NEW ARRIVALS

ADULT FICTION

"Impact" by Douglas J. Preston - "the U.S. president's science adviser asks former CIA operative Wyman Ford to look into the sudden appearance of radioactive gemstones, in particular to identify the precise location of their origin in Cambodia. Meanwhile, college dropout and frustrated astronomer Abbey Straw, who believes she witnessed a meteor's fall, embarks on a search of small islands near her Maine home to locate pieces of the meteorite to sell on eBay. In California, soon-to-be murdered professor Jason Freeman sends Mark Corso, a Mars mission technician at the National Propulsion Facility, a classified hard drive with evidence of gamma rays emanating from the red planet. The three story lines end up neatly intersecting, though the final payoff doesn't do justice to the engaging setup. - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2009.

"Noah's Compass" by Anne Tyler - "Liam Pennywell is a man of unexceptional talents, plain demeanor, modest means and curtailed ambition. At age 60, he's been fired from his teaching job at a 'second- rate private boys' school' in Baltimore...Liam is jolted into alarm after he's attacked in his apartment and loses all memory of the experience. His search to recover those lost hours leads him into an uneasy exploration of his disappointing life and into an unlikely new relationship with Eunice, a socially inept walking fashion disaster who is half his age. She is also spontaneous and enthusiastic, and Liam longs to cast off his inertia and embrace the 'joyous recklessness' that he feels in her company. Tyler's gift is to make the reader empathize with this flawed but decent man, and to marvel at how this determinedly low-key, plainspoken novelist achieves miracles of insight and understanding." - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2009.

MYSTERY

"Kisser" by Stuart Woods - "Stone Barrington, the handsome New York lawyer smoothly picks up Carrie Cox, an aspiring actress who's recently moved from Georgia to New York City, at Elaine's, his favorite Manhattan restaurant. ..He manages to shield Carrie from her ex-husband, protect young heiress Hildy Parsons from a con artist/drug dealer, and plot to take down Ponzi scammer Sig Larsen. Too crafty to let Barrington sail unscathed through encounters with women or criminals, Woods devises plenty of snarls to provoke laughs and keep the action interesting in a series that excels at playing out male fantasies." (Jan.). 304pg. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2009.

"Wolf at the Door" by Jack Higgins - "This novel reads like a family reunion, as characters from previous novels show up and quickly discover they have targets on their backs. Who would want to kill them and why? After Higgins' main character, Sean Dillon, figures out the puzzle, the story line moves back in time to unveil the reason for the revenge plot and the man hired to carry out the mission. As a result, the familiar characters in whom fans are most interested end up taking a backseat to the revenge story. The overall result is hit and miss. When focusing on Dillon and his friends, the novel shines with all the Higgins flash, but the rest of the book is pedestrian at best. For Higgins completists. -- Jeff Ayers. 320pg. Booklist Online Review. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2010.

ADULT NON-FICTION

"Food Rules: An Eaters Manual" by Michael Pollan - "...offers a 'choral voice of popular food wisdom.' Pollan consulted a wide range of experts--including doctors, anthropologists and 'large numbers of mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers'--to arrive at this collection of 64 straightforward and simple 'personal policies' for eating. With 'Food Rules', Pollan hopes to make 'everyday decision- making easier and swifter.' As he wryly notes, 'It is entirely possible to eat healthily without knowing what an antioxidant is.' 112pg. BOOKPAGE, c2010.

"Superfreakonomics: Tales of Altruism, Terrorism, and Poorly Paid Prostitutes" by Steven D. Levitt - "Freaky topics include the oldest profession (hookers charge less nowadays because the sexual revolution has produced so much free competition), money-hungry monkeys (yep, that involves prostitution, too) and the dunderheadedness of Al Gore. There's not much substance to the authors' project of applying economics to all of life. Their method is to notice some contrarian statistic (adult seat belts are as effective as child-safety seats in preventing car-crash fatalities in children older than two), turn it into 'economics' by tacking on a perfunctory cost-benefit analysis (seat belts are cheaper and more convenient) and append a libertarian sermonette (governments 'tend to prefer the costly-and-cumbersome route'). The point of these lessons is to bolster the economist's view of people as rational actors, altruism as an illusion and government regulation as a folly of unintended consequences. The intellectual content is pretty thin, but it's spiked with the crowd-pleasing provocations--''A pimp's services are considerably more valuable than a realtor's'' --that spell bestseller." (Nov.). 288pg. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2009.

BIOGRAPHY

"Honour and the Shame" by John Kenneally - "Kenneally's memoir focuses on the years 1938 to 1948, and, although it was written roughly five decades after the fact, it is a vivid, you-are-there chronicle of 10 years of hard soldiering. The author is a blunt, bare-bones writer--he calls his own mother and her friend 'a couple of fairly high-class whores'--and his spare prose is perfectly suited to the often stark, brutal story he is telling. The most striking element of the book is the author's refusal to portray himself as a hero. He was a soldier doing his duty, a man who did something extraordinary because it was the most effective course of action under the circumstances. For readers of wartime memoirs, this one's a winner." David Pitt. 288pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"Witness to Nuremberg" by Ronald Sonnenfeldt - "In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. By the time he was 18, Sonnenfeldt had grown up in Germany, escaped to England, been deported to Australia as a "German enemy alien", arrived in the U.S., and joined the U.S. army. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials."

DVD's

"Couple's Retreat" - A laugh-out-loud comedy about eight friends whose vacation in paradise is one they'll never forget.

MUSIC

"Quiet Nights" with Diane Krall - "an intimate recording of ballads and bossa novas from the team that brought you her best-selling GRAMMY Award-winning CD The Look of Love."

YOUNG ADULT

"Bloodline" by Katy Moran - Gr. 9-12. The sword-and-shield pageantry found in Tolkien's Middle- Earth and Paolini's Alagaesia gets a historically based tweak in this adventure set in Britain circa 650 CE. In a land where allegiance to lords is held above all else, Essa is a young man with no king. The son of a roving trader and secret-peddler named Cai, Essa finds himself consumed with his ancestry: he is neither fully Wolf Folk nor Wixma nor Northumbrian, treads the line between British and Anglish, and has no mother--and then Cai disappears, too. Three years later, a routine reconnaissance mission mires Essa within a coming war between kingdoms. Keeping track of the various factions is a chore eased somewhat by a chart at the front of the book; Moran, nonetheless, prevails on the strength of her theme of shifting loyalties, as only fealty to his true self can pull our hero through. Essa's ability to see through the eyes of animals seems a bit tacked on, but once the climactic struggle kicks in, the result is no less than rousing. Daniel Kraus. 320pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"Maze Runner" by James Dashner - "Thomas, his memory wiped out, is thrust into the center of an enormous maze, where other teens have constructed a survivalist society. No one knows why they're there, or where they came from, but each day they send out runners into the constantly shifting, monster-infested labyrinth to search for a way out. As memories start to trickle back in and circumstances grow increasingly dire, Thomas suspects he knows more about the maze than he should. The withholding and then revelation of crucial information tend toward contrivance and convenience, but the tantalizing hints of a ravaged world outside make for gripping reading. Although this opening volume will appeal to the same audience as hot dystopian thrillers like The Hunger Games (2008), it doesn't promise the same level of devotion. With much of the more intriguing head-game aspects left unexplored, though, the potential for a rousing continuation of the story certainly exists." Ian Chipman. 384pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.


JUVENILE FICTION

"All the Broken Pieces: A Novel in Verse" by Ann E. Burg - "Airlifted from Vietnam at the end of the war and adopted by a loving American family, Matt Pin, 12, is haunted by what he left behind, even as he bonds with his new little brother and becomes a star pitcher on the school baseball team. In rapid, simple free verse, the first-person narrative gradually reveals his secrets: his memories of mines, flames, screams, helicopters, bombs, and guns, as well as what the war did to his little brother (He followed me / everywhere, / he follows me still). But this stirring debut novel is about much more than therapy and survivor guilt. When his parents take Matt to a veterans' meeting, he hears the soldiers' stories of injury and rejection and begins to understand why the school bully calls him frogface (My brother died / Because of you). There is occasional contrivance as Matt eavesdrops on adults. But the haunting metaphors are never forced, and the intensity of the simple words, on the baseball field and in the war zone, will make readers want to rush to the end and then return to the beginning again to make connections between past and present, friends and enemies." Hazel Rochman. 224pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Fogg" by W. R. Philbrick - "After his older brother Harold is forced to join the Union Army, Homer runs away from their wicked uncle's farm to save him. His southward journey divides easily into episodic adventures: outwitting two slave-hunting scoundrels with the help of a wealthy abolitionist; traveling south with an easily duped young clergyman; joining a medicine show led by a mysterious man; fleeing in a hot-air balloon with a disastrous flaw; and arriving at Gettysburg in time for the battle. If these adventures seem a little too colorful to be quite believable, first-person narrator Homer begins his tale by saying, the truth don't come easy to me. The narrator's humor and folksy charm bubbles to the surface from time to time, despite a streak of cruelty that runs straight through the story, from the farm to the battlefield. Notes on the period and a glossary are appended. This eventful, episodic novel is accessible to a younger audience than many others set during the Civil War." Carolyn Phelan. 224pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"Slob" by Ellen Potter - Gr. 4-7 Twelve-year-old Owen and his sister attend a progressive New York City school where there are no desks, 'Just workstations. Which are basically desks.' Despite the school motto, 'Compassion, Not Competition,' overweight Owen is victimized by his sadistic gym teacher as well as by many fellow students. In his spare time, he attempts to construct a video playback time machine in order to discover who murdered his parents two years earlier. Slowly, Owen realizes whom he can trust and what matters to him now. Self-aware and ironic, Owen makes a sympathetic narrator. Readers will also enjoy the portrayals of his younger sister Caitlin, who insists that her name is Jeremy now that she's joined GWAB (Girls Who Are Boys), and transfer student/outcast Mason Rigg, who, rumor has it, carries a switchblade tucked into his sock. Loose ends that appear in the narrative early on are tied up a little too neatly by the end, but the vividly drawn characters offer plenty to enjoy along the way." Carolyn Phelan. 208pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech -
Gr. 4-6 In the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, an American man and his daughter, Zola, move to a small town hoping to establish an international school that promotes peace. It turns out that the building that they inhabit is occupied by a nameless angel, who is unsure of its true calling. As Zola and the angel bond, they discover a ragtag group of young orphans, whom they bring home to live with them, bringing youthful life back to the sleepy community of mostly elderly residents. Throughout, the language is written in a sometimes distracting, naive style: 'Sometimes a people needs an angel and sometimes an angel needs a people. I am also gladful the childrens came to our village.' While there is less humor than one often expects from Creech, she stretches her already accomplished wings to provide an ethereal effect, somewhat reminiscent of Lois Lowry's Gossamer (2006), that will draw many readers to this metaphysical parable. Andrew Medlar. 176pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009

JUVENILE NON-FICTION

"Nubs, The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine & a Miracle" by Major Brian Dennis - "K-Gr. 3. Major Brian Dennis wasn't looking for a pet. In fact, for marines serving in Iraq, such a thing was against orders. As it turned out, nothing--not rules, not distance, not war--was going to keep them apart. Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery, ... pair with Dennis on this hugely inspirational true account of 'Nubs' (so named because his ears had been cut off by an unknown perpetrator) and his devotion to the American soldier who befriended him. At first, Dennis only rubbed the dog's belly and shared some rations before embarking on a two-month mission. But when Dennis returned, so did a cold and injured Nubs. Dennis was able to clean the animal's wounds, but two more missions meant more abandonment. That's when the unbelievable occurred: through freezing temperatures the mutt limped for 70 miles until he found his friend. Simple dotted-line maps make Nubs' various journeys palpable. The gritty, low-res shots of the two companions against the bleak Iraqi horizon are married with text so gracefully that many of the compositions could be book jackets. Dennis' emails and various other official documents liven the layout, but the payoff is the grinning face on Nubs' American passport. At long last, he was going home." Daniel Kraus. 48pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

"The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau" by Dan Yaccarino - "The brief, evenly paced text, which includes a few direct quotes, describes Cousteau's lifelong fascination with the sea, filmmaking, and invention, beginning with depictions of the scientist as a young boy, tinkering with cameras and swimming in the ocean to recover from chronic illness. Rendered in gouache and airbrush, the playful illustrations evoke popular mid- twentieth-century patterns and shades--a fitting reference to Cousteau's professional heyday. A few scenes seem to emphasize design over realistic depictions: undersea vessels, in particular, are indistinct shapes, and Cousteau himself often appears as a stylized figure. The fanciful, textured images give a sense of the sea's infinite swirl of life, though, and they are further grounded by the solid, straightforward words." Gillian Engberg. 40pg. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2009.

PICTURE BOOKS

"Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants" by J.D. Lester
"Bartleby Speaks" by Robin Cruise
"Come to the Castle" by Lynda Ashman
"Easter Egg" by Jan Brett
"Hello Baby" by Mem Fox
"Let's Do Nothing" by Tony Fucile
"Lousy Rotten, Stinkin Grapes" by Margie Palatini
"Otis" by Loren Long
"Princess Hyacinth(The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated)" by Florence Parry Heidi
"Read It! Don't Eat It! by Ian Schoenner
"Roawr!" by Barbara Josse
"Secret Circus" by Johanna Wright
"Surprise Soup" by Mary Ann Rodman
"Thunder-Boomer!" by Shutta Crum

More to come in the next few days! Come in, borrow a volume and enjoy!