Hildafolk Series - Luke Pearson

Hildafolk Series - Pearson, Luke

Summary: Hilda is sat in her tent, dwarfed by volumes of the Greater Fjords Wildlife Chronicles with a flashlight and her restless companion Twig, but Hilda's not in the fjords and it isn't raining. Hilda's pitched a tent in her room and it's been days since she's been out.

In Hilda's new adventure, she meets the Nisse: a mischievous but charismatic bunch of misfits who occupy a world beside?but also somehow within?our own, and where the rules of physics don't quite match up. Meanwhile, on the streets of Trolberg, a dark specter looms . . .

Prize-winning author whose previous graphic novel was in Publishers Weekly's Top 25 Children's Picture Books of 2012
Hilda and the Black Hound is the fourth installment in the award-winning Hildafolk series
Other titles in the series are consistently popular in both children's and comic book categories

Luke Pearson is one of the leading talents of the international comics scene. He was the winner of the Young People's Comic category at the British Comic Award (2012) and was shortlisted in the Eisner Award's Best Publication for Kids and Best Writer/Artist categories (2013).

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Pearson's British-import series starring a plucky, blue-haired heroine continues from the equally charming Hildafolk (2010) and Hilda and the Midnight Giant (2012). Hilda and her mom have moved from the countryside, where the little girl loved to explore all day long, to a small European city filled with winding streets, ancient statuary, and strange creatures inspired by Scandinavian legend. Despite her mother's worries, Hilda loses track of her dubious companions and befriends a wounded bird, who proves a much grander figure than he initially appears. Hilda has a huge heart, a huge sense of curiosity, and an admirable sense of courage. Her encounters with a Salt Lion and an obscurely glimpsed Rat King lack overly frightening menace and are done with artful panache, making this a fantastic choice both for kids and for adults looking for a bit less punching and a bit more quiet wonder in their comic books. Environment being so crucial to the tale, Pearson's expressive architecture and city design are nothing short of remarkable, giving a personality to neighborhoods and even individuals doorways. His large-headed, stick-legged cartooning employs both humor and empathy and gracefully reflects the book's tone, a perfect pitch between childlike adventure, subtle mystery, and gentle lyricism. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Codex 632 - Jose Santos

Codex 632 - Santos, Jose

Summary: Thomas Noronha, a history professor and cryptologist, follows a trail of historical enigmas and hidden documents to uncover the true identity of Christopher Columbus.

Kirkus Reviews
A scholar doggedly pursues the true story behind one of the world's most famous explorers.A television journalist based in Portugal, dos Santos pours his storytelling experience into an intriguing if Byzantine exploration of codes, cultures and Christopher Columbus. Less a Brownian thriller than a speculative one, this debut novel focuses on its flawed protagonist and his dizzying search for the truth. Our sensible leading man, Thomas Noronha, is a professor of history and, naturally, an expert code-breaker, fluent in a handful of modern and ancient languages and possessing an innate ability to unlock complex ciphers. A basically decent guy, he struggles to balance his academic responsibilities with the considerable resources required by a distant wife and a daughter with Down syndrome. It proves a tempting distraction when the evasive Americas History Foundation offers a healthy sum to continue the work of a dead academic investigating the Age of Discovery's most famous personage. The good professor is quickly off to Rio de Janeiro, where he finds an odd note from his predecessor, scribbled in a dead language, that warns of the perils of identity. Noronha makes for a beguiling hero, burdened by his family's needs and tempted into an unwise affair with Lena, a student whose interests prove less than virtuous. Dos Santos layers in all the usual suspects, including the Knights Templar, Jewish mysticism and the Holy Grail, in speculating on the true identity, nationality and motives of Columbus. Readers more intrigued by academic detection than global conspiracies should eat this one up.A fresh-thinking historical thriller buoyed by its hero, a man with a spinning moral compass trying to find his truth North. Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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The Incrementalists - Steven Brust

The Incrementalists - Brust, Steven

Summary: "The Incrementalists--a secret society of two hundred people with an unbroken lineage reaching back forty thousand years. They cheat death, share lives and memories, and communicate with one another across nations, races, and time. They have an epic history, an almost magical memory, and a very modest mission: to make the world better, just a little bit at a time. Their ongoing argument about how to do this is older than most of their individual memories. Phil, whose personality has stayed stable throughmore incarnations than anyone else's, has loved Celeste--and argued with her--for most of the last four hundred years. But now Celeste, recently dead, embittered, and very unstable, has changed the rules--not incrementally, and not for the better. Now the heart of the group must gather in Las Vegas to save the Incrementalists, and maybe the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* A secret society has existed for millennia, operating under the surface of society. The Incrementalists are improving the world by making slight adjustments that make human existence a bit better than it might have been. During the Civil War, they influenced one of General Grant's right-hand men so that he would keep Grant from succumbing to his affection for alcohol. They had a hand in the invention of the MP3 format, and they practically invented Robin Hood. But now they have a major problem on their hands. One of their own, who recently died, might have been murdered, and the woman who was given her memories paradoxically doesn't seem to be able to remember her. Even worse, it looks like the dead woman has somehow manipulated the Incrementalists (or, to be more precise, Phil, who has loved her for centuries) into putting her memories into a very specific young woman for a very specific and quite troubling, possibly catastrophic, reason. It's difficult to categorize this imaginative new novel from established sf/fantasy novelist Brust and newcomer White. It's not quite a comedy, but bits of it are quite funny. It's a fantasy, to be sure, but it's grounded in today's world and references real historical events. It's cleverly constructed, populated with characters readers will enjoy hanging out with, and packed with twists and nifty surprises. If you have to call it something, call it genius at work. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Noggin - John Corey Whaley

Noggin - Whaley, John Corey

Summary: After dying at age sixteen, Travis Coates' head was removed and frozen for five years before being attached to another body, and now the old Travis and the new must find a way to coexist while figuring out changes in his relationships.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Travis Coates has lost his head—literally. As he dies from acute lymphoblastic leukemia, his head is surgically removed and cryogenically frozen. Five years pass, and, thanks to advances in medical science, it becomes possible to reanimate his head and attach it to a donor body. Travis Coates is alive again, but while his family and friends are all 5 years older, Travis hasn't aged—he is still 16 and a sophomore in high school. Awkward? Difficult? Puzzling? You bet. In the past, the two people he could have talked to about this were his best friend, Kyle, and his girlfriend, Cate. But now they're part of the problem. Kyle, who came out to Travis on his deathbed, has gone back into the closet, and Cate is engaged to be married. Stubbornly, Travis vows to reverse these developments by coaxing Kyle out of the closet and persuading Cate to fall in love with him again. How this plays out is the substance of this wonderfully original, character-driven second novel. Whaley has written a tour de force of imagination and empathy, creating a boy for whom past, present, and future come together in an implied invitation to readers to wonder about the very nature of being. A sui generis novel of ideas, Noggin demands much of its readers, but it offers them equally rich rewards. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Whaley's sleeper debut, Where Things Come Back (2011), won both the Michael L. Printz Award and the William C. Morris Award, so readers will be eagerly awaiting this second effort. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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All souls trilogy - Deborah Harkness

All souls trilogy - Harkness, Deborah

Summary: Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Diana Bishop is the last of the Bishops, a powerful family of witches, but she has refused her magic ever since her parents died and, instead, has turned to academia. When a new project takes her to Oxford, she is looking forward to several months in the Bodleian, investigating alchemical manuscripts. Her peace is soon interrupted when one of the books she finds in the library turns out to have been lost for 150 years and is wanted desperately by the witch, daemon, and vampire communities—so desperately that many are willing to kill for it. But the very first creature to approach her after her discovery is Matthew, a very old vampire and fellow scholar, who seems only to want to protect her. Harkness creates a compelling and sweeping tale that moves from Oxford to Paris to upstate New York and into both Diana's and Matthew's complex families and histories. All her characters are fully fleshed and unique, which, when combined with the complex and engaging plot, results in one of the better fantasy debuts in recent months. The contemporary setting should help draw a large crossover audience. Try suggesting the novel to readers of literary mysteries like Lauren Willig's Pink Carnation series, as well as to those who enjoy epic and fantastic romances including Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series and Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels. Essential reading across all these genres. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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The granny alphabet - Tim Walker

The granny alphabet - Walker, Tim

Summary: "Artist-photographer Tim Walker has won a cult following for his flamboyant, lavishly staged, and surrealist fashion photography. Now he brings his unique brand of very British fantasia to a subject close to all our hearts: grandmothers. The first volume of this very special twinset offers a collection of characterful photographs of grannies and the things nearest to each of them, arranged alphabetically and accompanied by short, gently humorous verses by Kit Hesketh-Harvey. The second volume is delightfully populated with Lawrence Mynott's drawings of lively old ladies. Spirited, stylish, sweet - here are granny archetypes of every stripe."--from W.W. Norton.

Library Journal Reviews
A delightful "twin set" of two complementary alphabet books, this title consists of one volume of photographs of actual grannies, or "little old ladies who live down the lane," as Walker phrases it, and a second volume of illustrations. Short verses (by Hesketh-Harvey) accompany each photograph, and together they offer an implicit exhortation to appreciate independence and mobility while one has them. Each photograph clearly broadcasts the dignity of its subject, a counterpoint to the frequent indignities of growing old in modern society. Mynott's illustrated volume is a more traditional alphabet book but one not written with children in mind. The illustrations and text won't necessarily resonate with very young readers (but surely will trigger chuckles with adult ones), though the young crowd might giggle at the antics of the cats and tiny dogs in the illustrations. Mynott signs off with an illustration of "the revenge of Granny Smith," which tidily sums up both the sass, sweetness, and humor of this offering. VERDICT A playful look at female aging and frailty, if these topics can be said to be lighthearted.—Rachael Dreyer, American Heritage Ctr., Laramie, WY

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Collapse - Jared Diamond

Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed - Diamond, Jared

Summary: A study of the downfall of some of history's greatest civilizations discusses the Anasazi, the Maya, and the Viking colony on Greenland, tracing patterns of environmental damage, poor political choices, and other factors in their demise.

Booklist Reviews
Defining collapse as "extreme decline," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997), which posed questions about Western civilization's domination of much of the world, now examines the reverse side of that coin. Diamond ponders reasons why certain civilizations have collapsed. With an eye on the implications for the present and future, he bases his analysis on his newly phrased version of an old maxim about what history teaches: "The past offers us a rich database from which we can learn." Drawing examples from this database, from Polynesian culture on Easter Island to the Viking outposts in Greenland to the Mayan civilization in Central America, the author finds "the fundamental pattern of catastrophe" that is apparent in these populations that once flourished and then collapsed. The template he holds up is a construct based on five factors, including environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbors. In addition, Diamond casts his critical but acute and inclusive gaze on the issue of why civilizations fail to see collapse coming. A thought-provoking book containing not a single page of dense prose. Expect demand from civic- and history-minded readers. ((Reviewed November 1, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

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Ball of fire (DVD)

Ball of fire (DVD)

Video Librarian Reviews
Billy Wilder wrote this delicious takeoff on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which features Barbara Stanwyck as a somewhat tainted Snow White (she's a nightclub singer-stripper and a gangster's moll) who aids eight professors working on a massive encyclopedia. Having been submerged in the project for nine years, the bookish profs are a bit out of touch with current slang, so English professor Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) enlists the aid of Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck) in updating the relevant article with new changes in the language…and then, of course, he falls in love with her. Director Howard Hawks coaxes good performances out of the loveable professors, and Oscar-nominated Stanwyck is great as the streetwise New York girl who knows how to handle the boys (be they geniuses or gunmen). Presented with a fine transfer on an extra-less disc, this is recommended. (R. Pitman) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2007.

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The map that changed the world - Winchester

The map that changed the world - Winchester, Simon

Summary: A glimpse into the life of William Smith, a nineteenth-century engineer who became the founding father of modern geology, explores his creation of a lavish map detailing his discovery that rocks consist of many different layers. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
In the much admired and widely read Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (1998), Winchester told the true and fascinating story of a man who played a key role in the creation of the OED. Now he brings his writerly talents to bear on the tale of another relatively unknown individual who also made a considerable contribution to intellectual history. In the early years of the nineteenth century, William Smith created the first geological map of Great Britain, a time-consuming, solitary project that helped establish geology as one of the "fundamental fields of study." Smith was born of humble origins, the son of a village blacksmith in Oxfordshire, England. While working as a surveyor, Smith was struck by an epiphany as he pondered the striations of rock in a coal mine. The order and regularity of those striations led him to formulate some of geology's key principles. Winchester tells Smith's story, including the dramatic ups and downs of his personal life, in vivid detail. Like the work of Dava Sobel (Longitude, 1995) and Mark Kurlansky (Cod, 1997), this is just the kind of creative nonfiction that elevates a seemingly arcane topic into popular fare. A natural for public libraries. ((Reviewed May 15, 2001)) Copyright 2001 Booklist Reviews

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The sugar king of Havana - John Paul Rathbone

The sugar king of Havana - Rathbone, John Paul

Summary: In this dual history of a man and a nation, Financial Times journalist John Paul Rathbone uses the stranger-than-fiction story of Julio Lobo, a Cuban sugar magnate who controlled the world sugar market throughout much of the first half of the 20th century, to reveal the luxuries enjoyed by the elite class in pre-revolutionary Cuba.

Booklist Reviews
Like Tom Gjelten in Bacardi and the Fight for Cuba (2008), journalist Rathbone evokes pre-Castro Cuba through one of the country's most successful enterprises, in this case, a sugar empire built by Julio Lobo (1898–1983). Beginning as a trader in his father's firm, Lobo became, by the 1930s, a force in the global sugar market. Rathbone recounts Lobo's speculative coups en route to direct ownership of cane fields and mills. A visitor to Lobo's office, homes, and mills in Cuba, Rathbone contrasts the dilapidation of contemporary Cuba with the look of the prerevolutionary country that he recovers from both Lobo's biography and that of his own Cuban-born mother, whose social life tangentially intersected with Lobo's world. The present/past technique effectively dilutes the polarizing imperatives of pro- and anti-Castro presumptions and restores a realistic sense of what 1950s Cuba was like, including the guarded optimism with which many upper-crust Cubans such as Lobo initially viewed Castro's seizing of power. Rathbone's care with social atmosphere lifts his portrayal of Lobo above the usual life-of-a-tycoon and enriches the historical understanding of readers contemplating post-Castro Cuba. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Absolutely almost - Lisa Graff

Absolutely almost - Graff, Lisa

Summary: Ten-year-old Albie has never been the smartest, tallest, best at gym, greatest artist, or most musical in his class, as his parents keep reminding him, but new nanny Calista helps him uncover his strengths and take pride in himself.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Albie almost understands why he is starting fifth grade at a new school. It's got something to do with the things he can't quite do, like subtract numbers inside his head or figure out the words in books. Fortunately, Albie also gets a kindhearted new sitter named Calista, who can turn Albie's sadness into happiness simply through the magic of donuts. But even Calista can't stop the mean kid at school from calling Albie names, or make Albie's parents see how hard he tries in school. As every kid knows, some problems take more than donuts to solve. Graff (A Tangle of Knots, 2013) creates a heartfelt portrait of a child searching for nothing more than a safe place to thrive. The story is parsed into short chapters that can stand alone as mini-stories, perfect for young readers who aren't ready to tackle full pages of text. This format is also well suited to presenting the incremental steps of Albie's evolution from bewildered victim to hero of his own story. Beautifully written, Albie's story is accessible and dignified, with a gentle message that will touch any reader's heart. Middle-grade readers will love the references to Dav Pilkey's inexhaustibly popular Captain Underpants series, which has introduced so many children to the fun side of reading. A perfect book to share with struggling readers. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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Euphoria - Lily King

Euphoria - Lily King

Summary: "English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen have just fled the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo and, in spite of Nell's poor health, are hungry for a new discovery. When Bankson finds them a new tribe nearby, the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and romantic firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone's control" -- from publisher's web site.

Kirkus Reviews
King (Father of the Rain, 2010, etc.) changes the names (and the outcome) in this atmospheric romantic fiction set in New Guinea and clearly based on anthropologist Margaret Mead's relationship with her second and third husbands, R.F. Fortune and Gregory Bateson—neither a slouch in his own right. In the early 1930s, Nell and Fen are married anthropologists in New Guinea. American Nell has already published a controversial best-seller about Samoan child-rearing while Australian Fen has published only a monograph on Dobu island sorcery. Their marriage is in trouble: She holds Fen responsible for her recent miscarriage; he resents her fame and financial success. Shortly after leaving the Mumbanyo tribe they have been studying (and which Nell has grown to abhor), they run into British anthropologist Bankson, who is researching another tribal village, the Nengai, along the Sepik River. Deeply depressed—he has recently attempted suicide—Bankson is haunted by the deaths of his older brothers and his scientist father's disappointment in him for practicing what is considered a soft science. Also deeply lonely, Bankson offers to find Nell and Fen an interesting tribe to study to keep them nearby. Soon the couple is happily ensconced with the Tam, whose women surprise Nell with their assertiveness. While the attraction, both physical and intellectual, between Bankson and Nell is obvious, Fen also offers Bankson tender care, which threatens to go beyond friendship, when Bankson falls ill. At first, the three-way connection is uniting and stimulating. But as Nell's and Bankson's feelings for each other develop, sexual tensions grow. So do the differences between Fen's and Nell's views on the anthropologist's role. While Bankson increasingly shares Nell's empathetic approach, Fen plots to retrieve an artifact from the Mumbanyo to cement his career. King does not shy from showing the uncomfortable relationship among all three anthropologists and those they study. Particularly upsetting is the portrait of a Tam who returns "civilized" after working in a copper mine. A small gem, disturbing and haunting. Copyright Kirkus 2014 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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My struggle - Karl Ove Knausgaard

My struggle. Book three, Boyhood - Knausgaard, Karl Ove

Summary: "A family of four--mother, father and two boys--move to the South Coast of Norway to a new house on a newly developed site. It is the early 1970s and the family's trajectory, upwardly mobile: the future seems limitless. In painstaking, sometimes self-lacerating detail, Knausgaard paints a world familiar to anyone who can recall the intensity and novelty of childhood experience, one in which children and adults lead parallel lives that never meet. Perhaps the most Proustian in the series, Book Three gives us Knausgaard's vivid, technicolor recollections of childhood, his emerging self-understanding, and the multilayered nature of time's passing, memory, and existence."--Amazon.com

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Between 2009 and 2011, Norwegian novelist Knausgaard published a six-volume series entitled Min Kamp ("My Struggle"), a chronicle of the narrator's life, from boyhood to fatherhood. Called a "confessional novel," the series garnered critical acclaim, numerous awards, record sales, and a great deal of controversy due to its intensely autobiographical nature (friends and family publicly denounced the books). Clocking in at nearly 500 pages apiece, the first two installments focus on Karl Ove's strained relationship with his dying father, an overbearing schoolteacher, and Karl's fledgling romance with Linda, who would become his second wife. In Book Three, Karl Ove recounts his boyhood years on Tromøy, an island in southern Norway, during the 1970s and 1980s. Young Ove's adventures are extraordinarily humdrum. He and his brother, Yngve, play sports, chase girls, and discover rock music, but the ever-present tension between the boys and their taskmaster father begins to illuminate the dysfunctional family depicted in Book One. Notable for his meticulous attention to the quotidian details of everyday life, Knausgaard's pared-down style and plainspoken narrator manage to propel these long books, concerned less with sustaining plot than with the accumulation of tiny intensities and candid disclosures, which makes for strangely engaging, compulsively page-turning prose. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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How about never --is never good for your? - Robert Mankoff

How about never --is never good for your?: my life in cartoons - Mankoff, Robert

Summary: "Memoir in cartoons by the longtime cartoon editor of The New YorkerPeople tell Bob Mankoff that as the cartoon editor of The New Yorker he has the best job in the world. Never one to beat around the bush, he explains to us, in the opening of this singular, delightfully eccentric book, that because he is also a cartoonist at the magazine he actually has two of the best jobs in the world. With the help of myriad images and his funniest, most beloved cartoons, he traces his love of the craft all the way back to his childhood, when he started doing funny drawings at the age of eight. After meeting his mother, we follow his unlikely stints as a high-school basketball star, draft dodger, and sociology grad student. Though Mankoff abandoned the study of psychology in the seventies to become a cartoonist, he recently realized that the field he abandoned could help him better understand the field he was in, and here he takes up the psychology of cartooning, analyzing why some cartoons make us laugh and others don't. He allows us into the hallowed halls of The New Yorker to show us the soup-to-nuts process of cartoon creation, giving us a detailed look not only at his own work, but that of the other talented cartoonists who keep us laughing week after week. For desert, he reveals the secrets to winning the magazine's caption contest. Throughout, we see his commitment to the motto "Anything worth saying is worth saying funny." "-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
Mankoff was close to earning a PhD in psychology when he finally admitted that cartooning was his true calling. He developed his distinctive "dot" style as a vehicle for his heady sense of humor, had his first cartoon published in the New Yorker in 1977, and has been serving as the magazine's cartoon editor since 1997. In a witty mix of memoir and New Yorker cartoon history exuberantly illustrated with New Yorker cartoons past and present, Mankoff discusses his mother's complicated influence ("Humor thrives on conflict"), how his psychology background helps him understand what makes cartoons funny or thought-provoking, and why he created the Cartoon Bank, which transformed the profession. He also unveils the magazine's cartoon selection process under editors William Shawn, Tina Brown, and David Remnick and describes his own rigorous assessment of 1,000 cartoons a week. Other cartoonists describe their working methods, and Mankoff even offers inside information on the New Yorker's devilishly difficult Cartoon Caption Contest, which the late great movie critic Roger Ebert won in 2011 "after 107 tries." A cartoon lover's feast. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

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One summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson

One summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson

Summary: Recounts the story of a pivotal cultural year in the United States when mainstream pursuits and historical events were marked by contributions by such figures as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* On May 21, 1927, when Charles Lindbergh set off to be the first man to cross the Atlantic alone in an airplane, he profoundly changed the culture and commerce of America and its image abroad. Add to that Babe Ruth's efforts to break the home-run record he set, Henry Ford's retooling of the Model T into the Model A, the execution of accused anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, and Al Jolson appearing in the first talkie, and 1927 became the pivot point when the U.S. began to dominate the world in virtually everything—military, culture, commerce, and technology. Bryson's inimitable wit and exuberance are on full display in this wide-ranging look at the major events in an exciting summer in America. Bryson makes fascinating interconnections: a quirky Chicago judge and Prohibition defender leaves the bench to become baseball commissioner following the White Sox scandal, likely leaving Chicago open for gangster Al Capone; the thrill-hungry tabloids and a growing cult of celebrity watchers dog Lindbergh's every move and chronicle Ruth's every peccadillo. Among the other events in a frenzied summer: record flooding of the Mississippi River and the ominous beginnings of the Great Depression. Bryson offers delicious detail and breathtaking suspense about events whose outcomes are already known. A glorious look at one summer in America. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Bryson is the author of such best-selling books as A Walk in the Woods (1998) and A Short History of Nearly Everything (2008) and is sure to make a repeat appearance on the best-seller lists with his newest work. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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