Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

The May Book Sale is Saturday - Saturday, May 14 is the date for another Friends of the Library book sale on the Crawfordsville Library's lower level. It opens at 9 a.m. with all kinds of books available for the price of a donation. Just going through the shelves can be a great adventure.

A new short book on human action, free markets, and political economy donated to the Crawfordsville Library by the Liberty Fund is the economic analysis "Interventionism" by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Another study is "The Planet in a Pebble" a journey into earth's deep history by Jan Zalasiewicz, with "grand stories that reach back to long dead stars, into the depths of the Earth, to vanished continents, and quiet ocean beds above which strange creatures swam. There is much history there, if you know how to unlock it." From a much later period is "Defending Constantine" telling about the twilight of an empire and the dawn of Christendom, composed by Peter Leithart.

In our present world, "Cultures of War" by John Dower includes a comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, and he includes Hiroshima and the invasion of Iraq in his "four powerful events". "God and Globalization Volume 4" by Max Stackhouse, is the study of today's religions. "Black Mass" by John Gray studies "apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia". Roger Pearman's title is "I'm Not Crazy I'm Just Not You" with "secrets to how we can be so alike when we're so different: the real meaning of the sixteen personality types". "Workarounds that Work" or "How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work" is designed by Russell Bishop to lead to the simplifying of jobs. "First the Broccoli Then the Ice Cream" is a parent's guide to "deliberate discipline" by Tim Riley. "Get a Life, Not a Job" with the subtitle "Do What You Love and Let Your Talents Work for You" comes from Paula Caligiuri.

"The Tenth Parallel" by Eliza Griswold includes "dispatches from the fault line between Christianity and Islam". She notes that more than half the world's Muslims live along the tenth parallel as do 60 percent of Christians, where their encounter is shaping the future of each faith and of whole societies as well.

Four political books have come at once. "How Obama's Gender Policies Undermine America" by Diana Furchtgott-Roth; "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America" by John Avlon; "Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century" by Paul Kengor; and "Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right has Poisoned America's Airwaves" by Bill Press; all state their standpoints.

There's "The History of Photography" from 1839 to the present by Beaumont Newhall, and "Office 2010, the Missing Manual (the book that should have been in the box)" by Nancy Conner, and "2011 Poet's Market" of which Robert Brewer is the editor.

The autobiography of a former Planned Parenthood leader Abby Johnson is "UnPlanned". Bob Taylor tells about his life journey turning passion into business in "Guitar Lessons". Amy Chua's now famous story about how Chinese parents raise smart student-children is "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother".

"Between War and Peace: How America Ends Its Wars" contains 15 writings from the Revolution to the first Gulf War, and leading historians comment on the ramifications of the wars' ends for the nation's future; the editor is Matthew Moten, Professor of History at West Point.