Moby-duck - Donovan Hohn

Moby-duck: the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea, and of the beachcombers, oceanographers, environmentalists, and fools--including the author--who went in search of them - Hohn, Donovan

Summary: When the author heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. His accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories. This work is a journey into the heart of the sea and an adventure through science, myth, the global economy, and some of the worst weather imaginable. With each new discovery, he learns of another loose thread, and with each successive chase, he comes closer to understanding where his castaway quarry comes from and where it goes.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Like Bill Bryson on hard science, or John McPhee with attitude, journalist Hohn travels from beaches to factories to the northern seas in pursuit of a treasure that mystifies as much as it provokes. His quest is to determine what happened to a load of 28,800 Chinese manufactured plastic animals in a container that fell off a ship en route to Seattle in 1992. Hohn's inquiry leads him to 10 Little Rubber Ducks (2005), children's author Eric Carle's idealized board-book version, and also to the plastic-strewn beaches of an Alaskan island, a Hong Kong toy fair, and the Sesame Street origins of the rubber duck's popularity. By turns thoughtful, bemused, or shocked, Hohn finds the story growing beyond his wildest visions as he learns about the science of ocean currents and drift and the lure of cheap plastic in a consumer culture that has dangerously lost its way. The resulting book is a thoroughly engaging environmental/travel title that crosses partisan divides with its solid research and apolitical nature. Rubber ducks as harmless, ubiquitous symbols of childhood? Not anymore, not by a long shot. This dazzles from start to finish. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.


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Cinderella ate my daughter - Peggy Orenstein

Cinderella ate my daughter: dispatches from the front lines of the new girlie-girl culture - Orenstein, Peggy

Summary: Reveals the dark side of pink and pretty and offers ways to prevent raising daughters who only care about image.



Booklist Reviews
Orenstein's Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap (1994) was a watershed best-seller, and she has continued to write extensively—both in print and online—about the hazards of growing up female in contemporary America. Here she explores the increasing "pinkification" of girls' worlds, from toys to apparel to tween-targeted websites, and she writes not only as a detached, informed journalist but also as a loving, feminist mother, bewildered as her daughter, "as if by osmosis," learns the names of every Disney princess, while her classmate, "the one with Two Mommies," arrives daily at her Berkeley preschool "dressed in a Cinderella gown. With a bridal veil." Orenstein skillfully integrates extensive research that demonstrates the pitfalls of "the girlie-girl culture's emphasis on beauty and play-sexiness," which can increase girls' vulnerability to depression, distorted body images and eating disorders, and sexual risks. It's the personal anecdotes, though, which are delivered with wry, self-deprecating, highly quotable humor, that offer the greatest invitation to parents to consider their daughters' worlds and how they can help to shape a healthier, soul-nurturing environment. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Cake wrecks - Jen Yates

Cake wrecks: when professional cakes go hilariously wrong - Yates, Jen

Summary: What is it about messed-up cakes that people find so appealing? Maybe it's because we all have a cake story to tell. Good or bad, these cakes tell little stories about us. Presents pictures of and commentary on cakes with mistakes, organized into such categories as literary lols, beyond bizarre, and wedding wrecks.

BookPage Reviews

Half-baked slices of life

According to Jen Yates, author of the hilarious new collection Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong, “A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate.” For Yates, the pursuit of the hilariously mis-decorated cake is “about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.”

When she began blogging at CakeWrecks.com in May 2008, Yates’ intentions were modest. She wanted a place to collect photos for baking inspiration, as well as a way to share the occasional laugh with family and friends. She never imagined so many readers would respond to her signature wit, or that in less than a year, tens of thousands of people from around the world would be regularly visiting her site for sugary highs (and lows).

Many of the photographs in Cake Wrecks are taken “on the front lines” in bakeries and submitted by CakeWrecks.com readers. But this book isn’t “just the blog put to paper,” Yates assures us, for there is “lots (and lots) of new, never-before-seen Wreckage” to be had—75 percent of the book, to be exact.

Even better, Yates provides the history behind many of the cakes on display. There’s the story of the one that started it all—it read “Best Wishes Suzanne/Under Neat that/We will miss you”—and this reader’s personal favorite, the sprinkled and space-age wonder that is Darth Vader cradling a sleeping and pink-ribboned baby girl.

It’s all here, each wreck a disaster of hilarity. In Cake Wrecks, Yates proves there’s plenty of the weird, wonderful and truly great to go around.

Copyright 2009 BookPage Reviews.

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El regalo del tiempo/The gift of time - Jorge Ramos

El regalo del tiempo/The gift of time - Ramos, Jorge

Summary: In a series of letters to his two children, Paola and Nicolás, author and television personality Jorge Ramos discusses love, death, religion, sex, family, the immigrant experience, success, and other topics.



Criticas Reviews
Ramos, coanchor of Univision News since 1986, is one the most influential, respected, and popular Latinos in the United States and Latin America. He has won seven Emmys for excellence in journalism and received countless other honors. His face and name are ubiquitous in the Latino world—his nightly news casts reach millions of Latinos, his weekly column is carried in more than 35 U.S. and Latin American newspapers, his daily commentary is heard by millions on Univision Radio, and his seven books have all been best sellers. Written as a series of 15 letters to his children, this is his most personally revealing book and will undoubtedly endear him even more to his many fans and readers. While readers will enjoy the personal details he shares, such as his fear of flying and the surgical history of his imperfect nose and inability to smell, it is the expression of his values and beliefs that will resonate with readers. In his letters, he shares important principles and perspectives that many Latinos would surely want to pass on to their children, such as spending time with family and building loving relationships, finding and dedicating yourself wholeheartedly to your passion, and appreciating different perspectives and values while honoring your own. Ramos has written an intimate and timeless book that will appeal to parents and children of all ages. Highly recommended for all public libraries, academic libraries, and bookstores.—Yolanda J. Cuesta, Cuesta MultiCultural Consulting, Sacramento, CA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.


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The chocolate war - Robert Cormier

The chocolate war - Cormier, Robert

Summary: A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school's annual fund raising drive and arousing the wrath of the school bullies.



Staff Review

Don't let the sweet title fool you.

What begins as a harmless Vigil prank of Jerry refusing to sell chocolates turns into a revolution of determination and a war of wills. Jerry's rebellion is poignant; he does not defy Brother Leon with self confidence and internal strength, rather he is filled with fear and uncertainty, yet has resolved to make a stand, no longer to conform, to 'disturb the universe' and make his own decisions. Several of the characters are at the age where they are beginning to test authority, and have realized that adults are not trustworthy reliable rocks of wisdom that they were once led to believe. Cormier captures the teen spirit, and the power of conformity, with amazing accuracy. Brilliantly written.

Warning! The film based on the book totally misses the mark. 

"My Books are an Antidote to the TV View of Life" -  Robert Cormier

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The sociopath next door - Martha Stout

The sociopath next door: the ruthless versus the rest of us - Stout, Martha

Summary: "[The author] reveals [in this book] that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people--one in twenty-five--has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. ... They can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt. ... Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win. ... To arm us against the sociopath, [the author] teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game."--BooksInPrint.

Kirkus Reviews
From the author of The Myth of Sanity (2001), a remarkable philosophical examination of the phenomenon of sociopathy and its everyday manifestations.Readers eager for a tabloid-ready survey of serial killers, however, will be disappointed. Instead, Stout (Psychiatry/Harvard Medical School) busies herself with exploring the workaday lives and motivations of those garden-variety sociopaths who are content with inflicting petty tyrannies and small miseries. As a practicing therapist, she writes, she has spent the past 25 years aiding the survivors of psychological trauma, most of them "controlled and psychologically shattered by individual human perpetrators, often sociopaths." Antisocial personality disorder, it turns out, occurs in around four percent of the population, so it's not too surprising that treating their victims has kept Stout quite busy for the past quarter-century. Employing vivid composite character sketches, the author introduces us to such unsavory characters as a psychiatric administrator who specializes in ingratiating herself with her office staff while making her patients feel crazier; a captain of industry who killed frogs as a child and is now convinced he can outsmart the SEC; and a lazy ladies' man who marries purely to gain access to his new wife's house and pool. These portraits make a striking impact, and readers with unpleasant neighbors or colleagues may find themselves paying close attention to Stout's sociopathic-behavior checklist and suggested coping strategies. In addition to introducing these everyday psychopaths, the author examines why the rest of us let them get away with murder. She extensively considers the presence or absence of conscience, as well as our discomfort with questioning those seen as being in power. Stout also ponders our willingness to quash our inner voice when voting for leaders who espouse violence and war as a solution to global problems-pointed stuff in a post-9/11 political climate.  Deeply thought-provoking and unexpectedly lyrical.Agent: Susan Lee Cohen Copyright Kirkus 2004 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The wind-up bird chronicle - Haruki Murakami

The wind-up bird chronicle - Murakami, Haruki

Summary: The collapse of a marriage is superimposed on an investigation of recovered war memories and a man's search for his own identity - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ "Really, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, it's been a lot of fun being with you. No kidding. I mean, you're such a supernormal guy, but you do such unnormal things. . . . So hanging around you hasn't been boring in any way. . . . But tell you the truth, it's made me nervous too." The speaker is May Kasahara, a Japanese teenager who bears a strong resemblance to Holden Caulfield. She's speaking to Toru Okada, who lives down the street from May in Tokyo and to whom a series of very strange things has been happening. Her words could also stand as a response to this absolutely mesmerizing, befuddling, unaccountably brilliant novel. Murakami is one of Japan's most popular writers, but while his previously translated books have been well received critically in the U.S., they have yet to garner overwhelming popular acclaim. This one will receive plenty of attention, but it's hard to imagine it sharing best-seller slots with the likes of John Grisham. It's just too much book for that.Just what kind of book is it? That's the befuddling part. Plot summary is nearly useless: Toru Okada loses his cat and then his wife. He devotes himself to finding the latter but spends much of his time in the bottom of a well, hoping to pass through the wall and into an alternate world where the secrets lie. Meanwhile, he encounters a series of ever more puzzling characters, including a World War II veteran who recounts the horrifying story of the battle of Nomonhan, during which thousands of Japanese died meaninglessly in conflict with Russians and Mongolians. This overwhelming tidal wave of story washes over Toru Okada, who absorbs each new revelation implacably, hoping but usually failing to make sense of it. Murakami is utterly at ease with multiple subjects, genres, and styles--surrealism, deadpan comedy, military history, detective fiction, love story. His canvas is as broad as twentieth-century Japan, his brush strokes imbued with the lines and colors of American pop culture. Oddly, it all holds together on the stoic shoulders of Toru Okada and his single-minded determination to reclaim the woman he loves no matter how absurd the world around her becomes. In the scary but never boring vastness of this novel, it's nice to find one buoy on the horizon we recognize. ((Reviewed Aug. 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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Electric barracuda - Tim Dorsey

Electric barracuda - Dorsey, Tim

Summary: "Serge Storms, that lovable thermonuclear vigilante and one stop Florida trivia shop, has been leaving corpses strewn across the Sunshine State for more than a decade. The authorities, especially one tenacious state agent, have begun to notice the exponential body count, and send a police task force to track down Serge. Could his luck finally have run out?"--From publisher.


Booklist Reviews
In Dorsey's thirteenth Serge Storms novel, the manic spree-killer and Florida native son is off his meds again and building a website that encourages tourists to undertake "fugitive" vacations. Serge envisions midwestern families pretending to be "on the lam" and visiting remote, un-Disneyfied locales long favored by Florida outlaws. In pursuit is a police task force. The cops have finally tumbled to Serge as prime suspect in Florida's most grotesque murders. And the cops are followed by a number of mysterious civilians as well as the Doberman, a reality-TV bounty hunter with plummeting ratings. Once again, it's a Smokey and the Bandit chase story, fueled by dangerous drugs; imaginative dispatchings of arrogant Wall Street plutocrats; beautiful, dangerous women; and Agent Mahoney, whose decade-long pursuit of Serge has reduced him to speaking in the hilarious, fractured argot of a pulp fiction shamus. It's Dorsey's standard mash-up, bizarre and often very funny. His wonderful tour of Florida's boltholes might make them prime-tourist destinations, but fortunately, they are very difficult to reach. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Europe's last summer - David Fromkin

Europe's last summer: who started the Great War in 1914? - Fromkin, David

Summary: Draws on current scholarship to argue that hostilities that led to World War I were started intentionally, describing the negotiations and personalities of key leaders that contributed to the failure of diplomatic efforts.


Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Fromkin's answer to the question posed in his subtitle is succinct: Helmuth von Moltke, imperial Germany's army chief in 1914. In his clearly delineated argument, Fromkin addresses alternative theories about the cause of World War I, but he returns to the decision chain of a small number of officials in Berlin and Vienna. Their destruction of key evidence hampers the precise reconstruction of their actions as does, Fromkin maintains, historians' confusion about what the Germans were licensing in agreeing to whatever chastisement Vienna decided to deliver upon Serbia, on the pretext of avenging the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In contrast to theorists of rigid alliances, to whom the notorious "blank check" initiated events almost beyond human control, Fromkin arraigns the actions of Moltke and his colleagues, especially in late July 1914, when the procrastinating Austrians had yet to crush Serbia in war, as Moltke expected. Hijacking the bollixed-up situation, he overrode Kaiser Wilhelm II's resistance, Fromkin concludes, to a deliberate instigation of a second war against Russia and France. The boldness of Fromkin's argument is enough to warrant attention, but his fluidity of expression guarantees a large audience for this book. ((Reviewed February 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

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Little women - Louisa May Alcott

Little women - Louisa May Alcott

Summary: Chronicles the joys and sorrows of the four March sisters as they grow into young women in mid-nineteenth-century New England.

Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War. Through their dreams, plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother, Jo's struggle to become a writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May Alcott's childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.

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Moscow 1941 -Rodric Braithwaite

Moscow 1941: a city and its people at war - Braithwaite, Rodric

Summary: A narrative history of the Battle of Moscow interweaves the personal reminiscences of ordinary men and women with portraits of Stalin and his generals to reveal the impact of the war on the daily life of the city's inhabitants. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
The defense of the Soviet capital against the German invasion of 1941 is cast in this history against the ordinary Muscovite's call to arms. Braithwaite, formerly a British ambassador in Moscow in the late 1980s, focuses on firsthand experiences that capture the difficulties of living, both materially and psychologically, in the atmosphere of Stalinism. The German attack produced widespread dread, both for what the Nazis portended and, more immediately, the draconian reintensification of Stalin's terror. The dictator also appealed to patriotism, however, and the author probes the motivations of Moscow's students, workers, artists, and professionals in joining military units, confirming that not everyone signed up under the gun. Personal stories in the dozens fit into Braithwaite's chronicle of the German bid for the capital, which reached Moscow's outskirts and provoked panic before being repulsed at horrendous cost in December 1941. Conversantly connected to his interviewees and to documentary sources, Braithwaite delivers a tragically human Moscow of 1941, victorious but traumatized. ((Reviewed September 1, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews

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The wives of Henry VIII - Antonia Fraser

The wives of Henry VIII - Fraser, Antonia

Summary: Presents a provocative study of the diverse and complex characters of the the six wives of Henry VIII and their impact on the world - (Baker & Taylor)



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Fraser ( Mary, Queen of Scots ) here turns to the reign of Henry VIII, who ruled from 1509-1547, and the six women he married: Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Catherine Parr. From her scrupulous research and informed interpretations of historical events, Fraser succeeds in presenting Henry's queens as complex and intelligent women who struggled to express themselves in a world where females were subservient to and ruled by men. Catherine of Aragon, married to Henry for 20 years, displayed cleverness and bravery when she fought her husband's attempts to divorce her. Anne Boleyn, a learned woman, was innocent of the adultery she was accused of, but was beheaded because she could not produce a son. Unlettered, 21-year-old Katherine Howard, queen for just 18 months when she was beheaded in 1542 for the ``violent presumption'' she had committed adultery, met death on the block where her cousin Anne Boleyn had died six years earlier. By firmly anchoring each woman's fate in Henry's failure to be philoprogenitive--most crucially in not producing male heirs--Fraser makes a major contribution to feminist scholarship. Illustrations not seen by PW. 50,000 first printing; History Book Club and BOMC alternates. (Nov.) Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information.

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A woman in Berlin - Anonymous

A woman in Berlin: eight weeks in the conquered city: a diary - Anonymous

Summary: A wartime journal by a reporter living through the Russian occupation of Berlin includes her observations of survival under harsh conditions; the mass rapes endured by the city's women; and the corruption of Berlin's citizens. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
The author of this diary was a 34-year-old journalist, now deceased, who consistently refused to reveal her identity publicly. She spoke some Russian and seemed liberal in outlook. Her chronicle was first published in 1953; after remaining dormant, it was republished 50 years later in Germany. This stunning account covers the period from late April to mid-June 1945, beginning with the massive Soviet bombardment of Berlin and ending with the opening weeks of the Soviet occupation. The author is a keen observer of the ironies, even the absurdities, of a collapsing society, but this is a work of great power. At times, one can virtually smell the fear as people cower in basements as the bombardment intensifies. When Russian troops arrive, they are, at first, comically playful as they seem intent on accumulating watches and bicycles. Then the rapes begin and there are scenes of casual but horrifying brutality. The author recounts her own rape with an unsettling detachment. This is a devastating and rare glimpse at ordinary people who struggle to survive. ((Reviewed July 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

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Savage beauty - Nancy Milford

Savage beauty: the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay - Milford, Nancy

Summary: An authorized portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet draws on Millay's intimate diary, letters, and other papers to capture her flamboyant and turbulent life. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ Millay scholars were frustrated for decades by the inaccessibility of a vast treasure trove of letters, journals, and other private papers jealously guarded by the poet's sister, Norma. Milford, the author of Zelda (1970), the best-selling biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, gradually earned Norma's trust during the 1970s and now presents the first comprehensive authorized biography of the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Red-headed, green-eyed, precocious, independent, and beguiling, Millay was born in Camden, Maine, in 1892, the eldest of three daughters of a divorced and renegade mother. Millay began writing as a girl, and her brilliant, original, and fearless early poems won her prizes and wealthy patrons who sent her to Vassar, where she conducted a great swirl of love affairs with young women and older men. Once established in Greenwich Village, the indefatigably lascivious Millay wrote daring yet lyric collections that sold in the tens of thousands at the height of the Depression. Milford is both meticulous and dynamic in her assessment of Millay's trailblazing work and complicated, controversial life right up to its sad and dramatic end, and she will continue her reclamation of a great American poet as editor of a forthcoming Modern Library edition of Millay's fire-and-diamond poetry. ((Reviewed August 2001)) Copyright 2001 Booklist Reviews

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House Rules- Jodie Picoult

House rules -Jodi Picoult

Summary: Unable to express himself socially but possessing a savant-like knack for investigating crimes, a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome is wrongly accused of killing his tutor when the police mistake his autistic tics for guilty behavior.

Staff Review

Another really good one from her. I enjoy that even though Jodi Picoult's novels involve meticulous medial research, it never stands in the way of the way of her characters or story.

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No-no boy - John Okada

No-no boy - Okada, John

Summary: In the aftermath of World War II, Ichiro, a Japanese American, returns home to Seattle to make a new start after two years in an internment camp and two years in prison for refusing to be drafted.

No Review Available

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The sharper your knife the less you cry - Kathleen Flinn

The sharper your knife the less you cry: love, laughter, and tears at the world's most famous cooking school - Flinn, Kathleen

Summary: Recounts the author's decision to change careers and attend the famed Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, an education during which she survived the program's intense teaching methods, competitive fellow students, and the dynamics of falling in love, in an account complemented by two dozen recipes. 40,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Publishers Weekly Reviews
When the author, an American journalist and software executive working in London, is sacked from her high-powered job, she enrolls as a student at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris. With limited cooking skills and grasp of the French language, she gamely attempts to master the school's challenging curriculum of traditional French cuisine. As if she didn't have enough on her plate eviscerating fish and knocking out pt choux, she determines to write a book about her experience and gets married along the way. The result is a readable if sentimental chronicle of that year in Paris in which her love life is explored in great detail, dirty weekends and all, and cooking features as a metaphor for self-discovery. Some readers may feel disappointed that the narrator's encounters with French cookery remain largely confined to her lessons at the Cordon Bleu. On those rare occasions when she ventures into the food-obsessed city, the descriptions of meals are glancing at best. Although her struggles with the language and lack of knowledge about the culture lend comic elements to the story (once, trying to order a pizza over the phone, she said, "Je suis une pizza"—I am a pizza), they, too, constrain the author's culinary explorations.


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When the killing's done - T.C. Boyle

When the killing's done - Boyle, T.C.

Summary: Traces an incrementally violent confrontation between a National Park Service biologist who would eradicate invasive wildlife on the Channel Islands and two locals who are fiercely opposed to the killing of any creatures. By the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of World's End. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Staff Review:
Lyrical from the start, Mr. Boyle's new novel is irresistible in it's pull for Santa Barbara residents, naturalists, and anyone wanting a good suspenseful read. He weaves fact and fiction, past and present into a gripping story.

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Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. - Sam Wasson

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the dawn of the modern woman - Wasson, Sam

Summary: Depicts the making of the iconic film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in the late 1950s, drawing on interviews with those involved in the film's production, including the actors, producer Richard Shepherd, and Truman Capote's biographer. Sam Wasson takes the reader from pre-production to on-set feuds and conflicts, while also noting Hepburn's impact on fashion (Givenchy's little black dress), Hollywood glamour, sexual politics, and the new morality.

Library Journal Reviews
Wasson (A Splurch in the Kisser: The Movies of Blake Edwards) traces Audrey Hepburn's life and career leading up to Breakfast at Tiffany's and describes how her role inspired women as they emerged from restrictive 1950s cultural, social, and sexual stereotypes. At the same time, he weaves in the story of Truman Capote, author of the book that was the basis for the film, and examines the complex sources for his famous character Holly Golightly. By the time Wasson arrives at the shooting of the film, readers will have a solid understanding of Hepburn and Capote as well as many others in their spheres and involved with the film—from director Blake Edwards and composer Henry Mancini to costumer Edith Head and screenwriter George Axelrod. The anecdotes are numerous and deftly told, and Wasson does not shy away from relevant interpersonal challenges. VERDICT This well-researched, entertaining page-turner should appeal to a broad audience, particularly those who enjoy film history that focuses on the human factors involved in the creative process while also drawing on larger social and cultural contexts.—Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ

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Anna and the French kiss - Stephanie Perkins

Anna and the French kiss - Perkins, Stephanie

Summary: When Anna's romance-novelist father sends her to an elite American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes, and meets an amazing boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.



Booklist Reviews
Anna is not happy about spending senior year at a Paris boarding school, away from her Atlanta home, best friend Bridgette, and crush Toph. Adapting isn't easy, but she soon finds friends and starts enjoying French life, especially its many cinemas; she is an aspiring film critic. Complications arise, though, when she develops feelings for cute—and taken—classmate Etienne, even though she remains interested in Toph. Her return home for the holidays brings both surprises, betrayals, unexpected support, and a new perspective on what matters in life—and love. Featuring vivid descriptions of Parisian culture and places, and a cast of diverse, multifaceted characters, including adults, this lively title incorporates plenty of issues that will resonate with teens, from mean girls to the quest for confidence and the complexities of relationships in all their forms. Despite its length and predictable crossed-signal plot twists, Perkins' debut, narrated in Anna's likable, introspective voice, is an absorbing and enjoyable read that highlights how home can refer to someone, not just somewhere. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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The center of winter - Marya Hornbacher

The center of winter - Hornbacher, Marya

Summary: In the aftermath of her husband's devastating suicide, Claire Schiller moves with their two young children into the home of her in-laws during an oppressive Minnesota winter and shares unexpected moments of comfort, healing, and humor. A first novel. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ In northern Minnesota the winters seem to go on forever: bleak, gray, and everlasting. Dismal enough to drive a man to drink or despair, or both. So when, in the midst of this gloom, Arthur Schiller takes a gun to his head, he puts an end to his sorrow over his unhappy marriage, his mentally ill son, and failures real or imagined. His wife, Claire, had just told Arnold that she was going to leave him, and naturally blames herself for his death. His 12-year-old son, Esau, recently committed to the state mental hospital, blames himself, too. Even six-year-old Kate somehow feels responsible. In this eloquently evocative portrait of how one family copes with tragedy, Hornbacher limns their mourning with exquisite sensitivity and gentle humor. With precocious Kate as the heart of the novel, fragile Esau as its conscience, Hornbacher has created characters who are genuine, engaging, and unforgettable. Following her brutally honest memoir, the acclaimed Wasted (1998), with this stunning debut novel, Hornbacher, who inevitably will be compared to Alice Sebold, proves herself to be a master storyteller. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

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The particular sadness of lemon cake - Aimee Bender

The particular sadness of lemon cake - Bender, Aimee

Summary: Being able to taste people's emotions in food may at first be horrifying. But young, unassuming Rose Edelstein grows up learning to harness her gift as she becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.



Library Journal Reviews
Rose Edelstein is nearly nine when she first tastes her mother's feelings baked into a slice of birthday cake. Her "mouth was filling up with the taste of smallness…of upset." Meals become an agony for Rose, and she subsists on junk food from the school vending machine. When her mother begins an affair, Rose can taste that, too. Her brilliant older brother, Joseph, seems to have some type of autism spectrum disorder, though it is never named. Rose grows up and manages what she now considers her food skill, discerning not only the city of production but also the personality and temperament of the growers and pickers. She also draws closer to her father, finally understanding his prepossessions. This is an unusual family, even by California standards. VERDICT Bender (Willful Creatures) deconstructs one of our most pleasurable activities, eating, and gives it a whole new flavor. She smooths out the lumps and grittiness of life to reveal its zest. Highly recommended for readers with sophisticated palates. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/10; online reading group guide and eight-city tour.]—Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal


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The Cypress House - Michael Koryta

The Cypress House - Koryta, Michael

Summary: When Arlen Wagner awakens on a train one hot Florida night and sees death's telltale sign in the eyes of his fellow passengers, he tries to warn them. Only 19-year-old Paul Brickhill believes him, and the two abandon the train, hoping to escape certain death. They continue south, but are soon stranded at the Cypress House--an isolated Gulf Coast boarding house run by the beautiful Rebecca Cady--directly in the path of an approaching hurricane. But the storm isn't the only approaching danger.

Staff Review
An absolutely chilling book, Mr. Koryta tells his tale with a cinematic realism that makes you see it all right in front of you. I really enjoyed his last title, "So Cold the River", as well.

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The great typo hunt - Jeff Deck

The great typo hunt: two friends changing the world, one correction at a time - Deck, Jeff

Summary: An account of the authors' haphazard cross-country effort to correct spelling and punctuation errors displayed on public signs relates how they discovered underlying truths about America's educational history and racial heritage.



Staff Review
I thought I saw typos everywhere before I read this book, but now they jump out at me. This is a very entertaining book. These guys are hilariously obsessive about things like apostrophes and spelling on signs, and their attempt try to get business owners to change them in real time is great reading.

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Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere - Gaiman, Neil

Summary: After he helps a stranger on a London sidewalk, Richard Mayhew discovers an alternate city beneath London, and must fight to survive if he is to return to the London he knew.




Booklist Reviews
Londoner Richard Mayhew and his ice-princess fiancee are hurrying to dinner with her media-tycoon boss when Richard spies a young woman lying dirty and bleeding in the street. Uncharacteristically not thinking twice, he picks the apparent beggar up and, leaving his intended on the spot, carries her to his apartment to recuperate. Next morning, two eerie men are at Richard's door. They are looking for the young woman, who is in the bathroom when they arrive. Over Richard's protests, they barge in and search the place, but the girl is nowhere to be found. After they leave, however, she shows up at Richard's elbow in the kitchen. Strange. But humdrum compared to the quest that Door (the young woman) enlists Richard to undertake with her in London Below, a subterranean city made up of long-forgotten parts of historic London and populated by people who "fell through the cracks," as Richard discovers he has shortly after Door first leaves him, and friends fail to recognize him, while strangers don't even seem to see him. The millions who know The Sandman, the spectacularly successful graphic novel series Gaiman writes, will have a jump start over other fantasy fans at conjuring the ambience of his London Below, but by no means should those others fail to make the setting's acquaintance. It is an Oz overrun by maniacs and monsters, and it becomes a Shangri-La for Richard. Excellent escapist fare. ((Reviewed May 15, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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The rape of Nanking - Iris Chang

The rape of Nanking: the forgotten holocaust of World War II - Chang, Iris

Summary: Published on the sixtieth anniversary of the atrocity, a chilling, true account of the 1937 massacre of 250,000 Chinese civilians by the invading Japanese military details a carnage for which the Japanese government has never admitted responsibility. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
In December 1937, the Japanese army captured Nanking, then China's capital. Thereafter Japanese embarked on two months of mass murder that have come to be called the rape of Nanking and during which as many as a third of a million Chinese may have been killed. Most survivors owed their lives to the heroic efforts of foreign residents, including a German engineer who was head of the local Nazi Party. Although thoroughly documented then and since, the rape of Nanking has been largely ignored by subsequent generations, as China and the West built new and better relations with Japan. This ignorance now seems part of the Japanese effort to portray themselves as innocent victims in the Pacific war. But if the events in Nanking are appalling in one way, Japanese editing of history is appalling in another. Chang's book is a memorial to the victims of Nan-king, a damning indictment of Japanese political historiography, a valuable addition to Pacific war literature, and a literary model of how to speak about the unspeakable. ((Reviewed December 1, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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Moloka'i - Alan Brennert

Moloka'i - Brennert, Alan

Summary: Dreaming of far-off lands away from her loving 1890s Honolulu home, seven-year-old Rachel is forcibly removed from her family when she contracts leprosy and is placed in a settlement, where she loses a series of new friends before new medical discoveries enable her reentry into the world. 17,500 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Kirkus Reviews
A gritty story of love and survival in a Hawaiian leper colony: more a portrait of old Hawaii than a compelling narrative.The chronicle of leprosy-infected Rachel Kalama begins in 1891 in Honolulu and ends in the late 1960s on isolated Moloka'i, site of the Kalaupapa Leprosy settlement. As much a record of her life as of the changes in Hawaii itself over the years, screenwriter and fantasy author Brennert (Her Pilgrim Soul, 1990, etc.) vividly and graphically details both the landscape and the disease as he tells Rachel's story. She's five at the start, when her father, a sailor, comes back in time for Christmas with another doll for her collection and gifts for her older siblings Sarah, Ben, and Kimo. A few months later, Rachel is found to have leprosy, and the happy life the family has enjoyed ends. Considered dangerously contagious, Rachel is sent to the settlement on Molaka'i. There, in a hospital run by Catholic nuns, she lives with other young girls affected in varying degrees. As the years pass, Rachel's friends die; she befriends Sister Catherine, whose affection will sustain her; but, with the exception of her father, she has no contact with her family. Poor Rachel is doomed not only to suffer horribly but also to bear witness to history: a history that includes the end of the monarchy, the US annexation, the arrival of movies and airplanes, the Depression, and Pearl Harbor. Brennert also details changes in the treatment of leprosy--herbal injections, surgery, and, finally, the cure in the 1940's: sulfa derivatives. While Hawaii changes, Rachel grows up, falls in love, and marries Kenji, a fellow patient. She bears a daughter, but Ruth must immediately give the child up for adoption to avoid infection. Amid the heartbreak, Kenji is murdered and Rachel's symptoms worsen (she loses the fingers of her right hand). Rachel, though, is a survivor, and unexpected reunions compensate as she returns to a much-changed Honolulu.Not a comfortable read, but certainly instructive.Agent: Molly Friedrich/Aaron Priest Literary Agency Copyright Kirkus 2003 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Plainsong - Kent Haruf

Plainsong - Haruf, Kent

Summary: From the unsettled lives of a small-town teacher struggling to raise two boys alone in the face of their mother's retreat from life, a pregnant teenage girl with nowhere to go, and two elderly bachelor farmers emerges a new vision of life and family as their diverse destinies intertwine. 200,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Kirkus Reviews
A stirring meditation on the true nature and necessity of the family. Among the several damaged families in this beautifully cadenced and understated tale is that of Tom Guthrie, a high-school history teacher in small Holt, Colorado, who s left to raise his two young sons, Ike and Bobby, alone when his troubled wife first withdraws from them and then, without explanation, abandons them altogether. Victoria Roubideaux, a high-school senior, is thrown out of her house when her mother discovers she s pregnant. Harold and Raymond McPheron, two aging but self-reliant cattle ranchers, are haunted by their imaginings of what they may have missed in life by electing never to get married, never to strike out on their own. Haruf (Where You Once Belonged, 1989, etc.) believably draws these various incomplete or troubled figures together. Victoria, pretty, insecure, uncertain of her own worth, has allowed herself to be seduced by a weak, spoiled lout who quickly disappears. When her bitter mother locks her out, she turns to Maggie Jones, a compassionate teacher and a neighbor, for help. Maggie places Victoria with the McPheron brothers, an arrangement that Guthrie, a friend of both Maggie and the McPherons, supports. Some of Haruf s best passages trace with precision and delicacy the ways in which, gradually, the gentle, the lonely brothers and Victoria begin to adapt to each other and then, over the course of Victoria's pregnancy, to form a resilient family unit. Harold and Raymond's growing affection for Victoria gives her a sense of self-worth, which proves crucial when her vanished (and abusive) boyfriend, comes briefly back into her life. Haruf is equally good at catching the ways in which Tom and his sons must quietly struggle to deal with their differing feelings of loss, guilt, and abandonment. Everyone is struggling here, and it's their decency, and their determination to care for one another, Haruf suggests, that gets them through. A touching work, as honest and precise as the McPheron brothers themselves. Copyright 1999 Kirkus Reviews

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One hundred years of solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

One hundred years of solitude - Garcia Marquez, Gabriel

Summary: Probably García Márquez’s finest and most famous work, One Hun-dred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.
Gabriel García Márquez was born in 1928 in the town of Araca-taca, Colombia. Latin America’s preeminent man of letters, he is considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. He began his writing career as a journalist and is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including Love in the Time of Cholera, The Autumn of the Patriarch, and Collected Stories. His most recent work is a memoir, Living to Tell the Tale. García Már-quez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982.


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City of thieves: a novel - David Benioff

City of thieves: a novel - Benioff, David

Summary: A writer visits his retired grandparents in Florida to document their experience during the infamous siege of Leningrad. His grandmother won't talk about it, but his grandfather reluctantly consents. The result is the captivating odyssey of two young men trying to survive against desperate odds.



Booklist Reviews
In 1941, the Germans circled Leningrad, starving its remaining citizens. His mother and sister evacuated, 17-year-old Lev Beniov remained, heeding the call for every able-bodied man to come to the defense of his country. After being caught out after curfew, Lev is thrown in the Crosses, the notorious prison, and while waiting for what he assumes will be an inglorious end, a summary execution at dawn, he is joined by the gregarious, indefatigable, and literature-spouting soldier, Kolya, imprisoned for desertion. When their lives are spared, they are assigned the impossible task of acquiring a dozen eggs for the wedding of a colonel's daughter, a task that takes them into the company of cannibals and Einsatzgruppen, dreaded Nazi death squads. A high-spirited adventure, Benioff's second novel (following the 2001 debut, The 25th Hour), ostensibly an account of the author's grandfather—a quiet immigrant who sold his real-estate business and retired to Florida with his wife—takes more than a little poetic license. When Benioff tells his grandfather that a few things don't make sense in the narrative, his reply: "You're a writer. Make it up." Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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Confessions of a blabbermouth - Mike Carey

Confessions of a blabbermouth - Carey, Mike

Summary: Tasha Flanigan loves to talk, especially on her blog, and when her mom brings home a creepy boyfriend and his daughter, Tasha can't help but talk about them.




Library Media Connection
This hilarious, British graphic novel chronicles the misadventures of Tasha, a manic blogger whose life is one huge drama. Her divorced mother brings home yet another boyfriend, a hack writer with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. His mysterious daughter, Chloe, starts school with Tasha; the plot thickens from that point on. Reluctantly, Chloe and Tasha work together on the yearbook committee, this year staffed by the 12s instead of the 13s, creating great animosity between the classes. Sylvie and her cronies, who terrorize the school, make their lives miserable. Throw into the mix Ben, a not-quite-yet boyfriend of Tasha's, and mayhem ensues. Mike Carey teams up with his teenage daughter, Louise, to write this very funny scenario. Louise's contribution is very evident in the understanding of the school scene. Alexovich's delightful illustrations with exaggerated, bold strokes and grimacing facial expressions complement the text nicely. The humorous dialogue is quite clever and very funny. Tasha's meanderings on her blog are both a creative outlet and a vent for her intense frustration with her mother's string of boyfriends. Real world situations create a very enjoyable romp through the ups and downs of Tasha's adolescence. Recommended. Susie Nightingale, Library Media Specialist, Santa Fe Trail Junior High School, Olathe, Kansas © 2008 Linworth Publishing, Inc.

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The Second Base Club - Greg Trine

The Second Base Club - Trine, Greg

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Elroy will do almost anything, from joining the wrestling team to forming a band, in order to get a girlfriend, until he finally realizes the truth of a girl friend's words about being himself.




Kirkus Reviews
Full of gauche guy humor, this coming-of-age tale about a 16-year-old boy's attempts to get to second base (with a girl) takes a while to get going, but once all the plot elements come together, it becomes warm and winning. Elroy isn't exactly sure what second base is, but he knows that he wants to get there. In his quest to answer that ancient question--what do girls want?--Elroy tries wrestling, creating a band and (gasp!) talking to them. Although his efforts have a tendency to misfire, his hard work pays off in other ways, causing him to grow and develop both physically and emotionally. So when his mettle is tested--a group of jocks actually have a second-base club that involves an unsavory secret--Elroy is ready. It's hard to buy that the news of the club hasn't leaked, and the ending feels a tad rushed, but by then the reader is so squarely in Elroy's corner that it really doesn't matter. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet: a novel - David Mitchell

The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet: a novel - Mitchell, David

Summary: 1799, Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor. Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk, has a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city's powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken--the consequences of which will extend beyond Jacob's worst imaginings.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Two-time Booker finalist Mitchell applies his wide-ranging talents to this innovative historical epic. Dejima, an artificial island created as a trading outpost in Nagasaki Harbor, proves fertile ground for exploring intercultural relations, trust and betrayal, racial and gender boundaries, the search for identity, and unexpected love in a changing world. In 1799, when the Netherlands held a trade monopoly with isolationist Japan, Jacob de Zoet, a clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company, is charged with uncovering fraud in his predecessors' ledgers. As Jacob doggedly pursues an honest course, he becomes romantically intrigued by Orito Aibagawa, a gifted, disfigured midwife granted special permission to study on Dejima. Mitchell incorporates diverse styles, and he expertly adapts tone and dialogue to reflect his situations. In the main plotline, incisive commentary on decisions and unforeseen consequences filters through a jaunty, slang-filled tale in which Japanese and Dutchmen arrange public and private deals. Interlinked subplots offer creepy gothic drama, seafaring adventure, and race-against-time suspense. Despite the audacious scope, the focus remains intimate; each fascinating character—interpreter, herbalist, magistrate, slave—has the opportunity to share his or her story. Everything is patched together seamlessly and interwoven with clever wordplay and enlightening historical details on feudal Japan. First-rate literary fiction and a rousing good yarn, too. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Under fishbone clouds - Sam Meekings

Under fishbone clouds - Meekings, Sam

Summary: Challenged by the Jade Emperor to gain understanding about the human heart, the Kitchen God observes the relationship between Jinyi and his wife, Yuying, from their early romance through old age, a love that is shaped by the Cultural Revolution and otherchallenges.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Foolishly, the Chinese Kitchen God speaks ill of the head deity, the Jade Emperor. For this he is challenged to discover the true workings of the human heart, and he carries out this task by following the lives of Yuying and her husband, Jinyi. It is his voice that transports the reader into twentieth-century China, where Jinyi and Yuying attempt to hold their love together through years of war, famine, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Yuying's father, unwilling to allow other rich families access to his wealth, marries her to the poverty-stricken orphan Jinyi, who suffered through years of hard labor while traveling to the city in search of work. As their love slowly blossoms, Yuying and Jinyi are forced to flee as war sweeps through the city. Traveling to and living in the devastatingly impoverished countryside is a rude awakening for Yuying as is the Cultural Revolution, which does not look kindly on her due to her bourgeois upbringing. The tragedies and triumphs of their lives together are eloquently enunciated in the voice of the Kitchen God, who manages to tell his own story as well. As utterly engrossing as it is well penned, this is a wonderful debut about the lengths that love can take us. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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