Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

How to Help our Historical Collections Grow - Recently, several gifts have come to the Crawfordsville Library that enrich local history. If you have pictures, letters, or other special items that offer views or knowledge of life in our county, call 362-2242 extension 117 for ways to share them. They can be copied and returned to you if you don't want to let go of them. The copies' community value will grow as time moves on, and they'll be placed in the most pertinent collection where they'll be enjoyed forever. Call before you throw away any local history artifact. The future thanks you ahead of time.

In the requested book collection, Karen Kingsbury's "Leaving" about a young lady who won an audition for a Broadway musical is Part One of the Bailey Flanigan Series that centers around Indiana. Donald Bain's "Skating on Thin Ice", from the Murder, She Wrote TV series, finds Jessica Fletcher "going for the gold" to solve an Olympic mystery game.

"The Judgment" by Beverly Lewis with a Pennsylvania Dutch setting in Lancaster County offers a fiance who divides her thoughts between her fiance and another fellow whose "gone more than a month now." Another Amish story is Kathleen Fuller's "What the Heart Sees" which includes a reading group guide and old Amish recipes. Three Kat Martin novels in the Raines of Wind Canyon series are "Against the Wind", "Against the Fire", and "Against the Law". "Goodnight, Beautiful" by Dorothy Koomson is about surrogate motherhood. Amy Bourret's "Mothers & Other Liars" about a young mother and daughter living apart from family, highlights an incident which shakes their confidence in a past decision.

Biographies begin with "Blow by Blow" the story of English aristocrat/fashion director/editor Isabella Blow written by her sister Detmar Blow. "Up From the Projects" by Walter Williams is about growing up in West Philadelphia, his mother's educational strength, teachers who challenged him, his Army experience, success over obstacles while becoming a professional teacher, all leading to his advice: "We never know when an opportunity might come along, and we should be packed and ready for it." Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" tackles her personal problem after four novels and success as an actress while a victim in Hollywood. With wit, she explains herself for the first time.

"The Company We Keep" by Robert & Dayna Baer, is their husband-and-wife, true-life spy story as CIA operatives. Edwin Black's "The Farhud" gives the roots of the Arab-Nazi alliance in the Holocaust. "The Fight of our Lives" by William Bennett is about "knowing the enemy, speaking the truth, and choosing to win the war against radical Islam." One quote is "America's devotion to political correctness has crippled its ability to accurately interpret and respond to the motive of its fiercest enemies." "The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain" by Barbara Strauch says we've badly underestimated the value of the middle-aged mind. Language on the edge of science and technology or "Virtual Words" by Jonathon Keats shows how words get coined, and why some words like “blog” succeed while other words like “flog” fail. The book is designed for word-lovers, technophiles, and science enthusiasts.

The most ancient story of this column, The Campaigns of Alexander called "The Landmark Arrian" is a new translation of his conquest of the empire that stretched from the shores of the Adriatic to the edge of modern India. The translator is Pamela Mensch. What a document!