Harbor nocturne - Joseph Wambaugh

Harbor nocturne - Wambaugh, Joseph

Summary: "In the southernmost Los Angeles district of San Pedro, one of the world's busiest harbors, an unlikely pair of lovers are unwittingly caught between the two warring sides of the law amid the investigation of a horrifying human-trafficking ring. When Dinko Babich, a young longshoreman, delivers Lita Medina, a young Mexican dancer, from the harbor to a Hollywood nightclub, theirs lives are forever changed as the two are caught in the crosshairs of the multitude of cops and criminals, the law-abiding and the lawless, who occupy the harbor."--Dust jacket.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Wambaugh fills his books with over-the-top, crazy war stories, disturbing, sometimes revolting in their details and insights into human nature and made more shocking because readers know Wambaugh gets his stories from real cops. And, while that could be more than enough, Wambaugh embeds the stories he hears from cops within fiercely and ingeniously plotted mysteries. The war story–mystery combination works because cops naturally tell each other their stories in the downtimes between calls. This latest is part of Wambaugh's Hollywood Station series, in which police do battle against the crazies on the streets and in the hills. The action expands, this time, to the L.A. district of San Pedro, one of the world's busiest harbors, which boasts a harbor's share of lowlifes and career criminals. A love story starts when a druggie longshoreman takes the assignment of driving a young Mexican stripper from a harbor bar to a Hollywood nightclub, a decision that gets the longshoreman enmeshed in the sex-trafficking trade. Fans of Hollywood Station (2006), the first in the series, will be glad to see surfer cops Flotsam and Jetsam return, along with the always-ambitious Hollywood Nate Weiss, now pushing 40 and fearing that his chances to be discovered are as flimsy as his SAG card. A very fast ride-along, enlivened by cop gallows humor, snarky street altercations, and an insistent pull to the dark side. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Oh, the places you'll go - Dr. Seuss

Oh, the places you'll go - Dr. Seuss

Summary: Advice in rhyme for proceeding in life; weathering fear, loneliness, and confusion; and being in charge of your actions.

"Don't be fooled by the title of this seriocomic ode to success; it's not 'Climb Every Mountain,' kid version. All journeys face perils, whether from indecision, from loneliness, or worst of all, from too much waiting. Seuss' familiar pajama-clad hero is up to the challenge, and his odyssey is captured vividly in busy two-page spreads evoking both the good times (grinning purple elephants, floating golden castles) and the bad (deep blue wells of confusion). Seuss' message is simple but never sappy: life may be a 'Great Balancing Act,' but through it all 'There's fun to be done.'"--(starred) Booklist. - (Random House, Inc.)


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The Lorax - Dr. Seuss

The Lorax - Dr. Seuss

Summary: The Once-ler describes the results of the local pollution problem.

"Unless someone like you...cares a whole awful lot...nothing is going to get better...It's not."

Long before saving the earth became a global concern, Dr. Seuss, speaking through his character the Lorax, warned against mindless progress and the danger it posed to the earth's natural beauty.

"The big, colorful pictures and the fun images, word plays and rhymes make this an amusing exposition of the ecology crisis."—School Library Journal. - (Random House, Inc.)

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Insurgent - Veronica Roth

Insurgent - Roth, Veronica

Summary: "As war surges in the dystopian society around her, sixteen-year-old Divergent Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves--and herself--while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love"-- Provided by publisher.


Booklist Reviews
While the hugely popular Divergent (2011) welcomed dystopian fans of every stripe with its irresistable concept and hybridization of genres, this sequel is more for hard-core fans—a good thing if you're a devotee but a bit overwhelming for fence-riders. Rocked by the recent simulation war, the five factions engage in increasingly dangerous power plays to pick up the pieces. Tris and her love, Tobias, both daredevils of the Dauntless faction, are key players in these skirmishes, most of which focus upon the fiendishly logical Erudites and almost all of which are complicated by backstabbers and turncoats. It remains a great deal of fun to watch these cliques-taken-to-extremes duke it out with their various strengths and weaknesses, and Roth delivers the goods when it comes to intense, personal violence (no superpowers to be found here) and compelling set pieces (as when Tris undergoes a public "truth serum" interrogation). Newcomers, and even some old hands, might get buried under all the transposable characters and faction minutia, but those who stick it out will be rewarded with quite the cliff-hanger HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Divergent was the kind of best-seller juggernaut debut authors dream of. With high-profile movie rights already sold, you can bet you'll see this sequel on everyone's must-read list. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Harbor - John Ajvide Lindqvist

Harbor - Lindqvist, John Ajvide

Summary: "From the author of the international and New York Times bestseller Let the Right One In (Let Me In) comes this stunning and terrifying book which begins when a man's six-year-old daughter vanishes. One ordinary winter afternoon on a snowy island, Anders and Cecilia take their six-year-old daughter Maja across the ice to visit the lighthouse in the middle of the frozen channel. While the couple explore the lighthouse, Maja disappears -- either into thin air or under thin ice -- leaving not even a footprint in the snow. Two years later, alone and more or less permanently drunk, Anders returns to the island to regroup. He slowly realises that people are not telling him all they know; even his own mother, it seems, is keeping secrets. What is happening in Domaro, and what power does the sea have over the town's inhabitants? As he did with Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead, John Ajvide Lindqvist serves up a blockbuster cocktail of suspense in a narrative that barely pauses for breath"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
This eerie, atmospheric tale of desperation and strange bargains with incomprehensible forces begins with the disappearance of seven-year-old Maja. Two years later, her father, Anders, is back on the island, scene of her vanishing, intent on reassembling his life. He spent the interval drunk; his wife, Celia, left him; and he's obsessed with how perfect life with Maja was. His grandmother, Anna-Greta, knows something she's not telling. In fact, most of Domaro's year-round residents know at least something about the town's relationship with the surrounding sea. Anna-Greta's lover Simon, a former stage magician, has his own secrets but slowly discovers the island's secrets as his own becomes harder to keep. Living in the Shack, where he'd lived with Celia and Maja, Anders becomes increasingly convinced that Maja isn't dead and that he must rescue her. He'll go to any length, and eventually, the history of the island becomes clear. The book's long, complex buildup to a particularly satisfying conclusion is shot through with the very best kind of horror—subtle, persistent, finally front-and-center. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.


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In one person - John Irving

In one person - Irving, John

Summary: A tale inspired by the U.S. AIDS epidemic in the 1980s follows the experiences of individuals--including the bisexual narrator--who are torn by devastating losses and whose perspectives on tolerance and love are shaped by awareness of what might have been.


Booklist Reviews 
*Starred Review* Much of Irving's thirteenth novel is piquantly charming, crisply funny, and let-your-guard-down madcap in the classic mode of a Frank Capra or Billy Wilder film. This shrewdly frolicsome ambience is tied to the amateur theatrical productions that provide the primary source of entertainment in mid-twentieth-century First Sister, Vermont, a no-place-to-hide yet nonetheless secretive small town sporting a private boy's prep school. Here lives young, fatherless Billy, whose lumberman-by-day, actor-by-night Grandpa Harry plays women's roles with baffling authenticity. By the time Billy turns 13, he realizes that something sets him apart beyond his speech impediment and determination to become a writer, namely his crushes on the "wrong people," including his future stepfather, teacher and Shakespeare scholar Richard, and Miss Frost, the tall, strong librarian who eventually proves to be the key to the truth about Billy's bisexuality and his biological father. Storytelling wizard that he is, Irving revitalizes his signature motifs (New England life, wrestling, praising great writers, forbidden sex) while animating a glorious cast of misfit characters within a complicated plot. A mesmerizing, gracefully maturing narrator, Billy navigates fraught relationships with men and women and witnesses the horrors of the AIDS epidemic. Ever the fearless writer of conscience calling on readers to be open-minded, Irving performs a sweetly audacious, at times elegiac, celebration of human sexuality. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Irving is always a huge draw, and this sexually daring and compassionate tale, which harks back to the book that made him famous, The World according to Garp (1978), will garner intense media attention. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Chew - John Layman

Chew: the omnivore edition - John Layman

Summary: Tony Chu is a detective with a secret. A weird secret. Tony Chu is cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. It also means he's a hell of a detective - as long as he doesn't mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit and why. He's been brought on by the Special Crimes Division of the FDA, the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet, to investigate their strangest, sickest and most bizarre cases. This gorgeous, oversized edition loaded with extras follows Tony for the first ten issues of IGN.com's pick for "Best Indie Series of 2009," and MTV Splash Page's "Best New Series of 2009." Collects the New York Times' best seller "Taster's Choice," as well as the follow-up story-arc "International Flavor."

Booklist Reviews 
This deluxe edition collects the first two five-issue story arcs of the ultraviolent (and ultracannibalistic) foodie buddy-cop comic. In a near future where millions of Americans died from a particularly nasty avian flu, poultry is outlawed and a Prohibition-style black market springs up to satisfy the needs of gastronomes and frustrated chefs. Enter FDA agent Tony Chu, one of three known "cibopaths," who has the most peculiar ability to get psychic impressions from whatever he eats. Lots of dismemberment and corpse-chomping (it's harder to see Tony bite into a dead dog for clues than any of the various people he's forced to nibble on) ensue as the beginnings of a conspiracy theory about the bird flu and an alien fruit that tastes just like chicken take shape. It's not nearly as nauseating as it might sound (though, to be fair, it is plenty gross), thanks to Layman's flippant sense of humor and Guillory's chunky, kinetically caricatured artwork, which whips up an irresistible smorgasbord out of the bloody, genre-hopping ingredients. Grand gut-check comics entertainment here. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Beauty queens - Libba Bray

Beauty queens - Bray, Libba

Summary: When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.

BookPage Reviews

Girls gone radical

Libba Bray’s last novel, the award-winning Going Bovine, was heralded as a departure for the author, who had previously been best known for a trilogy of Victorian-era supernatural romances. Now, in Beauty Queens, Bray further pushes the boundaries in a work of social satire that skewers race, gender, standards of beauty and our hyper-saturated media culture. Oh, and did I mention that it’s also wicked funny?

When a plane carrying 50 contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant crash-lands on a (seemingly) deserted island, will it turn into Lord of the Flies? Or something else entirely? At first, the girls do split up into tribes—the Lost Girls and the Sparkle Ponies—but before long, they come to see their isolation as something of an opportunity. “There was something about the island that made the girls forget who they had been. . . . They were no longer performing. Waiting. Hoping. They were becoming. They were.” But what happens when these self-actualizing (and very, very fetching) young women encounter the hunky stars of reality TV’s “Captains Bodacious IV: Badder and More Bodaciouser”?

The surviving Miss Teen Dream contestants comprise a veritable United Nations of diversity—there’s the black girl, the Indian girl, the transgender contestant, the uptight virgin, the deaf one, the lesbian . . . but each girl’s remarkably distinctive voice and deeply personal backstory results in a narrative that’s equal parts compelling and crazy. Beauty Queens is pointed, riotous and unapologetically feminist, with each swerve toward preachiness cleverly counterbalanced with a hilarious barb or perfectly placed one-liner. “Do you think my new feminism make me look fat?” one character asks. Turns out, Bray shows us, feminism can look pretty darn hot after all.
Copyright 2011 BookPage Reviews.

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Love's executioner - Irvin Yalom

Love's executioner: and other tales of psychotherapy - Yalom, Irvin

Summary: The risks and rewards of psychotherapy are examined by one of its finest practitioners through ten case studies of individuals with unique problems that nevertheless reflect on the whole human condition - (Baker & Taylor)



Library Journal Reviews
Because Yalom (psychiatry, Stanford Univ.) is not only an accomplished psychiatrist but a gifted storyteller as well, his new book moves at the pace of a suspense thriller, with each chapter providing a fascinating look at the patient-therapist relationship. Yalom gives the reader the opportunity to view up close the intimate, and sometimes startling, relationship that develops between client and therapist. Refusing to paint an artificial picture of therapy as always successful--a truly unique aspect of this work--Yalom also describes relationships in which clients have walked out, never to return; the reader is left to ponder why the relationship ended as it did. At once funny and insightful; highly recommended.-- Kim Banks, Columbia Univ. Lib. Copyright 1989 Cahners Business Information.


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The Gormenghast novels - Mervyn Laurence Peake

The Gormenghast novels - Peake, Mervyn Laurence

Summary: A doomed lord, an emergent hero, and a dazzling array of bizarre creatures inhabit the magical world of the Gormenghast novels which, along with Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, reign as one of the undisputed fantasy classics of all time. At the center of it all is the seventy-seventh Earl, Titus Groan, who stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that form Gormenghast Castle and its kingdom, unless the conniving Steerpike, who is determined to rise above his menial position and control the House of Groan, has his way.

In these extraordinary novels, Peake has created a world where all is like a dream--lush, fantastical, and vivid. Accompanying the text are Peake's own drawings, illustrating the whole assembly of strange and marvelous creatures that inhabit Gormenghast.

Reviews
"Mervyn Peake is a finer poet than Edgar Allan Poe, and he is therefore able to maintain his world of fantasy brilliantly through three novels. It is a very, very great work . . . a classic of our age."-- Robertson Davies

"[Peake's books] are actual additions to life; they give, like certain rare dreams, sensations we never had before, and enlarge our conception of the range of possible experience."-- C. S. Lewis

"This extravagant epic about a labyrinthine castle populated with conniving Dickensian grotesques is the true fantasy classic of our time."-- The Washington Post Book World

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A fearsome doubt - Charles Todd

A fearsome doubt: an Inspector Ian Rutledge mystery -  Todd, Charles

Summary: Seven years after sending Ben Shaw to the gallows for the brutal murders of elderly women, Inspector Ian Rutledge is approached by Shaw's widow, who claims that her husband had been innocent, and sets out to uncover the truth about a potential miscarriage of justice. By the author of Watchers of Time. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge may be the only sleuth in detective-fiction history to have a ghost as his sidekick. Hamish MacLeod, late of the Scottish brigade, whom Rutledge ordered executed for insubordination during the Great War, provides acerbic commentary on Rutledge's actions and thoughts, effectively underscoring Rutledge's psychological torment. Rutledge's habitual angst is stretched to the breaking point in the latest in this series, when the inspector has reason to fear that he sent the wrong man to the gallows seven years before, in 1912. The hanged man's widow presents Rutledge with new evidence that seems to place the blame on another serial killer. Fearing for his sanity, Rutledge must examine the new evidence and investigate the murder of two ex-soldiers in Kent. Both sets of serial killings become eerily intermeshed. Todd skillfully interweaves an acute psychological portrait with a compelling puzzle. Intelligent and intense history-mystery, at the level of Anne Perry and Bruce Alexander. ((Reviewed August 2002)) Copyright 2002 Booklist Reviews

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Pandemonium - Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium - Oliver, Lauren

Summary: After falling in love, Lena and Alex flee their oppressive society where love is outlawed and everyone must receive "the cure"--an operation that makes them immune to the delirium of love--but Lena alone manages to find her way to a community of resistance fighters, and although she is bereft without the boy she loves, her struggles seem to be leading her toward a new love.  

Kirkus Reviews
 It's been six months since readers first met 17-year-old Lena Haloway, desperately in love in a world that considers such feelings an infection to be permanently and irrevocably "cured." This much-anticipated sequel to Delirium (2011) picks up right where the first novel left off, with Lena and Alex's only partially successful attempt to escape to "the Wilds." Lena, alone, heartbroken and near death, must reach deep within herself to find the strength and the will to survive. "Step by step--and then, inch by inch," she is reborn. The story of Lena's new life as a rebel Invalid, determined to honor the memory of Alex by fighting for a world in which love is no longer considered a capital offense, is told through a series of flashbacks and present-day accounts that will leave readers breathless. The stakes only get higher when Lena realizes she has feelings for someone new. The novel's success can be attributed to its near pitch-perfect combination of action and suspense, coupled with the subtler but equally gripping evolution of Lena's character. From the grief-stricken shell of her former self to a nascent refugee and finally to a full-fledged resistance fighter, Lena's strength and the complexity of her internal struggles will keep readers up at night. (Dystopian romance. 14 & up) Copyright Kirkus 2012 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.  

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Los Angeles stories - Ry Cooder

Los Angeles stories - Cooder, Ry

Summary: "Los Angeles Stories is a collection of loosely linked, noir-ish tales that evoke a bygone era in one of America's most iconic cities. In post-World War II Los Angeles, as power was concentrating and fortunes were being made, a do-it-yourself culture of cool cats, outsiders, and oddballs populated the old downtown neighborhoods of Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine. Ordinary working folks rubbed elbows with petty criminals, grifters, and all sorts of women at foggy end-of-the-line outposts in Venice Beach andSanta Monica.Rich with the essence and character of the times, suffused with the patois of the city's underclass, these are stories about the common people of Los Angeles, "a sunny place for shady people," and the strange things that happen to them. Musicians, gun shop owners, streetwalkers, tailors, door-to-door salesmen, drifters, housewives, dentists, pornographers, new arrivals, and hard-bitten denizens all intersect in cleverly plotted stories that center around some kind of shadowy activity. This quirky love letter to a lost way of life will appeal to fans of hard-boiled fiction and anyone interested in the city itself. Ry Cooder is a world-famous guitarist, singer, and composer known for his slide guitar work, interest in roots music, and more recently for his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries, including The Buena Vista Social Club. He has composed soundtracks for more than twenty films, including Paris, Texas. Two recent albums were accompanied by stories Cooder wrote to accompany the music. This is his first published collection of stories"-- Provided by publisher.

PW Annex Reviews 
Celebrated musician Cooder's engaging, but forgettable, collection captures L.A.'s gritty music scene during and after WW II, featuring stories of working-class Angelenos who become embroiled in homicides, car thefts, and other activities related to the "bright boys" (gangsters) moving to the city from Vegas. In "All in a Day's Work," the highlight of the collection, a 38-year-old man trying to register people and businesses for the Los Angeles City Directory becomes implicated in two murders. As a whole, the book resembles a fictional City Directory: a compendium of nuanced caricatures, affectionate portraits of historic neighborhoods, such as Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill, with guest appearances by famous musicians like John Lee Hooker. "Kill me, por favor" portrays the archetypal young actress arriving in town to pursue fame and glory only to become violently disillusioned. Cooder's knowledge of music permeates the book, and his talent is evident in his clean, precise prose, such as the description of his hometown, which "sparkled and hummed like a giant beehive." However, the stories lack the energy and intrigue of classic L.A. noir fiction, and are both repetitive and forgettable. Cooder's writing style may pair better with a single, sustained narrative instead of vignettes. (Oct.)

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Bone fire - Mark Spragg

Bone fire - Spragg, Mark

Summary: The inhabitants of Ishawooa, Wyoming have enough to contend with on a daily basis, from runaway children to Lou Gehrig's disease, even before a teenager is found dead in a meth lab and motorcycle rallies and rodeos fill the tiny local jail.



Booklist Reviews 
*Starred Review* Using several of the characters from his two award-winning novels, The Fruit of Stone (2002) and An Unfinished Life (2004), Spragg returns to high-country Wyoming and the struggles of a group of self-reliant individuals to come to terms with their vulnerability and need for connection. Einar, the cranky but tenderhearted horse rancher from An Unfinished Life, has suffered a stroke and is being cared for by Griff, who hopes to move to Chicago to study sculpture. Meanwhile, McEban, another hard-bitten rancher, who lost the love of his life in The Fruit of Stone, faces more loss, when the wandering father of McEban's 10-year-old ward decides he wants back into his son's life. And Crane, the local sheriff, now married unhappily to Griff's alcoholic mother, faces what could be the onset of the same disease that killed his grandfather. A summary of so much angst sounds almost soap operatic, but Spragg's novel is anything but that. It's about the way ordinary people endure life's crushing defeats with stoic forbearance, but also how they deal with the isolation their pinched stoicism brings. "I wish I would've said something like that out loud," McEban says at one point, speaking for all the characters whose silence is both eloquent and tragic. With its many subplots, this novel lacks some of the narrative power of Spragg's earlier work, but it has moments of lyrical beauty, emotional depth, and crisp clarity that make it essential reading for anyone interested in the literature of the West. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Historic conversations on life with John F. Kennedy - Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Historic conversations on life with John F. Kennedy: interviews with Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., 1964 - Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

Summary: Presents the annotated transcription and original audio for the 1964 interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy on her experiences and impressions as the wife of John F. Kennedy, offering an intimate and detailed account of the man and his times. Shortly after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband's legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy's wishes.

Kirkus Reviews
The late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis speaks candidly about life in Camelot. Just before publication of this collection of interviews with journalist/historian Arthur Schlesinger, conducted in 1964, a few leaked bits of conversation revealed that Jacqueline was content to leave the politics to her husband. This led to Kennedy's being lambasted as a lightweight at best, a betrayer of feminism at worst. The interviews, gathered in transcribed form with elegant introductions by first daughter Caroline Kennedy and historian Michael Beschloss, indicate that she was anything but a lightweight, even if, as Beschloss wryly notes, "well-bred young women of Jacqueline's generation were not encouraged to sound like intellectuals." Jackie preceded the generation of feminists that would soon arise (and then became a role model, speaking frankly in Ms. and other movement publications). But the real defense comes through her words here, gathered only a few months after JFK's assassination. They reveal a nimble if worried mind. Personally, JFK wasn't the easiest man to live with, due in part to the sour stomach born of nerves and "those awful years campaigning…living on a milkshake and a hot dog," as well as the terrible general health that he bore stoically in public but that caused him private agony. Jackie is shrewd in her assessments about people: Stewart Udall rose to head the Interior Department, she notes, because he delivered Arizona to JFK in the 1960 election--but then emerged as a real leader. She also provides on-the-spot commentary about unfolding world events, such as the ever-more-urgent specter of Vietnam and a divided Germany (the only ambassadors JFK "really disliked" were those from Germany and Pakistan). All politics is local--and personal. These interviews are invaluable in providing a fly-on-the-wall view of life in the Kennedy White House--and there has never been so intimate a view from a First Lady's perspective. Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.


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No cheating, no dying - Elizabeth Weil

No cheating, no dying: I had a good marriage.  Then I tried to make it bettter - Weil, Elizabeth

Summary: Examining marriage and its universal issues, the author draws on her own family misadventures as well as the advice of counselors in a range of disciplines to offer an affirmation of married life and its joys and difficulties. - (Baker & Taylor)


Kirkus Reviews
A frank examination of one woman's marriage and how she tried to improve it. What makes a good marriage? After 10 years with her husband, Dan, New York Times Magazine contributing writer Weil decided to find out. She could no longer view their relationship "like the waves on the ocean--a fact of life, determined by the sandbars below, shaped by destiny and the universe, not by me." The author wanted to create her own future and discover if her "good" relationship could be improved. Using self-help books, visits to therapists and marriage-education classes, Weil embarked on a yearlong journey with Dan to explore all the facets of their relationship, opening the doors on their present and past lives. In a narrative that is part memoir and part counseling book, the author candidly discusses their intimacy, religions, anger, money and views on monogamy and death. Humorous stories of Dan's obsessions with cooking, flamenco guitar playing, surfing and other athletic pursuits contrast with the personal pain they both felt and expressed at the loss of their unborn son. In the end, Weil writes that her marriage is "good enough"--a marriage "characterized by its capacity to allow spouses to keep growing, its ability to give the partners involved the strength and bravery required to face the world." A woman's project to improve her marriage reveals she already has something good right in front of her. Copyright Kirkus 2011 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Sacre bleu - Christopher Moore

Sacre bleu: a comedy d'arte - Christopher Moore

Summary: Baker-turned-painter Lucien Lessard and bon vivant Henri Toulouse-Lautrec vow to discover the truth behind the untimely death of their friend Vincent van Gogh, which leads them on a surreal odyssey and brothel-crawl deep into the art world of late 19th century Paris.


Publishers Weekly Reviews
Art history is playfully—and perilously—rewritten in this ambitious novel by bestseller Moore (Bite Me). Working backward from the death of Vincent Van Gogh in 1890, we meet frustrated painter and favored son of a Paris bakery family, Lucien Lessard, whose best pal happens to be Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, that fabled frequenter of brothels. All his life, Lucien has heard words of wisdom and tutelage not only from Toulouse-Lautrec, but also Renoir, Pissarro, and Theo Van Gogh. But after Toulouse-Lautrec receives a strange letter from Van Gogh, dated just before his death, the two begin to investigate "the Colorman," an odd figure who sold the titular brilliant ultramarine paint to all of these fabled painters during their most prolific, mad, and forgotten periods of work (the Colorman's arrivals also coincided with the painters' most intense love affairs). During their investigation, Lucien and Toulouse-Lautrec will discover that the mystery and Lucien's muse, Juliette, are intimately connected. Spanning nearly 30 years—with a brief interlude in Roman times—the story is steeped in Western art: Renaissance Italy; medieval cathedrals; the fields and studios of pre, post, and high impressionism. Though the question at the story's heart is less interesting than the fictional anecdotes about the great masters, fans of Moore's mix of wit and slapstick will be pleased. Photos. Agent: Nicholas Ellison, the Nicholas Ellison Agency. (Apr. 3)

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Cool, calm, and contentious - Merrill Markoe

Cool, calm, and contentious - Merrill Markoe

Summary: "In this hilarious collection of personal essays, New York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe reveals, among other things, the secret formula for comedy: Start out with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men, toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and unappeasable people, and--voilá--you're funny! But in Cool, Calm & Contentious, Markoe also reveals something more: herself. This is by far her most personal, affecting collection yet--honest, unapologetic, often painful, but always shot through with the bracing, wicked sense of humor that has made her such abeloved and incisive observer of life, both human and canine. In Cool, Calm & Contentious, she goes there: from the anal-retentive father who once spent ten minutes lecturing Markoe's forty-year-old, Ph.D.-wielding brother on how to fold a napkin, to the eternally aggrieved mother who took pleasure in being unpleasant to waiters and spent most of her life, Markoe says, in "varying degrees of pissed off"; from the way she surrendered her virginity as a freshman in college (to her, it was "something to be gotten rid of quickly, then never discussed again, like body odor"), to why, later in life, she ultimately came to find dogs so much more appealing than humans, Markoe holds nothing back. It's all here, in all its messy, poignant glory, and told the way only Merril Markoe knows how--with honesty, wit, and bite. Cool, Calm & Contentious offers something for everyone--fans of humorous essays, fans of memoir, fans of great writing and finely drawn characters, fans of dogs, fans of talking dogs, and fans of reading about mothers who are so difficult and demanding they actually make you feel good about your own life. But most of all, this book is for the many fans of Merrill Markoe, who will finally get a chance to learn what makes her tick--and what makes her so funny and wise"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
"For most of her life, my mother was varying degrees of pissed off." So begins Emmy-award winner Markoe's raucous new collection of essays featuring self-absorbed parents, selfish dogs, and really, really bad dates. With a perfect blend of sentimentality and scathing humor, Markoe recounts a host of precarious scenarios—losing her virginity, attending a Fetish Ball at the Hollywood Athletic Club, preparing to evacuate her Malibu home during the 1993 fires. She revisits her college days as an art major at the University of California, Berkeley, where she became proficient at operating power tools and navigating the advances of a professor in the department. Fans of Markoe's novels, including Walking in Circles before Lying Down (2006), know about her deep and abiding love for dogs. Here she engages her devoted hounds in a hilarious heart-to-heart about narcissism (she also offers a pithy primer on how to spot narcissists of the human variety). Markoe is the consummate comedienne, and this wry, sly offering will leave readers longing for more. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews

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The moment - Larry Smith (Ed.)

The moment: wild, poignant, life-changing stories from 125 writers and artists - Smith, Larry (Ed.)

Summary: The creators of the best-selling Not Quite What I Was Planning present a collection of brief and moving personal stories about how a single instant, decision, accident, conversation or message prompted profound changes, in a treasury that includes contributions by such individuals as Melissa Etheridge, Justin Halpern and Jennifer Egan. Original. 75,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
Have you ever taken a wrong turn and never looked back, or picked door number one instead of door number two? The results of split-second choices and unexpected events frame this fascinating collection of new, brief, personal narratives solicited by Smith (founding editor, SMITH magazine). Here are words and sketches by 125 contributors whose on-the-spot decisions or transformational moments led to a permanent change in lifestyle, career, or relationships. Melissa Etheridge details her decision to perform at the 2005 Grammy Awards when she was undergoing chemotherapy. In "Those Old Keys," it's the clacking of the keys on his father's typewriter that inspire NPR's Alan Cheuse to become a writer. "If I Don't Die Today, I Will Marry Kristin Moore" describes the decision photojournalist Aaron Huey made while crawling through a muddy field as Taliban gunfighters shot over him. First kisses, childbirth, accidents, and jury verdicts are other topics covered. VERDICT Each author's ability to concisely describe such big moments pulls the reader in. Book and writing groups will have a lot to talk about after reading this first-rate collection.—Joyce Sparrow, Kenneth City, FL


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This is US - David Marin

This is US: the new all-American family - Marin, David

Summary: It was no mystery why California had 98,000 children stuck in foster care. There were not 98,003 because I was stubborn.

When David Marin fell in love with three abandoned children desperately in need of a home, there was only one thing he could do. Give up his relatively carefree life and learn how to become a parent. In the process, he found the future he had always wanted, but he also learned some hard lessons about single-parent adoption, the Kafkaesque side of Social Services, and America's anti-immigrant sentiment: Heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring, This Is US chronicles Marin's quest to create a better life for these children?and for himself.
- (Perseus Publishing)

ForeWord Magazine Reviews
Good books often give us some laughs and/or add to our knowledge about a relatively unknown subject. In addition to satisfying on both of those counts, this story had to be told—as a form of therapy and pride for its author, but mostly to hold up a mirror to our nation's incompetent social structure, in which far too many children are considered disposable.

Like any new parent, David Marin pulls the narrative equivalent of adorable photos from his wallet. His four-year-old daughter's recitation of the alphabet: "A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-I'm a little pea," or the fact that his youngest prefers to be called "Shrek" and carries an ID with that name from a family visit to an aquarium.

In some ways, his three young children are typical, growing out of their shoes by the day and delighting in McDonald's. Their memories, however, distinguish them: Nightmares in which "robbers," aka cops and social workers, repeatedly take them away from each other and the people they love; how rubbing food on your lips can keep hunger at bay for a while longer; and that taking lettuce from the pet rabbit's cage when no one is looking is one way to survive. When the two-year-old messes his diaper for the first time in their new home, his four- and six-year-old siblings stand between him and the author, their new dad, to protect their brother from the wrath (and abuse) they've come to expect.

As a single adoptive parent of foster children in California, Marin sees his sacrifices as few, and his rewards innumerable: Instead of golfing seven times a month, he'll golf seven times a year. He is unapologetic about his desire to not be alone as he ages, or, as a light-skinned, redheaded man, to celebrate his late father's Puerto Rican heritage by adopting Latino children.

Marin's frustration with "the system" over the three years it takes to finalize his dream, plus his increasing horror at learning the details of what his beloved "angels" endured, structures a mostly discouraging tale. A chapter titled "Walnut" tells about the social worker who makes a surprise visit, and, while completely ignoring the children, offers to buy his daughter's walnut bedroom furniture because she's been looking all over "for a set just like it." The stats about prospective parents who begin the foster-cum-adoption process and ultimately burn (or opt) out are chilling.

Throughout his story, Marin receives much-needed emotional support, advice, and help from a woman he dates, who is a mother, as well as his own mother and sisters. He also gets released from a good-paying job and is forced to relocate after he makes public his plans to adopt. He subsequently sues his employer.

When a judge finally grants the new family's long-awaited adoptions, he says to Marin, "There are people out there who would try to save their sperm or hire a surrogate mother . . . ?But you went out and found kids who needed a home, and I am impressed with that." It's impossible not to be.

This is US is a celebration of difference. It will educate all prospective adoptive parents about what to expect from the adjustments required in building their new families, but will be especially valued by those willing to welcome the neediest children.
© 2011 ForeWord Reviews. All Rights Reserved.

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Galileo's daughter - Dava Sobel

Galileo's daughter: a historical memoir of science, faith, and love - Sobel, Dava

Summary: Presents a biography of the scientist through the surviving letters of his illegitimate daughter Maria Celeste, who wrote him from the Florence convent where she lived from the age of thirteen - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ As often is the case with religious landmarks in history--in this instance, Galileo's prostration before the Inquisition--a deeper searching reveals more textures than simple science-versus-religion symbolism. But it takes a talented storyteller to bring them forth, and Sobel meets our high expectations with this work, the legacy of her account of the inventor of the seagoing chronometer in Longitude (1995). Sobel is aided by a unique resource: more than 100 letters to Galileo from his eldest daughter that have never before been published in translation. They appear here largely verbatim and have been skillfully integrated into the contextual events of early 1600s Italy--no mean narrative feat, considering that this daughter, who took the veil and the name Maria Celeste, never in her short adult life ventured beyond her order's walls. The letters' somewhat trepidant salutation, "Most Illustrious and Beloved Lord Father," belies what was apparently a profoundly fond relationship on a filial level (a conclusion supported by the surprise Sobel springs at the end), but it was respectful on an intellectual one: there are allusions to Maria Celeste copying over Galileo's Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the work that attracted the ire of the inquisitors. Their lives are set in motion against a background that includes family finances, Florentine and papal politics, the bubonic plague, and the Copernican revolution, which Galileo was championing as discreetly as was safe to do. Succinct in describing where, and where not, Galileo was heading in correct scientific direction (he didn't understand tides, for example), Sobel connects the tempests of his world to the cares and anxieties of Maria Celeste's. "A woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me," eulogized the father when she suddenly died amidst his persecutions, an aptly allusive summing up of the subject of Sobel's singularly affecting story. ((Reviewed August 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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My milk toof - Inhae Lee

My milk toof: the big and small adventures of two baby teef - Lee, Inhae

Summary: When two baby teeth came knocking at her door, artist Inhae Lee did what anyone would do: she invited them to live with her and started photographing their hilarious, miniature antics. The resulting blog phenomenon has captivated legions of devoted fans with its refreshingly sweet sentiment and hip appeal. Featuring brand-new stories alongside classic adventures, My Milk Toof follows two baby teeth named ickle and Lardee as they navigate the pleasures and perils of being very small in a very big world. With perfect comedic timing, the photographic tales in this book explore the world from the tiny perspective of a baby tooth (or milk toof), from taking a bath to exploring the outside world. Showcasing the intricate handcrafted universe that Lee has created, My Milk Toof has a quirky appeal that speaks to all ages. Whether they're baking a cake or spending a day at the pool, these two little guys are achingly sweet—but without the cavities. - (Hachette Book Group)

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Design Sponge at home - Grace Bonney

Design Sponge at home - Bonney, Grace

Summary: Presents seventy design interiors provided by the readers of the DesignSponge website, along with fifty projects with before and after pictures showing transformed rooms, furniture, and accessories.


Library Journal Reviews
Bonney started the popular Design*Sponge website in 2004. Here she has collected projects and interiors submitted by her readers, illustrated with close to 550 color photographs. The "Sneak Peek" section showcases interiors created by 70 individuals. Fifty DIY projects feature clear instructions and materials lists as well as realistic difficulty and time-required labels. Although no instructions are given for the 50 "Before+After" projects, the variety of transformed furniture and decorative accessories will surely inspire readers. Also included is a vast list of resources for secondhand finds and inexpensive designer goods. A highly recommended compendium of ideas to inspire amateur decorators.


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Divergent - Veronica Roth

Divergent - Roth, Veronica

Summary: In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.


Publishers Weekly Reviews
In this edgy debut (definitely not for the fainthearted), first in a trilogy, promising author Roth tells the riveting and complex story of a teenage girl forced to choose, at age 16, between her routinized, selfless family and the adventurous, unrestrained future she longs for. Beatrice "Tris" Prior lives in crumbling dystopian Chicago, where citizens are divided into five factions—Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, Amity, and Erudite—depending on their beliefs, passions, and loyalties. When Tris forsakes her Abnegation family to become one of the wild, fearless Dauntless, she must confront her deepest fears, learn to trust her fellow initiates, and guard the ominous secret that she is actually a Divergent, with the strengths of multiple factions, and is therefore a target of dangerously controlling leaders. Roth's descriptions of Tris's initiation process are as spellbinding as they are violent, while the tremulous romance between Tris and her protective and demanding instructor, Four, unfurls with heart-stopping tenderness. For those who loved The Hunger Games and are willing to brave the sometimes sadistic tests of strength and courage Tris must endure, the reward is a memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away. Ages 14–up. (May)

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The corpse walker - Yiwu Liao

The corpse walker: real life stories, China from the bottom up - Liao, Yiwu

Summary: "A compilation of twenty-seven extraordinary oral histories that opens a window, unlike any other, onto the lives of ordinary, often outcast, Chinese men and women. Liao Yiwu (one of the best-known writers in China because he is also one of the most censored) chose his subjects from the bottom of Chinese society: people for whom the 'new' China--the China of economic growth and globalization--is no more beneficial than the old. Here are a professional mourner, a trafficker in humans, a leper, an abbot, a retired government official, a former landowner, a mortician, a feng shui master, a former Red Guard, a political prisoner, a village teacher, a blind street musician, a Falun Gong practitioner, and many others--people who have been battered by life but who have managed to retain their dignity, their humor, and their essential, complex humanity. Liao's interviews were given from 1990 to 2003."--From amazon.com.

Booklist Reviews
Poet and novelist Liao, imprisoned for four years by the Chinese government for his poem condemning the massacre at Tiananmen Square, offers intimate portraits of ordinary people in China. Using interviews with hundreds of villagers whose lives have not benefited from the astounding economic growth of the new China, he offers oral histories of their lives lived day to day. Among his interview subjects are professional mourners, a former Red Guard, a trafficker in women, a grave robber, and a former political prisoner. Liao talked to people in villages where traditions have changed little as well as those where the old ways have clashed with the Revolution. A man recounts how fear of leprosy and evil dragons prompted villagers to burn his wife alive. The shocked husband was then obligated to feed them at a festival afterward. A retired government official recounts the hardships during the Cultural Revolution, the passion of the villagers and the hypocrisy of leaders, and the need for an honest assessment and apology. Liao offers rich detail about people who live well outside the spotlight trained on China. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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Old school - Tobias Wolff

Old school: a novel - Wolff, Tobias

Summary: During his senior year at an elite New England prep school, a young man who had struggled to find it with his contemporaries finds his life unraveling thanks to the school's obsession with literary figures and their work during a visit from an author for whose blessing a young writer would do almost anything. By the author of This Boy's Life. A first novel. 40,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)

Booklist Reviews
/*Starred Review*/ There are ways to lie without saying a word. It is 1960, and the narrator is beginning his final year at a private school of strong literary traditions. Aspiring writers edit the literary journal and compete to win private audiences with visiting luminaries of letters. This year, the guests are to be Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and Ernest Hemingway. The narrator is a scholarship student, and though his school prides itself on class blindness, his classmates are well versed in spotting the subtle indicators of economic background. Longing to fit in, he dissembles, cultivating an "easy disregard" by which he hopes to imply his own privilege. But this doubleness leads him toward an unexpected decision with far-reaching consequences for his future. While a main theme here is a writer's growth, the work's essential component, the forming of character, gives it a universal appeal. As our storyteller grows through his identification with and understanding of important books, and learns the importance of writing honestly, he also learns that to insist too adamantly on the truth may require the individual to stand apart from even the group he loves. Wolff, acclaimed for his short stories and memoirs, has written a marvelous novel with resonance for old and young alike. His storytelling is economical, his prose is elegant, and his meditations are utterly timeless. Some readers may wish to turn from the last page to the first and begin again. ((Reviewed September 1, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

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The archivist - Martha Cooley

The archivist: a novel - Martha Cooley

Summary: A battle of wills between Matt, a careful, orderly archivist for a private university, and Roberta, a determined young poet, over a collection of T. S. Eliot's letters, sealed by bequest until 2019, sparks an unusual friendship and reawakens painful memories of the past. A first novel. 30,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
The articulate yet restrained archivist who narrates this exceptional first novel confides, "Books never cease to astonish me," a sentiment that could easily be aroused by Cooley's resolute and somber tale. It takes great vision and verve to work with the heavily freighted materials she handles so adroitly: the terrible legacy of the Holocaust; questions of faith, conversion, and sanity; and the life and poetry of T. S. Eliot. Using Eliot's tragic first marriage, religious convictions, and abortive relationship with his confidante, Emily Hale, as a template, Cooley explores and extends his traumas through the prisms of her highly cerebral characters. Now in his sixties, Matthias takes quiet pleasure in his guardianship of a university archive that contains letters between Eliot and Hale. This invaluable correspondence is off-limits until 2019, but Roberta, an attractive poet, is determined to gain access to it and draws Matthias into a tense tango of negotiations that unfreezes painful memories of his poet-wife's suicide. Much of Cooley's unusual novel flows like a psychological thriller, and even its slow passages are moodily compelling. ((Reviewed March 15, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

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China in ten words - Hua Yu

China in ten words - Yu, Hua

Summary: Uses a framework of ten common phrases in the Chinese vernacular to offer insight into China's modern economic gaps, cultural transformations, and ubiquitous practices of deception.



Library Journal Reviews
Yu is one of contemporary China's most celebrated but controversial writers. With much wit and elegance, he reminisces here in separate pieces (only one has been previously published) about his country's experiences over the past several decades, using personal stories as well as a piercing, critical examination of China's political, economic, and social transformation from what was essentially a Third World state into a superpower. Best known for his novels, e.g., Brothers, which satirize the country's moral depredation and its devolution into a hypercapitalist society, Yu chooses ten phrases—"people," "leader," "reading," "writing," "Lu Xun," "disparity," "revolution," "grassroots," "copycat," and "bamboozle"—that capture what he sees as China's most pressing issues over the last 60 years. His commentary is wide and varied, touching on everything from the country's severe economic and social disparity since the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s to his own rise from uneducated, small-town "teeth puller" to one of the most highly regarded writers of his time. VERDICT A marvelous book for those interested in contemporary China, by one of China's foremost intellectuals.—Allan Cho, Univ. of British Columbia Lib., Vancouver

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Luxe Series - Anna Godbersen

Luxe Series - Godbersen, Anna

Summary: In Manhattan in 1899, five teens of different social classes lead dangerously scandalous lives, despite the strict rules of society and the best-laid plans of parents and others.



Kirkus Reviews
A big, sumptuous tale of catty girls, dark secrets and windswept romance unfurls in this compulsively readable novel of late-19th-century New York City socialites. Godbersen weaves a tenuous web of deceit, backstabbing and pretense that follows four teens: Elizabeth Holland, a prim and proper lady of old-money society, is betrothed to one man, though furtively loves another; Henry Schoonmaker, a debauched playboy who must marry Elizabeth or be disinherited; Diana Holland, Elizabeth's younger sister who is in love with her fiancé; and Penelope Hayes, a member of the nouveau riche who will stop at nothing to win Henry's affections. As Elizabeth and Henry's wedding approaches, the spectacle unfolds in a wondrously grandiose scene, making for a fun, though not entirely unexpected dénouement. A delicious new twist along the Gossip Girl vein, readers will clamor for this sharp, smart drama of friends, lovers, lies and betrayal. (Fiction. YA) Copyright Kirkus 2007 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

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Dear creature - Jonathan Case

Dear creature - Case, Jonathan

Summary: A sea mutant named Grue desires to join the world above after he finds the woman who cast to the sea bottles containing snippets of Shakespeare's works, but he must suppress his hunger for human flesh if he is to have a normal life. - (Baker & Taylor)



Publishers Weekly Reviews
This exuberantly weird comic novel succeeds in fusing '50s monster movies and the works of William Shakespeare. Grue, the atomic-mutant protagonist, has the body of the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the face of a Smiley button. He and his little crab buddies live by the beach, where they feed on hormone-saturated teenagers until the discovery of pages from the Bard's work, sealed in floating cola bottles, awakens Grue's dreams of poetic romance along with a knack for speaking in iambic pentameter. The woman willing to play Juliet to his Romeo is a middle-aged agoraphobe whose nephew is accused of murdering the missing teenagers. Case's b&w art sometimes stretches reality for humorous effect, but keeps even the strangest scenes from feeling merely grotesque. The script also generates a surprising amount of pathos for the lovers' doomed passion. Startlingly assured for a debut effort, the book is like Grue himself—unclassifiable but oddly charming. (Oct.)


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