Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

New Commentaries, Advice, Knitting Projects, Stories - This week’s article about the Crawfordsville Library offers various kinds of reading for midsummer leisure.

"Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail" by Kathryn Ferguson tells about the courageous journeys of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and about U.S. citizens who are erasing those borders with acts of mercy and defiance. Deborah Lipstadt's "The Eichmann Trial" presents and analyzes perspectives of Holocaust survivors’ tales when Adolf Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem by an Israeli court after finally being arrested in Argentina in 1960. The Scripture is communicated and "God's truth glows" in D. A. Carson's "Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus."

Steven Sack’s "The Employee Rights Handbook" has effective legal strategies to protect one's job from interview to pink slip. "Working for Yourself" from Nolo is about law and taxes for independent contractors, freelancers, and consultants. "101 Things I Learned in Fashion School" by Alfredo Cabrera presents every aspect of the industry: trends, design, costs, production, marketing, pricing, and more, in short paragraphs on separate pages. "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown is a humorous look at the phenomenon when he discovered a planet slightly bigger than Pluto, resulting in a whole new category of "dwarf planets."

The first of six novels is David Abbott's "The Upright Piano Player" about all the ways in which life tests us, no matter how carefully we've constructed our own little safeguards; the main character is a successful man facing retirement. Rosamund Lupton's "Sister" is a compelling tale of a sibling going wherever necessary to prove that her sis was not a suicide as everyone else had concluded. Dale Cramer's "Paradise Valley" is an Amish tale recalling 1921 when a new law in Ohio forced a family to the wilds of Mexico where the government wouldn't interfere with their way of life or take away their children.

"The Sentry" is a Joe Pike novel from Robert Crais about whether gangs can be trusted; the writing tackles grand themes with defined believable characters in his championship crime series. Laura Childs' Cackleberry Club mystery called "Bedeviled Eggs" (recipes included) finds three widows opening their café at the same time as two murders cause them to investigate and “serve” justice. The plot of "The Raising" by Laura Kasischke starts with the car-accident death of an outstanding college coed.

Here are four colorful new knitting books. Jean Adel's "Knitted Critters for Kids to Wear" teaches 40 animal-themed accessories. "The Knitter's Year" features 52 make-in-a-week projects, both quick gifts and seasonal knits by Debbie Bliss. "Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines" begins with rule number one: "Knitting is spoze to be fun. Of course, the longer we knit, the more the definition of fun expands." This book boasts new and clever ideas to read about, whether or not you actually are a knitter. "Haiku Knits" from Tanya Alpert contains direction for 25 "serenely beautiful patterns inspired by Japanese design". These are examples of high-fashion wearable art. "Continuous Cables" is Melissa Leapman's "exploration of knitted cabled knots, rings, swirls, and curlicues" in 20 designs plus an all-original stitch dictionary. These four will entertain you for a whole evening before you settle on one pattern. "The Knitting Diaries" is a book of three new stories, "The Twenty-First Wish" by Debbie Macomber, "Coming Unraveled” by Susan Mallery, and "Return to Summer Island" by Christina Skye, each one with a pattern to knit.