Words Worth Reading

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-02-07T14:24:00.003-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville Library’s Football Frenzy sponsored by the youth department last week welcomed a full house of boys aged 4-10 years. Volunteer Wabash College football players enhanced Janella Nunan’s evening sports-book event by “tossing the ball”, playing games, and reading stories with eager, interested young patrons.

Nonfiction this week brings us all kinds of information and opinions about important issues. “5000 Years of Textiles” edited by Jennifer Harris pictures historic patterns for weaving, tapestry, lace, knitting, netting, knotting, and crochet. “How to Sing” helps those who just vocalize as well as those who perform and record music; Carrie Grant provides clear lessons, including a tutorial CD inside the cover. “Home Brewing” by Ted Bruning is a guide to making beer, wine, and cider.

“The Swerve” is an adventure story about scholarship; Stephen Greenblatt reviews the Renaissance foundations of modern scientific thought, discussing how Lucretius’ poem ‘On the Nature of Things’ shaped the thoughts of early geniuses. “Rin Tin Tin” is the life and legend of that special dog, written by Susan Orlean. David Reynolds’ “Mightier than the Sword” shows the influence which Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1954 novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had on pre-Civil War America. In “How To Get Out of Your Own Way” songwriter/actor Tyrese Gibson draws on his learned wisdom, motivating the reader to pursue dreams without letting obstacles stand in their path.

How much can be blamed on discrimination? Walter Williams answers this question in “Race & Economics” by saying that many problems are a result of policies, regulations, and restrictions emanating from federal, state, and local governments. Dr. Nick Trout’s “Ever By My Side” tells stories about the bonds we can have with our loved ones, both animal and human. We can learn how to develop our individual talents in Marcus Buckingham’s new business book “Now, Discover Your Strengths”. “Ethical Oil” is Ezra Levant’s study of Canada’s tar sands, weighing the environmental impact of their use against bringing oil from Saudi Arabia, with its human rights violations. In “100 Plus” Sonia Arrison says, “Humanity is on the cusp of an exciting longevity revolution. The first person to live to 150 years has probably already been born.” “A Secret Life” is Charles Lachman’s study of the lies and scandals of President Grover Cleveland. Matthew Parker’s “The Sugar Barons” tells of family corruption, empire, and war in the West Indies during 17th-18th century power struggles as Europeans made and lost fortunes trading in sugar.

Two Blacktop Cowboys novels by Lorelei James are “Saddled and Spurred” and “Corralled”, both Western romances. Amish stories are Amy Clipston’s “A Place of Peace”, Jerry Eicher’s “A Baby for Hannah”, Mary Ellis’ “A Marriage for Meghan” and “Abigail’s New Hope”, Mindy Clark’s “The Amish Midwife”, and Beth Wiseman’s “The Wonder of Your Love”. A girl leaves Holland for Wyoming as a mail-order bride in “Deeply Devoted” by Maggie Brendan. Book One of Wanda Brunstetter’s historical romance series Brides of Lehigh Canal is “Kelly’s Chance”.

“Investing Online for Dummies" is in its 7th edition by Matt Krantz.

“Area 51” is an uncensored history of America’s most top-secret military base. Author Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to 19 men who served proudly and secretly for decades, and personal access to 55 additional military and intelligence personnel. You’ll learn what has gone on in the Nevada desert from testing nuclear weapons, to building super-secret jets, to pursuing the War on Terror.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-31T15:21:00.003-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville Library has just received its copy of the R.R. Donnelley & Sons’ latest annual Lakeside Press Classic. “Narratives of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906”, edited by Roger Lotchin, is colorfully presented. Its historical introduction begins: “One of the best-kept secrets in the history of American cities is that most were put in a place that would make their residents face dramatic environmental challenges.” It offers maps, unique photos, personal stories, and special pieces of art; the timely articles provide compact history preserved for the serious reader.

Why did Gandhi hate iodine? Why did the Japanese kill Godzilla with missiles made of cadmium? How did radium nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? The book "The Disappearing Spoon" by Sam Kean tells of events involving the periodic table of the elements, as how lithium helped cure poet Robert Lowell of his madness. A surgeon reveals weight-loss secrets in "Feed Your Brain, Lose Your Belly" by Larry McCleary. "Wicked Bugs" by Amy Stewart is a little book of important tales about louses, stinging caterpillars, and chigger mites in history. Wayne Dyer's title "Getting in the Gap:" continues “Making Conscious Contact with God through Meditation”. Michael Willrich's "Pox" is the history of how America's progressive-era war on smallpox sparked one of the great civil liberties battles of the 20th century. In "Medical Muses: Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century Paris", Asti Hustvedt recalls three women of the 1870s called Blanche, Augustine, and Genevieve in the hysteria ward of a Paris hospital, who became celebrities when crowds gathered to observe their symptoms. There's advice about having a better quality of life despite breathlessness in "Positive Options for Living with COPD" by Teri Allen.

Now on to fiction. "The Buddha in the Attic" by Julie Otsuka is about a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as "picture brides" a century ago. "Ella Finds Love Again" by Jerry Eicher shows a lovely Amish girl confused by her three choices for a husband. "Hatteras Girl" by Alice Wisler shows a young lady wanting to own a bed-and-breakfast on the Outer Banks in North Carolina who finds its owner's past a challenge to her purchase. "Heat Wave" by Jill Landis tells about a woman's life unraveling, and her search for the strength to live and love again. Kathy Reichs' "Flash and Bones" sends us to race week in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a body is found next to the Motor Speedway, testing the FBI. The theme of "Kill Me if you Can" by James Patterson is an innocent art student finding a huge cache of diamonds, then finding himself hunted by a murderer who "lost?" that valuable stuff.

Five new mysteries begin with P. D. James’ “Death Comes to Pemberley” drawing the characters of Jane Austen’s novel “Pride and Prejudice” into a tale of murder and mayhem. James Patterson’s “Private: #1 Suspect” is his second “Private” novel; a company’s director is accused of a horrible murder, and not even his own world-class investigators can prove he didn’t do it. “The Jaguar” by Jefferson Parker is a Charlie Hood novel that redefines the landscape of the cartel wars as an epic clash of good and evil. Elizabeth George’s “Believing the Lie” is an Inspector Lynley novel of 600 pages taking place in Cumbria, the Lake District of England. The inside cover has a good map to follow and the investigation of a death leads to a study of the victim’s clan, awash in secrets and lies. Faye Kellerman’s “Gun Games” is her 20th Decker/Lazarus story, and deals with a secret cabal of some of Los Angeles’ most wealthy and vicious teens.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-24T15:33:00.006-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Michelle Homsher is a “winter term intern” at the Crawfordsville Library. A graduate of Southmont and a junior at Franklin College, she has been working in circulation and reference, now helps youth services, and will finish the project in tech services and the Carnegie Museum. Two years ago her first “winter” assignment at Franklin was a four-week course in comic books as part of her work for the English major. Michelle hopes to spend the next fall semester in Ireland. Go Grizzlies!

Specific settings of novels offer special advantages in many stories. Brad Meltzer's novel "The Inner Circle" centers on a young worker in the National Archives who, with a friend, finds a 200-year-old dictionary which once belonged to George Washington, and a puzzle leads them onward. "You Know When the Men are Gone" by Siobhan Fallon explores the insular and scary world of an American army base, Fort Hood, Texas, in the time of war. Suspense comes in New York City, fifty years in the future, when a detective and her partner- in-law overhear a scheme by officers that involves murder; J. D. Robb titles it "Treachery in Death". Julie Orringer calls her grand love story set against the backdrop of Budapest and Paris, involving three brothers whose lives are ravaged by war, "The Invisible Bridge". In Tom Franklin’s "Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter" two boys share a special bond in an atmospheric drama set in rural Mississippi in the late 1970s; later, they find themselves on opposite sides of a criminal investigation. Vintage clothing offers "a piece of someone's past" as well as fabric and thread in Isabel Wolff's "A Vintage Affair", set around a London shop of wearable art clothing making both setting and plot attractive and beguiling.

“Now You See Her" by Joy Fielding joins tension and heroics as a mother thinks she sees her long-lost daughter in Ireland when she’s there healing from divorce. In Karen Moning's "Shadowfever" two young children were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland; two decades later one is dead and the other has returned to hunt her sister's murderer, finding she descends from a gifted and cursed bloodline, and the plot turns fantasy. "Toys" by James Patterson shows a perfect couple thrown into opposite social scenes to survive (in fast-moving short chapters). Jennifer Chiaverini's latest Elm Creek Quilts novel is "The Union Quilters", a tale of love and sacrifice during the American Civil War. The women help the Cause in their ways, while the men suffer as they fight.

Three books about Mexico hit both the best and the saddest. "Fresh Mexico" by recipe editor/tester Marcela Valladolid includes 100 simple recipes for true Mexican flavor. ”El Narco” by Ioan Grillo takes the reader inside Mexico’s criminal insurgency. The new Carlos Fuentes novel, "Destiny and Desire", combines passion and magic in modern day Mexico where freewill fights with the wishes of the gods; two young best friends with unusual jobs meet different kinds of characters, creating a collision of ancient myths and 21st century mores. Off the coast of Argentina, "Aruba" is the newest travel guide in the library's Fodor's inFocus series. "Radio Shangri-La" by Lisa Napoli tells her adventure in Bhutan, which she calls the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. "Voyager" is Stephen Pyne's history of exploration as Magellan, Cortes, Columbus, Cook, Lewis and Clark, Byrd and Stanley kept active about our earth, and finally we're up to date as Voyager is moving to the edge of the solar winds. "Moby-Duck" by Donovan Hohn is a narrative of whimsy and curiosity as many bath toys, lost at sea, are sought, involving the causes of beachcombers, oceanographers, and environmentalists to trace and collect them. (Read more in CDPL catalog).

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-18T13:15:00.004-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Saturday at the Crawfordsville Library, 84 children and 78 adults enjoyed a two-hour program given by three-time 1,150-mile trans-Alaska Iditerod participant Karen Land and her 11-year old sled dog Borage (named after the herb). It was supposed to have been a 45-minute program but the enthusiastic audience kept wanting more and more time at their "icy adventure in the comfort of the library", sponsored by the Youth Services Department and the Friends of the Library.

Think of all the ways novels begin. "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline takes us forward to the year 2044. That world is an ugly place where people escape grim surroundings by spending time in a virtual utopia living a fantasy life. Another adventure, Russell Banks' "Lost Memory of Skin" finds a prisoner shackled to a GPS monitoring device, and he chooses to reside under a Florida causeway with other convicted offenders.

Stuart Woods' mystery called "Son of Stone" finds Stone back in New York planning to navigate both its shadowy world and its chic high society. J. D. Robb's "New York to Dallas" is a new case for Eve Dallas where she’s the victim being sought. "The Cut" by George Pelecanos "marries art to truth" when an Iraq War veteran and investigator must help a high crime boss find who's stealing from him. "Turn of Mind" by Alice LaPlante is a literary thriller where the accused, entering the world of dementia, doesn't know if she's guilty or not.

In Diana Palmer's "Merciless" a confirmed bachelor, with an assistant to defend him against aggressive women, finds the assistant herself attractive. "A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion" by Ron Hansen presents the Jazz Age in New York, when a wife is looking for a man to murder her husband. "The Submission" by Amy Waldman celebrates the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by presenting an emergency that erupts when a group of jurors select an architect for its memorial, and learn the winner is Muslim. "There But For The" (yes, that's the title) by Ali Smith gives four points of view of a dinner guest who locks himself in a room, leading to the theme about how much others know about us when we're in a dilemma.

Sandra Brown's "Lethal" finds a mother and young daughter helping an ill neighbor, only to find out he's a murder suspect. In "King of the Badgers" by Philip Hensher an English town youngster goes missing, and investigators unearth information never known before about the place. "The Sacred Stone" by Medieval Murderers (that’s how the authors are labeled) is a historical mystery which starts in Greenland in 1067 when a band of hunters stumbles across an object fallen from the sky, to be fought over by everyone below for six hundred years. "The Body in the Thames" by Susanna Gregory is a Thomas Chaloner adventure set in London in the summer of 1664 featuring Westminster's mortuary, where the charnel house keeper collects his takings. Other new novels are Elizabeth Bert's "Once Upon a Time, There Was You" which focuses in on a man and woman, long divorced, who rediscover the power of love in the midst of an unthinkable crisis. "Gone" by Mo Hayder is a thriller investigating a brilliant and twisted carjacker involved in a disturbing game of hide and seek.

New manuals are "Microsoft Office 2010 Plain & Simple" by Katherine Murray, "HTML5 for Dummies" by Andrew Harris, "ASVAB for Dummies" by Rod Powers,
"Military Flight Aptitude Tests" 3rd edition from Learning Express, and "Top 100 Careers Without a Four-Year Degree" by Laurence Shatkin.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-18T13:10:00.004-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

A new book to borrow is Emma Rothschild’s "The Inner Life of Empires", an eighteenth-century history which showcases the lives of eleven siblings, four girls and seven boys. This global family watched as their own time created an empire, an enlightenment, and an economy. "Inside Scientology" by Janet Reitman gives the history of this religion. "Manana Forever?" is Jorge Castaneda's explanation of the puzzling paradoxes of his native Mexico, examining possibilities to expand its culture and make its political system more open and democratic. "The Power of Music" by Elena Mannes examines all the intricacies of music's place in our lives, especially the power of music to heal. "Fire and Rain" is David Browne's story of the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel and James Taylor in the setting of the late 1960s and on into 1970. "What the Dog Saw" is Malcolm Gladwell's vehicle to find the intersection of science and society and to explain how we got where we are, in the "best of his writing" comments full of wit and wisdom.

John Vaillant’s “The Tiger” is the true story, documented by the Russians in 2007-2008 and later translated into English, about one man-eating tiger and the men who stalked it.

Three new manuals are "Choosing the Right College" an ISI Guide for 2012-2013, "2011 Step-by -Step Medical Coding" by Carol Buck, and the 2012 "Master the GED" by Ronald Kaprov.

"Homemade Soda" by Andrew Schloss shows how to make not only sodas but also slushes, brews for cola and root beers, sparkling teas and coffees, and other carbonated concoctions. In "Culinary Careers" Rick Smilow explains how to go about getting your dream job in food management. "The River Cottage Bread Handbook" by Daniel Stevens brings more than recipes to the table, for this book also gives you a way to learn baking techniques. "Raising Meat Goats" is Maggie Sayer's offering on managing, breeding, and marketing, and there's also "Living with Goats" by Margaret Hathaway which focuses on raising your own backyard herd. David Linden's "The Compass of Pleasure" describes how our brains translate fatty foods, exercise, vodka, and other items into good feelings. "Man with a Pan" is the culinary adventure of fathers who cook for their families; edited by John Donohue, twenty remarks come from men like Stephen King, Mario Batali, and Jim Harrison. Lysa TerKeurst's "Made to Crave" promotes satisfying our deepest desires with God, not food.

"Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation" by Walter Mosley draws from his knowledge of addiction and recovery to aid problems of contemporary America through bold new ways of thinking about the world. "Heaven is for Real" is a little boy's astounding story of his trip to heaven and back, written by Todd Burpo about his not-yet four-year-old son. "Half a Life" is a memoir by Darin Strauss about the loss of a classmate who swerved in front of his car, dying in the collision, and about how "we're all pretty much able to deal even with the worst that life can fire at us, if we simply admit that it is very difficult." "The Longest War" by Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a vital and essential account of the central conflict of our times, tracing the arc of the fight and projecting its likely future.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-10T15:34:00.004-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

At the Crawfordsville Library, beginning January 9th, and continuing Jan. 23rd, Feb. 6 and 20th, March 5th and 19th, and April 2nd on the lower level, a series of open meetings on Green Living will be directed by Linda Vernon-Goldman, with no charge involved. She’ll be discussing present-day issues and bringing books for sale.

Remember, too, the invitation to attend beginning knitting classes on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon beginning January 7th. Call the reference desk for particulars, at 362-2242, extension 2.

New fiction is James Patterson's "10th Anniversary" which is announced as follows: "Detective Lindsay Boxer finally gets married. But a missing newborn and a series of violent attacks push the women's murder club back to full throttle before the wedding gifts are unwrapped." "Caleb's Crossing" by Geraldine Brooks takes a shard of little-known history and brings it vividly to life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American graduate of Harvard College, and Brooks creates a tale of passion and belief, magic and adventure. "King Arthur's Bones" by Medieval Murderers takes place in 1191 in Glastonbury Abbey where a leaden cross is discovered buried several feet below ground labeled "Here lies buried the renowned King Arthur". Could this be? It’s the central theme that offers a clever and inventive tale.

Molly Peacock's "The Paper Garden" is the biography of Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (1700-1788) who, after a long and active life, created a new art form called mixed-media collage; examples of which then became the cut-paper flower collection called Flora Delanica housed in the British Museum. David McCullough's "The Greater Journey" tells adventures of American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and architects who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900 to excel in their work. "A Covert Affair" by Jennet Conant tells about chef Julia Child and her husband Paul Child in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, recruited by the citizen spy service, slapped into uniform, and dispatched to wage political warfare in remote outposts in Ceylon, India, and China. Julia even went to the mountaintop idyll of Kandy, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten's headquarters.

Inside stories from America's best cold case investigators, sometimes successful after decades of work are retold in Jack Branson's "Delayed Justice". The memoir "Paper Dollhouse" comes from co-host of the TV show "The Doctors", Lisa Masterson. Ashley Judd's memoir is "All That Is Bitter and Sweet" about her success despite her left-behind childhood, learning forgiveness, interdependence, and activism. "Little Princes" is Conor Grennan's story of fulfilling his promise to save lost children of Nepal who had been taken by child traffickers to an orphanage that abandoned them far from home; he reunited them with their families.

"End Your Addiction Now" is Charles Gant's proven nutritional supplement program to set each of us free from addictions. "Food: The Good Girl's Drug" comes from Sunny Gold who is founder of an online overeating support site. “Strange New Worlds" by Ray Jayawardhana considers life beyond our solar system and the search for alien planets. "Never, Ever, Quit!" about surviving and thriving amidst adversity comes from Jane Hoeppner, widow of the late Indiana University football coach, and designed for anyone who is in need of encouragement.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-10T15:25:00.003-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Here’s some new nonfiction. Condoleezza Rice has written her memoir about Washington entitled “No Higher Honor” revealing her “reverence for the ideals on which America was founded.” Nancy Goldstein writes about the first African American woman cartoonist in “Jackie Ormes” (1911-1985) whose characters Torchy Brown, Candy, Patty-Jo and Ginger, and “Torchy Togs” paper dolls in the funny papers were controversial, addressing pressing issues of her times. "Fire Monks" by Colleen Busch reconstructs exactly what happened at Tassajara Zen Monastery during the fire of 2008, showing how Zen prepared the monks to meet the fire with calmness. Gillian Rose's "Love's Work" is a thoughtful work written by an English philosopher near death, recalling her interesting life. "Gods, Gangsters & Honour" reports five decades in the music industry, filled with oversized egos, multi-million dollar pay-offs, scandalous behavior, and the realities behind the images the rock star gods like to portray, written by Steven Machat without fear to his reputation; many celebrities are involved. "Codependent No More Workbook" by Melody Beattie regards setting and enforcing healthy limits, learning empowering ways to give, experiencing genuine love and forgiveness, and letting go, becoming detached from others' harmful behaviors. Nigel Dunnett’s "Small Green Roofs" shows low-tech options for greener living especially using roof gardens of various kinds on buildings large and small. Written by Amy Aiello, and photographed by Kate Baldwin, "Terrarium Craft" helps us create 50 magical, miniature worlds that are beautiful and productive.

And for fiction, we offer a series continuation. In The Heaven on Earth novel by Ruth Reid called "The Promise of an Angel", a young woman believes she sees an angel helping her brother during an accident, and the plot centers around her struggle to convince her community to believe her.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-10T15:10:00.003-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Here are some of the new Christmas books on the shelves. Debbie Macomber's "1225 Christmas Tree Lane" is a Cedar Cove novel where the holiday is marred by several little matters, but surprises bring about a happy ending. In James Patterson’s “The Christmas Wedding” a bride invites her children to visit without identifying the groom until “the day”. “Lost December” by Richard Evans is the author’s modern day version of the biblical story about the Prodigal Son. “Bring Me Home for Christmas” about “reuniting with the one person you just can’t forget” is a Virgin River novel by Robyn Carr. Sherryl Woods’ “An O’Brien Family Christmas” is a Chesapeake Shores story set in Dublin. In Heather Graham’s “An Angel for Christmas” two strangers arrive at a strained family’s Blue Ridge Mountain home; one can’t be trusted, the other might bring Christmas back into their hearts. Linda Miller’s “A Lawman’s Christmas” is a McKettricks of Texas romance developing the relationship possibilities between the young widow of the town marshal and his replacement.

"Toward the Gleam" by T.M. Doran takes us on a fantastic adventure with a man who uncovers a manuscript from a long-lost civilization; he sets out to uncover its meaning and origins, unleashing questions about the modern era. Janet Evanovich offers "Wicked Appetite" a title that refers to the Seven Deadly Sins; the site for this adventure is Salem, Massachusetts. Jason Wright's "The Seventeen Second Miracle" unfolds small kindnesses that sometimes have life-altering consequences. Historian, language expert, and song writer Josh Ritter’s first novel is "Bright's Passage" about a veteran of World War I returning to West Virginia to care for his son, lament his wife's passing, and cleanse himself of his war memories. "The Postmistress" by Sarah Blake jumps from mass devastation in Europe in 1940 to the intimate heartaches of Franklin, Massachusetts; it is a tale of two worlds, one shattered by violence, the other willfully naïve. "Wildflowers of Terezin" by Robert Elmer takes place in 1943 when Copenhagen is placed under martial law and Denmark's Jews face deportation to the Nazi prison camp in Czechoslovakia.

And now, we move on to nonfiction. James Reeves' "The Road to Somewhere" is a clever memoir about visiting different places in the United States and about what can be learned; he dedicated his book to his mother, who told him to “go out into the world and look around”. "Hell on Two Wheels" by Amy Snyder describes the famous bicycle Race Across America, yielding those who complete the 3,000 miles a simple medal without prize money but with surprising emotional and spiritual rewards. "The Great American Awakening" by Jim Demint tells about two years that changed America, from the presidential election of 2008 through the mid-term elections of 2010; Demint champions the American people who feel a powerful stirring in their hearts emphasize the freedom we have in America. "Troublemaker" by Christine O'Donnell is also a personal commentary: "Let's do what it takes to make America great again”.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-10T14:43:00.004-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New at the Crawfordsville Library is “Saturday’s Daughter”, the autobiography of Audrey Lowery, who has lived here in town two separate times. As one of ten Richards children in a coal-mining family in Kentucky, she worked from the time she was 11 years old, enduring unbelievable hardships, yet meeting life’s many vicissitudes with hard work, honesty and love. At the age of 86, she maintains her indomitable spirit, while dealing with blindness and restricted movement. Her inspiring story has been edited by local writer Jean Williams and is well worth reading for amusement and amazement.

Diana Taylor's "Martha" is a researched portrayal of Martha of Bethany, sister of Mary and Lazarus, the Biblical character unveiling herself, her world, her trials, her triumphs, and her loves. A beautiful new, annotated edition of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" is edited by Patricia Spacks. A new historical novel "The Daughter's Walk" by Jane Kirkpatrick features a Norwegian American in 1896 who accepts a wager from the fashion industry to walk from Spokane to New York City within seven months for desperately needed money. In Rhys Bowen’s “Naughty in Nice”, A Royal Spyness mystery set in 1933, a Lady-in-Waiting is sent to Nice to recover a priceless snuffbox taken without permission. Next there’s "Dreams of Joy" by Lisa See, which stimulates both historical and literary interest by introducing a 19-year-old named Joy who is left reeling when family secrets are uncovered, sending her running away to Shanghai in early 1957, where she throws herself into the New Society of Red China,. Jojo Moyes' "The Last Letter from your Lover" takes us back to 1960 when an accident victim with amnesia finds a letter signed "B"; this plot is paired with another in 2003 bringing the story to an unexpected ending.

Fern Michaels' "Southern Comfort" begins by telling how an Atlanta homicide detective turned his back on the world the day his wife and children were murdered. "The Ideal Man" by Julie Garwood finds "love in the deadliest of circumstances" as a new doctor's life is turned upside down when she witnesses the shooting of an FBI agent. In Wilbur Smith's "Those In Peril" a rich heir's daughter is kidnapped from her yacht on the Indian Ocean, and the mother hires the oil company's security to help save this victim of twenty-first-century piracy. Two friends rent a beach house in Honduras, where, with a third, they've enjoyed swapping advice. This time one has died, and the other two have to adjust; the title is "The Summer We Came to Life" by Deborah Cloyed. "Silver Girl", by Elin Hilderbrand, tells of a Nantucket getaway as the wife of a man newly exposed as an investor-criminal escapes the world to seek guidance from an old friend. Barbara Delinsky's "Escape" finds a Manhattan lawyer taking off towards the mountains in New Hampshire to redesign her life.

Catherine Coulter's "Split Second" is an FBI thriller with an added domestic mystery to uncover from previous generations. A cold case investigator undertakes to earn the million-dollar award that is about to expire for returning an abduction victim in Janet Dailey's "Bannon Brothers: Trust". “To Have and To Hold” by Tracie Peterson is a Bridal Veil Island story where wealthy investors building a resort threaten the land of a family’s ancestral home; sabotage during construction brings a crisis.

As Douglas Preston’s “Cold Vengeance” begins, a Special Agent’s wife is murdered, and he stalks his wife’s betrayers from Scotland to New York City to the Louisiana bayous. ”Shock Wave” by John Sandford is a Virgil Flowers novel tackling contemporary arguments both for and against building a superstore in a Minnesota river town. Laurie King’s novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes, “Pirate King”, sweeps readers into the world of silent films where pirates are real and shooting isn’t all done with cameras.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2012-01-10T14:30:00.007-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New holiday-themed books begin with "Grace" by Shelley Gray, a Christmas Sisters of the Heart novel; at an inn, unexpected visitors appear, forcing the owners to shelter them for the holidays and uncover the truth behind several secrets. Lori Wilde's "The First Love Cookie Club" is based on a legend that says "On Christmas Eve, if you sleep with kismet cookies under your pillow, and dream of your one true love, he will be your destiny." This is the fourth in her Twilight, Texas series.

A piece of interesting-looking nonfiction is "Feathers" by Thor Hanson, alerting us to the "most efficient insulating material ever discovered." Feathers have decorated queens and Aztec priests, and they've kept penguins dry below the ice. The author reveals details about their natural background as they've been used to protect, attract, and adorn though history in many places from Africa to Antarctica. Their many fascinating uses transport us from modern-day science to mythical associations with the divine. Read all about feathers. Another is "An Unfinished Revolution" which begins with Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln's exchange of letters at the end of the Civil War when they agreed on the need to end slavery; there’s much more to this subject. "The Fiddler in the Subway" (referring to Joshua Bell) is a group of true stories Gene Weingarten researched to the 'nth degree, making them riveting and entertaining.

Emily Brightwell's Victorian mystery of a murder most English is "Mrs. Jeffries Forges Ahead." Fannie Flagg's "I Still Dream about You" shows us Birmingham, Alabama, past, present, and future with equal parts southern charm, murder mystery, and the comedic wisdom that is her specialty. "Nick of Time" a Bug Man novel by Tim Downs tells about a lady forensic entomologist ready to marry a dog trainer, except that the groom has disappeared on a mission. Paul Christopher's "The Templar Conspiracy" begins when an Army Ranger uncovers the motive behind the Pope's murder; he attempts unlocking secrets of the Templars’ conspiracy. Adam Barrow contributes "Blind Spot" which is about an especially disturbing crime scene at an Oregon rest stop and a plot with a surprise ending.

Every crime scene tells a story. Some tales keep you awake at night. Others haunt your dreams. Tess Gerritsen's "The Silent Girl", a Rizzoli & Isles novel, will do both with a grisly display in Boston's Chinatown; a violent death and a chilling prequel. "Dead by Midnight" is Carolyn Hart's 21st Death on Demand mystery. Annie Darling, who owns a mystery bookstore, suspects an apparent suicide to be a murder case. Chevy Stevens' "Never Knowing" is a psychological thriller about a woman's search into her past, and the deadly truth she uncovers.

Wanda Brunstetter's "Betsy's Return" is Book Two of the Brides of LeHigh Canal series in which a new pastor comes to Walnutport, PA. "Plain Proposal" by Beth Wiseman, A Daughters of the Promise novel, visits Lancaster County, PA where a young man and a young woman struggle as they consider leaving their Amish community.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-11-19T11:06:00.010-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The library will be closed Wednesday, November 23rd and Thursday, November 24th for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Here are gift ideas. At the Crawfordsville Library, Assistant Director Bill Helling’s book in the Images of America series, a unique and informative photographic history of "Crawfordsville" is available at the circulation desk. Other local items for sale are the Friends of the Library’s book bag, the Carnegie Library’s bookmark, ornament, and mug, and two studies by Dick Monroe: "Abraham Lincoln’s Funeral Train" and "Who the Heck was Jim Davis?"

Commentaries about our world lead the new book list this week. "The Terrorist Next Door: How the Government is Deceiving You about the Islamist Threat" has been issued by Erick Stakelbeck who's been inside America's radical mosques and has seen how radicals have established separatist compounds throughout rural America, and how mosques are being built in the heart of the Bible Belt as part of a plan for Islamic domination. Ann Coulter's "Demonic" is her take on how the liberal mob is endangering America, practicing groupthink, slavishly following intellectual fashions and busting into violence. Jeff Madrick's "Age of Greed" is about the triumph of finance and the decline of America, 1970 to the present. "Rollback" is Thomas Woods Jr.'s concept of repealing big government before the coming fiscal collapse (copyrighted 2011). Rebecca Traister calls a book about the election, which changed everything for American women in 2008, "Big Girls Don't Cry". Dominic Tierney's "How We Fight" is about crusades, quagmires, and the American way of war. ("We've never run from a fight. Our triumphs from the American Revolution to World War II define who we are as a nation and as a people.")

New "How To" books from Dale Carnegie Training are "Stand and Deliver" teaching the reader how to become a masterful communicator and public speaker, and "Make Yourself Unforgettable" how to become the person everyone remembers and no one can resist. Tim Parks' "Teach Us to Sit Still" is a skeptic's search for health and healing and how he found relief in a breathing exercise that led him to take up meditation. The three essential principles needed to become an extraordinary leader are shared in Rajeev Peshawaria's "Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders".

Thomas McGuane's fiction "Driving on the Rim" "hilariously takes the pulse of our times in a character who treads various paths to medical school, and states his reactions to his clinic, small-town living, and being accused of social ills.
Ann Patchett's "State of Wonder" is set deep in the Amazon jungle, where a research scientist is assigned to Brazil to track down her mentor, lost while working on a valuable new drug. "White Shotgun" is April Smith's study of times in London and in Siena, Italy where she witnesses crimes. "The Astral" by Kate Christensen describes a huge apartment building in Brooklyn's Green point neighborhood where a resident family, like the building, comes apart, leading the father/husband to make a desperate search for a change.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-11-19T10:26:00.007-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Nine new biographies at the Crawfordsville Library cover several centuries. First, Richard Brookhiser gives a portrait of America’s "smartest, toughest, and wiliest founding father", fourth president "James Madison". Jim Newton recalls the White House Years of our 34th president entitled "Eisenhower". In "Towers of Gold" Frances Dinkelspiel writes how one Jewish immigrant, her great-great-grandfather Isaias Hellman, created California (as the financier who helped develop banking, oil, transportation, education, water and wine industries). "Death in the City of Light" is David King’s story of the serial killer (a handsome, charming physician Dr. Marcel Petiot) of Nazi-occupied Paris. Painting a picture of Old Order Amish life in Ontario, Ira Wagler composed "Growing up Amish" after removing himself at 17 to become a Pennsylvania businessman. A boy’s coming into manhood at sea titled "The Voyage of the Rose City" relates John Moynihan’s adventure as a Merchant Marine between his college years, never telling that his father was Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. William Shatner offers his guide to understanding the Shatnerverse and the world at large in "Shatner Rules".

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s memoir as Africa’s first woman President (Liberia) is called "This Child Will Be Great"; a presidential candidate’s own book is "This is Herman Cain!"

Daniel Silva’s "Portrait of a Spy" is fiction about a "gifted deceiver", once a CIA worker and mastermind plotting terrorist attacks, whose work must be destroyed from the inside. Lee Child’s "The Affair" (a Jack Reacher novel) recounts a crime scene from 1997 in Mississippi where a woman’s death points to a scheme at a nearby military base. As Reacher tries to solve the case others work to bury it forever. In Paradise, Massachusetts, a string of car thefts leads to a complicated plot named "Killing the Blues" by Robert Parker. The Chief Inspector Gamache novel "A Trick of the Light" by Louise Penny is a case for homicide detectives in a Quebec village. Danielle Steel’s "Hotel Vendome" invites readers to a glamorous New York hotel; after his wife runs away, the builder rears his daughter there and we are brought into its upstairs-downstairs world. "Zero Day" by David Baldacci tells about a military investigator in the US Army’s Criminal Investigative Division who is challenged by a crime in West Virginia where nothing is as it’s billed to be.

"The Wedding Quilt" is an Elm Creek Quilts Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini where friends gather to make a "last minute quilt" for a bride, and memories of the past spill forth within the group. Neal Stephenson returns to the terrain of his past novels in the high-stakes, action-packed adventure thriller "Reamde"; a tech entrepreneur gets involved in the crossfire of his own online war game called T’Rain, a multibillion-dollar, online role-playing game popular around the world.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-11-10T19:06:00.008-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

How to Write a Novel This Month - Did you know that November is National Novel Writers’ Month? The site nanowrimo.com invites authors to write 50,000 words during 30 days and join a free regional group for consultation.

Jean Auel's "The Land of Painted Caves" brings her ice-age epic Earth's Children series to a conclusion. Shana Abe's "The Time Weaver" tells of the drakon, a supersensual race of shapeshifters whose world exists side by side with our own.
A good wife/mother vanishes in "Now You See Her" by James Patterson. Marta Perry's "Murder in Plain Sight" focuses on secrets buried in Amish country (this is a large print version with its yellow dot on the cover). Learning to love again after heartbreak and loss is the basic subject in David Baldacci's "One Summer". "Carte Blanche: 007" is the title of the new James Bond novel by Jeffery Deaver; our hero is asked to protect the British Realm by any means necessary for an organization that operates independent of MI5 and MI6.

University of Indianapolis retired professor of English and creative writer Alice Friman's "Vinculum" is a small volume of poetry giving her ideas on religion, humor, science, and history "with precision".

November might lure you to mysteries. Nancy Rosenberg's "My Lost Daughter" depicts a judge torn between helping her daughter who is ill and tending to an important murder trial. Janet Evanovich's "Smokin' Seventeen", a Stephanie Plum novel, brings out a lady New Jersey bounty hunter's struggle; her name is on a killer's list just when she needs to choose between a good boyfriend and a bad boyfriend or dump them both. "No Rest for the Dead" "by" Jeff Abbott was actually written by a committee (26 writers taking turns writing chapters.) "Mr. Monk on the Couch" by Lee Goldberg presents the character we've known on TV along with his assistant who investigates a case because Monk doesn't see any reason to get involved. Iris Johansen's "Quinn" presents a plot with a former Navy SEAL and a CIA agent looking for a young girl together. Three of Kaki Warner's novels have arrived together; they are "Pieces of Sky", "Open Country", and "Heartbreak Creek" set on our western American frontier. The first in Rachael Herron's new knitting romance series is "How to Knit a Love Song", turning an inherited cottage into a knitshop. Three, new Eternity Springs novels by Emily March are "Heartache Falls", "Hummingbird Lake", and "Angel's Rest". Three family oriented stories are Jerry Eicher's "Ella's Wish" in the Little Valley series, "The Protector" by Shelley Gray from the Families of Honor series, and "The Way to a Man's Heart" by Mary Ellis in the Miller Family series.

A new history of World War II is "The Storm of War" from "Britain's finest military historian" Andrew Roberts, vividly noting the war's 2,174 days, $1.5 trillion cost, and 50 million deaths. Showing our country in peril from outlandish acts, the sharp-witted, comic plot gives a guided tour of "ten levels of cultural hell" in Laura Ingraham's "Of Thee I Zing". In "The Red Market" author Scott Carney tells about his five years tracing the lucrative and secretive trade in human bodies and body parts with all its implications making up a $6 billion annual business. "The King's Speech" by Mark Logue, from which the movie script was adapted, is the diaries of the Australian who taught British King George V how to speak to his subjects by treating his crippling speech defect. In "My Life in France" famous cook Julia Child tells that she didn't know a thing about food when she landed in France in 1948; this writing reveals her endearing personality.

2011-10-27T19:00:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville Library’s Newest Facility - Sometime soon, drive through the Crawfordsville Library’s western-most parking lot to Pike Street. You’ll see work going on to build the new library pavilion planned for youth department activity, book club gatherings, an art class venue, a gracious spot made possible by Friends of the Library and Montgomery County Community Foundation generosity, some available funds, and individual donors. There’s an opportunity for us as library patrons, computer customers, daily readers, and meeting attendees to help complete the funding. Contributions are tax deductible when signed to the Crawfordsville District Public Library and marked "Pavilion project". Think of all the enjoyment ahead when this new place will be one of our habitual destinations.

Now to list the new books available to us. What could appeal more than the beautiful roasted chicken on the "Blue Ribbon Cookbook" cover? Bruce and Eric Bromberg opened their first Blue Ribbon restaurant in 1992 in downtown Manhattan, and are now feeding people at nine locations. Designed for home cooks, this book can help with any meal any day. "Cooking in the Moment" by Andrea Reusing offers ideas by seasons. "Voyager" is Stephen Pyne's history of exploration as Magellan, Cortes, Columbus, Cook, Lewis and Clark, Byrd and Stanley kept studying our earth; finally we're brought up to date as Voyager is described moving to the edge of the solar system.

"Moby-Duck" by Donovan Hohn is a narrative of whimsy and curiosity; many bath toys, lost in our lakes and oceans, are being found, enticing beachcombers, oceanographers, and environmentalists to make a hobby of collecting them.

The memoir, "A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard reveals her eighteen years as a prisoner right in her own neighborhood; now safe at home, she thinks of herself as a survivor, not a victim, with her symbol, a pinecone, representing the seed of a new beginning. What a girl!

"The Triple Agent" by Joby Warrick tells about the al-Qaeda mole who infiltrated the CIA and of the war that pits robot planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy bent on carnage in American cities. "Playing with Fire" by Pamela Constable shows Pakistan at war with itself, exploring the fears and frustrations, dreams and beliefs that animate the lives of citizens in this nuclear-armed nation of 170 million. Eric Greitens describes his education as a humanitarian and as a Navy SEAL in "The Heart and the Fist" which shows his paradox to be strong to do good, and to do good to be strong. "David Crockett: The Lion of the West" by Michael Wallis enlarges our folk image of him, balancing his extraordinary exploits with his election to Congress in 1826.

On to fiction. Debbie Macomber's "A Turn in the Road" follows three friends driving across America with their individual maps and goals. In Dorothea Frank's "Lowcountry Summer" a 46-year-old daughter wants to fill the shoes of her late mother, but dealing with all the episodes on the Tall Pines Plantation in South Carolina’s Lowcountry becomes tricky. Two Berkley Sensation romantic suspense novels are Maya Banks' "Hidden Away" and "No Place to Run".

In Karen Moning's "Shadowfever" two young children were given up for adoption and banished from Ireland; two decades later one is dead and the other has returned to hunt her sister's murderer. Finding that she herself descends from a gifted and cursed bloodline, the plot takes a fantastical turn. In Marcia Clark’s "Guilt by Association" this lead prosecutor on the O.J. Simpson case combines the new voice of her heroine with her own experienced expertise in L.A. courts and criminal law.

2011-10-22T16:21:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Everyone Enjoyed the Pumpkin People - Congratulations to the patron families who created the Crawfordsville Library’s amazing “Pumpkin People” portraying children’s book characters. If you hurry, you might still get to see a bit of their display.

Some rather different stories appeal for fall reading. "The Man in the Rockefeller Suit" by Mark Seal tells about the astonishing rise and spectacular fall of the serial imposter Christian Karl Gerheitsreiter, who came from Germany and over decades stepped in and out of nine identities, charming his way across the U. S. from 1978-2008. An incredible rescue mission from World War II is "Lost in Shangri-La" by Mitchell Zuckoff, who tells of three survivors of a plane crash in Dutch New Guinea mountains threatened by a tribe of superstitious natives who had never before seen a white man or woman. Keith Greenberg's "Love Hurts" is the sad story of a teen romance resulting in a crime carried out against the girl's parents and siblings.

"The Beekeeper's Lament" by Hannah Nordhaus is a study of honeybees and beekeeper John Miller, who offers his bees to farmers otherwise bereft of natural pollinators. In "Intern Nation" Ross Perlin tells about college graduates and others who work for next to nothing "for experience"; he explains "why that boom is perverting workplace practices in locations all around the world." "India" is a portrait-of-a-place by Patrick French who asks, "Is this nation rich or poor?" "Why has its Muslim population, the second largest on earth, resisted radicalization to such a considerable extent? Why do so many children of Indians who have succeeded in the West want to return ‘home’ despite never having lived in India?"

"No Greater Loss: The Guidebook to Today's Grandparents’ Rights" by Neil Taft, "Why You Should Know about Asthma and Other Lung Diseases" by Nicholas DiFilippo, and "Treat Your Own Back" by Robin McKenzie are specialty books available for borrowing. There's also "iPad for Seniors for Dummies" by Nancy Muir.

Here are short story collections. "Pirates: Predators of the Seas" by Angus Konstam begins with stories in the Ancient World, then the Middle Ages, the Barbary Coast, the Spanish Main, the Golden Age, the Far East, even the last Americans, a fanciful picture of our earth ending with dramas & movies, including the actor Johnny Depp's character Captain Jack Sparrow. "Pulse" by Julian Barnes is made up of fourteen tales from all eras of history. Each one has spark and humor. "Bullfighting" by Roddy Doyle features an array of men taking stock of their past glories while being concerned about their place in their world, 13 stories that begin with the title tidbit about four friends who go off to Spain for a vacation. "Orientation" offers nine stories by Daniel Orozco that are unsettling, boundary-crossing, and well fashioned plots.

Singer-song-writer, actor, activist Steve Earle tells about an addicted doctor fortunate to meet a young Mexican immigrant full of blessings for others in "I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive". "The Arriviste" by James Wallenstein expresses influence, power, and isolation built around its main character's individualism. "Doc" by Mary Russell brings up the year 1878 and the peak of Texas cattle trade in Dodge City, Kansas; the death of a mixed-blood boy shocks the part-time policeman named Wyatt Earp. "To Be Sung Underwater" by Tom McNeal is an appealing love story about a woman who leaves her simple life in Nebraska for a fancy place, yet 25 years later longs for her earlier existence and the man she loved then. The Amish tale "Sarah's Garden" is a novel of the Pennsylvania Allegheny Mountains and a gardener who finds herself tempted to marry an "outsider"; this is the first novel in the Patch of Heaven series by Kelly Long.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-10-22T11:30:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Remember to Check All the Library’s Services - Crawfordsville Public Library services include the use of computers for one hour at a time upstairs in the Reference Department and on the main floor and 15-minute use near the building’s entrance, enabled by library card or by guest card obtained at the Circulation desk.

Two mystery stories have been added to the collection by patron requests. "Learning to Swim" by Sara Henry begins with a small child tumbling from a ferry into Lake Champlain. Susan Albert's "Mourning Gloria" features an herbalist/ex-lawyer who witnesses screams coming from a burning house trailer. She writes: "I want to tell a story built around plants that have power over us, changing the way we feel."

"The Trial" a thriller by Larry Thompson is "a frightening scenario of corporate greed, a classic David-and-Goliath tale of a small-town lawyer fighting the incestuous relationship of a giant pharmaceutical company with the FDA." "Trader of Secrets" is a Paul Madriani novel by Steve Martini in which two missing NASA scientists are holding secrets that a hostile government desperately wants to purchase.

A skeleton found in a tree near a restored old Southern family mansion is the attracter in "The Peach Keeper" by Sarah Allen. "Swim Back to Me" by Ann Packer is made up of six short stories that relate to one family over the course of a lifetime. "My American Unhappiness" by Dean Bakopoulos uses wit and an irreverent voice expressing his theory that if he can only find a wife, he might have a second chance at life. "Jessica Lost" is a story by Bunny Crumpacker alternating the voices of a mother and daughter as they spend years finding each other. "2030" by Albert Brooks begins on June 12, 2030, when millions of baby boomers' finances are being sucked dry by all the "olds" who now live without the threat of cancer. An earthquake causing the cessation of government brings up ideas to survive; the ideas pit national hope against past conditions, making gripping and thought-provoking reading.

Fern Michaels' "Betrayal" describes two happy couples, and suddenly one wife accuses the other husband of a heinous act, turning all four lives into desperation. Karen Harper's historical novel "The Irish Princess" begins as a rich young woman finds her world overturned when tyrant Henry VIII imprisons her father and brutally destroys her family; as she seeks revenge, she must look innocent. The Civil War era story "Secret Tides" by Gary Parker finds two women, one free, one a slave, trapped by loss and lies, two brothers working side by side on a plantation vastly divided on issues, and five families intertwined by the tides of change as the war approaches.

Here are some spectacular-looking books about food, all of them colorful and creative collections. "Michael's Genuine Food: Down-To-Earth Cooking for People Who Love to Eat" by Michael Schwartz offers 70 colored photographs and ingredient tips to make the most of what's freshest at the market. Do roasted "double yolk" eggs with tomato and asiago interest you? Schwartz also touts his pan-roasted half boneless chicken with sauteed escarole. "The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen" offers nourishing, big-flavor recipes for treatment and recovery; Rebecca Katz sets up 150 science-based easy foods with step-by-step guides for pasture beef bone broth, chicken magic mineral broth, and magic green tea rice.

Edward Grinnan, editor-in-chief of Guideposts Magazine lists 9 Keys to Powerful Personal Change in "The Promise of Hope" telling how true stories of hope and inspiration saved his life and how they can transform ours.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-10-12T19:26:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Good Shopping Offered Second Saturdays - On Saturday, October 8, the Second Saturday Book Sale sponsored by the Friends of the Crawfordsville Library will open at 9 a.m. This special monthly day on the library's lower level comes early this month. You'll find all kinds of reading and listening bargains available for a donation to the Friends' cause, which is to support the children's library activities.

"Dylan's Candy Bar: Unwrap Your Sweet Life" is a colorful book by Dylan Lauren showing ways to use wrapped candy for centerpieces and other holiday decorations. "Paletas" are Mexican ice pops, shaved ice and aguas frescas, which are taught with directions (in English) by Fany Gerson.

Would you like to learn an Asian language? "Japanese DeMystified" by Eriko Sato untangles complicated grammar rules and sentence structures, explains Japanese characters and pronunciation, enables a rich Japanese vocabulary, and reinforces skills with quizzes, written and oral exercises, and a final exam.

"10 Best College Majors for Your Personality" by Laurence Shatkin offers ideas for different personality types, and also a Best Majors list that leads to jobs with good pay and fastest growth. "The Enemies of Excellence" explains seven reasons why we sabotage success. Greg Salciccioli says leadership is more than building best practices. It's overcoming the obstacles that undermine success. "The Well-Trained Mind" is a guide to classical education at home offered by Susan Wise Bauer. "Your Teacher Said WHAT?" is Joe and Blake Kernen's statement that can defend our kids from the liberal assault on capitalism. "Poor Economics" by Abhijit Banerjee is a radical rethinking of the way to fight global poverty. Edward Humes' "Force of Nature" tells the unlikely story of Walmart's green revolution and how it could transform business and save the world. "Tangled Webs" by James Stewart exposes "how false statements are undermining America: from Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff". Finally, "The Ten Trillion Dollar Gamble" is all about the coming deficit debacle and how to invest now, by advisor Russ Koesterich.

Do you fly a plane? "Mastering GPS Flying" by Phil Dixon is illustrated with charts, maps, photos, and diagrams.

"Weeds of the Midwestern United States and Central Canada" is knowledge more colorful and interesting than one might think, according to editors Charles Bryson and Michael DeFelice.

There are many library books that speak to ideas and theories. For instance, "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)" by Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how we have embraced "information"; he exposes the dark side, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property. "Turn & Jump" by Howard Mansfield refers to Thomas Edison before whom light and fire were thought to be one and the same thing; this book takes time and place and shows how they were once inseparable (before the railroads brought about the creation of time zones in 1883).

Two requested books follow. "Kill the Messenger" by Maria Armoudian tells about the media's roles in the fate of the world, the role they played in the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis, and how media can be used to preserve our democracy. Elizabeth Abbott's "Haiti: A Shattered Nation" details the difference between Haiti and the First world, its dire straits, its corruption, but also the sustained resilience of its people.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-10-01T11:55:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Here are Facts to Send a FAX at the Library - Remember, the Crawfordsville Library's circulation desk offers FAX service. The fee is $1 per page to send or receive a FAX in the U.S.A., and $3 for the first page, $1 each additional page sent or received internationally. The library's fax number is
(765) 362-7986.

New nonfiction, requested books in the library begin with "Discoverers of the Universe: William (1738-1822) and Caroline (1750-1848) Herschel" by Michael Hoskin. With his sister's help, the court astronomer to Britain's King George III transformed our view of the universe into the dynamic cosmos it is; using a homemade telescope he discovered Uranus, found infrared radiation, was the first to know our solar system moves through space, and also identified nebulae. Jesse Ventura's "63 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read" focuses facts on the major issues of our time. "An Innocent, A Broad" by Ann Leary tells about delivering a premature, two-pound baby in London, where she then dealt with Britain's National Health Service; she tells her story both hilariously and wrenchingly. "Heaven is for Real" by Todd Burpo is the compelling story of a small boy's emergency surgery during which he says he visited heaven. Joyce O'Brien's "Choose to Live" is an inspiring story of healing involving two young parents who refused to accept grim diagnoses. Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" begins with the question, "How do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties?" Her answer involves waking up to God's everyday blessings, and in giving thanks for the life we have, which can lead to the life we've actually wanted. Nora Roberts' "Chasing Fire" is about the elite firefighters who thrive on danger and adrenaline by fire jumping, parachuting down to the edge of a blaze, and shoveling and sawing for hours to hold the line and push back the raw power of Mother Nature. "Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge" comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration. A "flaming juggernaut of a heavy-metal bio" is the biography of Metallica called "Enter Night" written by Mick Wall and edited by James Romm, according to a Guardian quote in the UK.

The story "Harvest Moon" by Robyn Carr offers a rising sous-chef's adventures with a new acquaintance. "Eve" by Iris Johansen is about a forensic sculptor's new efforts to find her daughter's killer after years have passed. "When We Were Friends" by Elizabeth Arnold makes you ask yourself, "What would I have done?" because the plot is a mother accusing her friend of kidnapping the daughter she had actually pleaded with her to raise. "Mulberry Park" by Judy Duarte takes us to a peaceful San Diego suburb where a jogger finds a letter which she answers, and a new friendship is born. "The Search" by Suzanne Fisher is Book 3 of Lancaster County Secrets where a long ago decision requires reconsideration fifteen years later.

The story "Daughters of Rome" by Kate Quinn is set in 69 A.D. When Nero is dead and the Empire is up for the taking, two sisters face political struggles which challenge their very lives. "Outsourced" by Dave Zeltserman brings out-of-work software engineers a plan to knock over a bank, but the Russian Mafia organization makes that less easy than they expected. In Tracie Peterson's "Embers of Love" a new acquaintance tempts a bookkeeper to change careers. Julie Lessman's "A Hope Undaunted" tells "what happens when the boy she loved to hate becomes the man she hates to love." Kelly Simmons' "The Bird House" is a psychologically charged story about the power and failure of family because of a dark secret. Karen Robards' "Justice" follows an attorney who enters the Secret Service’s unofficial witness protection program as the lone witness to the First Lady’s murder. In disguise, she wins a high profile case for a D.C. law firm. In danger, she must react to threats against herself, not knowing their source.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-10-01T10:30:00.008-04:00

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!

Upstairs/ Downstairs September, 2011

2011-09-17T10:33:00.001-04:00

This is a listing of the books that have moved Upstairs from the Downstairs 7-day shelf and can now be checked out for 28 days.

As of September 17, 2011 you can find the following new books in the Adult Fiction section of the library.

Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason
Everlasting Kiss by Amanda Ashley
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The Overton Window by Glenn Beck
Brains: A Zombie Memoir by Robin Becker
After America by John Birmingham
The Outward Room by Millen Brand
Time to Share by Jo Ann Brown
A Nose for Justice by Rita Mae Brown
The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt
Summer's Child by Diane Chamberlain
A Murder of Crows by P. F. Chisholm
To Have and to Kill by Mary Jane Clark
The Spider's Web by Margaret Coel
The Reversal by Michael Connelly
The Fort by Bernard Cornwell
Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell
Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie
Edge by Jeffery Deaver
Against all Things Ending by Stephen R. Donald
Ambush Creek by Phil Dunlap
Family Patterns by Kristin Eckhardt
Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Little Women and Werewolves by Porter Grand
The Confession by John Grisham
To the End of the Land by David Grossman
Race for the Dying by Steven F. Havill
All I Ever Wanted by Kristan Higgins
In the Company of Others by Jan Karon
A Dog Named Christmas by Greg Kincaid
Unlocked by Karen Kingsbury
Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz
Witchcraft by Jayne Ann Krentz
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
Our Kind of Traitor by John Le Carre
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane
Keeping Time by Stacey McGlynn
Call Me Mrs. Miracle by Debbie Macomber
Midnight Sons (Vol. 3) by Debbie Macomber
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
Bones of Contention by Jeanne Matthews
The Good Daughters by Joyce Maynard
Cross Roads by Fern Michaels
Willow by Linda Lael Miller
More than Words by Judith Miller
In a Heartbeat by Rosalind Noonan
Lone Star Winter by Diana Palmer
Painted Ladies by Robert B. Parker
Portobello by Ruth Rendell
Happy Ever After by Nora Roberts
American Vampire by Scott Snyder
The Athena Project by Brad Thor

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-09-15T19:39:00.010-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New DVDs Ready for Borrowing - Here are new movies listed alphabetically, 102 Minutes That Changed America - 9/11 (History Channel); 127 Hours; 1968: The Year That Everything Changed (History Channel; The A-Team; American; Black Swan; Burlesque; Conviction; Deathtrap; Desert Triumph (The complete story, with veteran interviews about Desert Storm; The Devil Wears Prada; Dilemma; The Divinci Code; Due Date; Fair Game; Faster; Funny Face; The Green Hornet; Gulliver's Travels; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1; Hereafter; Hidden Wars of Desert Storm; Hoosiers; How Do You Know?; I Am Number Four; It's Kind of a Funny Story; Just Go With It; The King's Speech; Life As We Know It; Like Dandelion Dust; Little Fockers; Morning Glory; Mother and Child; Never Let Me Go; Narnia; The Next Three Days; No Strings Attached; Operation Valkyrie; The Other Woman; The Postman Always Rings Twice; The Quick and the Dead; Red; Rabbit Hole; Salt; Skyline; Spider-Man 2; Super Babies; Supernatural (fourth season); The Switch; Tangled; Tarzan (Volume One and Volume Two); Tourist; The Town; True Blood (Second Season); True Grit (1969); True Grit (2010); Unstoppable; You Again.

Subject DVDs are Common Expressions in American Sign Language, volume1 and volume 2, First Aid (One) and (Two), Laugh and Learn About Childbirth, Nutrition During Pregnancy, Pregnancy, and San Francisco Earthquake.

Here are new novels requested by local patrons. Two come from Pam Jenoff. "The Things We Cherished" spanning decades and continents, about a man accused of World War II-era war crimes, which he can prove false if he can find a certain timepiece last seen in Nazi Germany. Her "A Hidden Affair" about a U.S. State Department intelligence officer's life turned upside down when told her college boyfriend drowned in the River Cam. She takes a journey halfway around the world to find better answers. The description of "Robopocalypse" by Daniel Wilson begins, "In the near future, at a precise moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will spontaneously malfunction." Steve Berry's "The Jefferson Key" asks if Americans would be shocked if all our assassinated Presidents were killed for the same reason, namely a clause in the U. S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 8). "Before I Go to Sleep" by S., J. Watson proposes a situation where anyone could lose his memory every time he went to sleep.

New mysteries are Alafair Burke's "Long Gone" where a newly hired art gallery manager arrives at work her first day to find the gallery gone and the owner's body on the floor. Janet Evanovich has released "Smokin' Seventeen", her newest Stephanie Plum story in which our heroine finds bodies in shallow graves, and no one is sure who the killer is, or why the victims have been killed, but she knows her name is on the killer's list. "Hush" by Nancy Bush starts with a tragic accident, followed by another twelve years later, showing that a group of friends are being eliminated one by one. The third "Silence" novel in Linda Castillo's series is "Breaking Silence" as a Police Chief is called to the scene of a tragedy on a peaceful Amish farm. In "Joy for Beginners" by Erica Bauermeister friends celebrate a member's recovery from illness, and the group agrees they'll all try to master some new difficult thing in the next year. "The Devil Colony" by James Rollins dares to answer a question extant in America: Could the founding of the United States be based on a fundamental lie? The answer lies hidden in the ruins of "impossibility", called The Devil Colony.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-09-12T17:37:00.007-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The next special event at the Crawfordville Library is the upcoming book-signing session Saturday (September 10th) from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to meet author Angie Klink of Lafayette. In "Divided Paths, Common Ground" Angie has brought back to life two pioneering Purdue educators, Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis, who "introduced science into the home" improving the lives of American women. She has also written the popular children's books "Purdue Pete Finds His Hammer" and "I Found U", and is a contributing author in "Chicken Soup for the Soul: Just for Preteens" released in July. She has won 40 American Advertising Federation ADDY awards and an honorable mention in the 2007 Erma Bombeck Essay Contest. The public is invited to attend, buy a book or just meet the author!

"Changing Planet, Changing Health" by Paul Epstein offers innovative solutions for a healthy global economic order. The Hazardous Earth series volume called "Tsunamis: Giant Waves from the Sea" by Timothy Kusky offers comprehensive information on geologic processes that are hazardous to society and the environment. Richard Alley's "Earth: the Operators' Manual" offers options for a future through energy innovation in spite of the CO 3 buildup causing global warming.

A slightly different subject is Stephen Baker's "Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything". It's about Watson, the computer that has played against contestants on the TV show Jeopardy. The art of storytelling is being reinvented in new forms, told through multiple media forms at once in "The Art of Immersion" by Frank Rose. "Life without Oil" by Purdue plant pathology teacher Steve Hallett discusses why we must shift to new kinds of energy. An amusing book about the lunatic fringe is "The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson. Adrian Praetzellis' "Death by Theory" covers mystery and archaeology.

A few different kinds of histories are "The World of King Arthur" illustrated, interpreted, and made into art by author Christopher Snyder, and "How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly and the Stark Choices Ahead" by Dambisa Moyo. "Common Sense" by Sophia Rosenfeld is a political history of the pamphlet that sparked the American Revolution; the phrase remains a powerful ideal, and how that populist logic has shaped modern democracy is the book's thrust.

"Brilliant" is the evolution of artificial light discussed by Jane Brox. She starts with the stone lamps of the Pleistocene era, and even covers LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future. "Drive" by Daniel Pink is about what motivates us. Is it money? Is it satisfaction? Or, is it the need to direct our lives to creating new things, to do better by ourselves and our world?

Two revolutions appear in book titles: "Denim Revolution" shows Nancy Minsky's designs turning denim cast-offs into fashion must haves, while "33 Revolutions per Minute" by Dorian Lynskey is the history of protest songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-09-03T15:20:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville Library will be closed Sunday, September 4th and Monday, September 5th for Labor Day, welcoming us again at 9 a.m. Tuesday, September 6th.

A new set of introductory computer classes for adults is available at the library without cost by registering at the Reference Desk or calling 362-2242, extension 117 or extension 100. The Wednesday afternoon schedule includes "Introduction to Computers" on September 7th and 14th, "Introduction to the Internet" on the 21st, "Introduction to E-Mail" on September 28th, and "Introduction to Computer Security" on October 5th.

Regarding new books to borrow, some new directions come with clear ideas and beautiful pictures. Norah Gaughan's "Comfort Knitting & Crochet - Afghans" has many affordable designs featuring Berroco's comfort yarn. Sharon Rothschild's "Sweater Renewal" shows how to rescue old woolen knits and give them renewed life as felted creations. From Search Press there's also "Fashion Dog" featuring 30 designs to knit, crochet, and sew. Wendy Mullin's "Built by Wendy, Dresses" pictures everything involved in designing, stitching, shaping, and fitting simple garments, and includes three real patterns, for a sheath dress, shift dress, and dirndl dress. Equally complete is "The River Cottage Family Cookbook" by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. "Photo Trekking" is a traveling photographer's guide to capturing moments around the world. Nick Onken teaches with clever pictures. Roger Holmes offers "Midwest Including South-Central Canada" and features 46 landscape designs with 200 plants for our region. Simple but lovely interiors are shown in "The New Traditional" by Darryl Carter.

New biographies beckon. "Cleopatra: A Life" by Stacy Schiff chronicles "the most intriguing woman in the history of the world", the last Queen of Egypt. She's gone down in history for wrong reasons so this book separates fact from fiction. Frank McLynn has written "Captain Cook: Master of the Seas" about the navigator and cartographer of the British Royal Navy during the age of discovery when adventurers like him charted the furthest reaches of the globe. "Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned" by John Farrell is the first fully documented life of our "greatest defense attorney", who forged the heroic archetype of the American lawyer. Michael Callan has made "Robert Redford" using personal papers and hundreds of hours of taped interviews. Glenn Carle shares his personal experience and soul-searching reflections on the global war on terror in "The Interrogator"; he says "I was a spy. I broke laws. I stole. I lied every day, about almost everything: to my family, to my friends, to my colleagues, to everyone around me." Charles Hill's "Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism" starts out, "A Muslim has no nationality except his religious belief" (quoting Sayyid Outb who was executed in 1966 in his homeland.) Ben Shapiro's "Prime Time Propaganda" notes the political agenda of many Hollywood writers, producers, actors, and executives. "There Are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me" by Eva Gabrielsson is her story of their life together from 1972 until his death in 2004, struggling for social justice, the basis for the books in Larsson's Millennium Trilogy.

Serious subjects become snippets for whole books like "A Most Dangerous Book" in which Christopher Krebs follows Tacitus' "Germania" an unflattering book about the German tribes, from the Roman Empire to the Third Reich. An invisible revolution in how we can access information is described in "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You" by Eli Pariser; data that we receive conforms more and more to what we pursue on a computer, so the original Internet purpose as an open platform might leave each of us in an isolated world.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-08-30T16:27:00.009-04:00

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.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-08-27T12:27:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New Commentaries, Advice, Knitting Projects, Stories - This week’s article about the Crawfordsville Library offers various kinds of reading for midsummer leisure.

"Crossing with the Virgin: Stories from the Migrant Trail" by Kathryn Ferguson tells about the courageous journeys of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and about U.S. citizens who are erasing those borders with acts of mercy and defiance. Deborah Lipstadt's "The Eichmann Trial" presents and analyzes perspectives of Holocaust survivors’ tales when Adolf Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem by an Israeli court after finally being arrested in Argentina in 1960. The Scripture is communicated and "God's truth glows" in D. A. Carson's "Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus."

Steven Sack’s "The Employee Rights Handbook" has effective legal strategies to protect one's job from interview to pink slip. "Working for Yourself" from Nolo is about law and taxes for independent contractors, freelancers, and consultants. "101 Things I Learned in Fashion School" by Alfredo Cabrera presents every aspect of the industry: trends, design, costs, production, marketing, pricing, and more, in short paragraphs on separate pages. "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown is a humorous look at the phenomenon when he discovered a planet slightly bigger than Pluto, resulting in a whole new category of "dwarf planets."

The first of six novels is David Abbott's "The Upright Piano Player" about all the ways in which life tests us, no matter how carefully we've constructed our own little safeguards; the main character is a successful man facing retirement. Rosamund Lupton's "Sister" is a compelling tale of a sibling going wherever necessary to prove that her sis was not a suicide as everyone else had concluded. Dale Cramer's "Paradise Valley" is an Amish tale recalling 1921 when a new law in Ohio forced a family to the wilds of Mexico where the government wouldn't interfere with their way of life or take away their children.

"The Sentry" is a Joe Pike novel from Robert Crais about whether gangs can be trusted; the writing tackles grand themes with defined believable characters in his championship crime series. Laura Childs' Cackleberry Club mystery called "Bedeviled Eggs" (recipes included) finds three widows opening their café at the same time as two murders cause them to investigate and “serve” justice. The plot of "The Raising" by Laura Kasischke starts with the car-accident death of an outstanding college coed.

Here are four colorful new knitting books. Jean Adel's "Knitted Critters for Kids to Wear" teaches 40 animal-themed accessories. "The Knitter's Year" features 52 make-in-a-week projects, both quick gifts and seasonal knits by Debbie Bliss. "Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines" begins with rule number one: "Knitting is spoze to be fun. Of course, the longer we knit, the more the definition of fun expands." This book boasts new and clever ideas to read about, whether or not you actually are a knitter. "Haiku Knits" from Tanya Alpert contains direction for 25 "serenely beautiful patterns inspired by Japanese design". These are examples of high-fashion wearable art. "Continuous Cables" is Melissa Leapman's "exploration of knitted cabled knots, rings, swirls, and curlicues" in 20 designs plus an all-original stitch dictionary. These four will entertain you for a whole evening before you settle on one pattern. "The Knitting Diaries" is a book of three new stories, "The Twenty-First Wish" by Debbie Macomber, "Coming Unraveled” by Susan Mallery, and "Return to Summer Island" by Christina Skye, each one with a pattern to knit.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-08-13T12:35:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Librarians Process New Fiction Requests - Jean Auel's "The Land of Painted Caves" brings her ice-age epic Earth's Children series to a conclusion when people are learning to work and live together in a daily life challenged by the hunt for food, surviving long journeys, and developing healing skills. Ben Kane's "The Road to Rome" recreates the Forgotten Legion of 48 B.C; you'll meet Romulus' twin sister Fabviola and read about important events happening on the Ides of March. "Nightshade" by P.C. Doherty visits 1304 A.D. in January when a very dangerous mission features an ornate cross stolen from the Templars during the Crusades. "The Law of Angels" by Cassandra Clark brings medieval Europe alive during year 1385 in York, England. Large print versions of these three stories are also available.

"Though Not Dead" by Dana Stabenow is a Kate Shugak novel (for those who might have read her other 17 in the series). The map of Alaska's largest National Park will help readers follow Kate as she hunts for a murdered man's father, a hunt that helps explain major historical events in Alaska's history. "Mystery" by Jonathan Kellerman is an Alex Delaware piece; this time we're in Los Angeles where Alex finds himself drawn into a twisting, shadowy whodunit as a hotel in Beverly Hills is closing, and it’s "last" gathering includes a "striking young woman" who, we find, dies two days later.

Michael Connelly's "The Fifth Witness" is a new story in his Lincoln Lawyer series; a criminal defense lawyer accepts a client accused of killing the banker she blames for trying to take away her home, so suspense builds immediately. We also have a new Rita Mae Brown/ Sneaky Pie (cat) Brown mystery called "Hiss of Death" in which pet accomplices aid in the solution of the 19th murder, this time in a hospital.

But we're not done with mysteries. Erin Brockovich offers a debut thriller "Rock Bottom" in a new series featuring environmental plots (surprise!) this time mountaintop removal mining.

"The Silver Boat" by Luanne Rice is about three sisters meeting to say good-bye to the family beach home on Martha's Vineyard. "I'll Walk Alone" is Mary Higgins Clark's look at identity theft in Manhattan. A quilted frontispiece decorates Susan Wiggs' "The Goodbye Quilt" story, which tells how mother/daughter closeness needs not cease when the daughter is grown.

Danielle Steel's "44 Charles Street" shows a magical transformation in a turn-of-the-century house in Manhattan's West Village where strangers become roommates, roommates become friends, and friends become a family. "The Sixth Man" by David Baldacci features defense attorneys challenged when it looks like their subject killed a lawyer helping his case. The highest levels of government are involved in "A Heartbeat Away". Michael Palmer's plot involves a virus inserted in the Capitol Building on the night of the President's State of the Union address. "On Borrowed Time", David Rosenfelt's story of an ordinary man trapped in a nightmare after his fiancée disappears. "Quicksilver" is book two in the Looking Glass Trilogy by Amanda Quick in which a Victorian "glass-reader" and a psychic investigator play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as a killer plots to trap them.
Carol Edgarian's "Three Stages of Amazement" studies two divergent couples in San Francisco, one at the top of the hill as Silicon Valley titans the other, "below", estranged from these relatives and struggling.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-08-06T12:02:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

It's convenient to learn about upcoming events at home by visiting the Crawfordsville District Public Library website at www.cdpl.lib.in.us. Meeting rooms can be reserved at www.cdpl.lib.in.us/meetingrooms/rooms.html, and books can be renewed by emailing circ@cdpl.lib.in.us.

There are many library books that speak to ideas and theories. For instance, "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)" by Siva Vaidhyanathan explains how we have embraced "information" and exposes the dark side, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property; he proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one company from falling into the "evil" it has pledged to avoid (its much-quoted motto, "Don't be evil"). "Turn & Jump" by Howard Mansfield refers to Thomas Edison before whom light and fire were thought to be one and the same. This book takes time and place, and shows how they, too, were once inseparable (before the railroads brought about the creation of time zones in 1883) and onward. Rob Bell's "Love Wins" is a book about heaven, hell, and the fate of every person who ever lived and the book's aim is to offer a richer, grander, and more spiritually satisfying way to understanding heaven, hell, God, Jesus, salvation, and repentance. John Gray's "The Immortalization Commission" takes a look at humankind's dangerous striving toward a scientific version of immortality.

Here are new history books. Francis Fukuyama's "The Origins of Political Order" from pre-human times to the French Revolution brings fresh insights into the origins of democratic societies. "1861: The Civil War Awakening" by Adam Goodheart says inside the cover, "As the United States marks the 150th anniversary of our defining national drama, '1861' presents a gripping and original account of how the Civil War began". He sees how the period inspired a new generation to do the unthinkable in the name of an ideal. "Wait for Me!" is Deborah Mitford's memoir as the Duchess of Devonshire who had tea with Adolf Hitler, inherited vast estates, and brought a great house back to life in the 1960s' age of splendor.

Garrison Keillor's "Good Poems, American Places" is a new collection of poetry he's compiled about specific locations like Barbara Hamby's "Ode to Hardware Stores", W. S. Merwin's "227 Waverly Place", Howard Nemerov's "To His Piano." "She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey through Poems" is a group of selections chosen by and introduced by Caroline Kennedy. She commemorates her challenges and joys of being a woman in sections celebrating the important elements of life's journey.

Next: manuals. "100 Questions & Answers about Hip Replacement" from Stuart Fischer; "Long Term Care: How to Plan & Pay for It" by J. L. Matthews; "The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide"; "The Guinness World Records 2011"; "Social Networking Spaces: From Facebook to Twitter and Everything In Between" by Todd Kelsey; and "The Mayo Clinic Diet".

Wynonna Judd's first novel "Restless Heart" follows a girl seeking fame as a performing singer who has to pay the price but does reconnect with what matters most. "Room" by Emma Donoghue shows us the happy world of a child with make-believe roommates in his bedroom, as opposed to his mother's misery at being stuck there and knowing he can't be contained much longer. "Sing You Home" the story accompanied by a CD by Jodi Picoult has the theme "For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love."

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-07-30T10:28:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Weekly Winners in the Summer Reading Challenge - Winners in Weeks 2 through 6 of the "Take Your Chances in the Library" summer reading program at Crawfordsville Library are (2) Alissa L., Cheryl M., and Tanya H.; (3) Jane W., Margaret L. and Cathy M.; (4) Joyce B., Charlotte D., and Mark A., (5) Bev S., Krystal N. and Kristol V., and (6) Rhonda N., Karen L., and Dee B..

Come visit special places where new stories are set. First, come to the Amish town of Sugarcreek, Ohio where Shelley Gray offers two stories within that society called "Winter's Awakening" and "Spring's Renewal". Over in Charm, Ohio an Amish widow caregiver finds romance in Wanda Brunstetter's "Lydia's Charm". In the Red Bud Indian Reservation in 1904 South Dakota, a Christian helps to heal an epidemic in Bethany House's "A Heart for Home" by Lauraine Snelling. The plot of "Bitter in the Mouth" by Monique Truong begins in the 1970s in North Carolina when a young girl is cruelly labeled naughty by her grandmother, so even when she grows into a New York lawyer she knows her past is scary; later she has to return to her roots and face being connected and disconnected at the same time.

"Beneath the Lion's Gaze" by Maaza Mengiste takes us to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1974 on the eve of revolution when a family works for freedom against almost all odds. "How to Read the Air" by Dinaw Mengestu captures two generations, an Ethiopian family traveling from Peoria to Nashville searching for a new identity as an American couple, then the son's desire 30 years later to repeat his parents' adventure. "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht is a family legend in a Balkan country mending from years of conflict where a young doctor encounters public and private secrets, which she unravels through reminiscences of her grandfather’s stories. "The Informationist" is Steven Taylor's thriller about an informant helping clients learn to face dangerous men in lawless central Africa; later a billionaire hires that informant to find his daughter who vanished in Africa.

Nancy Pickard's "The Scent of Rain and Lightning" forces a family in Kansas to deal with the return of a man who murdered their head of house. The clever "Swamplandia!" by Karen Russell takes on a Florida Everglades' gator-wrestling theme park that is about to "go under" because of a competitor called the World of Darkness.

In Patrick McManus' eyes, a western lawman uses cunning and guile on the ladies, so he uses that technique for his cases when he's led into a haunted swamp to catch a mass murderer in "The Huckleberry Murders". American history is treated personally in the novel "Parrot & Olivier in America" by Peter Carey. The funny story is an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville who was a child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution, and the life of a motherless son of an itinerant English printer who's a spy for the marquis. A political thriller about terrorists, Supreme Court personnel and the press is "The Confirmation" by Ralph Reed. The deep woods of Hungary and the streets of New York figure in the tale of government cover-ups while one man searches for truth in "Saint" by Ted Dekker.

Damon Galgut's "In a Strange Room" could be labeled a compelling travelogue-novel, as a young loner travels across the eastern hemisphere with adventurous episodes in a life on the road. Monica Ali's "Untold Story" is the imagined creation of Princess Diana's life at fifty in 2011, had she not perished at 37 years old. An "unselfish, helpful" woman's life is changed in "South of Superior" by Ellen Airgood, when she moves to a hardscrabble town on the southern edge of Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where there's joy in simple things, and a tradition of caring for each other.

2011-07-13T20:32:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Local Businesses Support Library Summer Programs - Crawfordsville Library's adult summer reading program "Take Your Chances at the Library" has many sponsors, and their generosity is enhancing the challenges being accepted by 86 patrons who have signed up to take those chances through July 29th. The 19 sponsors include Country Hearts and Flowers, Cornett's Comfort Gallery, Vanity Theatre, Creek Jewelers, Arni's Restaurant, Little Mexico, La Rose on Main, China Inn, Milligan's Flowers and Gifts, Pace Dairy, heathcliff, The Craft House, Arthur's Café, Krogers South, French Lick Resorts, The Sewing Guild of Montgomery County, Fall Creek Farm, Friends of the Library, and Bob "the Beeman" Congleton.

Lloyd Hunter's "For Duty and Destiny" tells William Taylor Stott's Civil War diary and life story as Hoosier soldier and educator. Stott was an 1861 graduate of Franklin College who, as President of Franklin College, took it from virtual bankruptcy in 1872 to its place, by the turn of the century, as a leading liberal arts institution in Indiana.

Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has written "Jesus of Nazareth" about the text of Holy Week, from the entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection. "Nostradamus Bibliomancere: the Man, the Myth, the Truth" by Peter Lemesurier (CD included) shows he was an ordinary man using an ordinary technique: he believed that history repeats itself, so he projected known past events into the future.

"Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness" by Nicholas Humphrey says consciousness is nothing less than a magical-mystery show we stage for ourselves inside our heads; it lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. "An Improvised Life" is Alan Arkin's memoir. Tina Fey writes "Bossypants"; she wanted to be a comedian and she comments that you're not one until someone calls you bossy.

New cookbooks abound. "Bobby Flay's Throwdown" offers over 100 recipes from Food Network's Ultimate Cooking Challenge show. He's written this with his assistants Stephanie Banyas and Miriam Garron. "The Southern Italian Table" by Arthur Schwartz offers eggplant balls or patties, sausage canapes, bean and greens soup for the Feast of Saint Joseph, Lemony Egg Pasta Souffle, all sorts of rather exotic fare. "The SoNo Baking Company Cookbook" with "best sweet and savory recipes for every occasion" comes from John Barricelli. "The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor" by Matt and Ted Lee feature tasty ideas like carrot and turnip slaw with dill, snow pea and carrot salad with ginger dressing, radish butter, cherry tomato and soybean salad and roasted parsnips with mint. Kaye and Liv Hansen offer The Whimsical Bakehouse" with fun-to-make cakes that taste as good as they look!" Last but not least is Lysa Terkeurst's "Made to Crave" which is a lesson to crave God instead of food and to learn how weight loss struggles aren't a curse but a blessing in the making.

"Hitman" by Howie Carr tells why Johnny Martorano is called the Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld; in this book we get to read all about crime in America. Michael Burleigh's "Moral Combat" is about good and evil in World War II, the author exposing factors shaping choices that were life-and-death decisions, giving a moral content to the war that shaped it as decisively as any of its battles.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-07-09T11:18:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Tippecanoe Author's Novel Memoir of a Coach" - "The Coach" is the new novel from author Tom Speaker, retired teacher and coach living in West Lafayette. His story follows a lad through eight years of playing elementary, middle school, and high school basketball, four Army years during World War II, four years of playing in college, and 41 years of coaching. The adventure shows the ecstasy of winning, lessons learned from losing, and his joy seeing young kids grow to success in sports and in life.

Here's other new fiction. In Sandra Hill's "Dark Viking" a female Navy SEAL is transported back in time to the eleventh-century Norselands where she encounters a Viking warlord. Alexandra Ivy's "Devoured by Darkness" shows a half human, half demon jinn being chased by a Charon, sworn to hunt and kill rogue vampires. Beatrice Small's "The Border Vixen" portrays a vixen known as Mad Maggie, on the Scottish Borders in the year 1536, who has the right to exact tolls at a famous safe passage through the border hills.

On to nonfiction, Paul Theroux's celebration of his 50 years of wandering the globe is "The Tao of Travel" subtitled "Enlightenments from Lives on the Road." It's full of quotes about travel, then quotes by authors on their travels, also chapters like "Everything is Edible Somewhere", and he concludes with "The Essential Tao of Travel", a read well worth the 277 pages. Sarah Vowell's "Unfamiliar Fishes" makes Hawaii her study destination after thinking about America in 1898 when in an "orgy of imperialism" the U.S. annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded Cuba and then the Philippines, "becoming a meddling, self-serving, militaristic superpower practically overnight." The book then tells about the Americanization of Hawaii starting in 1820 with New England missionaries and ending with our first Hawaiian-born President. A new Time Out travel guide to "Los Angeles" lists how to eat, drink, shop, sleep, explore, and enjoy L.A. A story that takes us to love, terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin is "In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson, a master of narrative nonfiction.

Another personal journey is Alice Ozma's "The Reading Promise" telling about the daily reading aloud her dad did each evening from fourth grade until the year she entered college, an unusual and lovely story of their enjoyable relationship.

People's crafts figure in much nonfiction. "Knitting Noro" by Jane Ellison features the "magic of knitting with hand-dyed yarns". "Twinkle's Weekend Knits" shows "20 fast designs for fun getaways" in Wenlan Chia's well-explained and personally-created garments. "Knitting Plus" is Lisa Shroyer's fifteen projects for plus-size style with good fits.

Religion is the subject of lots of recent books too. "Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire" by Jim Cymbala, pastor at Brooklyn Tabernacle, discusses the good that happens when God's spirit invades the hearts of his people. "Clouds of Witnesses" by Mark Noll tells about Christian voices from Africa and Asia: a tattered Hindu pilgrim girl later one of India's most influential Christians, an African herder boy grown into archbishop of a large Anglican flock in Uganda, a brilliant Chinese pastor's kid who emerges as a powerful figure in Chinese revivalism of the 1930s. "The Convert" is a tale of exile and extremism by Deborah Baker following a suburban New Yorker's conversion from being a Jew in America to a trenchant voice of Islam, perhaps because of an adoptive father who laid the intellectual foundations for militant political Islam.

2011-06-30T19:28:00.011-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Library Offers New Patriotic Readings - The Crawfordsville Library will be closed Sunday, July 3rd and Monday, July 4th for the Independence Day holiday.

Here are new books in the Library's collection with patriotic themes. "What So Proudly We Hail" by Kass, Kass, and Schaub was written to help all Americans realize who they are as citizens of the United States; selections by our country's greatest writers and leaders express patriotism in stories, speeches, and songs. The book is a great review of American literature from present day reflections to federal period essays. "The Idea of America" by Gordon Wood is made up of reflections on the birth of the United States, showing why it remains the most significant event in our history by studying the fears and hopes of the Revolutionary generation. An interesting related book this week is "Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation" by Andrea Wulf which shows the founding fathers "as they've never before been seen."

Timothy Ferris' "The Science of Liberty" makes a case for science as the inspiration behind the rise of democracy; it surveys the forces that have opposed liberty, from communism and fascism to postmodernism and Islamic fundamentalism. "Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on our Sixteenth President" offers 86 short essays on every aspect of his being' sponsored by C-Span which became "the television network of the Lincoln bicentennial." President Ronald Reagan's "The Notes" a book edited by Douglas Brinkley was written from Reagan's 4-by-6 note cards where he recorded his favorite nuggets of political wisdom and, from which it's clear, his methods helped him be "The Great Communicator." "Freedom at Risk" is James Buckley's reflection on politics, liberty, and the state, having held high office in each branch of the federal government as a senator, an under secretary of state, and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He lists the steps that must be taken to save constitutional government.

"The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery holds all kinds of data many people, even city people, can use; there's a section on Garden Vegetables that describes each of them, tells how to use them in foods, which of their greens to eat, how to plant them, and their food values in "From Fava to Peanut, Garbanzo to Soy" for instance. Then under Poultry there's "Some of My Favorite Goose Recipes". Under Grasses, Grains & Canes there's "Unleavened Egg, and Acid-Base Leavened Breads."

From Rodale Press "The Doctors Book of Home Remedies" specializes in quick fixes, clever techniques, and uncommon cures to get you feeling better fast. Sheri Williamson has written the latest Peterson Field Guide called "Hummingbirds of North America." Next comes "Take Charge of your Nursing Career: Open the Door to your Dreams" by Lois Marshall contains information to use along the path to success and/or change. The "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers" comes from the Modern Language Association which now has online access. "The 2011 Poet's Market" shows over a thousand updated listings to help poets get their work published. "Warman's Antiques & Collectibles" for 2012 by Mark Moran is a trip among beautiful things along with their stories and values. If you plan to visit Hawaii, there's Frommer's full-color Hawaii tour guide which includes a pocket map.

Stella Cameron's Court of Angels novels "Out of Body" and "Out of Sight" are suspenseful fantasy stories about a killing force attacking New Orleans.

2011-06-23T14:47:00.007-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville District Public Library has a helpful collection of books about computers. Two new offerings are now available. Brian Christian tells what talking with computers teaches us about what it means to be alive in "The Most Human Human". "iPads for Seniors for Dummies" and "Laptops For Seniors for Dummies", both by Nancy Muir, look useful too.

"The Shape of Inner Space" by Shing-Tung Yau explains string theory and the geometry of the universe's hidden dimensions. "The Black Hole War" by Leonard Susskind tells about his battle with Stephen Hawking to make the world safe for quantum mechanics. "Alone Together" by Sherry Turkle discusses why we expect more from technology and less from each other (because technology drains us of human purposes). Then, "Dance of the Photons from Einstein to Quantum Teleportation" comes from Anton Zeilinger who tells about his life work in a lively style, relying on simple cartoons, anecdotes, and a sense of humor, rather than abstruse mathematics, to convey his recent findings. The latest DK book is "Starfinder" the complete beginner's guide to exploring the night sky (the book's cover is clever and fascinating in itself). "Super Structures" the science of bridges, buildings, dams, and other feats of engineering features photos of famous examples around the world.

Three books about food lure us. "The One-Block Feast" is an adventure in food from yard to table by Margo True and the staff of Sunset magazine with 100 recipes made from ingredients in your yard. There are garden plans for all four seasons too. "The Skinny on Losing Weight without Being Hungry" comes from Louis Aronne.

"Sugar Changed the World" is Marc Aronson's title for his story of "magic, spice, slavery, freedom, and science." Peter Gleick offers "Bottled & Sold", the story behind our obsession with bottled water. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" delivers James Carroll's research about how that ancient city ignited our modern world. Francis West's "The Wrong War" explains grit, strategy, and the way out of Afghanistan.

Dick Van Dyke's "My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business" is his memoir of work during the golden age of television. He's always been known for his beaming smile, physical dexterity, good timing, ridiculous stunts, and unforgettable roles.

Here are the latest novels on the shelves. Jeff Shaara's "The Final Storm" opens a new front in his gripping chronicle of World War II as soldiers, sailors, and Marines sacrifice all for one final push toward decisive victory in the fierce maelstrom of the Pacific theater. John Sandford's "Buried Prey" is a mystery in which an entire block on the edge of the Minneapolis loop is being torn down for development, when an unpleasant surprise is unearthed: the bodies of two girls, wrapped in plastic, underneath an old house. Another mystery, "The Complaints" by Ian Rankin, reveals a detective division whose sole occupation is to investigate accusations against fellow police officers. A case comes up linking a promising young police officer with a child-abuse ring.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-06-15T17:49:00.007-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Still Time to Join Adult Summer Reading - "Take Your Chances at the Library" is the summer reading challenge for adults at the Crawfordsville Library on 205 SouthWashington Street. The first prize winners have been notified; they are Chris A., Angela B., and Debra W. Weekly prizes will lead up to the Grand Prize. The winner will be chosen from those finishing ten books by July 29th. Throwing dice results in the kind of book to be read, such as fiction, CD or tape, or non-fiction in one of the following genres: suspense, fantasy, western, romance, comedy, or your choice of subject. This way the book selection becomes a creative challenge too.

"Examined Lives" by James Miller contains short lively biographies of 12 famous philosophers from Socrates to Nietzsche confirming the continuing relevance of learning about philosophy and especially about what it means to live a good life. Ralph Keyes' "Euphemania" discusses "mild or indirect expressions instead of those that are harsh or unpleasantly direct (euphemisms)", and he writes about the surprising and inventive ways these phrases are created and enter our language. According to Guy Kawasaki, "Enchantment" is the art of changing hearts, minds, and actions, converting hostility into civility, and changing skeptics and cynics into believers. In "The Social Animal" David Brooks takes a couple from infancy to school, through adulthood to leadership, revealing the social aspect of the mind and exposing the bias in modern culture that influences individualism and IQ, while also trying to demolish conventional success by looking toward a culture based on trust and humility. A look at the four points of the compass, the high Arctic to Antarctica and across the tropics from the Caribbean to the west Pacific looking at the natural world of Eskimos, bears, and reefs, "The View from Lazy Point" by Carl Safina reveals the importance of human progress seeing the world as a sacred place.

"Masters of the Game" by Kim Eisler takes us inside the world's most powerful law firm, Williams & Connolly, focusing on five members and their cases like David Kendall's winning acquittal for President Clinton in the impeachment saga. "Cricket Radio" is John Himmelman's discussion of the creatures that lure and warn, hearing each other, attracting potential mates, warning off competitors, and evading predators.

Several new novels with Amish plots are "Rachel's Garden" by Marta Perry, "The Bridge of Peace" by Cindy Woodsmall, and "The Journey" by Wanda Brunstetter. The Amana Colonies are featured in "Somewhere to Belong" and "More than Words" by Judith Miller. "The Raven's Bride" by Lenore Hart is a novel that adds to the legend of Edgar Allan Poe and his ill-fated marriage. "Letters from Home" by Kristina McMorris is a World War II Greatest Generation romantic fiction.

"Miles to Go" by Richard Evans finds an injured former-executive kept from his plan to walk cross-country; a lady befriends him and they both search for hope to heal each other. "The Farm" by Walter Honsinger is about some destitute acreage where communal effort at a rural market might save it. Daniel Abraham's "The Dragon's Path" is book one of the Dagger and the Coin, a fantasy about Free Cities and the Severed Throne.

Interesting studies include "Oceana" which is Ted Danson's well-illustrated essay about endangered bodies of water and what we can do to save them. "The Complete Book of Mustang: Every Model Since 1964 1/2" is a suave and colorful catalog of automobile history. Another gem is "Weaponry: An Illustrated History" by Chuck Wills in association with the Berman Museum of World Art in Anniston, Alabama, featuring the vast collection of Colonel Farley Berman (1910-1999).

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-06-14T20:04:00.007-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Everybody's Invited to Summer Reading Programs - At the Crawfordsville Library "the game is on" in the adult summer reading challenge, so "Take your Chances at the Library!" Roll dice to find out your reading categories, earn points, and reach the challenge goal by completing ten books in eight weeks. The circulation desk area is decked out in dice, and full of patrons finding out about the weekly prize drawings and one Grand Prize. You'll find room to be helped, even when the children's area is crowded with its own prize winners and craft makers. This is a great kind of cool community summer school, and you're very welcome there.

Regarding new fiction on the shelves, Phillip Margolin's "Supreme Justice" offers suspense; a woman on death row in Oregon has appealed her case just as a Supreme Court justice is attacked. One of three, newly requested novels is Australian author Pamela Freeman's "The Castings", a fantasy trilogy in one volume about what's right and what's wrong including lessons on how to live a good and decent life. Strong female characters and a story told through multiple points of view center around how one group dominates another group. "Skating around the Law" by Joelle Charbonneau is a look at a small town murder investigation that's laugh-out-loud funny. "Heart of Lies" by Jill Landis takes us to New Orleans where a girl who grew up in a tribe of street urchins moves to the bayou where she's forced to hide a kidnapped child.

New manuals about high tech objects begin with "Five-Star APPS" by Glenn Fleishman, promoting the best iPhone and iPad apps for work and play. "Facebook the Missing Manual" (that should have come with the site) has materials collected by Emily Vander Veer. "The Cellphone" contains Guy Klemens' "history and technology of the gadget that changed the world". "Cloud Computing Bible" is designed by Barrie Sosinsky for those who know about basic computer operations and theory and tells what cloud computing is and why you should be interested in it, then proceeds to "Using Platforms", "Exploring Cloud Infrastructures", and "Understanding Services and Applications."

More books about food appear all the time. This time "Blood, Bones & Butter" is Gabrielle Hamilton's "inadvertent education of a reluctant chef", during twenty years leading up to opening her New York restaurant "Prune". ”Rustic Fruit Desserts" (crumbles, buckles, cobblers, pandowdies, and more) by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson also feature slumps, grunts, dumplings, and fools. "Ethan Stowell's New Italian Kitchen" is another great adventure in soups, polenta, and risotto, made with unusual and appealing ingredients.

Serious stuff might be "She-Wolves" Helen Castor's research about the women who ruled England before Elizabeth I. "The Fires of Vesuvius" about Pompeii lost and found is presented by Mary Beard as the puzzling, intriguing, violent element from the sixth century BC to the present day. "An Exclusive Love" is a memoir by Johanna Adorjan about her grandparents, Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust, fled Budapest in 1956 to Denmark and later to Copenhagen where they took their own lives in 1991, a fascinating couple honored in print. Last on this list of four is Andrew McCarthy's "The Grand Jihad" in his view of "how Islam and the Left sabotage America".

"Betting the Earth: How We Can Still Win the Biggest Gamble of All Time" by John Kunich talks about our views pro and con, the term "global warming", and how we can draw rational, evidence-based conclusions about it. NBC's The Biggest Loser trainer Bob Harper's "Are You Ready!" is another compelling title about taking charge, losing weight, getting in shape and changing our lives. A nostalgic look back is Beckey Burgoyne's look at "Perfectly Amanda: Gunsmoke's Miss Kitty: To Dodge and Beyond" including photographs of Amanda Blake's other interests in her particular causes.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-06-02T19:58:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Crawfordsville Library's Summer Program Has Begun - It's time to sign up for this year's summer reading program at the Crawfordsville Library. The theme is "America Reading Coast to Coast" designed with age-specific goals for toddlers through high school aged patrons. Come in any time to register. In the elementary program you'll read for a certain length of time in each State. Delaware requires five minutes, while Pennsylvania requires fifteen minutes of good reading. The states are listed in the order they joined the Union, so you'll be almost done when you "reach" Alaska and Hawaii.

Lots of new library books are addressed to the individual reader. "You Are What You Speak" by Robert Greene traces the role that "language beliefs" play to identify us; there's the French Academy with its own standards, the Zionist revival of Hebrew, and our present-day efforts to provide education in foreign languages essential to business, diplomacy, and yes, intelligence organizations. The author wants us to put effort into our ways of communicating. Paul Bergman's "Represent Yourself in Court" tells how to prepare and try a winning case.

Learning to be creative is Ken Robinson's goal in "Out of our Minds" and he offers a groundbreaking approach to leadership, teaching, and professional development especially in Big Picture programs in schools. In "The Same Thing Over and Over" Frederick Hess comments on school reformers who get stuck in yesterday's ideas, and he urges us to create a much wider variety of schools to meet a greater range of needs for different kinds of talents, a developed challenge in our more complex and demanding society. There's a book about the CIA and the world of arts and letters called "The Cultural Cold War" in which Frances Saunders exposes the campaign where exponents of intellectual freedom became instruments of the American government.

"Curation Nation" is Steven Rosenbaum's title discussing why the future of content is context and how consumers can be creators by zeroing in on information that's specifically helpful amongst the enormous amount of data in this technical world. John Ortberg's "The Me I Want to Be" has a spiritual base for each of us including chapters on "finding my identity", "flowing with the spirit", "renewing my mind", and "transforming my experience."

"Miami Beach Deco" by Steven Brooke displays buildings protected by an Art Deco District which has enabled restoration of 1930s architecture, now a magnet for world-wide artists, designers, and travelers.

Requested novels begin with "Snowdrops" by Andrew Miller, a psychological drama about the irresistible allure of sin: a British lawyer working in Moscow doesn't ask questions about the shady deals he works on; the sordid portrayal of that city features characters whose hearts are as icy as the Russian winter. "Loom" by Therese Chehade introduces a newly resident Lebanese family trying to Americanize itself while drawn to a neighbor who exhibits his own isolation and loneliness. "The Accountant's Guide to the Universe" by Craig Hovey subtitled "Heaven and Hell by the Numbers" is a guided tour through the world of finance as a "quirky morality tale." "Minding Frankie" by Maeve Binchy tells of a motherless girl collectively raised by a closely-knit Dublin community. "The Adults" by Alison Espach shows an intelligent high school student exposed to the world of grown-ups who perform contemporary acts not based in highly moral principles.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-05-26T16:25:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Books to Consider for Memorial Day Reading - Happy Memorial Day, Indiana. Two new books at the Crawfordsville Library discuss current United States challenges. In "American Empire before the Fall" Bruce Fein cites our birth as a Republic, how it has changed, and how it can be regained. "The Rights of the People" by David Shippler discusses how our search for safety invades our liberties. "The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It" by Angelo Codevilla introduces bipartisan political elites he says run America, thinking they know what's best for the rest of us; he praises the newfound popularity of quoting the Constitution and new activities by political parties asserting self-rule and the freedoms so hard-sought in America's founding. Jeffrey Gitomer's "Little Book of Leadership" offers "the 12.5 strengths of responsible, reliable, remarkable leaders that create results, rewards, and resilience, a compact manual practical for any reader."

"Making Jack Falcone" is Joaquin Garcia's story as one of few FBI agents dedicated solely to undercover work. He used a series of aliases to shadow the world of La Cosa Nostra. "A Rope and A Prayer" by David Rohde is based on his New York Times series "Held by the Taliban." In November 2008 he and two others traveled to meet a Taliban commander outside Kabul; the interview was a trap, and kidnapped by militants they were taken deep into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where for seven months they saw many strongholds as the abductors avoided American drone attacks. The memoir describes many sides of our involvement in Afghanistan.

The novel "Chasing Fire" by Nora Roberts delves into the world of the Missoula smoke jumpers, elite firefighters who thrive on danger and wouldn't know how to live life if it weren't on the edge. Kurt Vonnegut's "While Mortals Sleep" is previously unpublished short fiction recalling the unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars, and characters with dreams and fears of the indifferent world. "The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg" is a work lauded by The MacArthur Foundation for her "exquisitely distilled stories, a distinctive portrait of contemporary American life." "A Field Guide to the North American Family" is an "illustrated fiction" from Garth Hallberg that actually looks and reads like a field guide, creative and intriguing. Alan Orloff's "Killer Routine" offers us a comedian who survived a tragic auto accident that claimed the life of his fiancee, and who subsequently must help her sister who is threatened by death. "When Tito Loved Clara" by Jon Michaud shows a Dominican Republic native raised in grim circumstances in Manhattan who must get along with relatives who don't understand her assimilation.

How about some new meal ideas! "Wood-Fired Cooking" by Mary Karlin shows techniques and recipes for the grill, backyard oven, fireplace, and campfire. Celerie Kemble's "To Your Taste" is about creating modern rooms with a traditional twist. This book is enhanced by lovely photographs. "The Art of Gift Wrapping" is Wanda Wen's well-photographed, unusual ideas that can spur us on.

Rick Steves' "France 2011" with its foldout color map will entertain any armchair traveler as well as any of us with a ticket. "Cruises & Ports of Call" from U. S. and Canadian home ports to the Caribbean, Alaska, Hawaii and more are covered in Frommer's new guidebook. The "Berlitz Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships 2011" by Douglas Ward is also available.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-05-19T18:58:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Speaking as we do this month of the Indianapolis 500, a new book at the Crawfordsville Library tells exactly what's going on; with a preface by Helio Castroneves and a forward by David Letterman, "Indianapolis 500: A Century of Excitement" by Ralph Kramer "captures the thrill of the race…in unparalleled beauty." With a chapter devoted to each of its decades, from the birth of the brickyard to the fate of the winning cars, this book is a pleasure to pursue.

"The Clockwork Universe" by Edward Dolnick tells about the band of men, including Isaac Newton, who saw a world of perfect order, intricate and regulated, and who actually invented science, revamping our understanding of the world. Philosopher Anthony Appiah's "Honor Code" tells how societies can repudiate immoral customs they have accepted by harnessing the ancient power of honor from within. "The Innovator's Way" gives Peter Denning's 8 essential practices for successful innovation, sensing, envisioning, offering, adopting, sustaining, executing, leading, and embodying. "What Good is God?" is Philip Yancey's search. He shares his thoughts after ten experiences around the world, finding faith makes a difference even when belief is severely tested.

"Network Nation" is Richard John's explanation of the first electrical communications
networks in the decades between the Civil War and the First World War when Western Union and the Bell System emerged as the dominant providers for the telegraph and telephones. The invisible alliance that undermines America's interests in the Middle East is explained in "The Arab Lobby" by Mitchell Bard, authority on U.S. Israel relations. How Brad Stevens and the Butler Bulldogs marched their way to the brink of college basketball's national championship is the subject of David Woods' "Underdawgs"; it's a David versus Goliath tale, though losing to Duke, the Bulldogs proved they belonged in the game and won the respect of people who were not even sports fans.

A book designed to make us all kind of jealous is "The 100 Thing Challenge" because Dave Bruno got rid of almost everything he owned, remade his life, and regained his soul. "365 Ways to Live Cheap!" by Trent Hamm, founder of thesimpledollar.com, shares his ten biggest tips for living cheap, which include taking little steps, not big ones, recording every penny you spend for a month, and calculating how much money you really make.

"A Murder of Crows" by P.F. Chisholm is a Sir Robert Carey story of the year 1592 when the son of Mary Boleyn and Henry VIII desires the solution to the identity of a badly decomposed corpse that's washed up from the Thames River. Next, the world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, and mentally unstable characters in Boston, fill "Moonlight Mile" by Dennis Lehane. "Hypothermia" a Nordic crime fiction by Arnaldur Indridason features an inspector's unsolved case of two young people who went missing years ago under circumstances tied to his past. Dawn Shiller's "The Road through Wonderland" is the true tale of an infamous public figure and a young girl's struggle to survive unthinkable abuse. Annie Proulx' memoir "Bird Cloud" describes building her home on 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands near the North Platte River.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-05-14T15:07:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The May Book Sale is Saturday - Saturday, May 14 is the date for another Friends of the Library book sale on the Crawfordsville Library's lower level. It opens at 9 a.m. with all kinds of books available for the price of a donation. Just going through the shelves can be a great adventure.

A new short book on human action, free markets, and political economy donated to the Crawfordsville Library by the Liberty Fund is the economic analysis "Interventionism" by Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Another study is "The Planet in a Pebble" a journey into earth's deep history by Jan Zalasiewicz, with "grand stories that reach back to long dead stars, into the depths of the Earth, to vanished continents, and quiet ocean beds above which strange creatures swam. There is much history there, if you know how to unlock it." From a much later period is "Defending Constantine" telling about the twilight of an empire and the dawn of Christendom, composed by Peter Leithart.

In our present world, "Cultures of War" by John Dower includes a comparison between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, and he includes Hiroshima and the invasion of Iraq in his "four powerful events". "God and Globalization Volume 4" by Max Stackhouse, is the study of today's religions. "Black Mass" by John Gray studies "apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia". Roger Pearman's title is "I'm Not Crazy I'm Just Not You" with "secrets to how we can be so alike when we're so different: the real meaning of the sixteen personality types". "Workarounds that Work" or "How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work" is designed by Russell Bishop to lead to the simplifying of jobs. "First the Broccoli Then the Ice Cream" is a parent's guide to "deliberate discipline" by Tim Riley. "Get a Life, Not a Job" with the subtitle "Do What You Love and Let Your Talents Work for You" comes from Paula Caligiuri.

"The Tenth Parallel" by Eliza Griswold includes "dispatches from the fault line between Christianity and Islam". She notes that more than half the world's Muslims live along the tenth parallel as do 60 percent of Christians, where their encounter is shaping the future of each faith and of whole societies as well.

Four political books have come at once. "How Obama's Gender Policies Undermine America" by Diana Furchtgott-Roth; "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America" by John Avlon; "Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century" by Paul Kengor; and "Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right has Poisoned America's Airwaves" by Bill Press; all state their standpoints.

There's "The History of Photography" from 1839 to the present by Beaumont Newhall, and "Office 2010, the Missing Manual (the book that should have been in the box)" by Nancy Conner, and "2011 Poet's Market" of which Robert Brewer is the editor.

The autobiography of a former Planned Parenthood leader Abby Johnson is "UnPlanned". Bob Taylor tells about his life journey turning passion into business in "Guitar Lessons". Amy Chua's now famous story about how Chinese parents raise smart student-children is "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother".

"Between War and Peace: How America Ends Its Wars" contains 15 writings from the Revolution to the first Gulf War, and leading historians comment on the ramifications of the wars' ends for the nation's future; the editor is Matthew Moten, Professor of History at West Point.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-05-07T11:36:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Library Welcomes New Mothers - Mothers of newborns are invited to sign the Crawfordsville Library's Baby Registration Book. Each new mother will be the recipient of a lovely gift and the new leaflet of library services designed for mothers of infants; besides that, older siblings will receive "big sister" or "big brother" badges.

Marshall McLuhan, the celebrated social theorist who defined the culture of the 1960's, is remembered for "The medium is the message". In Douglas Coupland's "Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work" McLuhan predicted the end of print culture and the rise of "electronic inter-dependence", the approaching reality of our time.

"J. D. Salinger" the man who eluded fans and journalists during much of his lifetime (which was most of the entire twentieth century) was a privileged youth; the new biography by Kenneth Slawenski praises his heroism after being drafted in World War II when he was involved in the heaviest European fighting. His triumphant "The Catcher in the Rye", expressed his lifelong commitment to Eastern religion.

On Wednesday, April 7, 1926, a woman stepped out of the crowd in Rome and in front of her stood Benito Mussolini. As he raised his arm to give the Fascist salute, the woman raised hers and shot him at point-blank range. He survived, and the book "The Woman Who Shot Mussolini" is about the shooter, Violet Gibson, (profiled by Frances Saunders), who grasped the moral atmosphere of her world and sought to forestall catastrophe with her deed.

In "Radical" Saul Alinsky is studied by Nicholas Hoffman as the American Machiavelli, who is to community-organizing what Freud is to psychoanalysis. He made a career of arming the powerless and enraging the powerful. Vikram Akula's "A Fistful of Rice" tells about himself and "my unexpected quest to end poverty through profitability." He explains his view of how traditional business principles can help solve one of the world's biggest societal problems.

In "Sonia Sotomayor" Antonia Felix profiles her as the True American Dream. The Puerto Rican girl from the South Bronx became one of the greatest legal minds in the country and America's first Hispanic Supreme Court justice. Andrew Young's "Walk in My Shoes" is his conversations as a Civil Rights legend with his godson Kabir Sehgal about the Journey Ahead.

"Autobiography of Mark Twain", edited by Harriet Smith, Volume 1 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain's death and shows his authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave as he intended, "to talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment". In "Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses" by Claire Dederer who achieved hard yoga positions that pushed her toward a life that was less tidy, she discovered that what she needed most of all was less goodness and more joy. Goodness was what she'd tried for as a daughter of mothers in the '70s who ran away to find themselves.

"Sweet Sister Moon" by Norbert Krapf, Indiana Poet Laureate, expresses the feminine spirit in the natural world, in history and in memory, in poems that encompass that spirit. Philip Gulley's "If the Church Were Christian" is about rediscovering the values of Jesus. "Fed Up!" is Governor of Texas Rick Perry's fight to save America from Washington (and economic collapse). A kind of biography-history is the Peace Corp's story of its first fifty years "When the World Calls" by Stanley Meisler.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-05-07T10:29:00.010-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

If You Like Books, Try These! - Here is a group of miscellaneous new books with rather intriguing titles, first "Burying the Dead but Not the Past: Ladies' Memorial Associations and the Lost Cause". Author Caroline Janney writes about how white, southern women formed the LMAs to retrieve and rebury Confederate soldiers scattered throughout the region immediately following the Civil War. These women relocated and re-interred the remains of 72,000 soldiers, nearly 28 percent of the 260,000 lost in the war. They prepared elaborate burials and held Memorial Days even as the region was still occupied by northern soldiers. The result was to craft a sympathetic Confederate position that northerners and in some cases southern African Americans could find palatable.

Second on the list, Allan Metcalf's "OK" is "the improbable story of America's greatest word, said to be the most frequently spoken or typed word on the planet". Metcalf describes how OK was born in a 1839 newspaper article as a humorous abbreviation for "oll korrect" (all correct), used through "Okey-Dokey" of the '20s through "I'm OK You're OK" of the 1970s and the absurd "Okeley Dokeley" on The Simpsons. "The Battery" is Henry Schlesinger's first popular history of the technology that harnessed electricity and powered the greatest scientific and technological advances of our time. He says, "As an author, I'd like to believe this is the first book in which Wolfman Jack, Michael Faraday, Lord Byron, and the band Metallica appear between the same covers."

"Cathedrals of Science" is Patrick Coffey's study of the personalities and rivalries that made modern chemistry. He notes that early scientists were the first to be seen by their countries as military assets, for poison gas in World War I, and the Manhattan Project in World War II. Anti-Semitism was also a force in American chemistry, after the Nazis pushed Jewish scientists from their posts in the 1930s. There was sexism: Linus Pauling seeing that his rival Dorothy Wrinch's funding was blocked. The author chooses 13 chemists who built modern chemistry.

"Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life" where Karen Armstrong uses teachings of the great world religions, notes Love Your Enemies as the final step. Sarah Palin's "America by Heart" contains her reflections on family, faith, and the flag, inspired by encounters with ordinary men and women as she has traveled throughout the country. She also includes brief readings from classic and contemporary texts that have inspired her, as well as portraits of Americans whom she admires.

"Neoconservatism" by Justin Vaisse, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, finds three distinct stages: the New York intellectuals who reacted against the 1960 leftists; the Scoop Jackson Democrats who tried to preserve a mix of hawkish anticommunism abroad and social progress at home, and the Neocons of the 1990s and 2000s who are no longer either liberals or Democrats. It's the biography of a movement. Lucinda Bassett offers "the Solution" for each of us to conquer fear and control our future, a 21-day emotional makeover she has presented to major corporations, professional associations, and educational institutions, on radio and television programs, and in high-profile publications.

A large book "The Making of the Empire Strikes Back" is the 30th anniversary tribute to the blockbuster film Star Wars, Episode 5, presented as an all-inclusive anthology by J. W. Rinzler with a forward by Ridley Scott.

Upstairs/ Downstairs April, 2011

2011-04-23T15:09:00.002-04:00

This is a listing of the books that have moved Upstairs from the Downstairs 7-day shelf and can now be checked out for 28 days.

As of April 23, 2011 you can find the following new books in the Adult Fiction section of the library.

Simply Perfect by Mary Balogh
The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg
The Secret Wedding by Jo Beverly
61 Hours: A Reacher Novel by Lee Child
Thicker Than Blood by C. J. Darlington
The Walk by Richard Paul Evans

The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner
Without Mercy by Lisa Jackson
Urgent Care by CJ Lyons
Hannah's List by Debbie Macomber
Dream of Me by Fern Michaels
Return to Sender by Fern Michaels
A Creed Country Christmas by Linda Lael Miller

More Than Words: Stories of Hope by Diana Palmer
The Best is Yet to Come by Diana Palmer
More Than Words by Diana Palmer
Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker
The 9th Judgement by James Patterson
The Long Way Home by Robin Pilcher
Burning Lamp by Amanda Quick
The Perfect Poison by Amanda Quick

The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Down to the Wire by David Rosenfelt
Rough Country by John Sandford
Storm Prey by John Sandford
Fields of Grace by Kim Vogel Sawyer
A Promise for Spring by Kim Vogel Sawyer
Kitty Hitter: A Frank Pavlicek Novel by Andy Straka
Snow Angels by James Thompson
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
The Unfinished Gift by Dan Walsh
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner
Hush by Kate White
The Summer Hideaway by Susan Wiggs
The Bad Kitty Lounge by Michael Wiley
Home in Carolina by Sherryl Woods
Kisser by Stuart Woods
The Hole We're In by Gabrielle Zevin

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-04-19T19:40:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Join Deweys Do Discussing Native American History on May 2nd - The Deweys Do Book Club at the Crawfordsville District Public Library is reading Indiana native Jessamyn West's "The Massacre at Fall Creek", her compelling historical novel realistically expanding sparse facts about the 1824 trial of white men who murdered peaceful Native American Indians on the Indiana frontier. The landmark case was the first where whites were sentenced to death for killing Native Americans. Patrons are invited to borrow the book and join the discussion Monday, May 2nd at 6:30 p.m.

"Contending with Christianity's Critics" is a set of essays in which Christian scholars answer difficult contemporary questions often faced by believers; the editor is Paul Copan. Candace Cameron-Bure, actress in the TV series Full House, is a practicing Christian and "Reshaping It All" is her motivational tool for better physical and spiritual fitness, with a biblical perspective on appetite and self-control. "The Soul Hypothesis" edited by Mark Baker offers eight investigations into the existence of the soul, contending that there is an aspect of the nature of human beings that is not reducible to the matter that makes up our bodies. Robert Nelson's "The New Holy Wars" tells about economic religion versus environmental religion in contemporary America. Darren Dochuk offers "From Bible Belt to Sun Belt" discussing plain-folk religion, grassroots politics, and the rise of evangelical conservatism.

John Armstrong's "In Search of Civilization" tells how culture lies within us and how its nourishment is essential to a flourishing society, achieved by balancing material prosperity with spiritual prosperity. "A Temporary Sort of Peace" by Jim McGarrah is a memoir of his peacetime life in Indiana, and his introduction to the life of a combat soldier in Vietnam, trying to win the hearts and minds of the natives as part of a small Marine Combat Action Group. After dealing with his war memories back home he returned to the war zone and held a peace ceremony with a Vietnamese poet. "Hoosier Justice at Nuremberg" by Suzanne Bellamy profiles the lives and experiences of Frank Richman and Curtis Shake, judges at the famous Trials.

"Wheels of Change: From Zero to 600 m.p.h.: the Amazing Story of California and the Automobile" by Kevin Nelson shows California's car culture, fueled by the Hollywood dream machine and youth. The book centers on personalities who have shaped that story, including engineering wizards and designers, gearheads, race car drivers, and even rebels without a cause.

The novel "In a Heartbeat" by Rosalind Noonan depicts a parent awakened by a call that her son was attacked in his sleep, and the parent analyzes all the son's connections to find his attacker. "Willow" by Linda Miller tells of 1883’s railroads in the Montana Territory and the outlaws lurking in the hills. Kristan Higgins' "All I Ever Wanted" is a domestic tale in Georgebury, Vermont, about one thirty-year-old hoping for a proposal. In Debbie Macomber's "Thursdays at Eight" four women meet every week for breakfast and share their lives, written so we wish we were there too.

"Modern Top-Down Knitting" by Kristina McGowan uses the needlework techniques of Barbara Walker for fitted short dresses, skirts, and hats. "The A to Z of Old-Time Radio" lists titles and personnel involved; a treasure trove for those of us who remember listening to serials, variety shows, and reports of events while we worked, or for family pleasure.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-04-14T19:43:00.006-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Crawfordsville Library continues to receive much appreciated literary donations for its collection. Isobel Arvin, President of the Library Board has donated "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt". This large book presents the local culture and design concepts including photographs of work from the African American community in Alabama that was exhibited at 12 major museums in 2002, sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In memory of JoAnn Zach, the Antique Study Club has contributed Monica and Patricia Clements' catalog "Cobalt Blue Glass" a Schiffer Book for Collectors explaining its historic background, and picturing the wide variety of objects made from this favorite ore.

Denis Dutton's "The Art Instinct" unites two disciplines, art and evolutionary science (or instinct), extending the arts to music to literature to pottery, saying our love of beauty is inborn and individual, defying cultural limits. "Portraits of the Mind" by Carl Schoonover shows pictures of the brain, and he says the "fleshy brain is more than enough, that it contains the multitudes and machinery necessary to explain the wonder of our existence." "The Human Brain Book" is more of a textbook by Rita Carter, to show its structure, function, and disorders.

"One Hundred Portraits" engraved by Barry Moser makes us study carefully the faces he chooses to present. His 1999 edition of the King James Bible and his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland are other examples of his heralded work. Mariam Rosser-Owen has issued "Islamic Arts from Spain" full of intricate photographs from the Victoria and Albert Museum, proving the long-lasting influence of Islamic Spain on world-wide decorative arts in buildings and objects. Another kind of delight is "Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece" by Gail Callahan in chapters "Fibers to Dye For", "No-Fear Dyeing", "Your Dye Studio", and "Show-Off Patterns".

Next, come patrons' requests, Susan Phillips' novel "Call Me Irresistible" uses her characters from former books in a romantic, funny, poignant new plot. James Patterson's "Tick Tock" lures us with "NYC's #1 detective…has a huge problem - the Son of Sam, the Werewolf of Wisteria, and the Mad Bomber are all back. The city has never been more terrified!" Tami Hoag's "Secrets to the Grave" says of a murder victim, "…had a past full of secrets, a present full of lies. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her." "Fatal Error" by Judith Jance shows an overburdened young woman with an early shift at her family's restaurant, days studying at the Arizona Police Academy, and an old friend's sudden presence asking for help.

Piers Anthony's (differently-spelled) "Knot Gneiss" must also be introduced with the quote, "Wenda Woodwife expected to live Happily Ever After once a magical spell turned her carved wooden body into lovely human form and won her the heart of the dashing Prince Charming." "Love, Honor, and Betray" by Kimberla Roby lures us with "The Reverend Curtis Black's wife Charlotte, is angry. Her life has been turned upside down and someone has to pay." "How to Bake a Perfect Life" by Barbara O'Neal explores the complex relationships between mothers and daughters.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-04-06T17:03:00.007-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New Reading That Entertains and Also Informs - Diverse and profitable nonfiction is the latest reading requested by patrons at the Crawfordsville District Public Library. First, Steve and Annette Economides' "Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half with America's Cheapest Family" asks, "What could the average family do with an extra $3,000 a year?" The book shows strategies, tips, tools, and tricks for this "extra income". Next, Louis Eguaras offers "101 Things I learned in Culinary School", which hits the nail on the head for intelligent cooking; instead of recipes it explains techniques for good work. "Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking our Two-Party System" by Scott Rasmussen and Douglas Schoen describes it as a classic populist uprising, and they explore it as a broad-based grassroots movement with legitimate issues. Damon Vickers' "The Day after the Dollar Crashes" is a survival guide for the rise of the new world order". He says, "Huge changes are coming" and he offers information to adapt to and flourish during and after this transformation. The final request this week is "Classic Car Electrics" by Martin Thaddeus, a manual of restoration and maintenance procedures.

"Forgotten Tales of Indiana" by Keven McQueen includes an extensive bibliography to authenticate the stories he tells of grave robbers, haunted houses, and buried treasure. A documentary by Janet Edwards is "Diana of the Dunes" about Alice Gray who traded her days in Chicago for a solitary life in the hills of northwest Indiana along Lake Michigan. She later explained her diary of 1915-1918 when she was featured speaker and exponent of protecting the dunes from development. "Messenger" by Jennifer Stepanek is a life story that illustrates the power of practicing peace that becomes a habit attained simply by giving it to others.

"In the Presence of History" is Steven and Jonas Raab's authoritative guide to historical autographs for collectors, history enthusiasts, and investors. "Genealogy Online" by Elizabeth Crowe reviews genealogy websites, covers the latest Web 2.0 tools, and explains details of the redesigned FamilySearch site.

"33 1/3" is a series of music album essays from the Continuum Publishing Group. One title is "AC/DC's Highway to Hell" by Joe Bonomo celebrating the album about teenage fandom that makes "disaster sound like the best fun in the world". "OK Computer" by Dai Griffiths describes Radiohead’s 1997 album, its chord changes and analyzes each of the album’s songs. "In Utero" by Gillian Gaar explores Nirvana’s last album, its meanings of the phrase, and how the lyrics express a cry for help. "Highway 61 Revisited" by Mark Polizzotti defines the career of Bob Dylan and the timeless qualities that make his songs so effective.

Bruce Machart's novel "The Wake of Forgiveness" connects a son to the mother he's never seen and shows how he finally handles that loss. Unusual and compelling fiction is David Levithan's "The Lover's Dictionary" handled as a series of word definitions defined in the first and second person, "I" and "you" with a plot and a final question. Gish Jen's "World and Town" is a big novel set in a small New England town, describing the main character as "the spirited offspring of a descendant of Confucius and an American missionary to China".

An attractive new craft guide is "Making Handmade Books" and Alisa Golden shows 100+ bindings, structures & forms for clever products. I suppose each of us should sometime make one handmade book.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-04-02T16:27:00.008-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Library Summer Reading Plans Already Underway - The Youth Department at the Crawfordsville Library is gearing up for the Children’s and Young Adult Summer Reading Programs which will begin May 31st. The theme this year is "America: Reading Coast to Coast".

"Atlas of American History" by Gary Nash helps to explain our country's development by showing places beginning with Native American reservations. Subtitled "The Odyssey of an American Warrior", "Without Hesitation" is General (Ret.) Hugh Shelton's memoir about serving in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf War, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and during the 9/11 crisis.

"God's Generals" offers Roberts Liardon's biographies of John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Dwight Moody, Billy Graham and other great revivalists. Dr. Henry Cloud's "The Law of Happiness" tells how the combination of spiritual wisdom and modern science can change your life. "The Second Book of the Tao" by Stephen Mitchell is a 21st century form of ancient wisdom, a sequel to Lao-tzu's "Book of the Way" which renders the old book modern, relevant, and timeless; the left hand pages are adaptations of old works, while the right sides offer commentaries for today's meaningful life. "The Word Exchange" edited by Greg Delanty offers Anglo-Saxon writing, bringing to life the best poems from the Old English canon, translated by contemporary poets. "The Comeback" is Gary Shapiro's treatise about how the American Dream will be restored if we use innovation in our work. "Bourgeois Dignity" by Deirdre McCloskey explains the big economic story of the past 400 years, and the power of what people said about markets in Holland, then England, and then the world.

"The Book of Shells", 637 pages by M.G. Harasewych, contains full-color, life-size living specimen photos, maps of their locations, and specific descriptions. "The Sunset Cookbook" with 700 + pages, offers 1,000 fresh recipes designed for today's kitchen facilities. "Keeping Watch" by Kathryn Sletto is the story of a woman who leaves her day job and becomes a full-time shepherdess, raising a wild mix of animals with equally wild personalities. "Chinaberry Sidewalks" by musician and songwriter Rodney Crowell, recreates his Houston boyhood in the fifties, a rough frontier town with icehouses and lots of adolescent angst; he adds a tribute to his parents. "Peace in the Present Moment" combines quotations from Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie with photographs by Michele Penn and descriptive words by Stephen Mitchell. "We Have Met the Enemy" by Daniel Akst advocates the beauty of self-control in this age of excess.

Mathias Enard's "Zone" is a 517-page "one sentence" novel in which one night he dreams he is a soldier in the Balkan Wars, whose violent history he is actually selling to a representative from the Vatican so he can expiate his sins. Stuart Woods' "Strategic Moves" is a Stone Barrington law novel about the richest of New York City clients and an impending scandal. By contrast, "The Still Point" by Amy Sackville portrays the era of 1900 when an Arctic explorer sets out to reach the North Pole, then vanishes, leaving a young wife who awaits his return for decades. Then, a hundred years later his great-grand-niece makes a discovery that alters her image of the past, so the book covers past, present, and future interpretations. "The Elephant's Journey" by Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago is the tale of the animal, his keeper, and their journey through 16th century Europe. It's based on a true story.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-03-26T15:23:00.011-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Youth Department Offers Services for the Youngest Patrons - The new flyer at the Crawfordsville District Public Library, "Youth Services Department Welcomes You and Your Baby" lists special programs, the story time calendar for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, Wiggle and Giggle hours with music and movement for ages eighteen months and up, and annual events for young children. While some events require registration, other programs are drop-in with no registration required. Please feel free to call the Youth Services Department at 362-2242 ext. 115 for programming attendance details.

A. S. Byatt's "The Children's Book" begins when an author's son invites to his home a runaway boy who's sketching pictures in the basement of a museum; the setting is Europe prior to World War I. Anne Rice's "Of Love and Evil" is a haunting thriller of angels and assassins involved in dark worlds of times past. Entertainer Steve Martin's story "An Object of Beauty" is a narrator-told story about "the woman he's been unable to let go of for years"; 22 colored art reproductions are included in the book because the story studies the business of fine art collecting and the personalities that make it run.

Glenn Beck's "The Overton Window" is a thriller about an object that can shape our present and our future by manipulating public perception, so radical thoughts become acceptable; part of the plot is an unprecedented attack on U.S. soil. "Rescue" by Anita Shreve begins when a rookie paramedic pulls a young woman from her wrecked car. Two Patchwork Mysteries are Jo Ann Brown's "Time to Share" about a quilt that symbolizes the panoramic view from Mount Greylock, and Kristin Eckhardt's "Family Patterns" taking place in 1920.

"A Beginner's Guide to Acting English" is a set of observations by standup comedian Shappi Khorsandi, after she and her brother have been "shipped" to a new country and become Iranians in England. "Half the Sky" by journalist Nicholas Kristof describes what certain girls have done to help women's causes around the world; their final chapter, "Four Steps You Can Take in the Next Ten Minutes" proposes sensible ways to progress in this field step by step. Jay Bakker's "Fall to Grace" explains his own fall after his parents' devastation, his subsequent renewal, and his devotion to his ministry.

President George W. Bush has written "Decision Points" describing the critical thinking that shaped his presidency and personal life. Karl Rove's "Courage and Consequence" is ultimately about the joy of a life committed to the conservative cause, a life spent in political combat and service to country, no matter the costs. King Abdullah II of Jordan offers "Our Last Best Chance" about the pursuit of peace in a time of peril. He sees the window for peace between Israel and the Palestinians closing and pleads for tough decisions to end hostilities.

"Reality is Broken" is Jane McGonigal's research into why playing games makes us better and how the hobby can change the world. She sees game designers like herself hitting on core truths about what makes us happy and using these discoveries to astonishing effect in virtual environments. She says the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Ted Fishman's "Shock of Gray" identifies the aging of populations pitting young against old, child against parent, worker against boss, company against rival, and nation against nation; human relationships are altered when the few support the many, when some of the aged are very healthy and some are dependent. Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America offers "A Chance to Make History" about what works and what doesn't work in providing an excellent education for all.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-03-16T18:51:00.009-04:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The collection "Inside Looking Out" has been donated to the Crawfordsville Library by the Antique Study Club in memory of member Ginny Yount, who dedicated 62 short poems written between 1972 and 2000 to her family and friends. In Ginny's honor the Club also gave the library "All God's Creatures Go to Heaven", an original short story by Amy Nolfo-Wheeler illustrated by original paintings of Nancy Noel. Ginny dedicated lots of time and effort to share her art and poetry.

"A Great Unrecorded History" by Wendy Moffat is a review of the life of E.M. Forster, author of "Howard's End", "A Room with a View", and "A Passage to India".
Richard Lederer's "A Treasury for Dog Lovers" holds information, games, and stories like "Why Dogs are better than Cats" and "Ten Commandments for Dog Owners". "The Mind's Eye" by Oliver Sacks tells amazing stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others, despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities. For all of these people the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world.

"Losing Mum and Pup" is Christopher Buckley's memoir of his larger-than-life parents, author and commentator William F. Buckley and charity fundraiser Patricia Taylor Buckley. David Beckmann's "Exodus from Hunger" says we're called to change the politics of those who are starving. His Bread for the World organization is helping to lead the way towards providing food everywhere.

"Weaving Made Easy" by Liz Gipson holds basic instructions, offering 17 beginning projects. Scott Plumlee's "Chain and Bead Jewelry Creative Connections" offers new techniques for wire-wrapping and bead-setting.

In "The Investment Answer" Daniel Goldie teaches managing money to protect your financial future. (Legal)"Contracts" is a Nolo Essential Business Desk Reference by Richard Stim. "Nolo's Encyclopedia of Everyday Law" answers most general and frequently asked legal questions. The West Nutshell Series booklet called "Federal Disability Law in a Nutshell" comes from Ruth Colker.

Here are books requested by patrons. Linda Porter's "Katherine the Queen" is about the remarkable life of Katherine Parr, last wife of Henry VIII, also showing the terrifying and exciting world of the Tudor courts. Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken" is the unusual World War II story of Lt. Louis Zamperini, whose Army Air Force bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 1943, where he survived on a tiny raft drifting aimlessly. "The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood" by Jane Leavy draws on 500 interviews with friends, family, teammates, and opponents for the true story of a "luminous and illustrious talent with an achingly damaged soul." Host of national television and radio shows Glenn Beck's "Broke: The Plan to Restore our Trust, Truth and Treasure" offers his theory how through a return to individual rights, adherence to the Constitution, and a rethinking about the role of government in a free society, we can build a restoration that is the only way forward.

"Why Our Health Matters" is Andrew Weil's vision of medicine that can transform our future, stop making corporations rich, stop making our society poor, and start each of us on the road to optimum health. "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It" by Gary Taubes is a new health challenge guide. "Native Trees of the Midwest" is an easy guide to the many varieties of oaks and other trees by Sally Weeks.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-03-10T18:51:00.008-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

About Returning Borrowed Books and Giving Donations - The Crawfordsville District Public Library appreciates patrons' contributions of reading materials. Donated books, tapes, and/or videos can be brought to the Circulation Desk inside the doorway, where the staff will accept them gratefully. They will be used in the library collection if they are needed, or placed on the Friends of the Library's cart for monthly, Second Saturday sales down on the lower level. Donations from these sales sponsor special library events, especially the children's summer reading programs. This is an amazing kind of recycling.

Borrowed books and materials should be returned on time in the driveway's outside book deposit slot, the outside wall slot by the building's entrance, or the slot at the circulation desk. This assures fine-free borrowing.

New reading is offered weekly. The ghost story "What the Night Knows" by Dean Koontz begins with the story of a murderer of four families who was killed by the last survivor of the fourth family, a boy of 14. Two decades later and half a continent away another criminal is murdering families, and a detective is certain his own family members will be targets as when he was fourteen and killed their slayer. Mary Jane Clark's "To Have and To Kill" is a Wedding Cake Mystery where a struggling actress-baker agrees to accept an order from a daytime television star, whose friend is then suddenly murdered. Jayne Ann Krentz' 67th title "In Too Deep", an Arcane Society novel, introduces her new Looking Glass Trilogy about a woman who knows too much and the psychic detective who loves her.

"The Black Widows" is a novel by Indianapolis resident Doug Zipes; two elderly women in Chappaqua, New York who come from Afghanistan and Palestine, control a worldwide terrorist organization from a back room in a small used book store attached to their house. In "Déjà Vu" by Fern Michaels, The Sisterhood members need excitement, and so they give themselves the assignment to find a man wanted by the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security.

"The Imperfectionists" by Tom Rachman describes a 50-year-old international English-language newspaper struggling to stay afloat in Rome, when the staff stumbles onto the unsuspected intentions of the founder. "Lord of Misrule" by Jaimy Gordon is a National Book Award winner about the horseracing world of trainers, dreamers, and gamblers.

Now to describe non-fiction new on the shelves: After the Civil War, with wealthy and powerful businessmen like J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller, America was transformed into an industrial giant as floods of immigrants came and cities grew; H. W. Brands' "American Colossus" portrays "the years when the contest between capitalism and democracy was at its sharpest, and capitalism triumphed." "The Man Who Sold America" is the true tale of Albert Lasker and the creation of the advertising century told by Jeffrey Cruikshank. Robert Post examines the development of "Urban Mass Transit". Steven Johnson studies the natural history of innovation in "Where Good Ideas Come From"; his last paragraph is a plea for each of us to be in a creative mood in order to move forward with innovation. "The Tree" by John Fowles is an essay on what kind of a relationship we should have with nature. John Bogle's "Enough" explains why the worlds' poorest starve in an age of plenty. The author doesn't simply outline the problem, he points to practical solutions.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-03-03T19:39:00.008-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New Local History Book Features Archive Photos - Bill Helling, Crawfordsville Library's Assistant Director, has contributed to local history by writing an Images of America book titled "Crawfordsville" to "evoke the uniqueness of a small city that has its own story to tell." Chapters of photographs are named Streetscapes, Schools and Churches, The Age of the Interurban, Celebrating the Indiana Centennial, also Crawfordsville at Work, …At War, and …At Play and finally People, Famous and Forgotten. The text consists of captions below the photographs, making all the detailed facts especially easy to read. Not only does Helling show places some of us have talked about but have never seen ourselves, like early schools, but he's found history we've never even heard of before. There's a copy for circulation, and the library is selling copies at the circulation desk. It's a great way to learn more about our town and realize its uniqueness.

Here are new food books to borrow. "The Flavor Thesaurus" is a compendium of recipes and ideas for the creative cook by English food marketing professional Niki Segnit. "Mother's Best" offers 150 favorite comfort foods by Lisa Schroeder. "Rachael Ray's Book of 10" offers 300 recipes to cook every day, divided into lists of her top ten favorite categories.

Histories are next. S. Wise Bauer's "The History of the Medieval World" covers eras from the conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade "when religion became a weapon for kings all over the world" (312 A.D. to 1129 A.D.). "The Last Utopia" by Samuel Moyn offers his history of human rights; for some it stretches back to the dawn of Western civilization, for some the age of the American and French Revolutions, for some the post-World War II world, but for this author it was the recent cause for justice after 1968. Heather Richardson's title is "Wounded Knee" giving the background of the 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux in South Dakota by American troops. "Going Home to Glory" is David Eisenhower's memoir of life with his grandfather, Dwight D.Eisenhower, President from 1953-1961.

New texts about religion are "Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Signs of the Times" by veteran journalist Peter Seewald gleaned from extensive interviews with Pope Benedict XVI, 265th bishop of Rome. Volume 3 of God and Globalization is "Christ and the Dominions of Civilization" edited by Max Stackhouse with articles discussing major religions and where they can unite. A powerful piece is "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. The Third Reich" by Eric Metaxas. "Heavenly Merchandize" is Mark Valeri's study about how religion shaped commerce in Puritan America.

Maxine Kingston's "I Love a Broad Margin to My Life" is a memoir reflecting on aging as she turns sixty-five and has a sense of doors opening wide onto a future of more purpose and joy. Cesar Millan's "A Member of the Family" is his guide to a lifetime of fulfillment living with a dog, and teaching it purpose. "Fifty Cars that Changed the World" from The Design Museum celebrates special models that were influential; it even includes Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion which "proved forever that architects should not meddle with automotive design". Car lovers will love this little book. Steven Faerm's "Fashion Design Course" is pages of unique "wearable art" for anyone fascinated by women's clothing fashions.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-02-26T11:16:00.014-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

A New Kind of Washington Biography - As we have just observed the 279th birthday of The Father of Our Country, it's a good time to describe the new book, "George Washington's America", a biography "through his maps". Barnet Schecter, an independent historian, was inspired by the maps Washington used as surveyor and military leader, documents which remained in the family for almost a century, now in an atlas at Yale University.

From Indiana University Press, Marsha Mohr’s "Indiana Barns" has an introduction by Duncan Campbell that begins, "Few stories so well represent the history of our continent's settlement as the story of the American barn." It would be fun to identify the barn shown from Montgomery County. The Unofficial Guide to "Walt Disney World 2011" by Bob Sehlinger has the latest scoop on Universal's "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" too. "The RV Handbook" the essential how-to guide for the RV owner comes from Dave Solberg.

Four music books are John Mayer's "Anthology" of piano, vocal, and guitar music, Jack Johnson's "Strum & Sing" with guitar chords, the "AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll, The Ultimate Story of the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band" by Murray Engleheart, and Michael Heatley’s "Jimi Hendrix Gear" about the guitars, amps and effects that revolutionized rock ‘n roll.

"Simple Food for Busy Families" with "the whole life nutrition approach" explains how to cook various pastas, herbs, and beans. Authors are Jeannette Bessinger and Tracee Yablon-Brenner.

Two new Dummies books are "Pastels for Dummies" by Sherry Stone and Anita Giddings to help discover one's inner artist, and "Green Cleaning for Dummies" by Elizabeth Goldsmith, taking recycling to a better level and reducing exposure to toxic chemicals. "Disconnect" by Devra Davis tells the truth about cell phone radiation, "what the industry has done to hide it, and how to protect your family". "Honeybee Democracy" holds Thomas Seeley's information about humanity's greatest friend among the insects. "First Aid, CPR, and AED" fifth edition meets 2005 guidelines.

David Pogue’s "Windows 7" is "the missing manual" that should "have been in the box" with the product. "CSS the Missing Manual" the fully revised 2nd edition for 2009 comes from David McFarland. "Book Lust to Go" by Nancy Pearl is recommended reading for travelers, vagabonds, and dreamers.

"Ruined" by Matthew Vincent names 101 people who screwed things up for the rest of us, like Ticketmaster "for making a $20 ticket cost $32.50", "George Vernon Hudson for inventing daylight saving time", and "William Harley and Arthur Davidson for making us deaf".

A lovely "home economics" review dedicated to learning from the 1920s is "Amy Barickman's Vintage Notions", an inspirational guide to needlework, cooking, sewing, and fashion; by months, the author offers ideas that rediscover earlier home activities and she reproduces 1920s articles and illustrations.

Books about science begin with Ian Sample's "Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science" about Higgs boson or the "God particle". "Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku is a scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation, and time travel. Kevin Kelly's "What Technology Wants" is an optimistic look at how humanity and technology join to produce increasing opportunities in the world to give our lives greater meaning.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-02-16T19:08:00.010-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Display Highlights Local Business History - "Montgomery County @ Work" is the Reference Department's new photo and artifact display mounted in the Upper Level exhibit area of the Crawfordsville Library. It reminds us of the large variety of local companies active in our recent and distant past. Items about Raybestos were loaned by Mary McClain; Mid-States Steel & Wire objects came from Dan McIlrath. A few of the other businesses shown are Gregory & Son (Ladoga), Wilson Brothers Shirt Co., D. Yount & Son, Crawfordsville Coffin Co., Crawfordsville Seed Co., and the Johnson Acetylene Gas Co. Enjoy them on your way to pick up tax forms or to research other local history. And remember that bringing in interesting photos to be scanned and returned to you helps to enlarge the library's permanent collection.

President Barack Obama's "Words that Inspired a Nation" presents what he calls essential speeches from 2000 to the Inauguration. In "The Roots of Obama's Rage" Dinesh D'Souza tells what he thinks are the President's influences and what motivates him. From Life Magazine comes "Century of Change: America in Pictures 1900-2000". The photos are entertaining and special, showing facets of our culture.

Alan McPherson's "Botanic Gems" introduces public gardens in Indiana, a useful guide for planning pleasurable motor trips. Rita Kohn's "True Brew" is a guide to craft beer in Indiana. "Into the Deep" by Karsten Schneider explores the earth's oceans and what's in them, set against a black background page as though we're down at the bottom of the sea viewing never before photographed creatures full of glamour. Susan Casey's "The Wave" tells eyewitness accounts of ships, and surfers too, being hit by waves taller than imaginable, as in 2000 when the British research vessel Discovery was trapped in a vortex of mammoth waves approaching one hundred feet!

Two new knitting books are available: "Brave New Knits" showing 26 projects from The Knitting Blogosphere by Julie Turjoman, and "New England Knits" offering timeless knitwear with a modern twist by Cecily MacDonald.

Cookbooks continue to be popular. Joanne Stuttgen's "Café Indiana Cookbook" allows us to whip up local classics like biscuits and gravy, chicken with noodles or dumplings, and Hoosier breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches. Several recipes come from Wallace. Ree Drummond's "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" combines attractive pictures of life on a ranch with step-by-step recipes for good fare. There's also "College Vegetarian Cooking" by Megan and Jill Carle.

"Frank: The Voice" is a new biography of Frank Sinatra by James Kaplan. The contemporary music study "LZ-'75" by Stephen Davis tells about the lost chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American tour. Alyn Shipton's "A New History of Jazz" is a valuable read for any fan because "This remains the standard-bearer for jazz histories." "Queen" is the ultimate illustrated history of the Crown Kings of Rock by Phil Sutcliffe, tackling the band's towering achievements.

There's a variety of new fiction. "Maybe This Time" by Jennifer Crusie introduces an about-to-be-remarried bride whose ex-husband challenges her to deal with two orphaned children from his cousin. A lady threatened with a retirement community move tries to find the American soldier stationed near her in England during World War II in "Keeping Time" by Stacey McGlynn. Southerner Diana Palmer's "Lone Star Winter" holds two romantic stories: "The Winter Soldier" and "Cattleman's Pride".

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-02-12T12:35:00.009-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Second Saturday, An Outing with Opportunties - Come to The Friends of the Library's Second Saturday book sale beginning at 9 a.m. February 12, 2011. Remember that the only costs are donations to the cause. Notice the special sale on the big table at the entrance (on the lower level at the Crawfordsville Library). It features selected gems like "Robinson Crusoe in Words of One Syllable" from 1899, "The Da Vinci Code" Special Illustrated Edition (Dan Brown), photographs of the "Appalachian Trail" including maps, "The Beatles Anthology", and a "Washington, D. C. Photographic Tour".

New fiction begins with Jayne Ann Krentz' novel "Witchcraft" whose cover displays a red rose with a needle through the blossom; in the story this is left on the doorstep of a mystery writer who runs to a Napa Valley vineyard owner for help with her fear.

"A Nose for Justice" is the first novel in a new series from Rita Mae Brown. Leaving a Wall Street career for a Nevada ranch, our heroine and her wirehaired dachshund join her great-aunt and her German shepherd mix. Together in this whodunit, they rediscover late-19th century history. "Don't Blink" by James Patterson describes a famous restaurant where an infamous mob lawyer is murdered, and where forces on both sides of the law have all-out war. Louise Penny's "Bury Your Dead" is a Chief Inspector Gamache novel about the Winter Carnival in Quebec City, remains of Samuel de Champlain, and tensions between the English and the French.

"After America" by John Birmingham is alternate history: the hoped-for survival of a violent war that besieged New York City after our continent was devastated three years ago. Martin Smith's Arkady Renko (Investigator) novel "Three Stations" is his latest detective tale set in Russia where with intuition and humor he fights not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state, street urchins, and bureaucracy as well. A new twist on the novel "Mansfield Park" by Jane Austen, "Murder at Mansfield Park" by Lynn Shepherd gives the characters new traits, a murder mystery scenario, and crimes of the heart.

Nonfictions offer variety too. "The Guinness 2011 World Records", "exploding with thousands of new records", defies a choice of the most outrageous or most impressive event. "Kovels' Antiques & Collectibles Price Guide for 2011" is known as America's most authoritative Antiques Annual. The huge new 14"x20"x1" tome called "Dinosaurs" by Steve Brusatte is both a photo album and encyclopedic text about those impressive beasts. "Photoshop CS5" by Sandor Burkus was designed by Softwear News; step by step tutorials show the secrets of the professionals.

Gail Eisnitz' "Slaughterhouse" is an expose of the U.S. meat industry. "At the Corner of Music Row and Memory Lane" by Stan Hitchcock tells his life as he lived it bringing together the elements of Country Music Television. As a recording artist, songwriter, and television personality, and most proudly an Ozark Hillbilly he tells tales of years on the road, and living the "music life" with the stars.

Two helpful books on Down syndrome are "Fasten Your Seatbelt" a crash course for brothers and sisters by Brian Skotko and "Babies with Down Syndrome: A New Parents' Guide" edited by Susan Skallerup.

Six graphic Barefoot Gen novels (comic book stories) that are read back to front (volumes 5-10) by Keiji Nakazawa are "The Never-Ending War", "Writing the Truth", "Bones into Dust", "Merchants of Death", "Breaking Down Borders", and "Never Give Up". The ten-volume saga shows life in Japan after years of war and privations as seen through the eyes of seven-year-old Gen Nakaoka, starting in 1945 with the atom bomb.

Upstairs/ Downstairs January, 2011

2011-02-07T19:19:00.002-05:00

This is a listing of the books that have moved Upstairs from the Downstairs 7-day shelf and can now be checked out for 28 days.

As of January 28, 2011 you can find the following new books in the Adult Fiction section of the library.

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis
Sidney Sheldon's After the Darkness by Tilly Bagshawe
There Goes the Bride: an Agatha Raisin Mystery by M.C. Beaton
Walks With Men by Ann Beattie
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
212 by Alafair Burke
Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo
Wrecked by Carol Higgins Clark
Sparrowhawk: Jack Frake by Edward Cline
Poor Little Bitch Girl by Jackie Collins
The Lion by Nelson DeMille
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
The Christmas List by Richard Paul Evans
Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein
The Moon Looked Down by Dorothy Garlock
Stay a Little Longer by Dorothy Garlock
To Try Men's Souls: a Novel of George Washington and the Fight for American Freedom by Newt Gingrich
Ticket to Ride by Ed Gorman
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Nightwalker by Heather Graham
Down River by Karen Harper
Where Grace Abides by B. J. Hoff
Ice by Linda Howard
The Sins of Lord Easterbrook by Madeline Hunter
Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson
This Time Tomorrow by Michael Jaime-Becerra
Trial by Fire by J. A. Jance
Take Three by Karen Kingsbury

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-02-05T16:22:00.008-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Deans Donate New Book about Lew Wallace - The Crawfordsville Library staff appreciates a gift by Phillip and Gordon Dean in memory of Dr. James Kirtley, in the form of the new book by Gail Stephens, called "Shadow of Shiloh" about Major General Lew Wallace in the Civil War. The author gave a talk at Wabash College last November 30th, discussing her work.

Monticello, Indiana author W. C. Madden's "Lafayette Murder and Mayhem" covers five crimes that led to a death sentence in Tippecanoe County, and in the introduction he says "The county has averaged four murders per year since 1988." It's good thorough local history.

Zac Bissonnette's "Debt-Free U" explains how he paid for an outstanding college education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst without loans, scholarships, or mooching off his parents. It is interesting reading. James Thom's "The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction" looks authentic and helpful; he says we need to realize we're all a part of history. Scott Simon's "Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other" is a book that praises adoption by relating a hundred anecdotes.

Next is "Can America Survive?" by Pastor John Hagee and the cover also lists his "10 prophetic signs that we are the terminal generation"; the author describes the year 2012, a look at Armageddon - and the ultimate coming of the Messiah. In Billy Graham's "Storm Warning" we're told that today's events must bring us back to the Gospel. Steven Furtick's "Sun Stand Still", is, he says, what happens when you dare to ask God for the impossible, "to rise above mundane living and embrace faith-filled audacity". "Even Silence Has an End" is Ingrid Betancourt's review of her campaign for the presidency of Colombia in 2002, retelling her captivity in the Colombian jungle for over six years, and how she developed a spirit to have daily rituals, prayers, and joy at helping others.

The new fiction list begins with Ruth Rendell's "Portobello" weaving together the troubled lives of several people in the gentrified neighborhood of London's Notting Hill after an area resident discovers an envelope bulging with cash and posts a notice to attract its owner. "The Mullah's Storm" by Thomas Young, shows Afghanistan as seen by two survivors of a plane crash battling for survival across forbidding terrain while being stalked by the Taliban. David Grossman's "To the End of the Land" is a tribute to family life and the cost of war, when a middle-aged Israeli mother hikes in the Galilee with a companion to avoid receiving bad news about her son at war; the two express their life stories illustrating the "surreality of daily life in Israel". "The Outward Room" by Millen Brand tells of a young woman's journey from madness to self-discovery (first published in 1937 and fresh learning for today). "Ambush Creek" by Phil Dunlap is a Western in which a U.S. marshal is asked by the sheriff to look into suspicious activity by three unsavory bounty hunters; the search leads him straight into a deadly game.

"The 2nd Lie" by Tara Quinn describes several families' challenges in Chandler, Ohio; "It's small-town America at its best". "Indigo Blue" by Catherine Anderson tells about an elusive-spirited woman in Wolf's Landing, Oregon who has to make a choice when influenced by betrayal and suspicion. "Everlasting Kiss" by Amanda Ashley visits L.A. where a woman is attracted to a vampire who is out to hunt the Blood Thief draining young vampires. "Wild Fire" by Christine Feehan offers the Panama rain forest where leopard people act like wild animals. Debbie Macomber's third volume of "Midnight Sons" includes three novellas about Hard Luck, Alaska, researched personally by panning for gold, interviewing bush pilots, and dining on moose meat.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-01-27T16:46:00.007-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

As the month of January concludes, and the activity comes to a close, "membership" in the Children's Winter Reading Program at the Crawfordsville Library numbers 120. For a few more days, visitors can see their individual snowman posters built part-by-part by reading books.

Past Indiana Secretary of Commerce Michael Maurer's "19 Stars of Indiana: Exceptional Hoosier Women" is a new book offering unusual and stimulating biographies of achievers you'd like to know personally.

The rest of this column is about fiction. Edward Cline's "Sparrowhawk: Caxton" focuses on two Englishmen who come to colonial Virginia as dedicated revolutionaries. "A Measure of Mercy" is Lauraine Snelling's first volume of Home to Blessing that begins in June, 1903. Francine Rivers' "Her Daughter's Dream" spans the period from the 1950s to present day, recalling the Cold War and the counterculture of San Francisco, as it concludes the Christian series called Her Mother's Hope. In "On Folly Beach" by Karen White a woman buys a South Carolina bookstore to distract her from the loss of her husband in Afghanistan.

"Hell's Corner" by David Baldacci (in large print) deals with a bomb detonated in Lafayette Park in front of the White House the night of a state dinner honoring the British prime minister. Lee Child's Reacher novel "Worth Dying For" exposes deadly trouble connected with an unsolved decades-old case of a missing child in the corn country of Nebraska. "The Confession" by John Grisham answers how a man can convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that he's guilty and that they're about to execute an innocent man.

Iain Banks' "The Crow Road" is a "boisterous tale of exotic family secrets, torturous love affairs, and what it really means to become your own man".
Robyn Carr's "The House on Olive Street" shows four close friends drawn together while sorting through the personal effects of their recently lost friend. Jan Karon's "In the Company of Others" is a Father Tim novel based in Ireland when a retiring priest takes his wife to the home of his ancestors. Monica Ferris' "Sins and Needles" shows a sleuth and a needlework shop owner working to solve a murder by using an old knit pillow full of clues. The large print "A Thread So Thin" is a Cobbled Court novel by Marie Bostwick about a Connecticut quilt shop.

Nora Roberts' "Happy Ever After" is Book Four in the Bride Quartet about two friends who run a wedding planning company. Sophie Kinsella's "Mini Shopaholic" tells a hilarious tale of married life, toddlerhood, and the perils of trying to give a fabulous surprise party on a budget. "Bones of Contention" a Dinah Pelerin mystery by Jeanne Matthews takes place in the Australian outback at a country house party attended by Americans.

Stephen Donaldson's modern fantasy "Against All Things Ending" is the 3rd and final part of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. "Fragile" by Lisa Unger is a thrilling story of a quaint town outside New York City, where a young girl disappears in circumstances similar to another disappearance years ago, and investigations reveal, yes, a long-buried town secret.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-01-22T09:37:00.006-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

Becky M., Busy New Reference Librarian - Becky has been duly welcomed to the Reference Department staff at the Crawfordsville Library, having volunteered in tech services as well as among the book shelves. A native of Lafayette, she has loved reading as long as she can remember. She earned her BA degree at Purdue University in creative writing, and now has completed her Master of Library Science degree at IUPUI. Becky's special reading choices are fiction, history and biography, and more recently science fiction and fantasy. You'll enjoy having her help you upstairs.

The heaviest book I've weighed to date (6 1/2 pounds) is "Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity" with a photographic guide to those of eastern North America written by Stephen Marshall. "Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America" comes from Arthur Evans published by the National Wildlife Federation. The National Audubon Society's "Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals" is compact yet complete. (Kind of interesting: heavy books about insects and spiders, a little book about rocks.) The library has also received two new anthologies: "The Princeton Encyclopedia of Birds" and "of Mammals", the latter a huge catalog with enormous amounts of really interesting information.

Medical books begin with the 2010 edition of The Complete Test Preparation for "Medical Assistant" from Learning Express which includes a practice exam. "Beating Gout" comes from Victor Konshin. "The Truth about Obamacare" is written by Sally Pipes. Annie Paul's new book is "Origins: How the Nine Months before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives".

"Dream Walker" is a journey of achievement and inspiration by Bernard Harris, Jr. the first African-American to walk in space (February 9, 1995); He takes the reader from his formative years in the Navajo Nation into outer space and back to Earth. His medical work and his Harris Foundation are helping to improve American education. Wes Gehring's biography "Steve McQueen: The Great Escape" follows the actor from a troubled youth into becoming one of Hollywood's top box-office stars in the 1960s and 70s.

Michael Korda's life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia called "Hero" recounts the extraordinary, mysterious, and dynamic Englishman's daring exploits and romantic profile made him fascinating and famous the world over. Edmund Morris has completed the third part of a trilogy; "Colonel Roosevelt" follows "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" and "Theodore Rex". This third part recounts the last decade of "perhaps the most amazing life in American history. What other president has written forty books, hunted lions, founded a third political party, survived an assassin's bullet, and explored an unknown river longer than the Rhine?"

Keith Richards, the cofounder of the Rolling Stones, writes "This is the Life. Believe it or not, I haven't forgotten any of it." inside the cover of his biography "Life". Robert Coram offers "Brute: the Life of Victor Krulak, U.S. Marine" who according to the author is the most important officer in the history of the U. S. Marine Corps, going on daring spy missions during the second Sino-Japanese War, helping develop the landing craft that General Eisenhower proclaimed "won the war for us" (WWII) and continually thriving in the thick of military life.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-01-13T19:35:00.009-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Library is Keeping Children Busy - Children's Librarian Karen Record reports that in the first week of its First Annual Winter Reading Program, the Youth Services Department at the Crawfordsville Library has signed up 79 children, toddlers through 5th graders. The goal is to read 14 books, winning prizes on the way, and building a snowman part-by-part on the three huge posters which offer each participant display space. Come any time through January to participate. Library hours are 9-9 Mondays through Thursdays, 9-5 Fridays and Saturdays, Sundays 1-5.

New books take us back to our American leaders. In "There I Grew Up: Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indiana Youth" President Lincoln's skills are revealed through the words of those who knew him. This Indiana Historical Society Press book comes from William Bartelt from his years of experience with the Lincoln Boyhood Memorial and service as Vice Chair of the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Ron Chernow's "Washington: A Life" has "a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life" of our First President, Chernow sees his "fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax, and his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children and grandchildren". But Chernow also respects his political genius to inspire people, which was so important in shaping the new nation.

How about reading "Pops" a biography of Louis Armstrong, by author and Wall Street Journal drama critic Terry Teachout? Publishers Weekly says the "portrait reminds us why we fell in love with Armstrong's music in the first place." "Condoleezza Rice" is the former Secretary of State's autobiography of her extraordinary, ordinary family, with memories addressed to young people. "Hollywood's Original Rat Pack" by Stephen Jordan gives us a view of the group that included John and Lionel Barrymore, Errol Flynn, W. C. Fields, Anthony Quinn, Ben Hecht, John Carradine and Burgess Meredith. They became known as the Bundy Drive Boys for their individuality, uniqueness, sentimentality, and carefree and reckless activities as Tinseltown's original troublemakers.

A far earlier individual who wrote free-roaming explorations of his thoughts unlike anything written before, perhaps because of his bizarre upbringing and travels, is a study of French literary giant Michel Eyquem de Montaigne in Sara Bakewell's "How to Live". There's also Marlo Thomas' "Growing up Laughing", her autobiography as daughter of TV and nightclub star Danny Thomas, and as actress-comedienne wife of Phil Donahue.

Then there's serious stuff with brilliant thoughts about the universe in Stephen Hawking's "The Grand Design". "Kubrick's Hope" is Julian Rice's study of Stanley Kubrick's optimism given in his film "2001", and whose "Eyes Wide Shut" questioned the world of logic.

Other kinds of books begin here. Gregory Benford and editors of Popular Mechanics have made the entertaining "The Wonderful Future That Never Was" a book about flying cars, mail delivery by parachute, and other predictions from the past.

"The Warmth of Other Suns" is Isabel Wilkerson's epic story of one of America's great migrations, this time the story of black citizens who from 1915 to 1970 fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life. She writes of general experiences and of certain individuals' thriving through their courageous and sustained work ethic.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-01-06T17:15:00.011-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The circulation department of the Crawfordsville Library is offering a new service. Lighted, hand-held magnifiers are now available to our patrons as a gift from The Friends of the Library. Some have 3X (3-times), some 3.5X and some 4X magnification. You can use your library card to check one out for 28 days, and you are allowed one renewal. Each one is light-weight, approximately 6 to 6 1/2 inches long with a 3-inch diameter magnifier. There are no electrical cords to be bothered with as each one is battery-operated. So, if you have difficulty reading regular or large print, talk to one of the Circulation staff or call 362-2242, extension 2. How fortunate that the Friends of the Library and the library staff are working together to provide ever more helpful services.

Here's an old book I never knew about! Louisa May Alcott wrote "Little Women and Werewolves" and we now have a paperback copy to loan. Alcott's first draft of "Little Women" has been exhumed in which the March girls learn some biting lessons, just as their neighbors transform from gentlemen into blood-thirsty werewolves! "This rejuvenated classic will be cherished and beloved by those who enjoy a lesson in virtue almost as much as they relish a good old-fashioned dismemberment."

"Making our Democracy Work" by Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer discusses how the Court must go forward to maintain public confidence by interpreting the Constitution in a way that works in practice, applying unchanging constitutional values to ever-changing circumstances.

"The Caretaker of Lorne Field" by Dave Zeltserman has a fantasy plot about a field, which if left untended grows a monster capable of taking over the entirety of America in two weeks. Catherine Coulter's "The Valcourt Heiress" is set in medieval England when the Black Demon invades castle walls looking for certain silver pieces. Fact by fact, this plot is explained.

In "The Reversal" by Michael Connelly a convicted child killer, imprisoned for 24 years, is granted a retrial based on new DNA evidence, and a defense attorney crosses the aisle to work for the prosecution. The book jacket says this thriller has "the nerve and timing of a whole SWAT team". Another thriller is "American Assassin" by Vince Flynn. It begins, "Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world…and then tragedy struck." Steven Havill's "Race for the Dying" set in early Washington State finds a newly arrived doctor's mule pitching him into a tidal pool, and his recovery takes place as he finds his would-be physician partner involved in a scam. Robert Parker's "Painted Ladies" is a Spenser novel with a map of the Boston area. Hired to provide protection during a ransom exchange of money for a stolen painting, our hero must enter into a daring game of cat-and-mouse with the thieves.

"The Thorn" by Beverly Lewis is the first volume in her new series called "The Rose Trilogy", about Amish sisters divided by one sister's impulsive marriage to an outsider. "Beachcombers" by Nancy Thayer is about a bittersweet reunion of three very different sisters on Nantucket Island.

New nonfiction offers a workbook called "The Biggest Loser" the program to transform your body, health, and life, featuring stars from the NBC hit show as well as recipes and instructions. "Choosing to See" by Mary Beth Chapman is an inspiring book about raising children, how fears can be overcome with hope, how everyone can walk with a deeper trust that God is good. "Stalling for Time" is Gary Noesner's life story as an FBI hostage negotiator. He's had some powerful adventures.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2011-01-03T19:30:00.010-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

The Library's New eAudiobook Service - How would you like to download free audiobooks for your computer or your portable device? The Crawfordsville Public Library has just "rolled out" this new service.

Visit the library to set up an account called NetLibrary. First, log in on a library computer or your own laptop using your library card's barcode. On the library's home page, click on the NetLibrary link at the top of the homepage and then click on "Create a Free Account" in the upper right hand corner to create your account. Once you've created your account, you can download eAudiobooks anywhere at anytime.

One way to use this service for the first time is to log on to NetLibrary and click on the Downloads image, which will take you to a page where NetLibrary helps you decide how to download. These books "check out" for three weeks and you can renew them once for an additional three week period. The eAudiobook knows when it is due and will not play beyond the due date without being renewed.

Note: eAudiobooks are not eBooks. EAudiobooks are books you can listen to; they cannot be burned to a CD. The neat thing about these audiobooks is that you don't need to return them once they "expire".

At the library, ready-to-borrow new books begin with "The Best American Short Stories-2010" edited by Richard Russo & Heidi Pitlor, a collection from U.S. and Canadian Magazines. The series began in 1978 and the list of distinguished yearly editors is fun to read; this volume has 20 stories, with biographies of its authors.

"Death by Black Hole: and other Cosmic Quandaries" by Neil Tyson is "full of fascinating tidbit and frequently humourous essays by one of today's best popularizers of science". Bill Bryson's "At Home" is called A Short History of Private Life; it is an intricate history book and his wit and prose fluency make this, like all his books, entertaining. Mark Vonnegut's "Just like Someone without Mental Illness Only More So" is a memoir, a funny account of coping with mental illness and his calling as a pediatrician. "A Dark Matter" by Peter Straub is an intense psychological and intriguing story labeled "a chilling tour de force". Susan Wiggs' "The Mistress" is Volume Two of her Chicago Fire Trilogy. (The library also has the third volume.)

Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose's "The Nature of Space and Time" is the much publicized account of two approaches to some of the greatest unsolved problems of gravitation and cosmology. "Hawking's effervescent sense of humour frequently enlivens the text." Classic literature joins Facebook as Sarah Schmelling writes what favorite characters and authors like Shakespeare, Jane Austen and James Joyce say there. The book is "Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float".

Let’s finish this column with mysteries. Jayne Ann Krentz’ "Witchcraft" has a cover displaying a red rose with a needle through the blossom. In the plot this was left on the doorstep of a mystery writer who asks a Napa Valley vineyard owner for help with her fear. "A Nose for Justice" is the first novel in a new series from Rita Mae Brown; leaving a Wall Street career for a Nevada ranch, our heroine and her wire-haired dachshund join her great-aunt and her German Shepherd mix to rediscover history in the late 1800s.

2010-12-23T19:32:00.008-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

With best wishes to all, the Crawfordsville District Public Library will be closed Friday, Dec. 24, Saturday, Dec. 25, and Sunday Dec.26.

Here are books to consider on Monday. Wes Gehring's "Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado" is the inaugural volume in The Biography Series from the Indiana Historical Society Press. The third in the series "James Dean: Rebel with a Cause" by Gehring is also available.

John Le Carre's "Our Kind of Traitor" is a novel expressing understanding of the world we live in, and studying where power really lies, as a couple's casual new acquaintance involves them in a world-wide chase involving the British Secret Service. "American Vampire", a cartoon story, contains two intertwined tales about a new kind of vampire, a species born in the American West and powered by the sun, a monster more powerful and vicious than anything before; authors Scott Snyder and Stephen King join artist Rafael Albuquerque, colorist Dave McCaig, and letterer Steve Wands in this production. "Devil Dog" by David Talbot is the amazing true story of the man "who saved America", a "pulp history" "that leaps off the page" bringing the life of Smedley Butler forward with text-history and some pages of cartoons.

Two new books about World War II are "The Hitler I Knew" memoirs of the Third Reich's Press Chief Otto Dietrich, and "Deathride" - Hitler vs. Stalin: The Eastern Front, 1941-1945" by John Mosier; the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 began a war that lasted almost four years and created by far the bloodiest theater of that war.

"Successful Dog Breeding' is the complete handbook of canine midwifery by Chris Walkowicz and Bonnie Wilcox.

In Laura Lippman's "I'd Know You Anywhere" a convicted kidnapper/killer writes to his victim who feels she must respond because he's extra-dangerous when ignored. This tale is labeled a "psychological manipulation". "The Athena Project" by Brad Thor announces that the world's most elite counterterrorism unit has just been challenged at a new level as a Delta Force female quartet must hunt down a Venetian arms dealer who has explosives in Rome." The Spider's Web" by Margaret Coel combines history and mystery as an Arapaho attorney and a mission priest find themselves on opposite sides of an investigation. "Port Mortuary" by Patricia Cornwell begins when Kay Scarpetta finds herself ensnared in a gruesome case of hate crimes against two Americans in South Africa.

The cover of "Edge" by Jeffery Deaver shows a ripped rope. The CIA/FBI is challenged when a ruthless "lifter" seeking information by whatever means necessary faces a federal protection officer who is protecting the family he's chasing, and the officer must plan their meeting.

An autistic boy who's bullied is defended by a cheerleader in "Unlocked" by Karen Kingsbury. Two New Hampshire girls who share their birthday work to find their places in the world and learn who they are during the period from the 1950s to today in "The Good Daughters" by Joyce Maynard. Book III of Marta Perry's Pleasant Valley Series is "Anna's Return" in which an Amish girl returns home with a baby after three years in the English world. "Summer's Child" by Diane Chamberlain takes us to a North Carolina beach home challenged when an eleven-year-old's family adopts an abandoned newborn baby.

Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

2010-12-18T11:07:00.009-05:00

Library News and Notable New Books

New Christmas Books in 2010 - This Annual December Column features the year's new Christmas books now available for borrowing at the Crawfordsville Public Library. They're collected upstairs in the second stack beyond the elevator. (Children's holiday books are displayed on the east wall in the youth department.)

"The Battle for Christmas" is a cultural history of the holiday, a Pulitzer Prize finalist by Stephen Nissenbaum. "The History of the Snowman" by Bob Eckstein tells who made the first snowman, who first came up with snowballs on top of each other, who decided to use a carrot for a nose; you'll also see illustrations, from the Dark Ages' first such creation to today's cartoons, toys, and ads. "The True Saint Nicholas: Why He Matters to Christmas" is William Bennett's story featuring legends from around the world.

Phyllis Good's "Fix-It and Forget-It Christmas Cookbook" shares 600 slow-cooker holiday recipes while "Christmas All Through the House" from Gooseberry Patch has 600 food and decorating tips. Kerry Greenwood's "Forbidden Fruit" mystery features a bakery owner who detests Christmas. The cover of a book of Texas hill country recipes called "The Pastry Queen Christmas" by Rebecca Rather boasts "The IACP Cookbook Awards Winner" seal.

Debbie Macomber's "Call Me Mrs. Miracle" (a Hallmark movie) shows us a department store owner with a tragic past hoping for a profitable Christmas to keep his business going; with creative skill Mrs. Miracle rescues him and a penniless woman. Richard Evans' "The Christmas List" explores what could happen if you found your own obituary published before dying, by telling a new tale symbolizing the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge into a man with love in his heart. In Donna VanLiere's "The Christmas Secret" a hard-working divorced mother in the process of losing her home saves the life of an elderly woman.

In "A Dog Named Christmas" Gregory Kincaid writes how one special dog changes the lives of his adoptive family and an entire town. "The Dreaded Feast" is a collection of famous authors' writings about the holidays; one example is "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide" by Dave Barry.

In "Holly Blues" by Susan Albert an unwelcome holiday guest creates a thorny situation for ex-lawyer and current herbalist China Bayles, known as "a leader among female sleuths". Linda Howard's "Ice" tells of a serviceman home for the holidays who helps his sheriff-dad by braving a storm to aid a former girl friend. James Thompson's "Snow Angels", an Inspector Vaara novel, takes us to Lapland just before the holiday, the bleakest time there above the Arctic Circle, where a Somali immigrant is found dead in a snowfield.

"The Unfinished Gift" by Dan Walsh writes of an old man without his son and a young boy without his father; set in December, 1943, it offers the young boy's prayers, a shoe box of love letters, and a half-carved toy soldier, long forgotten.

Diana Palmer tells two stories in "The Winter Man"; "Silent Night Man" is Millie's Christmas present, as he is able to protect a lady from her stalker, while "Sutton's Way" is about a fortunate meeting between a rancher-single father and a stranger stranded in a blizzard.