Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

Second Saturday, An Outing with Opportunties - Come to The Friends of the Library's Second Saturday book sale beginning at 9 a.m. February 12, 2011. Remember that the only costs are donations to the cause. Notice the special sale on the big table at the entrance (on the lower level at the Crawfordsville Library). It features selected gems like "Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable" from 1899, "The Da Vinci Code" Special Illustrated Edition (Dan Brown), photographs of the "Appalachian Trail" including maps, "The Beatles Anthology", and a "Washington, D. C. Photographic Tour".

New fiction begins with Jayne Ann Krentz' novel "Witchcraft" whose cover displays a red rose with a needle through the blossom; in the story this is left on the doorstep of a mystery writer who runs to a Napa Valley vineyard owner for help with her fear.

"A Nose for Justice" is the first novel in a new series from Rita Mae Brown. Leaving a Wall Street career for a Nevada ranch, our heroine and her wirehaired dachshund join her great-aunt and her German shepherd mix. Together in this whodunit, they rediscover late-19th century history. "Don't Blink" by James Patterson describes a famous restaurant where an infamous mob lawyer is murdered, and where forces on both sides of the law have all-out war. Louise Penny's "Bury Your Dead" is a Chief Inspector Gamache novel about the Winter Carnival in Quebec City, remains of Samuel de Champlain, and tensions between the English and the French.

"After America" by John Birmingham is alternate history: the hoped-for survival of a violent war that besieged New York City after our continent was devastated three years ago. Martin Smith's Arkady Renko (Investigator) novel "Three Stations" is his latest detective tale set in Russia where with intuition and humor he fights not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state, street urchins, and bureaucracy as well. A new twist on the novel "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen, "Murder at Mansfield Park" by Lynn Shepherd gives the characters new traits, a murder mystery scenario, and crimes of the heart.

Nonfictions offer variety too. "The Guinness 2011 World Records", "exploding with thousands of new records", defies a choice of the most outrageous or most impressive event. "Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide for 2011" is known as America's most authoritative Antiques Annual. The huge new 14"x20"x1" tome called "Dinosaurs" by Steve Brusatte is both a photo album and encyclopedic text about those impressive beasts. "Photoshop CS5" by Sandor Burkus was designed by Softwear News; step by step tutorials show the secrets of the professionals.

Gail Eisnitz' "Slaughterhouse" is an expose of the U.S. meat industry. "At the Corner of Music Row and Memory Lane" by Stan Hitchcock tells his life as he lived it bringing together the elements of Country Music Television. As a recording artist, songwriter, and television personality, and most proudly an Ozark Hillbilly he tells tales of years on the road, and living the "music life" with the stars.

Two helpful books on Down syndrome are "Fasten Your Seatbelt" a crash course for brothers and sisters by Brian Skotko and "Babies with Down Syndrome: A New Parents' Guide" edited by Susan Skallerup.

Six graphic Barefoot Gen novels (comic book stories) that are read back to front (volumes 5-10) by Keiji Nakazawa are "The Never-Ending War", "Writing the Truth", "Bones into Dust", "Merchants of Death", "Breaking Down Borders", and "Never Give Up". The ten-volume saga shows life in Japan after years of war and privations as seen through the eyes of seven-year-old Gen Nakaoka, starting in 1945 with the atom bomb.