11/3: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Hollywood ending
• Foyle's War : Invasion, Bad Blood, Bleak Midwinter, Casualties of war
• The history boys
• CutThroat island
• The passion
• Planet of the apes
• Ghost
• Red dragon

Videos:

• Identity

Books:

• Thursday Next in first among sequels / Jasper Fforde — It's been fourteen years since Thursday pegged out at the 1988 SuperHoop, and Friday is now a difficult sixteen year old. However, Thursday's got bigger problems. Sherlock Holmes is killed at the Rheinback Falls and his series is stopped in its tracks. And before this can be corrected, Miss Marple dies suddenly in a car accident, bringing her series to a close as well. When Thursday receives a death threat clearly intended for her written self, she realizes what's going on—there is a serial killer on the loose in the Bookworld. And that's not all—The Goliath Corporation is trying to deregulate book travel. Naturally, Thursday must travel to the outer limits of acceptable narrative possibilities to triumph against increasing odds. (Thursday Next Series, #5)
• It's getting ugly out there : the frauds, bunglers, liars, and losers who are hurting America / Jack Cafferty — For the millions who watch the "Cafferty File" on CNN's The Situation Room, Jack Cafferty stands for common sense-the much-needed voice of reason who skewers right-wing nut jobs and liberal eggheads alike. For years, he's voiced the views, hopes, and fears of the average American in inimitable style. Now, in It's Getting Ugly Out There, he brings that level-headed wisdom to bear on the most critical issues facing us today-and explains why Americans must take our country back from those who are harming it. (table of contents)
• The first commandment / Brad Thor — Six months ago: In the dead of the night, five of the most dangerous detainees in the war on terror are pulled from their isolation cells in Guantanamo Bay, held at gunpoint, and told to strip off their orange jumpsuits. Issued a civilian clothes and driven to the base airfield, they are loaded aboard a Boeing 727 and set free. Present day: Covert counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath awakens to discover that his world has changed violently - and forever. A sadistic assassin with a personal vendetta in wreaking havoc of biblical proportions. Unleashing nightmarish horrors on those closest to Harvath, the attacker thrusts everything Harvath holds dear - including his life - into absolute peril. (read a sample chapter)
• The deepest water / Kate Wilhelm — Abby Connors' father, Jud, was a novelist whose career finally took off after three novels and years of hard work. Jud was also the most important man in Abby's life, to the chagrin of her husband, Brice. When Jud is murdered in his Oregon lakefront cabin, Abby's life is overturned. Was the killer someone she knew? (read a sample chapter)
• Tell me again about the night I was born / Jamie Lee Curtis — A young girl asks her parents to tell her again the cherished family story of her birth and adoption. (Age Range: 3 to 7)
• Love kills / Edna Buchanan — When a bulldozer in the Everglades unearths the skull of an infamous kidnapper, the Cold Case Squad is brought in to investigate. Britt was the last person to see him alive, and the detectives have questions only she can answer. On a remote desert island where she has sought solace, Montero finds a camera on an isolated beach. The film inside yields photos of a happy young couple on their honeymoon. Soon after, Britt is shocked to learn the newlyweds were lost at sea. When only the groom is rescued, the connection between the reporter and the new widower astonishes her -- and Britt is even more astonished when she finds out the truth. Ultimately, her search for the bridegroom's secrets and the Cold Case Squad's search for the kidnapper's killer collide. (Britt Montero Series, #9; read a sample chapter)
• High noon / Nora Roberts — Police Lieutenant Phoebe MacNamara found her calling at an early age when an unstable man broke into her family's home, trapping and terrorizing them for hours. Now she's Savannah's top hostage negotiator, defusing powderkeg situations with a talent for knowing when to give in-and when to jump in and take action. It's satisfying work-and sometimes those skills come in handy at home dealing with her agoraphobic mother, still traumatized by the break-in after all these years, and her precocious seven-year-old, Carly.
• Killer weekend / Ridley Pearson — Eight years ago, in Sun Valley-snowcapped playground for the wealthy and ambitious-all that stood between U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler and a knife-wielding killer was local patrolman Walt Fleming. Now Liz Shaler returns to Sun Valley as the keynote speaker of billionaire Patrick Cutter's world-famous media and communications conference, a convergence of the richest, most powerful business tycoons. The controversial attorney general is expected to announce her candidacy for president. It's a media coup for Cutter-but a security nightmare for Walt Fleming, now the county sheriff.
• Washington / Meg Greenfield — Washington is an exploration of a subculture that is both fabled and notorious. Like an anthropologist, Greenfield uses her famous wit, her eye for detail, and her understanding of how political people behave to show us why so many Americans hate Washington, D.C. - and how some who live there manage, despite all the obstacles, to do some good. (read an exerpt)
• You've been warned / James Patterson — Kristin Burns is making her way in New York City. Her photos are being considered at a major Manhattan gallery, she works by day with two wonderful children, and the man of her dreams is almost hers for keeps. But just as everything she's ever wanted is finally within reach, her life changes forever--with one murderous nightmare. (read a sample chapter)
• Dead heat / Dick Francis ; Felix Francis — Max Moreton is a rising culinary star and his Newmarket restaurant, The Hay Net, has brought him great acclaim and a widening circle of admirers. But when nearly all the guests who enjoyed one of his meals at a private catered affair fall victim to severe food poisoning, his kitchen is shuttered and his reputation takes a hit. Scrambling to meet his next obligation, an exclusive luncheon for forty in the glass-fronted private boxes at the Two Thousand Guineas, Max must overcome the previous evening's disaster and provide the new American sponsors of the year's first classic race with a day to remember.
• Playing for pizza / John Grisham — Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game against Denver, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughingstock and, of course, was immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams. But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback–for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy. (read an exerpt)
• The coldest winter : America and the Korean War / David Halberstam — Halberstam gives us a masterful narrative of the political decisions and miscalculations on both sides. He charts the disastrous path that led to the massive entry of Chinese forces near the Yalu, and that caught Douglas MacArthur and his soldiers by surprise. He provides astonishingly vivid and nuanced portraits of all the major figures -- Eisenhower, Truman, Acheson, Kim, and Mao, and Generals MacArthur, Almond, and Ridgway. At the same time, Halberstam provides us with his trademark highly evocative narrative journalism, chronicling the crucial battles with reportage of the highest order. (read a sample chapter)
• The war : an intimate history, 1941-1945 / Geoffrey C. Ward ; Ken Burns — Focusing on the citizens of four towns - Luverne, Minnesota; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama - The War follows more than forty people from 1941 to 1945. Woven largely from their memories, the compelling, unflinching narrative unfolds month by bloody month, with the outcome always in doubt. All the iconic events are here, from Pearl Harbor to the liberation of the concentration camps - but we also move among prisoners of war and Japanese American internees, defense workers and schoolchildren, and families who struggled simply to stay together while their men were shipped off to Europe, the Pacific, and North Africa. (read an exerpt)
• The great American bake sale book / Alison Molinare Boteler
• Drop the hook, let's eat / Rachel Barth
• The tin roof blowdown / James Lee Burke — Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city. (Dave Robicheaux Series, #16; read an exerpt)
• The good guy / Dean R. Koontz — Timothy Carrier, having a beer after work at his friend’s tavern, enjoys drawing eccentric customers into amusing conversations. But the jittery man who sits next to him tonight has mistaken Tim for someone very different—and passes to him a manila envelope full of cash. (read an exerpt)
• Blaze / Richard Bachman — The story of Clayton Blaisdell, Jr. -- of the crimes committed against him and the crimes he commits, including his last, the kidnapping of a baby heir worth millions. Blaze has been a slow thinker since childhood, when his father threw him down the stairs -- and then threw him down again. After escaping an abusive institution for boys when he was a teenager, Blaze hooks up with George, a seasoned criminal who thinks he has all the answers. But then George is killed, and Blaze, though haunted by his partner, is on his own. (read a sample chapter)
• Open house / Elizabeth Berg — Samantha's husband has left her, and after a spree of overcharging at Tiffany's, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her eleven-year-old son. Her eccentric mother tries to help by fixing her up with dates, but a more pressing problem is money. To meet her mortgage payments, Sam decides to take in boarders. The first is an older woman who offers sage advice and sorely needed comfort; the second, a maladjusted student, is not quite so helpful. A new friend, King, an untraditional man, suggests that Samantha get out, get going, get work. But her real work is this: In order to emerge from grief and the past, she has to learn how to make her own happiness. (read an exerpt)
• Bon appetit: tastes of the world
• Chocolate fantasies / Oxmoor House
• Miller's international antiques price guide, 2004 / Elizabeth Norfolk
• The country fair cookbook / Alison Molinare Boteler
• The Blue Willow Inn cookbook / Jane Stern — For five years in a row, The Blue Willow Inn in Social Circle, Georgia, 40minutes east of Atlanta, has been voted best small town restaurant in the Southby the readers of Southern Living magazine. Billie and Louis Van Dyke saythat no one is allowed to leave hungry, and certainly no one should after feasting on a variety of Southernsalads, meats, vegetables, breads and desserts and, of course, sweet tea, the"Champagne of the South," and lemonade. Housed in a gloriouslyrestored southern mansion, The Blue Willow Inn is home to Southern hospitalityand charm at its best.
• The King Island journal : The 1951-52 journal of Juan and Rie Munoz, teachers on a Bering Sea island / Juan Munoz ; Rie Munoz — A collection of more than 140 photos and letters from 1951-52, when the Munozes taught school at the village.

10/6: New at the library this week

Audiobooks:

• Beach road (CD) / James Patterson — Montauk lawyer Tom Dunleavy's client list is woefully small - occasional real estate closings barely keep him in paper clips. When he is hired to defend a local man accused in a triple murder that has the East Hampton world in an uproar, he knows that he has found the case of his lifetime. (read a sample chapter)
• Double homicide : Boston : Santa Fe (CD) / Jonathan Kellerman ; Faye Kellerman — It's Christmastime, and police officers Darrel Two Moons and Steve Katz are expecting the usual gang assaults, feuding spouses, and alcohol-related misdemeanors. Then the call comes in from the Historic District: the reported death of an art gallery owner whose bludgeoned body stretches across a bleached pine floor like a big, nasty still life. (read a sample chapter)
• Emma's secret (cassette) / Barbara Taylor Bradford — The legendary Emma Harte, heroine of A Woman of Substance, returns in Emma's Secret, a novel that showcases the storytelling power of Barbara Taylor Bradford.
• Death's acre : inside the legendary forensic lab the Body Farm where the dead do tell tales (CD) / William M. Bass — Dr. Bill Bass, one of the world's leading forensic anthropologists, gained international attention when he built a forensic lab like no other: The Body Farm. Now, this master scientist unlocks the gates of his lab to reveal his most intriguing cases-and to revisit the Lindbergh kidnapping and murder, fifty years after the fact.

DVDs:

• The clearing

Videos:

• The scarlet and the black
• The truth about Charlie
• Oscar's greatest moments
• Penny serenade
• The amazing adventure
• Power yoga with Rodney Yee
• Lower body yoga for beginners (Gaiam)
• Upper body yoga for beginners (Gaiam)
• Yoga conditioning for life (Gaiam)
• Abs yoga for beginners (Gaiam)
• Stress relief yoga
• War and remembrance (12-tape set)

Books:

• The captain's dog : my journey with the Lewis and Clark tribe / Roland Smith — Born the runt of his litter and gambled away to a rusty old riverman, the Newfoundland pup Seaman doesn't imagine his life will be marked by any kind of glory—beyond chasing down rats. But when he meets Captain Meriwether Lewis, Seaman finds himself on a path that will make history. Lewis is just setting off on his landmark search for the Northwest Passage, and he takes Seaman along. Sharing the curiosity and strength of spirit of his new master, Seaman proves himself a valuable companion at every turn. Part history, part science—and adventure through and through—The Captain's Dog is the carefully researched, thrilling tale of America's greatest journey of discovery, as seen through the keen, compassionate eyes of a remarkable dog. (Age Range: Young Adult)
• Seaman : the dog who explored the West with Lewis & Clark / Gail Karwoski —This imaginative retelling of the journey of Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the Corps of Discovery brings to life an unheralded member of the Corps -- Seaman, a 150-pound Newfoundland dog. As Seaman makes the long trek with the Corps, he serves a key role in the expedition's success. Come along with Seaman and his companions as they explore the vast uncharted lands beyond the Mississippi River. Travel with them as they form friendships with several Indian tribes and welcome Sacagawea to the expedition. Experience with them the many dangers of this wild land. And rejoice with them when they cross the Continental Divide and finally reach their goal -- the rocky shores of the Pacific Ocean. (Age Range: 8 to 12)
• Lewis and Clark and me : a dog's tale / Laurie Myers — From his first meeting with Lewis, to being mistaken for a bear by Indians who had never seen such a large dog, to his encounters with wild animals both familiar and unfamiliar, Seaman's tales are filled with the joys of companionship and the tingling excitement of adventure. (Age Range: 8 to 12)
• Mothers of the South : portraiture of the white tenant farm woman / Margaret Jarman Hagoood — In 1937 Hagood visited 254 tenant houses in the Carolina Piedmont, Georgia, and Alabama, talking with and listening to southern mothers. Mothers of the South records not only the results of her work but the voices, attitudes, and expectations of the people she interviewed. Tenant farming, a widespread way of life in the '30s, began to disappear with the coming of World War II and increased farm mechanization and became virtually nonexistent by the 1970s. Hagood's work is invaluable for its insight into this lost world.
• Alaska hooch : the history of alcohol in early Alaska / Thayne I. Andersen
• Collected poems, 1934-1952 / Dylan Thomas
• Helping children cope with grief / Alan Wolfelt — Guidelines are presented in the book of how one can create a "helping healing relationship." Through reading and participating in the activities presented, the reader will become capable of establishing a very special kind of goal-directed experience with the grieving child. Unites interpretation of human research and grief processes to accentuate the quality of caregiving to children during their grief periods. Explained are the stages through which the grieving person must travel with help, characteristics of a caregiver are expounded, and techniques presented to create the best atmosphere for a grieving child to thrive with love and care.
• Garden almanac : a month-by-month guide / Penelope O'Sullivan — Maintaining a beautiful garden is as simple as following each month's "to do" list in this handy book. Geared to zones 3 to 6, Garden Almanac provides inspiration with color photographs and historic botanical illustrations, and the tools to keep gardens flourishing: easy-to-use monthly overviews, calendars, and task lists.
• Creating birdhouses : 30 delightful projects to turn your garden into a home for birds / Mary Maguire — Choose from 30 projects to create your own birdhouse, table, nesting box, bird feeder or bird bath - each one beautiful, functional and highly individual. Includes traditional, classic designs plus more contemporary projects, as well as tips for decorating existing birdhouses and tables.
• Making old-fashioned Santas / Candie Frankel
• We all shine on : the stories behind every John Lennon song 1970-1980 / Paul Du Noyer —

9/29: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Junebug
• Thank you for smoking
• Find me guilty

Books:

• Capitol offense / Mike Doogan— A beautiful young woman is found strangled in the office of an Alaskan state senator. Standing over her dead body is gifted young legislator Matthew Hope. Before this unfortunate event, he was the most promising native Alaskan politician in the state. Now he's facing serious time, and he's not talking to anyone. In desperation, a mysterious, wealthy patron hires Nik Kane, disgraced ex-cop, to investigate the crime. What Kane discovers is a political culture corrupted by the influence of oil and big money. At the core is a secret so great that Kane may have to pay for it with something more precious than his soul.
• Robert Ludlum's the Bourne betrayal / Eric Lustbader — Jason Bourne takes a mission to rescue his only friend in the CIA, Martin Lindros, who disappeared in Africa while tracking shipments of yellowcake uranium. Once safely back in America, Lindros persuades Bourne to help track the money trail of terrorists buying the nuclear material in Odessa. But once there, Bourne is hampered by confusing flashbacks of unfamiliar places and events and he wonders: Is someone brainwashing him in order to throw him off the trail? Worse, is the man he saved in Africa really Martin Lindros? (read a sample chapter)
• Arthur & George / Julian Barnes — As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves in a vast and complex world at the heart of the British Empire. Years later—one struggling with his identity in a world hostile to his ancestry, the other creating the world's most famous detective while in love with a woman who is not his wife–their fates become inextricably connected. (Man Booker Prize finalist; read a sample chapter)
• Sea change / Robert B. Parker — When a woman's partially decomposed body washes ashore in Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone is forced into a case far more difficult than it initially appears. Identifying the woman is just the first step in what proves to be an emotionally charged investigation. Florence Horvath was an attractive, recently divorced heiress from Florida; she also had a penchant for steamy sex and was an enthusiastic participant in a video depicting the same. Somehow the combination of her past and present got her killed, but no one is talking-not the crew of the Lady Jane, the Fort Lauderdale yacht moored in Paradise Harbor; not her very blond, very tan twin sisters, Corliss and Claudia; and not her curiously affectless parents, living out a sterile retirement in a Miami high rise. (Jesse Stone Series, #5)
• Blackou t / John J. Nance — Minutes after a Boeing 747 rises majestically into a Hong Kong sunset, a flash splits the darkening sky. The pilot - suddenly blinded and doubled over in pain - fumbles in the dark in a frantic effort to gain control as the huge jet shudders through its descent. Kat Bronsky, FBI agent and terrorism specialist, is assigned the hunt for a Challenger-class business jet seen nearby just before the incident. The case poses countless questions: Was the flash a pilot error, a missile attack, or a malfunction? Or was it some new kind of weapon? And why are several government agencies interested in what Kat uncovers? (read a sample chapter)
• I like you / Sandol Stoddard Warburg — A tiny book that expresses the true meaning of friendship. (Age Range: 8 to 12)
• A wrongful death / Kate Wilhelm — The peace and quiet of Barbara's retreat on the Oregon coast is shattered when a terrified young boy calls to her as she walks along a deserted beach. Frantically he leads her to a cabin deep in the woods where his mother lies senseless and battered—clearly left for dead. Barbara runs for help, but by the time she returns with the police and medics both mother and son are gone. The puzzle only deepens when, back in the city, Barbara learns that the boy she met is the grandson of a wealthy and prominent family . . . and that they have accused her of aiding and abetting his disappearance. (Barbara Holloway Series, #10; read a sample chapter)
• The girl with braided hair / Margaret Coel — In 1973, Liz Plenty Horses was accused of betraying the militant American Indian Movement, known as AIM, to the FBI after the death of one of their members. She went into hiding with her baby daughter, never to be seen again. Now, a skeleton with a bullet hole in the back of the skull has been discovered at the bottom of a ravine on the Wind River Reservation. The body was that of a woman who was murdered sometime in 1973. With the police reluctant to investigate, Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley must unravel the truth-even if it incites the malice of a long-dormant killer.

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 —

6/30: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Over the hedge

Books:

• Little earthquakes / Jennifer. Weiner — First comes love. Then comes marriage. And then things start to get really interesting...A tale of romance, friendship, forgiveness, and extreme sleep deprivation, as three very different women navigate one of life's most wonderful and perilous transitions: the journey of new motherhood. (read an exerpt)
• Something borrowed / Emily Giffin — tells the story of Rachel, a young attorney living and working in Manhattan. Rachel has always been the consummate good girl---until her thirtieth birthday, when her best friend, Darcy, throws her a party. That night, after too many drinks, Rachel ends up in bed with Darcy's fiancé. Although she wakes up determined to put the one-night fling behind her, Rachel is horrified to discover that she has genuine feelings for the one guy she should run from. (read an exerpt)
• Gossip hound / Wendy Holden — Grace Armiger isn't living the high life. As a publicist in a London publishing house, she spends her days trying to interest an indifferent media in her collection of oddball authors. Home's not much better-her scruffy apartment, untrustworthy boyfriend, and nagging mother aren't doing much to keep her spirits high. Plus, she's just had a wildly inappropriate one-night stand with one of her writers. But when a chance encounter turns into a brush with an A-list celebrity, Grace dares to think her life may finally be taking a promising turn . (read an exerpt)
• In her shoes / Jennifer Weiner — Meet Rose Feller. She's thirty years old and a high-powered attorney with a secret passion for romance novels. She dreams of a man who will slide off her glasses, gaze into her eyes, and tell her that she's beautiful. She also dreams of getting her fantastically screwed-up little sister to get her life. together. Meet Rose's sister, Maggie. Twenty-eight years old, drop-dead gorgeous and only occasionally employed. Although her dreams of big-screen stardom haven't progressed, Maggie dreams of fame and fortune -- and of getting her dowdy big sister to stick to a skin-care regime. These two women with nothing in common but childhood tragedy, shared DNA, and the same size feet, are about to learn that their family is more different than they ever imagine, and that they're more alike, than they'd ever believe. (read an exerpt)
• Miracle in the Andes : 72 days on the mountain and my long trek home / Nando Parrado — In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence. Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team, as well as their family members and supporters, to an exhibition game in Chile had crashed somewhere deep in the Andes. He soon learned that many were dead or dying—among them his own mother and sister. Those who remained were stranded on a lifeless glacier at nearly 12,000 feet above sea level, with no supplies and no means of summoning help. They struggled to endure freezing temperatures, deadly avalanches, and then the devastating news that the search for them had been called off. (read an exerpt)
• A million little pieces / James Frey — Amemoir of drug addiction and recovery that daused controvery when it was revealed to be partly fabricated. (read an exerpt)
• Snuggle mountain / Lindsey Lane — It's morning, and Emma wants pancakes. But the two-headed giant who lives on Snuggle Mountain has forgotten all about breakfast. So lump by bump, Emma begins her climb up the shaking, quaking mountain to reach the giant's snuggly cave. How can Emma wake the giant without getting caught in the Sleeping Spell? (Age Range: 3 to 6)
• Alaska park science : Scientific studies on climate change in Alaska's national parks / Monica Shah — The tenth issue of Alaska Park Science, entitled “Scientific Studies on Climate Change in Alaska’s National Parks,” focuses on current trends and evidence of climate change. If future projections hold true, the ecological and societal effects of climate change will be considerable in the twenty-first century.
• Maximum Ride : saving the world and other extreme sports / James Patterson — There's one last chance to save the world in MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, the closing chapter of James Patterson's thrilling trilogy. The time has arrived for Max and her winged "Flock" to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of "Re-evolution", a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race...and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them--but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another? (Age Range: 12 and up)
• The navigator : a novel from the Numa files / Clive Cussler — Years before the current Gulf war, a diminutive statue was stolen from the Baghdad Museum. For some reason, this missing Phoenician icon has recently attracted marked interest among men not readily identifiable as art connoisseurs. In fact, the men who seek the so-called Navigator are ruthless killers who have already struck once. Saving the life of a UN investigator, Curt Austin and Zavala learn of this homicidal quest firsthand, thus beginning NUMA's full immersion into a mystery of Da Vinci Code dimensions
• The alibi man / Tami Hoag — She was a vision. She was a siren. She was a nightmare. She was dead. Now he needed her to disappear. And he knew just how to make it happen. The Palm Beach elite go to great lengths to protect their own-and their own no longer includes Elena Estes. Once upon a time a child of wealth and privilege, Elena turned her back on that life. Betrayed and disillusioned by those closest to her, she chose the life of an undercover cop, the hunt for justice her own personal passion. Then a tragic, haunting mistake ended her career. Now Elena exists on the fringes of her old life, training horses for a living. But a shocking event is about to draw her back into the painful vortex she's fought so hard to leave behind. (read an exerpt)
• Bangkok haunts / John Burdett — Sonchai has seen virtually everything on his beat in Bangkok’s District 8, but nothing like the video he’s just been sent anonymously: "Few crimes make us fear for the evolution of our species. I am watching one right now." He’s watching a snuff film. And the person dying before his disbelieving eyes is Damrong—a woman he once loved obsessively and, now it becomes clear, endlessly. And there is something more: something at the end of the film that leaves Sonchai both figuratively and literally haunted. (Sonchai Jitpleecheep Series, #3; read a sample chapter)
• Lawn boy / Gary Paulsen — One day I was 12 years old and broke. Then Grandma gave me Grandpa's old riding lawnmower. I set out to mow some lawns. More people wanted me to mow their lawns. And more and more. . . . One client was Arnold the stockbroker, who offered to teach me about "the beauty of capitalism. Supply and Demand. Diversify labor. Distribute the wealth." "Wealth?" I said. "It's groovy, man," said Arnold. (Age Range: 9 to 12)
• The short bus : a journey beyond normal / Jonathan Mooney — A young man once called unteachable journeys across America to investigate the lives of those, like himself, who are forced to create new ways of living in order to survive Labeled “dyslexic and profoundly learning disabled with attention and behavior problems,” Jonathan Mooney was a short bus rider—a derogatory term used for kids in special education and a distinction that told the world he wasn’t “normal.” Along with other kids with special challenges, he grew up hearing himself denigrated daily. Ultimately, Mooney surprised skeptics by graduating with honors from Brown University. But he could never escape his past, so he hit the road. To free himself and to learn how others had moved beyond labels, he created an epic journey. He would buy his own short bus and set out cross-country, looking for kids who had dreamed up magical, beautiful ways to overcome the obstacles that separated them from the so-called normal world.
• Acacia / David Anthony Durham — Leodan Akaran, ruler of the Known World, has inherited generations of apparent peace and prosperity, won ages ago by his ancestors. A widower of high intelligence, he presides over an empire called Acacia, after the idyllic island from which he rules. He dotes on his four children and hides from them the dark realities of traffic in drugs and human lives on which their prosperity depends. He hopes that he might change this, but powerful forces stand in his way. And then a deadly assassin sent from a race called the Mein, exiled long ago to an ice-locked stronghold in the frozen north, strikes at Leodan in the heart of Acacia while they unleash surprise attacks across the empire. On his deathbed, Leodan puts into play a plan to allow his children to escape, each to their separate destiny. And so his children begin a quest to avenge their father's death and restore the Acacian empire–this time on the basis of universal freedom. (read an exerpt)
• Black holes and baby universes and other essays / Stephen Hawking — These thirteen essays and one remarkable extended interview broadcast over the BBC on Christmas day 1992 range from the autobiographical to the purely scientific. Building on his earlier work, Stephen Hawking discusses imaginary time, how black holes can give birth to baby universes, and scientists' efforts to find a complete unified theory that would predict everything in the universe, a concept that he believes will come to seem as natural to the next generation as the idea that the world is round.
• Good harbor / Anita Diamant — Good Harbor is the long stretch of Cape Ann beach where two women friends walk and talk, sharing their personal histories and learning life's lessons from each other. Kathleen Levine, a longtime resident of Gloucester, Massachusetts, is maternal and steady, a devoted children's librarian, a convert to Judaism, and mother to two grown sons. When her serene life is thrown into turmoil by a diagnosis of breast cancer at fifty-nine, painful past secrets emerge and she desperately needs a friend. Forty-two-year-old Joyce Tabachnik is a sharp-witted freelance writer who is also at a fragile point in her life. She's come to Gloucester to follow her literary aspirations, but realizes that her husband and young daughter are becoming increasingly distant. Together, Kathleen and Joyce forge a once-in-a-lifetime bond and help each other to confront scars left by old emotional wounds. (read an exerpt)
• Judge & jury / James Patterson — Senior FBI agent Nick Pellisante is closing in on the notorious mob boss "The Electrician," when the scheduled sting goes spectacularly awry. Two FBI agents are dead, the boss is wounded, and Pellisante vows the Electrician's next move will be from a jail cell. (large print edition)
• Ricochet / Sandra Brown — When Detective Sergeant Duncan Hatcher is summoned to the home of Judge Cato Laird in the middle of the night to investigate a fatal shooting, he knows that discretion and kid-glove treatment are the keys to staying in the judge's good graces and keeping his job. At first glance, the case appears open-and-shut: Elise, the judge's trophy wife, interrupted a burglary in progress and killed the intruder in self-defense. But Duncan is immediately suspicious of Elise's innocent act. His gut feeling is that her account of the shooting is only partially true -- and it's the parts she's leaving out that bother him. (large print edition; read a sample chapter)
• The Da Vinci code / Dan Brown — While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter. (large print edition; read an exerpt)
• The Book of Christmas / Neil Philip ; Sally Holmes — A luminous sampling of 24 stories, carols, and poems for the holiday season, this is a lavish collection of cherishedChristmas writings, at theheart of wh ich lies the Nativity story, told in the words of the King James Bible.
• Michael Hague's favorite Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales / H. C. Andersen — Hans Christian Andersen was one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Michael Hague has chosen nine of Andersen's best-loved fairy tales to illustrate in his unique style.
• Alaska's Kenai Peninsula wildlife viewing trail guide / Doug O'Harra —
• The Alton gift / Marion Zimmer Bradley — After the tragic, untimely death of Regis Hastur, a ruler who struggled lifelong to save the beloved world of his birth from the ambitions of the ruthless Terran Federation, the Terrans have finally abandoned Darkover to pursue interstellar civil war. As Lew Alton-returned home to the world of his birth after decades spent in exile as the Darkovan representative to the Terran Senate-wrestles with the dark shadows from his past, his daughter Marguerida's psychic Gifts warn her of impending danger. But danger to whom?

6/16: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Mrs. Henderson presents
• Finding home
• Happy feet

Books:

• The sea hunters II / Clive Cussler — More true adventures with shipwrecks and the real life NUMA — Clive Cussler's National Underwater & Marine Agency. (read a sample chapter)
• Three wishes / Barbara. Delinsky — When a surprise October blizzard hits Panama, Vermont, blanketing the sleepy little town with several feet of snow, it creates a scene so tranquil no one suspects the tragedy to come, least of all Bree Miller. Slipping and sliding as she walks home from the diner where she works, she barely has time to notice the runaway truck skidding toward her until it is too late. (read an exerpt)
• Shadows on the tundra : Alaskan tales of predator, prey and man / Tom Walker — Drawing on 25 years' experience as a hunter, licensed guide and photographer, Walker writes a superb account of Alaska's big-game animals and their habitat. Following him, we observe and track grizzly bears, moose, wolves, caribou and Dall sheep.
• The Margarets / Sheri S. Tepper — The only human child living in a human work colony on the Martian satellite Phobos, little Margaret Bain has devised a system for keeping the suffocating demons of boredom and loneliness at bay: She invents six imaginary companions, each an extension of her own personality, to play with. When the unproductive Phobos project is shut down, and after Margaret is forced to return to Earth with her parents, the child's other selves are lost to her. But they are not gone. (read an exerpt)
• In an instant : a family's journey of love and healing / Lee. Woodruff ; Bob Woodruff — In January 2006, the Woodruffs seemed to have it all-a happy marriage and four beautiful children. Lee was a public relations executive and Bob had just been named co-anchor of ABC's World News Tonight. Then, while Bob was embedded with the military in Iraq, an improvised explosive device went off near the tank he was riding in. He and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, were hit, and Bob suffered a traumatic brain injury that nearly killed him. (read an exerpt)
• Everyone worth knowing / Lauren Weisberger —Soon after Bette Robinson quits her horrendous Manhattan banking job like the impulsive girl she's never been, the novelty of walking her four-pound dog around the unglamorous Murray Hill neighborhood wears as thin as the "What are you going to do with your life?" phone calls from her parents. Then Bette meets Kelly, head of Manhattan's hottest PR firm, and suddenly she has a brand-new job where the primary requirement is to see and be seen inside the VIP rooms of the city's most exclusive nightclubs. (read an exerpt)
• Pasadena / David Ebershoff — At the story's center is Linda Stamp, a fishergirl born in 1903 on a coastal onion farm in San Diego's North County, and the three men who upend her life and vie for her affection: her pragmatic farming brother, Edmund; Captain Willis Poore, a Pasadena rancher with a heroic military past; and Bruder, the mysterious young man Linda's father brings home from World War I. (read an exerpt)
• Abide with me / Elizabeth Strout — In the late 1950s, in the small town of West Annett, Maine, a minister struggles to regain his calling, his family, and his happiness in the wake of profound loss. At the same time, the community he has served so charismatically must come to terms with its own strengths and failings-faith and hypocrisy, loyalty and abandonment-when a dark secret is revealed. (read a sample chapter)
• Damage control / Robert Dugoni — A rising star at her prestigious Seattle law firm, Dana Hill knows all about stress. She pours herself into her work and family with all the energy she has. But her carefully balanced life is about to be turned upside down. First a frightening medical diagnosis forces her to reassess her roles as a lawyer, mother, and wife to a man she suddenly no longer trusts. Then her life is rocked further by the shocking and brutal murder of her twin brother. (read a sample chapter)

6/2: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Meet the Fockers

Books:

• The grave tattoo / Val McDermid — After torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, long discarded old wives' tales takes on a chilling new plausibility. For centuries, Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And there, he told his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poema poem that remained hidden lest it expose Wordsworth to the gallows for harboring a fugitive. Wordsworth specialist Jane Gresham, herself a native of the Lake District, feels compelled to discover once and for all whether the manuscript ever existedand whether it still exists today. But as she pursues each new lead, death follows hard on her heels. (read an exerpt)
• The Homer Spit : coal, gold, and con men / Janet R. Klein
• Exploring Alaska's Prince William Sound, its fiords, islands, glaciers, and wildlife / Neil C. Johannsen ; Elizabeth Johannsen
• A Parade of Alaska history : sculptured in bas-relief for the Alaska Mutual Savings Bank, Anchorage, Alaska / Miriam Hilscher ; Herb Hilscher
• Charles Russell / Charles M. Russell, ; Sophia Craze — Charles Russell's life and art are revealed in this large-format volume focusing on sixty-six full color paintings and sculptures. Known as the "cowboy artist," he embodied the rugged individualism of his time.
• Prisoner of Tehran : a memoir / Marina Nemat — What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life? In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, Prisoner of Tehran, Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini's brutal Islamic Revolution.
• The overlook / Michael Connelly — In his first case since he left the LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security. A doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered on the overlook above the Mulholland Dam. Retracing his steps, Harry learns that a large quantity of radioactive cesium was stolen shortly before the doctor's death. With the cesium in unknown hands, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city. (Harry Bosch Series, #12; watch a video of four novel exerpts)
• The Odyssey / Homer ; Robert Fitzgerald
• Shadow divers : the true adventure of two Americans who risked everything to solve one of the last mysteries of World War II / Robert Kurson — For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. Testing themselves against treacherous currents, braving depths that induced hallucinatory effects, navigating through wreckage as perilous as a minefield, they pushed themselves to their limits and beyond, brushing against death more than once in the rusting hulks of sunken ships. But in the fall of 1991, not even these courageous divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface, in the frigid Atlantic waters sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey: a World War II German U-boat, its ruined interior a macabre wasteland of twisted metal, tangled wires, and human bones–all buried under decades of accumulated sediment. (read a sample chapter)
• The unquiet / John Connolly — Daniel Clay, a once-respected psychiatrist, has gone missing. His daughter insists that he killed himself after allegations surfaced that he had betrayed his patients to foul and evil men -- but when a killer obsessed with uncovering the truth behind his own daughter's disappearance comes seeking revenge, long-forgotten secrets begin to emerge.
• The remains of the day / Kazuo Ishiguro — A tragic, spiritual portrait of a perfect English butler and his reaction to his fading insular world in post-war England.

5/19: New at the library this week

Books:

• False impression / Jeffrey Archer — When an aristocratic old lady is brutally murdered in her English country home on the night before September 11, 2001, it will take all the resources of the FBI and Interpol to work out the connection between her death and a priceless Van Gogh, which is stolen that night. But in the end, it is a courageous young woman who escapes from North Tower of the World Trade Center after the first plane crashes into the building, who has the foresight and determination to take on both sides of the law and avenge the old lady’s death.
• Moby-Dick / Herman Melville — A masterpiece of storytelling and symbolic realism, this thrilling adventure and epic saga pits Ahab, a brooding sea captain, against the great white whale that crippled him. More than just the tale of a hair-raising voyage, Melville's riveting story passionately probes man's soul. Required reading in American literature courses from high school to college. Unabridged reproduction of a standard edition.
• Bad Girl Creek / Jo-Ann Mapson — Phoebe DeThomas has lived life as spectator, confined to a wheelchair, in awe of her beloved Aunt Sadie, and overshadowed by her financial wizard brother, James. But when Sadie dies, leaving Phoebe a flower farm, the world opens up to her in ways she could never have imagined.
• Stickeen / John Muir — An illustrated edition of the well-loved tale in which world-famous naturalist John Muir recounts how he and a dog named Stickeen struggled to cross an Alaskan glacier during an ice storm. An exhilarating story that has become an American classic. (Age Range: 8 to 10)
• Stickeen : John Muir and the brave little dog — John Muir's favorite story of "the most memorable of all my wild days"-his classic adventure on an Alaskan glacier with the dog Stickeen-is now retold in modern language with stunning illustrations for another generation of children to enjoy. This is a compelling story of the developing relationship between Muir and an aloof, unfriendly little dog, Stickeen. After becoming stranded on the glacier, they reach safety with the help of a courageous trip over an ice bridge. (Age Range: 8 to 11)
• Close case / Alafair Burke — For Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's thirty-second birthday, she gets an unusual gift: a homicide call out. The crime scene: the elite Hillside neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. The victim: hotshot investigative reporter Percy Crenshaw, who has been bludgeoned to death in his carport. (Samantha Kincaid Series, read a sample chapter)
• Silvermeadow / Barry Maitland — Two cases. One location. The first case, a girl gone missing, seems a decidedly local affair. The second, the return of a violent criminal who had fled the country, instantly attracts the interest of Scotland Yard and Detective Chief Inspector David Brock. When he learns that his longtime nemesis, the amphetamine-juiced killer and thief known as "Upper" North, may have surfaced, Brock assembles his team, summoning Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla to assist him. Their manhunt centers on Silvermeadow, the huge and glittery supermall on the outskirts of London where North was spotted. (Kathy and Brock Mysteries Series; read a sample chapter)
• The pilgrim's progress in the allegory of a dream / John Bunyan; Cheryl V. Ford — (public domain text)
• Field of blood / Denise Mina — When the body of a four-year-old boy is found tortured and battered to death, it is assumed the child has been the victim of a vicious sexual predator. Instead the police are led, not to the house of an adult killer, but to the doors of two eleven-year-old boys. (Paddy Meehan Series, #1; read an exerpt)
• Hide in plain sight / Michele Albert — Fiona Kennedy can tell a forgery from the genuine article in a snap. Drop-dead-sexy Grif Laughton, however, is not so easy to read. He's clearly a masterpiece of the male variety -- and the attraction he sparks is definitely the real thing. But Grif is a man of secrets, and the potentially priceless manuscript he's asked her to appraise is just one of them. (read an exerpt)
• A northern light / Jennifer Donnelly— Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder. (Age Range: Young Adult; read an exerpt; 2004 Printz award winner)

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)

2/11: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Malibu's most wanted

Books:

• A deeper sleep / Dana Stabenow — When the jury returns a verdict of not guilty, Kate and Jim are devastated, and like the rest of the citizens of Niniltna, Alaska, certain that a man has gotten away with murder. They can’t help but think that it’s only a matter of time before he’s in the frame for another killing. Sure enough, a few weeks later a shooting leaves two dead in an apparent robbery. But this time Kate and Jim have a witness, and they’re not going to let Louis Deem get away again. Or will he? (Kate Shugak Mystery Series, #15)
• Running with scissors / Augusten Burroughs — the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock-therapy machine could provide entertainment. (read an exerpt)
• On beauty / Zadie Smith — Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore.
• Welcome to Molly's world, 1944 : growing up in World War Two America / Catherine Gourley — Inside this book you'll see what growing up was like in World War Two America. Take a peek at real letters and diaries of girls and women, soldiers and civilians. Learn about the sacrifices Americans made to help the war effort-children gave up candy, toys, and the foods they liked to eat! Follow the brave women who joined the military, from their basic training to the battlefront. Best of all, join America in a worldwide celebration of peace. (American Girls Collection Series: Molly; Age Range: 7 to 12)
• Brimstone / Douglas J. Preston — Art critic Jeremy Grove is found dead, his face frozen in a mask of terror. His body temperature is grotesquely high; he is discovered in a room barricaded from the inside; the smell of brimstone is everywhere...and the unmistakable imprint of a claw is burned into the wall. As more bodies are discovered--their only connection the bizarre but identical manner of death--the world begins to wonder if the Devil has, in fact, come to collect his due. (Special Agent Pendergast Series, #3) (read a sample chapter)
• The National Geographic desk reference / National Geographic Society — A full-color desk reference for the millennium, collecting essential, frequently needed information into one accesible volume and offering a multifaceted and comprehensive view of geography. Photos, charts, maps & graphs. 220 full-color illustrations.

11/18: New at the library this week

Videos:

• Wallace & Gromit: A grand day out
• Wallace & Gromit: A close shave
• Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers

DVDs:

• To be or not to be
• United 93
• High school musical
• Love, Ludlow
• West Side waltz
• Music from another room
• The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
• A good woman

Books:

• More bitter than death / Dana Cameron — In an historic, if isolated, New England hotel, some of the most respected names in archaeology are coming together to celebrate the work of Julius Garrison, a legend in the field. It's a conference Emma Fielding is determined to attend -- braving a furious winter storm to get there -- even though Garrison is no friend to her or her family.And when the honoree's lifeless body is discovered outside the snow-bound inn, Emma suddenly finds she is a murder suspect, along with a surprising number of the other guests.
• Missing justice / Alafair Burke — Newly promoted Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's first assignment back after a much-needed vacation is a hot one: Judge Clarissa Easterbrook has gone missing from a wealthy Portland neighborhood, and Sam has to make the DA look good until the prodigal judge returns. Yet it soon becomes clear that the woman didn't vanish voluntarily-and it's no surprise when her bludgeoned body turns up at a local construction site. (Samantha Kincaid Series, #2)
• Good-bye, Boise—hello, Alaska : True Story of a Family's Move to a Remote Island Ranch / Cora Holmes
• Antarctica : both heaven and hell / Reinhold Messner — Detailed account of Reinhold Messner's and Arved Fuchs' 1,800-mile, 92-day journey on foot across Antarctica.

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

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