5/12: New at the library this week

Videos:

• Train of life
• Star Trek : The motion picture
• Star trek : The undiscovered country
• Star trek : The wrath of Khan
• Star trek : The search for Spock
• The 13th Warrior

DVDs:

• Shadow of a doubt
• Mighty Joe Young
• The libertine
• Miami vice
• Pirates of the Caribbean : Dead man's chest

Audiobooks:

• The zero game / Brad Meltzer (casssette) — Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they're bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun—a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realize the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined—and that they're about to be the game's next victims. (read a sample chapter)

Books:

• Revenge of innocents / Nancy Taylor. Rosenberg — Carolyn knew everything about Veronica Campbell. She knew about the case of murder and retribution that haunted her life and her career. About her stormy relationship with her husband, Drew. About the emotional darkness that was overwhelming Veronica's fragile seventeen-year-old daughter, Jude. But seeing her friend laid out on a cold hard slab of steel in a morgue, and hearing the initial judgments of the investigators, Carolyn also knows this: there's no way Veronica would have ever taken her own life. (Carolyn Sullivan Series, #4)
• The Alexandria link / Steve Berry — Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. State Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: "You have something I want. You're the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I don't hear from you, you will be childless." His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malone's Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria.
• The woods / Harlan Coben — Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, they are about to change again.
• Betraying our troops : the destructive results of privatizing war / Dina Rasor; Robert Bauman — In this shocking exposé, two government fraud experts reveal how private contractors have put the lives of countless American soldiers on the line while damaging our strategic interests and our image abroad. From the shameful war profiteering of companies like Halliburton/KBR to the sinister influence that corporate lobbyists have on American foreign policy, Dina Rasor and Robert H. Bauman paint a disturbing picture. Here they give the inside story on troops forced to subsist on little food and contaminated water, on officers afraid to lodge complaints because of Halliburton's political clout, on millions of dollars in contractors' bogus claims that are funded by American taxpayers. Drawing on exclusive sources within government and the military, the authors show how money and power have conspired to undermine our fighting forces and threaten the security of our country.
• 6th target / James Patterson; Maxine Paetro — When a horrifying attack leaves one of the four members of the Women's Murder Club struggling for her life, the others fight to keep a madman behind bars before anyone else is hurt. And Lindsay Boxer and her new partner in the San Francisco police department run flat-out to stop a series of kidnappings that has electrified the city: children are being plucked off the streets together with their nannies-- but the kidnappers aren't demanding ransom. Amid uncertainty and rising panic, Lindsay juggles the possibility of a new love with an unsolvable investigation, and the knowledge that one member of the club could be on the brink of death. (Women's Murder Club Series, #6)
• Young men & fire / Norman Maclean — On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy. (National Book Critics Circle Award 1992)
• The golden compass / Philip Pullman — Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors. First, her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, appears with evidence of mystery and danger in the far North, including photographs of a mysterious celestial phenomenon called Dust and the dim outline of a city suspended in the Aurora Borealis that he suspects is part of an alternate universe. He leaves Lyra in the care of Mrs. Coulter, an enigmatic scholar and explorer who offers to give Lyra the attention her uncle has long refused her. In this multilayered narrative, however, nothing is as it seems. (His Dark Materials Series, #1; read an exerpt)
• The inheritance of loss / Kiran Desai — In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace when his orphaned granddaughter Sai arrives on his doorstep. The judge's chatty cook watches over her, but his thoughts are mostly with his son, Biju, hopscotching from one New York restaurant job to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS, forced to consider his country's place in the world. When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai's new-sprung romance with her handsome Nepali tutor and causes their lives to descend into chaos, they, too, are forced to confront their colliding interests. The nation fights itself. (read a sample chapter)
• What the dead know / Laura Lippman — Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who'or what'could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness? Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. (read a sample chapter)
• A wicked snow / Gregg Olsen — Hannah Griffin was a girl when tragedy struck on her family’s farm. She still remembers the flames reflected against the newly fallen snow and the bodies the police dug up - one of them her mother’s. It was the nation’s worst murder scene in decades and the killer was never found.Twenty years later Hannah is a talented CSI investigating a case of child abuse when the past comes hurtling back. (read a sample chapter)
• The Yiddish policemen's union / Michael Chabon — For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown. (read a sample chapter)
• The widow / Carla Neggers — Four days after Abigail Browning's wedding, her life changed in a way she never expected: her husband was shot, meeting his death along the rocky Mount Desert Island coast. Was it a random act of violence, or could someone have wanted Christopher dead? That's the question that has haunted Abigail, now a homicide detective, for the past seven years. As determined as ever to find her husband's killer, she returns to the foggy Maine island -- and the home she has inherited there -- after receiving an anonymous tip. Is it just another false lead by someone looking for attention? Or can she finally prove that his death was tied to something that happened that night . . . and that he was murdered? (read an exerpt)
• Children are no match for fire : A fire safety story for the whole family / Carol Dean ; Sandra Dunn — John and Jodie are twins who are turning five years old on July 4th. They attend a class at their local fire department, where Patches, the department's Dalmatian, shows them his version of Stop, Drop, and Roll. The twins are eager to share what they have learned with their parents, and want to practice the things Chief Foley had suggested. Little did they know how important the training was going to be to their friend Kim. John and Jodie have a birthday they will never forget. John becomes a hero, and receives an award for his quick action.
• Edward Weston : the flame of recognition: his photographs accompanied / Edward Weston — Integrating revealing excerpts from Edward Weston's own Daybooks and letters with some of his most exquisite photographs, Nancy Newhall sheds light on Weston's own attempts to "understand the strange flashes of vision" that came through his camera.
• The daybooks of Edward Weston Vol II: California / Edward Weston — For more than fifteen years, Edward Weston kept a diary in which he recorded his struggle to understand himself, his society, and his medium. Seldom has an artist written about his life as vividly, intimately, or sensitively. His journal has become a classic of photographic literature.
• Dancing with the wheel : the medicine wheel workbook / Sun Bear — The result of nearly twenty-five years of intensive study with two Native American dreaming societies, Dancing the Dream draws our attention to the four directions of the Medicine Wheel (East, South, West, and North) and the three unseen directions – Above, Below, and Within – and explains how each of these seven directions represents a specific path on the spiritual journey. (read an exerpt)
• By my side / Nora Roberts — Contains two books— 1) From This Day: When B. J. Clark, manager of the Lakeside Inn, met the new owner, Taylor Reynolds, she was fully prepared to dislike him. She feared--and with good reason--that he planned to transform her lovely, sleepy old hotel into a resort for jet-setters. But when sparks flew between them, B.J. soon found herself torn between her professional antagonism and her growing attraction to the man she had sworn to despise. 2) Temptation: Socialite Eden Carlbough didn't expect running a girls' camp to be easy, but she never thought she'd literally be run up an apple tree by the little monsters--nor did she think she'd come crashing down into the capable arms of orchard owner Chase Elliot. Chase knew he'd caught a windfall when he looked at the woman in his arms. He didn't like being cast as the serpent, but how could he resist when she'd just offered him such forbidden fruit? (read an exerpt)
• The same sweet girls / Cassandra King — On an island every summer and in the mountains every fall, the Same Sweet Girls come together to share their stories. When one of the group faces the most difficult challenge of her life, the novel builds to an almost unbearably powerful conclusion, one of the most memorable in current fiction. Without a touch of sentimentality, Cassandra King writes of the way close friends can help each other through even the most cataclysmic life events. (read an exerpt)
• Housekeeping / Marilynne Robinson — the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. The family house is in the small town of Fingerbone on a glacial lake in the Far West, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transcience. (read a sample chapter)
• The flamingo rising / Larry Baker — It's the 1960s in Jacksonville, Florida (where the sixties are still the fifties), and some of America's last sweet moments of innocence are unfolding out on the coastal highway at the Flamingo Drive-In Theatre, owned and operated by the Lee family. (read an exerpt)
• Ugly ways / Tina McElroy Ansa — Three sexy, screwed-up Southern sisters come home to Mulberry to put their totally self-centered mother, Mudear, in her grave. We meet the Lovejoy women as they gather in their mother's house to lay her and the demons she has dumped on them to rest.
• Ghost soldiers : the forgotten epic story of World War II's most dramatic mission / Hampton Sides — On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected trooops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had spent three years in a surreally hellish camp near the city of Cabanatuan. Hampton Sides explores the mystery of human behavior under extreme duress - the resilience of the prisoners, who defied the Japanese authorities even as they endured starvation, tropical diseases, and unspeakable tortures; the violent cultural clashes with Japanese guards and soldiers steeped in the warrior ethic of Bushido; the remarkable heroism of the Rangers and Filipino guerillas; the complex motivations of the U.S. high command, some of whom could justly be charged with abandoning the men of Bataan in 1942; and the nearly suicidal bravado of several spies, including priests and a cabaret owner, who risked their lives to help the prisoners during their long ordeal. (read an exerpt)
• The art of being an elephant / Christine Denis-Huot; Michel Denis-Huot — They're the majestic lords of the savannah--and as these magnificently beautiful photos and engaging text prove, the elephant is one of the most surprising and intelligent creatures on our planet.
• Staircases / Eva Jiricna — Forty-nine historic staircases in 18 countries are reviewed.

4/28: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Man of la Mancha

Books:

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

4/5: New at the library this week

Videos:

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

DVDs:

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

Books:

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

1/27: New at the library this week

DVDs:

• Flightplan
• The matador
• Stealth
• The world's fastest Indian

Books:

• Heritage of Lancaster County / Beverly Lewis — The Shunning, The Confession, The Reckoning (read an exerpt, the front cover flap)
• Casa Mexicana / Tim Street-Porter
• Downsize this! / Michael Moore — Nothing but the truth is sacred in Michael Moore's hilarious screed on the state of America, Downsize This! With the same in-your-face tenacity that has made him everyman's hero, Moore gets under the skin of corporate giants, politicians, lobbyists, and the media - anyone who has made life tougher for the millions of Americans who are working longer hours for less pay and have had enough. (read an exerpt)
• Mexico : architecture, interiors, design / Mark Luscombe-Whyte — From simple rural adobe dwellings and ornately decorated churches to deluxe seaside retreats and high-tech modern structures they explore the evolution of Mexican style from the traditional dwellings of ancient civilizations to the cutting-edge examples of today's most influential architects and designers. (preview table of contents)
• Quilts in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright / Jackie Robinson — Wright's art glass designs (1900-1923) inspired these quilts. Take a tour with Jackie Robinson as she guides you through construction of your "Wright window" in fabric using machine piecing methods. Directions for 18 projects.
• The illustrated atlas of Hawaii / Gavan Daws — Along with detailed, full-color maps, this richly illustrated text brings to life the diverse landscapes and cultures of Hawaii in one concise source. (preview table of contents)
• How to design & build decks & patios / Lin Cotton — Shows how to create decks and patios to extend living spaces outdoors. Includes guidelines for developing a design, drawing up a working plan to obtain a permit, and calculating materials needed. Includes complete constructions details for finishing a project.
• Converting basements, garages & attics : expanding your usable space easily, attractively & affordably / Roger Dodge Woodson — Found space...that's what this book is all about. You'll learn how to maximize the usable but unfinished areas in your house-including the basement, attic, or garage-as new living space for your growing family, without the expense of a costly addition and without the trouble of moving to a larger house.