Library News and Notable New Books

Local Businesses Support Library Summer Programs - Crawfordsville Library's adult summer reading program "Take Your Chances at the Library" has many sponsors, and their generosity is enhancing the challenges being accepted by 86 patrons who have signed up to take those chances through July 29th. The 19 sponsors include Country Hearts and Flowers, Cornett's Comfort Gallery, Vanity Theatre, Creek Jewelers, Arni's Restaurant, Little Mexico, La Rose on Main, China Inn, Milligan's Flowers and Gifts, Pace Dairy, heathcliff, The Craft House, Arthur's Café, Krogers South, French Lick Resorts, The Sewing Guild of Montgomery County, Fall Creek Farm, Friends of the Library, and Bob "the Beeman" Congleton.

Lloyd Hunter's "For Duty and Destiny" tells William Taylor Stott's Civil War diary and life story as Hoosier soldier and educator. Stott was an 1861 graduate of Franklin College who, as President of Franklin College, took it from virtual bankruptcy in 1872 to its place, by the turn of the century, as a leading liberal arts institution in Indiana.

Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has written "Jesus of Nazareth" about the text of Holy Week, from the entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection. "Nostradamus Bibliomancere: the Man, the Myth, the Truth" by Peter Lemesurier (CD included) shows he was an ordinary man using an ordinary technique: he believed that history repeats itself, so he projected known past events into the future.

"Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness" by Nicholas Humphrey says consciousness is nothing less than a magical-mystery show we stage for ourselves inside our heads; it lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. "An Improvised Life" is Alan Arkin's memoir. Tina Fey writes "Bossypants"; she wanted to be a comedian and she comments that you're not one until someone calls you bossy.

New cookbooks abound. "Bobby Flay's Throwdown" offers over 100 recipes from Food Network's Ultimate Cooking Challenge show. He's written this with his assistants Stephanie Banyas and Miriam Garron. "The Southern Italian Table" by Arthur Schwartz offers eggplant balls or patties, sausage canapes, bean and greens soup for the Feast of Saint Joseph, Lemony Egg Pasta Souffle, all sorts of rather exotic fare. "The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook" with "best sweet and savory recipes for every occasion" comes from John Barricelli. "The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor" by Matt and Ted Lee feature tasty ideas like carrot and turnip slaw with dill, snow pea and carrot salad with ginger dressing, radish butter, cherry tomato and soybean salad and roasted parsnips with mint. Kaye and Liv Hansen offer The Whimsical Bakehouse" with fun-to-make cakes that taste as good as they look!" Last but not least is Lysa Terkeurst's "Made to Crave" which is a lesson to crave God instead of food and to learn how weight loss struggles aren't a curse but a blessing in the making.

"Hitman" by Howie Carr tells why Johnny Martorano is called the Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld; in this book we get to read all about crime in America. Michael Burleigh's "Moral Combat" is about good and evil in World War II, the author exposing factors shaping choices that were life-and-death decisions, giving a moral content to the war that shaped it as decisively as any of its battles.