9/23: New at the library this week

Videos:

• New Port South
• Solaris
• The getaway
• Second nature
• The cell
• Crime spree
• Turn of faith
• Rising sun
• The quick and the dead
• Enough
• Sphere
• Donnie Brasco
• Smoke signals

DVDs:

• Young Adam
• The black & blue collection
• Gardens of stone
• About Schmidt
• The rats
• Mazes and monsters
• Skeleton man
• Waterborne
• Muhammad Ali : through the eyes of the world
• Bats
• The grudge
• Man on the moon
• Best of Gallagher : Volume 1
• Young Ivanhoe

Books:

• Slim to none / Taylor Smith — After losing custody of her young son, security specialist Hannah Nicks has one goal: earn enough money to retire and raise her child. The fastest way to accomplish that is to take on a covert, privately funded mission in the Middle East, and in a war fueled more by money than morality, Hannah is on only one side—her own.
• The five lost aunts of Harriet Bean / Alexander McCall Smith — Alexander McCall Smith takes readers into the world of 9-year-old Harriet, who lives alone with her father, an absentminded inventor of extraordinary but useless things. When Harriet's father tells her one day that she has five aunts-his sisters-that he's never told her about before, and with whom he tragically lost touch in childhood, Harriet is delighted, and determined to track down each of her colourful aunts one-by-one. (Harriet Bean Series #1, Age Range: 7 to 9)
• Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats / Alexander McCall Smith — Harriet is invited to help her two mind-reading detective aunts, Thessalonika and Japonica, investigate serious cheating in the world of horse racing. Cunningly disguised by Aunt Thessalonika as a jockey, 9-year-old Harriet works to uncover the dastardly deeds of the unscrupulous League of Cheats. (Harriet Bean Series #2, Age Range: 7 to 9)
• The book of fate / Brad Meltzer — A two-hundred-year-old code devised by Thomas Jefferson becomes the key to a present-day conspiracy at the highest levels of Washington and the power elite of Palm Beach.
• Bread Alone : bold fresh loaves from your own hands / Daniel Leader, Judith Blahnik — In a richly told tale, Leader chronicles his crossings of America and Europe to locate the most vital ingredients at the source, to learn from the methods of the world's great bakers, and to perfect their traditional techniques. His recipes are ones that have been used for centuries: large sourdough ryes, rich and dark raisin pumpernickel loaves, real French pain au levain, big round wheats with walnuts, crusty baguettes, high and airy breads, and more.
• Changeling / Delia Sherman — Neef is a changeling, a human baby stolen by fairies and replaced with one of their own. She lives in "New York Between," a parallel Manhattan of elves, fairies, demons, and mythological spirits. Neef has always been protected by her (rat) nursemaid,Astris, until she winds up breaking Fairy Law. Now, unless she can meet the challenge of the Lady of Central Park, she'll be sacrificed to the bloodthirsty Wild Hunt. But Neef is a native New Yorker, streetwise and sharp, and she's determined to beat the rap.
• Hinduism and other Eastern religions: worship, festivals, and ceremonies from around the world / Trevor Barnes — World Faiths: Hinduism and Other Eastern Religions explores the major religions of the Eastern world, including Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. From Hindu gods and goddesses to life in a Buddhist monastery, it reveals the origins of each religion, the key elements of its belief systems, and the appeal of Eastern religions to the West. (Age Range: 12 and up)
• Islam : worship, festivals, and ceremonies from around the world / Trevor Barnes — Islam is practiced by almost one billion Muslims worldwide. World Faiths: Islam covers the life and teachings of the prophet Muhammad, as well as the development and history of Islam, the sacred text of the Koran, and important geographic locations like Mecca and Medina. This beautifully illustrated book also presents the crowning achievements of Islamic art and a fascinating survey of Islamic customs. (Age Range: 12 and up)
• Christianity : worship, festivals, and ceremonies from around the world / Trevor Barnes Christianity is practiced by almost a third of the world's population. World Faiths: Christianity tells the story of Jesus and examines how different festivals, including Christmas and Easter, are celebrated around the globe. It also explores the many divisions within Christianity, as well as the architecture of the world's great cathedrals and churches. (Age Range: 12 and up)
• Judaism : worship, festivals, and ceremonies from around the world / Trevor Barnes — From the early history of Judaism to the festivals celebrated today, World Faiths: Judaism is the definitive guide to the world's oldest monotheistic religion. All of the significant events, including the destruction of the Temple and the Diaspora, are vividly recounted. The importance of tradition—both written and oral—and the central role of worship in Jewish life are covered, as well as key rituals and celebrations such as the Passover meal. (Age Range: 12 and up)
• The weight of water / Anita Shreve — On a small island off the New Hampshire coast in 1873, two women were brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. A third woman survived the attack, hiding in a sea cave until dawn. More than a century later, a photographer, Jean, comes to the island to shoot a photo-essay about the legendary crime.
• At home with Michael Chiarello : easy entertaining, recipes, ideas, inspiration / Michael Chiarello — Celebrated television, cookbook, and restaurant chef Michael Chiarello is a master of simple, casually elegant cooking—and a fabulous host. In this cookbook—packed with great recipes, gorgeous photographs, and inspiring entertaining ideas—he shares his secrets for celebrating in style (and having fun doing it too!).

9/16: New at the library this week

Videos:

• The Sicilian
• Sweet dreams
• Cabaret
• Once upon a time in the west
• Broadcast news
• The neon empire
• The Family Man

DVDs:

• Red eye
• The greatest game ever played
• Saraband
• The family Stone
• Rent
• Tristan + Isolde
• Munich

Books:

• Water for elephants / Sara Gruen — When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town.
• Peter and the Starcatchers / Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson — Discover richly developed characters in the sweet but sophisticated Molly, the scary but familiar Black Stache, and the fearless Peter. Treacherous battles with pirates, foreboding thunderstorms at sea, and evocative writing immerse the reader in a story that slowly and finally reveals the secrets and mysteries of the beloved Peter Pan. (Peter Pan Series)
• Peter and the shadow thieves / Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson — Peter leaves the relative safety of Mollusk Island - along with his trusted companion, Tinker Bell - for the cold, damp, dangerous streets of London. On a difficult journey across the sea, he and Tink discover the dark and deadly slithering part-man/part-creature Lord Ombra, who is intent on recovering the missing starstuff - celestial dust that contains unimagined powers. (Peter Pan Series)
• Behind the curtain / Peter Abrahams — In echo falls you never know what's coming next -- and everyone has a secret. Things are amiss at 99 Maple Lane: Ingrid's dad's job is in jeopardy, but he won't explain why. Ingrid's brother, Ty, is getting buff -- really buff -- but when Ty starts getting moody, Ingrid wonders if there's more to his physical fitness than lifting weights. Meanwhile, Ingrid's beloved soccer coach is replaced by an icy newcomer named Julia LeCaine, who seems a little too savvy to be in it for the post game pizza. True to her hero, Sherlock Holmes, Ingrid begins fishing around to find out who's really pulling the strings in Echo Falls. Age Range: 12 and up (Echo Falls Mystery Series, #2)
• The rookie club / Danielle Girard — A seasoned inspector in the Sex Crimes department, Jamie Vail is on a terrifying case: female officers brutalized by a stranger who leaves no clues to his identity and whose sick game is turning into a deadly vendetta. As she hunts a killer, who could be one of their own, Jamie's time is running out-because she's the killer's ultimate prize.
• This dame for hire / Sandra Scoppettone — New York, 1943. Almost anything in pants has gone to serve Uncle Sam in the war - including Woody Mason, the head of a detective agency in midtown Manhattan. Left to run the show is his secretary, Faye Quick, who signed on to be a steno, not a shamus. At twenty-six and five foot four, there's not much to Faye, but she's got moxie - which she'll need when she stumbles over a dead girl in the street and takes on her first murder case. (Faye Quick Series, #1)
• The 5th horseman James Patterson — Somebody dies. A young mother is recuperating in a San Francisco hospital when she is suddenly gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. The hospital's doctors, some of the best in the nation, are completely mystified by her death. How did this happen? Apocalypse nears. This is not the first such case at the hospital. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse. (Women's Murder Club Series, #5)
• The complete book of boat electronics / Ernest A. Zadig —
• Long shadows / Susan Saxton D'Aoust — Story of the MacTavish family, set in Alaska

Help us make the best use of your donations

While the library is very pleased to receive donations of books that expand our collection in identified areas of need or that can be sold to augment our grant funding, there are things donors can do to help us take best advantage of your donations.

• Please call in advance (or drop by when we're open) to see if we want and can use your particular donations. There are many types of books or books in certain conditions that we cannot accept and our space for warehousing unwanted books is extremely limited. Other recipients might be better able to make use of your donations, and we can help guide you to some of these.
• Please call in advance (or drop by when we're open) to arrange a time for dropoff. Our library is staffed only a few hours and days a week. When you drop items at other times, books may become damaged or they may be beyond the physical capabilities of a particular volunteer to move. Big bundles of books dropped into the book return only damage our library materials and become weather-damaged themselves. Recently, a very large donation was left outside the library, without notice, for days in boxes too large for our volunteers to lift once they did discover them. In that time, the books became weather-damaged as well as suffering from the territorial marking practices of local dogs. Would you want to read these books or have your children read them? What a sad waste, and one that could have been prevented with a phone call.
• These are some donation types we welcome:
  • current or popular authors, fiction or nonfiction, in hard cover or trade (large format) paperback editions
  • any Alaskana titles
  • children's titles in good condition
  • movies on videotape or DVD with original packaging in good condition
  • music or book CDs or cassettes with original packaging in good condition
• These are some donation types that we regretfully cannot make use of:
  • books damaged by water, damp, mildew, smoke, mold, animal gnawing, food, or with torn pages or scribblings
  • textbooks
  • regular (small) format paperbacks, although you are welcome to add them to the paperback trade carousel in the hall outside the library (please don't just drop them on the floor for volunteers to put away)
  • encyclopedia sets
  • large back issue collections of magazines
  • instructional videos that came with building supplies or appliances
  • homemade/home-recorded videotapes or ripped DVDs/CDs

Remember—all it takes is a quick call or visit to make sure that we're the best recipient for your donations and can make good use of them once you deliver them. Our phone numbers, email address and open hours are at the head of this page and posted on the library door. And if we can't use your donations, we'll be happy to make suggestions for other good uses of these items. Like you, we don't want to see them go to waste.

9/9: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Memoirs of a geisha

Books:

• Why Darwin matters : the case against intelligent design / Michael Shermer —A creationist-turned-scientist demonstrates the facts of evolution and exposes Intelligent Design's real agenda.
• Digging to America / Anne Tyler —In what is perhaps her richest and most deeply searching novel, Anne Tyler gives us a story about what it is to be an American, and about Maryam Yazdan, who after thirty-five years in this country must finally come to terms with her 'outsiderness.'
• Copper River / William Kent Krueger —This book finds Cork O'Connor running for his life from professional hit men who have already put a bullet through his leg. Desperate, he finds sanctuary outside a small town called Bodine on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in an old resort owned by his cousin, Jewell DuBois. (Cork O'Connor Mystery Series)
• Crime beat : a decade of covering cops and killers / Michael Connelly —Before he became a novelist, Michael Connelly was a crime reporter, covering the detectives who worked the homicide beat in Florida and Los Angeles. In vivid, hard-hitting articles, Connelly leads the reader past the yellow police tape as he follows the investigators, the victims, their families and friends--and, of course, the killers--to tell the real stories of murder and its aftermath.
• Living rooms / Amanda Harling
• The complete book of floorcloths : designs & techniques for painting great-looking canvas rugs / Kathy Cooper —Two dozen different methods for creating and embellishing a design; eight projects ranging from geometric patterns to freeform squiggles; 63 artists showing off a glorious range of contemporary work: and dozens of luscious pictures: in short, it's the home decorator's dream guide to making the perfect floorcloth.
• The Hawaiian quilt / Reiko Mochinaga Brandon
• Hand-painting china : how to design and paint your own beautiful ceramics, without the need for kiln-firing / Lesley Harle
• The book of beads : a practical and inspirational guide to beads and jewelry making / Janet Coles
• The garden problem solver / Reader's Digest Association —Few sites offer ideal conditions for the gardener. An eyesore, such as an old (but useful) storage shed, might dominate the scene. Or perhaps your site has a steep slope making garden design difficult. Still other gardens are shady or have very acidic or poor alkaline soil. For any and all of these situations, help is finally at hand.
• 52 McGs. : the best obituaries from legendary New York Times writer Robert McG. Thomas Jr. / Robert McG. Thomas —Among his devoted fans, his pieces were known simply as McGs. With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" (Columbia Journalism Review), Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit.
• Messenger of truth / Jacqueline Winspear —London, 1931. The night before an exhibition of his artwork opens at a famed Mayfair gallery, the controversial artist Nick Bassington-Hope falls to his death. The police rule it an accident, but Nick's twin sister, Georgina, a wartime journalist and a infamous figure in her own right, isn't convinced. When the authorities refuse to consider her theory that Nick was murdered, Georgina seeks out a fellow graduate from Girton College, Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, for help. (Maisie Dobbs Series, #4)
• Cover of night / Linda Howard —In the charming rural town of Trail Stop, Idaho, accessible to the outside world by only a single road, young widow Cate Nightingale lives peacefully with her four-year-old twin boys, running a bed-and-breakfast. Though the overnight guests are few and far between - occasional hunters and lake fishermen - Cate always manages to make ends meet with the help of the local jack-of-all-trades, Calvin Harris, who can handle everything from carpentry to plumbing. But Calvin is not what he seems, and Cate's luck is about to run out.
• Blue screen / Robert B. Parker —Buddy Bollen is a C-list movie mogul who made his fortune producing films of questionable artistic merit. When Buddy hires Sunny Randall to protect his rising star and girlfriend, Erin Flint, Sunny knows from the start that the prickly, spoiled beauty won't make her job easy. And when Erin's sister, Misty, is found dead in the lavish home they share with sugar daddy Bollen, there doesn't seem to be a single lead worth pursuing. (Sunny Randall Series, #5)
• Kinds of love / May Sarton — Friendship, marriage, and intertwined lives in a small New Hampshire town.
• George Washington : a life / Willard Sterne Randall —Randall tells the fascinating tale of a man who turned an impoverished childhood into a life of creative rebellion and creation. He follows Washington's rise to greatness as he turns from managing plantations to becoming a professional soldier and eventually joining in the fight again taxation without representation, which would spark the American Revolution.
• Alaska's sky follies : the funny side of flying in the far north / Joe Rychetnik —You know those outlandish tales you've heard about early bush pilots of the Far North? Turns out some of them are true.
• The Esprit quilt collection / Julie Silber
• Dr. Seuss goes to war / Theodor Seuss Geisel —For decades, readers throughout the world have enjoyed the marvelous stories and illustrations of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. But few know Geisel's work as a political cartoonist during World War II for the New York daily newspaper PM. In these marvelously trenchant cartoons, Geisel captured the Zeitgeist - especially the attitudes of the New Deal liberals who read PM - with a wonderful Seussian flair.
• The quilt design workbook / Beth Richardson Gutcheon
• Last climb : the legendary Everest expeditions of George Mallory / David Breashears —George Leigh Mallory is not the only man to have died tragically on the forbidding heights of Mount Everest, but he is surely the most famous. When he and Andrew Irvine disappeared into the mists not far from the summit in June 1924, they climbed into mountaineering legend. For more than 70 years, the fraternity of high-altitude adventurers could only speculate on their fate--until 1999 when Mallory's body was found at last, 2,000 feet below the summit.
• Calming crafts : relaxing crafts to inspire your creativity / Dawn Frankfort

9/2: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Oliver's travels

Books:

• Killer instinct / Joseph Finder — Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive living in Boston andsworking for an electronics giant, a competitorsto Sony and Panasonic. He's a witty, charismatic guy who's well liked at the office, but he lacks the "killer instinct" necessary to move up the corporate ladder. To the chagrin of his ambitious wife, it looks as if his career has hit a ceiling. Jason's been sidelined.
• The foreign correspondent / Alan Furst —an epic story of romantic love, love of country, and love of freedom- the story of a secret war fought in elegant hotel bars and first-class railway cars, in the mountains of Spain and the backstreets of Berlin. It is an inspiring, thrilling saga of everyday people forced by their hearts' passion to fight in the war against tyranny.
• Telegraph days / Larry McMurtry — Told in the voice of Nellie Courtright, a spunky, courageous, attractive young woman whose story this is in part, Telegraph Days is the big novel of the Western gunfighters that people have been hoping for years Larry McMurtry would write.
• Full of grace / Dorothea Benton — Hilton Head, a South Carolina retirement heaven -- at least it's supposed to be, but for Big Al and Connie Russo, the move from New Jersey to this southern paradise has been fraught with just a few complications. Especially for their daughter, Grace.
• Frank Spencer and the wildfire / Hannah C. Watkins — Another disaster-related story book for young readers, published in cooperation with the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Previous stories in the series have focused on other common threats like tsunami and earthquake.
• Slaves in the family / Edward Ball — First-time author and award-winning journalist Edward Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black and white, who lived and worked on the Balls' South Carolina plantations. It is an unprecedented family record that reveals how the painful legacy of slavery continues to endure in America's collective memory and experience. (1998 National Book Award for nonfiction)
• The hunt club / John T. Lescroart — A federal judge is murdered, found shot to death in his home - together with the body of his mistress. The crime grips San Francisco. To homicide inspector Devin Juhle, it first looks like a simple case of a wife's jealousy and rage. But Juhle's investigation reveals that the judge had powerful enemies...some of whom may have been willing to kill to prevent him from meddling in their affairs.
• Don't know much about geography : everything you need to know about the world but never learned / Kenneth C. Davis — The author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller Don't Know Much About History now takes us on a fascinating, breathtaking and hilarious grand tour of the planet Earth — opening our eyes and imaginations to a wide, wild, and wonderful world we never knew.
• E=mc2 : a biography of the world's most famous equation / David Bodanis — In this lucid and brilliant book, one of the best popularizers of science illuminates one of science's most complex concepts. Ranging widely from Exit signs in theatres to the future fate of the earth, from smoke detectors to black holes and the structure of the atom, David Bodanis delivers a scintillating and colourful account of the real meaning of E=mc2.
• Lost angel / Mike Doogan — Moses Wright founded the Christian commune of Rejoice. The rough-and-tumble interior of Alaska may seem a strange place for such a community, but for twenty years it has served as a beacon in the wilderness. Two decades later Moses granddaughter, Faith, is the star of the younger generation. Pretty and intelligent, she's the first teenager in the town to choose to experience the outside world. When Faith disappears, the elders of Rejoice look beyond their village for help.
• In the company of soldiers : a chronicle of combat / Rick Atkinson — For soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, the road to Baghdad began with a midnight flight out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in late February 2003. For Rick Atkinson, who would spend nearly two months covering the division for The Washington Post, the war in Iraq provided a unique opportunity to observe today's U.S. Army in combat. Now, in this extraordinary account of his odyssey with the 101st, Atkinson presents an intimate and revealing portrait of the soldiers who fight the expeditionary wars that have become the hallmark of our age.
• There's no place like hope : a guide to beating cancer in mind-sized bites / Vickie Girard —