The painted girls - Cathy Marie Buchanan

The painted girls - Buchanan, Cathy Marie

Summary: In belle époque Paris, the Van Goethem sisters struggle for survival after the sudden death of their father, a situation that prompts young Marie's ballet training and her introduction to a genius painter.


Booklist Reviews
Buchanan's exquisite historical novel details the lives of would-be ballerinas Antoinette, Marie, and Charlotte van Goethem. Responsible for fending for themselves after the death of their father and the absinthe-soaked decline of their mother, the van Goethem sisters struggle to eke out an existence while subsidizing their ambitions at the harshly competitive school of the Paris Opéra. When Marie is selected by Edgar Degas to pose for his future masterpiece, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,and Antoinette snags a bit part in the stage adaptation of Émile Zola's L'Assommoir, the extra income enables them to avoid, for a while, the tragic pitfalls of life on the lower slopes of Montmartre. To make things even more interesting, Buchannan links the sisters' stories with that of convicted criminals Emile Abadie and Michel Knobloch, the subjects of Degas' Criminal Physiognomies. By intertwining the narrative threads of these drawn-from-history characters, she paints a realistically robust portrait of working-class life in late nineteenth-century Paris. Guaranteed to appeal to fans of Tracy Chevalier, Susan Vreeland, and Melanie Benjamin. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Archangel - Sharon Shinn

Archangel - Shinn, Sharon

Summary: Generations after first settling Samaria, corruption threatens to destroy the colony, and the only hope of avoiding an Armageddon is the crowning of a new Archangel, Gabriel, who must first marry a mortal woman, Rachel, who has her own ideas about her life - (Baker & Taylor)

BookList
Next in line to become archangel in the angel-led dominion of Samaria, Gabriel must lead the next chorale praising the god Jovah, which means he needs a wife--fast--to sing beside him. Guided by the local oracle and the light emanating from the Kiss of the Gods (a homing device in his wrist), he finds his Jovah-selected fiancee in a common Edori slave girl named Rachel. The marriage proves, however, anything but romantic. Far from rejoicing in the sudden freedom that her marriage brings, Rachel quickly becomes a thorn in Gabriel's side, using her newfound influence to help her downtrodden Edori brethren. Displaying sure command of characterization and vividly imagined settings, Shinn absorbs us in the story of how Rachel and Gabriel eventually unite in true love and respect. With place-names such as Gaza and Jordana, she tantalizingly hints at her Samaria's connection to an ancient Israeli past, and she tempers the angelic milieu with talk of her angels' technological heritage in an entertaining sf-fantasy blend that should please fans of both genres. ((Reviewed May 1, 1996)) -- Carl Hays

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The girl of fire and thorns - Rae Carson

The girl of fire and thorns - Rae Carson

Summary: A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic.


Booklist Reviews
In 16-year-old Elisa, first-time novelist Carson has created a fascinating and credible heroine who battles her way through her own timidity and self-doubt to discover her abilities to love, lead, and suffer loss without denying her future or her faith. Set in an alternative premodern Iberian- and Christianity-hued Saharan-like world, Elisa's adventures include an arranged marriage, a politically and religiously inspired kidnapping, hand-to-hand combat with knife and wits against men trained for battle, the traumatic death of her beloved, and the care of a six-year-old boy. She, as well as the central drama of this promising series starter, depends on the guidance of the holy gem she carries in her navel: the Godstone, which marks her as one whose service shows forth through history-changing practice as well as belief. Carson presents a thorough theology (complete with holy texts), complex characters, dramatic landscapes, royal courts, and a range of difficulties solved through wisdom rather than accident. Romantic, lush, and thought provoking. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Short term 12 (DVD)

Short term 12 (DVD)

Summary: A young woman experiences the highs and lows of being a supervisor at a foster care facility.

Video Librarian Reviews
Written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, this poignant psychological drama about troubled teens earned accolades at film festivals worldwide. Twentysomething Grace (Brie Larson) is a group supervisor at a live-in foster-care facility for at-risk kids. Working with her supportive, longtime boyfriend, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), and new employee, Nate (Rami Malek), Grace does her best to comfort troubled residents, such as nearly-18-year-old Marcus (Keith Stanfield), who is terrified about living on his own for the first time, and can only express his fear and fury in a rap song. But it's the arrival of violently angry Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever)—who writes and illustrates a revelatory fable about an octopus and a shark—that pressures Grace into not only acknowledging her own difficult past but also coming to terms with her unanticipated future. Grace, Mason, and Nate aren't therapists; as counselors, their job is to create a safe environment and keep the damaged adolescents under their protection from hurting themselves and others. But sometimes they perceive more than the mental health professionals, so tension naturally escalates when their evaluations and suggested treatments don't align with the observations of vigilant staffers. Basing the sensitive story on his own experience working at a similar institution, Cretton's direction is realistic and unsentimental. Recommended. (S. Granger)Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.

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The shining girls - Lauren Beukes

The shining girls - Beukes, Lauren

Summary: "A time-traveling serial killer is impossible to trace-- until one of his victims survives. In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back. Working with an ex-homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby has to unravel an impossible mystery"--Publisher's web site.


Booklist Reviews
Harper Curtis isn't your run-of-the-mill serial killer. He gets to time travel from the 1920s through the 1980s, killing girls in different decades, all to satisfy a bloodthirsty Chicago bungalow. Yes, you read that correctly: the house makes him do it. In this genre-bending novel, Beukes never explains the origins of this evil house or how it manages to transport Harper from year to year. All we know is that Harper is compelled to track down and murder specific "shining girls" in gruesome ways (usually evisceration), and he gets away with it since he can escape across time. Until he leaves Kirby Mazrachi behind in 1989, that is. Kirby miraculously recovers from the vicious attack and is determined to track down her assailant, even if the police consider it a closed case. She enlists the help of Dan, a reporter at the Sun-Times, and they slowly uncover odd clues left behind in a dozen unsolved murder cases; it turns out Harper has been leaving behind items from the future. Not for all tastes, but fans of urban fantasy may be interested in this clever and detailed supernatural thriller. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Warm bodies - Isaac Marion

Warm bodies - Marion, Isaac

Summary: Alienated from his fellow zombies because of his dislike of having to kill humans and his enjoyment of Sinatra music, "R" meets a living girl who sharply contrasts with his cold and dreary world and whom he resolves to protect in spite of her delicious appearance.


Kirkus Reviews

A jubilant story about two star-crossed lovers, one of them dead and hungry for more than love.

Debut novelist Marion hits the pulse of the Twilight crowd with this morbidly romantic look at how affection really feels when your heart beats no more. "I am dead, but it's not so bad," says our zombie narrator, by way of introduction. "I've learned to live with it. This is "R," so named because it's all he can remember. But this is no Team Edward sob story. R really is a zombie, carrying the pink brains of his victims back to his communal lair for a snack. But one day, R chomps down on Perry Kelvin, a teenager whose sole affection is for his girlfriend, Julie. R begins absorbing Perry's memories, which in turn inspire him not to treat Julie like a bucket of KFC. And so the weirdest courting in the history of literature begins, as R and Julie spend time together prowling food courts and half-destroyed 747s. Julie, who could have been a simplistic mechanism to drive the book's plot, turns out to be its most inspired character, inhabiting that odd space between fear and curiosity. "Maybe you're not such a monster, Mr. Zombie," she admits at one point. "I mean, anyone who appreciates a good beer is halfway okay in my book." R begins to change, redeveloping his ability to communicate, and noticing a physical transformation to accompany his emotional awakening. But the path of true love never runs smooth, and the unlikely duo soon find themselves caught between R's ravenous companions and Julie's soldier father.

Originally self-published, this DIY success story is already slated for a film adaptation, making these quixotic lovers the grateful dead indeed.


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The dead in the their vaulted arches - Alan C. Bradley

The dead in the their vaulted arches - Bradley, Alan C.

Summary: "Bishop's Lacey is never short of two things: Mysteries to solve and pre-adolescent detectives to solve them. In this New York Times bestselling series of cozy mysteries, young chemist and aspiring detective Flavia de Luce once again brings her knowledge of poisons and her indefatigable spirit to solve the most dastardly crimes the English countryside has to offer and, in the process, comes closer than ever to solving her life's greatest mystery--her mother's disappearance.."-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
The irrepressible, nearly 12-year-old Flavia de Luce, amateur detective, faces a particularly personal crisis in this, her sixth outing. Her mother, lost in the Himalayas when Flavia was a baby, is coming home in a coffin, escorted by none other than former British prime minister Winston Churchill. If that isn't odd enough, the great man, before leaving, approaches Flavia and asks her if she has "acquired a taste for pheasant sandwiches." Shortly thereafter, she is approached by another man with an equally cryptic message, after which he is crushed beneath a train. Despite her curiosity, Flavia must temporarily push such strange occurrences aside to evaluate her feelings about her mother and the ongoing difficulties she is having with her odious sisters and distant father. If the somewhat tangled plot requires a bit of patience to negotiate, be assured that Flavia (who leaves "the fingerprints of her brilliant mind" on nearly everything) is as fetching as ever; her chatty musings and her combination of childish vulnerability and seemingly boundless self-confidence hasn't changed a bit. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Spider woman's daughter - Anne Hillerman

Spider woman's daughter - Hillerman, Anne

Summary: "Navajo Nation Police Officer Bernadette Manualito witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of someone very close to her. With the victim fighting for his life, the entire squad and the local FBI office are hell-bent on catching the gunman. Bernie, too, wants in on the investigation, despite regulations forbidding eyewitness involvement. But that doesn't mean she's going to sit idly by, especially when her husband, Sergeant Jim Chee, is in charge of finding the shooter. Bernie and Chee discover that a cold case involving his former boss and partner, retired Inspector Joe Leaphorn, may hold the key. Digging into the old investigation, husband and wife find themselves inching closer to the truth-- and closer to a killer determined to prevent justice from taking its course" -- from publisher's web page.

Library Journal Reviews
Tony Hillerman's 18 mysteries followed the investigations of Navajo cops Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Fans mourned when Hillerman died in 2008. Now the late author's beloved characters return in this series relaunch by his daughter, Anne. The book opens with an act of unexpected violence against a dear friend, witnessed by police officer Bernadette Manualito. She and her husband, Jim Chee, begin to piece together clues and determine who would commit this crime, even questioning the motives of the unaccounted-for Louisa Bourbonnette, Leaphorn's friend and housemate. Interspersed throughout the tale, yet important to character development and emphasizing the role of Navajo culture and beliefs (a highlight of the previous series), are vignettes of Bernadette's troubled sister and Jim's past studies to become a Navajo healer and descriptions of Navajo creation stories. Characters from 1988's Thief of Time play a dominant role in the unfolding of the plot. Pot hunters, archaeologists, controversy over the museum display of tribal objects, and insurance fraud culminate in a heart-stopping, action-packed conclusion as Bernadette and Jim risk their lives to bring a would-be assassin to justice. VERDICT Fans of Southwestern mysteries will cheer this return of Leaphorn and Chee. [See Prepub Alert, 4/29/13; also highlighted at LJ's Day of Dialog Editors' Picks panel.—Ed.]—Patricia Ann Owens, formerly with Illinois Eastern Community Colls., Mt. Carmel

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On the trail of Genghis Khan - Tim Cope

On the trail of Genghis Khan: an epic journey through the land of the nomads - Cope, Time


Summary: Undertaking a journey not successfully completed since the days of Genghis Khan, a professional adventurer recounts his travels by horseback across the entire length of the Eurasian steppe, a 6,000-mile, three-year-long trip.


Booklist Reviews
An adventurer who has sailed down Siberia's Yenesei River, among other quests, Cope mounted a horse in Mongolia in 2004 and set out for the opposite end of the Eurasian steppe, Hungary. This was the vast sphere conquered by the Mongol Empire in the 1200s, the historical memory of which accompanied Cope as surely as did his contemporary education in nomadic living. Embarking without much prior experience in things equestrian but gifted with foreign-language skills, Cope proceeded across exceedingly challenging if not downright dangerous landscapes of deserts, mountains, and plains. At many points, Cope's journey seemed sure to be thwarted by wolves, thieves, or bureaucrats, but three years later, Cope, his steeds, and his dog, Tigon, arrived triumphantly in Hungary. Within this theme of difficulties met and mastered, the people Cope met on the way become vividly characterized as jocular or menacing, helpful or hindering in the narrative's large stock of intercultural encounters. (Cope is Australian.) Weaving acute observation, honest introspection, and a sense of history, Cope crafts a marvelously perceptive travelogue of an audacious odyssey. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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The invention of wings - Sue Monk Kidd

The invention of wings - Kidd, Sue Monk

Summary: "The story follows Hetty 'Handful' Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid. "The Invention of Wings" follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Inspired by the true story of early-nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffragist Sarah Grimké, Kidd paints a moving portrait of two women inextricably linked by the horrors of slavery. Sarah, daughter of a wealthy South Carolina plantation owner, exhibits an independent spirit and strong belief in the equality of all. Thwarted from her dreams of becoming a lawyer, she struggles throughout life to find an outlet for her convictions. Handful, a slave in the Grimké household, displays a sharp intellect and brave, rebellious disposition. She maintains a compliant exterior, while planning for a brighter future. Told in first person, the chapters alternate between the two main characters' perspectives, as we follow their unlikely friendship (characterized by both respect and resentment) from childhood to middle age. While their pain and struggle cannot be equated, both women strive to be set free—Sarah from the bonds of patriarchy and Southern bigotry, and Handful from the inhuman bonds of slavery. Kidd is a master storyteller, and, with smooth and graceful prose, she immerses the reader in the lives of these fascinating women as they navigate religion, family drama, slave revolts, and the abolitionist movement. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Beginning with her phenomenally successful debut, The Secret Life of Bees (2002), Kidd's novels have found an intense readership among library patrons, who will be eager to get their hands on her latest one. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Ye-ye girls of 60s French pop - Jean Emmanuel

Ye-ye girls of 60s French pop - Emmanuel, Jean

Summary; Yé-yé is a delightful style of pop music featuring young female
singers that influenced France, Québec and other European countries with its
"camp" style throughout the 1960s.

This collection by pop music expert Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe includes many
interviews with the original singers and producers, and hundreds of visual
examples of record covers, magazines, and a teenaged fan’s scrapbook from
the period.

This book includes the famous Yé-Yé practitioners Sylvie Vartan, France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Chantal Goya, Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin and dozens of others, including perverse Serge Gainsbourg.

Yé-Yé had secondary explosions in the 1970s and 1990s in Japan and Europe
through the likes of Lio (who provides this book’s foreword), and in the
United States through singers like April March, whose Yé-Yé number "Chick
Habit" was heard in the Quentin Tarantino film Death Proof. Interest in Yé-Yé
exploded again when Megan Draper sang the Yé-Yé number "Zou Bisou Bisou,”
originally made famous by Gillian Hills, in the 5th season of Mad Men.

Be prepared to be immersed in this beloved but cruelly neglected pop
music genre.
- (Perseus Publishing)

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Before sunrise (DVD)

Summary: A young American man meets a beautiful French student on a train bound for Paris, falls in love and asks her to share his last night in Vienna.

Before sunset (DVD)

Summary: "Two strangers met by chance, spent a night together in Vienna, and parted before sunrise. Nine years later, Jesse has written a book about the encounter. During his accelerated European book tour, he meets up with Celine in Paris. Before Jesse's flight home, he joins Celine for a picturesque walk around the city and they have an intimate conversation, ending at Celine's apartment. Will they get the chance to fall in love all over again?"

Video Librarian Reviews
A little 80-minute gem of walky-talky romance, this sequel to Before Sunrise takes place nine years after that film's single night of intellectual and spiritual magic between two backpacking Eurorail summer-break tourists (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) in Paris. As they fleetingly promised in 1995, these sharp-witted, contemplative, and captivating characters do meet again, picking up right where they left off--except with nearly a decade's worth of worldly wisdom, and memories of each other that continue to produce emotional ripples. Hawke, Delpy, and director Richard Linklater (who all collaborated on this story that plays out spontaneously and unaffectedly) have created a simple yet psychologically complex, real-time narrative of long single takes and fluid free-association, resulting in a modest masterpiece of modern romance that culminates in a moment of wondrous warmth so stirring and memorable that it wipes away any doubt about the decision to leave the finale of its predecessor open-ended. Highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2004.

Before midnight(DVD)

Summary: Follows Jesse and Céline nine years later in Greece, almost two decades since they first met on a train bound for Vienna.

Video Librarian Reviews
This third chapter in Richard Linklater's emotionally vibrant examination of a constantly evolving romantic relationship follows 1995's Before Sunrise, in which American novelist Jesse (Ethan Hawke) met spunky Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy) on a train, and 2004's Before Sunset, in which the lovers reunited a decade later. Now in their 40s, Jesse and Celine are living together in Paris. Jesse is seeing his adolescent son Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) off at Kalamata Airport in Greece, returning him to Jesse's hostile ex-wife in Chicago after a summer vacation spent with Jesse, Celine, and their twin daughters. After dropping the girls off with friends, Jesse and Celine head out for what is supposed to be an idyllic, festive night at a picturesque seaside hotel. But a marital crisis erupts. Jesse feels guilty that he can't spend more time with Hank—which would involve moving back to the United States—and environmental activist Celine has been offered an exciting, career-changing opportunity. Add to that the inevitable challenges, resentments, and disappointments that come with raising children and facing middle age. As with the first two films, Before Midnight is about two fully-developed characters who authentically communicate their deepest feelings and frustrations. While not making a commitment to marriage, Jesse and Celine have nevertheless taken on added responsibilities that curtail their creativity and their freedom. All of this is explored in this beautifully naturalistic film written by Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy, featuring carefully scripted, teasing, taunting dialogue that rings painfully true. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (S. Granger)Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.

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C'est chic: French girl singers of the 1960s (CD)

C'est chic: French girl singers of the 1960s (CD)

Summary: Comprising 24 tracks by 20 acts - Françoise Hardy, France Gall, Jacqueline Taïeb and the country's top girl group Les Gam's are each represented by two titles - C'est Chic! features many of the premier female stars of Gallic pop, plus a few French-singing non-nationals for good measure.

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Ava Gardner: The secret conversations - Peter Evans

Ava Gardner: The secret conversations - Evans, Peter

Summary: A self-portrait of the late film legend's golden-era Hollywood life traces her impoverished childhood in North Carolina through the heights of her career, sharing details of her relationships with such figures as Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, and George C. Scott.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In 1988, only two years before her death, legendary actress Ava Gardner, then living in semiseclusion in London and running low on money, asked the late Evans to ghostwrite her autobiography: "I either write the book or sell the jewels, and I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels." Gardner didn't want to do a sugarcoated memoir, preferring to tell it straight, the real story of the marriages to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, the multiple affairs (with Howard Hughes, among many others), the hardscrabble childhood in North Carolina tobacco country. But as the two met and Gardner began speaking of her life, it became clear to Evans that the actress was more reticent about telling it straight than she pretended to be. The conversations were uninhibited, to be sure, but Gardner balked at the finished chapters ("I sound too fucking vulgar"), leading ultimately to the project being abandoned. Shortly before his own death in 2012, Evans wrote this memoir of a memoir-in-progress, transcribing Gardner's recollections and providing connective passages setting the scenes. What emerges doesn't cover the sweep of the movie icon's remarkable life as fully as Lee Server's Ava Gardner (2006), but it does capture Gardner's indelible voice—vulgar, yes, but humanly so as well as unfailingly witty and movingly melancholic. Finally, 25 years after the fact, we have at least a facsimile of the unbuttoned version Gardner claimed she wanted to tell. Movie buffs will be as transfixed by the actress' own words as they have always been by her drop-dead beauty on the screen. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Hyperbole and a half - Allie Brosh

Hyperbole and a half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened - Brosh, Allie

Summary: Collects autobiographical, illustrated essays and cartoons from the author's popular blog and related new material that humorously and candidly deals with her own idiosyncrasies and battles with depression.

Kirkus Reviews
A quirky, humorous memoir/collection of illustrated essays. Brosh is a good example of how new literary forms are evolving. An immensely successful blogger, the author's Hyperbole and a Half earned her a 2011 Bloggies Award and also garnered a spot on PC World's "Funniest Sites on the Web." Suffice it to say, she has become something of an Internet sensation. However, as many readers know, web writing often does not translate well to a book (and vice versa). Brosh makes a solid first attempt to bridge this literary gap. Anyone who takes years' worth of blog posts and tries to pare them down into book form is facing a formidable task, whether the writing is any good or not (in this case, it is, though some essays are stronger than others). Blog followers don't usually binge read, but book readers do. That said, holding a book may leave some with a yearning for more cohesion. It does feel choppy in places, but the wit, hilarity and poignancy of the subject matter trump structural concerns. Brosh is a connoisseur of the human condition. In her typical self-deprecating and dramatic manner (hence the hyperbole reference), she tells personal stories that name things we can all relate to, including fear, love, depression and hope. Perhaps the most endearing thing about her writing is that she approaches her subject matter from a vulnerable, childlike place, complete with Paintbrush caricatures that have arguably already earned iconic status. Brosh's longtime fans and cult followers will be happy to learn that half of the material for this book is new and unpublished. The other half is comprised of Internet favorites, including "Simple Dog," "The God of Cake" and "Adventures in Depression." Part graphic novel, part confessional, overall delightful. An obvious choice for Hyperbole fans, but this will also appeal to fans of other oddball web presences like Homestar Runner and The Oatmeal. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The big burn - Timothy Egan

 The big burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the fire that saved America - Timothy Egan

Summary: Narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire of August, 1910, and Teddy Roosevelt's pioneering conservation efforts that helped turn public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, though it changed the mission of the forest service with consequences felt in the fires of today.


BookPage Reviews
The recent “Station Fire” in California’s Angeles National Forest, the worst in Los Angeles County history, burned more than 160,000 acres and killed two firefighters. In comparison, the 1910 Northern Rockies forest fire remembered in The Big Burn covered nearly 3.2 million acres in Washington, Idaho and Montana. At least 85 people were killed, most of them members of ill-trained firefighting crews. That blowout, the biggest wildfire in American history, devastated the economy of a booming timber and mining region. It traumatized the survivors—and as New York Times columnist Timothy Egan shows in The Big Burn, it set the course for U.S. forest conservation for the next hundred years, for good and ill. The national forests that burned were brand new, the product of President Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation crusade. Spurred on by fellow aristocrat Gifford Pinchot, the founding head of the National Forest Service, Roosevelt had worked at breakneck pace to protect millions of acres from logging, railroad and mine companies. But when Roosevelt left office, the land barons’ allies in his own party starved the Forest Service of resources, and forced out Pinchot. The scope of the disaster and the heroism of so many forest rangers turned public opinion in favor of conservation at a crucial moment. National forests were subsequently created throughout the country, and the Forest Service became a thriving agency. For his National Book Award-winning account of the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, Egan was able to interview survivors. For The Big Burn, he had to comb through Forest Service reports, memoirs and old newspapers. But he’s equally effective here in telling the story through individuals—the homesteaders, the fire crews of immigrants and drifters, the idealistic Ivy League grads who followed Pinchot’s siren call to the Forest Service. Egan is a gorgeous writer. His chapters on the “blowup,” when thousands fled burning towns and desperate fire crews burrowed in mine shafts or submerged in streams to escape the inferno, should become a classic account of an American Pompeii. Anne Bartlett is a journalist in Washington, D.C.

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The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce

The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Joyce, Rachel

Summary: Harold Fry is convinced that he must deliver a letter to an old love in order to save her, meeting various characters along the way and reminiscing about the events of his past and people he has known, as he tries to find peace and acceptance.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Spontaneity has never been Harold Fry's strong suit, especially once he retired. Just ask his long-suffering wife, Maureen. So imagine her surprise when Harold abruptly decides to walk 500 miles to the north of England in a naive attempt to save a dying woman, a colleague he once knew briefly but to whom he hadn't spoken in 20 years. It's the proverbial case of a man going out to mail a letter and never coming home. Clad only in his everyday garb, lacking a cell phone, backpack, or reliable sense of direction, Fry puts one poorly shod foot in front of the other and trudges through villages and hamlets, often relying on the kindness of strangers to keep his momentum going. To the object of his inspiration, the fading Queenie Hennessy, he writes pithy postcards, bravely exhorting her not to die. Solitary walks are perfect for imagining how one might set the world to rights, and Harold does just that, although not always with uplifting results, as he ruminates on missed opportunities and failed relationships. Accomplished BBC playwright Joyce's debut novel is a gentle and genteel charmer, brimming with British quirkiness yet quietly haunting in its poignant and wise examination of love and devotion. Sure to become a book-club favorite. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The signal and the noise - Nate Silver

The signal and the noise - Silver, Nate

Summary: Silver built an innovative system for predicting baseball performance, predicted the 2008 election within a hair's breadth, and became a national sensation as a blogger. Drawing on his own groundbreaking work, Silver examines the world of prediction.


Choice Reviews
This lively, informative, multivalent romp through the history of data accumulation and its uses, leading to today's refined ability to predict the outcome of a future event with considerable accuracy, appeared in the closing months of the 2012 presidential election campaign. During the campaign, statistician/blogger Silver (The New York Times FiveThirtyEight ), in articles and interviews, proffered increasingly confident opinions about its outcome, opinions at odds with those of most of the pundits, poll takers, and statisticians examining the same data. His vindication by the actual results of the election lends his book that much more interest. Though it does not trace new ground, its auspicious message is, in an era of bigger and bigger "Big Data," that it is possible, with objective judgment and sophisticated statistical tools, to make ever more reliable predictions on which the future of the species and the security of the country may depend. Silver pays particular homage to the well-known Bayes's theorem as fundamental to the proper application of statistical theory to actual situations. Individual chapters deal with the 2008 financial meltdown, earthquakes, baseball, chess, poker, the weather, climate change, and terrorism. Abundant endnotes and references. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Academic and general audiences, all levels. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty. M. Schiff CUNY College of Staten Island Copyright 2013 American Library Association.

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The death of bees - Lisa O'Donnell

The death of bees - O'Donnell, Lisa

Summary: "Marnie and her little sister, Nelly, are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren't telling. While life in Glasgow's Maryhill housing estate isn't grand, the girls do have each other. Besides, it's only a year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both. As the New Year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirs? Lennie takes them in--feeds them, clothes them, protects them--and something like a family forms. But soon enough, the sisters' friends, their teachers, and the authorities start asking tougher questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls' family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart."--www.Amazon.com

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Marnie and Nelly have just buried their parents in the garden behind the Glasgow housing development where they live. Their father, Gene, was a drug addict attracted to young girls. Their mother, Izzy, was a boozer who paid little attention to the care and safety of her daughters. Gene died of dubious causes, and Izzy killed herself in grief. The girls are better off without their parents, and they know it. The challenge is to stay out of the way of the authorities for a year until Marnie turns 16 and will be legally able to take guardianship of her sister. Their nosy neighbor, Lennie, a homosexual whose partner has recently died, leaving him bereft and at loose ends, provides their only stability. But Lennie is curious about the whereabouts of their parents. As awful as he knows them to be, they can't really have abandoned their daughters for an extended vacation in Turkey, can they? That's what the girls tell him and anyone else who asks, until their secrets start to unravel. O'Donnell's finely drawn characters display the full palette of human flaws and potential. Told in the alternating voices of Marnie, Nelly, and Lennie, this beautifully written page-turner will have readers fretting about what will become of the girls. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The Bachman books - Stephen King

The Bachman books - King, Stephen

Summary: For years, readers wrote asking if Richard Bachman was really world-bestselling Stephen King writing under another name. Now the secret is out - and so, brought together in one volume, are these three spellbinding stories of future shock and suspense. The Long Walk: A chilling look at the ultra-conservative America of the future where a grueling 450-mile marathon is the ultimate sports competition. Roadwork: An immovable man refuses to surrender to the irresistible force of progress. The Running Man: TV's future-favorite game show, where contestants are hunted to death in the attempt to win a $1 billion jackpot.

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Bring up the bodies - Hilary Mantel

Bring up the bodies - Mantel, Hilary

Summary: Depicts the downfall of Anne Boleyn at the hands of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell as Anne and her powerful family fight back while she is on trial for adultery and treason. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Mantel's Wolf Hall (2009) took the literary world by storm and was quickly seen as an exceptional interpretation and depiction of Henry VIII's times and troubles as relayed through the career of Thomas Cromwell, the king's all-powerful secretary and chief task-enforcer. This new novel, the second installment of a planned Cromwell trilogy, can easily stand next to its predecessor as a major achievement in historical fiction. Mantel now tells the story of the fall of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second wife. As the novel opens, Queen Anne has enjoyed her exalted title for only a short time, but already the winds of change are blowing through the court. The king is tired of her (she hasn't produced a male heir, and her unpleasant personality is wearing thin) and finds lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour a much fresher face. Consequently, Secretary Cromwell, the king's enforcer, steps in, drawing the battle lines between himself and Queen Anne. The conflict will be deadly and, for the reader, edge-of-the-seat gripping. Like its predecessor, this is a rigorous read. One must get used to Mantel's intricate storytelling, and inattention will quickly derail one's grasp of events. Mantel's seductive, almost hypnotic, style is both formal, which is appropriate to the time, and exquisitely fluid, while beautifully articulated dialogue serves the story well, lending depth to characterizations and advancing the rich plot. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Mantel's previous novel won the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and appeared on best-seller lists; anticipation for the sequel is high. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Upstream color (DVD)

Upstream color (DVD)

Summary: Years after a thief slipped her a drug that gave him total control over her, Kris tries to put her life back together, but she discovers that her new boyfriend seems to have the same strange memory problems that she does.



Video Librarian Reviews
Shane Carruth's first film since his 2004 award-winning debut Primer is a somewhat freaky experimental feature. Kris (Amy Seimetz) is a young woman who is assaulted by a man identified only as Thief (Thiago Martins), who forces her to swallow a larva that somehow turns her into his brainwashed slave. Kris must do whatever Thief commands, culminating in the emptying of her bank account. After being abandoned by her captor, Kris realizes that the larva she ingested has grown into a living worm inside her. She is then picked up by someone identified as Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who appears to be a combination of sound recording engineer, surgeon, and pig farmer. Sampler hypnotizes Kris via an electronic wave and surgically removes the worm for deposit into a pig. Carruth himself turns up as Jeff—a mysterious figure who may have survived a similar experience—seeking to bond with Kris in a series of weirdly elliptical conversations. Needless to say, Upstream Color will confuse and perhaps even irritate viewers with little or no patience for avant-garde work. But those eager to be challenged by provocative filmmaking will be amazed at Carruth's boldly idiosyncratic production design and his willingness to wrap multiple genres into a stylish and disturbing cinematic experience that looks and sounds like no other contemporary film. One of the year's most original works, this is highly recommended. (P. Hall)Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2011.

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Brew masters (DVD)

Brew masters (DVD)

Summary: Sam Calagione, craft beer maestro, and his team at Dogfish Head Brewery travel the world – and their own backyard – searching for exotic ingredients and discovering ancient techniques to produce beers of astounding originality. They also deal with funky bottles, ruthless timelines, clouds of construction dust – even the quest for the right saliva. Sometimes it all comes together, sometimes it all hits the fan. No matter what happens, Sam and team Dogfish Head put it all out there, and have a good time doing it. Be a part of their quest to reclaim beer’s heart and soul. - (Alert)

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Body & soul - Frank Conroy

Body & soul - Conroy, Frank

Summary: Claude Rawlings, a poverty-stricken young man, feels stymied by life, until he finds an old piano and embarks on a musical odyssey that takes him into a world of wealth, power, and fame - (Baker & Taylor)


Publishers Weekly Reviews
When the author of Stop-Time and Midair produces a new work, it is an event to celebrate. And although Conroy's bildungsroman of a boy finding his identity in his musical genius has some flaws, it is by and large an engrossing novel, written in a supple and elegant prose and displaying remarkable insight into the mind of a prodigy. Conroy's protagonist is Claude Rawlings, who grows up in the 1940s in the shadow of New York's Third Avenue El. Claude's education in some ways is similar to Billy Bathgate's: neglected by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic, cab-driver mother, he shines shoes, lifts coins from sewers and learns to steal. He is introduced to another world when Aaron Weisfeld, a music store owner and WW II refugee, recognizes his musical gifts and transports him to the Park Avenue apartment of a maestro whose Bechstein piano Claude uses and eventually inherits. Even more in the Dickensian mode, Claude falls in love with a cold, arrogant young woman from a patrician New York family, a character who is eerily similar to Estella in Great Expectations . Conroy's depiction of a young boy's discovery of music, the awakening of his sensibility and the flowering of his genius is brilliant. Lucid explanations of musical theory ranging from basic harmonics to the 12-tone scale, from Bach to Charlie Parker to Schoenberg, provide a continuum of insights and discoveries for Claude and for the reader. The first half of the book sweeps Claude along a path strewn with almost miraculous lucky breaks: he has inspired teachers and generous and appreciative patrons; his concerts are unalloyed triumphs--and only the cynical will wish for a disaster to increase the tension. (Readers of Stop Time will also recognize in Claude's childhood an alternative version of Conroy's miserable youth.) The second half is less successful. Claude's immersion in music, an obsession that makes him fascinating as a youth, renders him hollow as a man, and while Conroy obviously intends to demonstrate that Claude's emotional life is sterile in several ways, as a protagonist for a time he becomes a muted and shadowy figure. Claude's unquestioning relationship with the kindly Weisfeld, his first and abiding teacher, is less credible once he matures. The revelation of Claude's patrimony is poignantly rendered, however, and provides another look at the nature of creativity. And the book as a whole is harmoniously orchestrated and beautifully observed. 125,000 first printing; film rights to Spring Creek Productions; major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.) Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information.

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