Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken: a World War II story of survival, resilience,and redemption - Hillenbrand, Laura

Summary: On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared--Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.

Kirkus Reviews
The author of Seabiscuit (2001) returns with another dynamic, well-researched story of guts overcoming odds.

Hillenbrand examines the life of Louis Zamperini, an American airman who, after his bomber crashed in the Pacific during World War II, survived 47 days on a life raft only to be captured by Japanese soldiers and subjected to inhuman treatment for the next two years at a series of POW camps. That his life spiraled out of control when he returned home to the United States is understandable. However, he was able to turn it around after meeting Billy Graham, and he became a Christian speaker and traveled to Japan to forgive his tormentors. The author reconstructs Zamperini's wild youth, when his hot temper, insubordination, and bold pranks seemed to foretell a future life of crime. His talents as a runner, however, changed all that, getting him to the 1936 Olympics and to the University of Southern California, where he was a star of the track team. When the story turns to World War II, Hillenbrand expands her narrative to include men who served with him in the Air Corps in the Pacific. Through letters and interviews, she brings to life not just the men who were with Zamperini on the life raft and in the Japanese camps, but the families they left behind. The suffering of the men is often difficult to read, for the details of starvation, thirst and shark attacks are followed by the specifics of the brutalities inflicted by the Japanese, particularly the sadistic Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who seemed dedicated to making Zamperini's life unbearable. Hillenbrand follows Watanabe's life after the Japanese surrender, providing the perfect foil to Zamperini's. When Zamperini wrote to his former tormentor to forgive him and attempted to meet him in person, Watanabe rejected him. Throughout are photographs of World War II bombers, POW camps, Zamperini and his fellow GIs and their families and sweethearts, providing a glimpse into a bygone era. Zamperini is still thriving at age 93.

Alternately stomach-wrenching, anger-arousing and spirit-lifting—and always gripping.
Copyright Kirkus 2010 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

Check Availability

A scanner darkly - Philip K. Dick

A scanner darkly - Dick, Philip K.

Summary:  Bob Arctor is a junkie and a drug-dealer, both using and selling the mind-altering Substance D. Fred is a law enforcement agent, tasked with bringing Bob down. It sounds like a standard case. The only problem is that Bob and Fred are the same person.
In this multiple-award-winning novel, friends can become enemies, good trips can turn terrifying, and cops and criminals are two sides of the same coin. In this highly autobiographical novel, Dick is at turns caustically funny and somberly contemplative, fashioning a novel that is as unnerving as it is enthralling.


Check Availability

Modigliani: a life - Meryle Secrest

Modigliani: a life - Meryle Secrest

Summary: A profile of the celebrated modernist artist includes coverage of his upbringing as a Sephardic Jewish youth by a impoverished Italian family, his considerable training, and the ways in which his private battles with tuberculosis shaped his achievements.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* With a keen nose for canards and unprecedented access to primary materials, exemplary biographer Secrest (Duveen, 2004) revisits the life and achievemen of artist Modigliani, who worked under a death sentence she believes he kept secret. Tuberculosis raged across Europe during Modigliani's brief life, infecting him when he was a book-loving, artistic teen in Livorno, Italy, and claiming his life in 1920, when he was only 35. Based on an intriguing set of clues she energetically delineates, Secrest theorizes about how the handsome, life-loving, ambitious artist concealed his condition. As for his notorious drunkenness, Secrest suggests that the alcohol helped control his persistent coughing. With this template in place, every aspect of Modigliani's life takes on new meaning, including his iconic portraits, which derived from his deep fascination with masks, the perfect symbol for his own camouflage. Modigliani's depictions of women constitute some of the world's most evocative masterpieces, and women close to him dominate Secrest's account, from his smart, cultured mother, Eugénie, to his lovers, the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, writer and journalist Beatrice Hastings, and, tragically, the "enchanting" art student, Jeanne Hébuterne. Secrest's new insights into Hébuterne, her suicide, and the struggles of her and Modigliani's daughter complete this astute and gripping biography. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

The return of the Dapper Men - Jim McCann

The return of the Dapper Men - McCann, Jim

Summary: "[A] tale of a world in between time, where children have played so long it's almost become work, machines have worked so long they have begun to play, and all the clocks have stopped at the same time. This is how this land has remained, until 314 dapper-looking gentlemen rain down from the sky and set off in different directions to start the world again. Now Ayden, the only boy to still ask questions; Zoe, the robot girl all other machines hold dear; and the Dapper Man known only as '41' must discover what happened that made time stop, understand what their true places are in this world, and learn what 'tomorrow' really means. The sun is setting for the first time in memory, and once that happens, everything changes"--From publisher's web site.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* This beguiling graphic novel joins the likes of Shaun Tan's The Arrival (2007) and John Harris Dunning and Nikhil Singh's Salem Brownstone (2010) as a book that is so immediately distinctive that it promises a unique reading experience—and more than delivers. In the dreamy land of Anorev, children, all under age 11, live underground among intricate gear-work mechanisms, while elegant robots live in abandoned houses aboveground: "Neither children nor machines knew which was work nor what was play, and neither seemed to be any fun or any use." All are perpetually stuck in the same day, and time has, essentially, ceased to mean anything—until 314 Dapper Men rain from the sky and set in motion the impetus for change. The sometimes slippery-to-grasp story plays around with classic Peter Pan themes, obliquely delivering the message that childhood is not something to hold in limbo; it can only find meaning and value in moving forward, in growing and changing and looking to tomorrow as much as revering today. But where this book truly stands out is how well the story works in concert with Lee's stunning artwork, which employs an art nouveau sheen. Arresting layouts give the book an ethereal, timeless quality and turn each page into a frameworthy work of art. A true dazzler that speaks on multiple levels for both child and adult readers and one that gets richer with each read. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Eisner Award Winner

Check Availability

Shockaholic - Carrie Fisher

Shockaholic - Fisher, Carrie

Summary: Presents a memoir about the actress' relationship with her father, singer Eddie Fisher, her electroconvulsive therapy, and her past encounters with such recently-deceased celebrities as Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Senator Edward Kennedy.


Booklist Reviews
Carrie Fisher has written another book about herself. "Really? Again?" you might say. Or, as Fisher puts it, "Here's something about me, and here's another thing about me I don't think I told you." But her hope, as she says in the introduction, is that, upon completion, readers will say, "By the last page, I had forgotten she was an over–the–Beverly Hills mediocre actress." And, it's true, you do forget that, because, really, Fisher is a writer, an observer, and a keen one at that. Her way with words, even though she claims electroshock treatments have made her forget many of them, is raw and raucous. On the minus side, she only seems to want to observe her own life, and having done that before, she offers a book on the slim side, as though it, like her, has been to Jenny Craig. That said, she doubled-dated with Ted Kennedy, was fast friends with Michael Jackson, and reached a rapprochement with father Eddie Fisher when she realized all she had to do was play parent to his child. "Mentally ill" she may call herself, but she's never boring. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Fisher has hit best-seller lists throughout her writing career, beginning with Postcards from the Edge (1987). The success of her recent one-woman show on Broadway will spark additional interest in this autobiographical follow-up. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus - Joss Whedon

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus - Whedon, Joss

Summary: Now in one titanic tome: the entire chart-topping run of super-team Joss Whedon and John Cassaday! Winner of multiple prestigious Eisner Awards, Whedon and Cassaday's Astonishing X-Men was a smash hit with critics and fans alike from the very first issue - winning praise from dozens of top media outlets including Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, TV Guide, and New York Magazine, as well as racking up nearly every major comic-book industry award. Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Whedon and Cassaday (Captain America, Planetary) assembled a tight cast - Cyclops, the Beast, Wolverine, and Emma Frost, joined by returning fan-favorite Kitty Pryde - and set forth a groundbreaking pace, from the opening pages of a Sentinel attack to the unexpected return of a beloved X-Man. Then, building on early momentum, they ratcheted up the danger and drama with a shocking second year, creating a must-read book that can truly be called "astonishing!" Collects Astonishing X-Men #1-24, and Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1.

Staff Review
Astonishingly wonderful!  Great for X-Men fans, Joss Whedon fans, or anyone who loves graphic novels.

Check Availability

Everything - Lynda Barry

Everything. Collected and uncollected comics from around 1978-1982 - Barry, Lynda

Summary: The creator of "Ernie Pook's Comeek" presents a collection of her first strips and includes her earliest books--"Girls and Boys" and "Big Ideas"--in a treasury that explores such themes as bad love, bad hair, and being single. - (Baker & Taylor)

Publishers Weekly Reviews
Barry (What It Is; Picture This) has emerged as a 21st-century creative guru, a teacher with a knack for helping students find their inner spark. But in the late 1970s and '80s, she was a young cartoonist with a pocketful of underground influences and her own inimitable perspective on the world. In this first volume of an omnibus of her work, Barry introduces the collection of comics strips produced between 1978 and 1981 with drawings copied (her word) from artists like Dr. Seuss and R. Crumb, as well as what she calls the "sweeter line" of late '70s advertising illustrations. Barry's distinction between the "bitter" and the "sweet" informs the three strips collected—the scratchy-lined "Ernie Pook's Comeek," a collection of almost random observations and non sequiturs that sometimes veer into the incomprehensible; the ethereal line of "Two Sisters," about sweet-faced identical twins with an innocent but slanted view on life; and "Girls and Boys," with its chaotic panels and geometric figures, which focuses on the intense absurdity of relationships between the sexes. Barry's touch as a creator is already established even in this early stage, her talent for creating child characters, penchant for encouraging the reader to engage creatively, and touches of surrealism impelling a creative force that cannot be categorized. (Nov.)

Check Availability

A prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

A prayer for Owen Meany - Irving, John

Summary: In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys--best friends--are playing in a Little League baseball game in New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills his best friend's mother. Owen Meany believes he didn't hit the ball by accident. He believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after 1953 is extraordinary and terrifying. He is Irving's most heartbreaking hero.

Library Journal Reviews
Diminutive Owen Meaney, the social outcast with the high, pinched voice, has an enormous influence on his friend Johnny Wheelwright--not least because the only baseball Owen ever hits causes the death of Johnny's mother. But as Johnny claims, ``Owen gave me more than he ever took from me. . . . What did he ever say that wasn't right?'' Spookily prescient, convinced that he is an instrument of God, Owen intimidates child and adult alike. Why Johnny ``is a Christian because of Owen Meaney'' is the novel's central mystery but not its only one: Who, for instance, was Johnny's father? Untangling these knots, the adult Johnny pauses to consider his religious convictions and distaste of American politics in passages that are neither especially persuasive nor effectively integrated into the book. And though Owen is a compelling presence, his power over others is not entirely convincing. Still, readers will be drawn in by the story of the boys' friendship and by the desire to see some resolution to Johnny's mysteries.-- Barbara Hoffert, ``Library Journal'' Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information.

Check Availability

Apollo's angels - Jennifer Homans

Apollo's angels: a history of ballet - Homans, Jennifer

Summary: "Unique among the arts, ballet has no written texts or standardized notation. It is a storytelling art passed on from teacher to student. A ballerina dancing today is a link in a long chain of dancers stretching back to sixteenth-century Italy and France: Her graceful movements recall a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, but her steps are also marked by the dramatic changes in dance and culture that followed. From ballet's origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France's Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. Jennifer Homans, a historian and critic who was also a professional dancer, traces the evolution of technique, choreography, and performance in clear prose, drawing readers into the intricacies of the art with vivid descriptions of dances and the artists who made them"--From publisher description.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Homans brings her intimate experience as a dancer and her discerning dance critic's eye to her fascinating and exquisitely detailed history of ballet, an art that combines rigor and idealism. Homans begins with how the Renaissance belief in the transforming power of art engendered the first ballets, which were performed in the sixteenth-century French court of King Henri II and Catherine de Medici, thus launching ballet's long association with state governments. Louis XIV then established ballet's core rules and conventions, including the five "true" or noble positions. Homans thoroughly and conversantly tracks ballet's flourishing in France, robust flowering in Russia, and exuberance in the U.S., emphasizing the progression from elaborate artifice to profound expressiveness. Homans also warmly profiles pivotal ballet masters, choreographers, and dancers, including the pioneering ballerina Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide (1832), "the first modern ballet," and the essential Balanchine. Most arrestingly, Homans assesses ballet's grace under terror during the French and Russian revolutions, the world wars, and the cold war. Homans brings her glorious landmark study of ballet's ideals and enchantment to a somber close as she asks why this strong and supple "art of belief," which triumphed over catastrophe and adversity, is now in danger of extinction. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers: the story of success - Gladwell, Malcolm

Summary: The best-selling author of Blink identifies the qualities of successful people, posing theories about the cultural, family, and idiosyncratic factors that shape high achievers, in a resource that covers such topics as the secrets of software billionaires, why certain cultures are associated with better academic performance, and why the Beatles earned their fame.

Booklist Reviews
Gladwell, author and journalist, sets out to provide an understanding of success using outliers, men and women with skills, talent, and drive who do things out of the ordinary. He contends that we must look beyond the merits of a successful individual to understand his culture, where he comes from, his friends and family, and the community values he inherits and shares. We learn that society s rules play a large role in who makes it and who does not. Success is a gift, and when opportunities are presented, some people have the strength and presence of mind to seize them, exhibiting qualities such as persistence and doggedness. Successful people are the products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy, and success ultimately is not exceptional or unattainable, nor does it depend upon innate ability. It is an attitude of willingness to try without regard for the sacrifice required. This is an excellent book for a wide range of library patrons. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.


Check Availability

Is everyone hanging out without me? - Mindy Kaling

Is everyone hanging out without me? (and other concerns) - Kaling, Mindy

Summary: The writer and actress best known as Kelly Kapoor on "The Office" shares observations on topics ranging from favorite male archetypes and her hatred of dieting to her relationship with her mother and the haphazard creative process in the "Office" writers' room.


Reviews
“She’s like Tina Fey’s cool little sister. Or perhaps… the next Nora Ephron.” —The New York Times

“The fashion opinions of Kelly Kapoor mixed with a Miss Manners-esque advice column.” —EW.com

“If you love Kelly and think the three minutes or so allotted her on episodes of The Office are too few, you can take home Mindy.” —The New Yorker

“Is anyone else kind of sold on the genius title alone?” —Nylon

Check Availability

Goliath - Scott Westerfeld

Goliath - Westerfeld, Scott

Series Title: Leviathan Trilogy

Summary: Alek and Deryn encounter obstacles on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, and reclaim Alek's throne as prince of Austria.


Booklist Reviews
"Gadget-loving Clankers and biology-based Darwinists are still at war, but there is new hope for peace based on the threat of using Goliath, a powerful weapon developed by the famous inventor Nikola Tesla. Prince Alek believes Tesla's intentions are good, but Midshipman Deryn is skeptical. Goliath arrives safely in New York, but an attempted attack by German mechanical walkers ignites a series of events that may mean the end of a European city—and the Leviathan, with all her crew. The alternative-history steampunk extravaganza that began with Leviathan (2009) ends with this third volume, and it does not disappoint. Westerfeld stays true to his characters and the strength of his earlier story as he propels it to a satisfying close, and there are tantalizing bits in that wrapping up that could birth a terrific next series. (Fingers crossed, Mr. Westerfeld.) Secondary characters remain vivid, and the real stars of this entry may be lorises Bovril and Tazza. Once again, Thompson's evocative art enlivens the narrative." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Almost French - Sarah Turnbull

Almost French: love and a new life in Paris - Turnbull, Sarah

Summary: A Sydney journalist recounts her unexpected move to Paris, through which she fell in love and came to cherish the city's charm, fashion, food, paradoxes, and dinner parties. 50,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Library Journal Reviews
In an unpretentious manner, the strong yet empathetic Turnbull relates the transition from her Australian home to a new life with her French fiance, adding a good twist of dry, self-deprecating humor. A freelance journalist, Turnbull has a knack for describing the salient and entertaining episodes succinctly yet vividly, which prevents the story from descending into monotony. From meeting her husband's extended family to attending haute couture fashion shows, Turnbull candidly assesses her new environment. She also takes the stereotypes of French culture, such as the obsession with aesthetics, acknowledges their basis in reality, and then delves deeper to find an explanation for each. Turnbull's love for her husband tempers the frustration and humiliation she experiences while mastering not only the language but also the idiosyncratic rules and customs of the French. This enjoyable and insightful book is suitable for public library collections.-Rebecca Bollen, North Bergen, NJ Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Check Availability

Mister Wonderful - Daniel Clowes

Mister Wonderful - Clowes, Daniel


Summary: A single-volume compilation of an Eisner Award-winning story includes 40 pages of new material and follows the experiences of Marshall, who throughout the course of a life-changing blind date finds himself emotionally challenged in bizarre ways. - (Baker & Taylor)

LJ Express Reviews
The latest installment from independent comics master Clowes (Ghost World; Wilson) is a charmingly cynical look at love, dating, and starting over at midlife. Marshall, a broke, middle-aged divorcé who simply wants someone with whom he can share the newspaper, has been set up on a date with the beautiful but damaged Natalie. After they share a meal during which he learns almost everything about her (specifically, her recent difficult relationship and even harder breakup) and she learns almost nothing about him (he cleverly omits his life-altering experience with a sociopathic prostitute), Marshall and Natalie continue further down the relationship rabbit hole into an evening that would test anyone's dating limits. Clowes's art is clean and clever as always, at times shifting to a childlike style when the narration goes inside Marshall's head. Verdict By turns snarky and sweet, Marshall becomes increasingly less of a misfit and more of a hero as the story goes on, and all we wish, for both him and Natalie, is the very best. Dryly funny but buoyed by hopefulness, Clowes's latest is a lovely afternoon read. Highly recommended.-Beth Nerbonne, Rochester P.L., NH (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Check Availability

London under - Peter Ackroyd

London under: the secret history beneath the streets - Ackroyd, Peter

Summary: Presents a chronicle of London's underground network of rivers, labyrinths, and chambers and how they have been used in various time periods, from sewers and amphitheaters to crypts and tube stations. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
"What enormous hosts of dead belong to one old great city!" Dickens marveled in 1861. Ackroyd here invades the ghostly realm under Britain's greatest old city. Visits to crypts, catacombs, and cemeteries draw the reader deep into the hidden world where prehistoric mastodons, Roman soldiers, medieval monks, and Victorian burghers mingle in sepulchral gloom. But that gloom also pulses with the energy of life: the crowded underground railroads still running on routes carved out by intrepid nineteenth-century tunnelers, the black filth flowing through a thousand miles of sewer lines still performing the inglorious function of medieval cesspools, and the intricate modern matrix of conduits and pipes carrying electricity, natural gas, and drinking water. Nonhuman life also scurries through the shadows: cockroaches, rats, and even mysterious white crabs. But Ackroyd fuses dead and living, human and animal, technological and natural in the final chapter, where underground geography becomes imaginative metaphor in the Eloi-Morlock fantasy of Wells' Time Machine. As a sequel to London: The Biography, this is an enthralling step down! Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


Check Availability

The scrapbook of Frankie Pratt - Caroline Preston

The scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: a novel in pictures - Preston, Caroline

Summary: "For her graduation from high school in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father's old Corona typewriter. Despite Frankie's dreams of becoming a writer, she must forgo a college scholarship to help her widowed mother. But when a mysterious Captain James sweeps her off her feet, her mother finds a way to protect Frankie from the less-than-noble intentions of her unsuitable beau. Through a kaleidoscopic array of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus, and more, we meet and follow Frankie on her journey in search of success and love."--from cover, p. [2]

Kirkus Reviews
Selecting from her own collection of period mementos, Preston (Gatsby's Girl, 2006, etc.) creates a literal scrapbook for a young New Hampshire woman coming of age in the 1920s. Frankie receives a blank scrapbook and her deceased father's typewriter as high-school graduation gifts and begins to record her adventures with the keepsakes she collects. Although Vassar offers Frankie a scholarship, Frankie still can't afford to attend college. Instead she takes a job caring for elderly Mrs. Pingree (see old debutante picture). The dowager's visiting nephew Jamie, a dashing, emotionally damaged World War I vet in his 30s, emotionally seduces 17-year-old Frankie (see his scribbled notes). When the not-yet-sexual affair is discovered, Mrs. Pingree gives Frankie a $1,000 check (see society-pages article about Jamie's wife). Soon Frankie heads off to Vassar, a haven of socialites and bluestockings (see bridge score card, pack of bobbed hair pins). Her rich, intellectual but neurotic Jewish roommate Allegra is a supportive friend until Frankie wins the literary prize (read snippet of Frankie's story about Jamie romance). After graduation, Frankie moves to Greenwich Village and finds a job at True Story. Allegra's brother Oliver, working at a new magazine called the New Yorker, becomes her constant companion. Though smart, kind and attentive (see admission tickets to movies, dancehalls, ballgames), he doesn't propose. When Frankie realizes why, she goes to Paris (see Cunard baggage sticker), where the past catches up with her and a whole new chapter of life starts. Lighter than lightweight but undeniably fun, largely because Preston is having so much fun herself. Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

Check Availability

Dear Carey - Dyan Cannon

Dear Carey: my life with Carey Grant - Cannon, Dyan

Summary: The actress/filmmaker tells the story of her turbulent marriage to Hollywood legend Cary Grant, capturing the glamour of Hollywood's greatest period of stardom and revealing the stories of love and betrayal hidden from public view.



Reviews
“A revealing look at Cannon’s relationship with her first husband, who happened to be a Hollywood legend. (USA Today )

“Candid.” (Los Angeles Times )

“Dyan Cannon has written a complex and captivating memoir…an unqualified success.” (New York Journal of Books )

“Cannon writes of her time with one of Hollywood’s most glamorous and charming men and of her own life, pre- and post-Grant...with refreshing humor.. For those who enjoy memoirs of gutsy survivors.” (Library Journal )

Check Availability

The marriage plot - Jeffrey Eugenides

The marriage plot - Eugenides, Jeffrey

Summary: Madeleine Hanna breaks out of her straight-and-narrow mold when she falls in love with charismatic loner Leonard Bankhead, while at the same time an old friend of hers resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is his destiny.



Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* In Eugenides' first novel since the Pulitzer Prize–winning Middlesex (2002), English major and devotee of classic literature Madeleine Hanna is a senior at Reagan-era Brown University. Only when curiosity gets the best of her does she belly up to Semiotics 211, a bastion of postmodern liberalism, and meet handsome, brilliant, mysterious Leonard Bankhead. Completing a triangle is Madeleine's friend Mitchell, a clear-eyed religious-studies student who believes himself her true intended. Eugenides' drama unfolds over the next year or so. His characteristically deliberate, researched realization of place and personality serve him well, and he strikes perfectly tuned chords by referring to works ranging from Barthes' Lovers' Discourse to Bemelmans' Madeline books for children. The remarkably à propos title refers to the subject of Madeleine's honors thesis, which is the Western novel's doing and undoing, in that, upon the demise, circa 1900, of the marriage plot, the novel "didn't mean much anymore," according to Madeleine's professor and, perhaps, Eugenides. With this tightly, immaculately self-contained tale set upon pillars at once imposing and of dollhouse scale, namely, academia ("College wasn't like the real world," Madeleine notes) and the emotions of the youngest of twentysomethings, Eugenides realizes the novel whose dismantling his characters examine. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The publisher will be cashing in on the popularity of Middlesex, especially with public library users, by targeting much of their publicity campaign in that direction." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

The cat's table - Michael Ondaatje

The cat's table - Ondaatje, Michael

Summary: Boarding a 1950s ship and sequestered to an out-of-sight dining table with other marginalized children, an eleven-year-old boy shares rollicking adventures while traveling to various world regions, learning about jazz, women, and a shackled prisoner along the way.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In 1953, an 11-year-old boy's life is permanently upended when he leaves Colombo, Ceylon, to begin a new life in London with his mother. His 21 unsupervised days aboard the ocean liner Oronsay prove momentous as significant events during the crossing profoundly impact the boy's future while immensely expanding his world. Although seemingly at the periphery of society, seated at the so-called cat's table, the boy's dining mates—an assortment of colorful characters—are, in fact, a lot more instrumental in the ensuing intrigue aboard the ship than originally appears. The boy, Michael, and two companions have the run of the ship. They get up early each morning for various adventures. They eavesdrop, get into trouble, and observe adult situations that they lack the facility to interpret. Michael finds himself assistant to Baron C. in the breaking and entering of the ship's cabins to make off with various valuables. A dog they smuggled aboard from the port city of Aden escapes, creating much havoc; an on-board prisoner plots a getaway; and budding sexuality begins to sprout. As the years pass, Michael, who grows up to be an acclaimed writer with an international reputation (not unlike Ondaatje, especially for The English Patient, 1992), frequently returns to the events of those three weeks and demonstrates how "over the years, confusing fragments, lost corners of stories, have a clearer meaning when seen in a new light, a different place." High-Demand Backstory: An extensive U.S. author tour will bring attention anew to the literary talents of this remarkable writer. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

The Buddha in the attic - Julie Otsuka

The Buddha in the attic - Otsuka, Julie

Summary: Presents the stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment.


Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* Otsuka's stunning debut, When the Emperor Was Divine (2002), a concentrated novel about the WWII internment of Japanese Americans, garnered the Asian American Literary Award, the ALA Alex Award, and a Guggenheim. Her second novel tells the stories of Japanese mail-order brides at the start of the twentieth century in a first-person-plural narrative voice, the choral "we." This creates an incantatory and haunting group portrait of diverse women who make the arduous ocean journey to California buoyant with hope only to marry strangers nothing like the handsome young men in the photographs that lured them so far from home. Prejudice and hardship soon transform the brides into fingers-worked-to-the-bone laborers, toiling endlessly as domestic workers, farmers, prostitutes, and merchants. Every aspect of female life is candidly broached in Otsuka's concise yet grandly dramatic saga as these determined, self-sacrificing outsiders navigate the white water of American society, only to watch their American-born children disdain all things Japanese. Drawing on extensive research and profoundly identifying with her characters, Otsuka crafts an intricately detailed folding screen depicting nearly five decades of change as the women painstakingly build meaningful lives, only to lose everything after Pearl Harbor. This lyrically distilled and caustically ironic story of exile, effort, and hate is entrancing, appalling, and heartbreakingly beautiful." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

The year we left home - Jean Thompson

The year we left home - Thompson, Jean


Summary: Chronicles the happiness pursuits of the Eriksons from their 1970s coming-of-age to the near-present day, in a story told from revolving viewpoints



Publishers Weekly Reviews
Bookended by two wars—Vietnam and Iraq—Thompson's third novel (after the collection Do Not Deny Me) sketches the travails of an Iowa family over three decades. Matriarch Audrey neatly sums up the episodic novel's grand theme: "she'd been born into one world, hopeful and normal, and now she lived in another, full of sadness and failure." The novel opens as oldest daughter Anita, the beauty of the family, celebrates her marriage. Over the years, however, Anita confronts dissatisfaction with herself and disillusionment with her pompous husband. Her younger brother, Ryan, a high school senior as the novel opens, longs to escape his rural roots, dating a hippie poet and majoring in political science before realizing that the farmers who came before him might hold more relevance than he'd imagined. Cousin Chip comes back from Vietnam troubled and aimless, his wanderings from Seattle to Reno, Nev., to Veracruz, Mexico, offering a parallel to the spiritual restlessness all the other characters feel. Told from the point of view of more than a half-dozen characters, the vignettes that make up the narrative are generally powerful in isolation, but as a whole fail to develop into anything more than a series of snapshots of a family touched by time and tragedy. (May)

Check Availability

Wonderstruck - Brian Selznick

Wonderstruck - Selznick, Brian

Summary: Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also longing for something missing from her life. Ben's story is told in words; Rose's in pictures.


Booklist Reviews
"*Starred Review* Opening Selznick's new book is like opening a cabinet of wonders—the early museum display case "filled with a nearly infinite variety of amazing things" that is so central to this story. Following the Caldecott Medal–winning The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), Selznick offers another visual narrative, one that feels even better suited to his inventive style. The beautifully crafted structure includes two stories set 50 years apart. The first, set in 1977, is told in text and follows Ben, who is grieving the sudden loss of his mother when he stumbles upon clues that point to his father's identity. The second, told entirely in richly shaded pencil drawings, opens in 1927 as a young girl, Rose, gazes at a newspaper clipping. Rose is deaf, and Ben also loses his hearing, during a lightning strike. Both lonely children run away to New York City, and their parallel stories echo and reflect each other through nuanced details, which lead "like a treasure map" to a conjoined, deeply satisfying conclusion. Selznick plays with a plethora of interwoven themes, including deafness and silence, the ability to see and value the world, family, and the interconnectedness of life. Although the book is hefty, at more than 600 pages, the pace is nevertheless brisk, and the kid-appealing mystery propels the story. With appreciative nods to museums, libraries, and E. L. Konigsburg, Wonderstruck is a gift for the eye, mind, and heart." Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


Check Availability

Spiral-bound: top secret summer - Aaron Renier

Spiral-bound: top secret summer - Aaron Renier

Summary: With an ensemble cast straight from a box of Animal Crackers, this is a delightful tale of ambition, morality, and self-discovery drawn in a decidedly beautiful fashion reminiscent of Richard Scary and Lewis Trondheim, yet utterly unique. Renier's fully-realized and compellingly adventurous narrative is at once both achingly naive and profoundly worldly. A remarkable debut, this tightly crafted novella is the real deal, and will charm your socks off.

Booklist Reviews
In this graphic novel about the young animal characters who live in the Town, Turnip the elephant is using the summer to find his artistic voice through sculpture, his friend Stucky the dog is building a submarine, and Ana the rabbit is working on the town's underground newspaper. Their stories all wind around the town's deep, dark secret about the monster that lives in the pond. Kids who enjoyed novels such as Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy and Roald Dahl's Matilda will find a similar sense of adventure here. The characters seem like real children, wholesome without being too sweet, and Renier's art is light and fun, a sort of Babar meets underground comix. Readers older and younger than the target audience will enjoy this, too. ((Reviewed November 1, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Onwards towards our noble deaths - Shigeru Mizuki

Onwards towards our noble deaths - Mizuki, Shigeru

Summary: "[A] semi-autobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of World War Two. The soldiers are instructed that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive" -- from publisher's web site.


Booklist Reviews
This first English translation of legendary Japanese cartoonist Mizuki's 1973 antiwar screed is a lightly fictionalized account ("90 percent fact," he claims in an afterword) of his time in the Imperial Army during WWII. Though some 30 soldiers are introduced in the opening character guide, no more than a few ever really differentiate themselves, a fitting reminder of the low premium that war puts on individual life. What comes through clearly is the litany of indignities the soldiers endure on a daily basis from slap-happy officers, perilously unforgiving conditions, and sudden outbursts of death on the receiving end of the enemy's bombs and bullets. Most gut-twisting is the grunt's-eye view of the lunacy of gyokusai ("noble" suicide attacks), which several men somehow survive only to face theirarmy's brutal intolerance for their loss of honor. Mizuki's realistic settings, rife with fiery explosions and jungle squalor, are sharply contrasted by the cartoony figures. A war story without an ounce of glory but with pathos in bulk. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


Check Availability

The BUST DIY guide to life - Laurie Henzel

The BUST DIY guide to life: making your way through every day - Laurie Henzel

Summary: Collects do-it-yourself and craft projects from Bust magazine covering such topics as food and entertaining, travel, and career and finance.
Whether it’s sewing clothes, making cheese, or growing a garden, the modern appeal of “do-it-yourself” projects has a broader reach than ever. And who better to teach us how to DIY our lives than the über-crafty editors of BUST, the quirky, raw, and real magazine “for women who have something to get off their chests”? In The BUST DIY Guide to Life, magazine founders Debbie Stoller (of Stitch ’n Bitch fame) and Laurie Henzel have culled more than 250 of the best DIY and craft projects from its 15-year history. Organized by category—beauty and health, fashion, food and entertaining, career, finance, travel, and sex—and written in BUST’s trademark brazen and witty style, this quintessential DIY encyclopedia from the quintessential DIY magazine is eclectic, empowering, hilarious, and downright practical, truly capturing the spirit of women today.


Check Availability

Jaws - Peter Benchley

Jaws - Benchley, Peter

Summary: A man-eating shark causes havoc off the Long Island coast.

Booklist Reviews
This novel about a rogue shark that terrorizes a beach community hasn’t aged a day since its publication more than 35 years ago. Benchley’s writing is lean and efficient—this is his first novel, and also by far his best—and the story is a solid mixture of small-town politics, mystery, and outright terror. The author positions his protagonist, police chief Martin Brody, as virtually the lone voice of reason in a town filled with people who want to downplay the shark’s presence (so as not to scare away tourists with their bulging wallets); and when the body count starts to rise, it’s Brody who has to find a way to kill the beast, even if it means putting his own life on the line. The familiar characters—Brody, oceanographer Matt Hooper, shark-hunter Quint—are not as likable as they are in Steven Spielberg’s classic film adaptation, but in the context of the novel, they are well drawn and compelling. Those who are familiar with the movie, but not the book, are in for some surprises, and those who read the book way back when should definitely give it another look. --David Pitt

Check Availability

Shatner rules - William Shatner

Shatner rules: your guide to understanding the Shatnerverse and the world at large - Shatner, William

Summary: The actor best known as Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" shares self-deprecating memories from his on- and off-screen experiences while discussing such topics as his larger-than-life celebrity persona, his career longevity, and his views on modern technology. 

Kirkus Reviews
The galaxy's most famous starship captain offers a mostly tongue-in-cheek guide to his rules for living, complete with anecdotes and life lessons. Eighty years old and still going strong with multiple TV shows, films, books and appearances (all of which he promotes tirelessly within these pages), Shatner's lust for life shines through in this lightweight, amusing effort. The book apes the familiar self-help format, with the rules ("Say Yes," "Stay Hydrated," etc.) used as starting points for funny and poignant anecdotes from his "unique, strange, and wonderful" life, and instructions to the reader on "how to live a Shatneresque existence… [and] experience the essence of Shatner in its purest form." In addition to the rules, there are frequent asides in the form of "Notes" and "Fun Factners," basically one-liners playing off the narrative. Shatner is a true raconteur, and in between the jokes there are surprisingly profound ruminations on life and death, from someone whose career in the spotlight stretches from the early days of TV to the age of Twitter. Much of the ground covered here will be familiar to readers of his autobiography, Up Till Now (2008), including Shatner's feelings about his former Trek cast-mates' public criticisms and the tragic 1999 drowning death of his wife Nerine. However, his legions of fans probably won't mind, or be put off by his outsized personality, though they may think twice about shouting "beam me up, Scotty!" when they encounter him. Whatever the situation--be it an awkward dinner with Charlton Heston or a fight to the death with a wild boar--Shatner applies his rules as only he can. This book may not boldly go where no man has gone before, but Shatner fans will relish the opportunity to learn from the master. Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

Check Availability

Salem's Lot - Stephen King

Salem's Lot - King, Stephen

Summary: A nightmare of evil grips a small Maine town when a mysterious stranger appears - (Baker & Taylor)




Review
"Stephen King's second book, 'Salem's Lot (1975)--about the slow takeover of an insular hamlet called Jerusalem's Lot by a vampire patterned after Bram Stoker's Dracula--has two elements that he also uses to good effect in later novels: a small American town, usually in Maine, where people are disconnected from each other, quietly nursing their potential for evil; and a mixed bag of rational, goodhearted people, including a writer, who band together to fight that evil."--Review from www.amazon.com

Check Availability

The house in France: a memoir - Gully Wells

The house in France: a memoir - Wells, Gully

Summary: "Set in Provence, London, and New York: a daughter's wonderfully evocative and witty memoir of her mother and stepfather--Dee Wells, the glamorous and rebellious American journalist, and A. J. Ayer, the celebrated and worldly Oxford philosopher--and the life they lived at the center of absolutely everything. Gully Wells takes us into the heart of London's liberated intellectual inner circle of the 1960s. Here are Alan Bennett, Isaiah Berlin, Iris Murdoch, Bertrand Russell, Jonathan Miller, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens, Robert Kennedy, and later in New York Mayor Lindsay and Mike Tyson . . . her mother as a television commentator earning a reputation for her outspoken style and progressive views . . . her stepfather, an icon in the world of twentieth-century philosophy, proving himself as prodigious a womanizer as he was a thinker. And throughout, there is La Migoua, the house in France, on a hill between Toulon and Marseilles, where her parents and their friends came together and where Gully herself learned some of the long-lasting lessons of a life well-lived. A dazzling portrait of a woman who 'caught the spirit of the sixties' and one of the most important intellectual figures of the twentieth century, drawn from the vivid memory of the child who adored them both."-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Wells had the perfect childhood for her vocation as travel writer and features editor of Condé Nast Traveler and the good sense to enjoy it, even though her mother was as vexing as she was scintillating. Wells is a breathtakingly frank, nimbly hilarious, and sensuously precise memoirist and portraitist, capturing the chimerical energy of her famously sexy and outrageous Canadian American expat mother. Dee was a controversial journalist, critic, television personality, and novelist as well as a glamorous yet raucous partygoer and hostess. After divorcing her young daughter's diplomat father, Dee moved to 1960s London and corralled the renowned Oxford philosopher and notorious womanizer A. J. Ayer into marriage. "Clever and funny" celebrities, the couple lived carousel lives (assiduously observed by young Gully) in London and their funky old house in Provence, until their love affairs pulled them apart. Wells remembers intoxicating conversations and outrageous behavior in scenes worthy of Oscar Wilde, featuring the likes of Bertrand Russell, Iris Murdoch, and John and Robert Kennedy. She tells her own fascinating story, too, including her long-ago on-and-off romance with Martin Amis. Desire and ambition, creativity and fame, betrayal and love, all take on new dimensions in Wells' sparkling and spiky look back at protean and brilliant iconoclasts. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Whatcha mean, what's a zine?: the art of making zines and minicomics - Mark Todd

Whatcha mean, what's a zine?: the art of making zines and minicomics - Todd, Mark

Summary: Explores the diversity and creativity that can be captured in zines, handmade mini-comics or magazines about anything and everything, with helpful tips and practical suggestions for writing, producing, editing, and printing one. Original. - (Baker & Taylor)


Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews
Even in these days of blogs and podcasting, print zines still thrive. Long-time zinesters Todd and Watson bring together text and artwork from more than twenty other zine and mini-comic creators for an inside look at this underground genre. With more than one hundred zine-ish looking pages, this book is packed with useful information for aspiring zinesters. Teens already familiar with the format will have no trouble following the quirky typed and handwritten layout. Those used to slick, stylish type may have some trouble navigating, although the two-color printing of the finished book should make it easier to read than the uncorrected proof. Several sections, particularly the information on silk screening, are more advanced than most teens, especially those just starting out, would need, but because each page or two is a self-contained article, skipping around is not a problem The information on formatting and printing alone is a goldmine and a great resource for teachers and librarians doing art and writing projects with youth. The book is a one-stop source for someone putting together a zine or comic program and worth the purchase for public libraries looking for innovative and interesting ways to encourage teens to create.-Vikki Terrile Glossary. Illus. 3Q 3P M J S Copyright 2006 Voya Reviews.

Check Availability

Sea of poppies - Amitav Ghosh

Sea of poppies - Ghosh, Amitav

Summary: Preparing to fight China's nineteenth-century Opium Wars, a motley assortment of sailors and passengers, including a bankrupt rajah, a widowed tribeswoman, and a free-spirited French orphan, comes to experience family-like ties that eventually span continents, races, and generations.


Booklist Reviews
"A passion for history propels Ghosh's sweeping novels, in which love leaps the fences of race, caste, nationality, and class. After his complex tale of humankind's relationship with nature in The Hungry Tide (2005), Ghosh returns to the narrative grandeur of The Glass Palace (2001) in this lengthy yet fast-flowing historical novel about England's ruthlessly run opium industry in occupied India. It begins in a "sea of poppies" in Bengal, and culminates on board the Ibis, an old slave ship carrying a motley group of outcasts. There's brave Deeti, a young fugitive widow; dashing Zachary, the son of a former slave and her American master; adventurous Paulette, a French orphan; and Neel, a fallen raja. In vivid settings ranging from the hellish precincts of an enormous opium factory, to absurdly lavish upper-class households, to the Ibis' grim hold, Ghosh unfurls tales of betrayal and tyranny, revelation and transformation, while reveling in the mischievous inventiveness of a bawdy polyglot lingo favored by sailors on Eastern seas. With intimations of Dickens and Melville, Ghosh's vital saga encompasses suspense and satire, perverse cruelty and profound kindness, and the countless ways humans conceal desire and fear behind arrogance and brutality. More frolicsome language, penetrating insights, and high adventure will follow now that the Ibis trilogy is under way." Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Voices from the Korean war - Richard Peters

Voices from the Korean war: personal stories of American, Korean, and Chinese soldiers - Peters, Richard

Summary: Unique in gathering war stories from veterans from all sides of the Korean War -- American, South Korean, North Korean, and Chinese -- this volume creates a vivid and multidimensional portrait of the three-year-long conflict told by those who experienced the ground war firsthand. Richard Peters and Xiaobing Li include a significant introduction that provides a concise history of the Korean conflict, as well as a geographical and a political backdrop for the soldiers' personal stories.
- (University of Kentucky)

Booklist Reviews
Edited by two Korean War veterans, this oral history volume rather breaks a trail in the historiography of that conflict, offering, after an excellent, balanced narrative introduction, accounts of various phases of the war by survivors from both sides. Here are the first clashes, the retreat--or, from the North Korean viewpoint, advance--south, and Chinese infiltration into North Korea, which led to U.S. disaster and the Chosin Reservoir campaign, during which the weather was bad for the Americans, worse for the underclad and undersupplied Chinese. The stalemate beginning in 1951 is covered by several voices, including those of a Korean housewife and a classic green second lieutenant, a South Korean. Thereafter come the Koje-Do prison riots, reported by both a guard and an organizer. If the book will change no one's politics, it definitely adds to everyone's store of knowledge, particularly about the Koreans, on whose territory the blood was shed. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

Maphead - Ken Jennings

Maphead: charting the wide weird world of geography wonks - Jennings, Ken

Summary: Traces the history of map making while offering insight into the role of cartography in human civilization and sharing anecdotes about the cultural arenas frequented by map enthusiasts. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
Considering Jennings' calling card—he's the Jeopardy! multimillionaire—readers might expect a light, trivia-filled book. Well, that's half right. It's breezily written, but it's not trivial. In fact, it demonstrates that Jennings, a software engineer before his game-show triumph, could have a long career as a writer. There is some trivia in it (e.g., there's no evidence pirates ever used treasure maps), but mainly it's a serious and passionate look at the importance of geography and, by extension, the ability to use and understand maps—for students, historians, political leaders, pop-culture innovators, and, indeed, everyone. Jennings peppers the book with humorous comments and personal asides (he admits up front that he's "a bit of a geography wonk"), but his mission is to rescue geography from irrelevance, to make us realize that geographic illiteracy is not merely "comic shorthand for stupidity" but a real and pervasive problem. A fascinating book that blends humor, memoir, and serious analysis. Comparisons to Bill Bryson's magnificent A Really Short History of Nearly Everything (2009) are entirely apt. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability