Ventress Memorial Library -- New Books

Girl Scouts, Kidnapping, and Romney

2012-02-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

First Girl Scout: The Life of Juliette Gordon Low by Ginger Wadsworth
When Juliette Gordon was growing up in the late 1800s, she climbed trees, swam in rivers, and hiked on tall cliffs. With her cousins and friends, she sewed costumes and put on plays, sketched and painted, and reached out to help other kids who were less fortunate. Juliette, or Daisy, as her friends and family called her--knew that most girls her age weren't so lucky; they didn't have the opportunities to play, create, and enjoy outdoor activities the way she did. And when Daisy became an adult, she out to do something to change that.

We Is Got Him: The Kidnapping that Changed America by Carrie Hagen
in 1874, a little boy named Charley Ross was snatched from his family's front yard in Philadelphia. A ransom note arrived the next day, demanding $20,000 for Charley's return. The city was about to host America's centennial celebration, and the mass panic surrounding the Charley Ross case jeopardized city politics and plunged the nation into hysteria. The desperate search led the Philadelphia and New York police departments to inspect every building in Philadelphia, set up saloon surveillance in New York's notorious Five Points neighborhood, and elicit citizens' participation in a national manhunt.

The Real Romney by Michael Kranish and Scott Helman
Mitt Romney has masterfully positioned himself as front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. Even though he's become a household name, the former Massachusetts governor remains an enigma to many in America, his character and core convictions elusive, his record little known. Who is the man behind the sweep of dark hair, distinguished white sideburns, and high-wattage smile? He often seems to be two people at once: a savvy politician, and someone who will simply say anything to win. A business visionary, and a calculating dealmaker. A man comfortable in his faith and with family, and one who can have trouble connecting with average voters.

Teen Pick of the Week: The Hunger Games

2012-02-02T12:05:00.000-08:00

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to she becomes a contender. But if she is to win she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

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New Romance

2012-01-26T15:01:00.000-08:00

The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne
Someone is stalking agent Justine DeCabrillac through London's gray streets. Under cover of the rain, the assassin strikes--and Justine staggers to the door of the one man who can save her. The man she once loved. The man she hated. Adrian Hawkhurst. Adrian wanted the treacherous beauty known as "Owl" back in his bed, but not wounded and clinging to life. Now, as he helps her heal, the two must learn to trust each other and to confront the hidden menace that's trying to kill them--and survive long enough to explore the passion simmering between them once again.

With No Remorse by Cindy Gerard
For Luke Colter, downtime is an illusion. He should know better than to ever leave his gun behind, especially since now he's risking his life to save world-famous supermodel Valentina. Val thought traveling incognito through the mountains would be the perfect cure for her bruised heart...until someone tries to kill her. Without knowing who is after her--and why--does she dare trust her irresistible protector?

Where Demons Fear to Tread by Stephanie Chong
Fledging guardian angel and yoga teacher Serena St. Clair dares to enter Devil's Paradise nightclub on a mission--to retrieve the wayward Hollywood "It Boy" she's assigned to protect. But she's ambushed by the club's owner, arch demon Julian Ascher. The most powerful demonic entity in Los Angeles, Julian is handsome as sin, a master of temptation who loves nothing more than corrupting pleasure-seeking humans. He won't release the lost soul Serena is supposed to guard. Unless she accepts his dangerous wager.

Teen Pick of the Week: How to Save a Life

2012-01-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr
Jill MacSweeney just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she's been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends -- everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she is somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one. Mandy Kalinowski understands what it's like to grow up unwanted--to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she's sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It's harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too? As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy--or as difficult--as it seems.

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Miracles, Buddhists, and Equality

2012-01-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

The Translation of the Bones by Francesca Kay
When word gets out that Mary-Margaret O'Reilly, a somewhat slow-witted but harmless young woman, may have been witness to a miracles, religious mania descends on the Church of the Sacred Heart in Battersea, London. The consequences are devastating, not only for Mary-Margaret but for others, including Father Diamond, the parish priest, who is in the midst of his own lonely crisis of faith, and Stella Morrison, adrift in a loveless marriage and aching for her ten-year-old son, away at boarding school. Another mother, Alice Armitage, counts the days until her soldier son comes home from Afghanistan, while Mary-Margaret's mother, Fidelma, imprisoned in her tower block, stares out over the city through her window for hour after hour with nothing but her thoughts for company. It is Mary-Margaret's desperate attempt to prove that Jesus loves her that will change all of these lives in a shocking way.

Vulture Peak by John Burdett
Nobody knows Bangkok like Royal Thai Police Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, and there is no one quite like Sonchai: a police officer who has kept his Buddhist soul intact--more or less--despite the fact that his job shoves him face-to-face with some of the most vile and outrageous crimes and criminals in Bangkok. But for his newest assignment, everything he knows about his city--and himself--will be a mere starting point. He's put in charge of the highest-profile criminal case in Thailand--an attempt to bring an end to trafficking human organs. He sets in motion a massive sting operation and stays at its center, traveling to Phuket, Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, and Monte Carlo. He draws in a host of unwitting players. And yet, it's closer to home that Sonchai will discover things getting really dicey.

Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home by Anita Hill
In 1991, Anita Hill's courageous testimony during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings sparked a national conversation on sexual harassment and women's equality in politics and the workplace. Today, she turns her attention to another potent and enduring symbol of economic success and equality--the home. Hill details how the current housing crisis, resulting in the devastation of so many families, so many communities, and even whole cities, imperils every American's ability to achieve the American Dream.

Teen Pick of the Week: Imaginary Girls

2012-01-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

Imaginary Girls by Nova Ren Suma
Chloe's older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can't be captured or caged. After a night with Ruby's friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers a dead body floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away--away from home, away from Ruby. But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns home at last, she finds a precarious and deadly balance waiting for her. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between line and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

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Large Print: Monks, Mysteries, and Sparrows

2012-01-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Mr. Monk on the Road by Lee Goldberg
Adrian Monk is feeling strangely...satisfied. His job is secure, and his wife's murder has finally been solved. He'd like his agoraphobic brother, Ambrose, to be able to feel the same way--and sees his brother's birthday as a chance to make it happen. So Monk puts a secret ingredient in Ambrose's birthday cake: sleeping pills. When he wakes up, they're in a motor home on the open road. Monk is determined to show his brother the outside world. But as little crimes pop up along the highway, Monk can't resist getting involved.

Hell is Empty: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson
Well-read and world-weary, Sheriff Walt Longmire has been maintaining order in Wyoming's Absaroka County for more than thirty years, but in this riveting seventh outing he is pushed to his limits. Raynaud Shade, an adopted Crow Indian, has confessed to murdering a boy ten years ago and burying him deep within the Big Horn Mountains. Shade and a group of other convicts escape while Walt is transporting them through a snowstorm, and Walt, guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered copy of Dante's Inferno, pursues them into an icy hell.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families--the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered.

Teen Pick of the Week: Twisted

2012-01-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

Twisted: A Pretty Little Liars Novel by Sara Shepard
It's been a year since the torturous notes from A stopped and the mystery of Alison DiLaurentis's disappearance was finally put to rest. Now seniors in high school, Aria, Spencer, Hanna, and Emily are older, but they're not any wiser. The pretty little liars have more secrets than ever--twisted secrets that could destroy the perfect lives they're worked so hard to rebuild.

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Recipes, Rwanda, and Romany

2012-01-06T09:02:00.001-08:00

The Sexy Forever Recipe Bible by Suzanne Somers
She is known by her family and friends as a world-class cook, but you would never guess Suzanne Somer's delicious recipes and desserts can also be used as part of her phenomenally successful weight loss plan, Sexy Forever. The Sexy Forever Recipe Bible provides a stunning compilation of more than 400 delicious classics, updated and coded for those with preferences for gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegetarian, or vegan options.

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
Running the Rift follows the progress of Jean Patrick Nkuba from the day he knows that running will be his life to the moment he must run to save his life. A naturally gifted athlete, he sprints over the thousand hills of Rwanda and dreams of becoming his country's first Olympic medal winner in track. But Jean Patrick is a Tutsi in a world that has become increasingly restrictive and violent for his people. As tensions mount between the Hutu and Tutsi, he holds fast to his dream that running might deliver him, and his people, from the brutality around them.

The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney
Small-time private investigator Ray Lovell veers between paralysis and delirium in a hospital bed. But before the accident that landed him there, he'd been hired to find Rose Janko, the wife of a charismatic son of a traveling Gypsy family, who went missing seven years earlier. Half Romany himself, Ray is well aware that he's been chosen more for his blood than for his investigative skills. Still, he's surprised by the intense hostilities he encounters from the Jankos, who haven't had an easy past. Touched by tragedy, they're either cursed or hiding a terrible secret--the discovery of which Ray can't help suspecting is connected to Rose's disappearance.

Teen Pick of the Week: Chicken Soup

2012-01-03T07:52:00.001-08:00

Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul on Tough Stuff: Stories of Tough Times and Lessons Learned by Jack Canfield
Many of these stories were written by teens and provide comfort and support to their peer readers. Tough Stuff was a chapter in the previous series Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul and includes more challenging issues and experiences of being a teenager, such as drugs and alcohol, rejection, loss of friendships and relationships, death, suicide, divorce, physical and emotional abuse, and eating disorders. Although the content of these stories is often disturbing and sometimes tragic, the potential for insight, learning and "growing up" is enormous.

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Bridal Shops and CSI

2011-12-30T11:03:00.000-08:00

The Magic Room: A Story about the Love We Wish for Our Daughters by Jeffrey Zaslow
Thousands of women have stepped inside Becker's Bridal in Fowler, Michigan, to try on their dream dresses in the Magic Room, a special space with soft lighting, a circular pedestal, and mirrors that carry a bride's reflection into infinity. The women bring with them their most precious expectations about romance, love, fidelity, permanence, and tradition. Each bride who passes through has a story to tell--one that carried her there, to that dress, that room, that moment. Illuminating the poignant aspects of a woman's journey to the altar, The Magic Room, tells the stories of memorable women on the brink of commitment.

Mr. CSI: How a Vegas Dreamer Made a Killing in Hollywood, One Body at a Time by Anthony Zuiker
In 1990, Anthony Zuiker was just another Hollywood wannabe--a balding, overweight guy driving a tram in Las Vegas for eight bucks an hour, telling his friends about the screenplay he was writing, dreaming of fame. He'd grown up in Vegas, where his mother worked the blackjack table at a casino, while his father flitted back and forth from investment schemes that didn't seem to go anywhere. His friends figured Anthony wouldn't either. But twenty years later, Zuiker stands as the mastermind behind the most popular television show in history, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and its spin-offs: CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. How he got there--a remarkable rise from nothing to something--is the narrative lifeblood of Mr. CSI.

Teen Pick of the Week: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

2011-12-27T07:35:00.001-08:00

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Indiana , 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness." Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire. Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

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New Fiction

2011-12-20T08:27:00.000-08:00

Lucky Break by Esther Freud
It is their first day at Drama Arts, and the nervous students huddled in a circle are told in no uncertain terms that here, unlike at lesser drama schools, they will be taught to Act. To Be. To exist in their own world on the stage. But outside in the real world--a pitiless, alluring place in which each of them, in their most fervent dreams, hopes to flourish and excel. Nell, insecure and dumpy, wonders if she will ever be cast as anything other than the maid. She's never compete, she knows, with the multitude of confident, long-legged beauties thronging the profession--most notably Charlie, whose effortless ascendance is nothing less than she expects for herself. Meanwhile, Dan, ambitious and serious, has his sights set on the role of Hamlet, as well as on the fiery, rebellious Jemma.

Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet
An IRS bureaucrat named Hal is a man baffled by his wife's obsession with her young employer, T., and haunted by the accident that paralyzed his daughter, Casey. In a moment of drunken heroism, Hal embarks on a quest to find T. who has vanished in the jungle. On his trip to Central America, Hal embroils himself in a surreal tropical adventure, descending into strange and unpredictable terrain (and an unexpected affair with a beguiling German woman).

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
Rachel White is the consummate good girl. A hard-working attorney at a large Manhattan law firm and a diligent maid of honor to her charmed best friend Darcy, Rachel has always played by all the rules. Since grade school, she has watched Darcy shine, quietly accepting the sidekick role in their lopsided friendship. But that suddenly changes the night of her thirtieth birthday when Rachel finally confesses her feelings to Darcy's fiance, and is both horrified and thrilled to discover he feels the same way. As the wedding date draws near, events spiral out of control, and Rachel knows she must make a choice between her heart and conscience.

Teen Pick of the Week: Dear Bully

2011-12-20T07:56:00.001-08:00

Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories edited by Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones
Discover how Lauren Kate transformed the feeling of that one mean girl getting under her skin into her first novel, how Lauren Oliver learned to celebrate ambiguity in her classmates and in herself, and how R.L. Stine turned being the "funny guy" into the best defense against the bullies in his class. Today's top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying--as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators--in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.

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New Biographies!

2011-12-15T12:07:00.000-08:00

Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope by Gabrielle Giffords & Mark Kelly
As individuals, congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, showed Americans how optimism, an adventurous spirit, and a call to service can help change the world. As a couple, they became a national example of the healing power found in deeply shared love and courage. Their arrival in the world spotlight came under the worst of circumstances. On January 8, 2011, while meeting with her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, Gabby was the victim of an assassination attempt that left six people dead and thirteen wounded. Gabby was shot in the head; doctors called her survival "miraculous."

No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington by Condeleezza Rice
From one of the world's most admired women, this is former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice's compelling story of eight years serving at the highest levels of government. In her position as America's chief diplomat, Rice traveled almost continuously around the globe, seeking common ground among sometimes bitter enemies, forging agreement on divisive issues, and compiling a remarkable record of achievement.

Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin
When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, where thousands flocked to mourn the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England. His books had made them laugh, shown them squalor and greed of English life and also the power of personal virtue and the strength of ordinary people--through the likes of David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Little Nell, and many more. In his last years Dickens drew adoring crowds to his public appearances, had met presidents and princes and he had amassed a fortune.

Teen Pick of the Week: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

2011-12-13T08:31:00.001-08:00

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a year-long coma, and she's still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it. Her parents show her home movies of her life, her memories, but she has no recollection. Is she really the same girl she sees on the screen? Little by little, Jenna begins to remember. Along with the memories come questions--questions no one wants to answer for her. What really happened after the accident?

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Black Friday, Midwives, and Vonnegut

2011-12-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

Soft Target by Stephen Hunter
Black Friday. America's largest shopping mall. Suburban Minneapolis. 3:00P.M.
Ten thousand people jam the aisles, the corridors, the elevators, and the escalators of America, the Mall--a giant Rubik's Cube of a structure with its own amusement park located in the spacious center atrium. Of those people, nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight have come to shop. The other twelve have come to kill.

Maria by Eugenia Price
Born in Charles Town, South Carolina, Mary, a skilled midwife, accompanied her first husband, British soldier David Fenwick, when his regiment fought the Spanish in Cuba. When Spain agreed to give all of Florida in exchange for the city of Havana, Mary (who will become known as Maria) and her husband were forced to relocate to the newly British garrison town of St. Augustine, Florida.

And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields
Kurt Vonnegut remains one of the most influential, controversial, and popular novelists of the twentieth century. Millions know him as a counterculture guru, antiwar activist, and satirist of American culture. But few outside his family and friends knew the full arc of his extraordinary life.

Teen Pick of the Week: The Walking Dead

2011-12-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Walking Dead: Volume 14 No Way Out by Robert Kirkman
The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months society has crumbled, no goverment, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.

Want to start this series in the beginning? Check out The Walking Dead: Volume 1 Days Gone Bye.

Click on the titles to place them on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library!

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Detectives and Saints

2011-12-01T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Drop by Michael Connelly
Harry Bosch is facing the end of the line. He's been put on the DROP -- the Deferred Retirement Option Plan -- and given three years before he must retire from the LAPD. Seeing the end of the mission coming, Bosch wants cases more fiercely than ever, and in one morning he gets two. Relentlessly pursuing both cases, which are interwoven like the double helix of a DNA strand, Bosch makes two chilling discoveries: a sadistic killer operating unknown in the city for more than two decades, and a political conspiracy going back into the dark history of the police department.

Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea
After the bloody Tomochic rebellion of 1892, young Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and "Saint of Cabora," escapes with her father to Arizona. But besieged by pilgrims in desperate need of her healing powers and pursued by assassins sent by Mexican dictator Porfinrio Diaz, she has no choice but to flee the borderlands and embark on an extraordinary journey into the heart of turn-of-the-century America. Teresita's passage will take her to New York, San Francisco, and St. Louis, where she will encounter European royalty, Cuban poets, beauty queens, anxious immigrants, and grand tycoons--among them, a man who will force Teresita to finally ask herself the ultimate question: is a saint allowed to fall in love?

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Teen Pick of the Week: Twisted

2011-11-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

Twisted: An Intertwined Novel by Gena Showalter
Sixteen-year-old Aden Stone has had a hell of a week. He's been: Tortured by angry witches, hypnotized by a vengeful fairy, spied on by the most powerful vampire in existence, and, oh, yea, killed--twice. His vampire girlfriend might have brought him back to life, but he's never felt more out of control. There's a darkness within him, something taking over...changing him. Worse, because he was meant to die, death now stalks him at every turn. Any day could be his last. Once upon a time, the three souls trapped inside his head could have helped him. He could have protected himself. But as the darkness grows stronger, the souls grow weaker--just like his girlfriend. The more vampire Aden becomes, the more human Victoria becomes, until everything they know and love is threatened. Life couldn't get any worse. Could it?

Check out the other books in this series! Book 1: Intertwined and Book 2: Unraveled

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Teen Pick of the Week: Glimmerglass

2011-11-22T10:45:00.001-08:00

Glimmerglass: A Faeriewalker Novel by Jenna Black
Dana Hathaway doesn't know it yet, but she's in big trouble. When her alcoholic mom shows up at her voice recital drunk, again, Dana decides she's had enough and runs away to find her mysterious father in Avalon: the only place on Earth where the regular, everyday world and the captivating, magical world of Faerie intersect. But from the moment Dana sets foot in Avalon, everything goes wrong, for it turns out she isn't just an ordinary teenage girl--she's a Faeriewalker, a rare individual who can travel between both worlds, and the only person who can bring magic into the human world and technology into Faerie. Soon, Dana finds herself tangled up in a cutthroat game of Fae politics. Someone's trying to kill her, and everyone seems to want something from her, from her newfound friends and family to Ethan, the hot Fae guy Dana figures she'll never have a chance with...until she does. Caught between two worlds, Dana isn't sure where she'll ever fit in or who can be trusted, not to mention if her world will ever be normal again.

Read the following two books in this series with Book 2: Shadowspell and then Book 3: Sirensong!

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Teen Pick of the Week: The Scorch Trials

2011-11-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
Solving the maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to. Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated--and with it, order-- and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by their infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim... and meal. The Gladers are far from done running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks.

Be sure to read the first in the Maze Runner trilogy titled The Maze Runner by James Dashner. Also newly published is the third book The Death Cure by James Dashner.

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New Fiction this Week

2011-11-17T14:16:00.000-08:00

The Sisters by Nancy Jensen
Growing up in hardscrabble Kentucky in the 1920s, with their mother dead and their stepfather an ever-present threat, Bertie Fischer and her older sister, Mabel, have no one but each other--with perhaps a sweetheart for Bertie waiting in the wings. But on the day that Bertie receives her eighth-grade diploma, good intentions go terribly wrong. A choice made in desperate haste sets off a chain of misunderstandings that will divide the sisters and reverberate through three generations of women.

The River Killers by Bruce Burrows
Danny Swanson, Department of Fisheries and Oceans employee and ex-fisherman, isn't exactly upset when he's reassigned from a desk job in Ottawa to a job on the West Coast. His superiors think they're punishing him for insubordination, but Danny is pleased to be back on the Pacific, reconnecting with his old fishing buddies. Revisiting his past life, though, is trolling up some old memories, including a troubling incident from ten years ago, when Danny and his crew pulled up a deformed fish. His shipmate, Billy, reported it to the DFO in Vancouver. Billy and the fish were never seen again. Danny's buddy is on his mind when he stumbles across a photo of the fish in the DFO database, and now Danny won't let Billy's disappearance go unsolved.

The Curse by Harold Robbins
Art investigator Madison Dupre knows a fake when she sees it. When the mysterious Dr. Kaseem offers to pay her a handsome sum to "ransom" a scarab stolen from the tomb of King Tut, her gut tells her to walk away. Since she still needs to pay the rent, Madison throws caution to the wind and prepares to search for the Heart of Egypt. Before she can pack a suitcase, she finds herself framed for murder and on the run. Drawn to Egypt in search of the scarab, Madison is trapped in the land of pharaohs when her passport is seized at the airport. She knows she is being played by Kaseem, who believes the Heart has the power to galvanize the masses to support his secret cause.

True Crime and Hairdressing

2011-11-10T14:50:00.000-08:00

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale
It is midnight on 30th June 1860 and all is quiet in the Kent family's elegant house in Road, Wiltshire. The next morning, however, they wake to find that their youngest son has been the victim of an unimaginably gruesome murder. Even worse, the guilty party is surely one of their number--the house was bolted from the inside. As Jack Whicher, the most celebrated detective of his day, arrives at Road to track down the killer, the murder provokes national hysteria at the thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class home--scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing.

Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life by Carrie White
Behind the scenes of every Hollywood photo shoot, TV appearance, and party in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, there was Carrie White. As the "First Lady of Hairdressing," Carrie collaborated with Richard Avedon on shoots for Vogue, partied with Jim Morrison, styled Sharon Tate's hair before her wedding to Roman Polanski, and got high with Jimi Hendrix. But behind the glamorous facade, Carrie's world was in perpetual disarray and always had been.

Teen Pick of the Week: Heist Society

2011-11-08T08:08:00.000-08:00

Uncommon Criminals: A Heist Society Novel by Ally Carter
Katarina Bishop has worn a lot of labels in her short life: Friend. Niece. Daughter. Thief. But for the last two months she's simply been known as the girl who ran the crew that robbed the greatest museum in the world. That's why Kat isn't surprised when she's asked to steal the infamous Cleopatra Emerald so it can be returned to its rightful owners. There are only three problems. First, the gem hasn't been seen in public in thirty years. Second, since the fall of the Egyptian empire and the suicide of Cleopatra, no one who holds the emerald keeps it for long--and in Kat's world, history almost always repeats itself. But it's the third problem that makes Kat's crew the most nervous, and that is... the emerald is cursed. Kat might be in way over her head, but she's not going down without a fight. After all, she has her best friend--the gorgeous Hale--and the rest of her crew with her as they chase the Cleopatra around the globe dodging curses and realizing that the same tricks and cons her family has used for centuries are useless this time. Which means, this time, Katarina Bishop is making up her own rules.

England, Spain, Ireland, and France

2011-11-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

Tides of War by Stella Tillyard
Tides of War opens in England in 1812 with the recently married, charmingly unconventional Harriet prepared to say good-bye to her husband, James, as he leaves to join the Duke of Wellington's troops in Spain. Their interwoven stories of love and betrayal propel this sweeping and panoramic novel as it moves between Regency London on the cusp of modernity--a city in love with science, the machine, money--and the shocking violence of the Peninsular War. When Harriet befriends the older and protective Kitty, Lady Wellington, her life begins to change in unexpected ways.

The Chisellers by Brendan O'Carroll
Mother. Father. Business consultant. Cop. To her seven high-spirited "chisellers," Agnes Browne is all of these, and more. In the Dublin working-class neighborhood known as The Jarro, it's the Browne clan against the world--and against the backstreet villains and white-collar emissaris of market forces that threaten to tear this upwardly aspiring family apart. The Browne brood is about to be relocated to the wilds of suburban Finglas when their tenement is demolished as part of an "Inner City Renewal Plan." With the help of her ambitious eldest boy and her persistant French suitor, Agnes copes with the ups and downs of "rural" life, one unscrupulous gangster, and the son who is well on his way to breaking his mother's heart.

Obedience by Jacqueline Yallop
Sister Bernard has lived in a grey-stone convent in rural France for more than seventy years. In that time, a once youthful and lively cloister has gradually emptied, until only Bernard and two other nuns remain, a knot of survivors facing the creeping challenges of old age--ailing bodies and worn-thin friendships, slips of minds and, in their most secret moments, slips of faith. Now, the halls will fall silent as the three women pack away their few possessions into wooden boxes, preparing to leave the building that has been their home for decades.

Teen Pick of the Week: Soul Surfer

2011-11-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board by Bethany Hamilton
They say Bethany Hamilton has saltwater in her veins. How else could one explain the passion that drives her to surf? Or that nothing--not even the loss of her arm--could come between her and the waves? That Halloween morning in Kauai, Hawaii, Bethany responded to the shark's stealth attack with the calm of a teenage girl with God on her side, resolutely pushing aside her pain and panic while being rescued and brought back to shore. "When can I surf again?" was the first thing Bethany asked after her emergency surgery, leaving no doubt that her spirit and determination were part of a greater story--a tale of personal empowerment and spiritual grit that shows the body is no more essential to surfign, perhaps even less so, than the soul.

Place this item on hold by clicking on the title! Also feel free to email me with your teen pick of the week suggestions and/or reviews.

Reality and Amnesia

2011-10-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True by Richard Dawkins
Magic takes many forms. Supernatural magic is what our ancestors used in order to explain the world before they developed the scientific method. The ancient Egyptians explained the night by suggesting the goddess Nut swallowed the sun. The Vikings believed a rainbow was the gods' bridge to earth. The Japanese used to explain earthquakes by conjuring a gigantic catfish that carried the world on its back--earthquakes occurred each time it flipped its tail. These are magical, extraordinary tales. But there is another kind of magic, and it lies in the exhilaration of discovering the real answers to these questions. It is the magic of reality---and science. This book is packed with clever thought experiments, dazzling illustrations, and jaw-dropping facts.

My Life, Deleted: A Memoir by Scott Bolzan
Awakening in a hospital with no memory of who he was or how he got there, the forty-six year old didn't know that the petite blonde at his side was his wife of twenty-four years , Joan-- or even what a wife was. He couldn't remember the births of his two young-adult children, the daughter he'd lost, his time as an offensive lineman for the NFL's Cleveland Browns, or his flourishing aviation career. Scott's life and the lives of everyone who loved him were forever changed when he slipped, hit his head, and lost consciousness in his office bathroom, suffering one of the most severe cases of permanent retrograde amnesia on record.

Teen Picks: Series The Looking Glass Wars

2011-10-27T10:08:00.001-07:00

Our first Teen Pick of the week is the third book in the series The Looking Glass Wars: Archenemy by Frank Beddor
The power of imagination has been lost! Now it's all about the artillery as AD52s, crystal shooters, spikejack tumblers, and orb cannons are unleashed in a war of weapons and brute force. As Alyss searches wildly for the solution to the disaster that has engulfed her queendom, Arch declares himself King of Wonderland. The moment is desperate enough for Alyss to travel back to London for answers, where Arch's assassins are threatening Alice Liddell and her family. But after coming to the Liddell's assistance, Alyss discovers herself trapped in a conundrum of evaporating puddles. The shimmering portals that exist to transport her home through the Pool of Tears are disappearing! What is happening to Wonderland?

Want to begin this whole series? Try the first book The Looking Glass Wars and the second book The Looking Glass Wars: Seeing Redd by Frank Beddor

Any suggestions for Teen Pick of the week, for readalikes, or just overall input? Email Amy.

Coming Soon!!!

2011-10-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

Starting this week I'll be posting a Teen Pick of the week as well as the regular weekly new book reviews.

Brave Women

2011-10-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

Barefoot in Baghdad: A Story of Identity--My Own And What It Means to Be a Woman in Chaos by Manal Omar
An American aid worker of Arab descent, Manal Omar moves to Iraq to help as many women as she can rebuild their lives. She quickly finds herself drawn into the saga of a people determined to rise from the ashes of war and sanctions and rebuild their lives in the face of crushing chaos. This is a chronicle of Omar's friendships with several Iraqis whose lives are crumbling before her eyes. It is a tale of love, as her relationship with one Iraqi man intensifies in a country in turmoil. And it is the heartrending stories of the women in Iraq, as they grapple with what it means to be female in a homeland you no longer recognize.

The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly
Every now and again, a storyteller comes along who can take us completely into her world and make us wish we never had to leave it. This is such a tale. When India Selwyn Jones, a young woman from a noble family, graduates from the London School of Medicine for Women in 1900, her professors advise her to set up her practice in London's esteemed Harley Street. Driven and idealistic, India chooses to work in the city's East End instead, serving the desperately poor. In these grim streets, India meets--and saves the life of--London's most notorious gangster, Sid Malone. A hard, wounded man, Malone is the opposite of India's aristocratic fiance, Freddie Lytton, a rising star in the House of Commons. Though Malone represents all she despises, India finds herself unwillingly drawn ever closer to him, intrigued by his hidden, mysterious past.

Try Some SciFi!

2011-10-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
This is the third volume in George R.R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire. The first volume is A Game of Thrones and the second volume is A Clash of Kings. Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of a jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King's Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world...

Retribution: A Dark-Hunter Novel by Sherrilyn Kenyon
A hired gunslinger, William Jessup Brady lived his life with one foot in the grave. He believed that every life had a price, until the day when he finally found a reason to live. In one single act of brutal betrayal, he lost everything, including his life. Brought back by a Greek goddess to be one of her Dark-Hunters, Brady gave his immortal soul for vengeance and swore he'd spend eternity protecting the human he'd once considered prey. Orphaned as a toddler, Abigail Yager was taken in by a family of vampires and raised on one belief: Dark-Hunters are the evil who prey on both their people and mankind, and they must all be destroyed. While protecting her adoptive race, she has spent her life eliminating the Dark-Hunters and training for the day when she meets the man who killed her family: Jess Brady.

7th Sigma by Steven Gould
Welcome to the territory. Leave your metal behind, all of it. The bugs will eat it, and they'll go right through you to get it...Don't carry it, don't wear it, and for god's sake, don't come here if you've got a pacemaker. The bugs showed up about fifty years ago---tiny, self-replicating, solar-powered, metal-eating machines. No one knows where they came from. They don't like water, though, so they've stayed in the desert Southwest. The territory. People still live here, but they do it without metal. Log cabins, ceramics, what plastic they can get that will survive the sun and heat. Technology has adapted and so have the people. Kimble Monroe has chosen to live in the territory. He was born here, and when his father was airlifted out for emergency medical treatment, he didn't follow. Instead, Kim lives on his own, one step ahead of the law-enforcement agents who are looking for him. Kim is extraordinarily well-adapted and has an uncanny ability to work around the bugs. He's one in a million. Maybe one in a billion.

Destinations and Einstein

2011-10-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

Destination Cortez Island: A Sailor's Life Along the BC Coast by June Cameron
June Cameron's heart and saltwater soul have been anchored in the caves along the British Columbia coast ever since she was a child. For nearly two decades, beginning in the 1930s, she and her family made the annual summer trek from Vancouver's False Creek northwest to her pioneering grandparents' homestead on Cortez Island. Of the Loumar, the family's trusty 36-foot wooden boat, June recalls, "Best of all, she was our home, filled with apple boxes full of books.. and most of the supplies we needed, except for the soft cakes of yeast Mother needed for breadmaking. Those we bought every other week at Refuge Cove." Life's events charted an eventful course for June far from Refuge and Cortez until fond memories of her beloved cruising ground were reawakened by her late father's taped reminiscences.

Einstein on the Road by Josef Eisinger
At the height of his fame, Albert Einstein traveled throughout the world, from Japan to South America and many places in between. During these voyages, between 1922 and 1933, he was in the habit of keeping travel diaries in which he recorded his impressions of people and events, as well as his musings on everything from music to politics to quantum mechanics and psychoanalysis. These fascinating records, which have never been published in their entirety, are the basis for this engaging personal portrait of Einstein the man.

Funny Memoirs

2011-09-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch
In the summer of 1974, a fourteen-year-old girl in Dolton, Illinois, had a dream. A dream to become an actress, like her idols Ron Howard and Vicki Lawrence. But it was along way from the South Side of Chicago to Hollywood, and it didn't help that she'd recently dropped out of the school play, The Ugly Duckling. Or that Hollywood casting directors she wrote to replied that "professional training was a requirement." But the funny thing is, it all came true. Through a series of Happy Accidents, Jane Lynch created an improbably--and hilarious--path to success.

My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up by Russell Brand
Russell Brand learned early on to make a joke of fear and failure. From a troubled childhood in industrial Essex, England, to his descent into addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex in the seamy underbelly of London, Brand has seen his share of both and miraculously lived to tell the tale. He leads readers on a rollicking journey through his disastrous school career, his infamous antics on MTV, and his multifarious sexual adventures. But this irreverent memoir is a story not simply of struggle but also of redemption, a testament to the difficulty of discovering what you want from life and the remarkable power of a bloody-minded determination to get it.

Seances, Investigations, and Polar Explorations

2011-09-23T10:34:00.001-07:00

How to Survive a Killer Seance by Penny Warner
Presley Parker's newest gig is a seance party at San Jose's famous Winchester Mystery House. Her client Jonathan Ellington plans to use the event to unveil his new holographic technology, which will appear to bring former owner Sarah Winchester back from the dead. But the stunt backfires when a disembodied voice accuses Ellington of infidelity in front of his wife and business associates, and the techie monitoring the holograph is found murdered. Suspicion falls on Ellington, but as Presley tries to get at the truth, she doesn't need a Ouija board to tell her someone wants to scare her to death!

Dark Side by Belinda Bauer
In bleak midwinter, the people of Shipcott are shocked by the murder of an elderly woman in her bed. As snow cuts off the village, local policeman Jonas Holly is torn between catching a brutal killer and protecting his vulnerable wife, Lucy. When the inquiry is commandeered by an abrasive senior detective, Jonas finds himself derided by his colleagues and ashamed to admit to Lucy that he's been sidelined. It seems his first murder investigation ma be over before it's begun. But when he receives a series of increasingly sinister anonymous notes, Jonas is thrust back into the center of the case. Someone in the village is taunting him, blaming him for the tragedy. Someone thinks he's not doing his job; someone seems to know every move he makes. And soon Jonas has to ask: Who's hunting who?

South With the Sun: Roald Amundsen, His Polar Explorations, & the Quest for Discovery by Lynne Cox
Roald Amundsen, "the last of the Vikings," left his mark on the Heroic Era as one of the most successful polar explorers ever. A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen began his career of adventure at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners); twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles.

Jungles and Running

2011-09-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

The Jungle by Clive Cussler
A Novel of the Oregon Files. Jungles come in many forms. There are the rainforests of the Burmese highlands. There are the lies and betrayals of the world of covert operations. And there are the dark and twisted thoughts of a man bent on near-global domination. To pull off their latest mission, Juan Cabrillo and all the crew of the Oregon must survive them all. A devastating new weapon unleashed in thirteenth-century China...a daring rescue along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border...a woman gone missing in the jungles of northern Thailand and Myanmar... all of these events will lead to the greatest threat against U.S. security ever known.

Running Blind by Lee Child
A Jack Reacher Novel. Across the country, women are being murdered, victims of a disciplined and clever killer who leaves no trace evidence, no fatal wounds, no signs of struggle, and no clues to a motive. They are, truly, perfect crimes. In fact, there's only one things that links the victims. Each of the women knew Jack Reacher--and it's got him running blind.

Punky Brewster, Nancy Drew, and Disney World

2011-09-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Chaos: From Punky to Parenting and My Perfectly Imperfect Adventures In Between by Soleil Moon Frye
We all remember Soleil Moon Frye as the spunky main character on the 1980s hit series Punky Brewster, but today, she is a social media maven and momtrepreneur with two little girls who often finds living in the chaotic world of raising children. But Soleil believes that chaos is not a bad thing...in fact, this is the sign of a family operating at its best, because when you can accept that as a parent you'll make mistakes and there will be messes and mishaps, tears and tantrums, you and your kids will be happy.

The Official Nancy Drew Handbook: Skills, Tips & Life Lessons From Everyone's Favorite Girl Detective by Penny Warner
Perfectly coiffed, with Titian hair to die for, an ever-adoring fiance, and the best sidekicks a girl could want, Nancy Drew is still finding clues, escaping from villians, solving mysteries, and saving the day--all without mussing those gorgeous tresses. And now, so can you: The Official Nancy Drew Handbook will teach you how to live the Nancy life, with tips on fashion and beauty, romance and relationships, survival, sleuthing, and success.

Walt Disney World with Kids 2012 by Kim Wright Wiley
Inside this new edition is all the information you need to have the family vacation of a lifetime at the Orlando theme parks. Up-to-date and written with the help of more than 500 families, this guide is packed with details on all the attractions at Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, and SeaWorld. It's user-friendly, fun, and designed for at-a-glance reference. And it will help you and your family plan the vacation each of you wants.

Beds and Mona Lisas

2011-08-25T13:54:00.000-07:00

Bed by David Whitehouse
Mal Ede, a child of untamed manners and unbounded curiosity, is the eccentric eldest son of an otherwise typical middle-class family. But as the wonders of childhood fade into the responsibilities of adulthood, Mal's spirits fade too. On his twenty-fifth birthday, disillusioned, Mal goes to bed--back to his childhood bed--and never emerges again. Narrated by Mal's shy, diligent younger brother, Bed details Mal's subsequent extreme and increasingly grotesque transformation: immobility and a gargantuan appetite combine, over the course of two decades, to make him the fattest man in the world. Despite his seclusion and his refusal to explain his motivations, Mal's condition earns him worldwide notoriety and a cult of followers convinced he is making an important statement about modern life. But Mal's actions will also change the lives of his haunted parents, his brother and the woman they both love, Lou.

Stealing Mona Lisa by Carson Morton
The charming Eduardo de Valfierno makes a very respectable living in Argentina fleecing the nouveau riche--they pay him to steal valuable pieces of art, and Valfierno sells them flawless forgeries instead. But when Eduardo meets the beautiful Mrs. Hart on his latest con job, he takes a risk that forces him back to the city he loved and left behind: Paris. There he assembles his team of con artists for their final and most ambitious theft, on that will enable them to leave the game forever: the Mona Lisa. When a member of the team turns up missing, and Mr. Hart shows up in Paris, Valfierno and his crew must stay one step ahead of a relentless police inspector, endure a devastating flood, and conquer their own doubts to keep the priceless painting in play--and survive. Based on the actual theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911.

Mystery, Murder, and Hauntings

2011-08-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson
In the year 1790, Harriet Westerman, the unconventional mistress of a country manor in Sussex, finds a dead man on her grounds with a ring bearing the crest of Thornleigh Hall in his pocket. For years, Mrs. Westerman has sensed the menace of the hall, home of a once-great family that has been reduced to an ailing invalid, his whorish wife, and his alcoholic second son--a man haunted by his years spent as a redcoat in the Revolutionary War. She recruits a reclusive local anatomist named Gabriel Crowther to help her find the murderer. The same day, Alexander Adams is slain by an unknown killer in his London music shop, leaving his young children orphaned. His death will lead back to Sussex, and to an explosive secret that has already destroyed one family and threatened many others.

Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave
People are disappearing in Christchurch. Cooper Riley, a psychology professor, doesn't make it to work one day. Emma Green, one of his students, doesn't make it home. When ex-cop Theodore Tate is released from a four-month prison stint, he's asked by Green's father to help find Emma. After all, Tate was in jail for nearly killing her in a DUI accident the year before, so he owes him. Big time. What neither of them knows is that a former mental patient is holding people prisoner as part of his growing collection of serial killer souvenirs. Now he has acquired the ultimate collector's item--an actual killer. Meanwhile, clues keep pulling Tate back to Grover Hills, the mental institution that closed down three years ago. Very bad things happened there. Those who managed to survive would prefer keeping their memories buried. Tate has no choice but to unearth Grover Hills' dark past if there is any chance of finding Emma Green and Cooper Riley alive.

Graveminder by Melissa Marr
Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn't a funeral that Maylene didn't attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: She took three sips from a silver flask and spoke three words "Sleep well, and stay where I put you." Now Maylene is dead, and Bek must go back to the place she left a decade earlier. She soon discovers that Claysville is not just the sleepy town she remembers, and that Maylene had good reason for her odd traditions. It turns out that in Claysville the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected; beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by an enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D. If the dead are not properly cared for, they will come back to satiate themselves with food, drink, and stories from the land of the living. Only the Graveminder, by tradition a Barrow woman, and her Undertaker--in this case Byron Montgomery, with whom Bek shares a complicated past--can set things right once the dead begin to walk.

Bets, Tears, and Manuscripts

2011-08-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie
Minerva Dobbs knows that happily-ever-after is a fairy tale, especially with a man who asked her to dinner to win a bet, even if he is gorgeous and successful Calvin Morrisey. Cal knows commitment is impossible, especially with a woman as cranky as Min Dobbs, even if she does wear great shoes and keeps him on his toes. When they say good-bye at the end of their evening, they cut their losses and agree to never see each other again. But Fate has other plans...

The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji
When faith and facts collide, Jo March--a young woman born into an Evangelical Christian dynasty--wrestles with questions about who she is and how she fits into the weave of her faithful family. Chasing loose threads that she hopes will lead to the truth, Jo sets off on an unlikely quest across boundaries of language and religion, through chasms of sectarian divides in the Muslim world. Against the backdrop of the War on Terror--traveling from California to Chicago, Pakistan to Iraq--she delves deeply into the past. She encounters relatives, often for the first time, whose histories are intricately intertwined with her own...only to learn that true spiritual devotion is a broken field riddled with doubt and that nothing is ever as it seems.

Tony and Susan by Austin Wright
Fifteen years ago, Susan Morrow left her first husband, Edward Sheffield. One day, comfortable in her home, with her children, and in her second marriage, she receives a parcel entirely out of the blue. It contains the manuscript of her ex-husband's first novel. He writes asking her to read the book; she was always his best critic, he says. As Susan reads, she is drawn into the fictional life of Tony Hastings, a math professor driving his family to their summer house in Maine. And as we read with her, we too become lost in Sheffield's thriller. As the Hasting's family's ordinary, civilized lives are disastrously, violently sent off course, Susan is plunged back into the past, forced to confront the darkness that inhabits her, and driven to name the fear that gnaws at her future and will change her life.

The Kitchen

2011-08-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

Don't Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales for an Allergic Life by Sandra Beasley
Like twelve million other Americans, Sandra Beasley suffers from food allergies. Her allergies -- severe and lifelong -- include dairy, eggs, soy, beef, shrimp, pine nuts, cucumbers, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, macadamias, pistachios, cashews, swordfish, and mustard. Add to that mold, dust, grass and tree pollen, cigarette smoke, dogs, rabbits, horses, and wool, and it's no wonder Sandra felt she had to live her life as "Allergy Girl." When butter is deadly and eggs can make your throat swell shut, cupcakes and other treats of childhood are out of the question -- and so Sandra's mother used to warm guests against a toxic, frosting-tinged kiss with "Don't Kill the Birthday Girl!"

Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris by Lauren Shockey
At the French Culinary Institute, Lauren Shockey learned to salt food properly, cook fearlessly over high heat, and knock back beers like a pro. But she also discovered that her real culinary eduction wouldn't begin until she actually worked in a restaurant. After a somewhat disappointing apprenticeship in the French city of Toulouse, Shockey hatched a plan for her dream year: to apprentice in four high-end restaurants around the world. She started in her hometown of New York City under the famed chef Wylie Dufresne at the molecular gastronomy hotspot wd-50, then traveled to Vietnam, Israel, and back to France.

Graves and Ghosts

2011-07-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones
Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can't she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving him up?

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor
The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumored to have been haunting Jerusalem ever since student Frank Oldershaw claimed to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds and was locked up because of his violent reaction to these disturbed visions. Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts--a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion--to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse, where the sinister Holy Ghost Club governs life at Jerusalem more effectively than the Master, Dr. Carbury, ever could. And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted his fate is sealed. He must find Sylvia's murderer, or else the hauntings will continue.

Apes, Bears, and Dragons!

2011-07-14T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ape House by Sara Gruen
Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelanie, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships--but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets--especially the bonobos. Isabel feels most comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans...until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and "liberating" the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll rick his career and his marriage to follow.
The Bear in a Muddy Tutu by Cole Alpaugh
Newspaper man Lennon Bagg is mourning the loss of his job and the abduction of his daughter by his ex-wife. Lennon rescues Graceful Gracie the runaway bear, and helps her rejoin her trainer at a traveling circus, which has illegally pitched its tents on a small island on the Jersey Shore. Their self-proclaimed shepherd is Billy Wayne, a wannabe cult leader, but when Lennon arrives, he is the one they turn to. Unbeknownst to Lennon, his daughter Morgan is in Bermuda, having been told that her father is dead. Believing that dead people become birds, she is convinced that one day he will fly to her. Meanwhile, Lennon and Billy have hatched a plan to save the circus. Lennon boards a plane headed to the Bermuda Triangle, along with a man who holds the record for being struck by lightning. And it's starting to cloud up...

Dragon's Time by Anne McCaffrey
Even though Lorana cured the plague that was killing the dragons of Pern, sacrificing her queen dragon in the process, the effects of the disease were so devastating that there are no longer enough dragons available to fight the fall of deadly Thread. And as the situation grows more dire, a pregnant Lorana decides that she must take drastic steps in the quest for help.

Psychological Thrillers, Suspense and Madness

2011-07-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Cast Into Doubt by Patricia MacDonald
Shelby Sloan, a successful Philadelphia businesswoman in her early forties, has one child, a daughter whom she raised on her own. She gives her daughter, Chloe, and son-in-law, Rob, a Caribbean cruise as a gift, while she takes the opportunity to mind her four-year-old grandson. But her life becomes a nightmare when Rob calls to tell her that Chloe has disappeared overboard. The cruise line and the police decide it was an accident. Shelby refuses to accept the official verdict. But as she struggles to learn what really happened to her daughter on her vacation cruise, a trail of life lead her back home, both to Chloe's painful secrets, and to someone who will stop at nothing to protect a hidden life.

Thou Shalt Kill by Daniel Blake
Detective Franco Patrese has a history that goes deep into Pittsburgh's Catholic working-class soil. Teamed with his straightlaced, God-fearing partner, Patrese takes pride in keeping his emotions at bay. Even when he is looking at a murder scene that's like nothing he's every witnessed before: a prominent surgeon immolated in his upscale condo. The first burning is just the first of many. The media goes ballistic, and a killer nicknamed The Human Torch terrifies and fascinates a city that has clawed its way back from the brink of oblivion. As the murders pile up, Patrese and his partner find their investigation lurching wildly.

The Color of Night by Madison Smart Bell
Mae, a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, spends her free time wandering the desert with a rifle, or sitting in her trailer obsessively watching replays of an old lover escaping wreckage of 9/11. What she sees in those images is different from what the rest of us would see. She revels in pure anachy, thrills at the destruction. These images recall memories of a childhood marked by unthinkable abuse, of her drift into a cult that committed the most shocking crime of the 60s, of her life since then as a feral and wary outsider, caught in a swirl of events at once personal, political, mythic.

Bootleggers, Lobstermen, Lumberjacks, Poets, Teachers, and Military Men

2011-06-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks: Fifty of the Grittiest Moments in the History of Hanrdscrabble New England by Matthew P. Mayo
The story of New England is built on an endless armature of fascinating tales of Yankee ingenuity and intrepid characters, and this book brings together the top fifty wildest among them -- shipwreck victims surviving any way they could; Indian, pirate, and shark attacks; cougar and bear attacks; and, of course, rum runners and bootleggers doing what they do best.

Ticket to Ride: The Promise of America by Don Hussey
In this unflinchingly honest memoir, military man, public school teacher, successful entrepreneur and candidate for the U.S. Congress Don Hussey describes in rich detail how he outwitted the odds to bring home his "ticket to ride." Trapped in an unending spiral of poverty and abuse, Don left high school as a young teenager to support his mother and younger brother. With uncommon bravery and unyielding determination, he went on to set his own course time and time again. For every obstacle, for every setback, he found a solution and moved on... until one day in 1965 when he was stopped cold in his tracks, confronted by the one accident of fate that no one could ever be prepared for.

The Long Journey Home: A Memoir by Margaret Robinson
First introduced to the world as Augusten Burrough's mother in Running with Scissors, Margaret Robinson now tells her own haunting story, which she began working on long before her son began his memoir. A poet and teacher by profession, Robinson describes her Southern Gothic childhood, her marriage to a handsome, brilliant man who became a split-personality alcoholic and abusive husband, the challenges she faced raising two children while having psychotic breakdowns of her own, and her struggle to regain her sanity.

Vampire Hunters and Cops

2011-06-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton
A serial killer is hunting the Pacific Northwest, murdering victims in a gruesome and spectacular way. The local police suspect "monsters" are involved, and have called in Anita Blake and Edward, U.S. Marshals who really know their monsters, to catch the killer. But some monsters are very real. The Harlequin have been the bogeyman of the vampire world for more than a thousand years; they are a secret so dark that even to speak their name can earn you a death sentence. Now they are here in America, hunting weretigers... and human police.

County Line by Bill Cameron
When the steadfast Ruby Jane Whittaker drops out of sight, dogged ex-cop Skin Kadash sets out to discover what drove the woman he loves to leave her life behind so suddenly and without explanation. The discovery of a dead man in Ruby Jane's apartment and an attack by a mysterious stalker send Skin from Portland to California--and into a charged encounter with her one-time love Peter McKrall. As questions mount and answers grow increasingly out of reach, Skin and Peter cross the country on a desperate journey deep into Ruby Jane's haunted past.

Mysteries!

2011-06-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

Murder of a Bookstore Babe by Denise Swanson
Dropping off some old books at Tales and Treats, Skye trips over a toppled bookcase, which has crushed a woman beneath its weight. While the police search for motives, Skye sees the messy aftermath of a half-baked plot to murder somebody else. Skye is juggling her own busy life, but when all clues lead to dead ends, she turns up the heat on her investigation...and stumbles upon the deadly secret that got this bookstore babe done in. And if Skye isn't careful, the killer might just make her the sequel...

Murder Past Due by Miranda James
Everyone in Athena, Mississippi, knows Charlie Harris, the good-natured librarian with a rescued Maine coon cat named Diesel that he walks on a leash. Charlie's returned to his hometown to immerse himself in books, but soon enough he's entangled in a real-life thriller...A famous author of gory bestsellers and a former classmate of Charlie's, Godfrey Priest may be the pride of Athena, but Charlie remembers him as an arrogant, manipulative jerk--and he's not the only one. Godfrey's homecoming couldn't possibly go worse: by lunch, he's put a man in the hospital. And by dinner, Godfrey's dead. Now it's up to Charlie, with some help from Diesel, to paw through the town's grudges and find the killer before an impatient deputy throws the book at the wrong person.

Mad Hatter's Holiday by Peter Lovesey
A keen student of human nature, Albert Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family of holidaymakers—the Protheros, and especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her excessively for granted. Gradually Moscrop moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder. All Brighton is horrified by the gruesome crime. The local police seek the help of Scotland Yard, which is provided in the persons of Sergeant Cribb and Constable Thackeray. These indomitable detectives soon find themselves challenged by the strangest case of their careers, one that is as mystifying as it is macabre.

Happenstance

2011-06-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

The Great Night by Chris Adrian
On Midsummer's Eve 2008, three people, each on the run from a failed relationship, become trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park, the secret home of Titania, Oberon, and their court. On this night, something awful is happening in the faerie kingdom: in a fit of sadness over the end of her marriage, which broke up in the wake of the death of her adopted son, Titania has set loose an ancient menace, and the chaos that ensues threatens the lives of immortals and mortals alike.

Vaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner
Vaclav and Lena seem destined for each other. They meet as children in an ESL class in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Vaclav is precocious and verbal. Lena, struggling with English, takes comfort in the safety of his adoration, his noisy, loving home, and the care of Rasia, his big-hearted mother. Vaclav imagines their story unfolding like a fairy tale but among the many truths to be discovered in Haley Tanner's wondrous debut is that happily ever after is never a foregone conclusion.

The Way Things Look to Me by Roopa Farooki
The Murphy family has never tried to be different; they just are. When Yasmin, the youngest sibling, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, her older siblings learned to adapt to less attention and more responsibility, to a sister with "special abilities" that no one, not even they, could ever truly understand. And then there's the way Yasmin sees it: She sees music in color, and her mind remembers every tiny detail of every day until sometimes she wishes she could just forget.

Sophie Kinsella readalikes

2011-05-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

Do you just absolutely love Sophie Kinsella's works such as Remember Me? Are you looking for other authors like her? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
Ellen and Andy’s first year of marriage doesn’t just seem perfect, it is perfect. There is no question how deep their devotion is, and how naturally they bring out the best in each other. But one fateful afternoon, Ellen runs into Leo for the first time in eight years. Leo, the one who brought out the worst in her. Leo, the one who left her heartbroken with no explanation. Leo, the one she could never quite forget. When his reappearance ignites long-dormant emotions, Ellen begins to question whether the life she’s living is the one she’s meant to live.

Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger
Chasing Harry Winston finds three glamorous Manhattan gal pals making a pact to positively refashion their lives--before hitting the big three-oh. Emmy, Leigh, and Adriana--who've been best friends for a decade--have some very personal issues. Just as Emmy is poised to receive the engagement righ she's longed for, her boyfriend drops her for his flirtatious, young personal trainer. Leigh, an up-and-coming publishing house star, is in danger of having her career derailed by the literary world's grandest snob. And as for Brazilian bombshell Adriana, she must come to terms with the inevitability of her beauty's eventual fading. It's time for all three girls to seriously reassess their futures.

Cocktails for Three by Madeleine Wickheim
At the first of every month, when the office has reached its pinnacle of hysteria, Maggie, Roxanne, and Candice meet at London's swankiest bar for an evening of cocktails and gossip. Here, they chat about what's new at The Londoner, the glossy fashion magazine where they all work, and everything else that's going on in their lives. Or almost everything. Beneath the girl talk and the laughter, each of the three has a secret. And when a chance encounter at the cocktail bar sets in motion an extraordinary chain of events, each one will find their biggest secret revealed.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Evel and Bittersweet

2011-05-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Evel: The High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil, and Legend by Leigh Montville
He was a cultural icon who defined an American era--a real-life action hero whose daredevil thrills and disastrous crashes dominated the talk in schoolyards, workshops, and water coolers. But beneath the red, white, and blue cape, who was the man? From three-time New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville, this riveting new biography explores the triumphs and catastrophes, the outward charisma and the hidden dark side, of the volatile man known to millions as Evel Knievel.

A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--and Ourselves by Jane Gross
In telling the intimate story of caring for her aged and ailing mother, Jane Gross offers indispensable, and often surprising, advice for the rapidly increasing number of adult children responsible for aging parents. Gross deftly weaves the specifics of her personal experience--a widowed mother with mounting health problems, the attendant collision of fear and ignorance, the awkward role reversal of parent and child, unresolved family relationships with her mother and brother, the conflict between her day job and caregiving--with a comprehensive resource for effectively managing the lives of one's own parents while keeping sanity and strength intact.

Mourning Glory and Rainstone

2011-05-05T14:37:00.001-07:00

Mourning Gloria by Susan Wittig Albert
China is relishing the scents, produce, and even the showers of spring. She's also busy manning her booth at the Pecan Springs Farmers' Market. It brings additional customers to her herb shop, Thyme and Seasons, and residents find rare ingredients they wouldn't otherwise find in the supermarket. Everybody wins. But as the town bustles back to life in the warmth of the season, one woman's life is tragically brought to an end. China happens upon a burning house trailer and hears a woman screaming for help. The evidence leaves no doubt that it's an arson-homicide-- but would commit such a ghastly crime?

Rainstone Fall by Peter Helton
For Chris Honeysett, artist and private investigator in the city of Bath, autumn threatens to bring down more than just the roof of his studio. An exceptionally stormy October forms the backdrop to Aqua Investigation's strangest case yet. When Chris downs brushes to take on what looks like a simple surveillance job he finds himself in a frenetic world of murder, abduction and blackmail. Dark problems sometimes require drastic solutions--why else would Honeysett suddenly find himself on the wrong side of the law?

Boys and Girls

2011-04-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
This novel introduces two unforgettable characters: Grady Tripp, a former publishing prodigy now lost in a fog of pot and passion and stalled in the midst of his endless second book, and Grady's student, James Leer, a budding writer obsessed with Hollywood self-destruction and struggling with his own searching heart. It is a deft parody of the American fame factory and a piercing portrait of young and old desire.

Daughters of Rome by Kate Quinn
A.D. 69. Nero is dead. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. With bloodshed spilling out of the palace and into the streets of Rome, chaos has become the status quo. The year of four emperors will change everything--especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome. Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. Her sister, Marcella, is more withdrawn, content to witness history rather than make it. But when a bloody coup turns their world upside down, Cornelia and Marcella must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be on Emperor... and one Empress.

More New Fiction!

2011-04-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder, coworkers at The Courier, know the newspaper monitors their office e-mail. But they still spend all day sending each other messages, gossiping about their coworkers, and baring their personal lives like an open book. Jennifer tells Beth everything that she can't seem to tell her husband about her anxieties over starting a family. And Beth tells Jennifer everything, period. Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill still can't believe that it's his job to monitor other people's email. He is supposed to turn people in for misusing company e-mail, but he can't quite bring himself to crack down on Beth and Jennifer. He can't help being entertained--and captivated--by their stories. But by the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late for him to ever introduce himself. What would he say to her? "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you"?

Daniel O'Thunder by Ian Weir
1851. London, England. Once a well-known prize-fighter with a terrifying right fist (known as "the hammer of heaven"), Daniel O'Thunder has seen the light, and now the protection of the poor and the weak is his life's work. He runs an establishment for those in need of food, shelter and counsel--a place where virtue and vice rub shoulders uneasily. But an ancient evil is stalking the streets, preying on the vulnerable souls it finds there. It is an evil that takes different forms and hides behind many faces, threatening everything Daniel loves most. Driven to desperation, Daniel responds by issuing a breathtaking challenge...to the Devil himself.

An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy
On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else, and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost--and he knows that he must return.

New Fiction

2011-04-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Miles to Go by Richard Paul Evans
Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, wakes one morning to find himself injured, alone, and confined to a hospital bed in Spokane, Washington. Sixteen days earlier, reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he planned to walk to Key West, the farthest destination on his map. But a vicious roadside stabbing has interrupted Alan's trek and robbed him of his one source of solace: the ability to walk. Homeless and facing months of recovery, Alan has nowhere to turn--until a mysterious woman enters his life and invites him to her home. Generous and kind, Angel seems to good to be true, but all is not as it appears.

Swim Back to Me by Ann Packer
This is a collection of burnished, emotionally searing stories, framed by two unforgettable linked narratives that express the transformation of a single family over the course of a lifetime. A wife struggles to make sense of her husband's sudden disappearance. A mother mourns her teenage son through the music collection he left behind. A woman shepherds her estranged parents through her brother's wedding and reflects on the year her family collapsed. A young man comes to grips with the joy-- and vulnerability-- of fatherhood. Two teenagers from very different families forge a sustaining friendship, only to discover the disruptive and unsettling power of sex.

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate what little humanity and dignity the work still has. The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook.

Brides, Social Media, and Work

2011-04-08T08:11:00.001-07:00

Bridal Bargains: Secrets to Throwing a Fantastic Wedding on a Realistic Budget by Denise & Alan Fields
Wow! Finally, a wedding book for the rest of us. With average wedding costs soaring over $25,000, you need real-life solutions and creative ideas to plan a wedding without going bankrupt. Bridal Bargains is the answer! Now in its 10th edition with over 700,000 copies in print. Including are the best web sites to save on everything from flowers to gowns, invitations to, well, you name it, fourteen creative ways to cut the catering bill at your reception, eleven questions you should ask any photographer, ways to green your wedding, the best bargains on honeymoons, etc.

Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business by Erik Qualman
Welcome to the world of Socialnomics-- where consumers and the societies they create online have profound effects on our economy and the businesses that operate within it. Online word of mouth, social search, social commerce, and the influence of peer groups are making traditional marketing strategies obsolete. As a result, we no longer have a choice on whether we do social media; the question is how well we do it. Join Erik Qualman for a fascinating look at the business implications of social media, and tap its considerable power to increase sales, cut marketing costs, and communicate directly with consumers.

Personality Plus at Work: How to Work Successfully with Anyone by Florence Littauer and Rose Sweet
No matter where you work, you're going to have co-workers you get along with and those you could get along without. But did you know that you hold the key to working well with all of your co-workers? It comes from discovering how to harness the power of personality. For 25 years, Florence Littauer's bestselling Personality Plus has been required reading for employees of major companies. It shows you how to work successfully with anyone by paying attention to basic personality differences. It shows you what happens when personalities are ignored, how each personality can lead, and how to combine different personalities to maintain a vital and harmonious workplace.

Biographies

2011-04-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks, and Second Chances by Scott Brown
Scott Brown's greatest win did not occur on a cold January election night in 2010 when he came from behind to capture the U.S. Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly fifty years. It began when he survived a savage beating at the drunken, dirty-fingernail hands of a stepfather when he was barely six years old, while trying to protect his mother. In this gripping memoir of resilience and redemption, Brown tells the story of his difficult, often nomadic childhood, shunted from house to apartment, and town to town, seventeen times over his first eighteen years.

America by Heart: Reflection on Family, Faith, and Flag by Sarah Palin
This book is a highly personal testament to Palin's deep love of country, her strong roots in faith, and her profound appreciation of family. Ranging widely over American history, culture, and current affairs, Governor Palin reflects on the key values that have been such an essential part of her own life and that continue to inform her vision of America's future. The book also includes brief readings from classic and contemporary texts that have moved and inspired her, as well as portraits of Americans, both famous and obscure, whom she admires.

Not at All What One is Used to: The Life and Times of Isabella Gardner by Marian Janssen
Born in 1915 to one of New England's elite wealthy families, Isabella Gardner was expected to follow a certain path in life--one that would take her from marriageable debutante to proper society lady. But that plan was derailed when at age eighteen, Isabella caused a drunk-driving accident. Her family, to shield her from disgrace, sent her to Europe for acting studies, not foreseeing how life abroad would fan romantic longings and artistic impulses that would define the rest of Isabella's years. Janssen tells the story of this passionate, troubled woman, whose career as a poet was in constant compromise with her wayward love life and her impulsive and reckless character.

Love Letters, Beauty, and Roosters

2011-03-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Love Letters by Katie Fforde
When her bookshop closes its doors, Laura, in a moment of uncharacteristic recklessness, agrees to help organize a literary festival deep in the heart of the English countryside. But her initial excitement is soon followed by a mounting sense of panic when she realizes just how much work is involved, and that an innocent mistake has led the festival committee to believe that she is a personal friend of the brilliant yet infamously reclusive writer Dermont Flynn. Even though Laura has been infatuated with Flynn since her college days, traveling to Ireland to persuade him to come out of hiding is not what she had in mind when she took the job.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb
The elderly, enlightened proprietor of a beloved pho-shop, Hung, has lived through decades of poverty and political upheaval. Through all of his struggles, he has found a way to feed hope to his customers and the community of pondside dwellers among whom he lives. A passionate culinary artist, the resilient Hung once allowed his shop to be a gathering point for a group of artists who started the Beauty of Humanity Movement in response to the increasingly despotic turn of Ho Chi Minh's community regime during the 1950s. Tu is a young tour guide working in Hanoi for a company called New Dawn. Maggie, an art curator who is Vietnamese by birth but has lived most of her life in the United States, has returned to her country of origin in search of clues to her dissident father's disappearance during the war. In Hung's memory, he may hold the key to Maggie's past and to her future. In sensual, interwoven narratives, Maggie, Hung, and Tu come together in a highly charged season that will mark all of them forever.

Moondogs by Alexander Yates
Benicio has not spoken with Howard--his jet-setting father--in five years, but after his mother's unexpected death he decides it's finally time to mend their relationship. They arrange to meet in the Philippines, but when Benicio arrives Howard is nowhere to be found--leaving an irritated son to conclude he's been let down once again. He could hardly guess that Howard has just been kidnapped by a meth-addled cabdriver and his villainous accomplice, a rooster.

New Fiction!

2011-03-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

Three Stages of Amazement by Carol Edgarian
Charlie Pepper and Lena Rusch live in San Francisco in a modest pink bungalow they cannot afford. On the hill above them sit the great houses of the rich, with their servants and gardens and glorious views of the bay. Charlie and Lena grew up believing they could have it all -- sex, love, marriage, children, career, brilliance. Now, in early middle age, life has delivered surprises and tests -- a stillborn twin, an economic crash, a relentless rival in Charlie's business and a seductive lover from Lena's past. Touched by tragedy, imbued with hope, Lena and Charlie must face, for the first time, real limitations.

When the Thrill is Gone by Walter Mosley
The economy has hit the private investigator business hard, even for Leonid McGill. Lately, he is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his personal life grows ever more complicated: his favorite stepson, Twill, has dropped out of school for mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his best friend, Gordo, has been diagnosed with cancer and is living on his couch; his wife has taken a new lover, and seems to be endangering the McGill family; and his girlfriend, Aura, is back in his life but intent on some serious conversations. So how can McGill say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash?

One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde
It is a time of unrest in the bookworld. Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister?

Mysteries and more mysteries!

2011-03-11T08:32:00.000-08:00

Sherlock Holmes and the Shakespeare Letter by Barry Grant
Having emerged from a Swiss glacier and solved his first murder case in more than ninety years (described in The Strange Return of Sherlock Holmes), the world's famous detective now sleuths through modern London in search of a stolen letter purportedly written by Shakespeare. Holmes displays his usual mental brilliance as he investigates the missing letter and discovers an international plot to arm terrorists. He and his roommate, James Wilson, track the Shakespeare letter and the terrorist arms dealers to a Scottish castle where surprises await.

Negative Image by Vicki Delaney
As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and his sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to reconnect with the woman who left him twenty-five years ago to marry another man. That woman was a young, beautiful, naive, internationally know supermodel. Today Eliza Winters is no longer young, and definitely not naive, but she is still beautiful and married to Trafalgar City Police Sergeant John Winters. When Steiner is found shot in his luxury hotel room, suspicion falls upon Eliza who had, inexplicably, visited Steiner there. John Winters is forced into the most difficult of dilemmas: loyalty to his job or to his wife.

Eyes of the Innocent by Brad Parks
Carter Ross, the sometimes-dashing investigative reporter for the Newark Eagle-Examiner, is back, and reporting on the latest tragedy to befall Newark, New Jersey, a fast-moving house fire that kills two boys. With the help of the paper's newest intern, a bubbly blonde known as "Sweet Thang," Carter finds the victims' mother, Akilah Harris, who spins a tale of woe about a mortgage rate reset that forced her to work two jobs and leave her young boys without child care. Carter turns in the front-page feature, but soon discovers Akilah isn't what she seems. And neither is the fire.

Mystery, Crimes, and Witch Trials

2011-03-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Devil-Devil by Graeme Kent
It's not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Soloman Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities. In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon. Then a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton.

Three Seconds by Anders Roslund & Borge Hellstrom
In this dark and gripping novel, Piet Hoffman is the Swedish police's most valuable secret operative. His cover is that of a lieutenant inside the ruthless Polish mafia trying to take over amphetamine distribution within Sweden's prison system. With this, his most dangerous assignment, success will mean a new identity and the freedom to start a new life with his wife and young sons. When a botched drug deal involving Hoffman results in the cold-blooded killing of a police informant, the investigation, assigned to the brilliant but haunted Detective Inspector Ewert Grens, leads to a string of unsolved cases in which key evidence has been withheld under mysterious circumstances.
READALIKE to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Deliverance from Evil by Frances Hill
Salem, Massachusetts, Winter 1692: In a settlement constantly under threat of outside attack, even close neighbors harbor secret grudges. When George Burroughs escapes to Salem after a Native American raid in Maine, he finds himself confronted by uneasy memories and a new love. The community is prepared to battle the hardships of making a life in a new land, but no one suspects that the most dangerous enemy lies within. Close by, in the parsonage of Reverand Samuel Parris, two girls are seated by the fire and play at fortune-telling as snow falls softly outside. What starts as a game sends one of the girls into a hysterical trance, and Salem begins its descent into madness.

Tea, Reality, and Stunts

2011-02-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family by Tamara Chalabi
For much of the twentieth century, the Chalabis were among the most influential families in Iraq. In the 1920s they were at the forefront of their country's awakening to modernity, and they played an integral part in the establishment of its monarchy. As courtiers, politicians, businessen, rebels, merchants, and scholars, the Chalabis enjoyed vast privilege until the end of the 1950s, when they were forced to flee to the land of exile, myth, and imagination, where their beloved homeland took on the quality of a phantom country. In between came rebellions, foreign interventions, and the transformative development of oil wealth.

Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
More than 174 million Americans are gamers, and the average young person in the United States will spend ten thousand hours gaming by the age of twenty-one. According to the world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal, the reason for this mass exodus to virtual worlds is that video games are increasingly fulfilling genuine human needs. In this groundbreaking exploration of the power and future of gaming, McGonigal reveals how we can use the lessons of game design to fix what is wrong with the real world.

Stuntman! My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping, Bone-Breaking, Death-Defying Hollywood Life by Hal Needham
"I wrecked hundreds of cars, fell from tall buildings, got blown up, was dragged by horses, and along the way broke fifty-six bones, my back twice, punctured a lung, and knocked out a few teeth...I hung upside down by my ankles under a biplane in The Spirit of St. Louis, jumped between galloping horses in Little Big Man, set a world record for a boat stunt in Gator, jumped a rocket-powered pickup truck across a canal for a GM commercial, was the first human to test the car air bag -- and taught John Wayne how to really throw a movie punch."

Love, Revenge, and History

2011-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

Trespass by Rose Tremain
In a silent valley in southern France stands an isolated stone farmhouse, the Mas Lunel. Aramon, the owner, is so haunted by his violent past that he's become incapable of all meaningful action, letting his hunting dogs starve and his land go to ruin while he drowns himself in drink. Meanwhile, his sister Audrun, alone in her modern bungalow within sight of the Mas Lunel, dreams of exacting retribution for the unspoken betrayals that have blighted her life. Into this closed world comes Anthony Verey, a wealthy but disillusioned antiques dealer from London, who has escaped to stay with his sister. When he sets his sights on the Mas, a frightening and unstoppable series of consequences are set in motion.

Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts
A young woman plunges from a Las Vegas sightseeing helicopter, landing in the pirates' lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel in the middle of the 8:30pm pirate show. Almost everyone writes her off as another Vegas victim. But Lucky O'Toole smells a rat. She's head of Customer Relations at the Babylon, the newest, most opulent megacasino and resort on the Strip, so she's got a lot on her plate...Still, Lucky can't resist turning over a few stones.

Teaching History With Film: Strategies for Secondary Social Studies by Alan S. Marcus
Visit any school in the United States and chances are that you will find at least one of the social studies teachers showing a film about history. Along with the textbook, movies are one of the most prominent teaching aids in the history classroom. Yet, when middle and high school history teachers look for models of the effective use of motion pictures in history classrooms, the cupboard is surprisingly bare. This book provides a fresh, engaging, and clear overview of teaching with film to effectively enhance social studies instruction.

Love, War, and Mystery

2011-02-11T09:38:00.000-08:00

Where Serpent's Sleep by C.S. Harris
London, 1812. The slaughter of eight young prostitutes in a house of refuge near Covent Garden leaves only one survivor -- and one witness: Hero Jarvis, reform-minded daughter of the Prince Regent's cousin, Lord Jarvis. When Jarvis quashes any official inquiry that might reveal his daughter's involvement, Hero launches a investigation of her own and turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help. Working in uneasy alliance, Hero and Sebastian follow a trail of clues leading from seedy brothels and docksides of London's East End to Mayfair mansions of a noble family with dark secrets of its own to hide.

Love Me If You Dare by Carly Phillips
When hostage negotiator Rafe Mancuso takes a bullet to save Sara Rios, his former partner, his actions make him a bona fide hero -- and New York City's newest most eligible bachelor. Then Rafe admits that Sara is much more than just another woman he's rescued. Suddenly, a firestorm of gossip turns him into exactly what he doesn't want to be: the Bachelor Blog's newest hot topic. His only solution is to leave town and get himself out of the spotlight.. and sexy, jaded Sara out of his mind.

Flirting With Destiny by Sara Hylton
Summer 1914. As the storm clouds gather over Europe, four privileged young women prepare to leave school and embark on adult life. But for Louise, Imogen, Cora, and Miranda, the outbreak of war will change everything, shattering dreams and upsetting their plans for the future. Instead of foreign holidays and glamorous parties, leading to marriage to a suitable young man, they must learn to adjust to a new and very different world.

Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love, and War by Annia Ciezadlo
In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Bagdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shiites and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. This book is her memoir of the hunger for food and friendship -- a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body in times of war. Reporting from occupied Baghdad, Ciezadlo longs for normal married life. She finds it in Beirut, her husband's hometown, a city slowly recovering from years of civil war. But just as the young couple settles into a new home, the bloodshed they escaped in Iraq spreads to Lebanon and reawakens the terrible specter of sectarian violence.

Wilderness, Paths, and Sports

2011-02-04T11:47:00.000-08:00

The Quiet World: Saving Alaska's Wilderness Kingdom 1879 - 1960 by Douglas Brinkley
A riveting history of America's most beautiful natural resources, The Quiet World documents the heroic fight waged by the U.S. federal government from 1879 to 1960 to save wild Alaska -- Mount McKinley, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay, Lake Clark, and the Coastal Plain of the Beaufort Sea, among other treasured landscapes--from extraction industries.
The Simple Abundance: Following Your Authentic Path to Something More by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Before Simple Abundance became a New York Times bestseller that helps millions of women discover their authentic selves, the author was running workshops that actively guided and inspired others onto the Simple Abundance path. Now Sarah recreates the heart of these workshops on the page, bringing their essence to women everywhere. In twelve chapters, one for every month, here is a whole year of soulcraft. From gratitude to play, from connecting to the sacred to facing your fears, Sarah provides thoughtful exercises, explorations, excursions and other creative, pragmatic, hands-on ways to probe your deepest feelings to reveal your authentic self.

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won by Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim
University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won, and lost. Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economists such as bestselling author Richard Thaler, the authors look at: the influence home-field advantage has on the outcomes of the games in all sports and why it exists; the surprising truth about the universally accepted axiom that defense wins championships; the subtle biases that umpires exhibit in calling balls and strikes in key situations, and more.

Vonnegut, Toibin, and Newton

2011-01-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

While Mortals Sleep by Kurt Vonnegut
Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideas of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. An ambitious builder of roads, commanding an army of bulldozers, graders, and asphalt spreaders, fritters away his free time with miniature trains--until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A cruster newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays--a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. A hog farmer's widow receives cryptic, unsolicited letters from a man in Schenectady about "the indefinable sweet aches of the spirit." But what will she find out when she goes to meet him in the flesh?

The Empty Family by Colm Toibin
These stories are set in present-day Ireland, 1970s Spain, and nineteenth-century England and are about people linked by love, loneliness, and desire. "Silence" is a brilliant historical set piece about Lady Gregory, widowed and abandoned by her lover, who tells the writer Henry James a confessional story at a dinner party. In "Two Women," an eminent Irish set designer, aloof and prickly, takes a job in her homeland, and is forced to confront devastating emotions she has long repressed. "The New Spain" is the story of an intransigent woman who returns home after a decade in exile and shatters the fragile peace her family has forged in the post-Franco world. And in the breathtaking long story, "The Street," Toibin imagins a startling relationship between two Pakistani workers in Barcelona--a taboo affair in a community ruled b obedience and silence.

Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton
Beneath a dying red suit sits the proud and ancient city of Villjamur, capital of a mighty empire that new sits powerless against an encroaching ice age. As throngs of refugees gather outside the city gates, a fierce debate rages within the walls about the fates of these desperate souls. Then tragedy strikes--and the Emperor's eldest daughter, Jamur Rika, is summoned to serve as queen. Joined by her younger sister, Jamur Eir, the queen comes to sympathize with the hardships of the common people, thanks in part to her dashing teacher Randur Estevu, a man who is not what he seems.

Death, Freedom, and Odysseus

2011-01-20T15:59:00.000-08:00

Indulgence in Death by J.D. Robb
When a murder disrupts the Irish vacation she is taking with her husband, Roarke, Eve realizes that no place is safe -- not an Irish wood or the streets of the maniac city she calls home. But nothing prepares her for what she discovers upon her return to the cop shop in New York City... A driver for a top-of-the-line limousine service is found dead--shot through the neck with a crossbow. With a method established, but no motive to be found, Eve begins to fear that she has come across that most dangerous of criminals, a thrill killer, but one with a taste for the finer things in life--and death.

The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger
When Lady Duff Gordon, paragon of London society, departs for the hot, dry climate of Egypt to seek relief from her debilitating tuberculosis, her lady's maid, Sally, doesn't hesitate to leave the only world she has known in order to remain at her mistress's side. As Sally gets farther and farther from home, she experiences freedoms she has never known--forgoing corsets and wearing native dress, learning Arabic, and having her first taste of romance. But freedom is a luxury that a lady's maid can ill afford, and when Sally's newfound passion for life causes her to forget what she is entitled to, she is brutally reminded she is a mistress of nothing. Ultimately she must choose her master and a way back home -- or a way to an unknown future.

The Lost Books of Odyssey by Zachary Mason
This is reimagined tale of Homer's classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With hypnotic prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original that, taken together, open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations.

Dean Koontz Readalikes

2011-01-14T09:24:00.001-08:00

Did you really like Dean Koontz's books like What the Night Knows? Are you looking for other authors like him? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness. In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself. "Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment. In "A Good Marriage," Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage when her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

The Panic Zone by Rick Mofina
A car crashes in Wyoming: A young mother is thrown clear of the devastating car crash. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? The police believe it's a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on the mind, until the night the grief-stricken woman hears a voice through the phone: "Your baby is alive."

A bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café: The heinous act kills ten people, including two journalists with the World Press Alliance news agency. Jack Gannon's first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a huge story.

A Caribbean cruise ends in horror: Doctors are desperate to identify the mysterious cause of a cruise ship passenger's agonizing death. They turn to the world's top scientists, who fear that someone has resurrected their long-buried secret research. Research that is now being used as a deadly weapon.

With millions of lives at stake, experts work frantically against time. And as an anguished mother searches for her child and Jack Gannon pursues the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into the panic zone.

Edge by Jeffery Deaver
Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless “lifter” hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an “edge” on his victim—leverage—usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the “primary” caves under pressure. The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a “shepherd.” Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving—the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him—is also an opportunity to avenge his friend’s death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Dreams, Magic and Tales of Mystery

2011-01-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg
Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie's life seems practically perfect -- she's lovely, charming, and a successful real estate agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can't help but wonder how to wound up in her present condition. She had been on her hopeful way to becoming Miss America and realizing her childhood dream of someday living in one of the elegant old homes on top of Red Mountain, with the adoring husband and 2.5 children, but then something unexpected happened and changed everything. Maggie has heartbreaking secrets in her past, but through a strange turn of events she soon discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems -- dead or alive -- has at least one little secret.

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
With the same dazzling imagination and love of language that has made Salman Rushdie one of the great storytellers of our time, Luka and the Fire of Life revisits the magic-infused, intricate world he first brought to life in the modern classic Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This breathtaking new novel centers on Luka, Haroun's younger brother, who must save his father from certain doom. Rashid Khalifa, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, has fallen into a deep sleep from which no one can wake him. To keep his father from slipping away entirely, Luka must travel to the Magic World and steal the ever-burning Fire of Life.

Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
The need for love -- obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable -- takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Oates new collection of stories. In these powerful tales, children veer beyond their parents' control, wives and husbands wake up to find that they hardly knew each other, haunted pasts intrude upon uncertain futures, and those who bring us the most harm may be nearest at hand.

Best Plays, Seashore and Medical Myths

2010-12-30T13:33:00.000-08:00

The Best American Short Plays 2008-2009 edited by Barbara Parisi
Applause Theatre & Cinema Books is proud to continue to publish the series that for decades has been the standard for excellence for one-act plays in America. The sixteen plays in this volume deal with complex social issues and confront some of Life's most difficult junctures.

The Naturalist's Guide to the Atlantic Seashore by Scott Shumway
This is the ultimate guide to the diverse ecosystems of the Atlantic Coast from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras. From the tiniest diatom found in coastal tide pools to the giant baleen whales cruising the vast ocean, the species and habitats that make up the character of the seashore are described in detail for the enjoyment and enlightenment of beachgoers of all stripes.

Doctor Chopra Says Medical Facts & Myths Everyone Should Know by Dr. Sanjiv Chopra
Once upon a time, maintaining your health seemed relatively simple. But today we're barraged with a never-ending array of conflicting medical advice. It's all terribly confusing and most of us aren't sure what news we can trust and what we can ignore. Dr. Chopra has teamed up with renowned cardiologist Dr. Alan Lotvin to give you the most cutting-edge medical research available. They explain how to tell the difference between true medical news and irrevelant media hype.

Cats, Memoirs, and FBI agents

2010-12-17T08:04:00.001-08:00

Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme by Carole Nelson Douglas
Temple Barr, publicist extraordinaire, is itching to bring off her most dangerous and exciting assignment, helping to launch an endeavor that many a Vegas showman has dreamed of -- creating a Las Vegas mob museum/casino. A buried safe rumored to contain scads of mob loot is found underneath one of the hotels during the renovations and Temple has a grand scheme to do a live media event surrounding the opening of this portal to the past. They discover there isn't money to be had...but there is a two-day-old body wearing a white tie and tails!

The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp
Exiled in Paris, tiny, one-hundred-year-old Mathilde Kschessinska sits down to write her memoirs before all that she believes to be true is forgotten. A lifetime ago, she was the vain, ambitious, impossibly charming prima ballerina assoluta of the tsar's Russian Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. Now, as she looks back on her tumultuous life, she can still recall every slight she ever suffered, every conquest she ever made. Kschessinska 's riveting storytelling soon thrusts us into a world lost to time.

The Passage by Justin Cronin
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a world forever altered. As civilization crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary: FBI agent Brad Wolgast, a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty; and six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte, a refugee from the doomed scientific project.

Noir, New Yorker, and Scotland

2010-12-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink
Georg Polger ekes out a lonely living as a freelance translator in the south of France, until he is approached by a certain Mr. Bulnakov, who has an intriguing proposition: Georg is to take over a local translation agency and finish a project left by the previous owner, who died in a mysterious accident. The money is right and then there is the matter of Bulnakov's secretary Francoise, with whom Georg has fallen hopelessly in love.

20 Under 40: Stories from the New Yorker edited by Deborah Treisman
This book presents twenty young writers, chosen by The New Yorker, whose work will help define the future of American letters. The range of voices assembled here is extraordinary: from lyrical realism to satirical comedy, from sociopolitical narratives of immigration and identity to genre-bending metaphysical fantasies.

Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King
Shipwrecked on the Scottish coast, a young Saxon princess and her family--including the outlawed Edgar of England--ask sanctuary of the warrior-king Malcolm Canmore, who shrewdly sees the political advantage. He promises to aid Edgar and the Saxon cause in return for the hand of Edgar's sister, Margaret in marriage. A foreign queen in a strange land, Margaret adapts to life among the barbarian Scots, bears princes, and shapes the fierce warrior Malcolm into a sophisticated ruler. Yet even as the king and queen build a passionate and tempestuous partnership, the Scots distrust her. When her husband brings Eva, a Celtic bard, to court as a hostage for the good behavior of the formidable Lady MacBeth, Margaret expects trouble. Instead, an unlikely friendship grows between the queen and her bard.

Cold Dawn

2010-12-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

Cold Dawn by Carla Neggers
The small town of Black Falls, Vermont, finally feels safe again -- until search-and-rescue expert Rose Cameron discovers a body, burnt almost beyond recognition. Almost. Rose is certain that she knows the victims identity...and that his death was no accident.

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
By the side of a lake in Brandenburg, a young architect builds the house of his dreams - a summerhouse with wrought-iron balconies, stained-glass windows the colour of jewels, and a bedroom with a hidden closet, all set within a beautiful garden. But the land on which he builds has a dark history of violence that began with the drowning of a young woman in the grip of madness, and that grows darker still over the course of the century. With this haunting evocation of a home and its buried secrets, layer after layer of German history reveals the beating heart and unique memories that lie beneath.

Men of Bronze by Scott Oden
It is 526 B.C. and the empire of the Pharoahs is dying, crushed by the weight of its own antiquity. Decay riddles its cities, infects its aristocracy, and weakens its armies. While across the expanse of Sinai, like jackals drawn to a carrion, the forces of the King of Persia watch and wait. Leading the fight to preserve the soul of Egypt is Hasdrabal Barca, Pharoah's deadliest killer. Caught in the midst of this violence is Jauharah, a slave in the House of Life. Though her hands tend to Barca's wounds, it is her spirit that heals and changes him. He is now a man motivated as much by love as anger. Nevertheless honor and duty have bound Barca to the fate of Egypt.

Tales of Redemption, Knitting, and World War II

2010-11-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons: Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox by Greg Fitzsimmons
Greg Fitzsimmons has made a lot of what appear to be bad decision. It's what he was raised to do. Most parents would hide or destroy any evidence so clearly demonstrating their child's failures, but - lucky for us - Greg Fitzsimmon's family has preserved each mistake in its original envelope like a trophy in a case, lest he ever forget where he came from.

Stitch 'N Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics by Debbie Stoller
Take your knitting to the next level! Learn intarsia knitting in a single setting. Work Fair Isle with a smile. Knit lace with grace, and don't freak when it's time to steek. Plus cable, double knitting, beading, embroidery, how to work short rows, and useful cast-ons, bind-offs, increases and decreases.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.

Petty Magic

2010-11-12T10:14:00.000-08:00

Petty Magic: Being the Memoirs and Confessions of Miss Evelyn Harbinger, Temptress and Troublemaker by Camille DeAngelis
Evelyn Harbinger sees nothing wrong with a one-night stand. At 146 years old, Eve may look like she bakes oatmeal cookies in the afternoon and dozes in her rocking chair in the evening, but once the gray hair and wrinkles are traded for jet-black tresses and porcelain skin, she can still turn heads as the beautiful girl she once was. Can't fault a girl for having a little fun, can you?

Pretty Little Things by Jilliane Hoffman
Thirteen-year old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a home police are already familiar with: her mom works too much and her stepfather favors his own blood over another man's problems--namely Lainey and her wild older sister. When Lainey fails to come home from a night out with friends, his disappearance is dismissed by the Coral Springs PD as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life. But FDLE Special Agent Bobby Dees, who heads up the department's difficult Crimes Against Children Squad (CAC), is not quite so sure.

Trio of Sorcery by Mercedes Lackey
In Lackey's worlds, elves and vampires walk among humans, ancient gods wield powers they never abandoned, and mankind's own technologies create new opportunities for magic-workers and spirit-creatures to exploit. This book contains three all-new, never-before-published, short urban fantasy novels featuring three resourceful heroines and three different takes on the modern world and on magics both ancient and cutting-edge.

Inspiration, Hope, and Lessons

2010-11-05T08:03:00.000-07:00

A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness -- And a Trove of Letters -- Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression by Ted Gup
Shortly before Christmas 1933 in Depression-scarred Canton, Ohio, a small newspaper ad offered cash gifts to seventy-five families in distress. Readers were asked to send letters describing their hardships to a benefactor calling himself Mr. B. Virdot. The author's grandfather Sam Stone was inspired to place this ad and help his fellow Cantonians as they prepared for the cruelest Christmas most of them would ever endure. Moved by the stories of suffering and hope in the letters, which he discovered in a suitcase seventy-five years later, Ted Gup set out to unveil the lives behind them, searching for records and relatives all over the country to flesh out the family sagas hinted at in those letters.

Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language by Deborah Fallows
Deborah Fallows has spent much of her life learning languages and travelling around the world. But nothing prepared her for the surprises involved in learning Mandarin, China's most common language, or the intensity of living in Shanghai and Beijing. Over time, she realized that her struggles and triumphs in studying the language of her adopted home provided small clues to deciphering the behavior and habits of its people and the conundrums of its culture.

Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life by Nick Vujicic
Born without arms or legs, Nick Vujicic overcame his disability to live an independent, rich, fulfilling life, becoming a model for anyone seeking true happiness. Now an internationally successful motivational speaker, Nick spreads his central message: the most important goal for anyone is to find their life's purpose despite whatever difficulties or seemingly impossible odds stand in their way.

History - Rivalries and Voyages

2010-10-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth that Led to an American Tragedy by Nora Titone
The scene of John Wilkes Booth shooting Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre is among the most vivid and indelible images in American history. The literal story of what happened on April 14, 1865, is familiar: Lincoln was killed by John Wilkes Booth, a lunatic enraged by the Union victory and the prospect of black citizenship. Yet who Booth really was -- besides a killer-- is less well known. The magnitude of his crime has obscured for generations a startling personal story that was integral to his motivation. This sweeping family saga revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln's death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes's older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage.

The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin with introduction by David Quammen
When Charles Darwin revealed his radical theories of biology in 1859, he sparked fierce controversy that continues to this day. Here is the journal that started it all -- Darwin's gripping first-person account of his landmark voyage to South America, with his original interpretations of the Galapagos ecosystem and the impact of nature and selection. Best-selling nature writer and biography David Quammen introduces the story of the HMS Beagle, which set sail in 1831 to chart the waters off South America. Darwin, age 22, enlisted as ship's naturalist on a journey that became the defining event of his life.

Darwin

2010-10-22T07:41:00.000-07:00

Darwin in Galapagos: Footstep to a New World by K. Thalia Grant and Gregory B. Estes
In 1835, during his voyage on HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin spent several weeks in Galapagos exploring the islands and making extensive notes on their natural history. This is the first book to recreate Darwin's historic visit to the islands, following in his footsteps day by day and island by island as he records all that he observes around him.

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer
One hundred fifty years ago, Charles Darwin revolutionized biology, but did he refute intelligent design (ID)? In this book, Meyer argues that he did not. Much confusion surrounds the theory of intelligent design. Frequently misinterpreted by the media, politicians, and local school boards, intelligent design can be defended on purely scientific grounds in accordance with the same rigorous methods that apply to every proposed origin-of-life theory.

Harvest Moon

2010-10-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

Harvest Moon by Mercedes Lackey
Kidnapping Persephone should have been an easy task. But in the Five Hundred Kingdoms, nothing's ever simple -- and the wrong blonde goddess is stolen by mistake, leaving Prince Leopold without his new bride. At least until he braves the realm of the dead to get her back.

Valeria's Cross by Kathi Macias & Susan Wales
After her first love is martyred, Valeria, the daughter of Roman Emperor Diocletian is forced to marry his murderer. Can her marriage survive if it's built on religious opposition? Will she?

The Countess by Rebecca Johns
In 1611, Countess Ersebet Bathory, a powerful Hungarian noblewoman, stood helpless as masons walled her inside her castle tower, dooming her to spend her final years in solitary confinement. Her crime: the gruesome murders of dozens of female servants , mostly young girls tortured to death for displeasing their ruthless mistress. Her opponents painted her as a blood-thirsty skrata--a witch--a portrayal that would expand to grotesque proportions through the centuries.

The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruiyan Xu
Li Jing, a successful happily married businessman, is dining at a grand hotel in Shanghai when a gas explosion shatters the building. A shard of glass neatly pierces Li Jing's forehead, obliterating his ability to speak Chinese. The only words that emerge from his mouth are faltering phrases of the English he spoke as a child growing up in Virginia.

Science, Math and Cupcakes

2010-10-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

Stars Above, Earth Below: A Guide to Astronomy in the National Parks by Tyler Nordgren
Nordgren examines a range of astronomical topics and makes the connection between them and the landscapes, processes, and cultures which can be seen and experienced within specific U.S. national parks. For each park and topic the story unfolds in three steps and the author takes us from the coast of Maine to the Yellowstone volcano, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the heights of the Rocky Mountains, exploring the natural links between the features of the parks and those of our Universe.

Atlantis and 2012: The Science of the Lost Civilization and the Prophecies of the Maya by Frank Joseph
Based on more than 25 years of research around the globe and statements from Edgar Cayce about Atlantis and its Pacific sister civilization of Lemuria, Frank Joseph reveals that the Mayan calendar was brought to Mexico by survivors of Atlantis. Uncovering the Atlantean influences in both ancient Mesoamerican culture and ancient Egyptian culture, he links the demise of Atlantis with the birth of the Olmec civilization in Mexico (the progenitors of the Maya), the beginning of the first Egyptian dynasty, and the start of the Mayan calendar.

Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures by Ian Stewart
Professor Stewart presents a new and magical mix of games, puzzles, paradoxes, brainteasers, and riddles. He mingles these with forays into ancient and modern mathematical thought, appallingly hilarious mathematical jokes, and inquiries into the great mathematical challenges of the present and past.

The Art of Cupcakes: More than 40 Festive Recipes by Noga Hitron
Weddings...birthday parties...Valentine's Day dinner...family get-togethers... There's a fancifully decorated cupcake for every occasion in this imaginative collection. Choose from an assortment of tiny treats that feature sweet fondant hearts, daisies, monsters, animals, lollipops, and even a baby booty!

Cussler readalikes

2010-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Did you really like Clive Cussler's books like Lost Empire? Are you looking for other authors like her? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

Cure by Robin Cook
With her young son's potentially fatal neuroblastoma in complete remission, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery returns to work, only to face the case of her career. The investigation into the death of CIA agent Kevin Markham is a professional challenge-and has Laurie's colleagues wondering if she still has what it takes after so much time away. Markham's autopsy results are inconclusive, and though it appears he's been poisoned, toxicology fails to corroborate Laurie's suspicions. While her coworkers doubt her assassination theory, her determination wins over her husband, fellow medical examiner Jack Stapleton, and together they discover associations to a large pharmaceutical company and several biomedical start-ups dealing with stem-cell research. Laurie and Jack race to connect the dots before they are consumed in a dangerous game of biotech espionage.

Santa Fe Edge by Stuart Woods
If you run into trouble in Santa Fe, Ed Eagle is the man to see. Ed Eagle, the six-feet-six, take-no-prisoners Santa Fe attorney, has recovered from his encounters with Mexican organized crime and-more treacherously-his ex-wife, Barbara. Now a mysterious new client has come his way, one who may shed light into some dark corners of Ed's past...and put him in danger once more.

Bad Blood by John Sandford
One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator- and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he's sure he's dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious, the sheriff calls in Virgil Flowers, who quickly breaks the kid down...and the next day the boy's found hanging in his cell. Remorse? Virgil isn't so sure, and as he investigates he begins to uncover a multigeneration, multifamily conspiracy-a series of crimes of such monstrosity that, though he's seen an awful lot in his life, even he has difficulty in comprehending it...and in figuring out what to do next.

Crossfire by Dick Francis
Shell-shocked and missing a foot-lost to an IED during his tour of duty in Afghanistan-Captain Tom Forsyth has been sent "home" by the army and, at loose ends, returns to his estranged mother's house for the first time since he joined up at seventeen. But Josephine Kauri, the "first lady of British racing," has always put the horses she trains first and her family last. Tom soon finds himself strained to the breaking point with his mother and stepfather. But there's another reason for the stifling tension at Kauri House Stables: Josephine is being blackmailed for a hefty sum every week-and forced to make her horses lose. Retirement is not an option, as she has been warned that it will result in the thing she most fears: exposure and ridicule . . . and prison, when the government finds out what she's been hiding. Tom sets out to discover and defeat this hidden enemy using his finely honed military skills. But can he save his mother's reputation and career, or will he find himself caught in the cross fire?

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Sourland

2010-09-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Sourland by Joyce Carol Oates
This is sixteen previously uncollected stories that explore how the power of violence, loss, and grief shape both the psyche and the soul. From a desperate man who dons a jack-o'-lantern head as a prelude to a most curious sort of courtship, to a "story of stabbing" many times recounted in the life of a lonely girl; from a beguiling young woman librarian whose amputee state attracts a married man an father, to the concluding title story of an unexpectedly redemptive love rooted in radical aloneness and isolation.

Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub
In a lovely suburban town just north of New York City, the gossip mill runs more efficiently than the commuter-train line. And in every impeccably decorated house, they're talking about Lauren Walsh. They say that nothing could be worse than being abandoned by your husband for another woman. They're wrong... All Lauren wants is to protect her children from the pain of her messy divorce. But when their father goes missing, a case of mistaken identity puts all their lives in danger, and a stealthy predator lurks in the shadows, watching and waiting.

Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer
Paul has been on his own since he was a teenager, leading a life of freedom and independence, beholden to no one and nothing. Fearless, resolute, and guided by his own private moral code, he has hunted for food in Alaska, fought forest fires, and been deputized in a manhunt for a kidnapper in South Dakota. Once he thought his life would have no particular rhyme or reason, touched only by transient strangers. Then he meets the beautiful, intelligent, loving Kate Ellis and her daughter, Ruby, who offer order and constancy. But Paul is a man of deep convictions, and the compromises we all make to get along in the world elude him.

Indian Summer by Elizabeth Darrell
Basking in the warmth of an Indian summer, the British Military in Germany hold an Open Day to ease the stress of constant movements in personnel to and from war zones. Entertainments include medieval knights, jousting, and, for children, a diver in a water tank fighting synthetic oceanic monsters. At midnight, guards discover a body in the tank, with the tentacles of a lifelike jellyfish wound tightly around his throat. The dead man is Corporal Philip Kean, recently returned from Afghanistan, but when officials call to tell his wife the sad news it seems that she and the children have vanished.

Elizabeth Berg readalikes

2010-09-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

Did you really like Elizabeth Berg's books like Year of Pleasures? Are you looking for other authors like her? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage. But when the Edwards's 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 is threatened.

Lost in the Forest by Sue Miller
One minute John is the cornerstone of Eva's world, rock to his two teenage stepdaughters and his own son Theo; the next he is tossed through the air in a traffic accident. His sudden death changes everything. Eva struggles with the desolation of loneliness, finding herself drawn back to her untrustworthy ex-husband; Emily, the eldest daughter, grapples with her new-found independence and responsibility. Little Theo can only begin to fathom the permanence of his father's death. But for the middle child Daisy, John's absence opens up a whole world of confusion. Just at the onset of adolescence and blossoming sexuality, Daisy is exposed to the terrifying duplicity of life, the instability that hovers just beyond the safety of parental love, and the powerlessness of that love to protect or even console her. In steps a man only too willing to take advantage of her emotions.

The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Jessie Sullivan has been married half her life, and has become accustomed to her role. But when she returns to the isolated island she grew up on to establish why her mother has been behaving oddly, she is to find a lot more than she came looking for. A loving, exuberant character, who believes herself to be happy, she has forgotten a hidden part of her spirit - the part represented by the beautiful, vibrant and legendary mermaid carved on a chair in the island's monastery. When Jessie falls passionately in love with a monk who is close to taking his final vows, she discovers a place in herself that she had never previously imagined could exist.

Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen
It’s an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice’s perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country’s highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike. In an instant, it’s the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan’s long shadow. The effect of Meghan’s on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan’s son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget’s perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Pirates of the Levant

2010-09-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Pirates of the Levant by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Accompanied by his protege Inigo, Captain Alatriste accepts a job as a mercenary aboard a Spanish galleon. The ship sets sail from Naples on a journey that will take them to some of the most remote--and notorious--outpost of the empire: Morocco, Algeria, and finally Malta, for a stunning and bloody battle on the high seas that will challenge even the battle-hardened Alatriste's resolve.

The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago
In 1551, King Joao III of Portugal decided to give Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Soloman, along with his keeper, Subhro. The two have been living in dismal conditions, forgotten in a corner of the palace grounds. When it occurs to the king and queen that an elephant might be an appropriate wedding gift, everyone rushes to get them ready: Subhro is given two new suits of clothes and Soloman a long-overdue scrub. Accompanied by the archduke, his new bride, and the royal guard, our unlikely heroes traverse a continent riven by the Reformation and Civil War.

A Place Apart: A Cape Cod Reader edited by Robert Fineli
In this rich collection you'll find Wampanoag creation myths, eyewitness accounts of the Pilgrims' first landing in 1620; harrowing tales of the whaling and fishing industries; and portraits of Provincetown's Portuguese fishermen and Bohemian artists and the residents who engage each year in the Cape's summer rituals.

Skull Duggery

2010-08-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Skull Duggery by Aaron Elkins
Gideon accompanies his wife, Julie, to the charming little Mexican village of Teotitlan del Valle in the state of Oaxaca, where Julie's expatriate relatives, the Gallaghers, operate a dude ranch resort. Up to his ears in forensic work at home, Gideon can use a break, and he looks forward to a week of leisure and touring. Teotitlan is an out-of-the-way weavers village, peaceful and virtually crime and drug-free. What could go wrong? Plenty.

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Rose Drayton lives on the Edge, between two worlds: on one side lies the Broken, a place where people shop at Wal-Mart and magic is nothing more than a fairytale; on the other is the Weird, a realm where blueblood aristocrats rule and the strength of your magic can change your destiny. Only Edgers like Rose can easily travel between the worlds--but they never truly belong in either.

The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow by Joyce Magnin
No longer able or willing to leave her home, this unusual woman has committed herself to a life of prayer--prayer that has resulted in numerous miracles, both large and garden variety, including a prize-winning pumpkin. The rural residents of this quirky Pennsylvania town are so enamored with Agnes they plan to erect a sign in her honor on the interstate. Agnes wants no part of it and sends her sister Griselda to fight city hall.

Under this Unbroken Sky by Shandi Mitchell
Spring 1938. After nearly two years in prison for the crime of stealing his own grain, Ukrainian immigrant Teodor Mykolayenko is a free man. While he was gone, his wife, Maria; their five children; and his sister, Anna, struggled to survive on the harsh northern Canadian prairie, but now Teodor--a man who has overcome drought, starvation, and Stalin's purges--is determined to make a better life for them. But the family's hopes and newfound happiness are short-lived. Anna's rogue husband, the arrogant and scheming Stefan, unexpectedly returns, stirring up rancor and discord that will end in violence and tragedy.

Dracula in Love

2010-08-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex
London, 1890. Mina Murray, the rosy-cheeked, quintessentially pure Victorian heroine, becomes Count Dracula's object of desire. To preserve her chastity, five male "defenders" rush in to rescue her form the vampire's evil clutches. This is the version of the story we've been told. But now, from Mina's own pen, we discover that the story is vastly different when told from the female point of view.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden by Helen Grant
It's isn't ten-year-old Pia's fault that her grandmother dies in a freak accident. But tell that to the citizens of Pia's little German hometown of Bad Munstereifel, or to the classmates who shun her. The only one who still wants to be her friend is Stink-Stefan, the most unpopular child in school. But then something else capture the community's attention: the vanishing of Katharina Linden. Katharina was last seen on a parade float, dressed as Snow White. Then, like a character in a Grimm's fairy tale, she disappears. But, this being real life, she doesn't return.

Love at Last Sight: 30 Days to Grow and Deepen Your Closest Relationships by Kerry & Chris Shook
Your closest relationships will naturally drift apart over time. And chances are, right now, one or more of your most important relationships is less than what you wish it could be. Now you can change everything and take steps to reconnect with the people who really matter -- and we don't mean by connecting on Facebook! This thirty-day program guides you step-by-step to deeper, more satisfying relationships by developing four forgotten but powerful relational arts.

What We Have: One Family's Inspiring Story About Love, Loss, and Survival by Amy Boesky
At thirty-two, Amy Boesky thought she had it all figured out: a wonderful new man in her life, a great job, and the (nearly) perfect home. For once, she was almost able to shake the terrible fear that had gripped her for as long as she could remember. All of the women in her family had died before the age of forty-five--from cancer--and she and her sisters had grown up in time's shadow. But Amy didn't want to dwell on her fear now; she wanted to spend time with her husband, plan for a new baby, live her life. And that's just what she did. In a way that only someone who is so acutely aware of passing time can, she chose to put her anxieties aside and relish life's simple pleasures.

Stieg Larsson Readalikes

2010-08-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

Did you really like Stieg Larsson's books like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Are you looking for other authors like him? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

In the Woods by Tana French
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours. Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox—his partner and closest friend—find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Barcelona, 1945—A great world city lies shrouded in secrets after the war, and a boy mourning the loss of his mother finds solace in his love for an extraordinary book called The Shadow of the Wind, by an author named Julian Carax. When the boy searches for Carax’s other books, it begins to dawn on him, to his horror, that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book the man has ever written. Soon the boy realizes that The Shadow of the Wind is as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget, for the mystery of its author’s identity holds the key to an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love that someone will go to any lengths to keep secret.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Meet Balram Halwai, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur and murderer. Balram, the White Tiger, was born in a backwater village on the River Ganges, the son of a rickshaw-puller. He works in a teashop, crushing coal and wiping tables, but nurses a dream of escape. When he learns that a rich village landlord needs a chauffeur, he takes his opportunity, and is soon on his way to Delhi behind the wheel of a Honda. Amid the cockroaches and call-centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls, and the crippling traffic jams, Balram learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. Driven by desire to better himself, he comes to see how the Tiger might escape his cage.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Zoo Story

2010-07-23T11:42:00.000-07:00

Zoo Story: Life in the Garden of Captives by Thomas French
Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco.

The Price of Stones: Building a School for My Village by Twesigye Jackson Kaguri
Twesigye Jackson Kaguri defied many naysayers -- and his own nagging doubts -- as he and a small group of supporters followed a dream to build, stone by stone at times, a school for AIDS orphans in his village in Uganda.

Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love by Justine van der Leun
A jaded young New Yorker is brought back to life by what she finds in Italy: not the food, not the fashion, not a Ferrari or a Fabio -- but a small, spotted, bird-obsessed hunting dog named Marcus.

Sophie Kinsella readalikes

2010-07-16T10:50:00.001-07:00

Shoulder Bags and Shootings

2010-07-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

Interested in any of these titles? Place them on hold with your library card if you're a member of any OCLN library!

Shoulder Bags and Shootings by Dorothy Howell
Fashionista and amateur sleuth Haley Randolph is in hot pursuit of the season's newest must-have handbag. But soon she's also in hot pursuit of a killer--when she discovers the corpse of none other than her designer purse party rival...

Just Let Me Lie Down: Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working Mom by Kristin van Ogtrop
Kristin van Ogtrop has a nice career, a dependable husband, and three healthy kids who occasionally make their beds. You could say she is average, but lucky. You could also say that she is half-insane--but just try to name one working mom who isn't. Like all of us, van Ogtrop needs a bit of guidance from time to time. Yet when she searched the bookshelves for something to help put a little order into her average/lucky/chaotic life, she came up short. And so she had an idea.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the "high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island" that is the Japanese Empire's single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancee back in Holland.

New Playaways!

2010-07-01T13:42:00.001-07:00

The library has new playaways! A playaway is an audiobook already downloaded onto a MP3 player that you can check out, plug your own earphones into and enjoy!

Newest to our collection are:

Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke
It's the beginning of summer in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and the orders are piling up at The Cookie Jar. When Hannah is commissioned to bake 1,100 cookies for a three-day fundraiser, her partner Lisa suggests setting up an apple turnover stand for the charity event. As if she didn't have enough on her plate already, Hannah also agrees to appear in the charity talent contest. But she gets upstaged when she discovers the MC dead--with one of her apple turnovers in his hand!

Broken Jewel by David L. Robbins
For three years, American Remy Tuck and the mostly civilian prisoners at Los Banos have endured brutal conditions. In the face of such hardship, Remy's 19-year-old son Talbot has fallen in love with Carmen, a Filipina forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese soldiers. Now--as the Japanese become increasingly desperate, and a strike force prepares to liberate the camp--Remy must do everything in his power to keep Tal and Carmen safe.

Crescent

2010-06-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber
Thirty-nine-year-old Sirine, never married, lives with a devoted uncle and an adoring dog named King Babar in the Persian-and Arab-American community of Los Angeles known as Irangeles. She works as a chef in a Lebanese restaurant, her passions aroused only by cooking--until an unbearably handsome Arabic literature professor starts dropping by for a little home cooking.

The Devil Amongst The Lawyers by Sharyn McCrumb
In 1935, when Erma Morton, a beautiful young woman with a teaching degree, is charged with the murder of her father in a remote Virginia mountain community, the case becomes a cause celebre for the national press. Eager for a case to replace the Lindbergh trial in the public's imagination, the journalists descend on the mountain county intent on infusing their stories with quaint local color but a local journalist, Carl Jennings, fresh out of college and covering his first major story, reports what he sees: an ordinary town and a defendant who is probably guilty.

Beyond 2012: The Omega Point by Whitley Strieber
The year 2012 came and went. The world prepared itself for impending disaster--and nothing happened. Or so it seemed. But by 2020, energy from a supernova is disrupting the sun. Solar storms ravage the globe with unprecedented ferocity, and debris in the form of comets and asteroids threaten to end life on Earth. It all comes down to one man--a young psychiatrist named David Ford-- who may hold the power to save the world.

Patterson readalikes

2010-06-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Already read James Patterson's newest Women's Murder Club mystery The 9th Judgment? Are you a fan of James Patterson and looking for other authors similar to him? Try these titles! If you're a member of the Old Colony Library Network, just click on the title to place it on hold.

True Blue by David Baldacci
Mason 'Mace' Perry was a maverick cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything - her career, her liberty - and spent two years in prison. Now back on the outside, Mace is trying to rebuild her life and track down the people who set her up. (Review taken from Fantastic Fiction)

Ford County by John Grisham
Returning to the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, longtime bestseller Grisham presents seven short stories about the residents of Ford County, Miss. Each story explores different themes-mourning, revenge, justice, acceptance, evolution-but all flirt with the legal profession, the staple of (former attorney) Grisham's oeuvre. (Review from Publisher's Weekly)

Caught by Harlan Coben
Caught tells the story of a missing girl, the community stunned by her loss, the predator who may have taken her, and the reporter who suddenly realizes she can’t trust her own instincts about this story—or the motives of the people around her.

Split Image by Robert B. Parker
The body in the trunk was just the beginning. But what initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach. Stressed by the case, his failed relationship with his ex-wife, and his ongoing battle with the bottle, Jesse needs something to keep him from spinning out of control. When private investigator Sunny Randall comes into town on a case, she asks for Jesse's help. As their professional and personal relationships become intertwined, both Jesse and Sunny realize that they have much in common with both their victims and their suspects-and with each other.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Origami

2010-06-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Papercrafts and Origami: A Truly Comprehensive Collection of Papercraft Ideas, Designs and Techniques, with over 300 Projects
Includes papercraft projects for all occasions, from delightful gifts for family and friends, fun projects to make with children and decorative ideas for around the home. Also includes traditional crafts such as decoupage, paper cutting and quilling, plus projects for special occasions such as Christmas, Valentine's Day and anniversaries!

The Lost Girls: Three Friends, Four Continents, One Unconventional Detour Around the World by Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, and Amanda Pressner
Jen, Holly, and Amanda are at a crossroads. They're feeling pressure to hit certain milestones--scoring a big promotion, finding a soul mate, having 2.2 kids--before they reach their early thirties. When personal challenges force them to reevaluate their lives, they decide it's now or never to do something daring. Unable to gain perspective in fast-paced Manhattan, the three twentysomethings quit their coveted media jobs and leave behind their friends, boyfriends, and everything familiar to travel the globe. Dubbing themselves the Lost Girls, they embark on an epic yearlong search for inspiration and direction.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Egan's narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

Gatsby

2010-06-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Summer We Read Gatsby by Danielle Ganek
Cassie is a serious journalist with her feet firmly planted on the ground; Peck is a vintage-obsessed actress with her head in the clouds. In fact, the only thing the Moriarty sisters seem to have in common is their inheritance of Fool's House, a ramshackle cottage left to them by their beloved Aunt Lydia. The girls must resolve not only what to do with Fool's House but also their disparate notions of what makes a family and how to respect their sisterly differences.

Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn
Emmanuel Cooper's life has an "ex" through it: ex-soldier, ex-detective sergeant and ex-white man. He now works undercover surveillance on the seedy Durban docks to make a living. All that changes when the brutal murder of a young boy forces Cooper out of the shadows. After two more similar murders, Cooper becomes the police department's prime suspect. Under the pressure of new racial segregation laws, Cooper must find the killer before the Durban police pin the crimes on him.

The Time Weaver by Shana Abe
Honor Carlisle may have been born into the drakon clan but she's always felt like a stranger to her kin. It's an intuition that proves true when she receives a mysterious letter--a letter sent by her future self. Honor learns she is a Time Weaver: a creature with the extraordinary ability to transport herself into the past or future. But the letter contains a dire warning. If Honor remains in her home at Darkfrith, she is certain to be killed.

INTERESTED IN ANY OF THESE TITLES? IF YOU HAVE AN OCLN LIBRARY CARD, JUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AND PLACE IT ON HOLD!

Beach Week

2010-05-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Beach Week by Susan Coll
Beach Week means seven whole days of debauched celebration, a time-honored tradition in which the D.C. suburbs' newest high school grads flock to Chelsea Beach --bereft of adult supervision. In this warmhearted comedy, ten teenage girls plot an unhinged blowout the likes of which their young lives have never seen.

Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth
Zach Barrows is an ambitious young White House staffer whose career takes an unexpected turn when he's partnered with Nathaniel Cade, a secret agent sworn to protect the President. But Cade is no ordinary civil servant. A vampire bound by a special blood oath, Cade has spent more than 140 years in service to the president, battling nightmares before they can break into the daylight world of the American dream.

Amandine by Marlena de Blasi
Set against the backdrop of Europe as it moves inexorably toward World War II, Amandine follows a young orphan's journey in search of her heritage. The story opens in Krakow in 1931, as a baby girl is conceived out of wedlock, the byproduct of a foolish heart and a tragic inheritance. The child's grandmother, a countess, believes that she is protecting her daughter when she claims that the baby didn't survive. In truth, however, she deposits the infant at a remote convent in the French countryside, leaving her with a great sum of money and in the care of a young governess named Solange.

The Possibility of Everything

2010-05-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman
In the autumn of 2000, Hope Edelman was a woman adrift, questioning her marriage, her profession, and her place in the larger world. Feeling vulnerable and isolated, she was primed for change. Into her stagnant routine dropped Dodo, her three-year-old daughter Maya's curiously disruptive imaginary friend. Confused and worried about how to handle Dodo's apparent hold on their daughter, Edelman and her husband made the unlikely choice to take her to Belize, hoping the Maya healers there might help banish Dodo--and, as they came to understand, all he represented--from their lives.

Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska by Heather Lende
Anyone who has written both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper knows a thing or two about life and death; anyone who filed those stories in a remote Alaskan town is intimately acquainted with the precariousness of our journey here on Earth. In her bestselling first book, Heather Lende invited us into breathtakingly beautiful Haines. Since then, a near-fatal bicycle collision with a truck has given Lende a few more reasons to consider matters both spiritual and temporal. Like so much of life in Haines, Lende's recovery was a community effort.

Marks of Cain by Tom Knox
When David Martinex, a young lawyer, receives an ancient map from his dying grandfather, the mysteries of his past begin to open up before him. The map leads David into the heart of the dangerous Basque mountains, where a genetic curse lies buried and a frightening secret about the Western world's past is hidden.

Try a Playaway!

2010-05-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

The library has new playaways! A playaway is an audiobook already downloaded onto a MP3 player that you can check out, plug your own earphones into and enjoy! Great for working out, going for a jog, or just tuning out the world and listening to a great book.

Our newest edition to our collection is Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Shay Bourne shattered June Nealon's life when he murdered her husband and daughter. Now, as New Hampshire's first death row inmate in 58 years, his last request is one he believes might bring him salvation. Shay wants to donate his heart to June's other ailing daughter. But since he is scheduled for lethal injection, the scenario is not possible.

Let's Make a Deal

2010-05-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me by Howie Mandel
A frank, funny, no-holds-barred memoir that reveals the Deal or No Deal host's ongoing struggle with OCD and ADHD-- and how it has shaped his life and career. Eleven years ago, Mandel first told the world about his "germophobia." He's recently started discussing his adult ADHD as well. Now, for the first time, he reveals the details of his struggle with these challenging disorders.

Blues Dancing by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson--the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it--returns to town.

The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer
Suddenly faced with the potential dissolution of his marriage and the end of his quiet, settled life, reluctant spy Milo Weaver has no choice but to return to his old job as a "tourist" for the CIA. Before he can get back to the dirty work of espionage, however, he has to prove his worth to his new bosses, who know little of Milo's background and less about who is pulling the strings in the government above their heads.

Place a Book on Hold!

2010-05-06T14:03:00.001-07:00

See something you like in this blog?
This blog is connected with the Ventress Memorial Library in Marshfield, MA. If you have a library card in the Old Colony Library Network (OCLN), place any of these titles on hold by logging into your account at www.ocln.org.

Literary Figures

2010-05-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees
For the millions who cherish Little Women.... McNees deftly mixes fact and fiction as she imagines a summer lost to history, carefully purged from Louisa's letters and journals, a summer that would change the course of Louisa's writing career--and inspire the story of love and heartbreak between Jo and Teddy "Laurie" Laurence, Jo's devoted neighbor and kindred spirit.

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
Alice Liddell Hargreave's life has been a richly woven tapestry: As a young woman, wife, mother and widow, she's experienced intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. But as she nears her eighty-first birthday, she knows that, to the world around her, she is and will always be only "Alice." Her life was permanently dog-eared at one fateful moment in her tenth year--the golden summer day she urged a grown-up friend to write down one of his fanciful stories.
(Sidenote from Amy: Being a huge fan of anything Alice in Wonderland, I recently picked this novel up and absolutely loved it. Even though it is fiction, the author does a wonderful job of blending historical facts with fictional accents.)

Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman
The slow growth of Jane Austen's fame, from niche interest in the mid-nineteenth century to a figure who enjoys the sort of popular affection usually reserved for girl-next-door movie stars, makes a fascinating biography that adds significantly to our image of the beloved novelist.

Churchill by Paul Johnson
For the eminent historian Paul Johnson, Winston Churchill remains an enigma and a challenge. Soldier, parliamentarian, prime minister, orator, painter, writer, husband, and leader-- all of these facets combined to make Churchill one of the most complex and fascinating personalities in history.