Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

As the month of January concludes, and the activity comes to a close, "membership" in the Children's Winter Reading Program at the Crawfordsville Library numbers 120. For a few more days, visitors can see their individual snowman posters built part-by-part by reading books.

Past Indiana Secretary of Commerce Michael Maurer's "19 Stars of Indiana: Exceptional Hoosier Women" is a new book offering unusual and stimulating biographies of achievers you'd like to know personally.

The rest of this column is about fiction. Edward Cline's "Sparrowhawk: Caxton" focuses on two Englishmen who come to colonial Virginia as dedicated revolutionaries. "A Measure of Mercy" is Lauraine Snelling's first volume of Home to Blessing that begins in June, 1903. Francine Rivers' "Her Daughter's Dream" spans the period from the 1950s to present day, recalling the Cold War and the counterculture of San Francisco, as it concludes the Christian series called Her Mother's Hope. In "On Folly Beach" by Karen White a woman buys a South Carolina bookstore to distract her from the loss of her husband in Afghanistan.

"Hell's Corner" by David Baldacci (in large print) deals with a bomb detonated in Lafayette Park in front of the White House the night of a state dinner honoring the British prime minister. Lee Child's Reacher novel "Worth Dying For" exposes deadly trouble connected with an unsolved decades-old case of a missing child in the corn country of Nebraska. "The Confession" by John Grisham answers how a man can convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that he's guilty and that they're about to execute an innocent man.

Iain Banks' "The Crow Road" is a "boisterous tale of exotic family secrets, torturous love affairs, and what it really means to become your own man".
Robyn Carr's "The House on Olive Street" shows four close friends drawn together while sorting through the personal effects of their recently lost friend. Jan Karon's "In the Company of Others" is a Father Tim novel based in Ireland when a retiring priest takes his wife to the home of his ancestors. Monica Ferris' "Sins and Needles" shows a sleuth and a needlework shop owner working to solve a murder by using an old knit pillow full of clues. The large print "A Thread So Thin" is a Cobbled Court novel by Marie Bostwick about a Connecticut quilt shop.

Nora Roberts' "Happy Ever After" is Book Four in the Bride Quartet about two friends who run a wedding planning company. Sophie Kinsella's "Mini Shopaholic" tells a hilarious tale of married life, toddlerhood, and the perils of trying to give a fabulous surprise party on a budget. "Bones of Contention" a Dinah Pelerin mystery by Jeanne Matthews takes place in the Australian outback at a country house party attended by Americans.

Stephen Donaldson's modern fantasy "Against All Things Ending" is the 3rd and final part of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. "Fragile" by Lisa Unger is a thrilling story of a quaint town outside New York City, where a young girl disappears in circumstances similar to another disappearance years ago, and investigations reveal, yes, a long-buried town secret.