7/28: New at the library this week

Videos:

• The front page

Books:

• Crispin : the cross of lead / Avi — England in the year 1377. Thirteen-Year-old Crispin, has no parents, no home, no name. Yet he is being pursued, and his life is threatened. As he seeks to find out why, he must first learn who and what he is. (Age Range: 12 and up; 2003 Newbery Medal)
• Body surfing / Anita Shreve — At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing once again, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a wellto- do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage. But when the Edwards' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt for herself is threatened. (read a sample chapter)
• Secret asset / Stella Rimington — Liz has always been particularly skilled at “assessing people,” and when one of her agents reports suspicious meetings taking place at an Islamic bookshop, she trusts her instinct that a terrorist cell is at work. Her boss, Charles Wetherby, Director of Counter-Terrorism, knows to trust Liz’s instincts as well: he immediately puts a surveillance operation into place. (Liz Carlyle Series, #2; read a sample chapter)
• The night ferry / Michael Robotham — Ali Barba, a Sikh detective with the Metropolitan Police, is recovering from injuries sustained in the line of duty when she receives a letter from her estranged friend, Cate, imploring her to come to their high school reunion. Alarmed by the urgent tone of the note, and eager to make amends for her unforgivable past behavior, Ali goes to the reunion. Cate is pregnant, but before Ali has the chance to congratulate her, Cate hurriedly whispers, “They want to take my baby. You have to stop them.” (read a sample chapter)
• The far reaches / Homer H. Hickam — The year is 1943 and World War II in the Pacific rages on, with Americans engaged in desperate battles against a cunning enemy. Coast Guard Captain Josh Thurlow is on hand at the invasion of Tarawa, as the U.S. Navy begins the grand strategy of throwing her marines at island after bloody island across the Pacific. But nothing goes as planned as young Americans go up against fanatical defenders, who revel in snipers, big guns, and human wave attacks from which there is no escape save death. (read a sample chapter)
• The ladies' man / Elinor Lipman — Thirty unmarried years have passed since the barely suitable Harvey Nash failed to show up at a grand Boston hotel for his own engagement party. Today, the near-bride, Adele Dobbin, and her two sisters, Lois and Kathleen, blame Harvey for what unkind relatives call their spinsterhood, and what potential beaus might characterize as a leery, united front. The doorbell rings one cold April night. Harvey Nash, older, filled with regrets (sort of), more charming and arousable than ever, just in from the Coast, where he's reinvented himself as Nash Harvey, jingle composer and chronic bachelor, has returned to the scene of his first romantic crime. (read a sample chapter)
• Fast food nation : the dark side of the all-American meal / Eric Schlosser — Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but here Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. (read a sample chapter)
• Knitting in the round / Jeanne Stauffer — With circular-and double-pointed needles, discover the pleasure of having fewer seams to sew at the end. And for larger projects, you won't have long straight needles poking out to the side. (table of contents)
• The good husband of Zebra Drive / Alexander McCall Smith — Automobile repair shop owner Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni -- husband of Botswana's leading, and only, female private detective, Precious Ramotswe -- unexpectedly approaches his wife with the ill-conceived idea of becoming a part-time investigator; one of Matekoni's bumbling apprentices quits; and Ramotswe's longtime assistant, Grace Makutsi, suddenly resigns. (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series, #8; read a sample chapter)

7/21: New at the library this week

Videos:

• The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

DVDs:

• The gods must be crazy

Books:

• The devil's bed / William Kent Krueger — When President Clay Dixon's father-in-law -- a former vice president -- is injured in a farming accident, First Lady Kate Dixon returns to Minnesota to be at his side. Assigned to protect her, Secret Service agent Bo Thorsen soon falls under Kate's spell. He also suspects the accident is part of a trap set for Kate by David Moses, an escaped mental patient who once loved her. What Bo and Moses don't realize is that they're caught in a web of deadly intrigue spun by a seemingly insignificant bureaucratic department within the federal government. (read a sample chapter)
• The Verge practice / Barry Maitland — Scotland Yard's superlative detective duo take on a puzzling case in the posh world of big-name international architecture, and it's got them chasing red herrings and hopping fences from London to Barcelona.
• Embroidered truths / Monica Ferris — After her friend Godwin is arrested for the murder of his boyfriend, Betsy sets out to prove him innocent. She finds that the victim had some dishonest dealings that made him a lot of money-and a lot of enemies. Now, Betsy has to untangle a cat's-cradle of lies if she's going to save Godwin before the murderer decides to cut off the loose ends for good. (Needlecraft Mystery Series, #9)
• The iron girl / Ellen Hart — After years spent mourning the death of her partner, Christine Kane, Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless thinks she's ready to move on. That is, until she finds a gun missing from Christine's belongings. The night before Christine dies of cancer, three members of the Simoneau family, Christine's real estate clients, were murdered. The timing of their deaths appeared coincidental and Jane always assumed Christine knew nothing of the family's secrets. But as she searches for clues to understand what really happened all those many years ago, the gun and a few other discoveries begin to convince Jane otherwise.
• The ice maiden / Edna Buchanan — Fourteen years ago, two teenagers on a Christmas Eve first date were abducted, and only one lived through the ordeal. The lone surviving victim, Sunny Hartley, became a wealthy sculptor, but the reclusive “ice maiden” will not talk about what happened that terrible night. Now a chance encounter in the Miami morgue between reporter Britt Montero and a petty thief, bizarrely electrocuted during the commission of a crime, has placed the still unsolved kidnapping/murder on the front burner of Sgt. Craig Burch's Cold Case Squad. (Britt Montero Series, #8; read a sample chapter)
• Cold case squad / Edna Buchanan — A man and a woman are shot dead at a strip club in Miami Beach. A few hours later, an explosion rocks a child's birthday party, killing a father of three. The murders go unsolved and the blast is deemed an accident. Twelve years later, a blonde walks into the Miami Police Department's Cold Case Squad. She's been seeing her husband everywhere she goes. Trouble is, he's been dead for twelve years. (read a sample chapter)
• Dancing naked at the edge of dawn / Kris Radish — Meg Fratano has just witnessed the unthinkable: her husband of twenty—seven years making love to another woman. In her bed. And all Meg wanted to do was watch. Quietly, secretly, watch. Then she realized her life would never be the same.
• Renegade / Diana Palmer — Newly appointed police chief Cash Grier makes it his personal mission to keep law and order in the streets of Jacobsville. As a true renegade, Cash has learned never to take anything at face value — especially not his gorgeous sworn enemy,"Georgia Firefly" Tippy Moore. But Tippy is no longer a spoiled Hollywood starlet, just an unassuming beauty who has almost as many skeletons in her closet as Cash. Now the hard-edged Texan finds himself powerless to resist their explosive chemistry. (read an exerpt)
• Winter house / Carol O'Connell — never has Mallory faced as many surprises as in the case before her now. It seems cut-and-dried at first: a burglar has been caught in the act and killed by an ice pick-wielding home owner. Except that the home owner turns out to be the most famous lost child in NYPD history, missing for almost sixty years, thought to have been kidnapped following the massacre of her family: five siblings, father, stepmother, nanny, and housekeeper -nearly the entire household wiped out . . . with an ice pick. (Kathleen Mallory Series, #7; read a sample chapter)

7/14: New at the library this week

Videos:

• Charlie Chaplin double feature : The Gold Rush; The Rink; The Tramp; Making a Living; His Favorite Pastime

DVDs:

• Hoot
• The devil wears Prada
• An inconvenient truth

Books:

• Tumbling blocks / Earlene Fowler — With Christmas just a few weeks away, Benni's queenly boss, Constance Sinclair, demands that she investigate the death of a local socialite. It's not long before Benni recognizes that there may be some deadly truth to Constance's suspicions. But with a famously reclusive artist about to put Benni's quilting museum on the map-and her daunting mother-in-law and her "surprise" new husband visiting-Benni's holiday is already hectic. Nevertheless, she'll need to crack the exclusive circle of suspects before one more gourmet goose gets cooked.
• Spanish dagger / Susan Wittig Albert — Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved. (China Bayles Series, #15)
• Potted gardens : a fresh approach to container gardening / Rebecca Cole — A revolutionary new voice in gardening shows how anyone, regardless of experience and previous success, can create beautiful and unusual gardens using any plants and any containers.
• The perfect fake / Barbara Parker — Tom Fairchild is a man with a past he can't shake. He's struggling to make it as a graphic artist, but his probation officer thinks he belongs in jail. When millionaire Miami real estate developer Stuart Barlowe offers him $50,000 to travel to Italy to duplicate a rare Renaissance map, Tom sees a way to solve his problems. The only catch is that Barlowe's daughter, Allison, a map expert herself, has to supervise the project. Allison and Tom fell in love as teenagers, but that was twelve years ago, and now Allison thinks Tom is lying. There's no way he can make a perfect copy.
• The double eagle / James Twining — Somehow, impossibly, someone has invaded Fort Knox and stolen five of the world's last remaining Double Eagles -- the $20 gold coin ordered destroyed by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Now, one has resurfaced during an autopsy in France -- in the stomach of a murdered priest. (read an exerpt)
• Hide yourself away / Mary Jane Behrends Clark — Nobody in this perfect seaside resort town ever imagined that the body of a missing heiress might be found deep in a tunnel beneath her family's crumbling Newport estate. Nobody, that is, but the last person to see her alive. Now, as a KEY News crew investigates the murder, a cold-blooded killer lives in fear of discovery. Too many reporters are closer than they realize to the truth behind a chilling secret... (read an exerpt)
• Lean mean thirteen / Janet. Evanovich — In the thirteenth book in the series, the stakes are raised even higher as Stephanie Plum finds herself in her most dangerous, hilarious and hottest chase yet. (Stephanie Plum Mystery Series, #13; read a sample chapter)
• Obsession / Jonathan Kellerman — Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, Patty Bigelow, Tanya’s aunt and adoptive mother, has made a deathbed confession of murder and urged the young woman to seek Delaware’s help. (Alex Delaware Series, #21; read an exerpt)

Found at the library: insurance card

Found: card for Premera/Alaska Care/Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, at the library this week. To claim, please contact the Seldovia Police Dept. at 907-234-7640.

7/7: New at the library this week

Books:

• Storm world : hurricanes, politics, and the battle over global warming / Chris Mooney — Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science and one the leading young environmental journalists and bloggers working today, immerses readers in the world of those who study hurricanes. What was once an arcane branch of meteorology (itself an arcane science) has become embroiled in one of the politicized and hotly contested debates in American science: whether or not the recent hurricane disasters—culminating in Katrina—are connected to global warming. Mooney follows the lives and careers of the two leading scientists who stand, bitterly opposed, on either side of the issue. (read a sample chapter)
• Invisible prey / John Sandford — In the richest neighbourhood of Minneapolis, two elderly women lie murdered in their home, killed with a pipe, the rooms ransacked, only small items stolen. It's clearly a random break-in by someone looking for money to buy drugs. But as he looks more closely, Davenport begins to wonder if the items are actually so small or the victims so random, if there might not be some invisible agenda at work here. Gradually, a pattern begins to emerge – and it will lead Davenport to somewhere he never expected. Which is too bad, because the killers – and yes, there is more than one of them – the killers are expecting him. (Lucas Davenport Series, #17)
• A thousand splendid suns / Khaled Hosseini — Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation.
• One cold night / Kate Pepper — New York Police detective Dave Strauss is haunted by the one case he couldn’t solve. A schoolgirl vanished off the streets of New York, with only a trail of blood and a series of untraceable phone calls from "the Groom" hinting at her fate. Now the cold dark night has engulfed another young girl -- but this time she is part of Dave’s family.
• My Seldovia--my life / Mae Annette Fox Sharp
• Original white animals / Tracy Philpot
• Bad dog, Marley! / John Grogan — In John Grogan's memoir, Marley & Me, the world learned how one bad dog became the heart of the family that loved him. Now, in this original picture book, Mommy, Daddy, Cassie, and Baby Louie welcome the puppy Marley to the Grogan family. Marley grows and grows . . . and grows. His eagerness and energy grow with him, getting him into trouble in a great big way. And, in the end, Marley's over-the-top energy is just what's needed to save the day. (Age Range: 4 to 6)
• Anastasia again! / Lois Lowry — Twelve-year-old Anastasia is horrified at her family's decision to move from their city apartment to a house in the suburbs. (Age Range: 9 to 12)
• Emily Post wedding etiquette : cherished traditions and contemporary ideas for a joyous celebration / Peggy Post —
• Forward the foundation / Isaac Asimov — brings to vivid life Asimov's best loved characters: hero Hari Seldon, who struggles to perfect his revolutionary theory of psychohistory to ensure the survival of humanity; Cleon II, the vain and crafty emperor of the Galactic Empire, (Series: Foundation Series, #7; read an exerpt)
• The shining ones / David. Eddings — ears past, the Child-Goddess Aphrael had hidden Bhelliom, the Stone of Power. It rested at the very bottom of the deepest ocean, that nevermore should its awesome power sing temptation to mortal men. Now Sparhawk, Knight and Queen's Champion, must retrieve that Sapphire Rose from its briny sleep. (Tamuli Series, #2)
• The hidden city / David Eddings — The third and final volume in David Eddings's epic fantasy series. Sparhawk returns to rescue Queen Ehlana from the evil clutches of the mad God Cyrgon. But their demented opponent has prepared a terrifying counter attack. (Series: Tamuli Series, #3)
• The tangle box : a magic kingdom of Landover novel / Terry Brooks — Troublesome magical trickster Horris Kew has unleashed a powerful evil sorcerer who's bent on ruling Landover. And that means destroying its king, Ben Holiday. (Series: Magic Kingdom of Landover Series, #4)
• Fodor's exploring China / Inc. Fodor's Travel Publications —
• How nature works / David Burnie — (For ages 8-14)
• Georgia Bonesteel's spinning spools : a pattern club for quilters, V. 1 & V. 2 / Georgia. Bonesteel —

New checkout period

As of today, all books and audiobooks are checked out for three weeks. And, as ever, they can be renewed, either in person (you don't need to bring the book with you) or over the phone.

Going away or know you'll need an item out a little longer? Just let us know when you check it out and we can adjust the due date right then for you.

Thanks for a great book sale!

A big thanks to everyone who stopped by the library book sale on the Fourth and helped us find new homes for almost 400 books. Not only do those folks have new-to-them books to read, but they helped fund new purchases for the library collection.

See you again next year, same time, new assortment of books.

July 4th Annual Book Sale

When you're out and about enjoying all of the fun activities on the Fourth, be sure to stop by the library and check out our Second Annual Giant Book Sale.

We'll be setting up in the library parking lot around 7 am--just in time for you to stop by after your pancake breakfast at the Firehall--and will be there till about 3 pm. If the weather's too wet, we'll be indoors and upstairs at the library.

We've got a fine assortment of old and (relatively) new books for all ages and interests and they are priced to move: $.50 apiece or 3/$1. All proceeds from the sale go straight back into the library's purchasing budget, so this is your chance to support the library while taking home some great reading.

Don't feel you need anything new to read? Last year one happy purchaser took home a lovely set of old encyclopedias to make new legs for her sofa (they matched her upholstery perfectly), and there are lots of other projects you crafty folk can do with old books, like make shelves or purses or art projects. So remember, even if you don't want to read it, there are lots of ways to give these books a second chance.