4/28: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Man of la Mancha

Books:

• Angle of repose / Wallace Earle Stegner — Angle of Repose tells the story of Lyman Ward, a retired professor of history and author of books about the Western frontier, who returns to his ancestral home of Grass Valley, California, in the Sierra Nevada. Wheelchair-bound with a crippling bone disease and dependent on others for his every need, Ward is nonetheless embarking on a search of monumental proportions - to rediscover his grandmother, now long dead, who made her own journey to Grass Valley nearly a hundred years earlier. Like other great quests in literature, Lyman Ward's investigation leads him deep into the dark shadows of his own life. (read an exerpt)
• The organized life : secrets of an expert organizer / Stephanie Denton — You'll find tips, checklists and easy-to-follow guidelines for organizing every part of your life, including: Paper piles, Grocery shopping, Home office, Closets & clothes, Garage, Kitchen & pantry, Holiday shopping & storage, Photos & memorabilia, Kids' rooms & toys, Bedroom & bathroom. Real-life examples and inspiring full-color photos show you how to make these proven techniques work for you, no matter how busy vou are.
• The Book Club / Mary Alice Monroe — On the surface, it is a monthly book club. But for five women, it is something more precious — a chance to share their hopes and fears and triumphs. They are women in transition, and as they embrace the challenge of change, they will hold fast to the true magic of the book club — friendship.
• The bad quarto / Jill Paton Walsh — The campus of St. Agatha's College, Cambridge University, is steeped in history. One particular building, however, has a history that most would rather forget-- a tower that has drawn several students to their death. Much discouraged by the authorities, it is a college tradition for students to try their luck jumping the gap between a window and a pediment--nicknamed Harding's Folly--and the gap has recently claimed another victim, a glamorous and controversial Shakespearean scholar. (Series: Imogen Quy Mysteries Series)
• River secrets / Shannon Hale — Razo has no idea why he was chosen to be a soldier. He can barely swing a sword, and his brothers are forever wrestling him to the ground. Razo is sure it's out of pity that his captain asks him to join an elite mission--escorting the ambassador into Tira, Bayern's great enemy. (Age Range: Young Adult)
• Enna burning / Shannon Hale — Enna and Princess Isi became fast friends in The Goose Girl, but after Isi married Prince Geric, Enna returned to the forest. Enna's simple life changes forever when she learns to wield fire and burn anything at will. Enna is convinced that she can use her ability for good--to fight Tira, the kingdom threatening the Bayern borders--and goes on secret raids to set fire to the Tiran camps and villages. But as the power of the fire grows stronger, she is less able to control her need to burn. (Age Range: Young Adult)
• Arctic thaw : the people of the whale in a changing climate / Peter Lourie — How will climbing temperatures affect the ancient culture of the Inupiat people of Alaska's North Slope? Their culture revolves around the tradition of hunting bowhead whales from a platform of ice on the water. The hunt is the great cooperative endeavor that brings the community together to work, store food for lean times, tell stories, dance, and give new life to old traditions. Now the permafrost is thawing, and increasing dangers await whale hunters as the sea ice becomes fragile.
• Plum lovin' / Janet Evanovich — It’s a new year for Stephanie, Lula and the gang—and Connie Rosolli has a secret admirer. Or does she? Connie is getting two kinds of anonymous mail: love letters and hate mail—could they be from the same person? Or does Connie have two stalkers? Stephanie is determined to find out the truth. (Series: Stephanie Plum Mystery Series; read a sample chapter)
• City of bones / Cassandra Clare — When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder — much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing — not even a smear of blood — to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy? (Series: Mortal Instruments Series, #1; Age Range: Young Adult)

4/21: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• A thief of time
• Skinwalkers
• Coyote waits
• The state within
• Inspector Lewis

4/14: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• The departed

Books:

• Water like a stone / Deborah Crombie — When Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid takes Gemma, Kit, and Toby for a holiday visit to his family in Cheshire, Gemma is soon entranced with Nantwich's pretty buildings and the historic winding canal, and young Kit is instantly smitten with his cousin Lally. But their visit is marred by family tensions exacerbated by the unraveling of Duncan's sister Juliet's marriage. And tensions are brought to the breaking point on Christmas Eve with Juliet's discovery of a mummified infant's body interred in the wall of an old dairy barn—a tragedy hauntingly echoed by the recent drowning of Peter Llewellyn, a schoolmate of Lally's. (Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James Series, #11; read a sample chapter)
• Man in the middle / Brian Haig — Dispatched to investigate the suicide of one of D.C.'s most influential defense officials--an ardent, early supporter of the war in Iraq--Drummond and his female partner find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war between Washington's most influential power brokers and his own personal allegiance to the soldiers dying overseas. (read a sample chapter)
• People of the nightland / W. Michael Gear. ; Kathleen O'Neal Gear — It has been a thousand years since Wolf Dreamer lead his people up through the dark hole in the ice to a rich, untouched continent bursting with game. But the world has changed. When a young orphaned boy named Silvertip receives a vision from Wolf Dreamer that their world is about to end, no one believes him--no one except a jaded war chief and a little girl. (First North Americans Series)
• Lush / Natasha Friend — It's hard to be a thirteen-year-old-girl. But it's even harder when your father's a drunk. It adds an extra layer to everything - your family's reaction to things, the friends you're willing to bring home, the way you see yourself and the world. For Samantha, it's something that has been going on for so long that she's almost used to it. Only, you never get used to it. Especially when it starts to get worse. (Age Range: Young Adult)
• Song of Solomon / Toni Morrison — Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. With this novel, Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family's origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized black world. (read an exerpt)
• Fight fat : secrets to successful weight loss / Alisa Bauman
• Low-fat living cookbook : skillpower not willpower / Leslie L. Cooper — The Low-Fat Living program is not a diet. It's a system that shows you how to make simple "switches" in your everyday eating patterns.
• Eat great lose weight : tried and true recipes and tips from real weight-loss winners / Jane Kirby
• Dead and berried / Karen MacInerney — developers have returned to Cranberry Island. This time, theyre planning to wipe out a natural cranberry bog, along with the island's namesake berries, to build a luxury subdivision. Natalie Barnes isn't sweet on the idea of commercial interests souring their cozy oasis, but the single innkeeper has other problems on her plate: a withering relationship with her best friend Charlene, the sudden appearance of her ex-fiancé with a tempting proposal, and eerie bumps in the night suggesting the Gray Whale Inn is haunted.
• Pillsbury baking / Pillsbury Company — This is the cookbook with fun family appeal that draws upon the Pillsbury consumer's love of easy baking, packed with choice recipes for baked goods and the latest baking information.

Comment on the Alaska quarter design

The Alaska Commemorative Coin Commission is collecting comments on the four Alaska quarter design finalists. Public comments are welcomed through April 22, 2007.

4/5: New at the library this week

Videos:

• Hard candy
• Mrs. Harris
• She's the man

DVDs:

• Anne of Avonlea
• DaVinci's inquest, season 1
• Babel
• World War II: when lions roared
• Road to Bali; Road to Rio
• When it was a game
• Nacho libre

Books:

• At some disputed barricade / Anne Perry — July 1917: Joseph Reavley, a chaplain, and his sister Judith, an ambulance driver, are bone-weary as they approach the fourth year of the conflict; the peace of the English countryside seems a world away. (World War One Series #4; read an exerpt)
• Secrets of a family album / Isla Dewar — Obsessively neat Lily, a writer who writes about writers, is asked to interview the enigmatic Rita Boothe, journalist, photographer, self-styled culinary expert and wit. Sitting in Rita's living room, leafing through a book of photographs from the early seventies, Lily comes across a picture of an incandescently sexy young woman sitting in the back of a limousine swigging Jack Daniels. It is her mother, Mattie.
• Bad blood / Linda A. Fairstein — Defendant Brendan Quillian, a prominent young businessman, is charged with the brutal strangulation of his beautiful young wife, Amanda. His conviction is not a certainty: Quillian was conveniently out of town on the day of the killing, and he has hired a formidable defense attorney who seems one step ahead of Cooper as the trial opens. But with the help of detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, she is confident she can prove Quillian paid a hit man to commit the crime. (Alexandra Cooper Series; read a sample chapter)
• Step on a crack / James Patterson — With the unexpected death of a beloved former first lady, the nation falls into mourning as the world's most powerful people gather in New York for her funeral. Then the inconceivable occurs. Billionaires, politicians, and superstars of every kind are suddenly trapped by one man's brilliant and ruthless scenario.
• The suspect / John T. Lescroart — When Dr. Caryn Dryden is found floating dead in her hot tub, homicide inspector Devin Juhle targets a suspect close to home: her husband, Stuart Gorman. After all, Stuart was recently asked for a divorce, and he stands to gain millions in insurance. His alibi - that he was at his cabin on Tamarack Lake that weekend - doesn't keep him out of hot water. But maybe a shrewd attorney will.
• The best life diet / Bob Greene — a lifetime plan for losing weight and keeping it off. Bob Greene helped Oprah achieve her dramatic weight loss, and he can help you too. You'll eat the same delicious food that Oprah enjoys, and, just like Oprah, you'll have Bob to encourage you at every step.
• An Irish country doctor / Patrick Taylor — Barry Laverty, M.D., can barely find the village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there, but already he knows that there is nowhere he would rather live than in the emerald hills and dales of Northern Ireland. The proud owner of a spanking-new medical degree and little else in the way of worldly possessions, Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice.
• The road / Cormac McCarthy — A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearting, a cart of scavenged food-and each other. (read an exerpt)
• From Baghdad, with love : a Marine, the war, and a dog named Lava / Jay Kopelman — When Marines enter an abandoned house in Fallujah, Iraq, and hear a suspicious noise, they clench their weapons, edge around the corner, and prepare to open fire. What they find during the U.S.–led attack on the "most dangerous city on Earth," however, is not an insurgent bent on revenge, but a tiny puppy left behind when most of the city's population fled before the bombing. Despite military law that forbids the keeping of pets, the Marines de-flea the pup with kerosene, de-worm him with chewing tobacco, and fill him up on Meals Ready to Eat. (read an exerpt)
• Do-it-yourself home improvement : a step-by-step guide / Julian Cassell — Covering everything you need to know for any home task. From quick-fix repair jobs to major construction, this is the ultimate visual guide to every aspect of home improvement.