environment filled with machine gun–toting survivalists, roving gangs of delinquent murderers, and vile child molesters. She is taken in by a poet who resides in an urban hellhole of a different stripe, a place rife with vice and the exploitation of human misery. The adolescent Empress becomes influenced by the intellectual challenges posed by her poet mentor and the earthier realities evidenced by a teen pimp and his Hearts of Gold, a trio of multiethnic whores. While briefly in control of the pimp's stable, the Empress commits an appalling murder and flees to the more normal confines of a Catholic home for girls, growing up to meet a lawyer who will become her husband. A brief description only scratches the surface of the story; as always, Hernandez takes his readers on a harrowing journey that examines the damage done in childhood and how it affects the individual as she moves on through life. It's heavy stuff, but highly recommended. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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China's wings - Gregory Crouch

China's wings - Crouch, Gregory

Summary: Documents the contributions of China's daredevil pilots before and during World War II, citing the pivotal contributions of American aviation executive William Langhorne Bond and his team in providing emergency supplies in spite of harrowing risks.



Booklist Reviews
In this thoroughly researched, readable history of the China National Aviation Corporation, Crouch includes everything from Pan Am's participation in a joint U.S.-Chinese venture to the actions of presidents and pilots, businessmen and Flying Tigers. But rather than writing simply a valuable business history, Crouch focuses on the actions of William Bond, Pan Am's man on the ground, who navigated cultural, political, and military clashes while trying to hold together a company that provided significant and profitable service. Straddling the periods before and after WWII, Crouch's account is full of gossipy reports of backroom dealmaking, adventure rooted in the execution of "the Hump" (the world's first strategic airlift), and a hefty dose of intrigue connected to Chairman Mao's ascension. Through it all, Crouch grounds the narrative in Bond's life, recording his travels, struggle to maintain relationships with his wife and children, and clashes with superiors. Crouch's significant study of an overlooked subject is important as both history and an illumination of the current, China-focused business environment. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Decisive how to make better choices in life and work - Chip Heath

Decisive how to make better choices in life and work - Heath, Chip

Summary: The authors introduce a four-step process designed to counteract the biases that inevitably creep into the decision-making process.




Kirkus Reviews
A manual on how to become more rational when facing difficult decisions at work and in your personal life. The brothers Heath (Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, 2010, etc.) are a writing team with a couple of best-selling business titles under their belt. Chip, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Dan, a senior fellow at Duke's Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, specialize in writing about how human behavior affects organizations. Their present collaboration examines a variety of decision-making processes in business and personal life--whom to hire, which job to take, which schools to apply to, whom to pursue a romantic relationship with--and argues that those processes matter more to the outcome than the decisions themselves. The Heaths argue that humans are hampered by four "enemies" of decision-making rooted in our unconscious behavior: narrow focus, confirmation bias, short-term emotion and overconfidence in the outcome. They propose a four-step model called WRAP ("Widen your options, Reality-test your assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, and Prepare to be wrong") that they believe provides a template for good decision-making. All this is presented in the introductory chapter. The rest of the book fleshes out the Heaths' thesis with dozens of examples of best practices--e.g., Sam Walton's bus tour of competitors to decide how to speed customers through checkout lines; an Intel executive's insight that enabled him to drop a safe product line and focus on a riskier one; a San Diego nonprofit's struggle to decide to stick with their increasingly successful local mission or attempt a national one. Readers approaching this book because they have a pressing decision may be annoyed by the Heaths' lumbering pace, but for those who want to improve decision-making overall, the workshop style of the narrative should prove helpful. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Left of the dial dispatches from the 80's underground (CD) - Various Artists

Left of the dial dispatches from the 80's underground (CD)- Various Artists

Summary: In his notes for this passionately compiled box, producer Gary Stewart writes, "the diversity from the late-70s punk/new wave scene turned into a full-blown, variety-fueled, genre-busting orgy in the '80s...The music became, in the best sense of the words, more complex, more literate, a bit more serious, and as a result, made a strong impact on mainstream rock culture." From funk punk to revisionist roots rock to hard-core to smart-ass clever pop-and every musical nook and cranny in-between-Left of the Dial presents many of the '80s' most important tracks. Savor the far more influential flip side of the "Where's the Beef?" decade's musical output!

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To end all wars - Adam Hochschild

To end all wars a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914-1918 - Hochschild, Adam

Summary: World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In his riveting narrative, Hochschild brings it to life as never before while focusing on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes.



Kirkus Reviews
From historian Hochschild (Bury the Chains: The First International Human Rights Movement, 2005, etc.), a selective history of the slaughter of innocents in World War I.

WWI effected the rupture of civilization on many levels—the efficacy of war machinery for mass murder, the collapse of colonial empires, the destabilization of the status quo by modern ideas such as socialism, women's suffrage and national self-determination—and the author skillfully harnesses these numerous and often contradictory currents. Hochschild focuses on Britain and many of the significant, prominent or otherwise typical protagonists whose lives and work underscored the cataclysmic changes in this era, from loyal aristocrats to pacifists and conscientious objectors. Among dozens of others, the characters include military leaders Douglas Haig and Alfred Milner, who led the war effort against the later aggressions of Germany and Austria-Hungary; Charlotte Despard, whose work with the Battersea poor prompted her to become a committed socialist and pacifist; and Rudyard Kipling, whose writing cast a nostalgic enchantment around the British empire. Hochschild plunges into the war year by year, 1914–18, when Britain swung from a country eager to fight the Germans, despite labor unrest, Irish agitation for home rule and antiwar demonstrations, to utterly stricken and bereft, with unbelievable numbers of young men cut down in the trenches. Britain had "declared that the very fundamentals of civilization were at stake," yet the war wrought unfathomable carnage and profound questions about its purpose. The lives of the author's many characters dovetail elegantly in this moving, accessible book.

An ambitious narrative that presents a teeming worldview through intimate, human portraits.
Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Jerusalem: the biography - Simon Sebag Montefiore

Jerusalem: the biography - Sebag Montefiore, Simon

Summary: Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgment Day and the battlefield of today's clash of civilizations. From King David to Barack Obama, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of three thousand years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence. How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the "center of the world" and now the key to peace in the Middle East? In a gripping narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city in its many incarnations, bringing every epoch and character blazingly to life. Jerusalem's biography is told through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women -- kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores -- who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. As well as the many ordinary Jerusalemites who have left their mark on the city, its cast varies from Solomon, Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent to Cleopatra, Caligula and Churchill; from Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad; from the ancient world of Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod and Nero to the modern times of the Kaiser, Disraeli, Mark Twain, Lincoln, Rasputin, Lawrence of Arabia and Moshe Dayan. Drawing on new archives, current scholarship, his own family papers and a lifetime's study, Montefiore illuminates the essence of sanctity and mysticism, identity and empire in a unique chronicle of the city that many believe will be the setting for the Apocalypse. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice -- in heaven and on earth.-- Publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* If, as some have maintained, the word Jerusalem means "city of peace," it is a grand historical irony. For, as this beautifully written, absorbing, but often grim account shows, there are few stones of the city that have not been stained with the blood of its inhabitants during the past 3,000 years. Acclaimed historian and biographer Montefiore views Jerusalem as a living, breathing organism bearing the genetic imprint of many conquerors, including Jews, Greeks, Arabs, crusading Franks, Turks, and the British. Although his Jewish family has strong links to the city, Montefiore scrupulously sustains balance and objectivity in the book's chronological presentation of the development of the city from the prebiblical time of the Jebusites to the present. For Jews, Christians, and Muslims, Jerusalem truly is a holy city, yet that status has been tragically used to justify bigotry, fanaticism, and appalling massacres, some of which Montefiore describes in horrifying detail. While sometimes painful to read, this is an essential book for those who wish to understand a city that remains a nexus of world affairs. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Orange is the new black - Piper Kerman

Orange is the new black - Kerman, Piper

Summary: A compelling, often hilarious, and unfailingly compassionate portrait of life inside a woman's prison. Follows the author's incarceration for drug trafficking, during which she gained a unique perspective on the criminal justice system and met a varied community of women living under exceptional circumstances.


Booklist Reviews
Just graduated from Smith College, Kerman made the mistake of getting involved with the wrong woman and agreeing to deliver a large cash payment for an international drug ring. Years later, the consequences catch up with her in the form of an indictment on conspiracy drug-smuggling and money-laundering charges. Kerman pleads guilty and is sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. Entering prison in 2004—more than 10 years after her crime—Kerman finds herself submerged in the unique and sometimes overwhelming culture of prison, where kindness can come in the form of sharing toiletries, and an insult in the cafeteria can lead to an enduring enmity. Kerman quickly learns the rules—asking about the length of one's prison stay is expected, but never ask about the crime that led to it—and carves a niche for herself even as she witnesses the way the prison system fails those who are condemned to it, many of them nonviolent drug offenders. An absorbing, meditative look at life behind bars.

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Counting by 7s - Holly Sloan

Counting by 7s - Sloan, Holly

Summary: Twelve-year-old genius and outsider Willow Chance must figure out how to connect with other people and find a surrogate family for herself after her parents are killed in a car accident.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In a voice that is frank, charming, and delightfully odd, Willow Chance narrates the strange and heartbreaking circumstances that lead her to find an offbeat, patchwork quilt of a family. As an adopted, self-identified "person of color," precocious genius Willow unabashedly knows that she is different, but her parents love and support her idiosyncrasies, such as wearing her gardening outfit to school, her preoccupation with disease, her anthropological curiosity about her peers, and her obsession with the number seven. That self-assuredness shines through Willow's narrative and becomes crucial to her survival after the unexpected death of her parents, which makes Willow a prime candidate for life in a group home—an environment that could be disastrous for an unusual child like her. Luckily, she finds new friends who are compelled to protect her: Mai and her family, who live in the garage behind the nail salon they own, and Willow's slouch of a guidance counselor, Dell. Sloan (I'll Be There, 2011) has masterfully created a graceful, meaningful tale featuring a cast of charming, well-rounded characters who learn sweet—but never cloying—lessons about resourcefulness, community, and true resilience in the face of loss. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Jane Austen's England - Lesley Adkins

Jane Austen's England - Adkins, Lesley

Summary: A cultural portrait of everyday life in Regency England and the world of Jane Austen draws on a rich array of contemporary sources including previously unpublished manuscripts, diaries and personal letters to depict how everyday people shared experiences ranging from marriage and sexuality to health care and religion. - (Baker & Taylor)


Kirkus Reviews
It wasn't all courtship, corsets and carriages--the grim reality behind a great author's world. Jane Austen (1775–1817) was more genius than realist, delicately creating a world richer in psychological insight than in documented reality. In this cultural history of Austen's era, Roy and Lesley Adkins (Jack Tar: Life in Nelson's Navy, 2009, etc.) show the England that Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse never much discussed. It was a society where life was nasty, brutish, short and smelly. Standards for cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene were abysmal, and there was no running water. Not only did homes easily burn, but there was also no bathing as we know it. ("What dreadful hot weather we have!" Jane wrote to her sister Cassandra. "It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.") Chamber pots were emptied out of windows, people urinated on the street, toilet paper did not exist, and women had little (and some nothing) in the way of sanitary protection. Superstition prevailed over medicine; one diarist describes trying to cure a sty by rubbing it with the tail of a cat. No one in Austen's day had teeth like Emma Thompson or Colin Firth; some, like Dorothy Wordsworth, were toothless by the age of 30. The poor had it worse, especially children; provided they survived infancy, they were often consigned to a barbaric existence working in the mines or sweeping chimneys. Austen didn't write entirely in a vacuum, of course, and the Adkins' frequently point out just where her novels reflect the domestic and social world she knew, particularly as in regards to clothing, footwear and social customs. The authors let their facts tell the story, which is a wise choice given the often bland writing style. For fans of Austen and English history, a deeply informative picture of Regency life. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Mr. Tiger goes wild - Peter Brown

Mr. Tiger goes wild - Brown, Peter

Summary: Bored with city life and the proper behavior it requires, Mr. Tiger has a wild idea that leads him to discover his true nature.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Opening endpapers of orderly gray bricks introduce a community of proper Victorian animals getting about their business with smileless politesse. But Mr. Tiger, his bright-orange face a sore thumb among the elephant grays and mule-deer browns, dreams of freedom. First, he drops to all fours. His neighbors are nonplussed. Then, he rampages and roars. His neighbors are frightened. Finally, he gets naked. The village members suggest he head into the wilderness, which he thinks is a "magnificent idea." He loves the wilderness, with all its wildness, but, in time, he misses the city and his friends. He returns only to discover that things have loosened to a happy medium. He dons some aloha attire, and all is right with the world. Closing endpapers of haphazard greenery celebrate the welcome change. Brown highlights the differences between municipal propriety and savage abandon with color and composition. The city is all upright, sepia, rectilinear precision; the wild, sweeping vistas of lush, verdant paradise, and their final amalgam form a nice balance. With its skewed humor and untamed spirit, this joyous exploration of quasi-reverse anthropomorphism will delight listeners again and again. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Soulless - Gail Carriger

Soulless - Carriger, Gail

Summary: Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Carriger debuts brilliantly with a blend of Victorian romance, screwball comedy of manners and alternate history. Prickly, stubborn 25-year-old bluestocking Alexia Tarabotti is patently unmarriageable, and not just because she's large-nosed and swarthy. She's also soulless, an oddity and a secret even in a 19th-century London that mostly accepts and integrates werewolf packs, vampire hives and ghosts. The only man who notices her is brash Lord Conall Maccon, a Scottish Alpha werewolf and government official, and (of course) they dislike each other intensely. After Alexia kills a vampire with her parasol at a party—how vulgar!—she and Conall must work together to solve a supernatural mystery that grows quite steampunkishly gruesome. Well-drawn secondary characters round out the story, most notably Lord Akeldama, Alexia's outrageous, italic-wielding gay best vampire friend. This intoxicatingly witty parody will appeal to a wide cross-section of romance, fantasy and steampunk fans. (Oct.)

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Headhunters on my doorstep - Maarten J. Troost

Headhunters on my doorstep: a treasure island ghost story - Troost, Maarten J.

Summary: "The bestselling author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals recounts his latest hilarious misadventures in the South Pacific, following in the footsteps of his unlikely idol, Robert Louis Stevenson. Readers and critics alike adore J. Maarten Troost for his signature wry and witty take on the adventure memoir. Hailed by Entertainment Weekly as a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion," Troost's bestselling debut, The Sex Lives of Cannibals, is an enduring favorite about life in the South Seas. Headhunters on My Doorstep chronicles Troost's return to the South Pacific after his struggle with alcoholism and time in rehab left him numb to life. Deciding to retrace the path once traveled by the author of Treasure Island, Troost follows Robert Louis Stevenson to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Gilberts, and Samoa, tumbling from one comic misadventure to another as he confronts his newfound sobriety. Somewhere en route from the shark-infested waters of Fakarava to the remote islands of Kiribati, Troost gradually awakens to the beauty of life and reconnects with his family and the world. Headhunters on My Doorstep is a funny yet poignant account of one man's journey to find himself that will captivate travel writing aficionados, Robert Louis Stevenson fans, and anyone who has ever lost his way"-- Provided by publisher.

Kirkus Reviews
Following a stint in rehab, travel writer Troost (Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid, 2008, etc.) chronicles his journey toward finding his new sober self while following in the tracks of Robert Louis Stevenson. For years, Troost lived the good life: "For a long while, decades even, the sun had shone on me. Life had been an effortless glide." Then, suddenly, it wasn't, and his wife dropped him at a rehab center along with an ultimatum to sober up or else. On the road to recovery, the author delved into the literature of the South Seas, particularly Stevenson's Treasure Island. His curiosity reawakened following his newfound sobriety, Troost set out on his own adventure for some of the most remote islands on Earth, including the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Gilberts and Samoa. Whether detailing the boorish behavior of other travelers, the serenity/fright experienced when snorkeling with sharks, rising sea levels or his own inadequacies, Troost's language rings true. The author candidly, humorously probes the nether regions of his addiction along with the temptations he encountered during his journey. "So now here I was," he writes, "nearly twelve months sober, alone for the first time in a faraway place, on a boatful of booze." Troost's sly wit permeates the narrative, propelling his saga out of the ranks of many recovery memoirs. The author weaves together entertaining and illuminating pop-culture touchstones, history, and cultural, culinary and literary references with personal experiences while rambling across the South Seas. A rambunctious, intimate trip well worth the armchair time. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Starbuck (DVD)

Starbuck (DVD)

Summary: A forty-two-year-old underachiever discovers that he has fathered 533 children through anonymous donations to a fertility clinic and must decide whether or not to reveal his identity after 142 of them file lawsuits.


Video Librarian Reviews
Ken Scott's French Canadian comedy tries to be sweet in a naughty sort of way—serving up a quirky modern fable of redemption through parenthood. Beefy Patrick Huard stars as David, a supposedly charming rogue deeply in debt to his bookie. During his younger days, David was a champion sperm donor, making more than six hundred contributions to the bank under the pseudonym of Starbuck. David's semen proved extraordinarily fertile, resulting in the birth of over five hundred offspring. Now, more than a hundred of them are suing the clinic, trying to force the institution to reveal the identity of their biological father. Most of Starbuck is devoted to David's change of heart as he surreptitiously looks up his "kids" even while going to court, via a lawyer pal, to argue against disclosing his name. To complicate matters further, David's girlfriend is pregnant. Not much surprise about how this will all end, as it's inevitable that David will finally discover a sense of responsibility and bond with his multitudinous progeny. But the effect is less warmhearted than mawkish. Optional. (F. Swietek)Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.

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The valley of amazement - Amy Tan

The valley of amazement - Tan, Amy

Summary: Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign “Shanghailanders” living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II.


Kirkus Reviews
Tan, who made her name with The Joy Luck Club (1989), blends two favorite settings, Shanghai and San Francisco, in a tale that spans generations. Granted that courtesans and the places that sheltered them were (and in some places still are) culturally significant in East Asia, Tan takes what might seem an unnecessary risk by setting her latest novel in that too-familiar demimonde (Miss Saigon, Memoirs of a Geisha, etc.). Tan is a skilled storyteller, capable of working her way into and out of most fictional problems, but the reader will be forgiven a sinking feeling at the scenario with which she opens, featuring "the only white woman who owned a first-class courtesan house in Shanghai." Where are the Boxers when you need them? Said white woman, Lulu Minturn, aka Lulu Mimi, is in Shanghai for a reason--and on that reason hinges a larger conceit, the one embodied by the book's title. She has a daughter, and the daughter, naturally enough, has cause to wonder about her ancestry, if little time to worry overmuch about some of the details, since her mom leaves her to fend for herself, not entirely willingly. The chinoiserie and exoticism aside, Violet makes a tough and compelling character, a sort of female equivalent to Yul Brynner as played by Lucy Liu. The members of the "Cloud Beauties," who give Violet her sentimental education, make an interesting lot themselves, but most of the attention is on Violet and the narrative track that finds her on a parallel journey, literally and figuratively, always haunted by "those damned paintings that had belonged to my mother" and that will eventually reveal their secrets. Tan's story sometimes suffers from longueurs, but the occasional breathless, steamy scene evens the score: "He lifted my hips and my head soared and I lost all my senses except for the one that bound us and could not be pulled apart." A satisfyingly complete, expertly paced yarn. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The silence of the lambs - Thomas Harris

The silence of the lambs - Harris, Thomas

Summary: FBI Academy trainee Clarice Starling hopes that Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a criminally insane psychiatrist imprisoned in a Boston hospital, can lead her to the serial killer known only as Buffalo Bill - (Baker & Taylor)


Library Journal Reviews
In this intelligent, fast-paced thrillerwhich is also brutal and gruesomeagent Clarice Starling of the FBI's behavioral science section is assigned to conduct a psychological profile of Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist imprisoned for serial murder. Uncooperative at first, Lecter then says he can help identify a serial killer who has eluded authorities for months. Lecter's aid proves invaluable, and Starling soon finds herself using one madman to catch another. Harris ( Black Sunday, 1975; Red Dragon , 1981) has written a story, although not for the squeamish, that is hard to put down. Lonnie Beene, West Texas State Univ. Lib., Caynon Copyright 1988 Cahners Business Information.

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