Library Offers Fee-Free Computer Instruction by Janice Clauser

 

            The Crawfordsville Library is hosting a new series of free introductory adult computer classes.  Registration is available for Introduction to Genealogy Research, Microsoft Excel 2010 and Microsoft Word. Call 362-2242 extension 100 or sign up at the Reference Desk on the upper level.             

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James Patterson’s novel,”NYPD Red,” profiles those sworn to protect and serve New York’s rich and famous. During the Hollywood on the Hudson festival there’s general high alert. Then a producer fatally collapses and the top NYPD Red Detective and his partner seek the killer, deranged and scripting his finale to the last explosive detail. Vince Flynn’s “The Last Man” gives us a close-up of the head of CIA clandestine operations in Afghanistan, who has been kidnapped, his four bodyguards executed in cold blood. Along with an assigned agent, the FBI is also looking for the victim for very different reasons. “Political Suicide” by Michael Palmer brings out double motives when a medical doctor is found in an alcoholic blackout after a powerful government chairman he had treated has died in Washington, D.C. That’s just the beginning of the suspense.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Cook’s “Nano” refers to an embattled medical student’s job at a lavishly funded security-conscious nanotechnology institute in the Rockies. Full of secrets, the corporate campus becomes a puzzle of unending funding and human guinea pigs. “The Racketeer” by John Grisham is a whodunit at a judge’s remote cabin where his body rests beside his open safe. Juliet Nicolson’s “Abdication” is labeled “England, 1936,” suggesting the plot of hidden truths and unspoken sympathies as duty and pleasure, tradition and novelty, and order and chaos battle for supremacy for king and commoner alike (Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.)

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            “The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac” by Kris D’Agostino is a funny story of how folks find the strength to keep going in spite of themselves. “The Cutting Season” by Attica Locke investigates the takeover of farms between Baton Rouge and New Orleans to restore slave times and the resulting crimes that went along with that past era. J. A. Jance’s “Judgment Call” finds a woman sheriff investigating a school principal’s murder with clues that lead to her own daughter, the victim’s hidden past, and problems in her office. “Down the Darkest Road” by Tami Hoag finds a mother hunting for her daughter’s murderer, while all elements compound to make investigation impossible.

            Four survey books offer big pictures: collective views of “Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies” edited by Christel Schmidt, The National Geographic’s “Space Atlas: Mapping the Universe and Beyond” by James Trefil, and The National Geographic’s “In the Footsteps of Jesus: A chronicle of his life and the origins of Christianity” by Jean-Pierre Isbouts.

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

            “Weird Al: The Book” by Nathan Rabin celebrates three decades of live concerts and music videos along with the life story of Al Yankovic, as a tribute to the king of pop parody. The social history of the world’s most versatile instrument “The Violin” by David Schoenbaum, that 16-ounce package of polished wood, strings, and air, and the most adaptable, affordable, portable instrument ever created, receives complete coverage, including the term “perhaps the most coveted of all musical instruments.” “Flight Behavior” by Barbara Kingsolver chooses a plot that takes on the most contentious subject of our time, climate change, and dissects the motives that drive both denial and belief in a precarious world.