Special Programs Await Patrons in January by Janice Clauser

The Crawfordsville Library sponsors a variety of classes and conferences. This month beginning and advanced knitting, painting, Ask a Lawyer, Spanish instruction, children’s programs, and an author signing are open to the public. Simply visit www.cdpl.lib.in.us.

   

New books to borrow begin with a combination of writings by Danielle Steel. Her nonfiction “A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless” tells how she has transformed her pain at the loss of her son into a campaign of service that has enriched her life beyond what she could imagine. Her novel “The Sins of the Mother” features a business tycoon who, realizing she had missed out on much of her children’s lives, tries to make amends.

            William Manchester’s amazing third and final volume of his Winston Churchill biography began to take shape in 1988 after his research was complete. Using over 40 50-page 81/2 by 21-inch paper tablets, he wrote “The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm” about the war years 1940-1945 and a few more pages about 1946-1965 for a total of 1058 pages of text.

             

           Another fine and long work is Juliet Barker’s 979-page “The Brontes” the real story of the Bronte sisters, revised and updated for a new generation. It demolishes myths yet provides startling new information that is just as compelling, forming a revolutionary picture of the world’s favorite literary family.

            Robert Utley’s “Geronimo” is a fast-paced biography of the most famous North American Indian of all time, with new material to expand knowledge of the man behind the legend.  Inside covers have good maps of his Mexican and New Mexico/Arizona Chiricahua Apache inhabited grounds.

             

           

            

            Two books about the Holy Land are “Jerusalem: A Cookbook” by Yotam Ottolenghi, a large picture book of recipes, and “Mossad” by Michael Bar-Zohar, detailing the greatest missions of the Israeli Secret Service. 

             

            

           A new history issue by Thomas Madden  is “Venice” the first full portrait of the city written in English in more than thirty years. “American Phoenix” by Sarah Kilborne tells the remarkable story of William Skinner, a man who who lost everything in a devastating flood, and his improbable, inspiring comeback to the pinnacle of the business world as a leading founder of the American silk industry. William Knoedelseder’s “Bitter Brew” details the rise and fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s kings of beer. 

            “Treasure Island: The Untold Story” by John Amrhein, Jr. is the result of nine years of investigation by an international team of researchers, taking us back there just as Robert Louis Stevenson did in 1883. Only this time, it’s not doubloons and pieces of eight that are uncovered but rather an incredible tale that up until now has remained buried.  

            

             

            Newly arrived fiction begins with Pauls Toutonghi’s “Evel Knievel Days” about a Half-Egyptian native of Butte, Montana who travels to Egypt to find his father and also finds new connections with his parents. “Margaret Truman’s Experiment in Murder” by Donald Bain is based on one of Truman’s ideas found after her death and used as the next hero in her still- running Capital Crimes Series as a slain shrink linked to a highly secret CIA mind-control project. “Two Graves” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child features an FBI agent discovering his wife alive after believing she’d died 12 years earlier.