The girl with the dragon tattoo, The girl who played with fire, The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest – Steig Larsson

The girl with the dragon tattoo, The girl who played with fire, The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest - Larsson, Steig

Series Title: The Millennium Series


Summary:
The girl with the dragon tattoo
"The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism--and a surprising connection between themselves."--From publisher description.

The girl who played with fire
On the eve of publisher Mikael Blomkvist's story about sex trafficking between Eastern Europe and Sweden, two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Mikael Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander--the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid years before.

The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest
While recovering in the hospital, Lisbeth Salander enlists the aid of journalist Mikael Blomkvist to prove her innocent of three murders and identify the corrupt politicians who have allowed her to suffer, and, on her own, Lisbeth plots revenge against the man who tried to kill her. By the best-selling author of The Girl Who Played With Fire. - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
Ever since Knopf editor Sonny Mehta bought the U.S. rights last November, the prepublication buzz on this dark, moody crime thriller by a Swedish journalist has grown steadily. A best seller in Europe (it outsold the Bible in Denmark), this first entry in the "Millennium" trilogy finally lands in America. Is the hype justified? Yes. Despite a sometimes plodding translation and a few implausible details, this complex, multilayered tale, which combines an intricate financial thriller with an Agatha Christie-like locked-room mystery set on an island, grabs the reader from the first page. Convicted of libeling a prominent businessman and awaiting imprisonment, financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist agrees to industrialist Henrik Vanger's request to investigate the 40-year-old disappearance of Vanger's 16-year-old niece, Harriet. In return, Vanger will help Blomkvist dig up dirt on the corrupt businessman. Assisting in Blomkvist's investigation is 24-year-old Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant but enigmatic computer hacker. Punkish, tattooed, sullen, antisocial, and emotionally damaged, she is a compelling character, much like Carol O'Connell's Kathy Mallory, and this reviewer looks forward to learning more of her backstory in the next two books (The Girl Who Played with Fire and Castles in the Sky ). Sweden may be the land of blondes, Ikea, and the Midnight Sun, but Larsson, who died in 2004, brilliantly exposes its dark heart: sexual violence against women, a Nazi past, and corporate corruption. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/03.]—Wilda Williams, Library Journal

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California native plants for the garden – Carol Bornstein

California native plants for the garden - Bornstein, Carol

Summary: California Native Plants for the Garden is a comprehensive resource that features more than 500 of the best California native plants for gardening in Mediterranean-climate areas of the world. Authored by three of the state's leading native-plant horticulturists and illustrated with 450 color photos, this reference book also includes chapters on landscape design, installation, and maintenance. Detailed lists of recommended native plants for a variety of situations and appendices with information on places to see native plants and where to buy them are also provided.

Sunset Magazine Review
This guidebook . . . is both practical and inspirational. Lovingly detailed plant profiles . . . make you covet each species. -- Sunset Magazine, April 2006

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Birdology - Sy Montgomery

Birdology : Lessons from a Pack of Hens, a Peck of Pigeons, Cantankerous Crows, Fierce Falcons, Hip Hop Parrots, Baby Hummingbirds, and One Murderously Big Living Dinosaur - Montgomery, Sy

Summary: Combines popular science with personal anecdotes as the author describes her encounters with a range of avian personalities from various parts of the world. - (Baker & Taylor)

Staff Review
This terrific book, by the same author as "The good, good, pig", was fascinating. Who knew that when I'm feeding jays peanuts by hand that I actually have a dinosaur in my hand! Sy Montgomery is a fantastic naturalist who has been researching her subject since childhood, and shares with us her amazing knowledge.

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Tattoos on the heart: the power of boundless compassion - Greg Boyle

Tattoos on the heart: the power of boundless compassion - Boyle, Greg

Summary: A Jesuit priest shares anecdotes from his life of working in broken-down urban areas with underprivileged children, describing how he helped them to find faith and embrace such values as patience, self-worth, and kinship.

Staff Review
This book moved me so much. Father Greg Boyle works with Mexican-American gang members in East Los Angeles who are out of prison and out of choices. He started Homeboy Industries to give these young men and women a place to work and thrive. The story of tragedies and triumphs of these young people had me crying and laughing, sometimes within the same page.

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Prep: a novel - Curtis Sittenfeld

Prep: a novel - Sittenfeld, Curtis

Summary: During the late 1980s, fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora leaves behind her close-knit, middle-class Indiana family to enroll in an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts, becoming a shrewd observer of, and eventually a participant in, their rituals and customs. - (Baker & Taylor)

BookPage Reviews
Lee Fiora is a teen from South Bend, Indiana, attending the high-status Ault School on scholarship. Ault's well-heeled student body includes some familiar figures—a Barbie-ish blonde (named, affluently enough, Aspeth Montgomery), a hunky basketball star and a lonely gay student—but Sittenfeld's novel is more than a collection of stereotypes. With this unique and powerful coming-of-age novel, she tells the tale of an outsider who learns as she goes along how to cope in an unfamiliar world. Lee's decidedly middle-class upbringing is revealed when her mother and father arrive at the school for Parents' Weekend in their shabby old Datsun. The weekend proves a catastrophic one for the humiliated Lee, providing her with a new perspective on the way families work. When she becomes involved with basketball hero Cross Sugarman, the experience is not quite as grand as Lee imagined. The growing pains set in as—through various friendships and romances—Lee comes into her own. As a narrator, she is endearing and awkward, with her own idiosyncrasies and obsessions, and the reader is drawn to her—a loner in a world of wealth and social status. Sittenfeld's portrayal of this sensitive, tormented youth has won her comparisons to J.D. Salinger. Prep is a witty and wise debut novel that perfectly captures the essence of adolescence, but goes beyond the teen experience to encompass larger themes like identity and family. A reading group guide is available online at www.randomhouse.com. Copyright 2005 BookPage Reviews.
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When you are engulfed in flames – David Sedaris

When you are engulfed in flames - Sedaris, David

Summary: "Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds to the awkwardness of having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a sleeping fellow passenger on a plane, David Sedaris uses life's most bizarre moments to reach new heights in understanding love and fear, family and strangers. Culminating in a brilliantly funny account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection will be avidly anticipated."--From publisher description.

Booklist Reviews
With essay collections such as Naked (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Sedaris kicked the door down for the "quirky memoir" genre and left it open for writers like Augusten Burroughs and Jeannette Walls to mosey on through. Sometimes the originators of a certain trend in literature are surpassed by their own disciples—but, this is Sedaris we're talking about. When it comes to fashioning the sardonic wisecrack, the humiliating circumstance, and the absurdist fantasy, there's nobody better. Unfortunately, being in a league of your own often means competing with yourself. This latest collection of 22 essays proves that not only does Sedaris still have it, but he's also getting better. True, the terrain is familiar. The essays "Old Faithful" and "That's Amore" again feature Sedaris' overly competent boyfriend, Hugh. And nutty sister Amy can be found leafing through bestial pornography in "Town and Country." Present also are Sedaris' favored topics: death, compulsion, unwanted sexual advances, corporal decay, and more death. Nevertheless, Sedaris' best stuff will still—after all this time—move, surprise, and entertain. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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Darkly dreaming Dexter: a novel - Jeffry P. Lindsay

Darkly dreaming Dexter: a novel - Jeffry, Lindsay P.

Series Title: Dexter

Summary: Hiding a secret life as an assassin while working as a murder analyst for the Miami police, Dexter Morgan is intrigued by the work of a new serial killer whose style mimics his own.


Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ After finishing this debut novel, readers will have only one thing to say: wow! This is a mystery about the efforts of the Miami police to capture a serial killer who cuts up the bodies of his victims. One police officer, Deborah Morgan, is hoping that her participation in the investigation will help her make the leap from Vice to Homicide. Meanwhile, her adopted brother, Dexter, a blood-spatter expert who works for the police department, feeds her information about the case that he hopes will help her. Oh, and did we say that Dexter narrates the novel? And did we mention that Dexter is also a serial killer? (But not the serial killer his sister is trying to catch.) Dexter, a likable fellow on the surface, firmly in touch with his own inhumanity, is one of the genre's most original, compelling characters to appear in years. He makes a fascinating narrator, appealing, articulate, and ghoulish all at the same time. He is probably not the type of guy you could build a series around, but, oh boy, does he make an impression. Long after readers finish this gripping novel, they will still be thinking (or dreaming) about Dexter. ((Reviewed May 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

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Shark's fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet-sour memoir of eating in China – Fuchsia Dunlop

Shark's fin and Sichuan pepper: a sweet-sour memoir of eating in China - Dunlop, Fuchsia.

Summary: Award-winning food writer Fuchsia Dunlop went to live in China as a student in 1994, and from the very beginning she vowed to eat everything she was offered, no matter how alien and bizarre it seemed. In this extraordinary memoir, Fuchsia recalls her evolving relationship with China and its food, from her first rapturous encounter with the delicious cuisine of Sichuan Province to brushes with corruption, environmental degradation, and greed. In the course of her fascinating journey, Fuchsia undergoes an apprenticeship at China's premier Sichuan cooking school, where she is the only foreign student in a class of nearly fifty young Chinese men; attempts, hilariously, to persuade Chinese people that "Western food" is neither "simple" nor "bland"; and samples a multitude of exotic ingredients, including sea cucumber, civet cat, scorpion, rabbit-heads, and the ovarian fat of the snow frog. But is it possible for a Westerner to become a true convert to the Chinese way of eating? In an encounter with a caterpillar in an Oxford kitchen, Fuchsia is forced to put this to the test.
From the vibrant markets of Sichuan to the bleached landscape of northern Gansu Province, from the desert oases of Xinjiang to the enchanting old city of Yangzhou, this unique and evocative account of Chinese culinary culture is set to become the most talked-about travel narrative of the year.
- (Norton Pub)

BookPage Reviews
What's on the menu

No report on modern-day China would be complete without at least a look at Chinese cuisine. Of course, everyone in the West is familiar with the staples: egg rolls, sweet and sour pork, General Tso's chicken and egg foo young. Less known are such culinary delights as red-braised bear paw, dried orangutan lips (I am not making this up), camel hump and the ovarian fat of the Chinese forest frog. For a historical (and often hysterical) glimpse at these and other fascinating facets of Chinese cooking, look no further than Fuchsia Dunlop's Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, a tale of travel in modern China, with appended recipes for meals that tend more toward the delicious end of Chinese cuisine spectrum, rather than, say, the aforementioned orangutan lips. Dunlop's writing style is conversational and engaging, and she poses several perplexing questions (for instance, when she inadvertently cooks a caterpillar along with some homegrown veggies in England, should she eat it, as she has done many times in China, or shiver in revulsion, as befits her upbringing?). Copyright 2008 BookPage Reviews.

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Batman. The killing joke – Alan Moore

Batman. The killing joke. - Moore, Alan

Summary: "One bad day. According to the grinning engine of madness and mayhem known as The Joker, that's all that separates the sane from the psychotic. Freed once again from the confines of Arkham Asylum, he's out to prove his deranged point. And he's going to use Gotham's top cop, Commissioner Jim Gordon, and his brilliant and beautiful daughter Barbara to do it. Now Batman must race to stop his archnemesis before his reign of terror claims two of the Dark Knight's closest friends. Can he finally put an end to the cycle of bloodlust and lunacy that links thes two iconic foes before it leads to a fatal conclusion? And as the horrifying origin of the Clown Prince of Crime is finally revealed, will the thin line that separates Batman's nobility and The Joker's insanity snap once and for all? ''--Dust jacket.

Library Journal Reviews
This classic, infamous story in the Batman saga has been recolored with a more effectively cooler palette and set into context with an introduction and an afterword. Escaped from Arkham Asylum, villain deluxe Joker shoots Barbara "Batgirl" Gordon as part of his plan to drive her police commissioner father insane. Intending to prove that anyone can go mad after "one bad day" as he describes in his putative origin story, the Joker also kidnaps and torments Commissioner Gordon. But Gordon remains sane, and Batman recaptures the Joker—the two actually share a laugh at the ambiguous ending. With Barbara Gordon now a paraplegic, the story stands as a chilling profile of madness. The Killing Joke provoked fury among many readers who lamented the disposal of Barbara Gordon as a mere pawn to testosterone; yet Gordon reinvents herself later as superinfohacker Oracle, poster girl for disability empowerment (see Birds of Prey, LJ 7/08). A bonus story at the end paints the quieter, equally chilling madness of a Batman fan fantasizing about killing the superhero—a perfect foil for the publicly gaudy Joker. For adult collections.—M.C.
[Page 41]. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

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Handle with care - Jodi Picoult

Handle with care - Picoult, Jodi

Summary: After her daughter contracts a fatal disease, Charlotte O'Keefe must confront some serious questions that ultimately lead to one final epiphany: what constitutes a valuable life.


Booklist Reviews
Picoult has carved an impressive niche in the topical family drama genre, tackling medical ethics, faith, and the law in her sixteenth novel. Charlotte and Sean O Keefe are the parents of Willow, six, who has brittle-bone disease, suffering 68 broken bones in her short lifetime, including 7 before she was born. Charlotte gave up her job as a successful pastry chef to care for Willow full time, doing whatever she can to prevent the inevitable breaks and trying to lessen Willow s discomfort when they occur. After a lawyer broaches the possibility of a wrongful-birth lawsuit, which would find Charlotte s ob-gyn (also her best friend) guilty of failing to diagnose Willow s illness early enough for a possible abortion, the family unravels. Charlotte becomes increasingly aggressive in her new attack mode; Sean disagrees with the lawsuit and files for divorce; and Amelia, Willow s teenage half sister, seeks attention by becoming bulimic and cutting herself. In her customary fashion, Picoult probes these sensitive issues with empathy and compassion. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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Playing the enemy: Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation – John Carlin

Playing the enemy: Nelson Mandela and the game that made a nation - Carlin, John

Summary: In 1985, Nelson Mandela, then in prison for 23 years, set about winning over the fiercest proponents of apartheid, from his jailers to the head of South Africa's military. First he earned his freedom and then he won the presidency in the nation's first free election in 1994. But he knew that South Africa was still dangerously divided. If he couldn't unite his country in a visceral, emotional way--and fast--it would collapse into chaos. He would need all the charisma and strategic acumen he had honed during half a century of activism, and he'd need a cause all South Africans could share. Mandela picked one of the more farfetched causes imaginable--the national rugby team, the Springboks, who would host the sport's World Cup in 1995. Author Carlin, former South Africa bureau chief for the London Independent, offers a portrait of the greatest statesman of our time in action.--From publisher description.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a South African prison because of his position as the military leader of the African National Congress, the leading anti-apartheid organization. Amazingly, while inside, he actually increased his influence as a resistance leader. In 1994, after his release, he was elected South Africa's president in the country's first free election. Realizing that his new government was on tenuous ground and could disintegrate at any moment, he sought a symbolic moment that would unite the black citizenry with white Afrikaners and hit upon the idea of South Africa hosting rugby's first World Cup. The first step was to convince South Africa's national team—the Springboks—to get aboard. Mandela's charm, determination, and patriotism won them over to the point that the team wound up singing the national anthem of the black resistance movement in a much-replayed television spot. Improbably, Springbok—once the sporting symbol of Afrikaner dominance and arrogance—advanced to the cup finals, gathering more fans, black and white, with each win. Carlin, former U.S. bureau chief for the Independent, was assigned to South Africa during the transition from white to majority rule. He personally interviewed most of the principals involved in this fascinating story and undertook the project with Mandela's blessing. A new slant on the familiar but always inspiring saga of Mandela's rise to power. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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And another thing: Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, part six of three - Eoin Colfer

And another thing: Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, part six of three - Colfer, Eoin

Series Title: The Hitchhiker Series

Summary: In this sixth installment of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Arthur Dent has finally made it home to Earth, only to discover that it is about to be blown up ... again. What could a pantheon of unemployed gods, everyone's favorite renegade Galactic President, a lovestruck green alien, an irritating computer, and at least one very large slab of cheese have to do with all of this?

Staff Review
Fans of the Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's series have reason to celebrate : Eoin Colfer has taken over and has released a 6th installment to the trilogy. As a fan of the original, I can tell you it's hilarious and it has the silliness and feel of the universe Douglas Adams created. So grab your towel and enjoy!

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The white tiger: a novel – Aravind Adiga

The white tiger: a novel - Adiga, Aravind

Summary: Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life--having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Kirkus Reviews
What makes an entrepreneur in today's India? Bribes and murder, says this fiercely satirical first novel. Balram Halwai is a thriving young entrepreneur in Bangalore, India's high-tech capital. China's Premier is set to visit, and the novel's frame is a series of Balram's letters to the Premier, in which he tells his life story. Balram sees India as two countries: the Light and the Darkness. Like the huddled masses, he was born in the Darkness, in a village where his father, a rickshaw puller, died of tuberculosis. But Balram is smart, as a school inspector notices, and he is given the moniker White Tiger. Soon after, he's pulled out of school to work in a tea shop, then manages to get hired as a driver by the Stork, one of the village's powerful landlords. Balram is on his way, to Delhi in fact, where the Stork's son, Mr. Ashok, lives with his Westernized wife, Pinky Madam. Ashok is a gentleman, a decent employer, though Balram will eventually cut his throat (an early revelation). His business (coal trading) involves bribing government officials with huge sums of money, the sight of which proves irresistible to Balram and seals Ashok's fate. Adiga, who was born in India in 1974, writes forcefully about a corrupt culture; unfortunately, his commentary on all things Indian comes at the expense of narrative suspense and character development. Thus he writes persuasively about the so-called Rooster Coop, which traps family-oriented Indians into submissiveness, but fails to describe the stages by which Balram evolves from solicitous servant into cold-blooded killer. Adiga's pacing is off too, as Balram too quickly reinvents himself in Bangalore, where every cop can be bought. An undisciplined debut, but one with plenty of vitality.Agent: Cathryn Summerhouse/William Morris Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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Snow country – Yasunari Kawabata

Snow country - Kawabata, Yasunari

Summary: To this haunting novel of wasted love, Kawabata brings the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature. As he chronicles the affair between a wealthy dilettante and the mountain geisha who gives herself to him without illusions or regrets, one of Japan's greatest writers creates a work that is dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.

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The lacuna: a novel – Barbara Kingsolver

The lacuna: a novel - Kingsolver, Barbara

Summary: "The story of Harrison William Shepherd, a man caught between two worlds--Mexico and the United States in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s--and whose search for identity takes readers to the heart of the twentieth century's most tumultuous events"--Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
In her first novel in nine years, Kingsolver displays the same ambition she exhibited in her best-selling The Poisonwood Bible (1998). Moving her story between Mexico and the U.S. and covering some 20 years in the life of Harrison William Shepherd, born to a social-climbing Mexican mother and an emotionally distant American father, who eventually divorce, Kingsolver weaves in pointed social commentary on dark moments in the history of both countries. Zelig-like, Shepherd is present at disturbing yet key historical events, including the violent 1933 Bonus March in Washington, D.C. Kicked out of a military academy for a homosexual liaison, Shepherd returns to Mexico; is taken into the household of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and the exiled Leon Trotsky; and witnesses Trotsky's assassination. He eventually settles in Asheville, North Carolina, becoming well known as an author of historical fiction and coming to the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee for his leftist leanings. Kingsolver packs her novel with rich detail on everything from underwater caves to the proper way to mix the plaster Rivera uses in his murals, relaying information through a pastiche of letters, newspaper excerpts, and diary entries. As a result, the novel can be slow going, but the final section, devoted to the loving if platonic relationship between Shepherd and his dedicated stenographer, builds to a stunningly moving coda, conveying the tender emotions between two outsiders who have created their own sanctuary in the face of a hostile mainstream culture. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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Possession - A.S. Byatt

Possession - Byatt, A.S.

Summary: A young academic couple's attempt to trace the relationship between two turbulent, romantic, and superstitious Victorian poets reveals uncanny parallels with their own lives and culminates in the exhumation of a poet's corpse - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
The latest novel by the author of Still Life ( LJ 11/15/85) is as sumptuous as brandy-soaked Christmas fruitcake, dense with intrigue, beguiling characters, and a double-edged romance that bridges Victorian England and modern-day academia. At once literary and highly readable, the book boasts a compelling narrative that exposes the real life behind the art of two Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, and contrasts their passion for life with that of Maud Bailey and Roland Mitchell, contemporary scholars who stumble upon romance hidden in dusty papers. This wonderfully written work is highly recommended.-- Linda L. Rome, Mentor, Ohio Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.
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Cutting for stone: a novel – A. Verghese

Cutting for stone: a novel - Verghese, A.

Summary: Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in an Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

BookPage Reviews
Author of the much-praised medical memoir My Own Country, Verghese, who is a doctor as well as an author, now offers an expertly composed first novel about missionaries in India and Africa. In 1947, Sister Mary Joseph Praise leaves her missionary post in India to take a new position in Yemen. Traveling by ship to her new home, she saves the life of a fellow passenger—an English physician named Thomas Stone. Their meeting proves a fateful one, as Sister Praise comes to realize when she and Thomas are reunited at a hospital in Addis Ababa. Years later, she dies giving birth to twins—sons named Shiva and Marion, who are raised in Addis Ababa in an atmosphere of political upheaval. Their adopted parents are doctors at the local hospital, and the boys are raised within the confines of the medical complex. Marion serves as narrator for this poignant novel, recounting the story of how his foster parents met. As the two brothers become doctors themselves, they find that their destinies are bound up in each other and in the place they call home. Covering a 50-year span, Verghese’s accomplished novel has plenty of narrative momentum, moving smoothly between exotic locales and exploring ambitious themes of race, identity and family. An insightful and assured writer, Verghese writes from the heart about medicine and politics—timely topics that are clearly dear to him.

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Crow planet: essential wisdom from the urban wilderness - Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Crow planet: essential wisdom from the urban wilderness - Haupt, Lyanda Lynn

Summary: A scholarly tribute to crow life and mythology explains how increasing crow populations are reflecting various ecological imbalances while providing opportunities to connect with the animal world.


Kirkus Reviews
A self-described posthippie ecofeminist offers a quiet, genial book of "hopeful possibility" amid the current ecological crisis. Wildlife researcher and rehabilitator Haupt (Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin's Lost Notebooks, 2006, etc.) writes gracefully about the interactions between crows and humans in the urban landscape and what those interactions portend for the future of the zoöpolis (where human and animal geographies overlap). For most people, notes the author, crows are the most commonly encountered native wild animal. Her fascination with the unusually intelligent birds began after a long depressive funk. One day she looked out her study window, saw an injured fledgling perched on an electrical wire and took the bird in. While nursing it back to health, she began to feel better. Haupt then spent two years studying the shiny black songbirds in her backyard and neighborhood. Found in growing numbers—there are more than 30 million in the United States—in densely populated towns and suburbs, the omnivorous American Crow thrives on the detritus of modern urban life, consuming everything from road kill to bread crumbs, bagels and McDonald's fries. The author discovered that watching the creatures mate, nest, forage and help one another encouraged a necessary awareness of the continuity between human lives and that of other species. Like her beloved Thoreau—who wrote, "There is no wildness distant from ourselves"—Haupt celebrates the interconnectedness of all life and urges readers to pay close attention to their home places. The chapter on the habits of amateur urban naturalists is a neat how-to guide for anyone interested in learning how the wild, nonhuman animals around us live. Even though we are unable to view our entire planet, she writes, we can take positive action by cultivating a sense of wonder at the wildlife at our door: "We practice wonder by resisting the temptation to hurry past things worth seeing." A fresh take on conscious living in the everyday world. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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Mennonite in a little black dress: A memoir of going home - Rhoda Janzen

Mennonite in a little black dress: A memoir of going home - Janzen, Rhoda

Summary: A hilarious and moving memoir--in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron--about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis.


Booklist Reviews
Janzen was raised in a strict Mennonite society, and while she upheld the values as a child and maintained her faith even as an adult, she couldn't help but rebel. However, after marrying an emotionally abusive atheist who leaves her for a man he met on Gay.com, and then barely surviving a terrible car accident, Janzen finds herself back home reliving her Mennonite childhood as an adult. In her compelling memoir, Janzen explores her past and her present with honesty and self-deprecation, and the result is both hilarious and touching. She delves into her relationships with her mother, sister, and ex-husband without holding back, and she explores some of the Mennonite traditions that helped shape her life. No prior knowledge of Mennonite culture is necessary for enjoying and learning from this lively chronicle of the patience and strong sense of humor one needs to go home again. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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American meadow garden: creating a natural alternative to the traditional lawn – John Greenlee

American meadow garden: creating a natural alternative to the traditional lawn - Greenlee, John

Summary: In a book with full-color photos, an expert nurseryman and designer details site preparation, plant selection and maintenance of a meadow garden, explaining how ornamental grasses perform in different climates and areas.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In a book long awaited by green mavens and horticultural enthusiasts, Greenlee's dynamic garden designs are paired with Holt's splendid photographs in a beautifully produced, information-packed volume that looks at meadows in the context of garden spaces large or small. Greenlee is a passionate advocate for meadows as fecund and lovely habitats, while stressing the water-saving qualities of meadows as opposed to mown lawns. He describes sunlight and clouds as elements essential to appreciating the aesthetics of meadows, explains the basics of grass ecology, and makes recommendations specific to various terrains for creating evocative effects within a "purposeful" design. The diverse meadows featured in Holt's photographs effectively illustrate Greenlee's premises. Suggestions for grasses that can be combined with select perennial flowers, ferns, bulbs, and annuals are provided for sites in regions of all climates with an eye to establishing a compact ecosystem and avoiding the waste of traditional lawns. With a step-by-step guide to planting and maintaining a meadow garden, an A to Z of grasses, and many other invaluable resources, this is the most comprehensive and practical resource yet on this increasingly popular garden type. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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A moveable feast: the restored edition - Ernest Hemingway

A moveable feast: the restored edition - Hemingway, Ernest

Summary: Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft. It is a literary feast, brilliantly evoking the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the youthful spirit, unbridled creativity, and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.

BookPage Reviews
Behind the Book: Hemingway classic restored
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
Most people do not realize that the title of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast was not chosen by my grandfather or that significant revisions to his final manuscript were made after his death in 1961. People do not realize this because the book was presented as completed in 1960. However, it was never finished in Hemingway’s eyes and it is clear that he worked on it practically until his death.
The title, of course, is wonderful. In many ways Mary Hemingway, my grandfather’s widow and my godmother, did a fine job editing the book, but she made changes to the text that we know the author did not want and passed them off as his own. The Restored Edition of A Moveable Feast is based on my grandfather’s last manuscript with his notations and emendations. Even without a final chapter, it is, I believe, a truer representation of the book that he intended to publish. Copyright 2009 BookPage Reviews.

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Headlong – Michael Frayn

Headlong - Frayn, Michael

Summary: When a frustrated philosopher uncovers what he believes is a lost painting by Bruegel in a boorish neighbor's basement, he embarks on a hilarious quest to separate the work from its owner - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
A more apt title for this novel could hardly have been found, for it best explains how the main character involves himself in an intriguing situation that opens before his very nose like a beguiling flower. Philosopher Martin Clay and his art-historian wife, Kate, have traveled to their country house where they intend to spend a couple of months while Martin finishes the book he has been working on. They meet their neighbor, the landowner Tony Churt, who invites them to his house to view and place a value on some paintings in his possession. Astonished at what he is shown, Martin believes that one of the paintings is a lost work by famous sixteenth-century Flemish artist Bruegel. But Martin wants to keep the possibility to himself, not even telling his wife until much later. What Martin also wants is to own the painting himself, to eventually bring it to the light of the art world--and if some money and a degree of fame should happen to fall his way, then so be it. He concocts an elaborate scheme to get hold of the painting, and eventually, Kate finds out. His conniving severely tests the strength of their marriage. Frayn occasionally lapses into Art 101, lecturing the reader on Bruegel and Renaissance art, but these asides only work to make this compelling story even richer. Readers will no doubt plunge right into this intelligent, entertaining novel, the latest by a British playwright, journalist, and novelist. ((Reviewed July 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
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The practice of deceit: A novel – Elizabeth Benedict

The practice of deceit - Benedict, Elizabeth

Summary: Chronicles a particularly nasty divorce that pits a quintessential "nice guy" against his ex-wife, a manipulative lawyer who will stop at nothing to conceal her own sordid past and destroy his credibility. - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
When therapist Eric Lavender discovers that lawyer wife Colleen has been hiding some nasty secrets, she makes sure he runs afoul of the law. From the author of Almost, an NPR Best Book of the Year; with a four-city tour. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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Confessions of an economic hit man – John Perkins

Confessions of an economic hit man - Perkins, John

Summary: This is the inside story of how America turned from a respected republic into a feared empire. John Perkins should know, he was an economic hit man. His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the U.S., from Indonesia to Panama, to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies.

Library Journal Reviews
According to Perkins, a former Economic Hit Man and founding president of Dream Change Coalition, "Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other ‰foreign aid' organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources." Perkins began this book in the early 1980s but claims to have put it aside owing to threats and bribes. Perkins's daughter Jessica finally inspired him to finish it by declaring, "Don't worry dad. If they get you, I'll take over where you left off. We need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to give you someday." This riveting look at a world of intrigue reads like a spy novel. Perkins vividly recounts his work throughout the world, from Saudi Arabia to Panama to Ecuador, and introduces such characters as Panamanian president Omar Torrijos, who became a personal friend. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries.-Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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The song of the lark – Willa Cather

The song of the lark - Cather, Willa

Summary: The daughter of a Swedish minister growing up in Colorado, Thea Kronborg's musical talent sets her apart from her contemporaries. Driven by her determination to satisfy her artistic impulse, she moves to Chicago where she falls in love with a wealthy married man. The novel follows Thea's growth from provincial midwesterner to acclaimed international opera singer. Her ability to resolve the tensions between her personal and professional lives and to communicate through her art makes her an unusual and thoroughly modern heroine. - (Blackwell North Amer)

No review available

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The shadow of Sirius – W.S. Merwin

The shadow of Sirius - Merwin, W.S.

Summary: Presents a collection of poems reflecting the author's life. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
With no punctuation and a solitary launching capital letter, Merwin's elegant poems are built to the measure of breath and sweep the page like palm fronds. Yet each word is old, lustrous, and solid. Only a poet as seasoned as Merwin can wrest so much meaning from dark, moon, wake, river, and song. The questions he poses are as old as night, and the answers are forever elusive. The contrast between airiness and earthiness is intrinsic to master poet Merwin's newest poems, lithe works steely in their testing of the mesh of memory and sensuousness; the coil of time, our continuing fiction; and the ripple of shadows attendant upon the brightest star, the most radiant life. Childhood reminiscences summon the dead and recall the now obsolete; the underworld masquerades as a coal mine or a shadow without form or the darkness that is the mind of day. And Merwin contemplates the earth's verdant singularity in the vault of darkness, our entreaties straying far out past the orbits and webs. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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The laughing policeman: a Martin Beck mystery - Maj Sjöwall

The laughing policeman : a Martin Beck mystery - Sjöwall, Maj

Series: The Martin Beck Mystery Series

Summary: The incredible fourth novel in the Martin Beck mystery series finds Beck heading a major manhunt in pursuit of a mass murderer.

“I've read The Laughing Policeman six or eight times. Each time I reach the final twist on the final page, I shiver afresh.”
—Jonathan Franzen

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The China study – T. Colin Campbell

The China study : the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted and the startling implications for diet, weight loss and long-term health - Campbell, T. Colin

Summary: "This study examines more than 350 variables of health and nutrition with surveys from 6,500 adults in 65 counties, representing 2,500 counties across rural China and Taiwan. While revealing that proper nutrition can have a dramatic effect on reducing and reversing these ailments as well as obesity, this text calls into question the practices of many of the current dietary programs, such as the Atkins diet, that enjoy widespread popularity in the West. The impact of the politics of nutrition and the efforts of special interest groups on the creation and dissemination of public information on nutrition are also discussed."--From publisher description.

Library Journal Reviews
In the 1980s, a comprehensive study of the effects of diet on disease and lifestyle was conducted among 6500 adults in 65 counties in rural China. Campbell (nutritional biochemistry, Cornell Univ.) examines the results of that study and compares the predominantly plant-based Chinese diets with the high consumption of meat and dairy products in the West. Drawing on hundreds of references and his 40-year career as a nutritional biochemist, Campbell compellingly argues that animal-based foods are responsible for high rates of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer's, osteoporosis, and the effects of aging. He challenges long-held beliefs about the nutritional benefits of animal products and points out the confusing glut of contradictory information disseminated by the food industry. Campbell urges readers to eliminate meat and dairy from their diets to achieve better health and longevity. His study will add a new dimension to the public debate about the role of plant-based foods in the human diet. Recommended for nutrition and health collections.-Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Into the beautiful north – Luis Alberto Urrea

Into the beautiful north - Urrea, Luis Alberto

Summary: "Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US when she was young. Recently, it has dawned on her that he isn't the only man who has left town. In fact, there are almost no men in the village--they've all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men--her own 'Siete Magníficos'--to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over."--Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* If you are a judo-practicing, butt-kicking 19-year-old Mexican woman in a town with only one youngish man—and he s gay—you might decide to go to El Norte to recruit illegal immigrant men to revive your village. And Naveli, a twenty-first-century female Don Quixote with a three-person posse that includes her gay boss, does exactly that. This wonderfully funny, occasionally sad novel combines elements of the picaresque with the joie de vivre and startling coincidences of a road-trip movie. Urrea s knowledge of immigrant life, the rigors of poverty, and how being poor affects everyday existence provides the gritty details that make characters and places come alive. Sardonic humor, rugged details of the working-class poor, and the exotic, often bizarre characters all contribute to an outstanding reading treat. Fans of Urrea s nonfiction and his Kiriyama Prize winner, The Hummingbird s Daughter (2005), will probably not expect this lush, rollicking novel of quests, self-discovery, and romance. But—once committed to the trip—readers will have no trouble staying till the bittersweet and triumphant end."

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Let the great world spin: a novel - Colum McCann

Let the great world spin: a novel - McCann, Colum

Summary: In 1974 Manhattan, a radical young Irish monk struggles with personal demons while making his home among Bronx prostitutes, a group of mothers shares grief over their lost Vietnam soldier sons, and a young grandmother attempts to prove her worth.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* After the rigors of Zoli (2007), his historical tale of Romani life, best-selling literary novelist McCann allows himself more artistic freedom in his shimmering, shattering fifth novel. It begins on August 7, 1974, when New Yorkers are stopped in their tracks by the sight of a man walking between the towers of the World Trade Center. Yes, it's Philippe Petit, the subject of the Academy Award–winning documentary Man on Wire and one of McCann's many intense and valiant characters. The cast also includes two Irish brothers: Corrigan, a radical monk, and Ciaran, who follows him to the blasted Bronx, where he encounters resilient prostitute Tillie and her spirited daughter Jazzlyn. Gloria lives in the same housing project, and she befriends Claire of Park Avenue as they mourn the deaths of their sons in Vietnam. McCann's hallucinatory descriptions of a great city tattooed and besmirched with graffiti, blood, and drugs in the midst of a financial freefall are eerie in their edgy beauty, chilling reminders of how quickly civilization unravels. Here, too, are portals onto war, the justice system, and the dawning of the cyber age. In McCann's wise and elegiac novel of origins and consequences, each of his finely drawn, unexpectedly connected characters balances above an abyss, evincing great courage with every step. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.

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The Aubrey/Maturin Series – Patrick O’Brian

The Aubrey/Maturin Series - O’Brian, Patrick

Series Title: The Aubrey/Maturin novels



1. Master and Commander (1970)
2. Post Captain (1972)
3. H.M.S. Surprise (1973)
4. The Mauritius Command (1977)
5. Desolation Island (1978)
6. The Fortune Of War (1979)
7. The Surgeon's Mate (1980)
8. The Ionian Mission (1981)
9. Treason's Harbour (1983)
10. The Far Side Of The World (1984)
11. The Reverse Of The Medal (1986)
12. The Letter Of Marque (1988)
13. The Thirteen Gun Salute (1989)
14. The Nutmeg Of Consolation (1991)
15. The Truelove (1992)
aka Clarissa Oakes
16. The Wine-Dark Sea (1993)
17. The Commodore (1995)
18. The Yellow Admiral (1996)
19. The Hundred Days (1998)
20. Blue At The Mizzen (1999)
21. The Final, Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (2004)

Staff Review
I read this series (20 titles) over a summer ten years ago; they were excellent then, they are superb now. Impeccably researched, they are set in the Napoleonic era, upon the Mediterranean and oceans of the world; the series follows the careers and adventures of the Royal Navy's Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend Stephen Maturin, a naval surgeon, naturalist and spy.

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Scott Pilgrim. [Vol. 1], Scott Pilgrim's precious little life – Bryan Lee O’Malley

Scott Pilgrim. [Vol. 1], Scott Pilgrim's precious little life - O'Malley, Bryan Lee

Series Title: Scott Pilgrim

Summary: Scott Pilgrim's fantastic life takes an unforeseen turn when rollerblading delivery girl Ramona Flowers makes her appearance.

Publishers Weekly Reviews
Scott Pilgrim is 23 years old, lives in a cold, unnamed Canadian town, plays bass in a band called Sex Bob-Omb and has a very cute 17-year-old Chinese-Canadian girlfriend, Knives Chau. His "precious little life" is amiably unstructured, and he drifts, happily unemployed, between band practice and time spent with Knives. His relationship with Knives is chaste-walks, chats and hugs-although Knives is getting bigger ideas. "We haven't even held hands," Scott explains. "It's just nice, you know." But then he starts having dreams about Ramona Flowers, a mysterious, equally cute and perfectly legal hipster chick on Rollerblades who delivers books for Amazon.com. Ramona is anything but simple, and O'Malley's tale of adorable slackers in love is transformed into a wildly magically manga-kung fu fantasy adventure. We meet the first of Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends, Matthew Patel, who challenges Scott and his band to a supernatural martial arts duel right out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. O'Malley has crafted a delightfully hybrid comics love story. It's an alt-lit, rock 'n' roll graphic novel with wonderful manga-influenced drawing and a comically mystical plot that manages to capture both the genuine intimacies and serial dishonesties of young love. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire - Collins, Suzanne

Series Title: The Hunger Games

Summary: By winning the annual Hunger Games, District 12 tributes Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have secured a life of safety and plenty for themselves and their families, but because they won by defying the rules, they unwittingly become the faces of an impending rebellion.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* At the end of The Hunger Games (2008), breathless readers were left in the lurch with any number of questions. Will Katniss lead an uprising against the Capitol? Does she fancy Peeta or Gale? Both? Neither? And perhaps most importantly, how in the world is Collins going to live up to the (well-deserved) hype? Without divulging too much, don't sweat it. The book opens with Katniss and Peeta reluctantly embarking on their victory tour through the 12 oppressed districts of Panem, where they witness more than a few surprising things. And right when it seems as if the plot might be going into a holding pattern between the first and third acts of the trilogy, a blindsiding development hurtles the story along and matches, if not exceeds, the unfiltered adrenaline rush of the first book. Again, Collins' crystalline, unadorned prose provides an open window to perfect pacing and electrifying world building, but what's even more remarkable is that aside from being tremendously action-packed science-fiction thrillers, these books are also brimming with potent themes of morality, obedience, sacrifice, redemption, love, law, and, above all, survival. Honestly, this book only needs to be good enough to satisfy its legions of fans. Fortunately, it's great. And if you were dying to find out what happens after the last book, get ready for pure torture awaiting the next. Copyright 2009 Booklist Reviews.
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Making toast - Roger Rosenblatt

Making toast - Rosenblatt, Roger

Summary: Describes how, after their adult daughter's sudden death, the author and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and three grandchildren, quickly becoming reaccustomed to the world of small children and helping the family grieve and get on with life. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
When their daughter, Amy, died, Rosenblatt and his wife virtually moved in with their son-in-law and three grandchildren, all trying valiantly to cope with the death of a loving young woman and doctor felled by an asymptomatic heart condition. The Rosenblatts plunged themselves into the lives of Harris, six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, shopping, cooking, shuttling, and tending to broken hearts, including their own. Essayist, author, and playwright Rosenblatt, as grandfather Boppo, is tender and amusing as he recalls simple moments in the life of his daughter. His wife, Ginny, a former schoolteacher, essentially leads Amy's life in her absence, congregating with the mothers at the children's school activities and outings. Blindsided by Amy's death, they are all fragile in their concerns for other family members; tardiness or a choking fit become occasions for worry. Friends who have lost children commiserate on the unbearable loss. Sensitive without being sentimental, Rosenblatt eases any potential discomfort on the reader's part at this invitation to view one family's efforts to cope with loss. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews

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