Saturday, October 13, 2007

10/13: New at the library this week

DVDs: Videos: Books:
  • Teens in Russia / Jessica Smith — The Russian Federation has been an independent country since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. For Russian teenagers, this change has presented many opportunities. At school, teens are learning about a history that the communist government tried to hide. In their free time, they are learning to express themselves in ways their parents were not allowed. Teens in Russia is part of Global Connections, a series that uncovers the challenges, pastimes, and customs of teens around the world. (Age Range: 10 to 12; table of contents)
  • The book that dripped blood / Michael Dahl — A fur-covered book entitled Claws is loose in the city, and only the Librarian can stop it from claiming more victims. (Age Range: 8 to 12)
  • Manners at school / Carrrie Finn — (Reading level: Ages 4-8)
  • The dead letters / Tom Piccirilli — Five years ago, Eddie Whitt's daughter Sarah became the victim of a serial killer known as Killjoy, and Whitt vowed to hunt him down-no matter what the cost. But the police have given up. And Killjoy has stopped killing...and in some bizarre act of repentance has begun kidnapping abused infants and leaving them with the parents of his original victims. (read a sample chapter)
  • The book of pilates / Joyce Gavin
  • Goddess : a celebration in art and literature / Jalaja Bonheim — For centuries tales of the goddess's creativity, strength, and suffering have sprung forth from every civilization and corner of the world. Editor Jalaja Bonheim, Ph.D., has compiled a unique and culturally diverse anthology of goddess-related literature and art. This elegant volume is created with a non-partisan perspective to appeal to a general audience.
  • Slipknot / Linda Greenlaw — Jane Bunker is a marine investigator who has just moved back to a sleepy Maine community. She's a lover of all things Scottish and so thrifty that she never throws anything away. When the town drunk falls to his death off the town dock, it looks like an open and shut case, so Jane's insurance company will pay. But did he really fall or was he whacked in the head and then pushed? Was he really a drunk? How does this relate to a heated town hall meeting about energy windmills, fishing rights, and paternity suits? And can Jane get to the bottom of it all without spending any money and without ending up in mortal peril? The answer is "yes" about the money, but things take a turn for the worse when she finds herself literally at sea with the killer.
  • Power play / Joseph Finder — It was the perfect retreat for a troubled company. No cell phones. No BlackBerrys. No cars. Just a deluxe lodge surrounded by thousands of miles of wilderness and a desolate seacoast. Jake Landry is a junior executive at the Hammond Aerospace Corporation, a steady, modest, and taciturn guy with a gift for keeping his head down—and a turbulent past he prays he’s put behind him. Ordered to fill in for his boss at the annual offsite, he’s out of his element. He’s uncomfortable with the lavish accommodations and especially with the arrogant, swaggering men who run the company and the only person he knows there is the new special assistant to the CEO—who happens to be Jake’s ex. (read a sample chapter)
  • Bone : v. 3: Eyes of the storm / Jeff Smith — In Eyes of the Storm, volume three of the nine-book Bone saga, Lucius, Smiley, and Phoney survive an attack by the rat creatures and return safely to Lucius' tavern in Barrelhaven. Phoney, desperate to win a bet with Lucius, stokes the townspeople's fear of dragons and boasts that he is a professional dragonslayer. Back at the farm, Fone Bone and Thorn are troubled by strange dreams, and Gran'ma Ben's reaction to them is stranger still: She reveals long-kept secrets and warns of great danger. Thorn, Fone Bone, and Gran'ma Ben may have to leave the farm forever. (Bone Series, #3; Age Range: 9 to 12)
  • Bone : v4: The dragonslayer / Jeff Smith — Fone Bone confronts a host of dangers in Book 4 of the BONE saga, The Dragonslayer. He and Gran'ma Ben and Thorn have a terrifying encounter with Kingdok, ruler of the rat creatures. The Hooded One is inciting his army to full-scale war. Someone is continuing to haunt Thorn in her dreams. And then wise Gran'ma Ben disappears. To make matters worse, Phoney Bone has hoodwinked the townspeople into believing that he is a mighty dragonslayer. When he actually does catch the Red Dragon -- much to his surprise -- he must face up to his promise: to slay the dragon at sunrise. (Age Range: 9 to 12; Bone Series, #4)
  • Bone : V. 5: Rock jaw / Jeff Smith — In this fifth volume of the Bone saga, Fone and Smiley Bone strike out into the wilderness to return a lost rat creature cub to the mountains. It doesn't take long before they run smack into Rock Jaw, "Master of the Eastern Border," an enormous mountain lion with a none-too-friendly disposition. Life gets even more complicated when they befriend a group of baby animals who are being orphaned by rat creature attacks. Everything comes to a head in an earth-shattering clash between Rock Jaw and Kingdok, the leader of the rat creatures. (Age Range: 9 to 12; Bone Series, #5)

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Saturday, August 25, 2007

Yoga and t'ai chi class resources

With the end of the summer series of the Seldovia Arts Council yoga and t'ai chi classes, instructors Kate Springer and Betsy Scott have left some resources at the library to help class members and other interested members of the public continue with their practice during the winter.

The classes have donated the following items to the library's collection:

Kate Springer has also suggested the following list of additional resources for her students:

For class members, the library also has pdf copies of Kate's yoga workout suggestions and her recommented resources list.

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Saturday, July 28, 2007

7/28: New at the library this week

Videos: 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)

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Saturday, April 14, 2007

4/14: New at the library this week

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

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Thursday, February 15, 2007

2/15: New at the library this week

DVDs: Books:
  • Thunderstruck / Erik Larson — tells the interwoven stories of two men-Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication-whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time. (read an exerpt; sample chapter)
  • The rising tide / Jeff Shaara — begins a staggering work of fiction bound to be a new generation’s most poignant chronicle of World War II. With you-are-there immediacy, painstaking historical detail, and all-inclusive points of view, Shaara portrays the momentous and increasingly dramatic events that pulled America into the vortex of this monumental conflict. (read an exerpt; sample chapter)
  • Wild fire / Nelson DeMille — Welcome to the Custer Hill Club - a men's club set in an Adirondack hunting lodge whose members include some of America's most powerful business leaders, military men, and government officials. Ostensibly, the club is a place to relax with old friends. But one fall weekend, the club's Executive Board gathers to talk about 9/11 - and finalize a retaliation plan, known only by its code name: WILD FIRE.
  • Miracle on 49th Street / Mike Lupica — Josh Cameron has it all: a World Championship ring with the Boston Celtics, an MVP award, a clean-cut image, and the adoration of millions. What he doesn't have is family. Until the day 12-year-old smartaleck Molly Parker confronts him in a parking lot and claims to be his daughter--the only daughter of Jen Parker, Josh's college sweetheart and the still the only girl he's ever loved. Trouble is, Jen Parker died last year, and now Molly has tracked down the father she never knew, the one her mother never wanted her to know about. Josh Cameron cares about two things only: himself, and basketball. The last thing this superstar wants or needs is a 12-year-old daughter. Yet this isn't just any 12-year-old. Mr. World Champion has finally met his match. (Age Range: 9 to 12)
  • Dear John / Nicholas Sparks — When Savannah Lynn Curtis comes into his life, John Tyree knows he is ready to turn over a new leaf. An angry rebel, he had enlisted in the army after high school, not knowing what else to do. Then, during a furlough, he meets the girl of his dreams. Savannah Lynn Curtis is attending college in North Carolina, working for Habitat for Humanity, and totally unprepared for the passionate attraction she feels for John Tyree. (read a sample chapter)
  • Forever in blue / Ann Brashares — With unraveled embroidery and fraying hems, the Traveling Pants are back for one last, glorious summer. (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Series, #4; Age Range: Young Adult) (read a sample chapter)
  • You, on a diet : the owner's manual to waist management / Michael F. Roizen ; Mehmet Oz — will invigorate you with equal parts information, motivation, and change-your-life action to show you how your brain, stomach, hormones, muscles, heart, genetics, and stress levels all interact biologically to determine if your body is the size of a baseball bat or of a baseball stadium. In YOU: On a Diet, Roizen and Oz will redefine what a healthy figure is, then take you through an under-theskin tour of the organs that influence your body's size and its health. You'll even be convinced that the key number to fixate on is not your weight, but your waist size, which best indicates the medical risks of storing too much fat.
  • The shape shifter / Tony Hillerman — The original case involved a priceless, one-of-a-kind Navajo rug supposedly destroyed in a fire. Suddenly, what looks like the same rug turns up in a magazine spread. And the man who brings the photo to Leaphorn's attention has gone missing. Leaphorn must pick up the threads of a crime he'd thought impossible to untangle. Not only has the passage of time obscured the details, but it also appears that there's a murderer still on the loose. (Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee Series, #18; read a sample chapter)

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Saturday, December 23, 2006

12/23: New at the library this week

DVDs:
  • The big valley (Season one)
  • A song for the season
  • The Christmas shoes
  • Cricket on the hearth
  • The original television Christmas classics (Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the snowman, Santa Claus is comin' to town)
  • The retrievers
  • The Ponderosa: Comes a horse & The lesser of two evils
  • The Ponderosa: Brother against brother & Treasure
  • The tangerine bear
  • Frankie and Hazel
  • I was a rat
  • By dawns early light
  • The treasure seekers
  • Franklin's magic Christmas
  • Return to the secret garden
  • The penny promise
  • Rigoletto
  • Escape from Wildcat Canyon
  • A fariy tale Christmas
  • Summer of the monkeys
  • The princess stallion
  • Pit pony
  • A family for Joe
  • Books:
    • Runaways : Pride & joy / Brian K. Vaughan — All young people believe their parents are evil … but what if they really are? Meet Alex, Karolina, Gert, Chase, Molly and Nico – whose lives are about to take an unexpected turn. When these six young friends discover their parents are all secretly super-powered villains, the shocked teens find strength in one another. Together, they run away from home and straight into the adventure of their lives – vowing to turn the tables on their evil legacy.
    • Runaways : Teenage wasteland / Brian K. Vaughan — (Runaways Series, #2) (Age Range: Young Adult)
    • Runaways : Missing: The good die young / Brian K. Vaughan — The world as we know it is about to end and the Runaways are the only hope to prevent it! But if our fledgling teenage heroes are going to succeed, they may have to become just as evil as their villainous parents. The Runaways have learned how their parents' criminal organization began, and now they must decide how it should end. As the Runaways' epic battle against their evil parents reaches its shocking conclusion, the team's mole stands revealed, and blood must be shed. Which kids will still be standing when the smoke finally clears? This is the story that changes everything (seriously!). (Runaways Series, #3) (Age Range: 12 and up)
    • Runaways : True believers / Brian K. Vaughan — When a group of teenagers discovers that their parents are actually super-villains, they run away from home... but that's only step one! Now that the evil Pride is gone, nearly every bad guy in the Marvel Universe is trying to fill the power vacuum in Los Angeles, and the Runaways are the only heroes who can stop them! Plus: What does a mysterious new team of young heroes want with the Runaways, and which fan-favorite Marvel characters are part of this group? (Runaways Series, #4) (Age Range: Young Adult)
    • Runaways : Escape to New York / Brian K. Vaughan — The team's lineup changes forever in the perfect jumping-on point for the series that Wizard said "could be the most original book to focus on teenaged super heroes since Spider-Man debuted all the way back in 1962!" When a dangerous alien invades Los Angeles, the Runaways' own Karolina Dean may be the only hero in the Marvel Universe who can stop him... but at what cost? (Runaways Series, #5) (Age Range: Young Adult)
    • Gifts / Ursula K. Le Guin — When a young man in the Uplands blinds himself rather than use his gift of "unmaking"--a violent talent shared by members of his family--he upsets the precarious balance of power among rival, feuding families, each of which has a strange and deadly talent of its own. (Age Range: Young Adult)
    • Voices / Ursula K. Le Guin — Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools, and temples. But that was long ago, and the conquerors of this coastal city consider reading and writing to be acts punishable by death. And they believe the Oracle House, where the last few undestroyed books are hidden, is seething with demons. But to seventeen-year-old Memer, the house is a refuge, a place of family and learning, ritual and memory--the only place where she feels truly safe. (Age Range: Young Adult)
    • Nature girl / Carl Hiaasen — Honey Santana-impassioned, willful, possibly bipolar, self-proclaimed "queen of lost causes"-has a scheme to help rid the world of irresponsibility, indifference, and dinnertime sales calls.
    • Naked / David Sedaris — Sedaris's message is pay attention to me. Whether he's taking to the road with a thieving quadriplegic, sorting out the fancy from the extra-fancy in a bleak fruit-packing factory, or celebrating Christmas in the company of a recently paroled prostitute, this collection of memoirs creates a wickedly incisive portrait of an all-too-familiar world.
    • Three complete novels / Nelson DeMille — (Word of honor, Cathedral, By the rivers of Babylon)
    • Our bodies, ourselves : a new edition for a new era / Boston Women's Health Book Collective — Read a sample chapter, Table of contents
    • Arctic lace : knitting projects and stories inspired / Donna Druchunas — Qiviut, or musk ox down, is a world-class fiber--luxurious, warm, and lightweight. People who experience it become obsessed. Qiviut makes perfect hand-knitted lace, as demonstrated by the Alaskan artisans of Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers' Co-op. This book presents how-tos for knitting and designing lace, projects suited to new as well as experienced lace knitters, yarn sources, and comprehensive cultural background.
    • A photographer's life : 1990-2005 / Annie Leibovitz —"I don't have two lives," Annie Leibovitz writes in the Introduction to this collection of her work from 1990-2005. "This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it."

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