Preview Shelf: Notable New Books by CDPL Volunteer Janice Clauser

           This week, we note a variety of new nonfiction ready to borrow. The first to mention is Gary Fuller’s The Trivia Lover’s Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found.  It’s entertaining and informative at the same time; it challenges today’s generation to get to know our planet. Hidden America is Jeanne Laskas' exploration of the unseen people, like coal miners and cowboys, who make this country work. In The Rocks Don’t Lie, geologist David Montgomery investigates the location of Noah’s flood. Umberto Eco’s essay Inventing the Enemy covers a wide range of topics like lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world. Steve Forbes’ Freedom Manifesto discusses why free markets are moral and big government isn’t.

            In Reinventing Bach Paul Elie shows the composer as a pioneer on the technological frontier; working in Germany, he restored and road-tested organs, devised new instruments, and carried out experiments in tuning, the effects of which are notable in audio recording today.

            Currently, while American psychiatry identifies disordered anxiety as irrational and disproportionate to a real threat, All We Have to Fear by Allan Horwitz finds it to be a perfectly normal part of our nature to fear things.

            On Dupont Circle is James Srodes’ analysis of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the progressives who shaped our world.  In Washington D.C. on the eve of World War I a group would gather often to discuss how to remake society. When they gathered again just before World War II, they conceived of the United Nations. Who’s Counting? by John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky tells how fraudsters and bureaucrats put our votes at risk. David Lampo’s A Fundamental Freedom says that Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians should support gay rights. Ike’s Bluff by Evan Thomas presents President Dwight Eisenhower’s secret battle to save the world.  

            Running for Women is a complete guide for a lifetime of running written by Jason Karp. Sport Psychology for Youth Coaches by Ronald Smith and Parenting Young Athletes by Frank Smoll share the subtitle "Developing Champions in Sports and Life." Concussions and Our Kids comes from Robert Cantu, “America’s leading expert on how to protect young athletes and keep sports safe.” Encouraging Your Child’s Imagination by Carol Bouzoukis is a guide with stories for play acting.  Growing Up Brave by Donna Pincus offers expert strategies for helping your child overcome fear, stress, and anxiety.  Have a new Teenager by Friday is Kevin Leman’s method for change from mouthy and moody to respectful and responsible in five days. Bullied is Carrie Goldman’s treatise on what every parent, teacher, and kid needs to know about ending the cycle of fear. 

          Spy the Lie by Houston, Floyd, and Carnicero, former CIA officers, teaches how to detect deception.  My Stripes were Earned in Hell is French resistance fighter Jean-Pierre Renouard’s memoir of survival in a Nazi prison camp.  

Preview Shelf: Notable New Books by CDPL volunteer Janice Clauser

Indiana history receives distinctive treatment in Erin Hamilton’s Bonds as Strong as Steel, published by the Indiana Jewish Historical Society. This is a history of Indiana scrap metal dealers and their families, most of whom began as street peddlers and built extraordinary successful enterprises throughout the state. Moreover, befitting their Jewish heritage, they gave generously to their communities. Many of these businesses are multi-generational and exist today.

            Sincerity by Jay Magill presents a fascinating inquiry into the origins of the concept of "sincerity" and the practices surrounding its guarantee and compromise. Divine Alignment: How GodWink Moments Guide Your Journey comes from Squire Rushnell, and is defined as “the arrangement of coincidences into a pattern so astonishing it could have come only from a higher source.” Why Catholicism Matters: How Catholic Virtues Can Reshape Society in the 21st Century comes from Bill Donohue who states that “its teachings…are as well suited to answering today’s social problems as they were two thousand years ago.”

            In The Seed Underground by Janisse Ray, fellow author Barry Estabrook writes, “This is an important book that should be required reading for everyone who eats.” He remarks how “big companies are patenting seeds, making it illegal for farmers to retain their own crops for replanting,” so by saving seeds we can wrest our food system from corporate control. Three books about money are Anna Leider’s Don’t Miss Out: The Ambitious Student’s Guide to Financial Aid, The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley, and Howard Dayton’s Your Money Counts (Now More Than Ever), which is a biblical guide to managing earnings and getting out of debt.  Edited by Brendan Miniter, The 4%Solution encourages free enterprise; 21 economists, some Nobel Prize winners, offer a blueprint to restore America’s economic health. Mathematician Jason Rosenhouse discusses Darwinism and creationism in Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line.  Political offerings are The Oath by Jeffrey Toobin, about the Obama White House and the Supreme Court, Ann Coulter’s Mugged, addressing racial demagoguery from the seventies to Obama, and Subversives, Seth Rosenfeld’s study of the FBI’s war on student radicals and Reagan’s rise to power.

            On to fiction. In Mary Daheim’s Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery The Wurst is Yet to Come the hostess of a B&B who habitually finds a corpse but keeps trying to avoid getting involved, finds the authorities again asking for her help.  The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones presents scenes of preparations for an elegant birthday party in 1912, while nearby a dreadful accident propels its victims to interrupt, asking for help. In The Mirrored World Debra Dean sets the scene in 18^th century St. Petersburg where a mother devoted to helping the poor disappears.

            The haunting novel San Miguel by T.C. Boyle combines struggles of two families, one in the 1880s and one in the 1930s, starting new lives of freedom on a desolate island off the coast of Southern California. Fine dining and murder go hand in hand in a story inspired by recent real-life events in Linda Fairstein’s Night Watch. A detective is asked to answer why the platinum credit card of a very wealthy and long dead steel tycoon is found where a young woman on drugs and her six-year-old daughter are both found murdered; this question starts Harry Bingham’s Talking to the Dead.

Preview Shelf: Notable New Books by CDPL Volunteer Janice Clauser

One of Montgomery County’s fine businesses is featured in the new photography and story book called Food for Thought: an Indiana Harvest, by David Hoppe and Kristin Hess. The book is being cherished by local readers as it explores Indiana foods and agriculture as a renaissance movement. Lali Hess is featured with her first-person story: her catering business The Juniper Spoon represents the best in “permaculture” right here in Crawfordsville.

Remembrance, Faith, and Fancy by Glory-June Greiff introduces  Henry Cross, a stone carver in the 1850s who made the first outdoor public sculptures in the Hoosier State. The book also examines more than 1,500 pieces of present-day outdoor sculpture in Indiana. In Montgomery County, it mentions the 12-foot cast aluminum replica of the Statue of Liberty on SR 236, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the courthouse, the bronze plaque about Civil War soldiers from Wabash College along with the famous repainted Wabash bench on campus, the bronze statue of Lew Wallace at his study, and the funerary art in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Fishes of the Central United States by Joseph Tomelleri bridges the gap between technical studies and popular field guides in a volume indispensable for anglers and naturalists alike. Unforgettable Canada: 115 Destinations by George Fischer entertains as it educates about travel to places that appeal to naturalists, animal watchers, food lovers, art lovers, history buffs, music fans, and adventure seekers. Call of the Cow Country contains true tales by bronco buster Harry Webb. He calls the life “good, bad, and plain hell,” and his stories prove it.

            Mark Pagel’s Wired for Culture is a study of how our species’ capacity for culture altered our social and evolutionary history, beginning when tribes found it advantageous to work together and to distinguish themselves from other groups. Before the Lights Go Out is Maggie Koerth-Baker’s plea to conquer the energy crisis before it conquers us.  
      Requested novels begin with I, Michael Bennett by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. Michael arrests an infamous Mexican crime lord in a deadly chase that leaves his own lifelong friend dead.  From jail, the prisoner vows to attack New York City and get revenge on Michael.  These two authors have also released Zoo, “the thriller Patterson was born to write.”  In Maria Snyder’s Touch of Power, a healer is hunted instead of being honored for her skills.  Heartbroken by Lisa Unger, another thriller, finds three women on a heart-wrenching collision course none of them could have seen coming.   On lighter notes are The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose by Susan Albert in which garden club ladies like to solve mysteries, and Summer Breeze by Nancy Thayer, which shows how three women forge a unique bond one summer on a New England lake beach. Kay Hooper’s Haven is a Bishop/Special Crimes Unit novel. Sacre Bleu is a comedy d’art by Christopher Moore; inside the cover is a map of Paris with a clue that reads: “In 1890 Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself.  Or did he?” This is a “delectable confection of intrigue, passion, and art history.” Ransom River by Meg Gardiner has a deeply flawed heroine, a mesmerizing crime, and a long-unsolved mystery.

Preview Shelf: Notable New Books by CDPL Volunteer Janice Clauser

Three new novels ready to borrow begin with Diva by Jillian Larkin where joy and tragedy collide in the conclusion to her Flappers series, set in the Roaring Twenties. In Danielle Steel’s Friends Forever, five children meet on the first day of kindergarten, and in the years that follow they become more than friends; the three boys and two girls discover vital bonds that last a lifetime. S. M. Stirling’s Lord of Mountains is his new Novel of the Change: Artos the First, High King of Montival, and his allies have won several key battles, but still the war rages on, as he and his Queen Mathilda work to unite the realms into a single kingdom. In Diana Palmer’s western tale, Wyoming Tough a new cowgirl with a lot of spirit wonders if she can pull her own weight.

       Here are some varied nonfiction arrivals. Anthony Everitt’s The Rise of Rome: The Making of the World’s Greatest Empire presents history as a page-turner filled with lessons for our time: the clash between patricians and plebeians, the effects of offering citizenship to defeated subjects, and unimaginable wealth and power corrupting traditional virtues of the Republic. Revolt in Syria by Stephen Starr, eye-witness to the uprising, delves into the lives of those affected over the past five decades, showing why Syria has been so prone to violence and civil instability. Neil Tyson’s Space Chronicles is about how our space program, cut off until the 2020s, might destroy its access to space and perhaps be eclipsed by other countries’ projects. Ann Keating’s Rising up from Indian Country is about the battle of Fort Dearborn and the birth of Chicago, telling the story not only of military conquest, but of the lives of people on all sides of the conflict. Early Chicago was a place of cross-cultural reliance among the French, Americans, and Native Americans. Masters of the Planet is Ian Tattersall’s study to search for our human origins, and he explains how homo sapiens edged out its cousins to become the world’s only human species.

 
Protecting Your Internet Identity by Ted Claypoole is considered very important “for today’s plugged-in world where the lines of privacy are blurred and the wrong click could mean horrific, lifetime consequences.” eBay for Dummies by Marsha Collier teaches how to set up an account for buying and selling, how to list items for sale, communicate with bidders, and collect payment. If you think home schooling is crazy, The Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings might change your mind with its hilarious and friendly approach. Teachers Matter is Marcus Winters’ latest research about how public schools identify reward and retain great educators.

 
The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown by Richard Hasen contains this quote from Trevor Potter: “Our election system is still precariously positioned, needing only one more bad series of events to create the next presidential election crisis.” 

         
 How Music Works by historian/anthropologist, raconteur, and social scientist David Byrne, shows that music-making is not just the act of a solitary composer in a studio, but rather a logical, populist, and beautiful result of cultural circumstance. He says that music is a liberating, life-affirming power.