Tell the wolves I'm home - Carol Rifka Brunt

Tell the wolves I'm home - Brunt, Carol Rifka

Summary: It is 1987, and only one person has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus -- her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn's company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Brunt's transcendent debut is an exploration of an unlikely friendship that blossoms in the wake of a terrible loss. It's 1987, and 14-year-old June Elbus is reeling from the death of her beloved uncle Finn, a famous painter who has succumbed to AIDS. Shy and introspective, June preferred spending time with Finn, even as she tried to hide, from herself as much as others, her secret crush on him. Finn's death leaves a gaping hole in June's life, and she's shocked when Toby, her uncle's lover and the man her mother holds responsible for his death, makes a bid to fill that emptiness by contacting June secretly. Toby simply wants to get to know her and give her several gifts Finn left for her, and June starts to thaw toward him after she finds a note in a book from Finn imploring her to look after Toby. June's burgeoning but covert friendship with Toby gives her new insight into Finn's life but strains the already tenuous bond between her and her older sister, Greta. Peopled by characters who will live in readers' imaginations long after the final page is turned, Brunt's novel is a beautifully bittersweet mix of heartbreak and hope. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The cuckoo's calling - Robert Galbraith

The cuckoo's calling - Galbraith, Robert

Summary: "After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man."--Dust jacket.

Booklist Reviews
London PI Cormoran Strike's final feud with his arguably insane fiancée leaves him camping in his office, wondering how his last two clients will keep him afloat and pay for his new secretary, Robin. When a childhood acquaintance asks him to investigate his supermodel sister's apparent suicide, Strike finds a distraction from his problems that's happily attached to a check. Lula Landry was surrounded by rabid paparazzi, a drug-addled social circle, a dysfunctional adopted family, and a shifty, newly found birth mother, making suicidal despair hard to dismiss. But with Robin's surprisingly adept assistance, Strike dismantles witness statements, applying masterful deductive skills to find evidence of murder. This debut is instantly absorbing, featuring a detective facing crumbling circumstances with resolve instead of clichéd self-destruction and a lovable sidekick with contagious enthusiasm for detection. Galbraith nimbly sidesteps celebrity superficiality, instead exploring the ugly truths in Lula's six degrees of separation. Strike bears little resemblance to Jackson Brodie, but Kate Atkinson's fans will appreciate his reliance on deduction and observation along with Galbraith's skilled storytelling. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Mr. Wuffles - David Wiesner

Mr. Wuffles - Wiesner, David

"Mr. Wuffles ignores all his cat toys but one, which turns out to be a spaceship piloted by small green aliens. When Mr. Wuffles plays rough with the little ship, the aliens must venture into the cat's territory to make emergency repairs"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Once again Wiesner dips into his irrepressible imagination to deliver a mostly wordless conceptual picture book where the mundane and the magical collide. Mr. Wuffles, an aloof, perspicacious black cat, takes no interest in his playthings, save one peculiar toy that looks something like a hobnail tea strainer. Closer inspection, like only Wiesner can provide, reveals that it is a miniature alien spacecraft experiencing mechanical trouble. Its little green passengers evade Mr. Wuffles and retreat to a hole beneath the radiator, where they discover a series of "cave paintings" immortalizing battles between the cat and troops of ants and ladybugs. The aliens and the bugs join forces and, speaking in rectangular pictographic word balloons (that some readers will thrill to decipher), hatch a plan to repair the spaceship, foil the feline, and return home. The drama plays out across long, low panels full of kinetic energy and comic detail, all captured in the artist's careful watercolor renderings. In the end, the mission is successful and the aliens escape, but not without leaving behind a few reminders of their visit and an updated record of the epic conflict on the inner wall. Wiesner's many fans will delight at poring over the detailed account of this master plan, again and again, discovering something new with each successive reading. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Wiesner is a three-time Caldecott winner. Three. Fans will be ready to pounce. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Square Pegs Complete Series (DVD)

Square Pegs Complete Series (DVD)

Summary: Patty and Lauren are two freshman girls desperate to fit in at Weemawee High School. Befriended by oddball characters Marshall, a budding comedian, and Johnny Slash, a wacky new-waver, Patty and Lauren still hope to impress the popular kids: valley girl Jennifer, her tough boyfriend Vinnie, and their sassy friend LaDonna and Muffy, the ever-peppy preppie.


Video Librarian Reviews
Square Pegs was in a class by itself, but much like the main characters--brainy, bespectacled Patty (Sarah Jessica Parker) and pushy, overweight Lauren (Amy Linker)--popularity eluded this late, lamented TV sitcom, which was expelled from primetime after one season (1982-83). Rarely seen in syndication, its cult cachet has only increased over time (enhanced by Parker's extreme makeover into Sex and the City's trendsetting Carrie Bradshaw). As peppy, preppy Muffy Tepperman (a spirited Jami Gertz in her own career-launching role) might say, it "behooves" us to report that the series lives up to its rep as a smart and hip alternative to what the show's creator Anne Beatts (in the bonus interviews of cast and crew spread across the set) calls "processed cheese television." Anticipating Sixteen Candles and Freaks and Geeks, Square Pegs viewed high school from the perspective of the bottom of the social food chain. As freshmen at Weemawee High School, if Patty and Lauren can click with the right clique, they will at last have "a social life that's worthy of us." Alas, it's not to be. The girls instantly run afoul of the school's reigning Mean Girl, Jennifer (Tracy Nelson), her bad boy boyfriend Vinnie (Jon Caliri), and her sassy best friend LaDonna (Claudette Welles). Each of the 19 episodes compiled here brings some new hell for Patty and Lauren, but also some hope that their stock will rise—until then, cup size may trump IQ, but friendship will always trump everything. Recommended. (D. Liebenson) Copyright Video Librarian Reviews 2008.

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Call the Midwife - Jennifer Worth

Call the Midwife - Worth, Jennifer

Summary: Jennifer Worth was just 22 years old when she volunteered to spend her early years of midwifery training in London's East End in the 1950s. These stories encompass the whole spectrum of human emotions, and candidly reveal the shocking truth of childbirth conditions just 50 years ago.


Kirkus Reviews
Emulating James Herriot—except with fewer cows and more cockneys—Worth sketches a warm, amiable portrait of hands-on medical practice.The author became a midwife at age 22, learning her trade in the 1950s from the nun midwives at the convent of St. Raymund Nonnatus and working among impoverished women in the slums of the London Docklands. Her frank, sometimes graphic memoir describes scores of births, from near-catastrophes to Christmas miracles, and details her burgeoning understanding of the world and the people in it. It's stocked with charming characters: loopy Sister Monica Joan, the convent's near-mystic cake-gobbler and mischief-maker; Father Joseph Williamson, focused on delivering prostitutes rather than babies; handyman/poultry salesman/drain cleaner/toffee-apple pusher Frank; and posh Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne ("Chummy"), an outrageously warm-hearted debutante who devoted her life to midwifery and missionary work. Worth depicts the rich variety of life in the slums, where loving, doting mothers of nine rubbed elbows with neglectful, broken young women turning tricks to support their husbands' night life. She draws back the veil usually placed over the process of birth, described here as both tribulation and triumph. In birth after birth, as women and midwives labored to bring babies into the world through hours of pain and occasional danger, Worth marveled at the mothers' almost-uniform embrace of their babies. "There must be an inbuilt system of total forgetfulness in a woman," she writes. "Some chemical or hormone that immediately enters the memory part of the brain after delivery, so that there is absolutely no recall of the agony that has gone before. If this were not so, no woman would ever have a second baby."A charming tale of deliveries and deliverance.Agent: Eugenie Furniss/William Morris Agency Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The last banquet - Jon Courtenay Grimwood

The last banquet - Grimwood, Jon Courtenay

Summary: Follows an adventurous man, once a penniless orphan, through French society during the Enlightenment as he searches for the perfect taste, befriends Benjamin Franklin, becomes pen pals with the Marquis de Sade and Voltaire, and improves contraceptive methods.



Kirkus Reviews
Jean-Marie d'Aumout is a liberal, democratic Frenchman obsessed with flavor whose life, narrated in an elegant debut, lays bare the extreme contrasts of pre-Revolutionary France. First encountered at age 5, eating beetles from a dung heap, his parents dead in their run-down chateau, the boy who will become the Marquis d'Aumout never grows out of his fascination with how things taste. Rescued by the Duc d'Orléans, who gives him his first, divine taste of Roquefort cheese, d'Aumout is sent to school and then military academy, where the friends he makes will shape his life. Charlot, heir to the wildly wealthy Saulx estate, will introduce him to one of his sisters, Virginie, whose life d'Aumout will save twice. Grimwood's sensuous, intelligent, occasionally drifting account of the marquis's progress is constantly informed by French politics, notably the immense gulf between the nobility and the peasants whom d'Aumout at least treats with fairness. Scenes at Versailles underline the decadence which will lead to social collapse. Through it all, d'Aumout is driven by a hunger to taste everything--rat, wolf, cat, etc.--and an erotic appetite that is explicitly filled. Ben Franklin puts in a late appearance before the revolution begins, and d'Aumout prepares for a final, extraordinary meal. Studded with bizarre recipes, this vividly entertaining account of a life lived during groundbreaking times is a curious, piquant pleasure. Copyright Kirkus 2013 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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Journey - Aaron Becker

Journey - Becker, Aaron

Summary: Using a red marker, a young girl draws a door on her bedroom wall and through it enters another world where she experiences many adventures, including being captured by an evil emperor.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* First-time author Becker sweeps readers away on the very best kind of journey, allowing a complex color scheme, intricate fantasy environments, and a stirring sense of adventure to tell the story without a single word. Worn out by an urban world of washed-out colors and too-busy adults, a young girl makes her escape through a slightly foreboding mystical forest and floats into a city-sized castle, where she spies a magnificent bird that is captured and caged. Without hesitation, she takes on an army of Samurai-like air-warlords and saves the bird, who ushers her back into her own world, where friendship and great new adventure await. Becker's background in movie animation is apparent in his sense of pace, motion, and action; his extraordinary detail work; and his sharp visual cues: objects of imagination and escape, for example, are all colored in blazing red. But through elements that reverberate with the power of Crockett Johnson's Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955), Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are (1963), and Barbara Lehman's The Red Book (2004), he clearly has a deep understanding of his literary antecedents, too. Laudable for its adventuresome female protagonist, scope, and sense of fun, this title will draw girls and boys back to it again and again. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Battling boy - Paul Pope

Battling boy - Pope, Paul

Summary: As monsters roam Acropolis and swallow children into their shadowy underworld, twelve-year-old superhero Battling Boy steps in to save the city in the absence of genius vigilante Haggard West.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Comics' sci-fi rock-god Pope synthesizes the mythologies of Superman, Batman, and Hercules and sends them crashing into a monster-infested dystopia in this rollicking blast of adventure, the first part of a larger tale. When Acropolis' protector, Haggard West, dies in a battle with child-snatching ghouls, Battling Boy is sent down from the Olympian lightning cloud for his trial of manhood. His apparent defeat of a rampaging monstrosity gets him caught up in local politics, puts him in the sights of the hideous ghouls, and gains him the ire of Haggard West's daughter, who is looking to establish her own heroic credentials. Pope offers a latter-day superhero mythology that is also a glorious homage to shojo and, in fact, to heroism throughout history. This is a sophisticated tale for younger readers, but Pope manages to both grant full-scale wish fulfillment and acknowledge the limitations of young boys with equal aplomb. His art, meanwhile, looks like nothing else in comics, with ropy, sinewy figures, dynamic action, and gritty urban design all captured in panels that have the rough, subversive tone of classic punk album covers. Indeed, Pope's visuals might demand a larger canvas than the elegantly compact format First Second has afforded it. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Bunny drop - Yumi Unita

Bunny drop - Unita, Yumi

Summary: Returning to his family's estate for his grandfather's funeral, thirty-something bachelor Daikichi is floored to discover that the old man had an illegitimate child with a much younger lover! Needless to say, the rest of the family is shocked and embarrassed by this turn of events, and not one of them wants anything to do with the little girl, who refuses to say a word. In a fit of angry spontaneity, Daikichi decides to adopt her! But is living with an overgrown teenager who can barely take care of himself the key to making Rin come out of her shell?

Booklist Reviews
Thirty-year-old Daikichi wasn't expecting to be a father. After his grandfather dies, he learns he has a six-year-old aunt, the daughter of his recently deceased grandfather and an unknown woman. The family quibbles on who will take care of Rin, and when it becomes clear that no one wants her, Daikichi offers himself. Some think that Rin's a slow girl because she's shy and doesn't talk much, but Daikichi senses something deeper. While at first quite lost on the matter of child rearing, he finds his way with the help of research and Rin herself as the two gradually become a family. The arrival of Rin's biological mother may change this, but for now aunt and nephew show how a unique family can make it work if love is involved. This sweet-natured manga shows the joys, frustrations, and quirks of family life; and while it is aimed at teens, it would also be more than welcome in the hands of adult readers. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's library - Chris Grabenstein

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's library - Grabenstein, Chris

Summary:
"Twelve-year-old Kyle gets to stay overnight in the new town library, designed by his hero (the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello), with other students but finds that come morning he must work with friends to solve puzzles in order to escape"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Here's an instantly engaging and wildly creative mystery that is sure to have readers looking at their humble local library in a new light. Mr. Lemoncello is an eccentric game designer who has just funded a very special new library in his hometown. In honor of the grand opening, Lemoncello has selected a dozen 12-year-olds to participate in an overnight lock-in event at the library. But when the kids wake up, they discover a new and unexpected game is afoot: whoever can find a way out of Mr. Lemoncello's library will win the grand prize. Avid readers will get a kick out of the references to classic and current children's literature as the kids solve clues to escape and win the game. Main character Kyle Keeley works hard to beat his nemesis, the conniving bully Charles Chilington, who constantly reminds everyone that he is always successful. As Lemoncello says, knowledge not shared remains unknown, and the group learns that working together just might be the key to solving the mystery. An ode to libraries and literature that is a worthy successor to the original madman riddle master himself, Willy Wonka. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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One big happy family - Lisa Rogak

One big happy family - Rogak, Lisa

Summary: "Inspiring, true tales of interspecies adoption, One Big Happy Family tells the heartwarming stories of animals who have reached out to save the lives of babies from other species and raise them as their own. Whether it's the border collie and his piglets, the cat and her ducklings, the orangutan and his lion cubs, or even the Labrador and her baby hippo, these are poignant, charming tales of animals who have felt the parental instinct and cared for little ones of every stripe. Filled with adorable photos of these baby animals and their foster moms and dads, Lisa Rogak's One Big Happy Family celebrates the intimacy and emotional connections of parenthood and the amazing miracle of interspecies adoption"-- Provided by publisher.

Booklist Reviews
This book sells itself. It gathers 50 stories of animals of one species mothering (or, in several cases, fathering) babies from an entirely foreign species. The instinct to nurture young is almost universal, and, as these stories demonstrate, that instinct can sometimes trump the instinct to stay within one's own kind. We see a mother cat who warms a nest of baby chicks with her own kittens, and the hen who adopts a nestful of ducklings—assisted by a goose. Even male cats get into the act when a ginger tomcat takes over the cuddling duties for a hand-reared lion cub. An owl mothers a gosling, and a cow takes over nursing duty for two lambs rejected by their mother. More than half of the stories feature dogs as the surrogate parent. Even wild animals enter the picture, as a lioness treats an antelope calf like a cub and a baboon cuddles an infant bush baby. Illustrated with irresistible color photos, this one is a charmer. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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How to catch a bogle - Catherine Jinks

How to catch a bogle - Jinks, Catherine

Summary: In 1870s London, a young orphan girl becomes the apprentice to a man who traps monsters for a living.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Ten-year-old Birdie considers herself fortunate not to be begging, stealing, or living in the workhouse. As an apprentice to Alfred the Bogler, she receives food and shelter in exchange for helping him trap and destroy the hungry, monstrous bogles (goblins) that lurk in houses, where they snatch and eat the occasional child. Her role in the business? Birdie is the bait. Standing with her back to the bogle's hideout, she sings sweetly until he shows himself and Alfred dispatches him. Despite her dangerous occupation, Birdie balks when Miss Eames, a lady with a scientific interest in bogle hunting, offers to raise her above her station. Suspense mounts when human enemies begin to surpass the supernatural ones in malevolence, destruction, and sheer terror. Birdie proves her mettle time and time again in this richly atmospheric tale set in London around 1870. In the pitch-perfect narrative, the bogles seem as normal a part of the city's life as the costers, griddlers, mudlarks, and toffs (a glossary is appended). The first volume of a planned trilogy from the author of the Evil Genius series and the Pagan series, this intense historical thriller is rewarding on its own, but A Plague of Bogles is scheduled to arrive next fall. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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The cats' house - Bob Walker

The cats' house - Walker, Bob

Summary: Describes cat-friendly home improvements, offers plans and suggestions for enlivening housecats' environments, and relates how a room-divider project transformed the author's home into a cats' playground - (Baker & Taylor)

Library Journal Reviews
What began as a simple floor-to-ceiling scratching post to prevent Walker's nine cats from sharpening their claws on the furniture is now a whole set of ramps, stairs, and cat walks throughout his house. The playfulness of this house, which has been painted in over 40 bright colors and contains Walker and his wife's collection of Dian de los Meurtos figurines and toys, comes across in the numerous photographs. Instructions are included for building ramps, cat walks, and mouse holes through which the cats pass from room to room. This fun book is recommended for large interior design collections. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.

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Batman dark knight - Paul Jenkins

Batman dark knight - Jenkins, Paul

Summary: Delving into the more supernatural and esoteric areas of Gotham City, the six-part storyline explores the horrific murder of one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends . . . and the terrible ramifications the brutal crime has on Batman's life.



LJ Express Reviews
Gotham's villains have a new power, a kind of fear serum that turns already formidable foes into deadly, rampaging monsters. As more clues about the serum are uncovered, red herrings and serum-infused criminals from Batman's past abound. Fans of the artwork in Ultimate X-Men and Moon Knight will not be disappointed; the fight scenes tumble and claw their way through most of the book. Unfortunately, the plot doesn't pack the same punch and mainly serves to bridge one fight scene to another. A few random sequences are plain baffling: Batman jumping into his jet with an ice cream cone? Some exceptions are the glimpses we're given of Commissioner Gordon's personal struggle and the two supplemental stories, Joe Harris's "The Madness" and Judd Winnick's compelling "I Can No Longer Be Broken." Verdict Aside from a new villain being lightly introduced, there's not a lot happening here. At best, this is a secondary purchase for older teens and adults. For a better balance of action and character development, refer fans to Batman's other current titles.—Marlan Brinkley, Atlanta-Fulton P.L.(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Beauty is embarrassing (DVD)

Beauty is embarrassing: the Wayne White story (DVD)

Summary: For more than 30 years, Wayne White has made an indelible mark on the creative world. As a designer, painter, puppeteer, sculptor and musician, White created images and ideas that are an integral, yet sometimes subconscious, part of the pop-culture lexicon. Part biography, part live performance; tell the irreverent and inspiring story of this one-of-a-kind visual artist and raconteur.

Reviews

Vulgar, hilarious, and filled with nostalgia…a truly entertaining examination of the power of art. --Aint It Cool News

A laugh-out-loud portrait of the wild & wacky Wayne White --IndieWire

Frantic, sentimental, surreal and very funny. --Wired

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The paladin - Brian Garfield

The paladin: a novel based on fact - Garfield, Brian

Summary: In 1940, Winston Churchill recruits a fifteen-year-old schoolboy to serve as a secret agent--code name Christopher Robin - (Baker & Taylor)



Kirkus Review
/* Starred Review */ A remarkable adventure novel ostensibly based on fact and written in collaboration with its real-life hero, "Christopher Creighton." While a ten-year-old schoolboy, Creighton accidentally knocked over a fresh brick wall being put up by his fat, cigar-smoking country neighbor, Winston Churchill, who then took a liking to the lad. Over the next five years they became quite friendly, and when Winston was made Prime Minister, he called the boy for a secret visit and asked him to be a spy for England--by visiting schoolfriend Prince Paul in Belgium and discovering the dispositions of the Belgian army. (Winston will then be able to figure out whether Hitler plans to invade France through Belgium.) Christopher is magnificently successful, meets Von Ribbentrop, overhears and reports back the vital information that Belgium will capitulate to Hitler without a shot. . . and so the British decide to retreat to Dunkirk and evacuate rather than stay and fight a hopeless cause. Soon Christopher is Winston's personal secret agent, his teenage paladin: he goes through horrid training exercises in which he actually kills German prisoners; he is himself beaten nearly to death for training purposes; and he is later sent to implant time bombs in a Dutch submarine's torpedoes and destroy the sub with all aboard (all allies?). Why? Because the Admiralty does not want Roosevelt to receive Dutch intelligence about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor, intelligence that might be used to keep the U.S. out of the war. And after three more assassinations of innocent soldiers, Christopher's last job is to pass himself off as a double agent and give the Germans false information about the Normandy landing--but only after unendurable torture and an attempt at suicide using a hollow cyanide tooth. . . . How much of this is true, how much fiction? One has to assume that if all or most of it were verifiable, this would have been non-fiction, not a novel. Still, veteran Garfield punches it all out with assured panache: larger-than-life Churchill, exploit after exploit, horror upon horror. So, believe it or not, this is a ripping good yarn--with food for all sorts of WW II-history speculation. (Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 1980)

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The 34-ton bat - Steve Rushin

The 34-ton bat: the story of baseball as told through bobbleheads, cracker jacks, jockstraps, eye black, and 375 other strange and unforgettable objects - Rushin, Steve

Summary: "In The 34-Ton Bat, Sports Illustrated writer Steve Rushin tells the real, unvarnished story of baseball through the lens of all the things that make it the game that it is. Rushin weaves these rich stories--from ballpark pipe organs played by malevolent organists to backed up toilets at Ebbets Field--together in their order of importance (from most to least) for an entertaining and compulsive read, glowing with a deep passion for America's Pastime."--www.Amazon.com.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Jimmy and Ralph "Buzz" Boyle are author Rushin's grandfather and great uncle, respectively. Buzz played three seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers, while Jimmy got into one game for one inning for the New York Giants. When Rushin, the 2005 National Sportswriter of the Year, inherited Jimmy's glove, a passionate and eclectic exploration of baseball ephemera was launched. Rushin approaches his passion with a mischievous gleam in his eye, a point of view captured perfectly in this anecdote-filled account of the sport's odd corners. He covers the evolution of the baseball glove, from a less-than-manly novelty in the game's earliest days to its current status as standard equipment. We also learn that the first protective baseball headgear was inflatable. The prototype was dismissed more on the basis of vanity than utility: it looked stupid. Male readers will grimace their way through the development of the "cup." Lots of painful injuries, especially to catchers, preceded the initial research by a catcher known as Foulproof Taylor. There's a chapter on the rowdy reintroduction of beer to ballparks after Prohibition, and organ music to serenade patrons on their way out of the park after games. Of course, the organ music has given way to prerecorded rock music; reliever Trevor Hoffman began the tradition by having AC/DC's "Hells Bells" played when he entered a game. In an era of sports literature when societal significance and statistical algorithms aren't always as fun as we'd hoped, Rushin has reintroduced readers to silliness. Read it with a smile. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Honeymoon in Tehran - Azadeh Moaveni

Honeymoon in Tehran: two years of love and danger in Iran - Moaveni, Azadeh

Summary: The Iranian-American author describes her return to Iran as a reporter for "Time" magazine, her marriage to an Iranian man, the repressive Iranian society and its impact, and her family's decision to leave Iran.



Booklist Reviews
In this intimate look at the modern Iranian middle class, Moaveni, a journalist and the author of Lipstick Jihad (2005), blends her own experiences in Iran with her primary reporting subject: the dubious Tehran reaction to the ascendance of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An Iranian American living in Lebanon, Moaveni unexpectedly fell in love when she returned to her homeland on assignment. This opened her eyes to a whole new aspect of Iranian life, that of young couples. She writes extensively about how the country s troubled economic situation forces twenty-somethings to postpone marriage and independence from their families. Iran s "brain drain" is well documented, but the reasons professionals grudgingly leave Iran have rarely been discussed by Western media, which instead focuses on Ahmadinejad s rantings. Moaveni tracks the country s increased social conservatism, and reveals both expensive marriage traditions and governmental manipulation. This perfect blend of political commentary and social observation is an excellent choice for readers interested in going beyond the headlines to gain an in-depth understanding of twenty-first-century Iran. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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Lipstick jihad - Azadeh Moaveni

Lipstick jihad: a memoir of growing Iranian in America and American in Iran - Moaveni, Azadeh

Summary: The story of the Iranian-American author's search for identity between two cultures torn apart by a violent history paints a portrait of Iran's next generation.



Booklist Reviews
After growing up in suburban California, where she never felt fully comfortable, Moaveni moved in 2000 to Iran, the land her parents had fled. Although she spent her childhood aching to live in Tehran, the place she discovers is nothing like she imagined--and, indeed, not what most of us imagine, either. She describes a sprawling city choked by smog and traffic; people "preoccupied by sex in the manner of dieters constantly thinking about food"; and, of course, the volunteer Morality Police, whose brazen cruelty has to be read about to be believed. Moaveni has captured Tehran's youth, the "student demonstrators" often in the news, in both their worldliness and their ignorance. And although much of the writing tells more than it shows, Moaveni is riveting when she works her way into a scene--capturing, for instance, the horror of a girl who must not react when the Morality Police beat her boyfriend lest they find out she is breaking shariah by dating. Not quite Persepolis without the pictures, but good stuff all the same. ((Reviewed February 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

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Grumpy cat: a grumpy book - Grumpy Cat

Grumpy cat: a grumpy book - Grumpy Cat

Summary: "Internet sensation Grumpy Cat's epic feline frown has inspired legions of devoted fans. Celebrating the grouch in everyone, the Grumpy Cat book teaches the fine art of grumpiness and includes enough bad attitude to cast a dark cloud over the whole world. Featuring brand new as well as classic photos, and including grump-inspiring activities and games, Grumpy Cat delivers unmatched, hilarious grumpiness that puts any bad mood in perspective"-- Provided by publisher.

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The ocean at the end of the lane - Neil Gaiman

The ocean at the end of the lane - Gaiman, Neil

Summary: It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In Gaiman's first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he's just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With "an hour or so to kill" afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he's at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he's told since Stardust (1999). And don't worry about that "for adults" designation: it's a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That this is the popular author's first book for adults in eight years pretty much sums up why this will be in demand. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Empty mansions - Bill Dedman

Empty mansions - Dedman, Bill

Summary: A cousin of Huguette Clark and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist trace the life of the reclusive American heiress against a backdrop of the now-infamous W. A. Clark family and include coverage of the internet sensation and elder-abuse investigation that occurred at the end of her life. - (Baker & Taylor)


Booklist Reviews
What goes on behind closed doors, especially when those doors are of the gilded variety, has fascinated novelists and journalists for centuries. The private lives of the rich and famous are so tantalizing that Robin Leach made a career out of showcasing them. One of the biggest eccentric, rich fishes out there was Huguette Clark. Deceased for more than two years, Clark, brought to life by investigator Dedman and Clark's descendant, Newell, owned nouveau riche palaces in New York, Connecticut, and California. An heiress, Clark disappeared from public view in the 1920s. What happened to her and her vast wealth? Answering this question is the book's mission. Based on records and the hearsay of relations and former employees, the book pieces together Clark's life, that of a woman rumored to be institutionalized while her mansions stood empty, though immaculately maintained throughout her life. Clark left few clues about herself, but she willed vast sums to her caretakers and numerous charitable endeavors. Still, her absence acts as a shade to seeing her fully, hinting at possible financial malfeasance, all the while conspiring to produce a spellbinding mystery. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

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Shadow and bone - Leigh Bardugo

Shadow and bone - Bardugo, Leigh

Summary: Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protegé of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.



Booklist Reviews
Debut author Bardugo has conjured up a treat with her first book in the Grisha Trilogy. In the opening passages, a tight bond is formed by two small orphans: handsome, competent Mal and tiny Alina, who never seems to do anything right. Jumping forward in time, the story follows the two friends after they have joined the King's First Army—Mal as a soldier-tracker and Alina as a cartographer. Their land of Ravka is surrounded by enemies and divided by the Shadow Fold, a mysterious, magical darkness that seethes with flesh-eating monsters. After Alina discovers that she possesses a magical power, she is taken to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, magicians who practice the Small Science. Resembling Czarist Russia, the court swirls with deceit and extravagance, and although Alina falls under the spell of the handsome Darkling, she misses Mal grievously. Bardugo weaves a captivating spell with lushly descriptive writing, engaging characters, and an exotic, vivid world. Readers will wait impatiently for the next installment. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A six-figure marketing campaign is already ensuring that this series debut receives blockbuster attention. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The complete tales & poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe

The complete tales & poems of Edgar Allen Poe - Poe, Edgar Allen

Summary: Features a comprehensive collection of the author's works, including such classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Raven" and lesser-known works such as "Loss of Breath" and "Spirits of the Dead." - (Baker & Taylor)

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The stand - Stephen King

The stand - King, Stephen

Summary: After a virus kills most of the people in the world, a handful of survivors choose sides-- a world of good led by 108-year-old Mother Abigail-- or evil led by a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.



Kirkus Review
/* Starred Review */ King's fifth novel returns, 12 years after its first publication, with 230 of its original pages restored. There is also some new writing in the present 1,153 pages of what is now King's longest creation--all has been updated ten years to include references to AIDS, Roger Rabbit, and more recent happenings. But the plot is almost utterly the same, only with more incidents and details deepening the characters. Essentially, if you've read the novel in its shorter form, you've read the novel and don't need to read the new version--unless you're a King fanatic, of course. But what do the new pages do? They give a creamy expansiveness to the flow--but then also delay the book's getting into its big stride: the heat between the story's rival forces doesn't begin until about page 700. And, strangely enough, the long version is a faster, smoother read, less difficult to take in than the short version. Sadly, though, the story's most powerful pages--a very long description of N.Y.C. emptied of human life by a super-flu plague, and a trek through the darkness of a Lincoln Tunnel crammed with dead vehicles and dead people--comes around page 400 and is such a strong, intense passage that nothing that follows equals it. What one gets is King's proletariat cast enacting a story that takes itself seriously, but seems to spring from an imagination fed on comic books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Bruce Springsteen. The story: a plague virus escapes from a California germ-warfare lab and knocks out nearly all human life. A small group of Americans, drawn from the East and West, gathers at Boulder, Colorado, and finds itself in psychic battle with the forces of evil--forces that are entrenched in Las Vegas and led by Satan in the guise of one Randall Flagg. A team of good guys infiltrates the bad guys, but it is the bad guys who bring about their own destruction with an atomic explosion--which is also seen as the hand of God engineering the Apocalypse. A last new touch has Flagg survive the bomb and start his campaign all over by perverting a primitive jungle tribe with civilization. For many, a haunting experience given its greatest life by scenes of devastation, although The Shining is artistically more complex and satisfying. And what can be said about the prole values King celebrates in book after book? Tiresome, man. (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1990)

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The shining (DVD)

The shining (DVD)

Summary: A writer and his family are snowbound in a hotel and are haunted by either the hotel itself or the writer's dementia.



Review
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is less an adaptation of Stephen King's bestselling horror novel than a complete reimagining of it from the inside out. In King's book, the Overlook Hotel is a haunted place that takes possession of its off-season caretaker and provokes him to murderous rage against his wife and young son. Kubrick's movie is an existential Road Runner cartoon (his steadicam scurrying through the hotel's labyrinthine hallways), in which the cavernously empty spaces inside the Overlook mirror the emptiness in the soul of the blocked writer, who's settled in for a long winter's hibernation. As many have pointed out, King's protagonist goes mad, but Kubrick's Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is Looney Tunes from the moment we meet him--all arching eyebrows and mischievous grin. (Both Nicholson and Shelley Duvall reach new levels of hysteria in their performances, driven to extremes by the director's fanatical demands for take after take after take.) The Shining is terrifying--but not in the way fans of the novel might expect. When it was redone as a TV miniseries (reportedly because of King's dissatisfaction with the Kubrick film), the famous topiary-animal attack (which was deemed impossible to film in 1980) was there--but the deeper horror was lost. Kubrick's The Shining gets under your skin and chills your bones; it stays with you, inhabits you, haunts you. And there's no place to hide... --Jim Emerson amazon.com

Staff Comments: Absolutely one of the best horror films of all-time.

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The bad seed - William March

The bad seed - March, William

Summary: What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March's classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million-copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine-tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that's as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before. - (HARPERCOLL)

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House of leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

House of leaves - Danielewski, Mark Z.

Summary: A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries - (Baker & Taylor)


Library Journal
When Johnny Truant attempts to organize the many fragments of a strange manuscript by a dead blind man, it gains possession of his very soul. The manuscript is a complex commentary on a documentary film (The Navidson Record) about a house that defies all the laws of physics. Navidson's exploration of a seemingly endless, totally dark, and constantly changing labyrinth in the house becomes an examination of truth, perception, and darkness itself. The book interweaves the manuscript with over 400 footnotes to works real and imagined, thus illuminating both the text and Truant's mental disintegration. First novelist Danielewski employs avant-garde page layouts that are occasionally a bit too clever but are generally highly effective. Although it may be consigned to the "horror" genre, this novel is also a psychological thriller, a quest, a literary hoax, a dark comedy, and a work of cultural criticism. It is simultaneously a highly literary work and an absolute hoot. This powerful and extremely original novel is strongly recommended for all public and academic libraries.--Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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Shadowland - Peter Straub

Shadowland - Straub, Peter

Summary: This horror classic is once again brought to life as two best friends, apprentices to a Master Magician, enter a dark realm of immeasurable evil, more ancient than death itself, where only one of them will survive.



Reviews
“Gripping.”—The Memphis Commercial Appeal

“Savor the novel to the fullest.”—Dayton Daily News

“Eerily effective.”—BusinessWeek

“You will be transported.”—Houston Chronicle

“A masterpiece.”—Richmond News-Leader

“A blend of…the old horrors that crouch in the dark corners of the adult mind.”—John Lutz, author of Jericho Man

“I thought it was creepy from page one. I loved it.”—Stephen King

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The gargoyle - Andrew Davidson

The gargoyle - Davidson, Andrew

Summary: "A very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, crashes his car into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide--for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul. Then a beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval Germany."--From publisher description.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Davidson's stunning debut opens with a hedonistic porn star drinking bourbon as he drives, until a vision of burning arrows rushing at his car causes him to crash through a guardrail and careen down a ravine. He awakens in a hospital, burns covering most of his body. Friendless, he loathes the doctors who are working so hard to heal him and plots his suicide. Into this husk of a life walks Marianne Engel, a beautiful sculptress whose first words to him are, You've been burned. Again. Over time she tells him the story of how they first met and fell in love 700 years ago at a German monastery. His initial skepticism over the improbability of her tale, given the fact that she's been in the psych ward, gives way to curiosity and eventually love. He still isn't sure he believes her, but her tale and her presence in his life give him something to live for. There's pure magic here, a classic redemption story with a hero so cynical, so damaged that it seems so unlikely that he'll ever reach for or even believe in salvation. When he does, the reward is immeasurable. Davidson's Gargoyle is a rare gem: completely engrossing, wholly unforgettable, and utterly transcendent. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.

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The girl who fell beneath fairyland and led the revels there - Catherynne Valente

The girl who fell beneath fairyland and led the revels there - Valente, Catherynne

Summary: After returning to Fairyland, September discovers that her stolen shadow has become the Hollow Queen, the new ruler of Fairyland Below, who is stealing the magic and shadows from Fairyland folk and refusing to give them back.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* In this stellar sequel to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2011), September is 13 years old and in possession of a teenage heart that is "raw and new, fast and fierce." It is this heart that guides her sophomore trip to Fairyland. When she literally stumbles into the magical realm, September finds that the inhabitants of Fairyland Above have been losing their shadows—sucked Below by the Alleyman, a floating red-feathered hat—and, along with them, their magic. As Fairyland Above becomes depleted, the underworld becomes a stronger, darker, increasingly renegade place under the rule of Halloween, September's shadow. Can September return the shadows and reset the equilibrium in Fairyland? On her quest, she's reunited with friends Saturday and Wyverary—well, their shadows at least—but mostly meets exciting new characters, from Belinda Cabbage, mad scientist, to a soft-spoken Physickist dodo bird named Aubergine. As with the previous title, Valente's inviting, lush, and densely detailed world is evocative of well-traveled lands, such as Neverland and Oz, but, at the same time, is uniquely its own. This is sure to draw new fans, but those familiar with the first book will find the reading a richer experience. Juan's shaded chapter-opening art puts bizarrely wonderful faces to names and sets just the right tone. Let's just hope the Green (or Silver) Wind calls us back to Fairyland soon. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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The girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making - Catherynne Valente

The girl who circumnavigated Fairyland in a ship of her own making - Valente, Catherynne

Summary: Twelve-year-old September's ordinary life in Omaha turns to adventure when a Green Wind takes her to Fairyland to retrieve a talisman the new and fickle Marquess wants from the enchanted woods.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* When the Green Wind offers to whisk young September from her dull home in Nebraska off to Fairyland, she jumps at the chance and onto his flying leopard. Once in Fairyland (a self-aware mashup of surreal otherworlds from Wonderland to Oz to Neverland), she makes fast friends with a wyverary (the offspring of a dragon and a library); runs afoul of the wicked little girl Marquess, who rules the land with tyrannical poutiness; and traipses about in a loosely plotted series of merry, harrowing, and just plain weird adventures. September herself is a standard-issue fairy-tale fish out of water, ever flummoxed and begging pardon but given to sharp outbursts of pluck in pluckworthy situations. The setting, however, fairly bursts at the seams with darkness, wonder, and oodles of imaginative quirks, while Valente's busy and at times intrusive narration is thick, thorny, and stylistically vigorous. Chapters are headed by Juan's dreamy, stubby-figured drawings and a wry look forward ("In Which September Enters the Worsted Wood, Loses All Her Hair, Meets Her Death, and Sings It to Sleep"). The rich, dense vocabulary presents some tricky footing, but for readers like September, who "read often and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying," this book is quite simply a gold mine. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Wait until dark (DVD)

Wait until dark (DVD)

Summary: A photographer unwittingly smuggles a doll stuffed with heroin into New York City. His recently blinded wife, alone in their apartment, is first terrorized by hired crooks, and then by the psychopathic Roat, in search of the doll.


Review
Audrey Hepburn's last Oscar nomination was for this adaptation of Frederick Knott's famed stage thriller about a blind woman, a con man (Alan Arkin), and a doll full of heroin. Thanks to Hepburn's husband, a photographer who does a good deal of traveling, she's unknowingly come into possession of said doll, which was given to him on a plane by a comely young drug runner who winds up dead. The murderous Arkin, aided by sympathetic henchman Richard Crenna, will let nothing stand in the way of his obtaining it, even if it comes down to assaying multiple "personalities" in order to visit and terrorize Hepburn; Crenna is unwillingly enlisted to help. However, the "world's champion blind lady" (as Hepburn sardonically states) is more than up to the task of defending herself in her basement Manhattan apartment in a heart-stopping climax that to this day still defines the way horror movies with jack-in-the-box psychos are made. Despite the obvious staginess of it all (the entire action takes place in Hepburn's apartment), it still works magnificently, thanks to Hepburn's steely will and Arkin's deadly, sadistic madman. A helpful hint: turn out all the lights when you watch it; theaters back in 1967 did so, killing the guiding lights during the film's last 15 minutes. We can't tell you why, but trust us, it's worth it. --Mark Englehart amazon.com

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