Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

Henry Kissinger's new book "On China" tells about the country he has known intimately for decades, and whose modern relations with the West he helped shape. His conversations with Chinese leaders over the past forty years introduce his ideas on the consequences of the global balance of power in our present century. He illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, Richard Nixon's trip to Beijing, and three crises in the Taiwan Strait.

History is offered in A. J. Langguth’s "Driven West” describing four of the most turbulent decades in the growth of our nation, namely Andrew Jackson's presidency, the Cherokees' Trail of Tears, the Mexican War, and the Civil War itself; later history comes in James Hornfischer's story of the U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal in World War II called “Neptune’s Inferno.” American soldier of fortune “Homer Lea” became a world-renowned military leader, according to Lawrence Kaplan, who followed his life story from being part of the Restore the Emperor movement in San Francisco to serving as trusted advisor to Sun Yet-Sen during the Chinese republican revolution that overthrew the Manchu dynasty and ushered in the creation of the Republic of China.

"I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works" by Nick Bilton tells why our world, work, and brains are being disrupted by immediacy that trumps quality and quantity, how the news media influence us, how new gadgets impact us, how selfishness figures in, and how people want experiences instead of content. In "The Master Switch" Tim Wu writes about the rise and fall of information empires, noting that since American industries like the telephone have eventually been taken captive by some monopoly or cartel, could the Internet come to that too? He says this is a war we dare not tune out. "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin reports on a year she spent trying to do "things that really matter"; improving her life, what she found out is charming to read. The life of Cab Calloway, the happy entertainer (who was one of the highest earning African American bandleaders who honed his gifts of scat singing) is told in "Hi-de-ho" (his famous call) by Alyn Shipton.

In "America's Four Gods" Paul Froese says that 95% of Americans believe in God, that the nation's greatest rifts are not between atheists and believers or between those of different faiths, instead they are about differing beliefs about God. Mike Huckabee, Arkansas governor, now Fox News Channel talk show host, offers "A Simple Government" with "twelve things we really need from Washington (and a trillion that we don't!")

John Szwed's "Alan Lomax" follows the man who recorded the world of folk music and brought it to America's people, and describes how he produced concerts and ballad operas that daringly featured both black and white singers in order to establish the richness of the folk song as the foundation for a new pop culture.

Three mysteries beckon. John Sandford's "Bad Blood" follows Virgil Flowers as he investigates a death in a grain elevator bin in Minnesota. J.D. Robb's "Indulgence in Death" begins because NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas' Irish vacation is disrupted when a limousine driver is found dead in a car booked by a security company executive. "The Hidden" by Bill Pronzini tells of random murders committed by the Coastline Killer in northern California. "Dropped Dead Stitch" is a knitting mystery that includes two recipes by Maggie Sefton. The story takes place in Colorado, when friends retreat to the Poudre Canyon to relax with a recent attack victim, and find the criminal there.